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tal treasure-trove of old papers cleared up the mystery. These papers contained several documents of great interest bearing on the fall of the Girondists, and, among others, some letters written by Madame Roland during her captivity to the proscribed Buzot, who had been one of the most ardent Girondist members of the Convention Nationale, and was then an exile and a fugitive vainly striving to rouse the provinces to resist the murderers of the capital. Four of these letters are printed in fac-simile by. M. Dauban. The handwriting is neat and clear, and they are written almost without erasure. The sentiments are a mixt ure of patriotism, indignation, and intense personal tenderness. Her love for her correspondent and her determination to remain true to her husband create a conflict in her mind which finds expression in such passages as the following:

"I scarcely dare to tell you, and you are the only one in the world who can understand, that I was not very sorry to be arrested. They will be the less furious, the less eager, in their pursuit of R.' [Roland], said I to myself; if they attempt any trial, I shall know how to conduct it in a manner that will be useful to his glory;' it seemed to me that I was then giving him an indemnity for his sorrows; but do you not also see that, in being alone, I live with you? Thus by my captivity, I sacrifice myself for my husband, and I keep myself to my friend; and I owe it to my tormentors to conciliate my duty with my love. Do not pity me! others admire my courage, but they do not know my enjoyments; you who must feel them likewise, oh, make them retain all their charms by the constancy of your courage."

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The feelings to which these words give utterance form the groundwork of the four letters letters strangely rescued from oblivion to shed a glare of light on the characters of these two actors in a drama now long played out.

It is a phenomenon curiously illustrative of the manners of the time that neither Madame Roland nor Buzot, though both married,, saw anything to be ashamed of in their mutual love. On the contrary, all the passages in their writings that relate to the subject tend to show that they were proud of it. M. Roland, the reader will not be surprised to hear, did not view the matter in the same light, and seems to have been deeply grieved. Doubtless, if Madame

Buzot's opinion could also be obtained, it would be found equally unfavorable. But as regards the two lovers themselves, they appear to have thought that, so long as there was no actual violation of the marriage vow, their wife and husband respectively had no right to complain if they loved somebody else. In extenuation of this monstrous proposition it must, however, be remembered that, during the last century, adultery was by no means a rare sin on the other side of the channel and that, therefore, so long as Buzot and Madame Roland stopped short of that offence they might have some excuse for thinking they had not strayed out of the paths of virtue.

One word more respecting the me moirs, and another respecting the rival editions of M. Dauban and M. Faugère, and we have done. The memoirs, as we have already said, were written in the few months of Madame Roland's capin the face of great difficulties and dantivity. They were written and preserved gers, and a portion even perished in the flames. This sufficiently accounts for their fragmentary character. We may further state, for the benefit of such of our readers as may not be acquainted with them that they consist of a very interesting account of the authoress's own early life, of sketches of her husband's public career, and of descriptions of many of the public characters with whom she had been brought into contact. The style, like that of most of her contemporaries, is pretentious, and wants naturalness and ease. It shows too many traces of Rousseau's influence. there is something in which Madame Roland's admiration for that great writer has led her even more seriously astray. For it is probably to the influence of the "Confessions" that we owe those passages in the memoirs which a pure minded woman ought never to have written, and for which a self-complacent determination to lay her whole heart bare to the public gaze is not a sufficient excuse.

But

Having spoken about herself with such absolute freedom, not to say license, Madame Roland doubtless thought she had every right to do the same concerning her child, her husband, and, indeed, any one she might have occasion to mention. It was, therefore, no wonder that, when,

sole hereditary claim to the crown, and "infant as he was, he was therefore proclaimed Basileus of England, by the authority of the rectores and potentes then in the city." Meanwhile William proceeded against Romney, which he took; then to Dover, and from thence to Canterbury, which "gave the bad precedent of being the first community which had made a formal submission of their own free will, and unenforced by the sword.” William now advanced till within a day's march of London, and here, just below the reach of Greenhithe, the memorable meeting with the Kentish men took place.

in 1795, two years after her death, M. | Bose published the first edition of her memoirs, he should have suppressed many passages and altered others. In the two editions now before us, however, all these passages have very properly been restored. M. Faugère, who was on intimate terms with Madame Champagneux, the daughter of Madame Ronald, obtained a correct copy of the original MS. while it was in her possession; and that correct copy is the text of his edition. On her death, Madame Champagneux, at M. Faugère's suggestion, left the MS. to the Imperial Library, where it has been carefully consulted by M. Dauban. Thus," The poetry in this tradition must not as regards accuracy, there is, probably, not much to choose between the two. Unfortunately, however, M. Faugère has not thought it necessary to indicate the restored passages, and there M. Dauban has the advantage of him. But then, on the other hand, M. Faugère's two volumes contain some useful and interesting appendices which are wanting in his rival's work. But then, again, in addition to his edition of the memoirs, M. Dauban has given us a valuable sketch of Madame Roland's career and three or four documents of capital importance towards a correct estimate of her char

acter.

British Quarterly.

WILLIAM OF NORMANDY.*

SANGUINARY as was this battle, and complete as was the victory, had Harold survived it might have ranked but as the first of a series of conflicts between Saxon and Norman power; but with the death of the leader, all hope of rallying the remains of his army, or of supplying new forces, vanished. Still, England was not as yet at the feet of the conqueror. His victory at most only gave him supremacy in Wessex. In Mercia were the powerful brothers Edwin and Morcar, supported by a large army; and it appears -although the details are very obscure that on their advancing to London one of them sought to obtain the throne. But Edgar the Atheling was there-a little child, indeed, but who, as the sole descendant of the line of Cerdic, had the

* Concluded from page 114.

induce us to reject its substantive truth. Indeed, taking the transactions at the wood of Swanscombe at their lowest value, they fully evidence the main fact, that the Kentish men, having awed the conqueror into an unwilling pacification, received from the beginning a greater share of indulgence." What might not have been the result had other parts of the kingdom stood out as firmly?

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London was next to be reduced, and a detachment of William's army was sent to begin the siege, while he passed across the country to Winchester, which, as the city assigned in dowry to Editha, the widow of the Confessor, he treated with respect, merely requiring the citizens to render fealty. The siege of London was now commenced in good earnest. Barking on the east, and the Palace of Westminster on the west, were the two stations occupied by his troops; and catapult and balista cast their showers upon the dwellings; and the old Roman walls, ascribed to Julius Cæsar or to Constantine, shook before the repeated blows of the battering rams." But so strong was the city that it defied the attack; while the gallant troops within-side-not only the citizens, but "those men of renown, the northern thanes, the men of AngloDanish race "-would not speak of surrender. But William had other means at hand: he seems to have been ere long convinced that intrigue would answer better than open warfare; so he entered into negotiation with a citizen of great influence, one Ansgard, who, with fair words and fairer promises, so urged upon the fathers of the city the ills that would arise from an infant ruler, and the necessity of the supreme power being in the

66 are

hands of one,
ful as Charlemagne, ready in fight as the
great Alexander," that all opposition
was withdrawn. Edwin and Morcar
were among the first to give in their ad-
hesion; Aldred, Archbishop of York,
and Wolfstan, Bishop of Worcester, fol-
lowed; while the deputation appointed
to bear their homage and the keys of the
city to their Norman ruler, bore with
them more important pledge than all
besides the little Atheling, who had
been so lately recognized as their king.

"wise as Solomon, bounti- | his gifts, or the terror excited by his
power," was the motive of this appar
ently most unworthy and slavish request.
"Yet," asks Sir Francis Palgrave,
such representations correct? do they
not rather exhibit the prepossession of
the modern writer than the facts and the
feelings of the eleventh century?" and
he proceeds very suggestively to point
out the absolute importance of "the
sworn king, the anointed king, the crown-
ed king," in those days.

"Our feeling with regard to the royal authority is very different to that which then prevailed. With us, royalty is the realization of a theory, with the Anglo-Saxons, royalty was a necessity. Without a king, the body politic was paralyzed.. Rarely dele

London, on the whole, did well by this submission. William was evidently most anxious to obtain possession of the chief Mercian city; and he forthwith granted that precious charter, so short but so comprehensive-that little slip of parch- gating his powers to others, no veil of etiment, which, "still perfect as on the dayquette, no train of attendants, no mist of forms and ceremonies concealed the sovereign when the pen passed upon it, can lie from his people. Ilis hall was open; the within the palm of your hand, but con- king presided in his own court, listened to tains within its brief compass all that the the complaints of his people, on the throne, citizens could or can require." How few at the gate, beneath the tree, commanded his of the inhabitants of London are aware, own soldiers, pronounced sentence on the that "they alone, of all the burgher com- traitor, spoke out his favors, invested his prelmunities in England, nay, of all the mu- ates, opened his own purse with his own hands. All the active powers of the Comnicipalities in Christendom," have retain-monwealth sprang from the very person of the king, as the visible centre of unity, the centre around which every sphere revolved.

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ed until the present day all the rights and all the freedom which William the Conqueror secured to them eight hunThe closest approximation to the condred years ago! William, indeed, on dition of the Anglo-Saxon commonwealth many occasions seems to have treated the wanting a king, may be attained by considerLondoners with marked favor. Evening what would have been the state of Engwhen building the Tower of London, "it is remarkable that, yielding either to respect for the rights of that powerful and unruly and jealous community, or to apprehension of the indignation which he might excite by their infringement, he encroached as little as possible upon the city ground;" and thus, while on the Middlesex side the authority of the royal constable extended over all the adjoining hamlets, his jurisdiction on the city side does not extend beyond the very gates. The Castle of Falaise, where William was born, was, it appears, the model for the White Tower, the only portion of the structure which was erected in his time. Wessex was now subdued, Mercia, in the name of her chief city, had proffered fealty it remained now but for William to be crowned to become de jure Edward the Confessor's successor. This recommendation certainly proceeded first from his Saxon subjects, and it has been questioned whether "the corruption of

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land, if, upon the abdication of James, Wilsession of the throne; and Parliament repuliam of Orange had not proceeded to take posdiating the Stuarts yet not daring to supply the royal authority by any power of their own, or by any fiction of law, an absolute interregnum had ensued. What then would have been the state of England? All the branches of public and national administration and jurisdiction would have come to an end. It is well known how strongly the feeling in favor of a king prevailed in England during the Commonwealth and Protectorate, and how much they contributed towards the restoration of the monarchy. Had Cromwell boldly acceded to the humble petition and advice, England would never have seen Charles Stuart on the throne. So innate and inveterate was the opinion, that no republican lawyer, Daniel Axtell himself, could ever well understand how it was possible to arrest John Doe unless by the king's writ of capias, or to imprison the petty larcener unless the offence was duly laid in the indictment, as a breach of the king's peace and against his crown and dignity."

But more important still, the Anglo

Saxon king, like all his successors, was "a responsible functionary." No notion had our Saxon forefathers of "the right divine of kings ;" and thus in calling upon William to take the crown, they actually called upon him to pledge himself that he would rule according to the established laws of the kingdom-in effect, to exchange his position as the victor of Hastings, for that of the monarch sworn on the Holy Gospels, "to hold true peace, and forbid stoutrife and injustice to all." William, it is said, hesitated; if so, it was merely after the "nolo episcopari" form, for his hesitation soon gave way. His Norman barons vehemently urged him, for shrewd reasoners were they. William had promised them land and fee in England. "If he made his grants to them without any definition of his own authority, without any certain law, they would have no law to defend them. Duke William was almost a despot in Normandy; what would he be if ruling as victor in England?

ing the foundations of the Tower, be sought to forget the evil omen that had accompanied his recognition as king. But the tale spread through the length and breadth of the land, and deep were the curses breathed against Norman fraud and cruelty, and stern were the vows of revenge. The unhappy mischance was accepted as a prophecy of evil, and "it was permitted to work its accomplishment." But William had other anxieties. His rapacious followers had been promised lands or gifts; but how should he reward them all? He was not now the successful invader, able to divide the conquered land at his will, but the king of the land, sworn to do justice, and to see justice done. And then Denmark had sent a message of defiance, bidding him do homage for his lately - gained kingdom; and well did he know that all along the eastern coast there was a Danish population ready to take part with the invaders, while even in the midland counties few of the cities had proffered even a reluctant submission. Truly William, even thus early, was doomed to pay the penalty of his ambition.

The coronation took place at Christmas, the same year, in the Abbey of Westminster. Aldred, Archbishop of York, performed the office; but when Quickly perceiving that want of ener presenting William to the multitude, and gy had been the fatal error of the Angloasking them, in their own English tongue, Saxon kings, William determined to show after the customary form, if they acknowl- his new subjects the benefits of a vigoredged him as their king, loud shouts ous rule. He, therefore, in the spring, burst forth. The Norman soldiery with- made his first progress, "extending from outside, ignorant of their import, or pur- Oxford to the Humber, but yet including posely misconstruing them, assumed they large districts which retained a species were the tokens of insurrection, and fired of virtual independence;" and all along the adjoining buildings. The flames his line of march his soldiery were rewere quickly seen within the Abbey; the strained from all violence - not even food crowd rushed out; but still, amidst this being allowed to be taken from the housealarm the service proceeded. William holders against their will. All law-breakwas anointed with the holy oil, he kissed ers were sternly dealt with, robbers esthe golden cross, and laid his hand on the pecially; and according to the testimony gospel book-that very book which may of the Saxons themselves, the Watling still be seen in the British Museum; but street and Ikenild street could offer the it was with a faltering voice he pronounc- same security as that enjoyed by the ed the threefold oath, for "William him- mythic Irish damsel, when, with gems self, who never before had known appre-rich and rare," and a bright gold ring, hension, now trembled with very fear; and thus was the diadem placed upon his head by Aldred. The victor of Hastings was agued with terror when receiving his prize."

We have no account of a coronation feast, for William seems to have quitted Westminster at once for Barking; and there, pursuing "the tall deer" in the wide forest of Essex, and in superintend

she journeyed safely along. William, at the same time, began the custom of celebrating the three great church festivals in the three chief cities of his threefold kingdom, Wessex, Mercia, and Danelagh, and of then solemnly wearing his crown." Nor was this a mere matter of state, for, according to the Anglo-Saxon constitution, all remedial jurisdiction was annexed to the person of the king. Thus

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evidently anxious to preserve a show of justice. His last act was the foundation and endowment of Battle Abbey; and then, having appointed justiciars, he passed over to Normandy with a numer ous train, among whom were the brothers Edwin and Morear, Agelnoth"the Satrap," and Earl Waltheof, invited as honored guests, but in fact prisoners and hostages.

the regal crown, like the ermined robe of | Edwardi, nothing less and nothing the judge, was the visible sign that the more." The villein also was not permit supreme dispenser of justice and mercy ted to be removed from his land. Thus, was present, to hear the plaint and redress in his first arrangements, William was the wrong. The undefended state of the kingdom | next claimed William's attention, and, under his directions, strong castles were commenced in various parts. The protection of the coast, especially the southeastern, and the necessity of providing for retreat, in case of adverse fortune, also engaged his attention; and the measures he took were singularly efficient. Sir Francis Palgrave points to Sussex, and observes, that "the territorial division there differs altogether from that which prevails elsewhere in England." Instead of the "hundred " we find the " rape; and this word refers to the custom of the Normans of dividing land, not by any natural boundaries, but by actual measurement by the rope.

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William's return to Normandy, and his progress through various parts, were attended with all the magnificence of a triumphal procession. Indeed, this first visit to his duchy may be viewed as the culminating point of his prosperity. "He was enjoying all the first fresh pleasure of success, as yet unalloyed by its inevitable chastening." William kept his Paschal feast at Fécamp; and hither, sum"Now this is the process which Williammoned by lavish invitations, came a host effected in Sussex: the county is divided into

six districts, extending down from the north ern border, each possessing a frontage towards the sea, each affording a ready communication with Normandy, and constituting, as it were, six military high roads to William's paternal duchy. Sussex sustained this great territorial alteration alone, being dealt with, from the first moment, entirely as a conquered territory."

of Bretons and Flemings, together with numerous French nobles, to gaze upon the rich spoils taken from the treasury of the English kings-the garments of exquisite broidery, the cups, the horns, the bracelets and coronals-all of surpassing beauty, and all the work of English hands. And well might they look wonderingly upon these, for the cup of English workTo satisfy the claims of some, at least, manship, and the mantle embroidered by of his greedy followers, was William's the English maiden, were gifts, even at next task; and for this the enormous ex- this time, for kings to offer, and for the tent of land possessed by the Godwin pontiff himself to receive. The high value family offered a welcome facility. As of the spoils, too, excited their wonder. king, he had a right to the lands of all" More wealth has the duke brought traitors who had borne arms against him, from England," said they, "than could and the estates of Harold and his broth-be found in thrice the extent of Gaul." ers thus of course became available. The lands of those who fought and fell at Hastings, too, were also forfeited, and these altogether" gave him an enormous fund, so to speak, to draw upon." It is important, however, to remark, that, in becoming the possessor of English land, the Norman was compelled to hold it precisely by the accustomed English tenures. Thus, the same relief the Saxon earl had been wont to pay, was to be exacted from the Norman owner. The Danegeld was to be paid, as of old, two shillings for each hide of land: while, in case of any legal proceedings, these were to be conducted, "as the land was tempore regis

But, above all, upon the rare beauty of the Saxon youth they gazed with astonishment; the soft silken hair, the delicate features, the complexion, so exquisite in its blended red and white, awakened, as William of Poictou tells us, even more admiration than all these priceless treasures.*

* With this incontrovertible testimony of a Norman, and an eye-witness, before them, it is strange that any writers should think of claiming such vast superiority for the Norman race. far superior in the arts of civilization; they seem The Saxons were evidently viewed by them as to have been looked upon much as the Roman captives must have been by the brave but unciv

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