nation by positive law. The influence of parochial clergy, and of parochial schools, committed to persons worthy of the important trust, are, as I before hinted, the most obvious remedies. But there are others of a prohibitory and preventive nature. It is in the power of government to stop some grand sources of corruption of morals, and to withdraw their protection and license at least, from those assemblies which have for their direct object the practice of immoralities of every sort. The Palais Royal, in whose saloons and porticos Vice has established a public and open school for gambling and licentiousness, far from affording, as at present, an impure and scandalous source of revenue to the state, should be levelled to the ground, with all its accursed brothels and gambling-houses,-rendezvouses the more seductive to youth, as being free from those dangers which might alarm timidity in places of avowedly scandalous resort. Gaming is indeed reduced to all the gravity of a science, and, at the same time, is conducted upon the scale of the most extensive manufacture. In the Salon des Etrangers, the most celebrated haunt of this Dom-Daniel, which I had the curiosity to visit, the scene was decent and silent to a degree of solemnity. An immense hall was filled with gamesters and spectators; those who kept the bank, and managed the affairs of the establishment, were distinguished by the green shades which they wore to preserve their eyes-by their silent and grave demeanour-and by the paleness of their countenances, exhausted by constant vigils. There was no distinction of persons, nor any passport required for entrance, save that of a decent exterior; and on the long tables, which were covered with gold, an artisan was at liberty to hazard his week's wages, or a noble his whole estate. Youth and age were alike welcome; and any one who chose to play within the limits of a trifling sum, had only to accuse his own weakness if he was drawn in to deeper or more dangerous hazard. Every thing seemed to be conducted with the most perfect fairness; and indeed the mechanical construction of the E O tables, or whatever they are called, appears calculated to prevent the possibility of fraud. The only advantage possessed by the bank (which is however enormous) is the extent of its funds, by which it is enabled to sustain any train of reverse of fortune; whereas most of the individuals who play against the bank are in circumstances to be ruined by the first succession of ill luck; so that ultimately the smaller ventures merge in the stock of the principal adventurers, as rivers run into the sea. The profits of the establishment must indeed be very large to support its expenses. Besides a variety of attendants who distribute refreshments to the players gratis, there is an elegant entertainment, with expensive wines, regularly prepared about three o'clock in the morning, for those who choose to partake of it. With such temptations around him, and where the hazarding an insignificant sum seems at

first venial or innocent, it is no wonder if thousands feel themselves gradually involved in the whirlpool whose verge is so little distinguishable, until they are swallowed up with their time, talents, and fortune, and often also both body and soul.

This is Vice with her fairest vizard; but the same unhallowed precincts contain many a secret cell for the most hideous and unheardof debaucheries, many an open rendezvous of infamy, and many a den of usury and of treason; the whole mixed with a Vanity-fair of shops for jewels, trinkets, and baubles, that bashfulness may not lack a decent pretext for adventuring into the haunts of infamy. It was here where the preachers of the Revolution first found, amidst gramblers, moneyjobbers, desperadoes, and prostitutes, ready auditors of their doctrines, and active hands to labour in their vineyard. In more recent times, it was here that the plots of the Bonapartists were adjusted, and the number of their partisans recruited and instructed concerning the progress of the conspiracy; and from hence the seduced soldiers, inflamed with many a bumper to the health of the Exile of Elba, under the mystic names of Jean de l'Epée, and Caporal Violette, were dismissed to spread the news of his approaching return, and prepare their comrades to desert their lawful sovereign. In short, from this central pit of Acheron-in which are openly assembled and mingled those characters and occupations which, in all other capitals, are driven to shroud themselves in separate and retired recesses-from this focus of vice and treason, have flowed forth those waters of bitterness of which France has drunk so deeply. Why, after having occasioned so much individual and public misery, this source of iniquity is not now stopped, the tenants expelled, and the buildings levelled to the ground, or converted to some. far different purpose, is a question which the consciences of the French ministers can best answer. Thus far at least is certain, that, with the richest soil, and the most cultivated understandings, a people brave even to a fault, kind-tempered, gay, and formed for happiness, have been for twenty years the plague of each other and of Europe; and if their disorders can be plainly traced to want of moral character and principle, it cannot be well to maintain amongst them, for the sake of sharing its polluted profits, such a hot-bed of avowed depravity.

If the French have no strong sense of religion or its precepts, they are not without a share of superstition; and an impostor is at present practising among them, who, by all accounts, is as successful as Joanna Southcote herself. This lady, a woman, I am assured, of rank and information, pretends, like Baron Swedenborg, to an immediate

*

[This lady, Madame Krudener, was said to have acquired subsequently a powerful influence over the mind of the Emperor Alexander; and it is very generally believed, that her conversations with him in Paris were mainly instrumental in suggesting the idea of the Holy Alliance. It is certain, that, in her later sermons, she held it up almost as a new covenant. After many wanderings from place to place, in what she believed her heaven

intercourse with the spiritual world, and takes her ecstatic trances for the astonishment of parties of good fashion, to whom, on her return to her senses, she recounts the particulars of her visit to the spiritual world, and whom she treats with explanations of their past lives, and predictions of the future. It is said her art has attracted the attention of some men of high rank in the armies of our allies.

If you disbelieve the powers of this lady, you may also distrust the apparition of l'Homme Rouge, or the Red Man, said to have haunted. Napoleon as the demon did Ras Michael,* and advised him in matters of importance. He was, saith the legend, a little muffled figure, to whom, whenever he appeared, access was instantly given, for the spectre was courteous enough to request to be announced. At Wilna, 'before advancing into Russia, while Bonaparte was engaged in tracing the plan of his march, he was told this person requested to speak with him. He desired the attendant to inform his summoner that the Emperor was engaged. When this reply was communicated to the unknown, he assumed an authoritative voice and accent, and, throwing open his cloak, discovered his dress under it, which was red, without mixture of any other colour. "Tell the Emperor," said he, "that l'Homme Rouge MUST Speak with him." He was then admitted, and they were heard to talk loud together. As he left the apartment, he said publicly, "You have rejected my advice! you will not again see me till you have bitterly repented your error." The visits of l'Homme Rouge were renewed on Bonaparte's return from Elba; but before he set out on his last campaign, Napoleon again offended his familiar, who took leave of him for ever, giving him up to the red men of England, who became the real arbiters of his destiny. If you have not faith enough for this marvellous story, pray respect the prophecy which was made to Josephine, by one of the negro soothsayers in the West Indies, that she should rise to the highest pinnacle of modern greatness, but without ever being a queen; that she should fall from thence before her death, and die in an hospital. I can myself vouch for the existence of this prophecy before the events which it was supposed to predict, for it was told me many years ago, when Bonaparte was only general of the army of Italy, by a lady of rank, who lived in the same convent with Josephine. The coincidence of the fortune-teller's presages with the fact, would have been marred by the circumstances of the ex-empress's death, had not somebody's ingenuity discovered that her house, as the name Mal-maison implies, had once been an hospital. Bonaparte, it is well known, had strange and visionary ideas about his own fated destiny, and could think of fortune like the Wal

ordained mission, she was at length transported by the police to the Russian frontier, in 1824, and died at Karafubasar, in the Crimea, on the 13th December of the same year.] * [See Bruce's Travels in Abyssinia ]

lenstein of the stage. The following lines from that drama, more grand in the translation of Coleridge than in the original of Schiller, seem almost to trace the career of Napoleon:

"Even in his youth he had a daring soul:
His frame of mind was serious and severe

Beyond his years; his dreams were of great objects.
He walk'd amid, as if a silent spirit,

Communing with himself: yet have I known him
Transported on a sudden into utterance

Of strange conceptions; kindling into splendour.
His soul reveal'd itself, and he spoke so
That we look'd round perplex'd upon each other,
Not knowing whether it were craziness,
Or whether 'twere a God that spoke in him.

Thenceforth he held himself for an exempted
And privileged being, and, as if he were
Incapable of dizziness or fall,

He ran along the unsteady rope of life,

And paced with rapid step the way to greatness;

Was Count and Prince, Duke, Regent, and Dictator,

And is all, all this too little for him;

He stretches forth his hand for a King's crown,

And plunges in unfathomable ruin."*

Farewell, my dear friend; light and leisure are exhausted in this long detail, concerning the religion of which the French have so little, and the superstition of which they have a considerable portion.

You will groan over many parts of this epistle, but the picture is not without its lights. France has afforded many examples, in the most trying crisis, of firmness, of piety, of patience under affliction; many, too, of generosity and courtesy and charity. The present Royal Family have been bred in the school of adversity, and it is generally allowed that they have the inclination, though perhaps they may mistake the means, of ameliorating the character of the nation, to the government of which they have been so providentially restored.

LETTER XVI.

PAUL TO HIS COUSIN PETER.

Louis' first Ministry-Fouché-Execution of Labédoyère-Fouché-Prejudices in France against England-State of Parties-Royalists-Imperialists-Liberalists -The Army-General Good-will of the People-French Nationality-Champ de Mai-Love of Show-Representation of France-Want of Political Information -Factions-French Manners-Lord Castlereagh-Duke of Wellington-Lord Cathcart-Conclusion.

I AM in the centre, you say, of political intelligence, upon the very arena where the fate of nations is determined, and send you no in* [See Coleridge's Poetical Works.]

telligence. This seems a severe reproach; for, in England, with a friend in the Foreign-office, or the advantage of mixing in a certain circle of society, one can always fill up a letter with political events and speculations some days sooner, and somewhat more accurately, than they appear in the newspapers. But they manage matters otherwise in France. The conferences between the ministers of the allied powers and those of Louis XVIII., are conducted with great and praiseworthy secrecy. They are said to be nearly concluded; but a final arrangement will probably be postponed by an unexpected change of ministry in the Tuileries.

All politicians were surprised (none more than thou, Peter) at the choice which the king made of his first ministry. That Fouché, who voted for the death of his brother, Louis XVI., who had been an agent of Robespierre and a minister of Bonaparte-who, in the late Revolution, was regarded as a chief promoter of the unexpected and unnatural union between the discontented patriots, or Liberalists, and the followers of the ex-emperor-that he should have been named minister of police under the restored heir of the Bourbons, seemed wonderful to the Royalists. His companions in the provisional government saw themselves with equal astonishment put under the surveillance of their late associate, in his new character; and the letters between him and Carnot, when the latter applied to Fouché, agreeably to the royal proclamation, that a place of residence might be assigned to him, fully, though briefly, express their characteristic feelings. “Où veux-tu que je m'en aille, Traitre?" signed CARNOT, was a brief question, to which the minister of police as briefly replied, "Où tu veux, Imbécille." FOUCHÉ.

There are two ways of considering the matter;-with reference to the minister who accepted the office, and with regard to the sovereign who nominated him.

On the former point little need be said. Times of frequent and hasty changes, when a people are hurried from one government to another, necessarily introduce among the leading statesmen a versatility of character, at which those who are remote from the pressure of templation hold up their hands and wonder. In looking over our own history, we discover the names of Shaftesbury and Sunderland, and of many other statesmen eminent for talent, who changed their political creed with the change of times, and yet contrived to be employed and trusted by successive governments who confided in their fidelity, at least while they could make that fidelity their interest. Independent and steady as the English boast themselves, there were, during the great Civil War, very many persons who made it an avowed principle to adhere to the faction that was uppermost, and support the administration of the day; and these prudential politicians existed in