and whose patriotism, in the right sense of the word, no one could suspect. Arndt says he had nothing to do with the plot or conspiracy itself; he was merely chosen as the hand to put it into execution; and a bold hand certainly was required to take a royal son of Wasa in his own den by the beard. A man was required who could look at steel; the king was not a man to yield without a blow; in fact he did draw his sword, and but for the intervenvention of Silversparre, might have used it to some purpose. The bold aggressor and king-deposer is thus drawn at full length by our brave Rubens. "Adlerkreutz is nothing but a soldier; but this he is thoroughly. For long intrigues and intricate conspiracies, he has no talent and no patience. Courage, carelessness, and cheerfulness, are painted in his every act and gesture. Unquestionably he has ambition-altogether without ambition no public man can be what he is—but Adlerkreutz feels the freedom and the dignity of the man too much, to suffer the mastery of that terrible passion which creeps now like the snake, smiles now like the fox, and now consumes like the Furies. He bears with him the air of a man that can take what the day brings and make the best of it; but with all his light-heartedness, he preserves a collectedness,-with all his forgetfulness, a presence of mind, that is ever ready to collect any scattered energy, and arm itself in instantaneous mail for the deed of danger. Adlerkreutz is the image of the most ready power of concentration. He is of a middle stature, and close set; uniting strength of body with agility of movement. His broad and cheerful brow depicts the dauntless and the fortunate soldier; his clear merry eye beams forth prudence and cunning. Round his sharply chiselled mouth and his manly chin there plays at times an expression of voluptuousness; but he that understands to read the features of the human face, soon discerns that coolness and collectedness are the guides and goddesses of his life, who stand as his faithful guards and sentinels, even on those occasions when he allows himself to float carelessly with laughter-loving fools upon the bickering tide of the moment. Adlerkreutz may be outmanœuvred and deceived on occasion by paltry tricks which he neither knows nor needs, but he will nevertheless always do what he has willed to do: nay, the out-manoeuvrers and the deceivers themselves he will force in the end to do his will, and not theirs." Those who admit the expediency of the Swedish Revolution generally, and consider the deposition of the reigning monarch as a thing that in the circumstances could not well be avoided, are apt to object to the sweeping style in which it was executed-to the wholesale abandonment and outcasting of an ancient famous and well-deserving race which it involved. It is hard to see why the conspirators might not have adopted the same course that their party had done in the case of the assassination of Gustavus III.; appointed a regency, and waited for the majority of the son of the deposed monarch. This would have been both more gentle towards the monarch, who was unfortunate rather than culpable, and more "patriotic" towards the nation, whose sounder heart would beat in more loyal sympathy to a descendant of Gustavus Wasa, than to any foreign, Danish or French, prince adoptive. But the necessity of the moment urged; and besides the personal safety of the chief actors, a matter which they could not easily disregard, the nobility had an old hereditary enmity with all princes of the Wasa stock; and while the Muscovite czar was knocking at their door, salvation was looked for nowhere, by the foreign-fangled "French of the north," but in French alliance, and in the patronage of the Europe-feared "hero of all centuries:" for so Adlersparre, the leader of the western army, in his proclamation above mentioned, published to the stupid people the expected countenance of Napoleon. But the dynasty of Bernadotte is what the French politicians call "an accomplished fact;" and we shall act more wisely than Mr. Laing in letting it alone. The king himself is now eighty years of age, and cannot live in the common course of nature to do much more harm or good by the large exercise of his royal veto against the quinquennial army of bills by which he is besieged. The crown-prince has one plain duty: to reign heart and hand as a true Swede, as Gustavus Wasa did of yore, the brother of the brave Dalecarlian yeomen rather than the servant of the nobility in Stockholm. If he does this-and he may be assured there is no other way of making a new dynasty strong in any country, much less in Sweden-he has no cause to vex himself with apprehensions about Russia, whatever some persons may speculate. That extraordinary power had played out its game of aggrandizement on the Baltic at the peace of Frederickshamm, 17th of September, 1809. Those who wish to observe the further motions, must look to the Black Sea, and the banks of the Danube. ART. III.-L'Histoire de Dix Ans, 1830-1840. Par M. LOUIS THIS is a remarkable work. So strong is the sensation it has created in Germany, as well as in France, that we must introduce it to the notice of our readers, in spite of its incomplete state. Three volumes of the promised five have already appeared. Three editions were demanded of the first volume before the second was published, although the publication takes place by weekly livraisons. The second and third volumes have already had two large editions, the demand increasing. as And this success is explained by the talent of the author no less than by the absorbing interest of the theme. The ten years, 1830-1840, were troubled, stirring, and important times to every European nation: to none so much as France. The revolution of July those Glorious Three Days; the revolutions of Poland and Belgium; the siege of Antwerp; the insurrections at Lyons and Grenoble, with the countless conspiracies and insurrections at Paris; the cholera morbus, with its eighteen thousand victims in Paris alone; the Duchesse de Berri and La Chouanerie; the taking of Algiers; five attempts at regicide; St. Simonism; Republicanism, and innumerable other 'isms:' these are brilliant subjects, brilliantly treated by M. Louis Blanc. L'Histoire de Dix Ans' is one of those works so often libelled by being called " interesting as a novel:' were novels a tithe as interesting, they would be what they pretend. It has all that we require in a novel, and much more. It is a narrative of events real, striking, absorbing: the subjects of immense interest to all readers, and the style unusually excellent. As a narrative we know of few to compare with it, even in French History. Eloquent, earnest, rapid, brief yet full of detail; it has the vividness of Carlyle or Michelet, without transgressing the rules of classic taste. The style, though not free from an occasional inelegance, is remarkable for concinnity and picturesqueness, alternating between rhetoric and epigram. The spirit of the work is avowedly republican. The author never disguises his sympathies or convictions; yet at the same time is fully alive to all the errors of his party, and reveals the true causes of their ill success. Impartial he is not: no man with strong convictions can be so. You cannot hold one idea to be sacred, and regard its opponents as priests; you cannot believe one course of policy tyrannous and destructive, yet look upon its ministers as enlightened patriots. All that impartiality can do is to make allowance for difference of opinion, and not deny the sincerity of an opponent: to anathematize the doctrine not the man. Blanc is, in this sense, tolerably impartial. M. Louis 'L'Histoire de dix Ans' is not conspicuous for any profound views; its philosophy is often but philosophic rhetoric. But it is not without excellent aperçus, and acute penetration of motives. There is a great deal of the Journalist visible in the work. M. Blanc is a young man still, edits La Revue du Progrès,' and is more familiar with Journalism than with social science. His work manifests both the advantages and disadvantages of such a condition. If the Journalist is incapable of that calm review of things, and those laborious generalizations, which the social philosopher elaborates from his abstract point of view: yet is he the more conversant with the concrete special instances, more familiar with the motives and passions of political parties, more ready to understand every coup d'état. M. Blanc shows a thorough penetration into the spirit of each party, and sees the germs of strength or of disease. He has lived amongst conspirators; dined with legitimatists; been familiar with Bonapartists. Above all he understands the national spirit: its reckless daring, insouciance, gaiety, love of excitement, of military glory, idolatry of symbols, and facility of being led away by a sonorous word, or pompous formula. One of the people himself, he rightly understands the people's nature. We may illustrate this power of penetration by the citation of two of the numerous epigrams with which his book abounds. Speaking of the incompetence of the Legitimatists to shake the Orleans dynasty he says, • Les révolutions se font avec des haines fortes et de violents désirs: les légitimistes n'avaient guère que des haines.** The second is really a profound mot: of the Buonapartist party he says: il avait un drapeau plutôt qu'un principe. C'était là l'invincible cause de son impuissance.'t. An excellence not to be overlooked in his book is the portraiture of remarkable men. Louis Philippe, Lafayette, Lafitte, Casimir Périer, Guizot, Thiers, Odillon Barrot, Mauguin, Armand Carrel, and Dupont (de l'Eure), with many others, are brought out in strong relief. But M. Louis Blanc describes a character mostly by epigrams. This has the advantage of effect, and of producing a lasting impression; with the disadvantage of all epigrams, in sacrificing a portion of the truth to effect. Nothing can be happier than the way he hits off the restlessness of Thiers: 'plus d'inquiétude que d'activité, plus de turbulence que d'audace.' But it is surely too much to talk of Metternich as 6 un homme d'état sans initiative et sans portée.' The portrait of Lafayette may be quoted as a fair specimen of the author's judgment of men. * Revolutions are effected by means of strong hatreds and violent desires: the legitimatists had scarcely any thing but hatreds. It had a Banner rather than a Principle. Therein lay the invincible cause of its impotence. Character of Lafayette. 63 "As to M. de Lafayette, at that time he could have done every thing and he decided on nothing. His virtue was brilliant yet fatal. In creating for him an influence superior to his capacity, it only served to annul in his hands a power, which, in stronger hands, would have altered the destinies of France. Nevertheless Lafayette had many qualities essential to a commander. His language as well as his manners presented a rare mixture of finesse and bonhommie, of grace and austerity, of dignity with haughtiness, and of familiarity without coarseness. To the one class he would always have remained a grand seigneur, although mixed up with the mob; to the others he was born one of the people, in spite of his illustrious origin. Happy privilege of preserving all the advantages of high birth, and of making them be pardoned! Add moreover that M. de Lafayette possessed at the same time the penetration of a sceptical and the warmth of a believing soul; that is to say, the double power of fascinating and containing his audience. In the carbonari meetings he spoke with fiery energy. At la chambre he was a witty and charming orator. What then did he want? Geniusand more than that, will. M. de Lafayette willed nothing hardily, because, unable to direct events, he would have been pained at seeing them directed by another. In this sense he was afraid of every one, but more than all of himself. Power enchanted, but frightened him; he would have braved its perils, but he dreaded its embarrassments. Full of courage, he was entirely deficient in audacity. Capable of nobly suffering violence, he was incapable of employing it with profit. The only head that he could have delivered to the executioner, without trembling, was his own. "As long as he had to preside over a provisionary government, he was competent, he was enchanted. Surrounded by a little court, at the Hôtel de Ville, he enjoyed the boisterous veneration which was paid to his age and celebrity, enjoyed it with an almost infantile naïveté. In that cabinet, where they governed by signatures, there was considerable fuss about very little action. This was a situation admirably adapted to small intellects, because amidst these sterile agitations, they deluded themselves respecting the terror which they felt for all decisive acts." M. Louis Blanc, in several cases, shows the fatal effects to the republican party of Lafayette's want of audacity. It is certain that this quality, which served Danton instead of genius, is indispensable in revolutions: as M. Blanc admirably says: In times of struggle audacity is prudence; for in a revolution confidence has all the advantages of chance.' 6 'L'Histoire de Dix Ans' opens with a preliminary sketch of the state of parties from the return of the Bourbons and banishment of Napoleon to Elba, down to the commencement of the revolution of 1830. This is one of the best portions of the book. The author vividly shows how completely the Restoration was the work of the bourgeoisie. Napoleon fell because he wished to make France military, and the tendencies of the nation at large were |