otism! These are romantic spirits, who thirst for excitement, but for whom common life is too dull and prosaic. their craving for distinction-when their imagi"When such men are not in a position to satisfy nation cannot devise any means of giving celebrity to their names by deeds of renown-forced to lower their pretensions, they are determined at least to do something odd. died! Why, the very tone of the narrative takes away all credit from the narrator, and therefore, even as evidence of the fact it seeks to establish, it is utterly valueless. He who could color acts and feelings as he has probably done, would, with less criminality, distort facts. We verily be lieve that the unfortunate prince did die in the temple; but the document in question "One of the best of my agents was an indi does not go an inch towards proving it-vidual of this class. A train of very ordinary all it shows is, the school of villany and de-initiated him into the secrets of the corresponcircumstances had placed him in a society which ception of which our author admitted him-dence of the legitimists with the Duchess of self to be a disciple. Berry. This man, unable to extricate himself without danger from the position he stood in, and not wishing to co-operate with a party from whom he differed in opinion, demanded an audihis situation, and explained all the advantages ence of me. He showed me the peculiarity of which I might derive from it. There is one portion of these volumes which, but that it has been in a measure forestalled to the English reader by the review in the Quarterly of Mr. Frégier's book, we should have drawn briefly upon we mean the statistics of the classes of "I certainly looked for very lofty expectations Paris, according to their moral divisions. on his part-judge of my surprise when my new Those who are epicures in such things, will agent informed me, that he proposed serving his surely get a sufficient meal in the Review; country gratuitously, in order to preserve France for ourselves, a very slight morsel would from the horrors of a civil war! Struck by have satisfied us, and we not unwillingly reading a novel of Cooper's, called The Spy, he pass them by. No doubt, some of the pre-hero of that work, and wished to perform in aspired to the kind of celebrity attached to the fect's regulations were salutary; those re- France the part which Cooper has made his specting the Morgue, or receptacle for Harvey Birch enact during the American war. bodies found drowned in the Seine, and un- All he stipulated for was a promise that I would claimed, particularly. Nor are we disposed not take any harsh measures against certain to quarrel with him for having suppressed persons whom he named to me, and whom he that powerful but revolting play of Victor was attached to. Hugo's, Le Roi S'amuse: nay, we even agree with him in his opinions respecting the ridiculous over-appreciation of the public interest in such matters indulged in by the dramatist; but nevertheless, we scarce ly see why all this need be introduced into a book professing to be memoirs all that could justify the details we conceive would be its forming a basis or argument of a work of science or political economy; and we observe the same propensities in the author as characterized the retired soapboiler, who stipulated to be permitted to attend weekly on boiling day for his proper amusement. No doubt, he means to make the credit of salutary regulations stand as a set-off against the delinquencies of his administration; but they are too much extended for this, and must be considered as exhibiting the tastes of the man. "The conduct of Harvey Birch-for he adopted that name in all his communications-was faithful throughout. He performed some pieces of service which certainly deserved a tolerably large remuneration, yet when the time came at which his particular agency was brought to a close, he contented himself with asking me for some trifling employment, such as might barely meet his indispensable wants. "But besides the common informere and spies employed by the police, the ministers of the crown must sometimes have creatures who will frequent the drawing-room of fashion, and be admitted into those brilliant assemblies, where the most distinguished and illustrious class of auxiliaries constitutes what may be personages of the land meet together. This called the aristocracy of the police. "But what rare and opposite qualities must in such be united! With how many valuable talents must he be endowed who would fill this delicate post! Those privileged persons, whose wit, taste, and rank would naturally be supposed He is occasionally amusing in his de-not, after all, the persons who fill it. In short, secure for them this enviable position, are scriptions of character. "I have seen," says he, "persons who acted for the police, and gave me important information, who wished, they said, in this way to pay some debt of gratitude for benefits received, either from the royal family, or from some member of the government. "I must also add, as a remarkable and very rare variety, a class of persons who became agents of the police from motives of pure patri I should despair to trace, in a satisfactory manner, the portrait of these secret agents of the first class, were it not that I have in my eye a unique specimen-a type, such as in all probability will never be met with again. "The individual I allude to was of noble birth, and bore a title which enhanced the natural charms of his deportment; for nature had refused him no external advantage, and, not less prodigal to him in other points, had given him a rich and fertile imagination, and a remar-] kable power of observation. Finesse, tact, repartee, originality of thought, all caused him to be distinguished even amongst the most successful lances in the list of wit. "But he is greatly mistaken who thinks that the Marquis of P— allowed himself to descend to common manœuvres; who supposes. for example, that he would provoke a confidence with more or less cunning, or would set about leading the conversation to a subject in which he might take advantage of an unsuspecting candor. All this would be to be a common agent, or rather it would have involved duplicity and a want of faith, quite foreign from his character. No; the Marquis of P- was determined to have all the credit of perfect fairness and honesty. "But some of my readers, perhaps, disappointed by my last remarks, may here ask whether I am not reading them a riddle. I beg of them to follow me to the end. "All men in Parisian society knew that M. de P, well bred as he was, did not possess a sous in the world, and yet he had a handsome house, horses, a carriage, and all those other appliances of comfort and luxury, indispensable to a man who lives comme il faut. them, beyond the singular grace of the style in which they were conveyed; and she received for this a moderate sum out of the secret service money. The insignificance of these communications at last decided me to give her her congé, but the baroness was immovable-she was determined not to give up the advantages of the position she held. "It was towards the end of October, 1832, at a time when the government knew that the Duchess of Berry was hid in the environs of Nantes, that our baroness affirmed to me, by word and by letter, that she knew Madame's retreat, but that she could not bring herself to divulge so important a secret without being promised a large reward, and a moderate sum of one thousand francs, paid in hand on account. Although I confess I was not very confident of her veracity, the baroness's affirmations were made with so much assurance, the names of some of the legitimist party, from whom she affected to have learned the secret, were chosen so cleverly, and besides her former position gave her in reality so many facilities for penetrating the secrets of that party, that I durst not reject such a chance of eventually rendering an important service to government. "The required sum was, therefore, remitted to "No one understood better than he the minu- the baroness, and the next day she announced to tie of fashion, the arcana of refinement, theme that the Duchess of Berry was hid, under the maniere d'etre of high life; none could order an | name of Bertin—in a chateau near Arpajon. entertainment better, give a more recherché dinner, or prove by his gastronomic skill, his qualifications for the society he lived in. And when on the green cloth, the billiard-ball, or écarté, he set gold circulating freely, no one ever saw a player gain with less apparent satisfaction, or lose with greater indifference. "I knew perfectly well that the mother of Henri the Fifth was hid at Nantes, or within a circuit of a few leagues around that town; and consequently the intelligence given by the baroness was simply a story fabricated for the purpose of swindling the government out of a thousand francs. "One more story I will give of a proceeding of the same kind, chosen out of a thousand others of which I have the particulars in my memory: 666 "As besides all this the Marquis of Palways appeared kind, useful, a pleasant storyteller, harmless in his wit, though unrivalled in his skill at epigram and raillery, he was the constant object of attentions, and was sought for, This time it was Madame la Comtesse de feasted, and admired by his numerous amphi-B, who had all the honor and profit of the tryons. Now, incredible as it may seem, not trick. This lady was perfectly well aware of only his friends, but the whole circle of his ac- our wish to discover the retreat of those repubquaintance, (and no one had a more extended licans who escaped in July, 1835, from the prione,) knew perfectly well what he was. This is son of St. Pelagie, and accordingly she wrote to what would have overwhelmed any one of or- me to say, that extreme want of money obliged dinary talent-here was the transcendent merit, her to commit a dreadful act; she demanded a the climax of genius. To put no questions, and few thousand francs for revealing the secret of to learn much; to invite no expression of opin- which she was the depositary, offering to tell ion for the purpose of revealing it, and yet to where a number of the runaways had gone, and ascertain the opinion of every body; to urge no only asking the trifling advance of one thousand one to disclosure, and yet to penetrate into the francs. The minister of the interior authorized most secret thoughts, to know every thing, in the payment of the money, and the Countess de fact, without appearing to observe any thing, Bannounced to us that she had herself unand to retain the confidence even of those who dertaken to accompany two of the principal of were perfectly well acquainted with the part he fenders to the frontier, who were to pass, one for played, surely this was to do the business of po- her husband, the other for her servant; she lice agent in an accomplished way, enough stated what diligence they were to go by, the almost to make it agreeable to the public!" day of their intended departure, and the real and assumed names of the fugitives. She actually set off in the coach named; six of my agents took places in it with her, and, as may be "A certain baroness, whose husband had supposed, every precaution was taken to secure been in the service of the old royal family, af- her imaginary fellow-travellers; but if the amiafected the sincerest devotion for the new dynas-ble countess had any delinquents in her comty. She sent me periodically relations which pany, their crimes were not of a nature to call generally did not turn out to have much in for the high jurisdiction of the Court of Peers, But even the police may be taken in. Here is the other side of the picture and accordingly our good lady made at the pub-| lic expense a journey, of which she reserved all the advantages and pleasures for herself." GOVERNMENT EDUCATION MEASURE. THE temper in which the educational clauses ed of by the leaders in the House of Commons of the Government Factory Bill have been talkis such as to suggest a hope that some of the details of the bill may be modified so as to enable both parties to support it. The readers will not, perhaps, at once observe that the parties held up to ridicule or reprobation by the ex-prefect in hese extracts, are probably sufficiently pointed at for a Paris reader to identify by his descriptions, and thus the discarded police official in all probability pays his debts of spite by these details, which may or may not be true, but which must be fatal to the reputation of the parties, thus gratuitously, on such authority, branded with infamy institution supported by Government for the purthe eyes of the public. But all parties began at last to be disgusted with him-popular hatred rose to fury-and he was obliged, in self-defence, to retire not only from office, but from the capital; yet nevertheless he makes his moan, at the close of his volumes, because his persecutions, as he calls them, extended even to those friends and relatives whom he had thrust into office! One would think him the most wronged of men. He fancies, too, after his retirement, with a delusion amusingly analogous to a case he ridicules in an early part of these volumes, that he was subjected to espionage, and seeing of course his own former agents around his house, as they were everywhere, he believes that his very motions are watched, and complains, like another Rousseau, that all men were in a plot against him! It is with exquisite effrontery that, wearied, as it should seem, with virtuous efforts to justify himself, he exclaims at last "Je ne veux pas céder à l'irritation de mes souve nirs je m'en rapporte à la sagacité de tous les hommes impartiaux !" It is said that the mode Gisquet took to interrogate a man from whom he expected to elicit a fact of importance was to seize him by the hand, talk for some time on other matters, and then, putting the query vehemently and abruptly, squeeze his hand violently at the same moment-a mode of question which, it is stated, in many instances extracted the desired reply, when nothing else could have accomplished it. There is little, we repeat, to induce he reader to peruse this work-it will certain ly not instruct him, and will, we think, scarcely amuse, beyond the passages we have extracted. THE MARQUESAS.-The French Government has received despatches from the Marquesas, by which it appears the story of the massacre of the governor is unfounded.-Exam. The principle of compulsory education by the State, as is truly observed by Mr. Fox in his pamphlet on the Educational Clauses, "is new to some of their characteristic modes of thought." to the people of this country, and very offensive The remark applies only to secular education; for the Church is, properly speaking, a great in pose of diffusing religious education. With re- To the late Whig Ministry belongs the credit of taking the first step in this direction. A Committee of the Privy Council on Education is, perhaps, but a poor substitute for a Minister of Public Instruction; but it is a great gain as a beginning. By making the appointment of such ments of every new Administration, the Civil a Committee a recognized part of the arrange Government recognizes a certain surveillance of education as part of its cares and responsibilities. Every thing that the friends of education, in or out of Parliament, can henceforth education, will naturally be referred to this Cominduce Government to do for the promotion of mittee. In proportion as its business increases in quantity, the importance of its Chairman (who, as usual, will be the Committee) will increase, and the public become familiarized with the interference of Government in educational matters. The prejudices alluded to by Mr. Fox Bureau of Education; but the Committee of would prevent the creation of a Minister and Education must necessarily grow into a Minister and Bureau. It has The educational clauses of the Government Factory Bill are a step in this progress. been stated as an objection to them, that it is invidious to make education compulsory on the factories, if it is not to be made compulsory on the whole nation. The answer is, you could not, in the present temper of the people and of public men, carry a measure for compulsory national education; but the inquiries of the Commissioners on Factories and the Employment of Children have convinced every body that something must be done in the manufacturing districts. If a system of compulsory education for the factory population under the control of the Committee of the Privy Council for Education can be made to work well, it will be an experimental demonstration of the possibility and ad vantage of extending the system to every district, and embracing within it all classes of the population. solve into apprehensions entertained by the Dissenters and liberal Churchmen that the measure may be perverted into a system of proselytism. In order to estimate the value of the objections The features of the measure regarded as most to the details of Sir James Graham's education- favorable to such abuse are-1. The constitual clauses, let us briefly enumerate their provi- tion of the Local Boards of Trustees: 2. The gions. They go to establish schools under the provision (section 55) which renders it necessamanagement of a Local Board of Trustees, sub-ry that the teachers shall belong to the Estabjected to the inspection of four lay Inspectors, with a staff of assistant Sub-Inspectors, and to the control of the Educational Committee of the Council. The Local Board is to consist of the Clergymen and the Churchwardens of the district, ex officio Trustees; and four other Trustees, two of whom must be occupiers of factories employing children, chosen by the district Justices of the Peace out of persons assessed at a certain sum to the poor, or out of those who have contributed a certain proportional sum to the entire cost of the school. Every person giving a site to a school shall be one of the Trustees during his whole life. This Board is tied down to certain regulations for insuring due respect to the religious persuasions of the parents of children attending the schools. The Bible, and "no other book of religion whatever," is to be taught to all the pupils; instruction in the peculiar doctrines of the Church of England," one hour in each day," is to be given; but scholars whose parents desire that they shall not be present at such instruction shall not be compelled to attend. The scholars are to attend the service of the Church once a day on Sundays, unless the parents desire them not to do so, on the ground of religious objections. And the Educational Committee of the Privy Regarding this measure, as it ought to be reCouncil are, through their Inspectors appointed garded, with a total absence of all partisan feelby the Queen, that is by her Ministers, to watching, and solely with a view to the effects it is over the observance of these regulations and enforce them. lished Church: 3. The provisions by which attendance at church and at Sunday-schools is made compulsory, and attendance upon those of the Establishment made the rule; an express dispensation being required to permit attendance upon Dissenting places of worship. Two of these objections would be obviated by engrafting on the bill two of the recommendations embodied in Lord John Russell's resolutions-1. That the rate-payers of any district in which rates are collected for the erection and mainten ance of a school shall be adequately represented at the Local Board, and the Chairman be elected by the Board itself: 2. That in order to prevent the disqualifications of competent schoolmasters on religious grounds, the religious instruction given to children whose parents belong to the Established Church, or who may be desirous that their children should be so instructed shall be communicated by the clergyman of the parish. With respect to the third objection, Lord John proposes that the children shall have liberty to resort to any Sunday-school or place of religious worship their parents may approve: perhaps a still better method of obviating the objection would be, not to legislate at all upon the subject. calculated to produce upon society at large, we see no reason why the most zealous Churchman These arrangements put the entire control of should object to Šir James Graham's bill, modithis partial system of national education in the fied to meet the amendments suggested in Lord hands of the Civil Government. A majority of John Russell's resolutions; or why, on the other the Local Trustees are appointed by the Justi- hand, the stanchest friend of civil and religious ces of the Peace, who are appointed and re- liberty should hesitate to support it. Nay, with movable at pleasure by Government. The In- regard to the objection urged against the conspectors are appointed by Government. The stitution of the Local Boards contemplated by Educational Committee of the Privy Council the original bill, it does appear, that with Minishave the power of checking every contravention ters so completely in the power of the House of of the regulations made to insure liberty of con- Commons as the Ministers of this country are science. Sir Robert Peel's Government are en--with constituencies in which the Dissenters deavoring to put into the hands of the Ministers are probably more powerful than they would be of Education created by Lord Melbourne's under a more extended franchise-with the Government the means of educating the people. growing feeling in favor of secular education, The system of schools contemplated by the and an unfettered press-the control vested in present Government bill must be worked in the the Committee of the Privy Council for Educasense of the Ministers of the day; and the tion would be found sufficient to counteract any Ministers of the day must conform to the sense danger from that source. of the House of Commons and its constituents. This, in the present advanced stage of public opinion, is no bad guarantee that the administration of the schools will not be tainted with a proselytizing or an intolerant spirit. But this approbation of the broad outline of the measure is quite consistent with a desire that every thing in its details to which wellfounded objections can be urged should be amended. All the objections of any plausibility or weight that have been urged against the bill are in reality objections to details. They all re "THE CLUB."-The members of this longestablished literary club. founded by Dr Johnson, and of which Sir Joshua Reynolds, and most of the celebrites of their day, have belonged, dined together on Tuesday evening, at the Thatched M. P., president, and among the members present House Tavern. The Right Hon. B. Macaulay, were the Marquess of Lansdowne, Viscount Morpeth, Earl of Carnarvon, Hon Mountsturt Elphinstone, Rev. Sydney Smith, Rev. H. H. Milman, &c.-Court Journal. THE MONOMANIAC. A TALE. From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal. people had been asleep, dreaming of what their waking hours realized-happiness. They were not, like myself, gamesters; or if they were, they must all have come off TOWARDS the close of 1829 the gaming winners. Minutely noting the expression houses of the Palais Royal, in Paris, were of each face as it was turned towards me, I nightly filled with an unusual number of could read, with some accuracy, what passplayers, from a report getting abroad that ed within. Thus I enjoyed a sort of metathese sinks of iniquity were to be abolish- physical panorama. Each one who caught ed in the succeeding year. One evening in sight of me no longer smiled, but frowned summer there was a full attendance at a upon me as an intruder upon their joyousrouge-et-noir table in one of the largest of ness. Had I been an adder lying across the houses. All went on quietly for some the path of a pleasure-party, they could not time. At last the silence was broken by a have regarded me with greater aversion. young man who exclaimed, "Confusion! The men depressed their brows; for my Red again, and I have been doubling on appearance troubled them; and no wonder. black for the last five games. Four hun-I was unshorn and haggard, and my whole dred louis? 'Tis well; this is the finale! So now as I am ruined-send me some brandy!" "Fortune has frowned to-night, Folarte," said a person who was watching the game; "have you lost much?" aspect must have plainly indicated a night in a gambling-house. My countenance doubtless betrayed the remorse then rankling in my heart. This was 'produced by recollections of the ruin 1 was bringing upon others whom it was my duty to cherish "A bagatelle of four hundred, simply; and to comfort. My mother was on the more, indeed, than I ever lost in one even-point of being dragged to prison for noning," returned the loser, retiring with his friend to a separate table. "Nay, you forget the seven hundred on Thursday; it" payment of a bond, ten times the amount of which I had squandered, or lost at play. I had sacrificed the trusting heart of my betrothed Lisette for the smiles of a co "Is not so much as the four hundred to-quette, to whom I had, on that very night, night." "So!" exclaimed Cornet; "you have got rid of your arithmetic as well as your money?" "Psha! friend; a word in your ear. The ill luck of this day leaves me only fifty pounds richer than a pauper; they are my last. Come, pour out more brandy!" Cornet looked me steadfastly in the face. "Folarte," said he, "you are a philosopher!" "A philosopher? If you knew all, you would call me a hero. But my head burns. A turn in the gardens of the Thuilleries will cool me." promised a present which would cost fifty pounds. To deepen the dye of my crimes, Lisette and her brother had travelled to Paris, and were in great distress, although a sum I borrowed of François, and which I had not repaid, would have rescued them from want. Maddened by these reflections, I rushed to my lodging. It was there that the malady, the consequences of which I am about to detail, first seized me. Accidentally looking into the dressing-glass, I beheld my face frightfully distorted by remorse and dissipation. That vision so horrified me, that the impression remained "You will join us again in the evening?" after I withdrew my eyes from the glass. "Of course; have I not fifty left ?" My own form continually appeared standIt was early morning; the air, though ing beside me. I was the slave of ITS acfresh, was damp and chilling, laden with tions. I had lost my will, my identity. I dew; but the cold gray color of the sky was nothing but an unembodied appendage gradually dissolved into a more genial tint of my own form. I had become a shadow by the rays of the rising sun. Several milk-in continual attendance upon a seeming maids and laundresses passed me. Yes, substance which usurped my corporeal me; for the ruined, reckless gamester it frame: I did whatever IT liked, and went is who now makes his confession. They wherever IT chose.* seemed happy, for they laughed and chatted merrily. Groups of artisans also appeared, and let off several trite jokes and ready-made gallantries; for which the girls rewarded them; some with their lips, others with their smiling glad-looking eyes. These In the Rue Richelieu-whither the form led me-Cornet, the professed gamester, However improbable it may seem for a person of disordered mind to fancy he is haunted by his own form, yet the circumstance is perfectly true.Ed. |