would rally his troops around him, and perhaps send his council of state to dig his iron mines at Elba.' p. 90.

The following anecdotes, if Miss W. can vouch for their truth, are of a decisive nature on this point.

It was still thought expedient to keep up the semblance of concord and popularity at the Tuileries, although the council-chamber was often the arena of the bitterest contention. Many an angry discussion took place but no one was so frequently called to order as the emperor himself In the heat of debate he sometimes forgot that he was not emperor at home. But the execution of his threat of ordering a minister to be shot, was adjourned by that minister's assurance, that the emperor himself would not survive an hour after.

These controversies in the cabinet of the Tuileries were not altogether unknown to the Parisians, and were even sometimes rehearsed before the mob, hired to cry "Vive l'Empereur!" Acclamations were at first purchased at the rate of five livres a day; but the price was now reduced; no effort of the lungs was paid higher than thirty or forty sous, and the enthusiasm of the populace diminished in proportion to its current value, and even their respect was measured by their salary An animated discussion between Bonaparte and his arch-chancellor happening to take place at the window of his apartment in the Tuileries, the emperor, accustomed to ill-treat his ministers, seized him by the collar. This scene was witnessed by the mob, who related to their fellows the scuffle between Père la Violette and his comrade, in the same manner as they would have recounted one of the battles which take place for their amusement, between the puppet-show actors, on the Bou, levards.' pp. 107—8.

Miss Williams further affirms, that nothing surprised the French more, during the reign of Napoleon, than to hear the declamations of some English visitors in his favour.'

It required the whole stock of French courtesy to suppress, on these occasions, the feelings of resentment, and which were the more difficult to stifle from the novelty of the provocation. It must be observed, that for some years past no person in France ever praised the emperor, except in speeches to the throne. No minister, senator, or counsellor of state, would have ventured to outrage the feelings of society by saying one word in his favour in a private salon. These personages talked of Napoleon, with quite as little ceremony as others, among their friends; in mixed company they were silent on this subject, which was considered as an etiquette belonging to their places, and was therefore admitted; but it was well understood that no attempt would be made to speak in his defence. Judge then how the French were astounded when they heard some distinguished Englishmen extolling Napoleon the Great, which they did in the French language, but sometimes in English phraseology; and the Parisians who like better to laugh than to be angry, occasionally avenged themselves by citing pleasantly,

different companies, these neologisms in their English idiom.' pp. 255-6.

At the time of Napoleon's return from Moscow, after the first burst of their indignation had subsided, one of the amusements of society was inventing or imagining caricatures, which no one dared to trace, but which were described in company as if they really existed. I remember one represented the entry of the French army at Moscow. They were seen advancing towards the gate, which was thrown open, and where stood a Cossack to give them admission, as if it had been the door of a spectacle. The Cossack had a label on his breast, on which was written, "Entrez, entrez, Messieurs— -on ne payera qu'en sortant."' p. 257.

There is a choice morceau at page 281, for craniologists. A celebrated physiologist, who, like Lord Burleigh in "The Critic," used to shake his head and say nothing, when any new enormity of the Emperor became the subject of conversation, told Miss Williams, that when he saw Bonaparte ten years before in Italy, he augured ill of his destiny. His head partakes,' he said, too much of the organization of the tiger and the peacock; it is cruel and climbing.'

6

Our Author ridicules the idea that Napoleon's abolition of the Slave Trade originated in a sense of humanity, a com'pact of philanthropy between Napoleon Bonaparte, Wilber'force, and Clarkson! She attributes this measure to the politic desire of making himself popular with the people of England. But one of the most important passages in the volume, relates to that sole point in Bonaparte's policy, which exhibits him to apparent advantage, in contrast with the Bourbons. It were an impressive inference could it be considered as altogether a just one, that the policy of an infidel despot is wiser, and in some respects more beneficial, than the principles of popery.

Bonaparte had signalized himself as a warrior, but he did not too highly deem of descending to posterity with military fame alone. He had observed that nothing of the most celebrated destroyers of mankind, called warriors, exists but their names; while its great institutors are not merely held in remembrance, but continue to live in their disciples-all that remained of Alexander, of Cæsar, of Charles XII. was their names; but the laws instituted more than four thousand years since by Moses, were yet obeyed throughout the world, by the numerous and disseminated posterity of his race;--that Zoroaster and Mahomet had subdued, by their principles, a great portion of the earth, and that their names are still invoked with veneration by innumerable followers; while the heroes of Greece and Rome fade on the memory; that, in modern times, Luther and Calvin had given their names to the most enlightened portion of the people of Europe; and that he also, Napoleon the Great, by seizing some favourable epocha for a new

kind of warfare against all that he called superstition, might be come the founder of some other system of faith, and assume the honours of a teacher or a prophet. Bonaparte had not only meditated on this subject, but had made reformation the secret order of the day, in a committee of his council of state. Without having plunged deeply into religious controversy, or having probably carried his studies beyond the lucubrations of modern infidelity, he had the sagacity to discern that the prevalent religion of his empire held little relation with the primitive doctrines of Christianity, and that the state of knowledge in France was such, that reformation would be welcomed. Orders were given at the literary police to permit the publication of all works against popery; and coercive measures were in meditation against the person of the Pope, who had resisted his anti-canonical measures respecting the institution of bishops. This was a power which interfered too much with his own, and he wished to annex the title of Head of the Church to that of Emperor of the French.

Bonaparte had distinguished himself at all times for his principles of toleration, which benefited only the dissenters from the Catholic church. These were favoured; while the episcopal chiefs of the church avoided any open hostilities, only by becoming the instru ments of his edicts of conscription, or flatterers of his power. Their charges, or mandemens, to the clergy and people of their dioceses, were filled with scriptural allusions to Cyrus; and one bishop so far forgot his allegiance to the Pope as to name Bonaparte the representative of God on earth. The clergy of inferior rank, whose salaries were by no means adequate to their services, or who had clearer views of Bonaparte's ultimate designs, were unwilling to compliment away their faith, and made scriptural allusions, in their turn, in answer to the mandemens of their bishops.

History teaches us that arbitrary power and the sword are not always unfitted to promote a reform of ancient errors. Mahomet proposed the great doctrine of the Unity of the Divine Being, and purified the Christian, and what yet remained of the heathen world, of its polytheistic and idolatrous abuses; and Henry VIII. shook off with violence the chains of the papal government. Of these two creeds, a warlike nation of the east, the Mahometan Wechabites, appear to have undertaken a further reform. The papal superstition would not, perhaps, have survived Bonaparte's examination. He had found too many points of opposition in the tenets of this church to fashion it to his rule of government, and bring it within the pale of his system of unity. He had, indeed, observed in Egypt the policy of ancient Rome in adopting the religion of the conquered country. "Glory to Allah!" says he to the chief priests of Cairo. "There is no other God, but God; Mahomet is his prophet, and I am his friend. The divine Koran is the delight of my soul, and the object of my meditation." A discussion which he held with those eastern doctors led to some doubts respecting the strength of faith in their proselyte. Bonaparte would not admit that the magnetical needle, the invention of gunpowder, the art of printing, or the Newtonian system of the universe,

were to be found in the Koran. But whatever might be the doc trines which Bonaparte would have instituted, and for the belief of which all latitude would have been given, the discipline of his church would no doubt have been military. He had already rendered the instruction at the Lyceums, and even private schools, as soldier-like as the nature of the lessons permitted, and every movement was ordered by beat of drum. A right reverend bench of generals, well organized staffs of deans and vicars, and a handsomely drilled clergy, with their acolytes, would, in his estimation, have given energy to the church-militant. As a sedentary guard, or militia, they would have replaced the regular troops stationed in the interior, and with which he could have augmented his ranks for foreign service. The teachers of virtue might thus have become the quellers of sedition, and their eloquent discourses against immorality be accompanied, if necessary, by the stronger arguments of military persuasion. As his system had been that of fusion in his secular concerns, so he would have followed the same rule in his ecclesiastical administration, and this he would have called toleration. He had not been able, however, to bring the Pope, when in Paris, into union with the president of the Protestant church, M. Marron, whom he usually addressed at court by the title of "Monsieur le Pape Protestant." Pius VII. declared, with some pleasantry, that he had no hopes "de tirer le Marron du feu." But Napoleon effected what was no less difficult, that of engaging the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, and the Protestant president, to join in the same religious ceremony, in the presence of the empress, and part of the court. It was the celebration of the marriage of a Catholic and a Protestant person of the court; and the man being a Protestant, the Protestant president, in right of the husband's prerogative, took the lead in the ceremony, and was seated in the place of honour, at the right hand of the empress. at the nuptial banquet, and the cardinal was placed on the left.' pp. 127-134.

It is of no consequence, what modification of religion our Author may have adopted; this representation certainly throws some light on the toleration' of the Bonapartean government, and would lead us to believe, that it is by other means than that of infidel policy, that the papal superstition is finally to be overthrown. And yet, we may hope, that the blow which Popery received from Bonaparte, and which made the throne of his Holiness' totter to its foundations, is one from which it will never wholly recover, although England herself should be doomed to the disgrace of becoming the temporal ally of the spiritual usurper.

Miss Williams speaks with a sort of respect of the unfortunate adventurer who has been replaced by the worthless Ferdinand of Naples.

Murat had borne his faculties, at Naples, as meekly as could have been expected from the possessor of a throne so equivocal,

which he had, in vaThough Murat might (this from a royalist,

He had obtained the good opinion of the country in general, whose well-being he seemed to have at heart, and rious instances, effected.' But, she adds, have made a tolerably decent kind of king, from a loyal subject of Louis XVIII!!) he was endowed with no extraordinary intelligence 'In an evil hour he listened to the wily seducer, who meditating his march from his place of exile to Paris, persuaded this foolish king, that the active employment of his troops against their common enemies, was the most effectual method of not only securing the possession of his own crown, but of rendering Italy independent.' p. 142-3.

The volume contains a mass of amusing anecdotes in reference to minor subjects of interest. There is a very well told instance of noble retaliation in a Prussian officer, and some exquisite instances of Parisian absurdity of feeling displayed on the occasion of the removal of their sculptured divinities by the allied troops. For these we must refer our readers to the volume itself. The least satisfactory portion of the volume, to readers in general, will be that in which the Author lauds the house of Bourbon; but we cannot avoid considering the very tone of the work in this respect, as a strong presumption that the restored family possesses a much more general popularity, than some persons on this side of the water have been willing to admit. Miss Williams maintains, that the sacred principle of toleration has never been violated by Louis the XVIII, and adduces a single anecdote in proof of this assertion! It must however be remembered, that the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty, involves much more than the re-enthronement of Louis the Eighteenth, and that the personal character of a monarch is too often found to constitute an insufficient security for the spirit of his government, and the acts of his ministry: still less can it form any pledge for the conduct of his successor.

We must refrain from further remarks, and will only express in conclusion, our earnest hope, that the expectation expressed in the following passage, may be justified by the future principles and conduct of the French people.

We have passed through the tempest, to use the words of M. de Boufflers, 66 sous la même parapluie." How should I have lived so many years among the French without loving that amiable people, to apply the term in their own sense, who so well know the art of shedding a peculiar charm over social life! How much better than others they understand the secret of being happy! happy at a cheap rate, and without being too difficult, and too disdainful as we are in England about the conditions; while they bear misfortunes with a cheerful equanimity, which, if it does not deserve the proud name of philosophy, is of far more general use; the former being common