Leaving the tomb of Bussy, we go to the State Library, which contains twelve thousand books, neatly arranged and catalogued. Amongst them are many rare histories, memoirs, and travels. When the old Brahman Librarian discovered we did not visit the library merely for the vulgar pleasure of reading books, but that we loved their sight, their touch, he brought forth from hidden recesses his treasures. The keen intellectual face of the old man lighted up with pride and joy as he showed us old folios of travels, and dainty classics in their original morocco. His special pride was a Polyglot Bible printed more than two centuries ago, and one enjoyed the exquisite pleasure which only the lover of books can feel in turning over its leaves of hand-made paper and in gazing on its clear-cut types. In a room adjoining the library are kept the ancient records. Among them are many memoirs written by French adventurers regarding the state of the country, when the death struggle was taking place between the English and the French dominion in the East. These memoirs, while they throw fresh light on the subject, also confirm the marvellous accuracy of the historian who wrote A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Hindustan.
One evening, taking a volume of Orme with us, we walked into the country to see if we could discover any traces of the old fortification of the town, for in its great siege we had always taken the deepest interest. Thirty years have passed since we first discovered in a library Orme's History, three folio volumes, bound in leather, with mouldy backs. We remember the days we spent in reading about the battles and sieges, and the delight with which we used to look at the maps and plans. De Quincey tells us of the effect produced on his imagination by the study of Livy. At the sound of the words Populus Romanus old Rome was revealed to him, he saw the array of the lictors with their fasces, and he heard the tramp of the Legions and the shouting of the crowd that lined the Sacred Way. A feel
ing akin to this possessed our boyish imagination when we read in Orme's " pictured page " the closing scene of the siege of Pondicherry. We saw " the garrison drawn up under arms on the passage before the citadel and the English troops facing them." We looked with pity on the grenadiers of Lorrain and Lally, who " once the ablest bodied men in the army, appeared the most impaired, having constantly put themselves forward to every service, and it was recollected that from their first landing through out all the services of the field and all the distresses of the blockade, not a man of them had ever deserted to the English colours." We shared the " victor soldier's sigh to this solemn contemplation of the fate of war, which might have been his own," and deep was our sympathy for French troops, who " after they were reviewed, marched into the citadel, where they deposited their arms in heaps and were then conducted to their prisons." Sorrow was, however, tempered with patriotic pride when we read : The next morning the English flag was hoisted in the town and its display was received by the salute of a thousand pieces of cannons from every gun of every ship in the road, in all the English posts and batteries, the field artillery of the time, and on the ramparts and defences of Pondicherry." The English treated Pondicherry as the French had treated Fort St. David and Madras : the fortifications were blown down, and in the Madras Record there is the following grim entry : " That notice was given to the inhabitants of Pondicherry that they are permitted to pull down their houses, provided they carry materials to Madras, Cuddalore, or Fort St. David." Orme in hand, we wander over the fields attempting to settle where was the bleaching town and the North Redoubt and follow in the theatre of its actions the great siege until the sun sets a golden ball beneath the ocean, the sky for a few seconds grows blood-red, and darkness falls on the land.