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and as an author and politician of diffusive fame, he must be, in whatever touches his past or present career, an object of particular interest for Americans. His Memoirs have been brought down only to the year 1790; he is now engaged in digesting a narrative of events in which he has, more or less, taken a part during the last thirty-six years. We do not know how many volumes it may fill; but when we advert to the unparalleled transactions and vicissitudes of that period, in France, and the offices which he held under the government of Napoleon, we conclude that the second series will be as rich as the first in "portraits, anecdotes and facts."

The first of the three present volumes was issued in 1825; and the second, last year. Their contents have been noticed in so many reviews, that we must satisfy ourselves, in regard to them, with a very rapid or general survey. The third, which has just appeared in London and Paris, being fresh and of brighter texture, may be described and quoted in more detail.

Notwithstanding that these Memoirs have not all the poignancy and animation which were anticipated pursuant to the characteristic powers of the author, and to which the similar French productions have accustomed the lovers of such food; and although rather too much commonplace history has been introduced into them, and we find, here and there, what the French call bavardage, and some things which might be pronounced romance or imaginative memory,-yet we prefer them on the whole, to the plurality of the other and more highly seasoned volumes of the same class, which constitute so large and curious a portion of French literature, and develope the internal condition of France, during the eighteenth century especially, in the manner the most desirable for the gratification of the inquirer, and the study of human nature. Our Count, while he designates prevalent vices and depraved habits, draws no licentious pictures: if we can now and then suspect him of a little exaggeration or invention, voluntary or involuntary, he may be, in general, securely trusted; and he writes so much as an eye-witness, an immediate actor, and deals with transactions, results and characters, of consequence so mighty, that his pages combine a peculiar historical value and attraction, which, we doubt not, will be doubly appreciated by future generations, particularly in the volumes to come, supposing them to be marked by an equal degree of candour and intelligence. He displays more frankness, liberality, and sound moral sentiment, than veteran diplomatists and courtiers usually retain in any situation or proceeding; and he seems to love and honour that spirit and system of liberty which it was never his good fortune to witness elsewhere than in the United States and England.

His first volume embraces a clear and sufficiently ample account of the original feelings and transactions, in France, with reference to our Revolution. The fashionable mood, even at court, is illustrated fully by one such anecdote as the following:

"I recollect the astonishment with which I, though young and giddy and enthusiastic, witnessed the whole court, in the theatre of the Palace of Versailles, applauding with rapture Voltaire's tragedy of Brutus, and particularly these two lines:

'Je suis fils de Brutus, et je porte en mon cœur,

La liberté gravée, et les rois en horreur.'"

We have in the first volume, also, much that is interesting in respect to Voltaire and Lafayette, with whom the author was closely connected; and a lively relation of his own voyage and arrival in this country to join Rochambeau's army; of his personal knowledge and impressions of Washington; and his observations on the American people. He is abundantly kind towards all; and not sparing in the recital of our military movements and exploits.

The second volume opens with his return to France from his American campaigns. A few days after he reached Paris, the minister, Vergennes, stated to him forebodings, which were realized, "of the future destinies of the new American republic, and the influence which its example would have on many countries." The administration of Calonne and other statesmen; the predispositions to revolution in France; the faculties and characters of the eminent French philosophers and writers of the era; and the author's residence in England, with the highest society; are copiously described. On his route to Russia, as ambassador, he sojourned in the principal cities, and communed with the most exalted persons. His interviews with Frederick the Great, and the anecdotes of that master-spirit, which he gleaned in various opportunities, supplied precious materials, of which he has made the best use. He has introduced into the second volume fine delineations of Stanislas and the Poles; of princes Henry of Prussia, Potemkin, and de Ligne; of Catherine II., and her course of government; of Russia and Russian society, and the interior of the Russian court. Catherine distinguished him by habitual intimacy and confidential esteem; and he makes no ungrateful return in his general portrait and particular traits of that extraordinary woman, at the same time that he does not attempt to conceal nor elaborately varnish her faults and excesses. Frederick the Great freely disclosed to him his own ideas of her character and situation, excusing, with very plausible suggestions, her share in the conspiracy against her husband, and denying that she was in any manner privy to his murder, though cir

cumstances obliged her to retain the perpetrators of the crime near her person and in the sunshine of her favour. The fact of absolute guilt or innocence, or the degree of connivance, antecedent or subsequent, in this case, are matters nearly certain to continue inscrutable, unless, as occasionally happens to the most covert and mysterious of human motives and deeds, chance should reveal some latent and decisive proof.

Prince Henry of Prussia, nearly the equal of his brother Frederick in military and civil talents, and the tactics and successes of the field, stated directly to Ségur, the origin of the partition of Poland,-that most fruitful precedent of unsurpassed iniquity and evil. Catherine II. was generally supposed to have first conceived the project; but prince Henry averred, that the honour appertained to him: "L'imperatrice n'en a pas l'honneur, car je puis dire qu'il est mon ouvrage. We proceed to quote his statement, because there is scarcely any crime in the annals of nations more momentous and detestable:

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"I had been at St. Petersburgh, on a visit; and, on my return, I said to the king, my brother, Would you not be both greatly astonished and pleased, if I were to make you at once the possessor of a large portion of Poland? Surprised,' replied my brother, I certainly should be, but by no means pleased; for, in order to effect and preserve this conquest, it would be necessary for me to sustain a terrible war with Russia, Austria, and perhaps France. I risked once this great struggle, which was near involving me in total destruction. Let us stop here; we have enough of glory; we are old, and need repose.'

Then, in order to dissipate his fears, I related to him, that one day conversing with Catherine II., whilst she was speaking to me of the turbulent dispositions of the Poles, their anarchy, their factions, which, sooner or later, would make their country a theatre of war, into which the surrounding powers would inevitably be drawn, I conceived and imparted to her the idea of a partition, to which Austria would naturally consent without difficulty, as by that means her power would be augmented.

The empress was immediately struck by this project: 'It is a ray of light,' she said, and if the king, your brother, adopt this plan in concert with me, we have nothing to fear; either Austria will co-operate in this partition, or we will know how to constrain her to suffer it.'

Thus, sire,' added I, 'you see that such an aggrandizement depends now on nothing more than your own will.' My brother embraced me, thanked me, and entered promptly into a negotiation with Catherine and the court of Vienna. The emperor hesitated, and sounded the dispositions of France: but, perceiving that the weakness of the cabinet of Louis XV. left him no hope of succour, he yielded and quietly took his share. Thus, without fighting, without the loss of either blood or money, thanks to me, Prussia was aggrandized and Poland was divided.””

The readiness of Catherine's assent, and the superior share which she had in the execution of the design, entitled her to an ample quota of the honour. It has been argued, that she never, indeed, meditated the partition of Poland, because she meant to appropriate the whole kingdom to herself; and that nothing but the dread of losing the whole through the resistance of Prussia and Austria, could have induced her to yield a section to either. However this may be, no power can dispute with Russia the

palm of wrong and outrage generally towards the Poles. It is stated in Flassan's General History of French Diplomacy, (Histoire Générale et Raisonnée de la Diplomatie Française,)the seven volumes of which work embrace more curious and authentic materials for a general history of continental diplomacy, than any other with which we are acquainted-that the dismemberment of Poland was under the consideration of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, more than a century before the first blow was struck; and that it was agitated between Joseph II. and Frederick, in their conference at Neustadt, on the 5th December, 1770. The empress Maria Theresa expressed profound regret for the participation of Austria in the enormity. Her language, in 1775, to the French ambassador, Baron de Breteuil, as quoted in one of his official despatches, was,

"I know, Mr. Ambassador, that all that has just been done in Poland casts a broad stigma on my reign; but I assure you, that I should be pardoned, if the degree of repugnance which I felt were known, and how many circumstances conspired to do violence to my principles, as well as my resolves against all the exorbitant fancies of the unlawful ambition of Russia and Prussia. After much reflection, and seeing no mode of resisting alone the project of these powers, I thought that, by advancing on my part extravagant pretensions and demands, I should be repelled, and thus bring about a rupture of the negotiation; but my surprise and grief were extreme in finding, that all I asked was accorded," &c.

Maria Theresa was a wise and personally virtuous sovereign; but the bitterness of her affliction on this occasion, in reference to any other feature of the case than the aggrandizement of Russia and Prussia, may be questioned without a gross violation of probability or courtesy. When king Stanislas of Poland met Joseph II. of Austria, both being in attendance on Catherine at Kanieff, "the emperor," says Ségur, in his third volume, "received him well, and assured him that, far from projecting any new dismemberment of Poland, he would oppose any other powers which might be desirous of effecting it;" and Ségur, recollecting the different sequel, and prompted by his uniform experience of the conscientiousness of political rulers, then adds the exclamation-"Empty promise! in the eyes of sovereigns, who are the most severe in their private conduct, it is rarely thought necessary that policy should be restrained by the laws of morality: interest equally dictates the taking and the breaking of their oaths." The scrupulosity and resolutions of Joseph could be overcome, as well as those of his mother; but the testimony of the latter, as that of an accomplice in the spoliation of the territory and independence of Poland, proves what it is historically curious and important to know,-the sense which

See l'Histoire de l'Anarchie de Pologne, par Ruilhières. This author is accused of having indulged himself in much exaggeration, and written from private resentments; but most of his statements are supported by notorious events, and official documents.

the depredators entertained of their own conduct, and refutes or materially enfeebles the primary reasons, that some writers have pleaded in extenuation of the act. The partitioning powers had never been in a state of real common friendship: mutual jealousy and fear, not less than cupidity, stimulated them in their arrangements; what Prussia gained, and more, was as profligately wrested from her, in the time of Napoleon, by her old confederates; and never can they be, whatever aspect they may wear, otherwise than inimical to each other. In the season of the closest apparent alliance, causes and feelings of discord must lurk between them-discordiæ tacitæ, et quæ intelligerentur potius quam viderentur;-enmity better understood than seen. Burke, who indignantly reprobated the treatment of the Poles, and predicted the distant operation of the fell example,* observes, in relation to it, in his "Thoughts on French Affairs,"

"To my certain knowledge, if Great Britain had at that time been willing to concur in preventing the execution of a project so dangerous in the example, even exhausted as France then was by the preceding war, and under a lazy and anenterprising prince, she would, at every risk, have taken an active part in this business. But a languor with regard to so remote an interest, and the principles and passions which were then strongly at work at home, were the causes why Great Britain would not give France any encouragement in such an enterprise." It was a subject of lively complaint among the French politicians against their government, that resistance was not made, and carried to all extremities. If it had been attempted, it would have been from the motive of expediency, and not of sympathy with the plundered and oppressed; for, execrable as was the Russian scheme of action towards Poland, that of France, as it is authentically disclosed in Flassan's work, was scarcely less hostile and odious. The French system consisted in maintaining, by every available means-by false counsel, unlimited corruption, timely threats, occasional desertion and treachery, -the organized anarchy and internal distractions and weaknesses of the kingdom. We cannot refrain from translating, for our readers, a specimen of the instructions given by the court of Versailles, "the best friend and ally of Poland," to its ambassador at War

saw:

"The king of Poland, in his quality of king, is without power, and his reve nues are very slender. His kingdom is a vast open country for all the world. The higher orders are divided into parties, that follow only the impulses of interest or revenge; and who, to gain the offices or emoluments under the crown, are at one time for, and at another, against the court. The laws are interpreted according to the passions of the ministers, and are impotent; and the famous right of the nation, called the liberum veto, which is exercised by the delegates, forms a perpetual obstacle to every thing that might prove the means of good to the republic.

"Hereafter the world will have cause to rue this iniquitous measure, and they most who were most concerned in it." Letter II. on a Regicide Peace.

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