one of the most considerable, and it has a depth of water in the Seine which admits vessels of two or three hundred tons. It possesses architectural monuments of extreme magnificence and beauty; and its historical associations, as the capital of lower Normandy, are of the most rich and varied character. It will readily be supposed that a day's observation of such a place could add nothing to the stock of information contained in the guide books; in fact, could but embrace a portion of the objects worthy the traveller's attention. But here, as in so many other places, even a day's observation gives a distinctness of impression, especially as to localities, not to be got from books alone, and leads you to read with greatly increased relish and profit.

The Cathedral of Rouen is one of the grandest of the structures of this class. It is severely criticized by Mr. Galley Knight, and other learned amateurs, for incoherent mixture of style and excess of ornament, portions of it being built in a declining age of art; but the entire effect upon an uncritical eye is extremely imposing. Its interior is not far from four hundred and fifty feet in length, and the nave is about ninety feet in height. There are three magnificent rose windows in the nave and transept; and in the last chapel, on the southern side of the nave, is the monument of Rollo, the first duke of Normandy. Several of the chapels contain painted glass windows, of great age and beauty. Within the choir a piece of colored marble, sunk into the pavement, indicates the spot where the heart of Richard Cœur de Leon was buried. His rude statue, which disappeared in the time of the Huguenots in the sixteenth century, was discovered under the high altar about twenty years after my visit. His "lion heart" shrunk, but in perfect preservation, was found at the same time, wrapped in thick silk and enclosed in a leaden case. It was removed to the Museum. Richard had bequeathed it to the city of Rouen, from the especial affection. which he bore to the Normans.

The church of St. Ouen, nearly as long as the Cathedral, and of somewhat greater height, is justly deemed one of the noblest specimens in the world of this style of architecture. It has suffered from time, from fanaticism, and from political Vandalism. The Huguenots made bonfires in it, to burn the images of the saints, the wood work of the altars, and the vestments of the priests; and the terrorists of 1793 set up a blacksmith's forge in one of the chapels for the repair of arms; godless unbelief and the sternest orthodoxy meeting on the same platform of desecration. It is, however, in the main, well preserved, has been judiciously restored, and the essential parts of it having been built within one generation and in the best age of the art, it far exceeds the Cathedral in purity of taste, and unity and harmony of design. Some of the finest painted glass in Europe is to be seen in this noble church. It is said that the master architect murdered one of his journeymen, from jealousy of the superior taste and skill which the youth had exhibited in one of the exquisitely beautiful rose windows.

The Museum of Rouen contains objects of great curiosity. I have already mentioned one of them, the poor shrunken remains of the Lion Heart, for whose living pulses Europe and Asia were too small. What a moral antithesis; the heart of Richard Coeur de Lion wrapped, not in plaited mail, but in grave clothes, encased, not in burnished steel, but in mortuary lead, and exposed to view in a museum! The same museum contains another relic, which illustrates in a different way the vanity of human greatness,—a charter of William the Conqueror, authenticated, not by his signature, but his mark. The stern and politic chieftain, who accomplished what Julius Cæsar imperfectly attempted, and Napoleon wholly failed to achieve; who ingrafted the fiery courage. and haughty spirit of the Norman on the persistent endurance and judicial method of the Saxon; who gave nerve and blood to muscle and wind, and thus laid the foundation of a power

which, after eight hundred years, girdles the globe, could not write his name! The great Conqueror of the British Islands died in the suburbs of Rouen, and his poor remains, deserted by his courtiers, neglected by his children, stripped by his servants, were left to be conveyed by charitable strangers to their last resting-place at Caen. Such are the terrible homilies, in which Providence, taking Death for a text, preaches humility to the great ones of the earth!

But there is a spot in Rouen, the Place de la Pucelle (Maiden place) which teaches the lesson in sadder terms than the deserted death-beds of remorseless monarchs. In this Place, about twenty years only before the invention of the art of printing was consummated, and a complete edition of the Bible was issued from the press; in this Place, in the century that witnessed the discovery of America, an innocent girl, who united every thing in her person and history, which could command admiration and merit gentle and honorable treatment, was burned alive! Her crime was, that she had kindled such enthusiasm in the hearts of her craven countrymen, as enabled them to wrest a portion of their soil from the foreign conqueror. Her betrayers and accusers were the unworthy Frenchmen whom she had rescued from vassalage; her executioners were the English prelates and nobles, who meanly revenged upon the poor fettered girl the shameful defeats they had suffered in the field from the maiden champion. A monument unworthy of her memory stands upon the spot where she perished at the stake; a nobler monument, the work of a king's daughter, is dedicated to her memory at Versailles. King Louis Philippe, in 1840, spoke to me, with moist eyes, of this admirable work of his daughter, and added, with gratified paternal feeling, that the inhabitants of Domrémy, the native place of Joan of Arc, had petitioned him for a copy of it, which he, I think, has since erected in that village. I know of no bitterer satire on the France of the eighteenth century,—no more striking proof that she stood in

need of some fierce and burning process of regeneration,— than that her greatest and most popular writer in that century, Voltaire,-should have made this almost sainted heroine the object of his abominable ribaldry, and left it to a foreigner, Schiller,-to celebrate her poetical apotheosis, in a strain not unworthy of the theme.

About two centuries after the acting of this terrible tragedy in the Place de la Pucelle, the noblest tragic writer of France, the great Corneille, was born at Rouen. His statue adorns the bridge which spans the Seine. One cannot but lament, that, instead of bestowing the immortality of his genius on the legends of the mythical Spanish champion, he had not held up the inspired Maid of Orleans, (inspired, beyond the measure of ordinary humanity, with faith, patriotism, and courage,) to the reverence of his countrymen. He might have rescued her by anticipation from the infamies of Voltaire, and won for France, what now belongs to a foreign muse, the credit of having first rendered due honor to her gentle heroism and spotless name.

My poor Lombardian, who preceded me twelve hours from Rouen, reached Paris but a very little time before me. The diligence in which he was travelling broke down, and the passengers were obliged to while away their time in the high road till it could be repaired. Luigi assured me that, when they crept to light from the Interior in the centre of the vehicle, the gallery behind, the Coupé in front, and the Boot above, they amounted, all told, to twenty-three, besides the Conductor, an indefinite amount of luggage and merchandise being bestowed in the Imperial. Such was the Diligence in France forty years ago!

NUMBER TWENTY-THREE.

WILL THERE BE A WAR IN EUROPE?

The vast importance of this question-Comparative strength of the parties in a military point of view-The leaders described, the Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph, the King of Sardinia Victor Emmanuel II., the Emperor of the FrenchThe German Confederation in its relations to the contest-Hungary and the possibility of a new revolution-The general spirit of disaffection in Italy and the strength which it lends to Sardinia as the champion of Italian nationality-Qualifiled in practice by the hostile feelings of the Italian States toward each other.

"WILL there be a war in Europe?" This is a question which, more than any other relating to human affairs, now occupies the thoughts of reflecting men throughout the civilized world. Before this paper sees the light, the question may have been decided, and a page of fearful significance for good or for evil,-importing prosperity or devastation to fertile regions, permanence or downfall to established governments, life or death to tens of thousands of our fellowcreatures, may have been turned in the volume of contemporary history. If the question is decided for peace on any basis that promises a durable settlement of the existing controversies, a period of amost unprecedented prosperity will open on the world, affording the various states of Europe ample opportunity to recover from the exhaustion of their recent struggles, with the energy of a mighty re-action. The abundance of recently discovered gold, and the unexampled perfection to which the mechanical arts, and the facilities for transport and travel have been brought, with the astonishing development of mental energy and inventive sagacity which