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high pitch by the success of Talleyrand in | four powers, now more closely allied than thwarting his ambitious designs at Vienna, ever, and that no resource remained but to and still more at the Treaty of the 5th have recourse to the friendly aid of the January, concocted by Talleyrand between Emperor Alexander. "Are you, then, England, Austria, and France, against Russia and Prussia.

semble his satisfaction, and added

gentlemen," continued the king, "in a condition to adopt such a course with any prosFour days after receiving the note, de- peet of a favorable result?" Talleyrand, claring the demands of the allied powers, easily perceiving the drift of this question, and three days after he had sent the answer answered without hesitation, that neither above quoted, Talleyrand resigned. He himself nor his colleagues were personally was driven from office by the intemperate agreeable to the Czar, and that such a proexcesses of the party of the Restoration, ceeding as that proposed by his majesty and the unbridled exactions of the invading would be attended with great difficulties on powers. He quitted the government be- their parts. This answer seemed to give cause, instead of enlarging and consolidat-great relief to the king, who did not dising the liberties of the people, it gave way to an immoderate spirit of reaction; because, instead of maintaining the integrity of France, as settled in 1814, it permitted unresistingly its dismemberment; because, instead of delivering the country from the presence of the invader, a permanent foreign garrison was established in it. He quitted power, in a word, because he would not consent to promote the violence of the counter-revolutionary party, nor to sign treaties which he regarded as an humiliation to his country. He resigned office on the 24th of September, 1815, two months before the final signature and ratification of a treaty which cost France eighty millions sterling, and deprived her of more territory than she had gained in 1814.

"I can easily believe, gentlemen, what you tell me. The Emperor of Russia has not concealed from me the fact, that if I had intrusted the direction of my government to other hands, the most favorable conditions would have been granted to me, and that he would himself have protected the interests of France in the councils of the allies, especially against the exactions of Prussia, which was most pressing in her demands."

"In that case," Talleyrand promptly answered, "I entreat your majesty to allow me to withdraw from your councils, that your majesty may be free to place your confidence in more worthy hands."

The Duke de Dalberg and Baron Louis also tendered their resignations.

The King resumed "You see how I

you for your zeal. You are all free from blame, and nothing prevents you from remaining unmolested in Paris."

The indignation of Talleyrand was excited to an unusual pitch by the last expression, proceeding from one who had been raised by his personal zeal and abilities to the throne of one of the greatest nations of the globe. He replied with a warmth which seldom marked his words or gestures

The last interview of Louis XVIII. with Talleyrand and his colleagues, which led to the resignation of the cabinet, is too charac-am constrained by circumstances. I thank teristic of the subject of this notice to be omitted here. When Talleyrand perceived in the manner of the king, and the movements within the chateau, that a secret intrigue was in progress, directed against him, in the royal cabinet, he decided at once that he would bring the matter to a crisis. With this view, he caused a new diplomatic note, and ultimatum, to be prepared by his secretary, M. Labernardière, designed to be transmitted to the plenipotentiaries of the allied powers, in case it should receive the royal sanction. He presented himself, accompanied by the principal ministers, his colleagues, with this note to the king. After the note had been read by Talleyrand, Louis XVIII., without commenting upon it, much less proceeding to correct or alter it, as was his invariable habit, commenced a general conversation on the state of the negotiation, and the mutual relations of the allied powers. He observed that he was aware of the impossibility of disuniting the

"I have had the good fortune to render your majesty such services as are not likely to be forgotten, and I know not what should render it necessary for me to leave Paris. I will remain here, and shall be only too happy if your majesty's advisers may not follow a course which may compromise your dynasty, and peril the country."

The king affected not to attend to these words, and uttering some common-places of royal courtesy, brought the audience to a close.

On leaving the king, Talleyrand, highly great benefits, interfered for the same purexcited, observed aloud to his colleagues pose. "We have been tricked. The intrigue has long been planned."

The retirement of Talleyrand was a source of infinite relief to Louis XVIII., who, notwithstanding all he owed to the great diplomatist, never could conquer his antipathy towards him. The continual presence and predominant influence of an understanding so superior was more than Louis could endure. He complained, accordingly, to his more intimate friends, of the sway which Talleyrand exercised, rendered only more intolerable by the perfect courtesy of manner and respectful deference with which it was accompanied. The king complained that the minister had a way of tendering advice which gave it the effect of command. He would place a report or an ordonnance on the table before Louis, and would merely say to him-"I assure your majesty that this is quite indispensable."

The king signed, but champed the bit. One day being unable to repress his vexation at his ascendency, he said to one of his favorites

"M. Talleyrand has hitherto had all the tricks, but I have reserved my trumps for him."

Talleyrand reposed in the splendor of his sinecure, and enjoyed, in his magnificent hotel in the Rue St. Florentin, all the social pleasures and high consideration with which his great reputation, historic recollections, brilliant wit, and ample wealth, surrounded him. His office was the highest dignity of the court. Being asked one day in what his functions consisted, he replied, smiling

"In the first place, I am privileged to put on the panels of my coach a coat of arms, consisting of two gilt keys, crossed just like his holiness the Pope. In the next place, it is I who have the honor of handing his shirt to his majesty. This is an honor which I only yield to princes of the blood royal, or legitimate sovereigns. At the solemnity of the coronation, I draw the boots on his majesty, and put on his tunic. Thus, you see, I limit myself to the royal toilet. But all this is confined to the coronation, and we shall not have one under this reign."

Although M. Talleyrand thus spoke with a tone of levity of his functions, he nevertheless adhered with singular tenacity to their most minute observances; none of his prerogatives were permitted to become dorWhen the opportunity occurred, he ac-mant. He never was absent from the royal cordingly lost no time in playing his trumps, and winning the trick.

On his retirement, besides receiving an autograph letter of thanks from the king for his services, he was appointed to the highest court dignity not connected with the political administration-that of Grand Chamberlain, an office which he formerly held under the empire. The salary of this splendid sinecure was a hundred thousand francs, equivalent to four thousand pounds sterling. This act of justice was forced upon Louis XVIII. by the Duke of Richelieu, who succeeded Talleyrand as Premier. The king was strongly averse to it. The minister, however, plainly foreseeing the distrust and indignation which so signal an act of royal ingratitude would excite at home and abroad, declared to his majesty that M. Talleyrand could not be dismissed like any other minister, considering the vast services he had rendered to the House of Bourbon in 1814, and that no less a reward was due to him. The Duke of Wellington, also, seeing with unmixed regret the injustice and ingratitude contemplated towards one who had been the source of such

table, where he assumed his seat of honor behind the king's chair. On these occasions it was the pleasure of Louis to inflict on such of his household as did not enjoy his personal favor an incessant series of petty annoyances, by word and look. All this Talleyrand bore with the imperturbable serenity of manner which characterized him. He never forgot his position, or compromised his dignity. He loved to appear on all public occasions in the discharge of the ceremonials of his office, as if to throw into oblivion his real disfavor in the chateau; and it was no small delight to him to count among the persons subordinate to him the Duke de Richelieu, one of the first gentlemen of the chamber, who succeeded him as President of the Council of Ministers.

When Talleyrand would return to his hotel, from these state observances, he never failed to indemnify himself for the self-control he was compelled to exert. There he was the centre, round which assembled the most distinguished members of the constitutional opposition. He did not scruple to make the government of the Restoration, of which he was the founder and creator, the

victim of his most bitter bon-mots. As a member of the opposition, in the Chamber of Peers, he delivered only two speeches, one against the censorship of the press, and the other against the Spanish war. These produced an effect, which was so much the greater because of the rare occasions on which he addressed the Chamber. Talleyrand, however, was not a great parliamentary orator. The Chamber was not the arena in which he shone. His mots uttered in the salons will be repeated when his most successful efforts in parliament will be forgotten.

The revolution of July, and its consequences, soon recalled Talleyrand from his retirement, and brought him once more, and for the last time, on the great stage of European politics. With his usual instinctive sagacity, he foresaw the fall of the elder branch of the Bourbons. When the events which immediately preceded that catastrophe were developing themselves, the agitation on the Bourse was extreme, and speculation assumed vast proportions. A coup d'état had long been expected, and financiers left no effort untried to gain the earliest and most correct information of the movements of the Cabinet and the Chateau. The emissaries of the great bankers besieged all the avenues of the throne. The sacred functionaries of the church were not left untried, and the gold of commerce was directed to elicit the disclosures of the confessional. Those who had the ear of the ministers were subsidised. It has since become known, that in one instance a great financier, who had risen to wealth under the Empire, and under the Restoration, had actually executed articles of agreement before a notary, to pay fifty thousand francs for the rough draft of the intended ordonnances, provided it were delivered to him before their publication. The fifty thousand francs were actually paid, and the speculator played with his expected success for the fall. Rothschild, notwithstanding his influence, and extensive sources of information, was mistaken, and operated for the rise, at the moment when the country was on the brink of a revolution. The Cabinet was, in reality, divided, and Rothschild rested his faith on the minority. Although the ministers were unanimous as to the necessity for the ordonnances, and as to the right of the crown to issue them, they were divided as to the time at which the measure should be executed, and Rothschild acted on the faith of those who were of opinion that it ought

to be postponed for several weeks. On the night of the 25th July, Talleyrand sent for one of his intimate friends, whose fortune was largely involved in the funds, and informed him, that in the course of the day he had gone to St. Cloud, to seek an audience of the King, to confer with him on the subject of the.apprehensions entertained by England, to which proceeding he had been, doubtless, prompted by the English embassy, of which, as well as the British Cabinet, he had the confidence. He was not allowed to see his Majesty. The familiars of the Chateau managed matters so, that he was obliged to return to Paris without the audience which he sought, and, from what he had observed, he had no doubt that the crisis was imminent. "Jouez à la baisse," said he to his friend-" on le peut." His friend did so, and was successful.

It may easily be imagined with what interest the retired minister and diplomate, and the chief actor in all the great revolutions of the last half century, observed the progress of the "emeutes" which ended in the expulsion of that dynasty, in the overthrow of which, in 1790, and the restoration of which, in 1814-15, he had so great a share. On the day of the 29th July, after the troops of the line had manifested their indisposition to fire upon the people, and the Swiss mercenaries had been repulsed in the courts of the Louvre and the Place du Carousel, a general retrograde movement, marked by much disorder, took place, and the armed force retreated, pell-mell, through the garden of the Tuileries, the Rue de Rivoli, the Place Louis XV., now called the Place de la Concorde, towards the Champs Elysées and the Barrière de l'Etoile. Talleyrand, in his salon, in which formerly sate the allied sovereigns, listened to the confused noise. His valet, impelled by irresistible curiosity, ventured to open one of the double casements which look upon the Place and the garden. "My God, Monsieur Keiser!" exclaimed his more cautious master, from the inner extremity of the sumptuous apartment, "what are you about?-are you going to expose the hotel to be pillaged?" "Fear nothing," res ponded M. Keiser, "the troops are in full retreat, but are not pursued by the popu lace." "Indeed!" observed Talleyrand, with a contemplative air; and walking slowly to the magnificent time-piece, which formed part of the ornaments over the fireplace, he paused, and added in a solemn

tone, "Take a note, that on the 29th of July, 1830, at five minutes past twelve, the elder branch of the Bourbons ceased to reign in France."

duchess trembling with apprehension at his side, as well as Madame Adelaide, his sister, who had already, under the same roof, witnessed the drama of the great Revolution, In the proceedings of the Three Days he decided on taking the counsel of the Talleyrand took no share. It was a ques-safest and most sagacious living adviser. tion between the government and the peo- With this purpose he despatched M. Sebasple, and Talleyrand was no tribune. Had tiani to the Rue St. Florentin with a verbal sovereigns been parties to the affray, he mission, to obtain the counsel of the great would have been called to take a prominent diplomate. When M. Sebastiani arrived at part. But, as matters stood, he was hostile the hotel, he was instantly ushered into the to the dynasty, and unsuited to the popu- dressing-room of Talleyrand, who was then lace. When, however, soon afterwards, the at his toilet. His valet being dismissed, throne, vacated by the unfortunate Charles and the object of his visit being briefly stated X., was offered to the Duke of Orleans, that by the envoy from the Palais Royal, Talleypersonage would not venture to act in so rand paused for a moment with an air of important a matter without the counsel of meditation, but it was only for a moment, the Hotel de St. Florentin. On the 31st when he raised his eye to the messenger, July, at eight o'clock in the morning, a de- with his usual apathetic manner, and said, putation from the Chamber of Deputies pre-" QU'IL ACCEPTE."

salon, where the deputation waited, and with promptitude of manner, and an air of decision, signified his acceptance of the sovereignty of France.

The proclamation was drawn up, and signed on the spot, and on the same day was published in Paris.

DE QUINCEY'S GENEROSITY.-"Soon after the re

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sented itself at the Palais Royal. M. Se- Ten minutes after this, the Duke of Orbastiani, on its arrival, entered the cabinet leans re-appeared from his cabinet in the of the Duke of Orleans, and informed him of its arrival. The moment was critical, and even the prudence and sagacity of Louis Philippe did not inspire him with sufficient self-reliance to prompt him to an independent decision on the course to be adopted. A crown was proffered to him and his posterity, a gift not to be lightly rejected. On the other hand, Charles the Tenth, the direct descendant and representative of a line of kings, the acknowledged and legitimate sovereign of France, was still ceipt of this letter (on my invitation), Mr. De Quincey called on me. I said, I understood from within a few leagues of Paris, with an army Mr. Coleridge himself, that he labored under emof twelve thousand men, devoted to his or-barrassment. Then,' said he, 'I will give him ders. This sovereign, the crown torn from five hundred pounds.' 'Are you serious?" I said. whose head was now offered to the Duke He replied, 'I am.' I then inquired, Are you of He said, 'I am.' I then asked, 'Can you of Orleans was, moreover, the near relative, afford it? He answered, I can,' and continued, the kind friend, and even the benefactor of 'I shall not feel it.' I paused. 'Well,' I said, 'Í the duke. The duchess, a conscientious can know nothing of your circumstances but from and amiable lady, recoiled with undissem-I am willing to become an agent, in any way you your own statement, and not doubting its accuracy, bled pain and disgust from what appeared prescribe.' Mr. De Quincey then said, 'I authorize an act of baseness and ingratitude; not to you to ask Mr. Coleridge if he will accept from a mention the danger attending it, in the con- gentleman, who admires his genius, the sum of five hundred pounds, but remember,' he continued, ‘I tingency of any reaction or relaxation on absolutely prohibit you from naming to him the the part of the populace, which had obtained source whence it was derived.' I remarked: 'To a momentary success. The difficulty of the the latter part of your injunction, if you require it, duke, amidst these conflicting considera- I will accede; but although I am deeply interested in Mr. Coleridge's welfare, yet a spirit of equity comtions, was extreme. The inconveniences pels me to recommend you in the first instance, to of a premature acceptance of the crown on present Mr. C. with a smaller sum, and which, if the one hand, and the hazard of letting it you see it right, you can at any time augment.' slip from his brows by a formal refusal on Mr. De Quincey then replied, Three hundred the other hand, cruelly embarrassed him. pounds I will give him, and you will oblige me by making this offer of mine to Mr. Coleridge.' I reBeing, however, urgently pressed by the de-plied, I will.' I then gave him Mr. Coleridge's putation, be solicited a few minutes' delay, letter, requesting him to put it in his pocket, and that he might obtain counsel in so important Quincey enclosed me three hundred pounds, when read it at his leisure. În a day or two Mr. De an emergency, and withdrew with M. Se-I received from Mr. Coleridge his receipt, which I bastiani to his cabinet. Shut up there, the still retain."-Reminiscences of S. T. Coleridge.

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to elapse from Sir James Ross's safe return and the present publication, or why no authorized details of the expedition should have been made known, other than were sparingly afforded in Sir W. Hooker's botanical work of 1843. The purely scientific results have doubtless meanwhile been privately accessible to those who could turn them to account. They have, we may be sure, occupied the attention of Gauss and Humboldt and Sabine. They may have supplied new elements for those wondrous calculations which enable the former from his study at Berlin to prick off on the map, to a near approximation at least, the place of the magnetic pole; they have probably suggested paragraphs for a new volume or a new edition of the "Cosmos." To guide the investigations, to correct the conclusions of such minds as these, is a privilege of which a British sailor may be proud.

THIRTY years have elapsed since one of our, why three years should have been suffered colleagues first addressed himself to the task of directing the public mind to the subject of Arctic exploration. He has lived to see many of his expectations justified-and we hope he may yet see others of them realized. During the interval, those so long honored with the fruits of his horæ subsecivæ have never been inattentive to the progress of that system of discovery which owes so much to the suggestions and official encouragement of that veteran. Few greater pleasures, indeed, are ours than when, from our literary signal-post, we can make the number of one of those gallant vessels, returning "rough with many a scar" of bloodless conflict with the floe and iceberg, and with its log, one continuous record of danger and difficulty vanquished by courage and intelligence, and of triumphs unpurchased by other human suffering than the voluntary endurance of the wise and brave in pursuit of noble ends. Well pleased have we lingered so long within the confines of that Arctic circle which has been penetrated by so many expeditions, and with interest which accumulates by the hour do we watch for the return of those two vessels which are, perhaps, even now working their southward course through Behring's Straits into the Pacific. Should the happiness be yet allowed us of witnessing that return, we are of opinion that the Erebus and Terror should be moored henceforth on either side of the Victory, floating monuments of what the Nelsons of discovery can dare and do at the call of their country in the service of the world. Meanwhile these two portentous names, whatever be the fate of the vessels which own them, are associated with services as brilliant and discoveries as striking, at the extremity of the globe antipodean to the region of their present employment, as any which have yet invited the notice of our columns. That such notice has not been sooner invited we can only ascribe to the fact, that between the task of collecting scientific materials and that of arranging them for publication of overcoming danger and difficulty, and reciting their Odyssea to the public-there is all the difference to men of action and enterprise that lies between catching a hare and cooking it. We know no other reason

The more popular results of this expedition, such as are appreciable by the mass of the reading public, lie in a narrow compass. The record is not diversified by any encounter with any southern counterpart to those secluded tribes of the human family who burrow in the furthest regions of the North, habitable as these regions are, and civilized in comparison with the volcanic deserts of the South. No northern explorer has, we believe, yet passed the limits of vegetable life. Even on Melville Island the lichen and the alga yet retain their place in the scheme of Nature. But on the ice-clad peaks of the land discovered by Sir James Ross not the minutest trace of a cryptogamous plant is discernible, and the ocean which freezes to their base, is equally barren of aquatic vegetation. Some features, however, of the Antarctic region have a character of far greater sublimity than attaches to any scenery yet observed in the North. A continent of vast and, as yet, unmeasured extent, the northern extremity of which is situated in the 71st degree of south latitude, sheathed in eternal ice from where its sea-line gives harbor to the seal and the penguin, to where its summits, attaining three or four times the height of Hecla, like Hecla give vent to subterranean fires; extending at nearly a right angle to

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