me to talk about myself and my own position; a theme which, however much I might have shrunk from introducing, when once opened, I spoke of in all the freedom of old friendship. ous subjects. The eagerness of the curé to listen stimulated me to talk on, and I not only narrated all that I was myself a witness of, but various other circumstances which were told to me by the Nothing could be more delicate than the priest's prince himself; in particular an incident he menmanner during all this time; nor even when his tioned to me one day of being visited by a stranger curiosity was highest did he permit himself to ask who came introduced by a letter from a very valued a question or an explanation of any difficulty that friend; his business being to propose to the duke occurred; and while he followed my recital with a scheme for the assassination of Bonaparte. At a degree of interest that was most flattering, he first the prince suspected the whole as a plot never ventured on a word or dropped a remark against himself, but on further questioning he disthat might seem to urge me to greater frankness. covered that the man's intentions were really such "Do you know," said he, at last, "why your as he professed them, and offered his services in story has taken such an uncommon hold upon my the conviction that no price could be deemed too attention? It is not from its adventurous charac- high to reward him. It is needless to say that ter, nor from the stirring and strange scenes you the offer was rejected with indignation, and the have passed through. It is because your old pas- prince dismissed the fellow with the threat of detor and guide, the Père Delamoy, was my own livering him up to the government of the French dearest friend, my school companion and playfel- Consul. The pastor heard this anecdote with low from infancy. We were both students at deep attention, and, for the first time, diverging Louvain together; both called to the priesthood from his line of cautious reserve, he asked me on the same day. Think, then, of my intense various questions as to when the occurrence had delight at hearing his dear name once more; ay, taken place, and where; if the prince had comand permit me to say it, hearing from the lips of municated the circumstance to any other than myanother the very precepts and maxims that I can self, and whether he had made it the subject of recognize as his own. Ah, yes! mon cher Mau- any correspondence. I knew little more than I rice," cried he, grasping my hand in a burst of had already told him; that the offer was made enthusiasm, "disguise it how you may, cover it while residing at Ettenheim, and during the preup under the uniform of a ' Bleu,' bury it beneath | ceding year, were facts, however, that I could rethe shacko of the soldier of the Republic, but the member. head and the heart will turn to the ancient altars "You are surprised, perhaps," said he, of the Church and the Monarchy. It is not alone the interest I feel in all this, but strangely enough, that your good blood suggests this, but all your there is here in Paris at this moment one of the experience of life goes to prove it. Think of great ‘Seigneurs' of the Ardêche; he has come poor Michel, self-devoted, generous, and noble- up to the capital for medical advice, and he was hearted; think of that dear cottage at Kuffstein, a great, perhaps the greatest, friend of the poor where, even in poverty, the dignity of birth and duke. What if you were to come and pay him blood threw a grace and an elegance over daily a visit with me? There is not probably one favor life; think of Ettenheim and the glorious prince- the whole world could bestow he would value so the last Condé-and who now sleeps in his nar-highly. You must often have heard his name row bed in the fosse of Vincennes!" from the prince; has he not frequently spoken of at "How do you mean?" said I, eagerly; for up the Count de Maurepas?" I could not remember to this time I knew nothing of his fate. "Come along with me and you shall know it all," said he; and, rising, he took my arm, and we sauntered along out of the crowded street, till we reached the Boulevards. He then narrated to me every incident of the midnight trial, the sentence, and the execution. From the death-warrant that came down ready-filled from Paris, to the grave dug while the victim was yet sleeping, he forgot nothing; and I own that my very blood ran cold at the terrible atrocity of that dark murder. It was already growing dusk when he had finished, and we parted hurriedly, as he was obliged to be at a distant quarter of Paris by eight o'clock, again agreeing to meet, as before, on the Quai Voltaire. having ever heard the name. "It is historical, however," said the curé, "and even in our own days has not derogated from its ancient chivalry. Have you not heard how a noble of the court rode postilion to the king's carriage on the celebrated escape from Varennes? Well, even for curiosity sake, he is worth a visit, for this is the very Count Henri de Maurepas, now on the verge of the grave." If the good curé had known me all my life, he could not more successfully have baited a trap for my curiosity. To see and know remarkable people, men who had done something out of the ordinary route of every-day life, had been a passion with me from boyhood. Hero-worship was indeed a great feature in my character, and has From that moment till we met the following more or less influenced all my career, nor was I day the Duc D'Enghien was never out of my insensible to the pleasure of doing a kind action. thoughts, and I was impatient for the priest's pres-It was rare, indeed, that one so humbly placed ence that I might tell him every little incident could ever confer a favor, and I grasped with of our daily life at Ettenheim, the topics we used eagerness the occasion to do so. We agreed, to discuss, and the opinions he expressed on vari- then, on the next afternoon, towards nightfall, to meet at the quay, and proceed together to the for you to hear; tell me of yourself. The curé count's residence. I have often reflected, since says that you have had more than your share of, that day, that Lisette's name was scarcely ever worldly vicissitudes. There, sit down, and let me mentioned by either of us during this interview; hear your story from your own lips." and yet, at the time, so preoccupied were my thoughts, I never noticed the omission. The chateau of Ettenheim, and its tragical story, filled my mind to the exclusion of all else. I pass over the long and dreary hours that intervened, and come at once to the time, a little after sunset, when we met at our accustomed rendezvous. 66 He pointed to a seat at his side, and I obeyed him at once, for, somehow, there was an air of command even in the gentlest tones of his voice, and I felt that his age and his sufferings were not the only claims he possessed to influence those around him. With all the brevity in my power, my story lasted for above an hour, during which time the count only interrupted me once or twice by asking to which Colonel Mahon I referred, as there were two of the name; and again, by inquiring in what. The curé had provided a "fiacre" for the occasion, as the count's residence was about two leagues from the city, on the way to Belleville. circumstances the emigré families were living as As we trotted along, he gave me a most interest- to means, and whether they appeared to derive any ing account of the old noble, whose life had been of their resources from France. These were one continued act of devotion to the monarchy. points I could give no information upon, and I "It will be difficult," said he, for you to plainly perceived that the count had no patience. connect the poor, worn-out, shattered wreck before for a conjecture, and that, where positive knowlyou, with all that was daring in deed and chivalrous edge failed, he instantly passed on to something, in sentiment; but the Maurepas' were well up- else. When I came to speak of Ettenheim his held in all their glorious renown, by him who is attention became fixed, not suffering the minutest now to be the last of the race! You will see circumstance to escape him, and even asking for. him reduced by suffering and sickness, scarcely the exact description of the locality, and its disable to speak, but be assured that you will have tance from the towns in the neighborhood. his gratitude for this act of true benevolence." The daily journeys of the prince, too, interested Thus chatting we rattled along over the paved high-him much, and once or twice he made me repeat way, at length entered upon a deep clay road what the peasant had said of the horse being able which conducted us to a spacious park, with a long to travel from Strasburg without a halt. I vow straight avenue of trees, at the end of which stood it puzzled me why he should dwell on these points. what, even in the uncertain light, appeared a spa- in preference to others of far more interest, but I cious chateau. The door lay open, and as we de- set them down to the caprices of illness, and scended a servant in plain clothes received us, and, thought no more of them. His daily life, his conafter a whispered word or two from the curé, versation, the opinions he expressed about France, ushered us along through a suite of rooms into a the questions he used to ask, were all matters he large chamber furnished like a study. There inquired into, till, finally, we came to the anecdote were book-shelves well filled, and a writing-table of the meditated assassination of Bonaparte. This covered with papers and letters, and the whole he made me tell him twice over, each time asking floor was littered with newspapers and journals. me eagerly whether, by an effort of memory, I A lamp, shaded by a deep gauze cover, threw a could not recall the name of the man who had half light over everything, nor was it until we offered his services for the deed. This I could had been nearly a couple of minutes in the room that we became aware of the presence of the count, who lay upon a sofa covered up in a fur pelisse, although the season was far advanced in spring. His gentle "Good evening, Messieurs," was the first warning we had of his presence, and the curé, advancing respectfully, presented me as his young friend, Monsieur de Tiernay. "It is not the first time that I hear that name," not; indeed, I knew not if I had ever heard it. "But the prince rejected the proposal?" said he, peering at me beneath the dark shadow of his heavy brow; "he would not hear of it?" "Of course not," cried I; "he even threatened to denounce the man to the government." "And do you think that he would have gone thus far, sir?" asked he, slowly. "I am certain of it. The horror and disgust said the sick man, with a voice of singular sweet- he expressed when reciting the story were a guar"It is chronicled in the annals of our monar-antee for what he would have done." ness. chy. Ay, sir, I knew that faithful servant of his king, who followed his master to the scaffold." "My father," cried I, eagerly. "But yet Bonaparte has been a dreadful enemy to his race," said the count. "It is not a Condé can right himself by a murder," said I as calmly. "I knew him well," continued he. "I may say, without vaunting, that I had it in my power to "How I like that burst of generous royalism, befriend him, too. He made an imprudent mar- young man!" said he, grasping my hand and riage; he was unfortunate in the society his shaking it warmly. "That steadfast faith in the. second wife's family threw him amongst. They honor of a Bourbon is the very heart and soul of were not his equals in birth, and far beneath him loyalty!" in sentiment and principle. Well, well," sighed he, Now, although I was not, so far as I knew of, "this is not a theme for me to speak of, nor anything of a royalist-the cause had neither my sympathy nor my wishes-I did not choose to | I believe are not so; and yet, I'd give all my disturb the equanimity of a poor sick man by a wealth, ay, ten times told, not for your vigor of needless disclaimer, nor induce a discussion which health, not for the lightness of your heart, nor the must be both unprofitable and painful. elasticity of your spirits, but for that one small "How did the fellow propose the act? had quality, defect though it be, that makes you trusthe any accomplices? or was he alone?" ful and credulous." "I believe quite alone." I believe I would just as soon that the old gen "Of course suborned by England? Of that tleman had thought fit to compliment me upon any there can be no doubt." "He must have done so. The ports of Holland, as those of France, would have been too dangerous for him. Italy is out of the question." other quality. Of all my acquisitions, there was not one I was so vain of as my knowledge of life and character. I had seen, as I thought, so much of life! I had peeped at all ranks and conditions of men, and it was rather hard to find an old country gentleman, a Seigneur de Village,” calling me credulous and unsuspecting! 66 I was much more pleased when he told the curé that a supper was ready for us in the adjoining room, at which he begged we would excuse his absence; and truly a most admirable little meal I owned that I had not speculated so deeply in it was, and served with great elegance. the matter. "It was strange," said he, after a pause, "that the duke never mentioned who had introduced the man to him." "He merely called him a valued friend." "In other words, the Count D'Artois," said the count; "did it not strike you so?" "The count expects you to stop here; there is a chamber prepared for you," said the curé, as we took our seats at table. "He has evidently taken a fancy to you. I thought, indeed I was quite certain, he would. Who can tell what good fortune this chance meeting may lead to, Monsieur Maurice? A votre sante, mon cher !" I had to confess it had not occurred to me to cried he, as he clinked his champagne glass think so. against mine, and I at last began to think that destiny was about to smile on me. "You should see his chateau in the Ardêche ; this is nothing to it! There is a forest, too, of native oak, and a 'chasse' such as royalty never "But reflect a little," said he. "Is there any other living who could have dared to make such a proposal but the count? Who but the head of his house could have presumed on such a step? No inferior could have had the audaci-owned!" ty! It must have come from one so highly placed, that crime paled itself down to a mere measure of expediency, under the loftiness of the sanction. What think you?" "I cannot, I will not think so," was my answer. "The very indignation of the prince's refection refutes the supposition." "What a glorious gift is unsuspectfulness!" said he, feelingly. "I am a rich man, and you SOME experiments were tried on 28th July, at the| Gutta Percha Works to prove that an electric current sufficient to explode gunpowder at a long distance may be conveyed under water. Electricity was passed through coils of wires forty miles in length, Covered with gutta percha sunk in water, and cases of powder were exploded at the other end of the wire. "Captain Addison, of the Bombay Army, has strongly recommended the adoption of this discovery for the prevention of accidents in coal-mines; which would be most completely effected by having wire covered with gutta percha placed in the chambers of the mines, or where the fire-damp was supposed to exist, and by its means explode a small quantity of gunpowder every morning before men went down to work, which would ignite the fire-damp, and render the working in the mines perfectly safe during the day. [But when you have exploded the "firedamp," would it not take a considerable time to clear the mines of the equally fatal "choke-damp" that results?]-Spectator. Mine were delightful dreams that night; but I was sorely disappointed on waking to find that Laura was not riding at my side through a forestalley, while a crowd of " Piqueurs" and huntsmen galloped to and fro, making the air vibrate with their joyous bugles. Still, I opened my eyes in a richly-furnished chamber, and a Jaques handed me my coffee on a silver stand, and in a cup of costliest Sevres. SHAKSPEARE AND THE MOUNTEBANK.-When I was a boy I went once to a theatre. The tragedy of Hamlet was performed-a play full of the noblest thoughts, the subtlest morality that exists upon the stage. The audience listened with attention, with admiration, with applause. But now an Italian mountebank appeared upon the stage-a man of extraordinary personal strength and sleight of hand. He performed a variety of juggling tricks, and distorted his body into a thousand surprising and unnatural postures. The audience were transported beyond themselves; if they had felt delight in Hamlet, they glowed with rapture at the mountebank. They had listened with attention to the lofty thought, but they were snatched from themselves by the marvel of the strange posture. Enough, said I; where is the glory of ruling men's minds and commanding their admiration, when a greater enthusiasm is excited by mere bodily display than was kindled by the most wonderful emanations of a genius little less than divine?— Eugene Aram. From the Examiner. The History of the Restoration of Monarchy in WHAT M. de Lamartine himself said of his Girondins is to be said of his Restoration. The title of history is given to it for want of a better word to designate a narrative. The book has none of the pretensions of history. It is rather a picturesque study of the characters of certain groups of men than a settled and orderly arrangement of the actions, events, and passions which constitute history. It is a study, not a complete work. But it contains striking passages, reveals an independence of judgment which was hardly to be expected from the immediate antecedents of the writer, will instruct some readers, and certainly will entertain all. The principal defect of the book as of the Girondins we must at once state to be the absence of authorities. It may be true, but we have only M. de Lamartine's word for it. Not one of the ordinary guarantees or proofs of historical accuracy appears from the first page to the last. We have not the remotest idea of the value of a single statement made; and, though this may be said to matter less where so much of the book resolves itself into mere individual opinion or judgment, it would yet be desirable to know the exact grounds on which the judgment has been formed, and to be able more accurately to measure its value. his " ter. M. de Lamartine sees all this, and has the courage and manliness to proclaim it: Every reign, however, must have a propelling spirit; and he accordingly sought one. Of all these principles, on which the founder of an empire might firmly establish his institutions, such as liberty, equality, progress, intelligence, conscience, election, reasoning, discussion, religion, or public virtue, he chose the most personal and the most immortal of all-glory, or renown. Not caring to convince, to enlighten, to ameliorate, or to improve the morals of his country, splendor I reflect upon it I shall fascinate the noblest he said to himself: "I shall dazzle it, and by the and the most easily seduced of all its instincts— national glory, or vanity. I shall found my power or my dynasty on a spell. Every nation is not pos sessed of virtue, but all have pride. The pride of France shall constitute my right." This principle of glory instantly superinduces that of conquest; conquest commands war; and war produces dethronements and the overthrow of nations. Napoleon's reign was nothing but a campaign-his empire a field of battle as extensive as all Europe. He concentrated the rights of people and of kings in his sword-all morality in the number and strength of his armies. Nothing which threatened him was innocent; nothing which placed an obstacle in his date was worthy of respect. From himself alone he way was sacred; nothing which preceded him in wished Europe to date its epoch. his race. He swept away the republic with the tread of his soldiers. He trampled on the throne of the Bourbons The portion of the history before us comprises in exile. Like a murderer, in the darkness of the the closing days of the empire, the last great night, he seized upon the bravest and most confiding struggle of Napoleon with the combined armies in of the military princes of this race, the Duke 1814, and the abdication at Fontainebleau. Its d'Enghein, in a foreign country. He slew him in the marked peculiarity is the severe judgment passed ditch of Vincennes by a singular presentiment of upon Napoleon, and this with regard not merely to crime, which showed him, in this youth, the only system," but his personal habits and charac-armed competitor of the throne against him, or against As for the attempt to make out a popular lost, Germany, Prussia, Holland, (reconquered after He conquered Italy, which had been again case for the restoration, or to attribute something Pichegru,) Spain, Naples, kingdoms, and republics. like a principle to the Emperor Alexander (whom He threatened England, and caressed Russia, in order the writer sentimentalizes out of all due likeness) to lull her to sleep. He carved out the continent, as distinguished from the other sovereigns, we made a new distribution of nations, and raised up think both worthless alike. But when M. de thrones for all his family. He expended ten generaLamartine summons Napoleon himself to undergo tions of France, to establish a royal or imperial the verdict of history, he rises often into that true dynasty for each of the sons or daughters of his eloquence which is associated with reason, judg- mother. His fame, which grew incessantly in noise ment, and wisdom. and splendor, imparted to France and to Europe that vertigo of glory which hides the immorality and the abyss of such a reign. He created the attraction, and was followed even to the delirium of the Russian campaign. He floated in a whirlwind of events so vast and so rapid that even three years of errors did him, sustained him over the vacuity of all the other not occasion his fall. Glory, which had elevated principles which he had despised. Spain devoured his armies; Russia served as a sepulchre to 700,000 men; Dresden and Leipsic swallowed up the rest. Germany, exasperated, deserted his cause. whole of Europe hemmed him in, and pursued him from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, with a mighty tide of people. France, exhausted and disaffected, saw him combat and sink, without raising an arm in his cause. Yet, when he had nothing against the whole world but a handful of soldiers, he did not fall. Everything was annihilated around his throne; but his glory remained, still soaring above his head. It is almost a commonplace to repeat that Napoleon's system was a great military system, and nothing else. But perhaps M. de Lamartine does not sufficiently perceive that this was not altogether of his personal choice. He found war raging, the conscription a part of the laws, and himself borne to power by the army and the adhesion of its chiefs. His title was that of military success, and he did little more than complete what circumstances had begun. He organized the country as one vast barrack. All was military-the institutions, the laws, the spirit and aim of all. The first jacket of the boy was a uniform, the first element of manly education a military weapon, the last resource of age the pension of an invalid. A regime more degrading to free intellect than Napoleon's could not be conceived. No kind of liberty, whether of the person or the press, of thought or education, existed. His senate and tribunate were farces. Everything had the single aim of concentrating all the force and wealth of the state in the hands of its ruler, and of chaining every kind of public opinion to the car of its ruler. It was only military The He at length capitulated, or rather France capitulated without him, and he travelled alone, across his conquered country and his ravaged provinces, the route to his first exile, his only cortège the resentments and the murmurs of his country. What remains behind him of his long reign? for this is the means and his end. Let him therefore enjoy it. The noise he has made will resound through distant ages; but let it not pervert posterity, or falsify the judgment of mankind. This man, one of the greatest creations of God, applied himself with greater power than any other man ever possessed, to accumulate, therefrom, on his route, revolutions and ameliorations of the human mind, as if to check the march of ideas, and make all received truths retrace their steps. But time has overleaped him, and truths and ideas have resumed their ordinary current. He is admired as a soldier; he is measured as a sovereign, he is judged as a founder of nations great in action little in idea, nothing in virtue ;-such is the man! criterion by which God and men judge the political | which is improperly called glory, constituted his genius of founders. All truth is fruitful, all falsehood barren. In policy, whatever does not create has no existence. Life is judged by what survives it. He left freedom chained, equality compromised by posthumous institutions, feudalism parodied, without power to exist, human conscience resold, philosophy proscribed, prejudices encouraged, the human mind diminished, instruction materialized and concentrated in the pure sciences alone, schools converted into barracks, literature degraded by censorship or humbled by baseness, national representation perverted, election abolished, the arts enslaved, commerce destroyed, credit annihilated, navigation suppressed, international hatred revived, the people oppressed, or enrolled in the army, paying in blood or taxes the ambition of an unequalled soldier, but covering with The great excuse, even for Napoleon, might at the great name of France the contradictions of the the same time have been remembered by the histoage, the miseries and degradations of the country. rian. His reign was most useful as a continuation This is the founder! This is the man!-a man of the government and principles of the revolution, instead of a revolution !—a man instead of an epoch! though under dictatorial power. He kept the old -a man instead of a country!-a man instead of a French aristocracy so thoroughly under water for nation! Nothing after him! nothing around him but more than twenty years, that when it raised its his shadow, making sterile the eighteenth century, ab-head again from that drowned and incapable condisorbed and concentrated in himself alone. Personal tion it was to see a new and popular aristocracy in glory will be always spoken of as characterizing the its place, and to feel its own utter inability to seize age of Napoleon; but it will never merit the praise be again upon authority or power. There remained stowed upon that of Augustus, of Charlemagne, and of Louis XIV. There is no age; there is only a name; and nothing to the Bourbons of the old fatal privileges that they could bring back save what was simply this name signifies nothing to humanity but himself. ridiculous and harmless. False in institutions, for he retrograded; false in policy, for he debased; false in morals, for he corrupted; false in civilization, for he oppressed; false in diplomacy, for he isolated-he was only true in war; for he shed torrents of human blood. But what can we then allow him? His individual genius was great; but it was the genius of materialism. His intelligence was vast and clear, but it was the intelligence of calculation. He counted, he weighed, he measured; but he felt not; he loved not; he sympathized with none; he was a statue rather than a man. Therein lay his inferiority to Alexander and to Cæsar; he resembled more the Hannibal of the aristocracy. Few men have thus been moulded, and moulded cold. All was solid, nothing gushed forth, in that mind nothing was moved. His metallic nature was felt even in his style. He was, perhaps, the greatest writer of human events since Machiavel. Much superior to Cæsar in the account of his campaigns, his style is not the written expression alone; it is the action. Every sentence in his pages is, so to speak, the counterpart and counter-impression of the fact. There is neither a letter, a sound, nor a color wasted between the fact and the word, and the word is himself. His phrases concise, but struck off without ornament, recall those times when Bajazet and Charlemagne, not knowing how to write their names at the bottom of their imperial acts, dipped their hands in ink or blood, and applied them with all their articulations impressed upon the parchment. It was not the signature; it was the hand itself of the hero thus fixed eternally before the eyes; and such were the pages of his campaigns dictated by Napoleon-the very soul of movement, of action, and of combat. This fame, which constituted his morality, his conscience, and his principle, he merited, by his nature and his talents, from war and from glory; and he has covered with it the name of France. France, obliged to accept the odium of his tyranny and his crimes, should also accept his glory with a serious gratitude. She cannot separate her name from his without lessening it; for it is equally incrusted with his greatness as with his faults. She wished for renown, and he has given it to her; but what she principally owes to him is the celebrity she has gained in the world. This celebrity, which will descend to posterity, and It is to be said also, in further excuse for Napoleon, or rather in explanation of the causes for which such pests to humanity are permitted to exist, that his reign was temporary, that it was organized for a certain purpose, and that it was not destined to endure or be revived. The snows of Russia are accused of having blasted and overwhelmed his fortunes. But the system was expiring of itself, or it would have recovered that blow. The Duke of Wellington marks in his despatches, at the date of the Austrian marriage, the seeds of its decay. The great warriors and really able men of the empire, whether generals or civilians, were produced during the republic, and by the allawakening crisis of the last years of the century. Napoleon's reign of patronage produced nothing beyond mediocrity in every line of public life-the military not excepted. His latest created marshals marked their conduct by defeat and treason. His common soldiers alone were faithful to him. And even here his latest levies possessed no longer the ardor and stanchness of the old republicans-men whom Lamartine contrasts with the marshals in this striking passage: Their faces sunburnt, their lips shrivelled, their eyes bloodshot, with arms in slings, and shoes worn off their feet-these soldiers, seated in roadside ditches, or dragging themselves through the muddy roads, imparted by their aspect a character of despair and melancholy in their attachment to their emperor. Every time that Caulaincourt told them that Napoleon was alive, and that he was waiting for them at Fontainebleau, they responded in a voice almost extinct, by the cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" Then, with accelerated pace, they resumed their journey to rejoin him. While these last sad remnants of his army were protesting against ingratitude with their almost expiring efforts, the civil and military chiefs, amongst whom he had divided the spoils of the world, were bargaining with his conquerors, and giving his throne as a ransom for their titles and their treasures. We go back a little for a portrait of Napoleon on the eve of his campaign of 1814 (not the least |