i87 and deface the chapel, some of the young fellows of Arreins hid themselves in the roof above the ceiling and with moans and cries so frightened the Commissioners that they fled the place, without having done any damage. However, later the chapel was turned into a barrack for the protection of the frontier against Spain. The story goes that the women of Arreins disguised themselves as Spanish soldiers, and arming themselves with muskets, assaulted the garrison and put it to flight. The great fete at Arreins is on September 8. A legend is told of the Undine of Arreins that gives a fictitious origin to the House of Bernadotte. In a lake, probably the still tarn d'Estaing, lived a water-fairy, whose doom it was to remain there till released by one who had eaten and yet had not eaten. One day a certain Abbadie de Sireix came there to fish, who, before leaving the valley had plucked some grains of corn and tried them between his teeth to ascertain if they were fully ripe, and had spat them out without swallowing them. On reaching the lake, the Undine rose to the surface ami—as it was Leap year— offered herself in marriage to the youth, Abbadie. He graciously accepted her hand, they were married and lived together for many years in happiness, till one day, in a domestic quarrel, he taunted her with her fishy origin, whereupon she left him and returned to the lake. The story goes on to say—but this is clearly a very modern addition—that she was impelled by maternal affection to return to her home, embrace her children, and that then she prophesied that from one of them would issue a line of kings. And this is the fabulous and fishy origin of the Bernadottes who now occupy the Swedish throne. Actually Jean-Baptiste-Jules Bernadotte was the son of a petty lawyer at Pau. The shabby house in which he was born has a tablet affixed to it notifying the fact. Under the Empire he was created Prince of Ponte-Corvo, but Napoleon never liked him. He was at Hamburg at the head of a Corps of Observation when Gustavus IV was dethroned in Sweden, and the Duke of Sudermania took the reins of government, under the name of Charles XIII. As he was very advanced in age and had no son, the Prince of Holstein-Augustenburg was nominated to be his successor, when he perished under mysterious circumstances on his way from Helsingborg. In consequence of the intrigues of the King of
