We are sometimes astonished at the striking resemblance
existing between two persons who are absolute strangers
to each other, but in fact it is the opposite which
ought to surprise us. Indeed, why should we not
rather admire a Creative Power so infinite in its variety
that it never ceases to produce entirely different
combinations with precisely the same elements?
The more one considers this prodigious versatility
of form, the more overwhelming it appears.
To begin with, each nation has its own distinct and
characteristic type, separating it from other races
of men. Thus there are the English, Spanish,
German, or Slavonic types; again, in each nation we
find families distinguished from each other by less
general but still well-pronounced features; and lastly,
the individuals of each family, differing again in
more or less marked gradations. What a multitude
of physiognomies! What variety of impression
from the innumerable stamps of the human countenance!
What millions of models and no copies! Considering
this ever changing spectacle, which ought to inspire
us with most astonishment—the perpetual
difference of faces or the accidental resemblance
of a few individuals? Is it impossible that in
the whole wide world there should be found by chance
two people whose features are cast in one and the
same mould? Certainly not; therefore that which
ought to surprise us is not that these duplicates exist
here and there upon the earth, but that they are to
be met with in the same place, and appear together
before our eyes, little accustomed to see such resemblances.
From Amphitryon down to our own days, many fables
have owed their origin to this fact, and history also
has provided a few examples, such as the false Demetrius
in Russia, the English Perkin Warbeck, and several
other celebrated impostors, whilst the story we now
present to our readers is no less curious and strange.
On the 10th of, August 1557, an inauspicious day in
the history of France, the roar of cannon was still
heard at six in the evening in the plains of St. Quentin;
where the French army had just been destroyed by the
united troops of England and Spain, commanded by the
famous Captain Emanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy.
An utterly beaten infantry, the Constable Montmorency
and several generals taken prisoner, the Duke d’Enghien
mortally wounded, the flower of the nobility cut down
like grass,—such were the terrible results
of a battle which plunged France into mourning, and
which would have been a blot on the reign of Henry
II, had not the Duke of Guise obtained a brilliant
revenge the following year.
