never emigrated. He gave in his adhesion with any one, no matter how indifferent his to Buonaparte after the 18 Brumaire. In or her character, who can do him an honest 1805 he was named one of the imperial job in France, in Spain, or any part of the chamberlains; and in 1811, President of world. Witness Sophie Dawes, Madame de the Electoral College of Seine and Marne. Feuchères, Muñoz, duke of Rianzares, and His cry then was, Vive à jamais le Grand Gonzalez Bravo of infamous repute. Napoléon. In 1813, he gave new proofs of devotion, and on 6th January, 1814, was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. On the 31st March, 1814, when a number of Royalists, in the Place Louis XV., raised the cries of "Vive le Roi! vivent les Bourbons!" the answer of the Duke de Praslin, Colonel of the first legion of the National Guard, was, "Nous avons un ordre de choses établi !"

Bred up by such a father, patronised by the Orleanists,-visiting and living in the same society,-educated by the Jesuits, -descended of a race so self-seeking and unscrupulous, not to say infamous,-what virtues could find a natural home in such a bosom? In 1819, 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24, when, if we mistake not, the duke attained his majority, he must have seen his father intriguing with a prince of the blood But no sooner was this ordre de choses against his own relations; and these were destroyed, than M. de Praslin turned not scenes calculated to give him very high round volte face. On the 6th of April, six or lofty notions of social or political moraldays afterwards, he gave in his adhesion to ity. In these days he must, too, have freall the acts of the senate, which pronounced quently come into contact with the father the downfall of Napoleon, whom, in Louis- of his future wife, General Count SebasPhilippian phrase, he called l'ordre de tiani, a man who, in the session of 1819, choses-acts, too, which recalled the Bour-played the part of a tribune of the people bons by name. Not content with these à l'eau rose, with a vehement desire to demonstrations, which somewhat surprised obtain power. On the name of the unRoyalty, he placarded the walls of Paris with a proposal for a statue of Henry IV., in which, amidst other fustian and fanfaronade, were these words :-"Oui, sublime Henri, c'est toi, ce sont tes traits chéris qui doivent charmer nos regards. La statue de notre bon Henri va nous être rendu bon Henri, nous reverrons ton image; elle nous dira, etc."

fortunate father of the late duchess, we may be allowed for a moment to dwell. Scarcely a name is better known in the capitals of Europe than that of Horace Sebastiani; but few there are in England, though he was for a considerable time ambassador in London, acquainted with the details of his particular biography.

Sebastiani was born some seventy-two or On the 29th of the month, the duke was seventy-three years ago, in Corsica, where admitted to the presence of Charles X., his father exercised the very useful, but not then Monsieur, with a fulsome address. a very distinguished, trade of a cooper. On the 4th June he was created a peer. The Sebastianis alleged that they were alBut on the following year, when " le petit lied to the family of Buonaparte; but, be caporal" appeared, he did not hesitate to this as it may, young Horace entered the rejoin his banner, and was made one of his army in his 17th year, in 1792. By his peers. Such flagrant conduct as this was brilliant conduct at Arcola, he obtained the unpardonable, and by an ordonnance of rank of chef d'escadron; and at Verona, Louis XVIII. of the 25th of July, 1815, that of colonel, from Moreau. Buonaparte, M. de Choiseul-Praslin ceased to form a on his return from Egypt, was powerfully portion of the Chamber of Peers. From that period, the duke, whether in or out of France, became a Frondeur; and, as an ostentatious dinner-giver and patron of newspaper writers, he was not without influence in Paris in directing attention to the Duke of Orleans, now Louis Philippe. Hence the intimacy between the families of Orleans and Praslin. The Praslins were doing the work of the younger branch of the Bourbons; and that good father of a family who now reigns and governs in France, has always been the man to be intimate

seconded by Sebastiani. With the regiment of dragoons he commanded, he greatly influenced the fortunate issue of the 18 Brumaire, and from that moment did not cease to enjoy the favor of the emperor. His master was prompt to see that he possessed not the science for a great tactician, such as Davoust, Suchet, Soult, or St. Cyr,

the genius or coup d'œil of a great captain, such as Massena, Hoche, or Ney. He was also aware, that he was as little likely to shine as a great politician, like Cambaceres or Talleyrand. But there was

Mdlle. Sebastiani is understood to have early felt an attachment to a gentleman of Royalist opinions, i. e. Royalist "par sang," but this predilection is said to have been combated. The Cupid of the Consulate, the Adonis of the Empire, though born in the humblest sphere, always aped the airs of a grand seigneur, and was desirous that his daughter should marry into an historic family. The young heir of the house of Choiseul-Praslin, intimate with the house of Orleans, whose interests Sebastiani was serving, was chosen, and the nuptials took place in 1825.

a sort of middle career-half military, half dames who then gave the law in the Rue diplomatic-in which he wisely judged that de Bourbon, de Grenelle, de Babylone, de he might do good service. Endowed with St. Dominique, de Varennes, &c., looked cleverness and Corsican finesse, Horace re- coldly on her because of the legislative caceived from nature a handsome face, a reer of her father. The Duchess de Berri, well-shaped and graceful figure. His ges- who was then in the ascendant, and her tures and attitudes were dignified and clique, detested and despised the Sebastiagraceful; and, though not exceeding the nis, and considered them in the light of middle size, he had the air and look of a personal enemies. Nor was this wonderparfait cavalier. The malicious wits of ful. For some time before the death of that day used to say he would preserve his Foy-indeed, from the beginning of 1824 graceful dignity if sewed up in a sack, and-Sebastiani sought to rival that military his agility if chained to a wash-tub. His tribune, not with the desire of benefiting long hair gave a poetic harmony to his Ra- his country and France, but for the purpose phaelesque head, and it was impossible for of serving the interests of the House of Orwoman to resist so sentimental and seducing leans. a dragoon. The Bishop of Malines, né malin, the Abbé de Pradt, used to say, that if Buonaparte were the Jupiter, Massena the Mars, and Soult the Vulcan, of the Revolution, Sebastiani was assuredly the Cupid. His countrymen, and, as Sebastiani says, his relatives, determined to turn this Corsican comeliness to account. But, first, it was necessary to marry the envied, but unacred, Colonel; and a rich heiress of one of the most illustrious houses of Normandy, which had given two marshals and numerous lieutenant-generals to France, the only daughter of the Duke of Coigny, was selected. Mdlle. de Coigny was wooed As Sebastiani's opposition to the minisand won after the battle of Austerlitz, and ters and system of Charles X. was fiercer in soon after their nuptials, General and Ma-that year than it had ever been-as the dame Sebastiani set out for Constantinople," Comédie de 15 Ans," which was to end where the fortunate countryman of the in the tragedy of 1830, was drawing nearer emperor was appointed ambassador. At to a close, the Faubourg St. Germain, then Constantinople, Madame Sebastiani died, the arbiter of fashion, took little note of in the flower of her age, in 1807, in giving birth to the unfortunate lady whose sad fate has been recently deplored. Deprived in early life of the fond care of a mother, deprived, till her eighth year, of even the superintending care of her father,-Mademoiselle Sebastiani was placed with her maternal relatives. But these, however kind and considerate, can never supply the From the period of 1825 till 1830 M. mental aliment and instructions flowing and Mme. Choiseul-Praslin were certainly with such eloquent force from the lips and little seen in the society of the Faubourg heart of an affectionate mother. Of an age St. Germain. The political conduct and to enter into the world, Mademoiselle Se-associations of the father of the duchess, bastiani perceived herself completely in a and of the father of the duke, effectually false position. In the year 1823, when shut against them the doors of what the she first appeared in the grand monde, she select set then called "la bonne compagfound, notwithstanding her accomplish- nie." The father of the duchess is said ments and grace of mind, but a lukewarm to have felt this acutely; but Madame de reception in the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain. Notwithstanding the position and rank of her mother's family, her own merits, grace, youth, and fortune, the great

the marriage of a great heir and a great heiress, both considered "des êtres mal pensants," to use the jargon of the time. Those, however, who intimately knew the bridegroom, lamented the fate of the bride, for he was then considered, by those who had been brought up with him, to be a contemptible profligate and degraded being.

Praslin felt it not to any extent, for she had become the mother of a numerous and yearly increasing family, lived in a small circle, and was daily occupied in the minute

contagion of parental example and governess practice; for the prince (now Louis Philippe) was an incarnation of virtue in youth, and is a model of innocence, simplicity, generosity, guilelessness, and purity in old age.

yet engrossing duties that devolve on ma- children his mistress, is a turpitude nearly ternity even in the highest rank. As to unparalleled in the annals of France. We the husband, he must have felt that, under must go back to the friend of his relative no combination of circumstances, could he and kinsman, the prime minister of France, have been a favorite in any circle. With- for such an exemplar, and we find him in out any of the natural cleverness of the the person of that Duke of Chartres, afterroués of the Regency, he was distinguished wards Egalité, who visited Choiseul-Stainby all their moral degradation. He was ville in his exile, and who subsequently invain, avaricious, sensual, suspicious, stalled Madame Genlis Sillery simultahaughty, narrow-minded, ignorant of the neously as his own mistress and his son's value, indifferent to the existence, and neg-instructor. Fortunately the virtuous dislectful of the practice, of truth. In all the positions of the youth were proof against the ramifications of his private affairs no human being could depend upon him; and while he was equally profligate and promiscuous, he was penurious even to meanness. Neither of sentiment, nor romance, nor of moral truth, did he possess a particle. He had no friends, for he was gloomy, morose, Madame de Praslin was not a singular and unsocial; and with the instruments of wife in the sense in which our clever weekly his degraded pleasures he did not, accord- contemporary, the Spectator, calls her so. ing to report, unbend or compensate by She had Corsican blood in her veins on one generosity for the suspicion and arrogant side, and on the side of her mother some of haughtiness which were his chief character- the highest and best blood in France. That istics. she was, therefore, warm, impassioned, senThough at one time austere and appa-sitive, and high-minded, may be conceded; rently superstitious in the practice of the ceremonies of religion, he was without religious or moral principle of any kind, without liberality, and without propriety.

but these qualities ought to have secured her the affection and esteem, and not the murderous hate, of her monster husband.

There always have been, and now are, Such a man could not comprehend the many such wives in France as the murdered exalted feeling, the enthusiastic devotion, Madame de Praslin; but we believe it were the excess of virtuous passion, the ecstatic difficult to find in any country, however joy, the excruciating sorrow, the poignant barbarous, another such husband. Since grief, of his doting and distracted wife. the beginning of the world we have no acAll that was good and gentle in her nature count of any man, whether husband or was unknown to him, for the excess of de-lover, hacking, hewing, and stabbing the mopravation renders men insensible to all en-ther of his ten children in pieces. joyment. It is well said by the author of unparalleled crime had never taken place the Considérations sur les Mœurs, that this had the demand of the duchess for that seexcess is to be deprecated, even in the in-paration which she was entitled to by law terest of unlawful pleasures: "Car il ap-been acceded to, and they who interfered partient à l'excès de la dépravation de dé-by meddling in the business, if they have truire tous les plaisirs."

This

any proper sentiments, must now feel pangs Much may be, no doubt, pardoned to of bitter anguish. The French people have the ardent impetuosity of youth, but there been stigmatized by a writer in a daily pais not one redeeming trait in the errors and per, who evidently knows nothing of France, crimes of Choiseul-Praslin. The pursuit of for being suspicious of the intentions of the pleasure may, perhaps, to a certain extent, French government, and unjust to men in be palliated, in a young man of nineteen or power, in reference to the Duke de Praslin. twenty; but the promiscuous pursuit of But French men and French women well debasing amours in a man close upon his know that in the case of the President d'Enforty-fourth or forty-fifth year, the father trecasteaux, a young man of a distinguishof ten children, six of them daughters, ed family of the robe, a president of the is infamous, and shows that the delin-parliament of Aix, and who murdered his quent was deprived of all the purer wife with circumstances of peculiar atrocifeelings of human nature. To have ty, that the government ostensibly demandmade his own house the scene of his ed the delivery of the culprit wherever he profligacy, and the instructress of his might be found. He was detected and se

cured at Lisbon, when a private letter to the French minister desired his release, and permitted his escape from further punish

ment.

ence to the house of Orleans; and it was because some of the people of France were aware of this that the wicked thought came into their heads that the "best of RepubThe Duke de Praslin and the members lics" might desire the release and permit of his house were, and Marshal Sebastiani the escape of the vilest murderer that has is, in possession of many secrets in refer-ever appeared in France.