of Paris are well marked: the honour is divided between the Fauxbourg St. Antoine, and the Fuuxbourg St. Marceau. It may be said, that the Fauxbourg St. Antoine is the best for the purpose of discord; and the Fauxbourg St. Marceau is best for the purpose of pillage." The progress of liberty and crime occupies the chief part of the first Volume: we have no need to enlarge on this part of the melancholy History. coachman of five years old, and by a po volution, with its miseries, is not stilion of three years old, attended by three charged on him. The insurrections most beautiful children as footmen,-chil-planned and produced in the suburbs dren so lovely that they seemed to be so many cupids, wearing the livery of MonBieur le Dauphin:-and the coach-the horses the attendants, were all in readiness at the foot of the flight of steps, waiting the orders of their master. Charming! Exquisite! She runs to the King. Come, come along, and see! Caloue is a conjuror: it is for your son: the prettiest thing, to be sure! A perfect prodigy! The King followed, as desired; his courtiers gathered around him; all enrapt in admiration: the equipige is ordered to drive about: the little Dauphin throws himself around De Calonne's neck all are transported all are enchanted. Now, how was it possible to dismiss from his office a Controleur General of the Finances, who had shewn himself capable of such a brit liant invention? The Queen during several days did nothing but speak of it, in terms of praise. The King no longer dared to execute his plan. The minister's rivals were all struck dumb: the courtiers joined in the applause; and Calonne triumphed. This might secure the minister; but it did not establish public credit, or fill the coffers of the State. The conquences we know; and the miserable deficit of less than a couple of millions annually, proved an insuperable difficulty to this enchanting ingenuity. Of what avail was the King's better Judgment? If he trusted to Calonne, he was tricked; if he trusted to Necker he was exposed; the rivalship of these ministers, had other purposes in view, than the good of the country confided to their care. There was scarcely a step taken with the King's perfect consent, for he foresaw consequences, painful, if not fatal. The happy have so had the King. The unhappy!-it is not in Human Nature, to be friends with them; and the King found himself forsaken, by one after another, till the handfull that remained were insufficient to command the guard of his palace, or to protect him against a mob of insurgent pillagers. many friends: The clergy are treated by M. Lavallée with great severity: they paid dearly for their want of discernment. And they must continue to pay. The Duke of Orleans is estimated at his true value; but, his full share in producing the re The fatal error of making Paris the King's residence, is strongly pointed out by the author: in fact, it became the source of innumerable miseries. The society of the Jacobins is precisely suited to meet the views of M. L. and, accordingly, he traces its proceedings, distinctly,-proceedings not to be repelled by the puny arms or more puny device, of Ministerial toy-men. The Jacobins, certainly, caused the King's evasion, and his death. The Jacobins patronized crimes the most bloody and atrocious : massacres, in point of numbers slain ; unnatural, even to extravagance, in point of appalling and diabolical guilt. They ruled the nation by their affiliated clubs; and the representatives of the nation by their armed mobs and insurrections. The histories of the Girondists, of the Mountain, of Robespierre, &c. &c. follow: they afford instructive lessons, if the people of France would but attend to them! The secret Police of Robes pierre is a curious incident: certainly, Napoleon took many a hint from his predecessor, and among others this: for no man ever was flattered, by order, as Napoleon was Mattered, except that "Dictator!" The odious falsity of scandalous adulation never was more clearly exposed than at the fall of Robespierre. His head had rolled on the scaffold several days, while the correspondence, sent up from his agents in the provinces, continued to display his name surrounded by the most the virtuous-the magnanimous - the pompous titles of "father of the people, incorruptible-the saviour of the country," &c. The following post, the same signatures, the same writers, loaded his memory with epithets diametrically opposite "ex ecrable tyrant-monster greedy of blood -executioner," &c. By the dates of these letters might easily have been calculated the swifter or slower progress of the couriers, charged to spread the news of his death. Although these sudden changes from adoration to accusation, these damnations rapidly succeeding apotheosis, were things of course from their frequency, yet they never were placed in a more striking light than by the discovery of this double (secret) police of Robespierre. author them after their defeat?-or, if they did not act from conviction, why did they act, at all? Why throw the whole city into a ferment, unless the cause were weighty and grave? We speak of the famous 13 Vendémiare, in which Buonaparte (who is not mentioned by M. L.) obtained great credit by readily destroying the "Muscadins" of Paris.'" The slaughter of these Parisian youth, was great; and it was noticed, that though the battle was over at eight Scarcely had forty eight hours elapsed, after his death, when the packets address-o'clock in the evening, the cannon kept ed to the Committee of Public safety, be-roaring two hours longer. Says our gau to bring in numbers of tableaux, made of paper, several feet in length, strong and thick, divided into narrow columus, each column headed with a question to which the agent returned answers; verified by hus signature. ... They mostly referred to the public opinion of Robespierre. It is presumable that, during the fe of this man, somebody was specially charged with the duty of receiving these packets; for the day after his death the Committee first knew of them. A few days afterwards; the offices of this occult police were dis-guinguette situated at the opposite extrecovered in the garrets of the palace; but, mity of Paris, known by the name of la apparently the clerks employed did not rappée, aud f mons for the excellence of dare venture on making their appearance, the fish served up at the house. There, after his death. They never have been they ordered a sp endid su per, soon forknown. No list of their names has been got the fatigues of the day, consecrated the found and if they were paid, nobody night to Bacchus and the Muses, sung their own defeat is twenty couplets, the knows who paid them. very offspring of gaiety, and by puns and epigrams avenged themselves on that Convention which they had not been able to subdue by arms: such are the French ! What a picture does this present of the guilty compliance, and equally guilty versatility, of French Agents! A thousand times has the British public been cautioned against placing confidence in the official reports of Prefects, and Mayors, &c. &c. Does not this his tory justify that caution? Can greater Can greater profligacy and venality be conceived? Can we wonder at what has happened since? What now becomes of the "voice of the people," so loudly trumpetted, by those who in the course of their official duty must have known better? Very few of the sections took part in this disastrous day. All were under arms; but almost all at eight o'clock had retired to their quarters. The night was quiet; all the important posts being occupied. The Hall of the section Le Pelletier was shut; the factions without a lesier, aud without a ralling point, were dispersed. Who could believe it? A score of these young beaten warriors, resorted to a This anecdote is true: two of the party came incognito to me at seven o'clock the next morning, intreating me to give them some tea, and to tell them the news. Cere This night was singular. There were few houses where the inhabitants did not sit up all night. The neighbours met each other at some neighbour's house. What followed? When the danger receded, a Familiarity took place. Some fruits, some trifling refreshments were offered to the company driven together by fear. mony was laid aside each brought a contribution to the slender collation, presented This frivolity of crime was not conby the politeness of the host in whose fined to agents paid to express opinions; house they were. They placed themselves it was, it still is, the characteristic im- at table, the women made up the party: a morality of that ingenious, sprightly, gleam of gaiety re-appeared, and if any Is it observer had possessed the power, like but delusive and deluded people. possible to suppose that those who real-Asmodeus, of lifting off the roofs of the ly acted from conviction, that the Con-houses to inspect the interior, he would have concluded from the scenes passing vention deserved destruction, should be before his eyes, that the night was successo mirthfully inclined as M. L. describes sor to a day of rejoicing. murderer appeared in the same streets with the murdered: the passenger walked with indifference amidst the bodies of the dead lying about on the pavement. Every individual became a terrorist, in eyes intent on seeking objects of vengeance. Rage struck the blow; calm premeditation struck the blow: hap-hazard struck the blow. In le Forest, on the banks of the Durance and of the Drome, at St. Etienne, at St. Esprit, at Tournus, at Tarascon, at Avignon, at Arles, over a superficies of more than a hundred leagues, roamed this blood-thirsty delirium. Here, the prisons were forced, and without distinction between crime and misfortune, the prisoners were massacred en masse. Elsewhere, these asylums of evil days, were consumed by the flames, and the unfortunate whose life was the security of his creditor, perished beside the brigand doomed by justice to fall under the sword of the law. The traveller is poignarded, because his features are unknown. A father taking his child to school at Sorréze, when shewing his passport, happened to let fall an old card of safety signed by Chaumette; this was taken up, and the father was slain in the arms of his son. Two soldiers dismissed from the army, were returning home, their clothes, worn out, the effects of their cam On the morrow, at six o'clock in the morning, Paris offered the strangest of sights All classes thronged the streets. Petits maitres, the most beautiful women, in the most elegant undress, the tradesmen, the housekeepers in their robe de chambre, the labouring people in their working clothes, all came to examine the field of battle. A ball had shattered a column of the Theatre de la Republique; another had carried away the cornice of a shop at the corner of the rue du Coq, facing the Coffee House of the Barrier des Sergens, severals balls had battered the façades of the hotels on the Quai de Voltaire, the portico of the church of St Roch was honey-combed with balls: all these marks of the fury of battle attracted the curious inspection of the multitude. The people examined them, counted them, shewed them one to another. I say more: they laughed at discovering the singular effects which some of the balls had produced on the stone or marble. The centinels were placed on a great number of different points, especially in the vicinity of the Tuilleries. They also were objects of the public curiosity. The crowd formed a circle around them. They inspected them in silence. If they walked about, the crowd opened to give them way: if they stopped, and if by accident a soldier hoppaigns; their hair, their beards in disorder. pened to rest on his arms, the whole fled in wild dismay. It might have been thought that the people, not recovered from the terrors of the night before, took for the discharge of a canuou the thump of the butt end of a musket on the stones. This day, which in any other city would have been throughout it, a day of mourning, was for the Parisians a day of promenade; they sallied forth to enjoy a spectacle of which they had no previous conception. The 14 Vendémiare they spoke of the 13 Vendémiare. The 15th they said no more about it. The 16th they had quite forgot it.-Such is the people of Paris! After this scene of hardness of heart, who can acquit the Parisians from the charge of being parties to the crimes committed in their city? The public has been subsequently shocked at the re-action which ensanguined the South of France: it is the country of re-action, if we may believe this writer: This indifference gave to Lyons, and throughout the South, a horrible activity to re-action.... Assassination avenged assassinations. By day, by night, the This costume resembles that of terrorists. The false sublime of this passagebecause, in fact, the two seas do not unite-does not affect its truth. Who, now, can wonder at any thing? While the angry passions were thus alert, Avarice was equally active, and perhaps, its victims were more numerous and more pitiable. The poignard ended life and miseries, at a blow: ruined finances prolonged suffering without remission. The Directory began its career at a mo- cles, the concerts, the public walks, the sament of difficulty... The state had no re- loons were the exchanges on which these venues: it was, therefore, well enough burlesque bargains were made, and every pleased to pay nobody. But what follow-quarter of the town swarmed with similar ed? The proprietors of lands, the annui-caricatures. tants, the men in office, were reduced to The rise of Buonaparte gives the poverty. The proprietors, because the farmers paid only in assignats, according to writer pleasure; and to him he sacrifices their nominal value; insomuch that when other officers,-not excepting Admiral this paper money was depreciated, a rent of Bruyx, whom he charges with "impru twelve thousand livres became in effect no dence,' dence," in Egypt. He acknowledges, more than twelve or fifteen in gold. The indeed, that the system of burning En annuitants, who formerly lived on an in-glish goods, injured only French dealers, come of one hundred louis, the year through, without doing any harm to England; now found in two thousand four hundred and affirms that the restoration of the livres of assignats about a week's subsistence, when a dish of coffee cost them two clergy toward Buonaparte in the opinion hundred livres in paper. The men in of of the French people ;-but, these, he fice, because they found, after all deduc says, were suggestions of others, not of tions made, that they had been serving the his own mind: He even goes so far as state at the rate of seven or eight livres to say, that Napoleon gave France a per mouth. inilitary government, to reconcile the people to his confirmation of the Concordat. Even when those blunders which led more immediately to the downfall of the Emperor and King begin to shew themselves, M. L. attributes them, " to the perfidious suggestions of miserable flatterers." That he was flattered we admit: but, he ordered it : his creatures did not dare to say otherwise, any more than the creatures of Robespierre dared to have called him other than great, and good, while he lived. We must beg leave to differ still more from the writer toward the close of "believed in Enhis work; it is not gland, that Talleyrand suggested the war in Spain." It is not true that "the Danube overflowed its banks, and rendered the battle of Essling inde This produced most curious scents. Every body desired to become owner of articles of SOME value, be they what they might. This diffused throughout Paris an activity of the most singular and incousiderate kind that ever existed, perhaps, during several months. Frequently the merchandize in a warehouse passed through twenty hands in the same day, without being displaced, and every purchaser obtained a profit of a few assignats, the perpetual depreciation of which found his property on the morrow exactly what it had been overnight: so that he had his whole labour of four-and-twenty hours for nothing. Above all, was the amusing ridicule of witnessing the prettiest women thus active; forsaking sleep and the indulgence of sloth, forsaking their beds of down at seven ,o'clock in the morning, running about the streets of Paris; offering the first comer a CAPITAL BARGAIN of tobacco, or bales of muslin, or tea, or pepper, &c. often enter-cisive." ing a coffee-bonse to finish the business with the buyer, who most frequently sold it again, without stirring, to some other woman, or unknown man, who had been brought there by the madness of the moment. Could it be otherwise than comic, when these ladies were amidst their circles of pleasure in the evening, to see them take out of their KIDICULES a candle's end, a red-herring, a parcel of smoked sardines, as specimens, and gravely propose to sell so many hundred weight of tallow, or so many hundred barrels of salt fish; while the petit maitre, loaded with perfumes, lic. In fact, the writer forgets that in lighted a cigarre at the candle by way of proportion as he supposes Napoleon to puffing off the fragrance of the bundles have been the dupe of his advisers, he which he had to dispose of. The specta-deprives him of that reputation for It is not true that respecting Napoleon's proposals for marrying a Russian princess, "the court of Russia, was the dupe of any maneuvres." He received what amounted to a negative; as any statesman might understand. Nor, indeed, do we believe, that he was excited, guided, and ruined, by any faction, which had sworn to dethrone him. We believe that, "he followed his star," and our opinion on the course of that meteor, remains before the Pub talent which he had previously ascribed to him. Was he such a fool that he could not not discover their drift? M. L. would not have asserted this, while Napoleon wore the crown. That he himself prevented the truth from approaching him, we believe to be much more correct, than this writer's assertion, that it was purposely fraudently kept from him;-even after he began to totter, the few words of truth told him by his senate, put him into a passion of that violent kind, from which it may easily be judged what his sensations would have been had such liberties been taken with him, while in his glory. A Year in Canada, and other Poems. By Ann Cuthbert Knight. 12mo. price 5s. Edinburgh, Doig. 1816. THIS Lady possesses a pleasing power of observation and recollection. The seasons have passed in review before her, so far as a single year allowed them. A longer residence might have afforded a greater variety. Canada is, in fact, a subject for a much more considerable work. It is the beginning, or point of departure of many adventurous expeditions. Whoever has seen the setting off of the dealers, &c. engaged in the fur trade, their batteaux, &c. must allow them to be very proper subjects for poetry. As The narratives frequently related by some of these men (and others) their mode of life, in the distant parts, the different tribes of Indians they visit, the distribution of presents to the Indians, are so many points, very susceptible of poetical embellishments. to the features of the country, the extensive lakes, the magnificent rivers, the sweeping rapids, the waterfalls, &c. they are subjects of interesting grandeur; and demand the hand of a mighty master. If the writer means his labours as an apology for Buonaparte, they must fail; he does not know his man. If he means them as an apology for France, they equally fail, for he attributes the downfall of Napoleon not to any sense of virtue remaining among the citizens, but to the intrigues of a faction. His arguments act rather, contrary to his intention, as an apology for the Sovereigns, who determined to have nothing to do with such a profligate and his family:-They could not trust him. And this we believe, to be the main depth of the secret, in a few words. As to the conspirators against Buonaparte being members of his own family, his Lately too, the spirit of resistance mother, his brother Lucien, his sister to the invader, of activity, at the counLetitia, his uncle Cardinal Fesch, we try's call, of loyalty and attachment to must have better authority before we Britain, have distinguished the Canaadmit it. That these, with others indian people. The intercourse with Euhis confidence, bad a conviction of his rashness, and foresaw his ruin, may be true enough: But, the history of the faction, that last governed France, will be sufficiently clear from the true history of the Emperor and King, whenever it shall appear; written without bitterness, and without partiality, as it really did happen, and not as it may be distorted by the favourable representa- The lady who favours us with this tions of friends, or the malicious deli-attempt limits her exertions to more lowly strains. She takes a general view of the country; but it is such as becomes her sex; and throughout the whole we discover her to be a temporary resident, a mere flying visitor, whose heart obeys the attractions which draw it back to Scotland, although her presence may be for the time, in Cana da. The poem opens with this sentiment neations of enemies. There are several anecdotes of which Buonaparte is the subject collected in the third volume: some of them do him credit; though they seem rather to have been caused by sudden impulse, than to have been guided by any settled principles of virtue, or sensibility: qualities he never possessed. rope, also, adds to the charms of the subject, while it diversifies the song by introducing the gratifications of civilized life. Even the military stationed in the province, may claim a place; and a scating expedition on the lakes, may claim a considerable place, in a poem of which this Country were the theme. |