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A vast space, which is now covered with streets, commencing at the Rue des Saints Pères, and extending to the Invalids, consisted entirely of meadows, and was called the Pré aux Clercs, or the Clerks' Field, from the students and a number of young men who possessed some education, usually enjoying their recreations in this spot, but certainly not in the most innocent manner, in fact, the disorders committed in this privileged piece of ground, which the students considered as their own, were such as to be often named in history, and to have formed the subject of a favourite Melo Drama; it retained its character as being the scene of turbulence and disorder even to the time of Louis XIV.
How incredible soever this appeared, yet Melo, and the principal persons of the town there present, gave credit to it, without the least scruple; considering the manner of his speaking, and his air, which had somewhat of divine in it, and bore the testimony of its truth.
In the year 76 B.C. Cæsar, then a young man of twenty-four, and seemingly given over to mere enjoyment of life, with no indications of political aspiration, was on his way to the island of Rhodes, where he wished to perfect himself in oratory in the famous school of Apollonius Melo, in which Cicero, a few years before, had gained instruction in the art.
After he had cut off their ears and noses, he sent them back with a letter, directed to Don Francisco de Melo, governor of Malacca, of which these were the contents: "I Bajaja Soora, who have the honour to carry in vessels of gold the rice of the Great Souldan, Alaradin, king of Achen, and the territories washed by the one and the other sea, advertise thee to write word to thy king, that, in despite of him, I am casting terror into his fortress by my fierce roaring, and that I shall here abide as long as I shall please.
In the afternoon we passed several villages, at none of which we could procure a lodging, and in the twilight we received information that two hundred Jallonkas had assembled near a town called Melo, with a view to plunder the coffle. This induced us to alter our course, and we travelled with great secrecy until midnight, when we approached a town called Koba.
These layers are sometimes brecciated and re-cemented, as if they had been broken by the slipping of the sand when soft. I did not find a single fragment of a sea-shell; but bleached shells of the Helix melo, an existing land species, abound in all the strata; and I likewise found another Helix, and the case of an Oniscus.
Under the reign of Constantine Monomachus, the policy, rather than benevolence, of the Byzantine court, attempted to relieve Italy from this adherent mischief, more grievous than a flight of Barbarians; and Argyrus, the son of Melo, was invested for this purpose with the most lofty titles and the most ample commission.
Don Francisco de Melo, a "Portugal Envoy in England," tells him it was frequent in his country for men, spent with age or other decays, so as they could not hope for above a year or two of life, to ship themselves away in a Brazil fleet, and after their arrival there to go on a great length, sometimes of twenty or thirty years, or more, by the force of that vigour they recovered with that remove.
He was removed, however, by the succeeding viceroy, and returned to Goa poor, and full of honour, where he died poor, more from grief than age; and no sooner was he deprived of the command, than all he had gained was speedily lost, though it was again recovered by Diego de Melo y Castro in 1633.
It was the design of Constantine to transplant the warlike colony from the Italian provinces to the Persian war; and the son of Melo distributed among the chiefs the gold and manufactures of Greece, as the first-fruits of the Imperial bounty.
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