In the administration as well as in the Conseil d'Etat, M. Guizot, in conjunction with his party, continually exerted himself, in spite of great difficulties, to impress upon the Government the necessity of giving honest and regular motion to the new constitutional machine. And whenever, by the rapid turns of politics in those days, he was out of office, he commenced with his pen to struggle against the retrograde system. His political pamphlets published between 1816 and 1822

actionary chamber called the Chambre introuvable, which Louis XVIII. had the good sense to dissolve on the 5th of September, 1816. On the other side the influence of the secret societies brought about the assassination of the Duke de Berri in the year 1820. This crime proved a heavy blow to the establishment of liberty in France, which was still further impeded by three important events the formation of the Villèle ministry, the invasion of Spain, and the death of Louis XVIII. Under Charles X., who, during his-On Representative Government; On the brother's reign, was considered the true leader of the absolutists, reäction made such rapid progress, that within three years it provoked the liberal elections of 1828, and led to the appointment of the Martignac ministry, which, in spite of its good intentions, was not strong enough to check the backward tendencies of the Court on the one hand and the excited feelings of the nation on the other. At last Charles X. drew the sword and threw away the scabbard, by appointing Prince Polignac his Prime MinisThe revolution of 1830 was the answer to that provocation.

ter.

It is almost needless to say that M. Guizot was a supporter of the Government under those ministries with which he had at least a general community of opinion, and that he was in the opposition under anti-liberal administrations. In 1814 he was appointed Secretary-General to the Minister of the Interior, an office analogous to that of our UnderSecretary of State. By putting a liberal, a Protestant, and a bourgeois, as was M. Guizot, at the side of a royalist, an ecclesiastic, and a nobleman, as was his chief the Abbé de Montesquiou, Louis XVIII. gave a proof of his sincere wish to effect a fusion between all that was best in the nation.

After the Cent Jours, M. Guizot held a similar position, but retired when the ministry of the Marquis Barbè Marbois was overthrown. In 1816 he presented a memoir to Louis XVIII., urging him to dissolve the Chambre introuvable, and, on his courageous advice being accepted, he was appointed Conseiller d'Etat by the new ministry, in conjunction with several of the strongest supporters of parliamentary freedom. Under the reäction which took place after the death of the Duke de Berri, the well-known liberal principles of Camille Jordan, Royer-Collard, and the Baron de Barante, caused them to be dismissed from the Conseil d'Etat, when M. Guizot voluntarily resigned. From that period up to his election in 1830 to the Chamber of Deputies, he held no political office whatever.

Government of France; On Political Justice; On the Mode of conducting Government and Opposition; On Capital Punishment for Political Offences-were filled with true constitutional ideas, and, appearing at the critical moment, were received with immense applause. By his frequent appeals through the press, he was one of the most influential causes of the reawakening of the freedom of thought and opinion which had slumbered during the Empire, and which a few years after acquired dictatorial power in France. This double and alternate action of M. Guizot upon the Government and upon the public is thus stated by himself in one of his pamphlets: "When I was in office, I did my duty; and the proof of it is, that I am in a private station: now I use my right by addressing myself to the nation at large."

All these political manifestoes furnish important evidence of the state of parties at the period. But pamphlets are more adapted to pull down than to build up. M. Guizot wanted to raise the edifice of a constitution, and to impress the younger part of the nation with the true principles of that form of government. With this view, in 1820 he took as the subject of his lectures on Modern History at the Faculty of Letters, "The Origin of Representative Government in Europe." His success was wonderful. All Paris flocked to hear him, and the largest hall of the Sorbonne was not sufficiently spacious to accommodate the thousands who besieged the doors. The crowd was so dense, and the difficulty of getting a seat so great, that many persons in the neighborhood obtained a living by the sale of places which they secured by coming several hours before the time. The enthusiasm of an entire population of students, the cheers with which the Professor was received, the reverent attention paid to his words, call to mind the ten thousand youths of all ages and nations who in the thirteenth century surrounded in the open air the pulpits of the most celebrated teachers of the University of Bologna. At the

end of the darkness of the middle ages the Italians sought instruction with the same irresistible eagerness with which Frenchmen in 1820 sighed for freedom. These lectures, of which the topics are chiefly taken from the histories of England and France, were only known through the imperfect reports of short-hand writers. They have been recently published by their author in a complete form, and, though they are separated by thirty years from the circumstances to which they owed their origin, and have no longer that peculiar political significance which gave them such potent meaning at the time of their delivery, they are still among the most instructive works of M. Guizot.

passions as much as was practicable amidst the convulsive agitation of parties, their views assumed a philosophical form, and from the didactic nature of their writings, they were called doctrinaires. This sobriquet, applied to them at first by the Royalists, and afterwards by the ultra Liberals, and generally understood in a contemptuous sense, is of itself a proof that the nation never possessed an adequate notion of constitutional government, the very nature of which involves a rational framework, and not a mere assemblage of crude empirical ideas.

less necessary, the law against sacrilege, was passed. It was in this year also that General Foy, the famous popular orator, flashed the last lightnings of his burning eloquence. A young traveller, who spent several months in Paris at the time, kept a journal, from which he has permitted us to make extracts, and they present such a lively picture of the political passions which then pervaded society, and such curious traits of national peculiarities as well as of many of the celebrated men of that day, that we are persuaded they will be read with universal interest.

Never was the struggle more animated and interesting than in 1825, which was the year of the coronation of Charles X. The hopes The extraordinary success of the lectures of the retrograde party were elated by the was not allowed to pass without notice, and bigotry and absolutist principles of the new the Professor was soon abruptly deprived of king, while the repugnance of young France his chair. The pen which M. Guizot had hither- to the old ideas was daily increasing. It was to employed chiefly in galling his enemies, now this year that the great indemnity to the emienabled him to supply the domestic necessi-grés was decreed, and that another bill, much ties in which his dismissal had involved him. Without ceasing to labor at the construction of the constitutional edifice to which he had devoted the energies of his life, he published an immense variety of works, of which we will only mention his great collection of original memoirs on the history of France from Gregory of Tours to William of Poictiers, and a similar collection on the history of the Revolution of England in the seventeenth century. A short time afterwards, he undertook the publication of a new periodical, the Revue Française, in which, with several of his most distinguished friends, he again became the advocate of constitutional liberties. Amongst the contributors who were then his disciples and admirers, some, like Armand Carrel and Godefroy Cavaignac, became, after 1830, his most irreconcilable enemies; and by their articles in the National aided in preparing the overthrow of the government of Louis Philippe. The Revue was addressed principally to the higher class of readers, while another periodical, the Globe, conducted by the younger and more active members of the party, appealed to the multitude.

There is a unity and consistency in the efforts of thoughtful, sagacious, and upright men, which is often disregarded in the strug gle of parties, and which only becomes manifest in looking back on their career. It will readily be inferred from our narrative that the peculiar merit of M. Guizot and his followers consisted in the unceasing efforts they made for the political education of France, and for the introduction of the constitutional principles they had derived from the history of England. Keeping aloof from popular

savans.

introduced me to the Thursday evening parties of
1825: January 6th.-Baron de Humboldt has
M. Arago at the Observatoire. It would have been
difficult to meet a larger gathering of celebrated
I saw Gay-Lussac, Thénard, Poisson,
Ampère, Dulong, Fresnel, and many others, all of
about the same age, from forty to fifty; Fresnel, to
coveries, is the youngest, but he looks delicate.
whom optics is indebted for so many brilliant dis-
I am told that his health has been impaired by the
labor of the examinations in the Polytechnic
School. What a pity if such a man should be sacri-
ficed to the toils of a secondary position! Thé-
nard and Gay-Lussac, on the other hand, are
wealthy, chemistry having been for them the source
he is sometimes called Mademoiselle Dulong-has
of riches. Dulong-so amiable and modest that
lost an eye and two fingers, by the explosion of
some fulminating substance which he discovered.
The great geometrician Poisson is as witty and
cheerful as Ampère, who is older, looks heavy and
dull. The most extraordinary stories about Am-
He had expressed a wish to be introduced to a
père's absence of mind have been related to me.
celebrated lady, Mlle. Germain, well known for
her high mathematical attainments. At one of
the evening-parties of M. Arago, Mlle. Germain

was announced. Ampère hastened to take her hand, led her to a corner of the drawing-room, and sitting down by her side, entered at once upon a mathematical discussion. The lady replied very skilfully, and the whole company gathered round them to listen to the dialogue, till suddenly the conversation was interrupted by a burst of laughter. The lady turned out to be M. Poisson, whom Mme. Arago and the other ladies had induced to put on a bonnet and a shawl. His face, which is very little feminine, had not been recognized by M. Ampère as that of his intimate friend.

orator, with a military tone and bearing. They say he never delivers any speech extempore, but first dictates and then learns it by heart. If this is true, he acts his part very well, as he expresses love of country, indignation, and the other political passions, without the least apparent preparation. He chiefly stands up for the military glory of France, and his speeches are admirably suited to flatter the pride of a nation so fond of conquest. But with General Foy that nation seems only to consist of the favorers of the Revolution, and of those Frenchmen who after the overthrow of the throne invaded almost all the states of Europe; and who, it must be added, indulged a little in persecuting, spoliating, guillotining, and massa

Though this réunion was ostensibly scientific, there was more political than scientific discussion. The men stood in groups in the middle of the room, while the ladies were sitting and talk-cring another very large portion of their countrying round the fireplace. Humboldt was alternately flirting with the ladies, and slily aiming some malicious shafts at his good friends the French savans, whom he constantly ridicules, notwithstanding that he professes to consider France as his adopted country. The whole company, although paid by the Government, were unanimous in condemning it. Bonapartist, republican, or quasi-republican sentiments were to be heard on every side. M. Arago is neither a Bonapartist nor a Royalist. He described with great vivacity a visit which Bonaparte paid one day to the Observatory, accompanied by the Empress Marie Louise. Having requested M. Arago to show them any curious phenomenon which might be visible in the heavens, he directed their attention to some spots which were then to be seen on the sun. Bonaparte perceived them distinctly, but as Marie Louise, who wore a large bonnet with a heavy veil, could distinguish nothing, Bonaparte, in his impatience, tore off abruptly the offending bonnet. Even M. Arago, though a republican, considered the proceeding rather unceremonious towards the daughter of the Caesars, as Bonaparte used to call her.

M. Arago spoke much of the poverty of the Papal States, which he attributed to the immense cost of the building of St. Peter's! Rather a stale source of complaint! While he indulged in animadversions on the prodigal fancies of the popes and despots who built St. Peter's and Versailles, he left out of sight the still more ruinous caprices of the mob, which in a day of émeute (to say nothing of revolutions) sometimes destroys more property, and contributes more to impoverish a nation, than a king can do in a lifetime. What astonished me most was to see Marshal Marmont, a man invested with one of the highest offices at court, not only silent under the political attacks, but even assenting to them by his countenance and gestures. He is a great friend of Arago, and seems anxious to shield himself under the aegis of the celebrated astronomer's popularity against the odium attached to the recollection of the surrender of Paris.

men. The thousands of victims of the noyades of Carrier, the inhabitants of Lyons destroyed by grape-shot, the peasantry of La Vendée, who so heroically fought for their God and their king, and above all, the immense multitude of émigrés who, escaping the guillotine of Robespierre, were starving for twenty years in every corner of Europe, were not Frenchmen at all in the eyes of the gallant general, who always speaks of them with sovereign contempt. It is interesting to see the liberal party, composed, perhaps, of a dozen members, who sit together on the left side of the Hall, resisting the whole of the Chamber. I saw there several celebrated men-Benjamin Constant, with his long hair; the old General Lafayette, with his rather insignificant face; the stout banker Lafitte, who looks like a man equally pleased with his popularity and his millions; and Casimir Perier, whose speeches, though very vehement, seem to me the most conclusive and practical of all. This small group of able men shows great firmness in fighting so courageously against an overwhelming majority; but in point of fact they speak to the nation at large, by which they are cheered, and not to the Chamber.

February 15th.-Baron Maurice, of Geneva, introduced me to the celebrated historian, M. Guizot. We found him breakfasting with his wife, who is well known for her writings on education. His domicile in the Rue St. Dominique is of the most modest description. He is a little, thin, nervous man, but with an expressive physiognomy, and a bold and penetrating look. He is now publishing a large collection of memoirs on the Revolution of England; and he spoke of his desire to procure from Florence a copy of some rare political tracts relating to Charles I. and Cromwell, which are in the collection on English history in the secret archives. Though a strong opponent of the Villèle ministry, he is a steady supporter of the charter; and he maintains that, except in the case of irremediable faults committed by the Government or the Opposition, the parliamentary régime may be established in France under the house of Bourbon. I was ex

January 26th.-I was present to-day at a sit-tremely pleased with my visit, but rather astonting of the Chamber of Deputies. General Foy delivered a short but animated speech on the claims of the members of the Legion of Honor. He is at present the idol of France, where perhaps, within a few years, his name will be hardly remembered. He is a fine man, and a powerful

ished to see Mme. Guizot taking so active a part in the dialogue, often answering for her husband, and even interrupting him in a tone of superiority which I was not inclined to admit, but which seems rather a matter of course with M. Guizot.

March 8th.-Dined at the Count of Mosbourg's. | Both he and the Countess are very kind persons. He was minister at Naples under the Bonaparte dynasty, and I am told is very skilful in finance. The party was numerous and brilliant, and consisted principally of Bonapartist celebrities. I was seated at dinner between the Princess of Wagram widow of Marshal Berthier - and General Belliard, late of the Imperial Guard. He is a little man, full of fire and vivacity. Opposite was General Excelmans, tall, fair and pale, and looking more like a German than a Frenchman. During the whole dinner I pitied the poor Countess of Mosbourg, who, being obliged, according to the French custom, in her capacity of hostess, to carve every dish, was perpetually addressing the several members of the company with "Madame so-and-so, will you allow me to offer you a bit of pheasant?"-"General so-and-so, shall I send you some turbot?" This seems to me an insupportable duty, particularly at large dinners. Still, they say that French ladies like a custom by which they are made so prominent, although it prevents them from eating a single morsel.

teur. "They are ruining religion, they are destroying Christianity," cried he, as soon as he saw me. "Though they have expelled me as indigne from the Chamber of Deputies, they know not what are the true interests of religion. When that wicked Gobel, the constitutional Bishop of Paris, followed by all his clergy, made his appearance at the bar of the National Convention, in order to abjure the Christian religion, declaring publicly that he renounced a religion of error and duplicity which he had taught all his life, who refuted him, who exposed his life for the vindication of Christianity? I was the man; and the next day, going to the sitting of the Convention, I saw the walls of the Rue du Bac covered with pasted bills, in which the grande trahison of the Abbé Grégoire was denounced to public vengeance. Where were then the present champions of the altar and the throne? They were concealed in cellars, and now they are extorting from the Chambers atrocious bills, the least inconvenience of which is, that they will never be carried into operation. And this is not all! They are, besides, torturing the consciences of a few After the dinner I witnessed a curious scene. poor old priests, who, thirty years ago, thought Some visitors having arrived, one of them, a that it was better to accept the civil constitution French gentleman of rank, who, during the emi- of the clergy, than to abandon France to infidelity gration, had been an officer in the Russian army, and atheism." Here I was much impressed to alluding to an action at which he had been pre- see the venerable old man sob and weep bitterly sent in that capacity, and speaking of his regi- But while I was admiring the courage he displayment, made use of the expression, WE did so-and-ed under the Reign of Terror, I could not help So. Instantly, Excelmans, who is ordinarily polite and quiet, interrupted him sharply, saying: "Sir, WE, in the mouth of a Frenchman, means French soldiers; and none but an émigré-and the émigrés are not French-could have applied it otherwise." I did not understand the answer of the other. This looked rather like the beginning of an affair of honor. But I was told, before the end of the evening, that the matter willing and laughing! A gentleman of respectable be settled by mutual friends without fighting.

March 28th.-Dined at the Marquis of Pastoret's magnificent hotel, Place Louis XV. Though nearly seventy, this celebrated jurist is still very hale. He is a peer of France, and being one of the guardians of the children of the late Duke de Berri, is one of the leaders of the Royalist party. I met at dinner the great naturalist, Baron Cuvier, and the celebrated Chinese scholar, Abel Rémusat. Cuvier is a stout, strongly-built man, with a very large head. He speaks with equal superiority on every subject. He holds high offices in the Government, and though expressing himself with reserve, he shows his tendency towards absolutism. He said that mankind was composed of hammers and anvils, and that it was much better to be a hammer than an anvil.

April 25th.-I paid a visit to the Abbé Grégoire. I never saw a man in such a fit of passion. It was extremely curious to see that fine, tall, powdered septuagenarian in his white woollen morning-gown, with a bishop's golden cross on his breast he is never without the insignia of his bishopric of Blois-literally jumping with rage like a madman. The cause of his anger was the Loi du Sacrilege, (the bill against sacrilegious crimes,) which was published to-day in the Moni

reflecting that at the time to which he alluded, the French priests were not lying concealed, as he said, in the cellars of Paris. They were much more effectually hidden in the immense holes into which the corpses of the victims of the Massacres de l'Abbaye were cast, like dead dogs, in September, 1792. What a nation! passing suddenly from one excess to another, and always jok

character and of considerable learning, M. Benoiston de Châteauneuf, told me, that only a day or two after the massacre of the Abbaye, he was at the Théâtre Français, which was not, as it is at present, in the Rue Richelien, but was still, as in the time of Voltaire, in the Rue des Fossés St. Germain. In the middle of the performance a loud rolling noise of carts was heard outside the theatre, and the audience became aware that the corpses of the victims butchered at the neighboring Abbaye were on their way to the burial-grounds. Immediately all the spectators, and even the actors in their dramatic costumes, ran out of the theatre into the street to contemplate the more amusing spectacle of several hundred mutilated bodies. When this sad and atrocious procession had passed, actors and audience reëntered the theatre; the performance was resumed, and the assembly witnessed with customary mirth the drolleries of a lacquey and the intrigues of a soubrette.

May 11th.-The fine morning induced me to take a walk through the garden of the Luxembourg. I met there the celebrated mathematician Laplace, who, tired with the sitting of the Chamber of Peers, had left the hall to stroll in the adjoining garden. This little thin old man, with his long stick and his violet silk overcoat, looked like a person of another age. His physical