of the Fauxbourg St. Germain, had carefully preserved every prejudice, and (as has been justly observed) had neither forgotten nor learnt any thing;all these discordant elements, at the peace of Amiens, formed strange and irreconcileable discrepancies in society; while every party still believed its force so nearly poised, that all had hopes of re-assuming the dominion they had successively lost. The republican forms of language, and its calendar, were still in use-were still those of the government, and of those employed by it. You were invited on a Quintidi of such a Décade of Ventose, or of Prairial, to a dinner or an evening meeting; and you were received in an apartment which bore no mark of change from former monarchical days, excepting the company it contained;-the women in the half-naked costume of Directorial fashion, or the Grecian tuniques and Grecian coiffures of more recent days;-the men in civil uniforms of all sorts, and all colours of embroidery, with which the Directory (to separate themselves from the bonnet rouge and the carmagnole of the Republicans) had thought proper to decorate themselves, and all those put in authority under them. Among these figured the brilliant military costumes of the conquering generals, who had many of them risen from the ranks by merit which fitted them more for distinction on a field of battle, than in a drawing-room: the manners of their previous life forsook them not in their peaceful capacity, and the habits of a guard-room followed them into the salons of Paris.

The popular literature of the day,-that which was meant as descriptive of manners, and consequently must receive its colour from them, proved the general moral degradation which had taken place. A traveller passing through Paris in the year 1802, at the beginning of a long journey, applied to a great and respectable bookseller for some trifling works to read on the road. Nearly a hundred volumes were immediately sent to choose out of; they were part of the novels, romances, and anecdotes of the last ten years. There was no time for selection, and the purchaser took at haphazard thirty or forty volumes of the most inviting titles. On examination they were found, with hardly an exception, to be such disgusting repetitions of the vilest profligacy, such unvaried pictures of the same disgraceful state of society and manners, without even the apology of wit or the veil of decency, that the traveller successively threw the volumes half read out of the carriage window, to avoid being supposed the patient reader of such revolting trash.

The theatres partook of the bad taste, the exaggeration, and the licence of the times. More numerous and more crowded than ever, their altered audiences, altered not less in manners than in appearance, no longer the arbiters of taste, impressed (as is ever the case) their own colour on what they allowed to contribute to their amusement. Exaggerated sentiments, and strange unnatural situations in patriotism and in passion, were alone admired; and every allusion to their former prejudices or their former government, was marked with an execration, certainly due to the situations in which the author placed his characters, and the language they were made to hold. Their comic muse, so long and so justly admired for her good taste, deigned often to envelope herself in a veil of continued puns. Whole pieces were written in this amphibological language, where all story, all character, all interest, was sacrificed to combinations of similar sounds, on which a meaning was forced, the farther fetched the better.'-pp. 62-66.

It was the policy of Bonaparte, after he took possession of the Tuileries, to revive, as far as it was possible, the etiquette of the old

court. He had chiefly to contend with the changes which had already taken place in the middle and lower classes, and which had raised them to a degree of importance in their own estimation, that was not easily to be conquered. He, nevertheless, carried his project into execution with great adroitness, and succeeded in reestablishing the ancient religion, as well as the ancient urbanity, of the country, though, in both respects, the change reached only to the surface, and did not penetrate the bosom of society. The influence of the restored monarchy, and of the peace by which it was followed, is summed up by the author in these terms.

'In resuming the circumstances relative to the social life of England and France, which have passed in review in the foregoing pages-in adverting particularly to the situation in which fifteen years of peace have now placed the two countries-we shall, it is believed, be led to a conclusion, that France has gained most in a moral and political point of view, and England in the details of social life.

'The ordeal through which France passed during her Revolution, so necessary to the entire regeneration of the upper classes of her society, has produced effects on her moral habits, which no one, but those ignorant of what they were before that period, can either mistake or deny. Children are no longer separated from their parents immediately after their birth, and sent into the country to be nursed by strangers: they are no longer deprived of those first impressions of tenderness, so powerful in influencing future character, when proceeding from the persons by whom they ought to be excited. They no longer return to the paternal house, almost strangers to their parents, while those parents, who had shared none of the anxiety as well as none of the pleasure of rearing their infancy, could hardly have been aware of the social duties imposed on them.

The necessary consequence of the former habits had been, that, from a home where the father and mother often lived almost as much separated from each other as from their children, the girls were better placed in a convent; and the boys had a better chance of leading a regular life in a garrison, than at home, with an abbé for a tutor, who winked at their faults and at their idleness, to allow of his own; and with a father who troubled his head neither with tutor nor pupil. The lively account given by Madame de Genlis of the family of the Vicomte de Limours, in her " Adèle et Theodore," contains a true and accurate picture of the common education of the higher ranks before the Revolution, and of its effects in after life. Such an education duly prepared for such marriages as were then contracted, exclusively by the will of parents, and were considered by the children, exclusively, as the means of liberty and emancipation from their control.

From this unengaging picture of domestic life, if we look around us at the present day, we shall find infancy reared in the bosom of parents, with such rational and well-understood care of early education, both physical and moral, that the children of France are now remarkable for their beauty, activity, and intelligence. The girls remain at home, under the eye of their mother, and generally (with the assistance of an English servant or governess) are acquiring two languages almost as soon as they can articulate either; grammar and history are often taught them by fre

quenting classes of their own age, where the utmost industry and attention are necessary to satisfy the extreme emulation that is excited. The accomplishments generally considered as most essential to females are given in no superficial manner; while they are, at the same time, taught to consider them in the secondary light they deserve, more for social purposes, or for solitary resource, than for show, or to exhibit the talents of an artist, where an artist will always surpass them.

Their marriages are no longer arranged at an age when they cannot have a choice, and ought not to have a will of their own. But, accustomed to rely on their parent for the initiative on this important subject, they enjoy, without any degrading considerations of interest, or any humiliating advances, the pleasures of their age, free from an anticipation of the cares of future life. It must be added, that the now equal division of property between all the children of the same marriage (whatever may be its political tendency or consequences) certainly conduces to domestic peace, and the union and good-will of families. The children have nothing to envy, and nothing to expect from each other; no sisters are condemned to convents to increase the family succession, no brother sees, with envious eyes, the indulgences and the expenses of his elder.

An improvement hardly less remarkable, has taken place in the education and pursuits of the young men. When the first rudiments of learning instilled into them, as children, are over, they almost universally follow courses of instruction under tutors in public colleges. These are followed up by a series of lectures on all the great subjects most interesting to society and to science, given in various national institutions, by the most eminent intellects of the country-persons whose researches have neither abstracted them from its society, nor from its political interests; an advantage, perhaps, yet greater to the pupils than to the professors. How much such advantages are afterwards improved, must depend on the ability and industry with which they are followed up: but idleness, so far from being a fashion, is become a ridicule, and ignorance a slur, which every young man, whatever his pretensions, would wish to avoid. With the altered times and the improved state of domestic morality, the current both of the follies and of the expenses of youth has altered. From a home where their parents are living in good intelligence with each other, and no longer strangers to their children, they are no longer driven into early debauchery, as a resource from idleness-are no longer taught to consider the reputation of a libertine as either graceful or distinguishing. The whole race of courtezans no longer affront public propriety by the ostentatious display of their ill-gotten gains: and those who frequent their society, or fall into connections with them, throw a veil over what they would formerly have professed and boasted of. A still greater change has taken place in the habits of the young men in respect of general gallantry, and that constant occupation in the society of women, which formerly belonged to Frenchmen of every age these habits, together with the profession of a man à bonnes fortunes, are now equally out of date: the first would be despised as a trifler, and the second avoided as worse. The improvement in domestic habits and happiness has quite altered the terms on which the influence of women yet exists and flourishes in France: they aim rather at being the centre of a society, than at individual conquests; and at influencing by the general charm of their manners, or by an imposing respectability of character, rather

than seeking by petty intrigues to compass some intended purpose-something to be attained, or to be concealed, by equally despicable means.

• The marriages of young men, so far from being considered, as with us, a step in life which none but the rich can prudently take, is here, by the equal distribution of property, counted on as certain means of increase of fortune, generally bringing more into the common stock than the expenses arising from it. Such marriages are, for the most part, contracted while the parents are yet of an age to partake of, and enjoy society. The establishment, therefore, of the new-married couple in the paternal house for the first year of their union, which sometimes forms an article of the marriage contract, is often without confinement or regret to the young people, and generally a comfort and amusement to their seniors.

This younger generation, which has been born to ideas of liberty, and nursed in political discussions-which has received a better education than their fathers, and lived in more enlightened times-view former discords and prejudices in the light of history, and without the irritation either of self-suffering or self-mortification. They may well, therefore, be allowed to suppose that their admission into the councils of their country, in the Chamber of Deputies, at an earlier age, would be a measure likely to render that assembly less factious, more united in opinion, less extravagant in projects, and more capable of establishing, on its true principles, a representative government, than the two Chambers constituted as at present. At the same time, the possibility of young men entering sooner into an active political life, would encourage that turn for serious occupation, and the acquirement of solid instruction, which marks the present aera.

A residence at their country seats being no longer prescribed to them, under the name of exile, as a punishment in consequence of what was called disgrace at Court, a country life has become fashionable. All those possessing country houses pass many months at them, wisely taking that part of the year which is most favourable to the real enjoyment of the country ; while much expense and attention are bestowed both in the ornament and the improvement of their residences. No dismissed minister will ever again be sent, as a punishment, to his Chanteloup, no leave be ever again required from Court to visit him there.

Whatever may yet be the insecurity or insufficiency of the political institutions of the French, personal liberty is as completely enjoyed and established, as if lettres de cachet and arbitrary imprisonments had not existed in the memory of many yet living, and of some yet regretting their loss.

By an odd anomaly, while the manners of society have become much purer, the theatre, which is supposed to reflect those manners, has become more licentious, both in its language and in the intrigue of its pieces. All the sentimental difficulties, the delicate dilemmas, the nice distinctions of the Marquises and the Countesses of la haute comédie, have been obliged to give way to the popularity of pieces, whose plot, as well as whose dialogue, would not have been suffered on the public theatre by the chaste ears of the intimate society of Louis XV.'-pp. 151–160.

It has been often remarked, that the more pure the manners of the age are, the more gross are the entertainments which are exhibited upon the stage. The reason lies on the surface. When we are conscious of the propriety of our conduct, we never apply to

ourselves the pictures of an opposite mode of life, which comedy presents to us. We do not discover in it any thing of a satirical nature applicable to ourselves, and therefore we tolerate it, and are even amused by scenes so different from any thing that we are accustomed to witness. We forget what play it was, which the London tailors once combined effectually to put down, because it touched too nearly upon the impositions which they were wont to practise. So it is with society in general. They do not like to behold themselves exposed as in a mirror, especially if the reflection be not gratifying to their pride. When generally vicious, they laugh at the representation of virtue-when virtuous, they can bear with the mimic deeds of vice which are enacted upon the stage, and which they attribute to the manners of a former and an inferior generation.

In their drama, the French have, within these last few years, reformed the notions which they had long entertained. They have given up the formalities of the Greek unities and Racine, for the freer muse of Shakspeare, to whom they now generally look up with unbounded admiration. In many other respects, too, their improvement has been conspicuous.

6

France, indeed, may be said to be now reaping the only advantages she could ever receive from emigration, and from her long warfare in all parts of Europe, the removal of many local prejudices, and a great change in the domestic habits of the least corrigible part of her population. This change is manifest in the more frugal and regular habits of the upper orders of society, the more equal distribution of their whole expenditure, and in a preference to the habitual comforts of life, rather than occasional show and magnificence. Instead of a train of unnecessary servants, those only are retained for whom they have employment; they are better paid than formerly, and are treated with less familiarity, though with more consideration. But as every condition of society has its disadvantages, little remains of the patriarchal attachment of generations of servants to generations of masters, of persons having lived and died in the service of those whose birth they had witnessed, and whose fortunes they had followed; and France may, probably, soon experience the same inconvenience as England, from the perfect independence and political equality of an order of people, brought too nearly into contact with their superiors not to catch their faults, without the power of acquiring, likewise, their redeeming merits.

The same improved taste for convenience, instead of show, has led to the general adoption of the fashions of their English neighbours in their carriages and equipage. Light, easy, plain carriages, equally suited for town or country, have universally succeeded to the vehicles, all gilding without and all velvet within, which formerly filled the streets of Paris; while calashes, britchkas, and every borrowed form of open carriage, have superseded the awkward chaise de poste Française on their public roads. The stable expenses of the opulent comprise every thing that is necessary for use and comfort, without running into those lavish, and often disgraceful, sums squandered on coach-makers and horse dealers in England: nor does a fashionable and distinguished existence in the first society of Paris, at all depend on the carriage which conveys any individual to that society, or the