every tempest, he had taken in hand a set of provinces imperilled by their disorganisation and by terrible enemies, and he left a constructed and fortified empire. What had been his means? Good and ill, he had stood between the rapacious rulers and the feeble ruled, and was alike beloved by both. As civilian, he held the heart and allegiance of the army. But in India he had used Indian powers. He had not amassed money corruptly; but he corrupted with it. He had extorted treasure; he had broken faith; he had authorised and instigated cruelty; he had violated justice to shed guilty blood; he had held the ordinary moral laws suspended, for the safety and the aggrandisement of the dominion committed to his sway." If it be true that Hastings had not, by corrupt means, acquired wealth for himself, it is to be feared that he was the exception rather than the rule. In the debates on the Nabob of Arcot's debts, the claims made on this chief were enormous, and many of them ill-founded. Against Dundas, Pitt's minister of the new Board of Indian Control, Burke was especially severe. One of the creatures of Dundas, Paul Benfield, was held up to public indignation. and scorn. This Paul Benfield, the orator sarcastically remarked, "had been made the grand reformer of the day; the reformer before whom the whole choir of reformers must bow. In the cause of England he had, amidst his charitable toils, still been active, and had not forgotten the poor rotten constitution of his native country. For her sake he had not disdained to stoop to the trade of a wholesale upholsterer to the House of Commons. He had furnished it, not with the faded figures of antiquated merit in tapestry, such as decorate and may reproach some other houses, but with real, solid, living patterns of true moral virtue. Paul Benfield made, not reckoning himself, no fewer than eight members during the last parliament. What copious streams of pure blood must he not have transfused into the veins of the present." In the same strain of irony Burke described Mr. Benfield, immediately after his election, to have shown that he considered the duties of a member of the British parliament might be as well pursued in India as in England; and, accordingly, had defrauded the longing eyes of parliament of the luxury of contemplating a visage which had long reflected the happiness of nations. "He had, however, left his exact resemblance behind, in the grand contractor, Mr. Richard Atkinson, who acted as attorney for Mr. Benfield; and they had all seen how that gentleman made Mr. Pitt's India Bill his own, by the ostentation and authority with which he had brought up clause after clause to stuff and fatten that corrupt measure, all of which had been received with dutiful submission." Burke's speech, with a copious appendix, was published, with immense effect. It shook the popularity of Pitt; and the imputations it threw on Dundas were remembered against him for many years to come. The debts of the nabob were long a bone of contention in parliament, as Burke and his party maintained that many of the claims were incapable of proof. In 1814, thirty years after, commissioners appointed to investigate the subject, decided, that out of debts claimed to the amount of £20,390,570, no more than £1,346,796 were proved to be just.

Mr. Pitt contented himself with proposing political and economical reforms. The latter he carried. The others did not fare so well. Yet had his scheme been successful, it would have postponed the grand struggle for reform which triumphed in 1831. His plan was of a mildly innovating character: he proposed to enact that thirty-six boroughs, each of which had sent two representatives to the House, should be disfranchised, and that number given to the counties and unrepresented towns. It also provided a compensation, in money, to the proprietors of the disfranchised boroughs, and granted the right of voting, in county elections, to copyholders. The scheme was rejected, and heard of no more. In 1786, Pitt established his celebrated sinking fund. The plan was, to set apart £1,000,000 for that purpose; to which was to be added the interest of £100,000, inalienably appropriated to the reduction of the debt. In the same year, also, a treaty of commerce was concluded with France, which was to last twelve years. Mr. Pitt's speech on the occasion contained precisely the same arguments as those used by Mr.

"A commercial

Cobden and Lord Palmerston to defend their treaty with France. treaty like the one under consideration," Mr. Pitt observed, "would tend to render both nations anxious for the preservation of peace. For long," he said, "the fatal differences between the two nations had not only harassed them, but embroiled the rest of Europe in war.' He trusted the time was come when they would show, that instead of seeking the destruction of each other, they would make it apparent that they had a higher and a better purpose the cultivation of friendly intercourse, and the extension of universal benevolence. Another subject (in which Lord Palmerston was afterwards to take no common interest) came on for discussion at this time-that of the suppression of the slave-trade. The idea of stopping it was at first considered ridiculous and absurd by the statesmen of the day. The Society of Friends took the matter up; and Mr. Ramsey's Essay on the Treatment and Traffic in Slaves, and Mr. Clarkson's work, produced a great effect on the public mind. Mr. Wilberforce, the distinguished philanthropist, and intimate friend of Pitt, came to their aid. A society in London, of which Granville Sharp was president, was formed to forward the object in view; and Lady Middleton associated herself with other ladies to make converts to the cause. In 1788, certain members of the Privy Council were appointed to investigate the state of our commercial intercourse with Africa. In the absence of Wilberforce, from ill health, Mr. Pitt submitted to the House of Commons a resolution, to the effect that "they would, early in the next session of parliament, proceed to take into consideration the circumstances of the slave-trade, complained of in the petitions presented to the House, and what might be fit to be done thereupon." Liverpool and the African traders were on the alert; and, after all, little was done except passing Sir William Dolben's bill, insuring more humane treatment to the negroes on their passage from Africa. Pitt, for some time, moved no further in the matter; he had other things to attend to. One trouble was the conduct of the Prince of Wales, who, selfish and sensual, was over head and ears in debt, and gave all the support in his power to Fox and Sheridan, and the minister's political foes. Another difficulty was the king's insanity, which set all the elements of party warfare in motion. In their anxiety to please the prince, Fox and his friends asserted the right of the Prince of Wales to the regency. Pitt carried the day; and a commission, under the great seal, was appointed to open parliament in the name of his majesty; and, subsequently, to give the royal assent to such bills as the two Houses might approve. A restricted regency was proposed, which the prince, after (in a letter supposed to have been written by Burke) severely criticising, condescended to accept. The bill was, however, rendered unnecessary by the king's recovery. The excesses of the Prince of Wales, and his repeated applications for pecuniary aid, had not rendered him a favourite with the people; and the joy manifested when it was found that it was no longer necessary to pass a Regency Bill, was as great as it was unusual. The nation rallied round its king, whose plain, decent virtues appeared all the brighter when compared with the unprincipled and profligate character of his heir-apparent. The Whigs were in despair: all power seemed centred in Pitt, who, blind to the future, saw nought in the gigantic struggle which lay before him—a struggle of which he was to be the life and soul-a struggle which was, in time, and for a time, to be victorious-a struggle, nevertheless, which wore down his strength, and broke his heart. In every country on the continent there was restlessness and sullen dis-content. The French revolution was at hand.

CHAPTER II.

THE FALL OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE.

FRANCE had long been in an unsatisfactory condition. The nation was in debt; the land was overrun with the poor; and the upper classes were frivolous to a degree which we can scarcely imagine in these hard and serious times in which we live. Property has its duties as well as its rights; and in France, it is very clear, the former half of this important maxim was altogether forgotten. In a book rarely read now, we get a picture of French society, perfectly appalling, illustrating the frivolity and the idleness of the privileged classes. We allude to the Memoirs of the Countess de Genlis. To get up masquerades-to take part in theatrical performances-to sing, and dance, and intrigue-to flatter their superiors, and to ignore the existence of all below them in the social scale, seems to have been the sole aim of existence. Her aunt and herself lived much in Court circles. "We owed the brilliant party which was then at Villers-Coterets to Madame de Montesson. For this reason, all the ladies wished that my aunt should succeed in inspiring the prince with a vivid passion. [Madame de Montesson, be it understood, was the aunt referred to.] It was far more desirable for them that the mistress of the prince should be a person of rank than a courtesan ; for, in the former case, they could again enjoy his society." Pretty cool this, for a lady who became an instructor and guide of the young princes of the blood. Nor is this all. In order that the Duke of Orleans might be alone in the field, a rival was despatched on an embassy to the Court of Frederick the Great. Madame de Genlis saw the infamous Du Barry at Court; and her disgust at seeing a common prostitute pompously presented to the whole of the royal family, was unbounded. Upon which she remarks--"This and many other instances of unparalleled indecency, powerfully assisted in degrading royalty in France, and consequently contributed to bring about the revolution. Of the refined French noblemen of the period, we have a striking picture in the sketch of the Marechal de Biron:- "Brutus was said to be the last of the Romans; and the Marechal de Biron might be said to be the last fanatic of royalty; for he never gave a thought to politics or forms of government in the course of his life. His real vocation consisted in making a figure at Court; in speaking with grace and dignity to a king; in being acquainted with, and in feeling the different degrees of respect to be paid to, the sovereign and the princes of the blood; and the attention due to a man of quality, as well as the dignified manner appropriate to a man of rank. All his fine taste, all his knowledge of etiquette, all his graces, would have been destroyed by a system of equality. He worshipped the king because he was king. He might have said what Montague said of his friend, La Boche-'I love him because I love him-because he is what he is, and I am what I am.' The Marechal, in different language, gave the same explanation of his strong attachment to the king. It was most amusing, even then, to hear him speaking of republics; for he considered republicans as a sort of barbarians." Writing of the Duke of Chartres, Madame de Genlis says "When the young prince's education was completed, the first paternal care of the Duke of Orleans was to give him a mistress-a girl whom an abandoned wretch was bringing up as a courtesan, and sold to him as quite new. The Duke of Orleans boasted of this action as a very kind and prudent precaution." No wonder that Madame de Genlis could detect an under-current at work, fatal to the society and Court. "At this period," she writes, "grand recollections, and recent traditions, still maintained in France good principles, sound ideas, and national virtues, already somewhat weakened

by pernicious writings, and a reign full of faults. In a short time the influence of these feelings scarcely appeared, except in an elevated style, in a simple theory of delicate and generous conduct. Virtue was retained only from the remains of good. taste, which still held in esteem its language and appearance. Every one, to conceal his own way of thinking, became stricter in observing the bienséances; the most refined ideas were sported in conversation concerning delicacy, greatness of mind, and the duties of friendship; and even chimerical virtues were fancied-which was easy enough, considering that the happy agreement of conversation and conduct did not exist. But tyranny always betrays itself by exaggeration, for it never knows where to stop: false sensibility has no shades; never employs any but the strongest colours; and heaps them on with the most ridiculous prodigality. There now appeared in society a very numerous party of both sexes, who declared themselves the partisans and depositaries of the old traditions respecting taste, etiquette, and morals, which they boasted of having brought to perfection. They declared themselves supreme artistes in all the proprieties of social life; and claimed for themselves, exclusively, the high-sounding appellation of good society." To be one of them, neither a spotless character nor eminent merit was necessary. Infidels, devotees, and prudes were indiscriminately admitted. "The only qualifications necessary, were bon ton, dignified manners, and a certain respect in society, acquired by birth, rank, and credit at Court; or by display, wealth, talent, and personal accomplishments. Alas! all this was nought but the external coat of ancient manners, preserved by habit and good taste, which always survive the principles that produced them; but which, having no longer any solid basis, gradually loses its original beauties, and is finally destroyed by the inroads of refinement and exaggeration." A false and conventional delicacy prevailed. For a lady to be on the sofa with her feet uncovered, was to be indelicate. It was indelicate to have her hair dressed by a barber. To appear in the presence of ladies in boots was bad taste. French society-unrivalled in frivolity-was untrue, and false as frivolous.

"The

"For a long period," writes Madame de Genlis, mournfully, "the revolution had been preparing, and all respect for monarchy was now destroyed. It was become the fashion to defy the Court in everything, and to ridicule the monarchy. No one went to Versailles but with unwillingness and complaints; every one said that nothing was so tiresome as Versailles and the Court; and everything the Court approved, was disapproved by the public: even the theatrical pieces applauded at Versailles, were hissed at Paris. A disgraced minister was sure of the public favour; and if he was exiled, every one went eagerly to visit him, not through real greatness of soul, but merely to have the pleasure of blackening and condemning all that the Court did." The finances were in a very bad condition; and in order to remedy them, it was thought advisable to assemble the statesgeneral. There is nothing so injudicious as asking at once for advice and money; for you always receive the latter, accompanied with very hard conditions. Duke of Orleans and M. Lauzun were one night at my house. The assembly of notables had already met. I said that I hoped these assemblies would reform many abuses. The Duke of Orleans replied, and maintained, that they would not even suppress the lettres de cachet. A bet was made between the Duke of Orleans and M. de Lauzun. They wrote it down, and gave it to me to keep." Madame showed the paper successively to more than fifty persons; and the opinion of the Duke of Orleans was precisely that of almost all the people of quality. A revolution was regarded as an impossible event. Rich people little knew what poor people think about. Some courtiers, kings and queens, never hear the harsh accents of truth. Men laughed at Noah when he prophesied the coming of the Deluge; and went feasting and dancing, and marrying, and giving in marriage, to the very last: and thus was it in France, where even society, rotten to its core-where even a noblesse, vain and frivolous-where even a Court, from which all virtue had gone forth-helped the avenging storm. Thinkers

saw that something was rotten in the state of Denmark- saw all to the vain, and unreal, and conventional; and drew ideal pictures of a state of equal laws and rights. On the other side of the Atlantic the dream had been realised. Frenchmen had fought side by side with Washington and and the soldiers of America for freedom; and they could not return to be serfs and slaves at home. America returned them to France as as apostles and ministers of a new crusade. No tongue can tell the wretchedness of the peasantry of France before the revolution. Body and soul, he was the slave of his feudal lord. In the present day it fares but badly with an English agricultural labourer. The Irishman at home, in his mud-built hut, with his pig in one corner, and his straw bed in the other, is by no means to be envied; but they are better off than was the French peasant in the times of which we write. No taxes were paid by the château; on the poor they were imposed with terrible severity. All classes were longing for change. Peace had not brought prosperity; and when money was required, no one cared to give it.

Louis XVI. was unfit for the difficult part he had to play. He was without force of mind; assumed with difficulty the dignity of his position; was reserved and heavy in familiar society, with sudden fits of ill-humour, and possessing entirely different tastes and temper from his too fascinating and ill-fated queen. While she lived a very gay and careless life-a life which, at any rate, exposed her to scandalhe spent his time in hunting, or in manual labour, or in reckoning up his private expenses. The most decided taste of Louis XVI. was for the mechanical labours of the artisan; and he never felt so happy as when, having dismissed his Council, he could steal up to the little staircase which led to his forge. He was proud of showing his robust constitution, in carrying about, with his own arms, the anvil and other tools with which he worked; and in the queen's intimate circle, the traces which the king carried with him of his mechanical operations, his postures and heaviness, and even his great appetite, were the common objects of mockery and derision. In the queen's society the king went by the ordinary name of Vulcan; and this poor joke was often combined with allusions which were not quite respectful to Marie Antoinette. In fact, while Louis XVI. was working at his anvil, he neglected both his wife and his kingdom; though it may well be doubted if he possessed the capacity of mind to enable him to do anything towards saving the latter. It is told as an anecdote illustrating the extreme littleness of the king's mind, that one day Turgot found him busily engaged in drawing up the project of a new law, which he found, on examination, to be perfectly well compiled; but the object of legislation was-rabbits. Louis, indeed, loved hunting to excess; and he devoted much of his time to it. The king was accustomed to keep a diary of all he did, written in his own hand; which has been preserved and printed. From this we learn that Louis often speculated in the lottery; and he carefully enters his gains. The day on which the king did not go to the chase is always marked by the word rien (nothing), as though it were a day lost; and it required very grave events to interrupt him in this practice. He killed a great quantity of game of all sorts, and made weekly and monthly reckonings of all he had slain. In one year this amounted to the number of 8,400 head. We may anticipate events for a moment in order to give an extract from this journal, in illustration of our remarks. During the memorable month of July, 1789, the days which were most eventful almost always began with the same significant word, "nothing." Thus"Wednesday, 1st, nothing; deputation of the estates. Thursday, 9th, nothing; deputation of the estates. Friday, 10th, nothing; reply to the deputation of the estates. Saturday, 11th, nothing; departure of M. Necker. Tuesday, 14th, nothing." This last day was actually that of the capture of the Bastille by the people of Paris, in which others saw a very great deal. Again, in October, 1789, we find such entries as-" Monday, 5th, shooting at the gate of Chatillon; killed eighty-one head; interrupted by events; went and returned on horseback. Tues

* History of France; by Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A.