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battle, when Bonaparte returned to Paris, he | fuse a respectable office, with a salary of had not the least idea of being called upon 8000 louis, would certainly be considered as again to abdicate; but expected to obtain from fit for Bedlam: And in another place she obthe two chambers the means of renewing or serves, that it seems to be a fundamental continuing the contest. When he found that maxim in that country, that every man must this was impossible, he sunk at once into de- have a place. We confess that we have some spair, and resigned himself without a struggle. difficulty in reconciling these incidental intiThe selfishness which had guided his whole mations with her leading position, that the great career, disclosed itself in naked deformity in majority of the French nation is desirous of a the last acts of his public life. He abandoned free constitution, and perfectly fit for and dehis army the moment he found that he could not serving of it. If these be the principles, not lead it immediately against the enemy-and only upon which they act, but which they and no sooner saw his own fate determined, than their advocates avow, we know no constitution he gave up all concern for that of the unhappy under which they can be free; and have no country which his ambition had involved in faith in the power of any new institutions to such disasters. He quietly passed by the counteract that spirit of corruption by which, camp of his warriors on his way to the port even where they have existed the longest, by which he was to make his own escape- their whole virtue is consumed. and, by throwing himself into the hands of the English, endeavoured to obtain for himself the benefit of those liberal principles which it had been the business of his life to extirpate and discredit all over the world.

At this point Madame de Staël terminates somewhat abruptly her historical review of the events of the Revolution; and here, our readers will be happy to learn, we must stop too. There is half a volume more of her work, indeed, and one that cannot be supposed the least interesting to us, as it treats chiefly of the history, constitution, and society of England. But it is for this very reason that we cannot trust ourselves with the examination of it. We have every reason certainly to be satisfied with the account she gives of us; nor can any thing be more eloquent and animating than the view she has presented of the admirable mechanism and steady working of our constitution, and of its ennobling effects on the character of all who live under it. We are willing to believe all this too to be just; though we are certainly painted en beau. In some parts, however, we are more shocked at the notions she gives us of the French character, than flattered at the contrast exhibited by our own. In mentioning the good reception that gentlemen in opposition to government sometimes meet with in society, among us, and the upright posture they contrive to maintain, she says, that nobody here would think of condoling with a man for being out of power, or of receiving him with less cordiality. She notices also, with a very alarming sort of admiration, that she understood, when in England, that a gentleman of the law had actually refused a situation worth 6000l. or 7000l. a year, merely because he did not approve of the ministry by whom it was offered; and adds, that in France any man who would re- |

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With our manners in society she is not quite so well pleased;-though she is kind enough to ascribe our deficiencies to the most honourable causes. In commiserating the comparative dulness of our social talk, however, has not this philosophic observer a little overlooked the effects of national tastes and habits-and is it not conceivable, at least, that we who are used to it may really have as much satisfaction in our own hum-drum way of seeing each other, as our more sprightly neighbours in their exquisite assemblies? In all this part of the work, too, we think we can perceive the traces rather of ingenious theory, than of correct observation; and suspect that a good part of the tableau of English society is rather a sort of conjectural sketch, than a copy from real life; or at least that it is a generalization from a very few, and not very common examples. May we be pardoned too for hinting, that a person of Madame de Staël's great talents and celebrity, is by no means well qualified for discovering the true tone and character of English society from her own observation; both because she was not likely to see it in those smaller and more familiar assemblages in which it is seen to the most advantage, and because her presence must have had the unlucky effect of imposing silence on the modest, and tempting the vain and ambitious to unnatural display and ostentation.

With all its faults, however, the portion of her book which we have been obliged to pass over in silence, is well worthy of as ample a notice as we have bestowed on the other parts of it, and would of itself be sufficient to justify us in ascribing to its lamented author that perfection of masculine understanding, and female grace and acuteness, which are so rarely to be met with apart, and never, we believe, were before united.

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(February, 1816.)

Mémoires de MADAME LA MARQUISE DE LAROCHEJAQUELEIN; avec deux Cartes du Théatre de la Guerre de La Vendée. 2 tomes, 8vo. pp. 500. Paris: 1815.

THIS is a book to be placed by the side of extraordinary incidents, unexpected turns of Mrs. Hutchinson's delightful Memoirs of her fortune, and striking displays of individual heroic husband and his chivalrous Independ- talent, and vice and virtue, than the more soents. Both are pictures, by a female hand, lemn movements of national hostility; where of tumultuary and almost private wars, car- every thing is in a great measure provided ried on by conscientious individuals against and foreseen, and where the inflexible subthe actual government of their country:-and ordination of rank, and the severe exactions both bring to light, not only innumerable traits of a limited duty, not only take away the inof the most romantic daring and devoted ducement, but the opportunity, for those exfidelity in particular persons, but a general altations of personal feeling and adventure character of domestic virtue and social gen- which produce the most lively interest, and tleness among those who would otherwise lead to the most animating results. In the have figured to our imaginations as adventur- unconcerted proceedings of an insurgent popuous desperadoes or ferocious bigots. There lation, all is experiment, and all is passion. is less talent, perhaps, and less loftiness, either of style or of character, in the French than the English heroine. Yet she also has done and suffered enough to entitle her to that appellation; and, while her narrative acquires an additional interest and a truer tone of nature, from the occasional recurrence of female fears and anxieties, it is conversant with still more extraordinary incidents and characters, and reveals still more of what had been previously malignantly misrepresented, or entirely unknown.

Our readers will understand, from the titlepage which we have transcribed, that the work relates to the unhappy and sanguinary wars which were waged against the insurgents in La Vendée during the first and maddest years of the French Republic: But it is proper for us to add, that it is confined almost entirely to the transactions of two years; and that the detailed narrative ends with the dissolution of the first Vendean army, before the proper formation of the Chouan force in Brittany, or the second insurrection of Poitou; though there are some brief and imperfect notices of these, and subsequent occurrences. The details also extend only to the proceedings of the Royalist or Insurgent party, to which the author belonged; and do not affect to embrace any general history of the war.

This hard-fated woman was very young, and newly married, when she was thrown, by the adverse circumstances of the time, into the very heart of those deplorable contests; and, without pretending to any other information than she could draw from her own experience, and scarcely presuming to pass any judgment upon the merits or demerits of the cause, she has made up her book of a clear and dramatic description of acts in which she was a sharer, or scenes of which she was an eyewitness, and of the characters and histories of the many distinguished individuals who partook with her of their glories or sufferings. The irregular and undisciplined wars which it is her business to describe, are naturally far more prolific of

The heroic daring of a simple peasant lifts him at once to the rank of a leader; and kindles a general enthusiasm to which all things become possible. Generous and gentle feelings are speedily generated by this raised state of mind and of destination; and the perpetual intermixture of domestic cares and rustic occupations, with the exploits of troops serving without pay, and utterly unprovided with magazines, produces a contrast which enhances the effects of both parts of the description, and gives an air of moral pictur esqueness to the scene, which is both pathetic and delightful. It becomes much more attractive also, in this representation, by the singu lar candour and moderation-not the most usual virtue of belligerent females-with which Madame de L. has told the story of her friends and her enemies the liberality with which she has praised the instances of heroism or compassion which occur in the conduct of the republicans, and the simplicity with which she confesses the jealousies and excesses which sometimes disgraced the insurgents. There is not only no royalist or antirevolutionary rant in these volumes, but scarcely any of the bitterness or exaggeration of a party to civil dissensions; and it is rather wonderful that an actor and a sufferer in the most cruel and outrageous warfare by which modern times have been disgraced, should have set an example of temperance and impartiality which its remote spectators have found it so difficult to follow. The truth is, we believe, that those who have had most occasion to see the mutual madness of contending factions, and to be aware of the traits of individual generosity by which the worst cause is occasionally redeemed, and of brutal outrage by which the best is sometimes debased, are both more indulgent to human nature, and more distrustful of its immaculate purity, than the fine declaimers who aggravate all that is bad on the side to which they are opposed, and refuse to admit its existence in that to which they belong. The general of an adverse army has always more tolera

tion for the severities and even the miscon- | Montmorin, who came to her from the King duct of his opponents, and the herd of ignorant late in the preceding evening, informed her, speculators at home;-in the same way as the leaders of political parties have uniformly far less rancour and animosity towards their antagonists, than the vulgar followers in their train. It is no small proof, however, of an elevated and generous character, to be able to make those allowances; and Madame de L. would have had every apology for falling into the opposite error,-both on account of her sex, the natural prejudices of her rank and education, the extraordinary sufferings to which she was subjected, and the singularly mild and unoffending character of the beloved associates of whom she was so cruelly deprived.

that they were perfectly aware of an intention to assault the royal residence on the night of the 12th; but that, to a certainty, nothing would be attempted till then. At midnight, however, there were signs of agitation in the neighbourhood; and before four o'clock in the morning, the massacre had begun. M. de Lescure rushed out on the first symptom of alarm to join the defenders of the palace, but could not obtain access within the gates, and was obliged to return and disguise himself in the garb of a Sansculotte, that he might mingle with some chance of escape in the crowd of assailants. M. de Montmorin, whose disguise was less perfect, escaped as if by a miracle. After being insulted by the mob, he had taken refuge in the shop of a small grocer, by whom he was immediately recog nised, and where he was speedily surrounded by crowds of the National Guards, reeking from the slaughter of the Swiss. The good natured shopkeeper saw his danger, and stepping quickly up to him, said with a familiar air, "Well, cousin, you scarcely expected, on your arrival from the country, to witness the downfal of the tyrant-Here, drink to the health of those brave asserters of our liberties." He submitted to swallow the toast, and got off without injury.

She had some right, in truth, to be delicate and royalist, beyond the ordinary standard. Her father, the Marquis de Donnison, had an employment about the person of the King; in virtue of which, he had apartments in the Palace of Versailles; in which splendid abode the writer was born, and continued constantly to reside, in the very focus of royal influence and glory, till the whole of its unfortunate inhabitants were compelled to leave it, by the fury of that mob which escorted them to Paris in 1789. She had, like most French ladies of distinction, been destined from her infancy to be the wife of M. de Lescure, a near relation of her mother, and the repre- The street in which M. Lescure resided, sentative of the ancient and noble family of being much frequented by persons of the Salgues in Poitou. The character of this Swiss nation, was evidently a very dangerous eminent person, both as it is here drawn by place of retreat for royalists; and, soon after his widow, and indirectly exhibited in various it was dark, the whole family, disguised in parts of her narrative, is as remote as possible the dress of the lower orders, slipped out, from that which we should have been in- with the design of taking refuge in the house clined, à priori, to ascribe to a young French of an old femme-de-chambre, on the other side nobleman of the old regime, just come to of the river. M. de Donnison and his wife court, in the first flush of youth, from a great went in one party; and Madame Lescure, military school. He was extremely serious, then in the seventh month of her pregnancy, bashful, pious, and self-denying,-with great with her husband, in another. Intending to firmness of character and sweetness of tem- cross by the lowest of the bridges, they first per,-fearless, and even ardent in war, but turned into the Champs-Elysées. More than humble in his pretensions to dictate, and most a thousand men had been killed there that considerate of the wishes and sufferings of his day; but the alleys were now silent and followers. To this person she was married in lonely; though the roar of the multitude, and the nineteenth year of her age, in October occasional discharges of cannon and musketry, 1790,-at a time when most of the noblesse were heard from the front of the Tuilleries, had already emigrated, and when the rage for where the conflagration of the barracks was that unfortunate measure had penetrated even still visible in the sky. While they were to the province of Poitou, where M. de Les-wandering in these horrid shades, a woman cure had previously formed a prudent association of the whole gentry of the country, to whom the peasantry were most zealously attached. It was the fashion, however, to emigrate; and so many of the Poitevin nobility were pleased to follow it, that M. de Lescure at last thought it concerned his honour, not to remain longer behind; and came to Paris in February 1791, to make preparations for his journey to Coblentz. Here, however, he was requested by the Queen herself not to go farther; and thought it his duty to obey. The summer was passed in the greatest anxieties and agitations; and at last came the famous Tenth of August. Madame de L. assures us, that the attack on the palace was altogether unexpected on that occasion, and that M.

came flying up to them, followed by a drunken patriot, with his musket presented at her head. All he had to say was, that she was an aristocrat, and that he must finish his day's work by killing her. M. Lescure appeased him with admirable presence of mind, by professing to enter entirely into his sentiments, and proposing that they should go back to gether to the attack of the palace-adding only, "But you see what state my wife is in

she is a poor timid creature-and I must first take her to her sister's, and then I shall return here to you." The savage at last agreed to this, though before he went off, he presented his piece several times at them, swearing that he believed they were aristo crats after all, and that he had a mind to have

a shot at them. This rencontre drove them | its physical conformation, as in the state and from the lonely way; and they returned to condition of its population. A series of dethe public streets, all blazing with illumina- tached eminences, of no great elevation, rose tions, and crowded with drunken and infuri- over the whole face of the country, with little ated wretches, armed with pikes, and in many rills trickling in the hollows and occasional instances stained with blood. The tumult cliffs by their sides. The whole space was and terror of the scene inspired Madame de divided into small enclosures, each surroundL. with a kind of sympathetic frenzy; and, ed with tall wild hedges, and rows of pollard without knowing what she did, she screamed trees; so that, though there were few large out, Vive les Sansculottes! à bas les tyrans! as woods, the whole region had a sylvan and outrageously as any of them. They glided impenetrable appearance. The ground was unhurt, however, through this horrible assem- mostly in pasturage; and the landscape had, blage; and crossing the river by the Pont for the most part, an aspect of wild verdure, Neuf, found the opposite shore dark, silent, except that in the autumn some patches of and deserted, and speedily gained the humble yellow corn appeared here and there athwart refuge in search of which they had ventured. the green enclosures. Only two great roads The domestic relations between the great traversed this sequestered region, running and their dependants were certainly more nearly parallel, at a distance of more than cordial in old France, than in any other coun- seventy miles from each other. In the intertry-and a revolution, which aimed profess-mediate space, there was nothing but a labyedly at levelling all distinction of ranks, and rinth of wild and devious paths, crossing each avenging the crimes of the wealthy, armed other at the extremity of almost every field the hands of but few servants against the lives often serving, at the same time, as channels or liberties of their masters. M. de Lescure for the winter torrents, and winding so caand his family were saved in this extremity priciously among the innumerable hillocks, by the prudent and heroic fidelity of some old and beneath the meeting hedgerows, that the waiting-women and laundresses-and ulti-natives themselves were always in danger of mately effected their retreat to the country by losing their way when they went a league or the zealous and devoted services of a former two from their own habitations. The countutor in the family, who had taken a very try, though rather thickly peopled, contained, conspicuous part on the side of the Revolution. as may be supposed, few large towns; and This M. Thomasin, who had superintended the inhabitants, devoted almost entirely to the education of M. Lescure, and retained the rural occupations, enjoyed a great deal of warmest affection for him and the whole leisure. The noblesse or gentry of the counfamily, was an active, bold, and good-humour- try were very generally resident on their ed man-a great fencer, and a considerable estates; where they lived in a style of simorator at the meetings of his section. He was plicity and homeliness which had long disapeager, of course, for a revolution that was to peared from every other part of the kingdom. give every thing to talents and courage; and No grand parks, fine gardens, or ornamented had been made a captain in one of the mu- villas; but spacious clumsy châteaus, surnicipal regiments of Paris. This kind-hearted rounded with farm offices and cottages for the patriot took the proscribed family of M. de labourers. Their manners and way of life, Lescure under his immediate protection, and too, partook of the same primitive rusticity. by a thousand little stratagems and contriv- There was great cordiality, and even much ances, not only procured passports and con- familiarity, in the intercourse of the seigneurs veyances to take them out of Paris, but with their dependants. They were followed actually escorted them himself, in his national by large trains of them in their hunting expeuniform, till they were safely settled in a roy-ditions, which occupied a great part of their alist district in the suburbs of Tours. When time. Every man had his fowlingpiece, and any tumult or obstruction arose on the journey, M. Thomasin leaped from the carriage, and assuming the tone of zeal and authority that belonged to a Parisian officer, he harangued, reprimanded, and enchanted the provincial patriots, till the whole party went off again in the midst of their acclamations. From Tours, after a cautious and encouraging exploration of the neighbouring country, they at length proceeded to M. Lescure's château of Clisson, in the heart of the district afterwards but too well known by the name of La Vendée, of which the author has here introduced a very clear and interesting description.

A tract of about one hundred and fifty miles square, at the mouth and on the southern bank of the Loire, comprehends the scene of those deplorable hostilities. The most inland part of the district, and that in which the insurrection first broke out, is called Le Bocage; and seems to have been almost as singular in

was a marksman of fame or pretensions. They were posted in various quarters, to intercept or drive back the game; and were thus trained, by anticipation, to that sort of discipline and concert in which their whole art of war was afterwards found to consist. Nor was their intimacy confined to their sports. The peasants resorted familiarly to their landlords for advice, both legal and medical; and they repaid the visits in their daily rambles, and entered with interest into all the details of their agricultural operations. They came to the weddings of their children, drank with their guests, and made little presents to the young people. On Sundays and holidays, all the retainers of the family assembled at the château, and danced in the barn or the court-yard, according to the season. The ladies of the house joined in the festivity, and that without any airs of condescension or of mockery; for, in their own iiie,

there was little splendour or luxurious refine- | resident gentry, no doubt, for the most part, ment. They travelled on horseback, or in favoured that cause; and the peasantry felt heavy carriages drawn by oxen; and had lit- almost universally with their masters;-but tle other amusement than in the care of their neither had the least idea, in the beginning, dependants, and the familiar intercourse of of opposing the political pretensions of the neighbours among whom there was no rivalry new government, nor, even to the last, much or principle of ostentation. serious hope of effecting any revolution in the general state of the country. The first movements, indeed, partook far more of bigotry than of royalism; and were merely the rash and undirected expressions of plebeian resentment for the loss of their accustomed pastors. The more extensive commotions which follow

out object or plan, and were confined at first to the peasantry. The gentry did not join until they had no alternative, but that of taking up arms either against their own dependants, or along with them; and they went into the field, generally, with little other view than that of acquitting their own faith and honour, and scarcely any expectation beyond that of obtaining better terms for the rebels they were joining, or of being able to make a stand till some new revolution should take place at Paris, and bring in rulers less harsh and sanguinary.

From all this there resulted, as Madame de L. assures us, a certain innocence and kindliness of character, joined with great hardihood and gaiety,-which reminds us of Henry IV. and his Bearnois, and carries with it, perhaps, on account of that association, an idea of something more chivalrous and romantic-ed on the compulsory levy, were equally withmore honest and unsophisticated, than any thing we now expect to meet with in this modern world of artifice and derision. There was great purity of morals accordingly, Madame de L. informs us, and general cheerfulness and content throughout the whole district;-crimes were never heard of, and lawsuits almost unknown. Though not very well educated, the population was exceedingly devout-though theirs was a kind of superstitious and traditional devotion, it must be owned, rather than an enlightened or rational faith. They had the greatest veneration for crucifixes and images of their saints, and had no idea of any duty more imperious than that of attending on all the offices of religion. They were singularly attached also to their curés; who were almost all born and bred in the country, spoke their patois, and shared in all their pastimes and occupations. When a hunting-match was to take place, the clergy-discharge; and the crowd immediately rushman announced it from the pulpit after prayers, -and then took his fowlingpiece, and accompanied his congregation to the thicket. It was on behalf of these curés, in fact, that the first disturbances were excited.

It was at the ballot for the levy of St. Flor ent, that the rebellion may be said to have begun. The young men first murmured, and then threatened the commissioners, who somewhat rashly directed a fieldpiece to be pointed against them, and afterwards to be fired over their heads:-Nobody was hurt by the

ed forward and seized upon the gun. Some of the commissioners were knocked down— their papers were seized and burnt-and the rioters went about singing and rejoicing for the rest of the evening. An account, probaThe decree of the Convention, displacing bly somewhat exaggerated, of this tumult, all priests who did not take the oaths imposed was brought next day to a venerable peasant by that assembly, occasioned the removal of of the name of Cathelineau, a sort of itinerant several of those beloved and conscientious dealer in wool, who was immediately struck pastors; and various tumults were excited by with the decisive consequences of this open attempts to establish their successors by au-attack on the constituted authorities. The thority. Some lives were lost in these tu- tidings were brought to him as he was kneadmults; but their most important effect was ing the weekly allowance of bread for his in diffusing an opinion of the severity of the family. He instantly wiped his arms, put on new government, and familiarizing the peo- his coat, and repaired to the village marketple with the idea of resisting it by force. place, where he harangued the inhabitants, The order of the Convention for a forced levy and prevailed on twenty or thirty of the boldof three hundred thousand men, and the pre-est youths to take their arms in their hands parations to carry it into effect, gave rise to the first serious insurrection;-and while the dread of punishment for the acts of violence already committed deterred the insurgents from submitting, the standard was no sooner raised between the republican government on the one hand and the discontented peasantry on the other, than the mass of that united and alarmed population declared itself for their associates; and a great tract of country was thus arrayed in open rebellion, without concert, leader, or preparation. We have the testimony of Madame de L. therefore, in addition to all other good testimony, that this great civil war originated almost accidentally, and certainly not from any plot or conspiracy of the leading royalists in the country. The

and follow him. He was universally respected for his piety, good sense, and mildness of character; and, proceeding with his troop of recruits to a neighbouring village, repeated his eloquent exhortations, and instantly found himself at the head of more than a hundred enthusiasts. Without stopping a moment, he led this new army to the attack of a military post guarded by four score soldiers and a piece of cannon. The post was surprised,the soldiers dispersed or made prisoners,and the gun brought off in triumph. From this he advances, the same afternoon, to another post of two hundred soldiers and three pieces of cannon; and succeeds, by the same surprise and intrepidity. The morning after, while preparing for other enterprises, he is

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