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SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF M. THIERS.

M.THIERS is one of the notable celebrities

of our day. Though a Frenchman, his name is well known in England as the author of the famous History of the French Revolution. But in his own country, he is also known as a distinguished orator and statesman; indeed it is not too much to say, that Thiers is the cleverest man in France.

You enter the Chamber of Deputies on some day of grand debate. A speaker has possession of the ear of the house. You see little more than his head above the marble of the tribune, but the head is a good one-large, well-formed, and intelligent. His eyes, the twinkle of which you can discern behind those huge spectacles he wears, are keen and piercing. His face is short, and rather disfigured by a grin, but when he speaks, it is lively, volatile, and expressive in a remarkable degree. His thin nervous lips, curled like Voltaire's, are characterized by a smile, by turns the most winning, sarcastic, and subtle, that can possibly be imagined.

Listen to him. He speaks with a nasal twang and a provincial accent. He has no melody in his voice. It is loud and ear-piercing-that of a vixen. Sometimes it rises to a screech, as that of Sheil's did. And yet all ears hang listening to that voice, which pours forth a succession of words embodying ideas as clear as crystal, copious almost to excess, but never tiresome. His exuberant thoughts flow from him without effort; he is perfectly easy, frank, familiar, and colloquial, in his style; his illustrations are most happy, often exceedingly brilliant. Be his theme ever so unpopular, he is invariably listened to with interest. His diminutive figure, his grim face, his screeching voice, are all forgotten in the brilliancy of his eloquence, and in the felicitous dexterity of his argument. That speaker is M. Thiers.

Such as his position is, he has made it himself. He has worked his way upward from obscure poverty. He owes nothing to birth, but every thing to labor. His father was a poor locksmith of Marseilles, where Adolphe was born in the year 1797. Through the interest of some of his mother's relations, the boy obtained admission to the free school of Marseilles, where he distinguished himself by his industry, and achieved considerable success. From thence, at eighteen, he went to study law at the town of Aix. Here it was that he formed his friendship with Mignet, afterward the distinguished historian. These two young men, in the intervals of their dry labors in the study of law, directed their attention to literary, historical, and political subjects. Thiers even led a political party of the students of Aix, and harangued them against the government of the restoration. He was practicing his eloquence for the tribune, though he then knew it not. He thus got into disgrace with the professors and the police, but the students were ardently devoted to him. He competed for a prize essay, and though his paper was the best, the professors refused to adjudge

the prize to "the little Jacobin." The competition was adjourned till next year. Thiers sent

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his paper again next year," but meanwhile,

a production arrived from Paris, which eclipsed all the others. To this the prize was speedily adjudged by the professors. But great was their dismay, when, on opening the sealed letter containing the name of the competitor, it was found to be no other than that of M. Thiers himself!

The young lawyer commenced practice in the town of Aix, but finding it up-hill work, and not at all productive, he determined to remove, in company with his friend Mignet, to seek his fortune in Paris. Full of talents, but light in pocket, the two friends entered the capital, and took lodgings in one of its obscurest and dirtiest quarters-a room on the fourth floor of a house in the dark Passage Montesquieu, of which a deal chest of drawers, a walnut-wood bedstead, two chairs, and a small black table somewhat rickety, constituted the furniture. There the two students lodged, working for the future. They did not wait with their hands folded. Thiers was only twenty-four, but he could already write with brilliancy and power, as his prize essay had proved. He obtained an introduction to Manuel, then a man of great influence in Paris, who introduced Thiers to Lafitte, the banker, and Lafitte got him admitted among the editors of the Constitutionelle, then the leading journal. It was the organ of Les Epiciers, or “grocers,” in other words, of the rising middle classes of France. At the same time, Mignet obtained a similar engagement on the Courrier.

The position of Thiers was a good one to start from, and he did not fail to take advantage of it. He possessed a lively and brilliant style, admirably suited for polemical controversy; and he soon attracted notice by the boldness of his ar ticles. He ventured to write on all subjects, and in course of time he learned something of them. Art, politics, literature, philosophy, religion, history, all came alike ready to his hand. In France, the literary man is a much greater person than he is in England. He is a veritable member of the fourth estate, which in France overshadows all others. Thiers became known, invited, courted, and was a frequenter of the most brilliant salons of the opposition. But newspaper writing was not enough to satisfy the indefatigable industry of the man. He must write history too, and his theme was neither more nor less than the great French Revolution. Our readers must know the book well enough. It is remarkably rapid, brilliant, stylish-full of interest in its narrative, though not very scrupulous in its morality-decidedly fatalistic, recog nizing heroism only in the conqueror, and un worthiness only in the vanquished-in short, the history of M. Thiers is a deification of success. But ordinary readers did not look much below the surface; the brilliant narrative, which ministered abundantly to the national appetite for

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He became a partner in the Constitutionelle; | of Under-Secretary of State, and mainly directed descended from his garret, turned dandy, and that important part of the administration through frequented Tortoni's. Nothing less than a hand- a crisis of great financial difficulty. He was sent some hotel could now contain him. Thiers has into the Chamber of Deputies as member for Aix grown a successful man, and to such nothing is at whose college he had studied. denied. Liberalism had thriven so well with him, that he must go a little further, he must be democratic; the drift of opinion was then in that direction, so he set on foot the National, the organ of the revolutionary party. The war which this paper waged against the government of Charles X. and the Polignac ministry, was of the most relentless kind. The National it was, that stung the government into the famous Ordonnances, which issued in the "Three Days'" Revolution of 1830. Thiers was, throughout, the soul of this ardent, obstinate, brilliant struggle against the old Bourbon government.

The National had only been seven months in existence, when the event referred to occurred. The Ordonnances against the Press appeared on the morning of the 26th of July. In the course of the day, the leaders of the Opposition Press, and several members of the Chamber of Deputies, met at the office of the National. M. Thiers at once propounded the course that was to be adopted at this juncture.

"Well," said he, "what's to be done now, as to opposition in the journals-in our articles? Come! we must perform an act."

"And what mean you by an act?"

Thiers was no favorite when he entered the Chamber; he was very generally disliked, and he did much to alarm the timid by his style of dressing à-la-Danton, as well as by his high-flown phrases in favor of democratizing Europe, saving Poland, delivering Belgium, and passing the Rhine. His eloquence was then bluster, but as he grew older, he became more polished, more cautious, and more politic. When the Lafitte ministry fell, of which he had been a member, Thiers at once deserted that party, and attached himself to the Casimir-Perier administration. He fell foul of his old comrades, who proclaimed him a renegade. Never mind! Thiers was a clever fellow, who knew what cards he was playing. He who was for passing the Rhine, was now all for repose and peace; he would have no more innovations, nor propagandism; before, the advocate of equality and democracy, he now became the defender of conservatism, the peerage, and the old institutions of France. He stood almost alone in defending the peerage, but it fell nevertheless, and the revolution went on.

On Marshal Soult assuming the direction of affairs in 1831, Thiers was appointed Minister of the Interior. La Vendée was in flames at the

"A signal of disobedience to a law which is time, Belgium was menaced, and excitement genno law! A protest!"

"Well-do it then?" was the reply.

A committee was named, on the spur of the moment, composed of Thiers, Chatelain, and Cauchois-Lemaire. Thiers drew up the protest: he inserted the leading idea—“The writers of journals, called upon the first to obey, ought to give the first example of resistance." This was the signal of revolution! Some said, "Good! We shall insert the protest as a leading article in our journals." "Not only that," said Thiers, "we must put our names under it, and our heads under it." The protest was agreed to, after considerable discussion; it was published; and the people of Paris indorsed the protest in the streets of Paris the very next day. Thus Thiers performed the initial act, which led to the expulsion from France of the elder branch of the Bourbon family. But it ought to be added that, after having signed the protest, which was published next morning, Thiers returned to muse in the shades of Montmorency, and did not return to Paris until the 29th, after the decisive battle of the barricades had been fought.

Of course, Thiers was now a man of greater mark than ever. The new government of the Citizen King at once secured him; and the son of the Marseilles locksmith, the poor law student of Aix, the newspaper writer of the garret, was now appointed Counselor of State and Secretary-General of Finance. It is said that the Citizen King even offered him the Portfolio of Finance, which he declined on the ground of inexperience; but he afterward accepted the office

erally prevailed. Thiers acted with great energy
under the circumstances; by means of gold, a
traitor was found who secured the arrest of the
Duchess de Berri, and the rebellion in Vendée
was extinguished. A French army was sent
against Antwerp, the citadel was taken, and
the independence of Belgium secured. In the
Chambers, Thiers
obtained a credit for a hun-
dred millions of francs, for the completion of
public works. The statue of Napoleon was re-
placed on the Place Vendôme; public works
were every where proceeded with; roads were
formed; canals dug; and industry began gener-
ally to revive. The Minister of the Interior was
successful.

But a storm was brewing. The republicans were yet a powerful party, and the government brought to bear upon them the terrors of the law.

Secret associations were put down, and an explosion took place. Insurrections broke out at Paris and Lyons; Thiers went to the latter place, where he was less sparing of his person than he had been during the three days of Paris; for at Lyons two officers fell at his side, killed by musket-shots aimed at the minister himself. At length the insurrection was got under; dissensions occurred in the ministry; Thiers retired, but soon after took office under Marshal Mortier; the fêtes of Jaly, 1835, arrived; the Fieschi massacre took place, Thiers being by the king's side at the time of the explosion. Laws against the liberty of the Press followed this diabolic act, and now M. Thiers was found on the side of repression of free speech. The laws against the

Press were enforced by him with rigor. He was now on the high road to power. He became President of the Council, and Minister of Foreign Affairs. But the Spanish intervention question occurred. Thiers was in favor of intervention, and the majority of the ministry were opposed to it. Thiers resigned office, and bided his time. He went to Rome and kissed the Pope's toe, bringing home with him leather trunks of the middle ages, Roman medals, and a store of new arguments against democracy.

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has few friends. His changes have been so sudden and unexpected on many occasions, that few care to trust him. He is not a man to be depended upon. He has been a republican and a monarchist by turns: who knows but to-morrow he may be a Red? It all depends on how the wind blows! This is what they say of M. Thiers. The nobles regard him as a parvenu; the republicans stigmatize him as a renegade. The monarchists think of him as a waiter on Providence.

M. Cormenin (Timon), in his Livre des Orateurs, has drawn a portrait of Thiers with a pencil of caustic. Perhaps it is too severe; but many say it is just. In that masterly sketch, Cormenin says "Principles make revolutions and revolutionists. Principles found monarchies, aristoc racies, republics, parliaments. Principles are morals and religion, peace and war. Principles govern the world. In truth, M. Thiers affirms that there are no principles, that is to say, M. Thiers has none.

GOD

That is all."

LIFE AND DEATH.

66

LOCKE," "YEAST," ETC.

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A coalition ministry was formed in 1838, and Thiers, the Mirabeau gadfly," as a pungent lady styled him about this time, became the leader of the party. Thiers failed in his assaults on the ministry; Molé reigned, then Guizot; and the brilliant Thiers was reduced to the position of a simple deputy on the seats of the opposition. But again did M. Thiers find himself in power, after the failure of the ministry on the Dotation Bill of the Duke of Nemours. The ministry of March 1st, 1840, was formed, and Thiers was the President of the Council. Louis Philippe confided all to him; but, though Louis trusted Thiers, and perhaps owed his crown to him, this BY REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY, AUTHOR OF ALTON statesman seemed really to be his evil genius. The Thiers ministry brought the government of (10D gives life, not only to us who have imFrance into imminent danger from foreign powers, mortal souls, but to every thing on the face and was replaced, as a matter of urgency, by that of the earth; for the psalm has been talking all of Guizot, in October. Thiers again relapsed through not only of men, but of beasts, fishes, into violent opposition. Years passed, during trees, and rivers, and rocks, sun, and moon. which he proceeded with his completion of the Now, all these things have a life in them. Not History of the Consulate and the Empire, which a life like ours; but still you speak rightly and Irought him in large gains. The fatal year of wisely when you say, That tree is alive, and 1848 arrived; and when Guizot was driven from that tree is dead. That running water is live Tower, Louis Philippe again, and for the last time, water; it is clear and fresh; but if it is kept harged M. Thiers with the formation of a standing it begins to putrefy; its life is gone ninistry. It did not last an hour. The revolu- from it, and a sort of death comes over it, and. on of 1848 was already consummated. makes it foul, and unwholesome, and unfit to The career of Thiers since then is well known. drink." This is a deep matter, this, how there For a time he disappeared from France; haunted is a sort of life in every thing, even to the stones Louis Philippe's foot-steps-still protesting un- under our feet. I do not mean, of course, that lying love for that branch of the Bourbon family. stones can think as our life makes us do, or feel He returned to the Chamber of Deputies, where as the beasts' life makes them do; or even grow he is again in opposition; though what he is, and as the trees' life makes them do; but I mean what the principles he holds, it is difficult to say. that their life keeps them as they are, without Principles, indeed, seem to stick to Thiers but changing. You hear miners and quarrymen talk lightly. One day he is the bitter enemy of very truly of the live rock. That stone, they say, socialism, the next he is its defender. He is a was cut out of the live rock, meaning the rock Free-trader to-day, a Protectionist to-morrow. as it was under ground, sound and hard; as it He is a liberal and a conservative by turns. In would be, for aught we know, to the end of time, short, he is a man "too clever by half," and seems unless it was taken out of the ground, out of the constantly tempted, like many skillful speakers, place where God's Spirit meant it to be, and to show how much can be said on both sides of a brought up to the open air and the rain, in which question. He is greatest in an attack; he is a it is not its nature to be; and then you will see capital puller-down: when any thing is to be that the life of the stone begins to pass from it built up, you will not find Thiers among the con- bit by bit, that it crumbles and peels away, and, structors. He is a thoroughly dextrous man- in short, decays, and is turned again to its dust. sagacious, subtle, scheming, and indefatigable. Its organization, as it is called, or life, ends, and Few trust him, and yet, see how he is praised! then-what? Does the stone lie forever useHave you read Thiers' speech? Ah! there is less? No. And there is the great, blessed a transcendent orator!" "Bah!" says another, mystery of how God's Spirit is always bringing "who believes in what Thiers says? The little life out of death. When the stone is decayed stinging dwarf-he is only the roué of the and crumbled down to dust and clay, it makes ribune!" soil. This very soil here, which you plow, is the Thus, though Thiers has many admirers, he decayed ruins of ancient hills; the clay whict

live honestly without employment; while not one of the noble millions may exercise a trade for bread; may practice law or medicine, or sink down into authorship. The Austrian patrician can not feed himself by marriage with a mer chant's daughter; if he do, his household will not be acknowledged by his noble friends. The he-noble must marry the she-noble, and they must make a miserable, mean, hungry, noble pair.

A celebrated Viennese Professor dined one day in England with a learned lord. "Pray, how is Baron Dash "" inquired a guest—said Baron Dash being at that time an Austrian Minister.

you dig up in the fields was once part of some | starve. Not more than a few dozen of them can slate or granite mountains, which were worn away by weather and water, that they might be come fruitful earth. Wonderful! But any one who has studied these things can tell you they are true. Any one who has ever lived in mountainous countries ought to have seen the thing happen-ought to know that the land in the mountain valleys is made at first, and kept rich year by year by the washings from the hills above; and this is the reason why land left dry by rivers and by the sea is generally so rich. Then what becomes of the soil? It begins a new life. The roots of the plants take it up; the salts which they find in it—the staple, as we call them go to make leaves and seed; the very sand has its use; it feeds the stocks of corn and grass, and makes them stiff. The corn-stalks would never stand upright if they could not get sand from the soil. So what a thousand years ago made part of a mountain, now makes part of a wheat plant; and in a year more the wheat grain will have been eaten, and the wheat straw, perhaps, eaten too, and they will have died-decayed in the bodies of the animals who have eaten them, and then they will begin a third new life-they will be turned into parts of the animal's body-of a man's body. So what is now your bones and flesh may have been once a rock on some hill-side a hundred miles away.

A BLACK EAGLE IN A BAD WAY.

"I re

"He is quite well," said the Professor. "And his wife?" pursued the other. member meeting her at Rome; they were just married, and she was a most delightful person. She created a sensation, no doubt, when she was received at your court?"

"She was not received at all," said the Professor.

"How was that?" asked many voices.
"Because she is not born."

"Not born" is the customary mode of ignoring (if I may use a slang word of this time) the existence of the vulgar, among the noble Viennese. At the present moment, the family of a Minister, or of any of the generals who have saved the throne, may be excluded from society

AUSTRIA, in this present year of grace, 1851, on this pretense. Two recent exceptions have

looks to me very much like a translated ver- been made in favor of the wives of two of the sion of England under the Stuarts.

I am a resident at Vienna, and know Austria pretty well. I have seen many birds before now in a sickly state-have seen some absolutely rotting away-but I never saw one with such unpromising symptoms upon him as the Black Eagle of Austria.

most important people in the empire. They were invited to the court-balls; but were there treated so scurvily by the "born" ladies, that these unborn women visited them only once.

What is to be done by these poor noblesshut out from commerce, law, and physic? Diplomacy is voted low; unless they get the great embassies. The church, as in all Catholic countries, is low; unless a nobleman should enter it with certain prospect of a cardinal's hat or a bishopric. The best bishoprics in the world (meaning, of course, the most luxurious) are Austrian. The revenues of the Primat of Hungary are said to be worth the comfortable trifle of sixty thousand pounds a year.

The Court of Vienna is perhaps the most brilliant in Europe; the whole social system in Vienna is perhaps the most thoroughly unsound in Europe. Austria is weighed down by a numerous and impoverished nobility, by unjust taxes, and by a currency incredibly depreciated. Her commerce is hampered by all manner of monopolies, and is involved in such a complex network of restrictions, as only the industrious, But there remains for these wretched nobles, gold-getting fingers of a few can unravel. Near- one road to independence and distinction; and ly the whole trade of Austria is in the hands of this is the army. To the army, it may be said, this busy, persevering few. Out of the imme- the whole body of the Austrian nobility belongs. diate circle of the government, there is scarcely The more fortunate, that is to say, the highest a satisfied man in the Austrian dominions. The in rank, add to their commissions places about nobles feel abridgment of their privileges, and the court. Cherished titles are acquired in this decrease of profit by the abolition of their feudal way; and a lady may insist on being seriously rights, succeeding the late revolution. The mer- addressed in polite Austrian society as-say for chants feel that in Austria they suffer more vex-example, Frau-ober-consistorial-hof-Directorinn. atious interference than it is in the nature of man to bear quietly. The people, a naturally good-humored race, have learned insensibly to clench their fists whenever they think of their absolute and paternal government.

The position of the nobles is ridiculous. They swarm over the land; increase and multiply, and VOL. IV.-No. 20.-P.

In the army, of course, under such a system, we see lieutenants with the hair gone from their heads, and generals with no hair come yet on their chins. A young man of family may get a captaincy in three months, which his neighbor without patronage, might not get if he lived forever. Commissions are not sold in Austria as

An Austrian officer who has received a blow, though only in an accidental scuffle, is called upon to quit his regiment, unless he has slain upon the spot the owner of the sacrilegious hand that struck him. This he is authorized by law to do, if struck while wearing uniform. The effect of this savage custom has been to produce in Austrian officers a peculiar meekness and for bearance; to keep them always watchful against quarrels with civilians; and to make them socially the quietest gentlemen in the world.

they are in England, but the Ministry of War knows how to respond to proper influence. In an army of five hundred thousand, vacancies, it is needless to say constantly occur. The lad who is named cornet in Hungary, is presently lieutenant of a regiment in Italy, and by-and-by a captain in Croatia. After that, he may awake some morning, major, with the place of aid-decamp to the Emperor; and to such a boy, with friends to back him, the army is decidedly a good profession. The inferior officers are miserably paid, an ensign having little more than thirty pounds a year. A captain, however, is well paid in allowances, if not in money; while a colonel has forage for twelve horses, and very good contingencies besides. Again, there are to be considered other very important differences between pay in the Austrian and pay in the English army. An Austrian can live upon his pay. His simple uniform is not costly; he is free from mess expenses, and may dine for six-sibility, may want defenders powerful enough to pence at the tavern favored by his comrades. Not being allowed at any time to lay aside his uniform, he can not run up a long tailor's bill; and, being admitted to the best society, he need not spend much money on amusement. Besides, does not the state accord to him the privilege of going to the theatre for twopence?

The poorer officers in the Austrian service are so unreasonable and ill-conditioned, that they are not in general pleased by these advantages being given to men, who may possibly be well born, but who have certainly not been long born; and in many places combinations have been made to resist the unfair system of promotion. A young captain sent down to command graybeards, with a lively sense of their own claims on the vacancy, is now and then required to fight, one after the other, the whole series of senior lieutenants. This causes a juvenile captain occasionally to shirk the visit to his regiment, and effect a prompt exchange.

Some part of the last-named difficulty is overcome by the existence of one or two corps of officers who have no regiment at all. Where there are no men to murmur, the business of promotion is carried on with perfect comfort.

Last winter a fast English gent left a masked ball at the Redoute, intoxicated. Disarming a sentry, he ensconced himself until morning in his box. The gent was then forwarded to the frontier, but the soldier was flogged for not having shot him.

Freedom from arrest for debt is an immunity enjoyed by Austrian officers; but those who indulge too freely in their exemption from respon

prevent their summary dismissal from the service I have written thus much about the Austrian army, because, in fact, as the world here now stands, every third man is or has been a soldier; and one can not talk about society in this empire without beginning at once to talk about its military aspect.

Gay and trifling as the metropolis is, with its abundance of out-door amusement, Vienna must be put down in plain words as the most inkospitable capital in Europe. The Austrians themselves admit that they could not endure to be received abroad as they are in the habit of receiving strangers here. The greater Austrian nobles never receive a stranger to their intimacy

A late French embassador, who conducted his establishment with splendor, and was at all times profusely hospitable, used to say that he was not once asked privately to dinner during the whole period of his residence in Vienna. The diplomatic corps do not succeed in forcing the close barriers of Austrian exclusiveness; and twenty years of residence will not entitle a stranger to feel that he has made himself familiarly the friend of a single Austrian. Any one who has lived among the higher classes in Vienna In spite of all this, there is much to be said to will confirm my statement, and will recall with the credit and honor of the innumerable throng of astonishment the somewhat indignant testimony people forming the Austrian army. It is an ex- of the oldest and most respected members of the cellently appointed and well-disciplined multitude. corps diplomatique to the inhospitable way in The gallantry of its soldiers, and the skill and ex- which their friendly overtures have been received. perience of many of its highest officers, must be Invitations to dinner are exceedingly rare; there freely admitted. Then, too, the great number of are brilliant balls; but these do not satisfy an nobles classed within it has at least had the good English longing for good-fellowship. Familiar effect of creating a high standard of artificial visits and free social intercourse do not exist at honor. The fellow-feeling among Austrian sol- all. Then there are the two great divisions of diers is also great; those of the same rank ac-society-or the nobles and the merchant Jews; cost each other with the "Du," the household on one side poverty and pride; on the other, word of German conversation; and the common wealth and intellect. The ugliest and most illitword for an old companion in arms is "Duty-erate of pauper-countesses would consider her bruder."

Duels are frequent, but not often fatal, or even dangerous. To take the nib from an adversary's nose, or to pare a small rind from his ear, is ample vengeance even for the blood-thirsty.

glove soiled by contact with the rosy fingers of the fairest and most accomplisted anong bankers' wives. The nobles so intermarrying and so looking down contemptuously upon the brain and sinew of the land, have, as a matter of course.

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