strength is gone, but his mental powers are still unimpaired. He allowed me to take a short walk with him. He is a Royalist as he has been a Bonapartist, being preeminently a man of order. But all his royalist feelings have been unable to shake his well-known infidelity. In the course of our stroll we saw many young clergymen crossing the garden towards the ecclesiastical school of St. Sulpice. I remarked that Laplace seemed much agitated at the sight. At last he asked me, "What do you think, Sir, is the grossest absurdity that man ever uttered?" I was surprised at the question, and acknowledged myself baffled. "It is the doctrine of transubstantiation," said he, "because it violates the laws both of time and space." I doubt (said I mentally) if the Government of Charles X. will get any very strong support from Royalists like him. May 15th.-To-day Charles X. held a great levee. I was introduced with a host of other foreigners, who were presented by the diplomatic agents of their respective courts. These introductions are a necessary preliminary to receiving invitations to the fêtes, such as balls, theatrical performances, &c., which will take place at court in honor of the Sacre. There was a considerable crowd, and, as we remained standing for five hours, every one was tired out. The spectacle was very brilliant, all the men being in their national uniforms, and the ladies in gorgeous court-dresses. The King looked cheerful, and was exceedingly courteous. He is a tall man, about seventy years of age, of aristocratic manners and benevolent but insignificant countenance, and looks more like a Romish ecclesiastic of high rank than the chief of a martial nation. I was struck with his exact resemblance to the sculptured portraits of the ancient Aztec kings, which are still to be seen amidst the ruins of Palenque. He has the prominent aquiline nose, the turgid lips, and the other distinguishing features of those mysterious American monarchs, whose history, and even names, are extinct, while they themselves live in sculptured effigies preserved in a desert. In leaving the presencechamber we were ordered to walk backwards, with our eyes directed reverentially towards the King--a regulation which took most of the persons who attended the levee by surprise. This odd custom, with which very few of the present generation are acquainted, requires a little drilling to be dexterously performed. So embarrassing a mode of retreat, added to the other obstructions of a crowd, produced great confusion, and much suppressed merriment. For my part, I trod on the train of the superb lace dress of an English Dowager. A large hole was the consequence, in which my foot got entangled, as in a sort of trap, from which I could only extricate myself by increasing the ravages I had made in the toilette of my right honorable neighbor. Rather confused at the event, I quickened my backward walk, and came plump upon the toe of a Prince of Salm, a sort of German giant, who, imprisoned in a stiff uniform, swore at me in a tone of concentrated anger, but without changing a feature of his immovable countenance. May 16th.--I heard to-day a lecture of M. Villemain. He is a man of great learning and taste, and I am told his style is the most classical, of any living French author. The hall was thronged to excess, and the Professor was cheered enthusiastically. In the course of the lecture two young ecclesiastics endeavored to enter the crowded hall. All the audience rose at once, and screamed with tremendous roars, "Down with the priests! down with the calottins!" M. Villemain exerted himself to the utmost to quell the disturbance, and to restore silence, indicating by his gestures that he had something to say. When he was able to make himself heard, he said that the lectures were open to the public, and that ecclesiastics had as much right as other people to enter the hall, adding with a delicate irony, "and let them come here to acquire instruction." Long cheers and laughter proved to the celebrated professor that the audience well understood his malicious remark. June 8th.-The great ball given to Charles X. by the city of Paris, in honor of the coronation, took place last night at the Hôtel de Ville. The crowd was immense, and the etiquette was far from being so rigid as at the Tuilleries. In fact, it was the fête of the bourgeoisie, with a sprinkling of the classes above and also of those below. It is so difficult to draw the line where the grades from the wealthy banker down to the obscure wine-merchant pass almost insensibly into one another, that, in spite of the attempt to be select in the invitations, it was impossible to avoid an incongruous mixture of dresses, manners, and conversation. A good deal of the behavior was by no means aristocratic. Some of the incidents were all the more bizarre that the actors in them were dressed in the ancient habit à la Française, or court costume of a marquis of the last century viz., silk or velvet embroidered dress, and sword. As the large temporary room which had been erected for the entertainment was entirely of wood, a basin, filled with water, was placed at each of the corners, to be ready in the event of a fire. The crowd was dense, the heat oppressive, the thirst great, and the moment a servant attempted to enter with ices or other refreshments, he was surrounded at the door, and every thing disappeared in the tumultuous scramble. A few ices were conveyed in safety to the ladies, but they had to be escorted by Guards with fixed bayonets. Even this special convoy was, for some reason or other, not accompanied by the requisite spoons--it was rumored, from the fear of the thieves who, in the costume of marquises, might have gained admittance to the ball. At last the thirst became insupportable, a rush was made at the guarded attendants for the empty cups, and hundreds in succession drank deep potations of the water contained in the firemen's basins, which was none of the purest. The King traversed the salons amidst an escort of courtiers and generals, and retired early from the disorderly assembly. For the rest of the company the retreat was not easy. The immense multitude of carriages took the guests up slowly, and at broad daylight a great many ladies were to be seen in a state of exhaustion, on the steps of the Hôtel de Ville, waiting for their voitures. Worn out with fatigue, I imitated several others by walking home in my antiquated marquis's dress, to the great amusement of the peasants and workmen, who were now on their way to the neighboring market. June 14th.-While breakfasting this morning with a friend, at the Café Tortoni, several gentlemen near us were speaking upon politics. Their conversation was animated, and we overheard nearly all they said. I was astonished at the unreserved manner in which they spoke of the most delicate matters-for instance, schemes of conspiracies, with names, plans, and all other circumstances. They talked as if they were alone in the middle of a desert. When their company broke up, one of them, a splendid specimen of manhood, at least six feet three inches in height, came to shake hands with my friend. By the usual introduction I learned that his name was Laberge, and that, being a physician, he had acquired a great influence over workmen and low people. He spoke at considerable length about secret societies, which he maintained were able to overthrow the government. He added that there had been a project of stabbing the Procureur-Général, M. Bellart, well known for his dislike to the Liberals, and that several members of a secret society, himself being one, had their names drawn to determine which of them should do the deed. He assured us that the accomplishment of the murder only failed from accidental circumstances, and would, no doubt, be undertaken again. When he left us, I asked my friend if all that I saw was a masquerade, or, if rue, whether it was possible that such things could be revealed in a public coffee-house ?" "Of course," answered he, "there is always great exaggeration in such cases, but it is not improbable that the main point of what Dr. Laberge has told us is correct. Frenchmen, and chiefly the people of Paris, do not know what it is to keep a secret: but as rumors of every kind, many of them of the most absurd description, are continually propagated from morning till night, truth is almost as effectually concealed amidst the endless variety of reports, as if it had never been whispered to a soul. June 20th.—It is a curious fact that several of the most eminent men now in Paris are all of the most diminutive stature. Laplace, Poisson, Guizo, are hardly, I think, five feet high. To-day I dined tête-à-tête with another celebrated man, Fourier, one of the secretaries of the Academy of Sciences, and he is as short as the others. Last week, while I was passing by the office of the Constitutionnel newspaper, a friend showed me another little man, M. Thiers, who is acquiring great celebrity by his spirited articles in the newspapers, and chiefly by a history in glorification of the French Revolution, of which the opening volumes are just published. If, as they say, he is one of the future great men of France, he has at least the requisite small stature.* *This will recall what Lord Clarendon has said of the persons who flourished during the Civil Wars, when, after remarking that Chillingworth was of small stature, he adds, that it was "an age in which many great and wonderful men were of that size." The life of Fourier has been filled with remarkable vicissitudes. He was born at Auxerre, and educated by the Benedictine monks. At the Revolution he was obliged, like his learned teachers, to conceal himself. He was préfet of Grenoble, and in that capacity the ci-devant Benedictine_was directed to receive Pope Pius VII., whom Bonaparte arrested at Rome, and afterwards sent disguised in the uniform of a gendarme (to prevent any popular demonstrations in his favor) from Italy to France. The illustrious prisoner was transmitted under escort from one station of gendarmes to another, and at each stage a receipt was given for the prisoner by the officers who received him to those who consigned him to their care. It is said that so disrespectfully was the Pope treated by these successive relays of guards, that the receipts were usually couched in the words, "Received a Pope in good condition." Fourier is a wit and a most amusing talker. "You do not know this nation, Sir," said he; "they are cheerful and witty, but restless, and without any steady political sense. They like change for the sake of change itself, and they do every thing by impulse, passing suddenly from one extremity to another. They now seem infatuated with the charter; but the fact is, that, the doctrinaires excepted, who are men of great talent but not numerous, every one wants to have it destroyed. The conduct of the Liberals, who have the immense majority of the nation with them, evidently tends towards another revolution; and indeed they infer, from the instance of England in the seventeenth century, that the restoration must be followed by a change of dynasty, while the Royalists speak every day of the necessity of tearing the charter to pieces in order to check the progress of democracy. I witnessed the first revolution, and to me there are infallible signs of another; but I am an old and worn-out man, and I shall not see my countrymen falling again into the pit which they are cheerfully and blindly approaching. A catastrophe is unavoidable, the immense majority of the nation being against the Government, which has only a nominal power, while the true power is in public opinion, which is led by the newspapers. Look everywhere, and you will observe the omnipotence of the liberal newspapers. Even the Academy of Sciences, which by the nature of its studies you would think free from the influence, is overruled by the journals. As Laplace is a Royalist, the public is taught, and with success, that he is not a good mathematician; and, the Constitutionnel newspaper having insinuated that M. Biot was a sort of Jesuit, nobody now gives him any credit for his discoveries in optics. Even Cuvier is sometimes silenced by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, who has secured for himself the support of the liberal party; and we have recently seen the most eminent medical man on the continent (Dupuytren) rejected by the Academy, only because he was said to be supported by the King. Ah, Sir, we are a singular nation! You are young, but before the end of your life you will have learned that men do not deserve that truth should be spoken to them." July 9th.-I have been this evening at a small party at General Desprez', Director of the Ecole d'Etat Major, (the staff,) who is, I am told, in fa- | well as fear; convalescence requires almost as vor at court. The company was select and cheer- ❘ much care as the approach of disease ful; Madame Desprez introduced me to several ladies, with whom I began to speak of Jocko, just now the talk of Paris. Jocko is a drama, which derives its name from a monkey, whose part is represented by an admirable actor of the name of Mazurier, who wonderfully imitates every movement and gesture of a real ape. Poor Jocko, who is of course a miracle of intelligence and good feeling, and who is particularly attached to his master's son, perceiving an enormous serpent on the point of springing upon the child, catches him up and ascends some rocks to save the boy from the monster. At this moment the master comes back, and, as he does not see the serpent, he supposes that the monkey is running away with his child, and shoots poor Jocko, whose melancholy death moves the audience to tears. My fair companions seemed so much affected at the remembrance, that, with the view of enlivening the company, Madame Desprez proposed a little music, and asked a gentleman to sing. He sang the "Complaint of Papavoine." This personage is either a criminal or a madman, who, without any imaginable motive, lately murdered two children in the neighborhood of Paris. As usual, a complainte was composed on the subject. This is so full of fun, that the whole company, and especially the ladies whose compassion had been so moved for Jocko, were convulsed with laughter. As Papavoine is a murderer, he must of course be a Royalist, and the laughter rose to its highest point when the singer came to such verses as the following: Je suis bon Royaliste, At the end of the soirée I could not help thinking that in Paris it was better to be a monkey than a man, but that the safest thing of all was not to be a Royalist. These quotations, in addition to their general interest, are sufficient to show that the establishment of a parliamentary government in France was almost impossible at the very moment that the nation seemed enthusiastically disposed towards it. Fourier was not the only man who foresaw a stormy future. When, in 1828, after the general election and under the Martignac ministry, the whole of France was in ecstacies at the victory of the liberal party, M. Guizot, who had been restored to his chair, opened his admirable course on the history of civilization by advising an immense and enthusiastic audience not to be intoxicated with their great success. During three years M. Guizot continued, with increasing success, to set forth in his lecture the progress of civilization. When they were afterwards published, they were immediately translated into almost every European language. Though compelled to restrain his subject within narrow limits, the sagacity of the author is so penetrating, his erudition so vast, and his philosophical method so accurate, that by a happy selection of important facts, grouped round a single idea, each lecture becomes a vivid picture of one of the most striking features of general civilization, while the reünion of the parts forms a homogeneous and connected history. One capital merit of the work is, that the facts are neither disfigured nor selected with a view to confirm some preconceived theory, but the theory is honestly deduced from the facts. This would have been more apparent if M. Guizot had added to the lectures when he published them some of the most important of the documents and quotations upon which his views are founded. Every student of history knows the necessity of these appendages. We are inclined to think that in the History of Gibbon, for instance, the notes are hardly less valuable than the text and we are persuaded, if M. Guizot would annotate with extracts from his authorities a new edition of his work, that they would not only illustrate but confirm his conclusions, and facilitate the inquiries of those who wish to follow in his footsteps.* The freedom from fanciful speculations. which distinguishes the work of M. Guizot, has been rendered more conspicuous by the subsequent extravagances of what has been called the French philosophical historical school, which has proved so mischievous to the excited minds of modern Utopians. This spirit of system has led men who are in many respects persons of uncommon talent into the grossest absurdities. M. Michelet, who has long been considered by the republicans among his countrymen as the dictator of philosophical history, paid a few years ago a short visit to England. At that time a sharp discussion was going on in the French newspapers with respect to the duty which was paid on the foreign cattle imported into * If the other works upon which he is engaged are a bar to the undertaking, his son, M. Guillaume Guizot, who has started so propitiously in his literary career, could find no worthier or more ap"Good fortune," he said, "is hazardous, deli-propriate task than to supply the deficiency under the direction of the author. cate, and fragile; hope ought to be moderated as France, and which, it was contended, prevented the lower classes from obtaining a sufficient quantity of animal food. As soon as he returned to Paris, M. Michelet hastened to publish his opinions on the state of England, and acknowledged-an extraordinary confession for a Frenchman-a sort of superiority of the English over the French. With his mind full of the cattle controversy, he maintained that this superiority was solely due to the larger quantity of meat eaten by an Englishman than a Frenchman; and in proof of his assertion he added, "It must be remembered that Shakspeare, the most eminent genius of England, was a journeyman butcher." His solitary fact is probably as fictitious as his theory; and we are surprised that when he set about mystifying his republican friends, he should have been so modest in his assertions, and not have told them at once that Bacon, Newton, Pitt, and Wellington, all belonged to that grand school of genius, the Corporation of Butchers. As soon as M. Guizot had attained the age required by the charter, he was elected a member of the Chamber of Deputies. He was returned for the town of Lisieux, and succeeded the celebrated chemist Vauquelin. He took part in the struggle of the liberal party against the Polignac ministry, voted for the celebrated address of the Two Hundred and Twenty-one, and being absent from Paris at the appearance of the famous ordonnances of July, 1830, he hastened back in order to resist them. Some of the leading republican celebrities are said to have exactly reversed the operation, and to have hurried from Paris at the critical moment. The result is well known. An ancient dynasty was again overthrown, and Charles X., with the royal family, set out for a new and sorrowful exile. This time they at least received in their journey all the marks of respect which France so seldom pays to its fallen princes. As the great powers (England perhaps excepted) looked with distrust and suspicion on a dynasty founded, as they deemed, not only on a revolution but on usurpation, the French Government had to contend at once with internal foes and foreign ill-will. From the first day the basis of the future policy was settled by Louis Philippe and his advisers at home, the faithful execution of the new constitution and respect for the laws; the development of all the moral conquests of the Revolution of 1789, coupled with a firm opposition to the war party, and to any further extension of democratic principles; abroad, peace upon honorable terms; observance of treaties, and, above all, an intimate alliance with England. It was principally because M. Guizot was known to be a great admirer of English institutions and a supporter of the English alliance, and because at the same time he was a man of liberal principles, whom the Revolution of 1830 had taught the necessity of resisting the popular passions, (de faire volte face, as it was then termed,) that he gained from the first the confidence of the King. After the events of July he was appointed Minister of the Interior. He subsequently held for several years the Ministry of Public Instruction. From 1840 to 1848 he was Minister of Foreign Affairs; and while retaining that office, he became Prime Minister in September, 1847, on the retirement of Marshal Soult. As Minister of the Interior, and while the workmen of Paris, intoxicated with their recent victory and excited by revolutionary leaders, were daily parading the streets by thousands, he took decisive measures against the republicans, who still hoped to confiscate the constitutional government, for their own exclusive advantage, and who were burning to fight against the whole of Europe, in order to recover all the conquests of Bonaparte. The National Guard having spontaneously suppressed the republican club of the Manège Pellier, in the Rue Montmartre, M. Guizot strongly supported in the Chamber this decisive act. The result was, that the popular societies which were then threatening and alarming Paris were completely crushed. In 1831 M. Guizot contended with all his might against the abolition of the hereditary peerage; but though he was aided in his opposition by the eloquence of M. Thiers, their efforts were vain. An act which was a severe blow, not only to the monarchical principle, but to the establishment of any durable government whatever, was resisted by only eighty-six votes, which occasioned the remark, that France possessed one man of good sense for each department. In 1833, when Minister of Public Instruction, M. Guizot introduced a bill on popular education, which was adopted by the Chambers. This bill, by which, for the first time, education was made obligatory in all the thirty-nine thousand communes of France, and rendered gratuitous for the poor, was exclusively due to the man whom his political antagonists accused of opposing every thing which was for the advantage of the people. The truth is, as this bill proved, that he was as much the friend of the moral and intel lectual progress of the lower classes as he was hostile to the exercise of their brute force. A measure so eminently democratical was, however, beyond the intelligence of the French democracy, by whom it was resisted, and in a great number of communes they rendered its application almost impossible, by refusing to allow an adequate salary to the masters. Hence thousands of the unfortunate elementary teachers, most of whom had undergone a long probation in the normal schools, were obliged for years to work at the most fatiguing farm labor, in order to eke out their miserable pittance of £12 per annum. Several other bills on the press, on juries, and particularly on communal organization, introduced or supported by M. Guizot, proved on trial to give more power to the people than they could use with discretion. In the few first perilous years which followed the Revolution of 1830, all the most conspicuous partisans of parliamentary government united their energies and their talents in support of the Orleans dy nasty. They worked and struggled together without displaying any visible rivalry; and in order to secure the triumph of their cause, they even submitted to the imperious rule of Casimir Perier, who may be said to have sacrificed to the public good a life which was abridged by the envenomed attacks of the extreme parties. Subsequently France became less agitated, the fear of new disturbances diminished, and security being almost reëstablished, the jealousies of the leaders began to revive. The origin of the struggle which broke up the conservative party may be traced to the attempt of Louis Napoleon at Strasburg in 1836. Louis Philippe, who was remarkable for his clemency, decided, with the approbation of his ministry, not to send the imperial adventurer to trial, and accordingly Louis Napoleon was conveyed to America, while his accomplices, soldiers or civilians, were brought to trial before the juries of Strasburg, who, as is well known, took offence at the favor shown to the principal offender, and acquitted the prisoners en masse. A bill introduced by the Government, providing for the separate trial in all cases of soldiers and civilians, was rejected; M. Guizot resigned, and Count Molé remained Prime Minister. The situation of a ministry from which men like M. Guizot and M. Thiers stood aloof, was delicate enough, but was rendered more precarious still by the false supposition indulged in by its members that all danger was passed. In consequence of this delusion, M. Guizot and his adherents were reproached with having wantonly exaggerated the difficulty of affairs by groundless suspicion and unnecessary severity. The accusation led to that formidable coalition which, in overthrowing the Molé ministry, broke and dissolved the conservative majority, to the irreparable injury of the Government of Louis Philippe. This must undoubtedly have been one of the most painful periods in the life of M. Guizot, seeing that the counter section of the conservatives rivalled the most impetuous republicans in their assaults upon his reputation. It was not only in private conversations or in anonymous pamphlets that the accusations were promulgated. In large and professedly sober works for inworks-for stance, in the great biography of the men of the day, by Messrs. Sarrut and St. Edme, (a Republican and an ultra-Catholic)—the aspersions were repeated; and M. Guizot, who under Louis XVIII. had voluntarily retired from high offices to live in poverty, was charged with committing the most shameful acts, in order, as they said, to retain a small office in 1815, during the Cent Jours. While the clamors were going on, M. Guizot published his well-known essay on Washington, which was received with such applause, even on the other side of the Atlantic, that the portrait of the author was ordered by the Americans to be hung up in the library of Congress. The Turkish question, which in another form is now the European difficulty of the day, failed, in 1840, to set the world in flames. M. Thiers was then Prime Minister, and M. Guizot ambassador to England. Upon this occasion the King said to him, "Will you be created a Count? a title is sometimes useful." The proffered honor was declined, and Louis Philippe replied, "You are right; your name alone is sufficient, and is a higher dignity." In his capacity of ambassador M. Guizot foresaw the treaty of the 15th of July, and did his utmost to appease the extraordinary excitement which it produced in France. On the 29th of October M. Thiers quitted office, and M. Guizot was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. The new Cabinet was probably the strongest of all the ministries formed during the reign of Louis Philippe; but strong and weak Cabinets alike had no sinecure office. Not to speak of the ordinary business, and the battles fought every day in the Chambers, to which all parties in all free countries are exposed, they had so many peculiar anxieties from the critical position of affairs, and the venom of contending factions, that the strongest con |