those apprehensions of war which had been suggested by the personal ambition of family alliances in Spain, he at the same time insulted the Queen's government by declaring that Spain ought and should be free! "This puerile and ridiculous manifesto," says M. Capefigue, "contained the seeds of an overthrow of all public rights throughout Europe."

The next step of the Provisional Goverment was, while it respected the great powers, England, Austria, and Prussia, which might enforce their principles by large armies, to let loose upon the lesser powers of Belgium, Piedmont, and Baden, many thousands of refugees, who engaged to proclaim the Republic in those countries. If they succeeded, so much the better; if they failed, the part taken in the matter by the French Republic could be disavowed. "Go: may God grant you victory!" Such was the feeling openly expressed by the Republic to the foreign insurgents, and yet it proclaimed itself to be at peace with Europe!

It so happened that the Belgian cabinet was perfectly well informed of the movements of the Republicans, and quite prepared to repel the revolutionary invasion of its frontiers. The insurgents, armed with muskets taken out of the French arsenals, advanced in columns to the frontier; and where they expected support and enthusiasm, they found resistance and disgrace. The affair of Risque-Tout was the first real and important check received by the propagandists. Europe began to feel that, with a little energy and skill combined, it might still get through the crisis.

This was more particularly the case in England, where the power and number of the Chartists became at this moment greatly exaggerated. "If there existed," says M. Capefigue, "some few Republicans among the Chartists, who declaimed against Queen Victoria, the great majority were in favour of the sovereignty over the three countries, and vociferated God save the Queen! It was therefore a great illusion to give credit to the report of a republic having been declared in England, and which was so industriously circulated by the French republicans: the Whig ministry had with great tact withdrawn its more unpopular bills in reference to questions of taxation; and by the 20th of March there no longer existed anything in England suggestive of anxiety, beyond the serious aspect of affairs on the Continent, where the government still kept up its former relations."

The country in which the propagandists were destined to effect most mischief was Italy, which had been in a state ripe for insurrection ever since the 24th of February. "It is incontestable," says M. Capefigue, "that the Italian refugees threw themselves upon the old country from every part of France, urged by the secret impulse given to them by the Provisional Government. But even these insurrectionists were divided into two parties-one that accepted the existing governments, only with liberal modifications; the other dreaming about a democratic union, the seat of government to be at Rome or Milan. The expedition which was got up at Lyons was armed and paid by the Provisional Government, precisely as in the case of that sent to the Belgian frontier: its disgrace was even more signal, for, in possession for a few moments of Chambery, it was driven out and dispersed by the pitchforks of the Savoyard peasants, who were devoted to the house of Savoy.

M. Capefigue traces the insurrection in Lombardy to four causes: first, July.-VOL. LXXXVI. NO. CCCXLIII.

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the manifesto of M. de Lamartine; secondly, the influence of the refugees; thirdly, the generous but imprudent notions of Pius IX. upon the unity and liberty of Italy; and fourthly, the personal ambition of Charles Albert: but he omits in this enumeration the most powerful of all causes— the national hatred and hostility to the domination of a foreign power. This impetuous insurrection, led on by the Poles, did not even allow of a regular resistance. Field Marshal Radetsky was obliged to fall back upon Mantua and Verona. Still Young Italy relied for success mainly on the co-operation of France. Young Italy was destined to be painfully

undeceived.

M. Capefigue traces in a similar manner the origin of the insurrection at Berlin to this most absurd manifesto of the 5th of March. But he admits, that if the impulse of the insurrectional movement came from Paris, the principle existed previously in the schools of the Prussian capital, and the spirit of imitation did the rest. Barricades were erected; and it was necessary to use military force to repel that which was undoubtedly a genuine revolutionary government. In the mean time, as had occurred in respect to London, an extraordinary telegraphic despatch was stuck up at the Bourse on the 16th of March, announcing not only that a republic had been substituted to the Prussian monarchy, but that King Frederick William was a captive in the hands of the insurrectionists. "Whence," M. Capefigue asks, "these extraordinary reports, these repeated public falsifications of events? It was owing, he says, to the simple circumstance that the foreign minister had no other correspondents but the propagandists; and the latter were constantly mistaking their hopes for realities. The idea of a German republic having failed, the French ministry began to favour the idea of German unity, under a constitutional emperor-that emperor to be the King of Prussia. M. de Lamartine openly gave out, that the alliance of such a constitutional and imperial unity with France would not be too much to resist the immense resources of Russia.

The success of the insurrection at Vienna filled the propagandists with joyful surprise, and with new hopes for the future. The progress of disorder and anarchy appeared to be almost assured. M. de Metternich was in London, with the Prince of Prussia and M. Guizot. M. Arago formed an army of the Alps with great ostentation, but little real efficiency. Lord Palmerston declared that he would not permit the entrance of a French army into Italy; and Charles Albert said he had not asked for any aid, nor did he solicit it. There only remained for M. de Lamartine to say that the army should not cross the Alps, unless it was appealed to to that effect by an Italian power. He had also apologies to make at Turin, as he had at Brussels, for permitting the frontiers of countries with whom he professed to be at peace to be invaded by bodies of insurrectionists. He had greater concessions to make than were ever made by M. Guizot in his worst days. And out of all this a great fact made itself generally felt,-which was, that Germany, Belgium, and Italy separated themselves from that which M. Capefigue designates as "the French idea."

In the mean time, the Emperor Nicholas could see nothing in the French Revolution but a fact which threatened every crowned head in Europe. Immense levies were ordered throughout the empire of Russia; and every preparation has been made, in alliance with the Sclavonic and

Scandinavian populations, for one of those vast wars, accompanied by migrations of people and nations, such as occurred in the fourth and fifth centuries. England, in concert with Russia, pressed upon the Ottoman Porte the imperious necessity of multiplying its armament for future events; and among those are the recovery of Algiers, and of the other olden Turkish provinces in Africa.

The second volume of M. Capefigue's work does not go beyond thisthe period of M. Garnier Pages' administration of the finances, and of M. de Lamartine's foreign policy. M. Cavaignac had refused to accept the office of minister of war until the army was allowed to return with honour to the capital. This alternative was refused: but we now know how it was subsequently conceded; how the first frightful and inevitable struggle ensued between society and the rejected of all classes; how the defeat of the Ultra-republicans paved the way to the Presidency, which represented a name, and not impossibly a principle; and which principle, if existing, can be neither more nor less than military glory and imperial command. Still, upon the occasion of the recent elections, it was shown that the Ultra or Red Republicans, Socialists, Communists, and overthrowers of all characters and degrees, existed in some force throughout the country; and what was worse, that under the perverse system of universal suffrage, by which the opinions of the lower classes must always have an ascendancy over that of the educated portion of the community, the representatives of the lovers of discord and anarchy were in greater numbers than ought fairly to have been the case, had the opinions of the respectable classes of society been represented by the existing system.

Under such circumstances, and with such stubborn, fiery, and ambitious spirits as M. Ledru Rollin to lead-and men of so little principle as Serjeants Boichot and Rattier to follow--and the more able seconding of Etienne Arago, Felix Pyat, Suchet, Deville, Guinard, &c.-nothing but a collision, as we took the opportunity to point out in the last number of the New Monthly, could have been anticipated.

Declaration of open war between the two parties ensued upon the question of the policy pursued by government in regard to Rome. The Ultra-republicans naturally supported the cause of their brethren at the eternal city; the French government knew full well, that the government imposed by the minority upon the Romans no more represented the opinions of the middle and better classes at Rome, than the doctrines of the Socialists and Communists did those of society at large in Paris or throughout the departments. Government, therefore, determined to continue in the line of action which it had marked out to itself, notwithstanding a first check received by the gallant Oudinot, mainly owing to his anxiety to save the great conservatories of art, in the city which art has so long favoured.

M. Ledru Rollin deemed that the great moment of a struggle for power had arrived. He made the invasion of Rome, and the check received by the French arms, the groundwork of a bold attempt to impeach Louis Napoleon and his ministers; and he at the same time publicly proclaimed in the Chambers that the constitution had been violated, and that the "people" would defend it by every possible means, even by arms. The challenge thrown to government was not lost upon it. Seconded by General Changarnier, an Algerine officer of the same experience, same courage, and same resolution as Cavaignac, the government took

up the gauntlet, outvoted the ultra-faction, and thus necessarily drove it to have recourse to that which had been threatened-opposition by arms and civil warfare. The papers of the party were also seized at the same time, to dare them to the encounter. On Wednesday, June 13th, the attempted demonstration was made. On the part of the insurgents, the usual resources were brought into play: men in the uniform of the National Guard were put forward; the streets and boulevards were paraded; national songs were vociferated; and counter-plots, as on the first occasion, were attempted, but unsuccessfully. On the other hand, the experience of past insurrections was brought to bear against this resuscitation of old and exploded resources. The columns of insurgents were intercepted, broken, and dispersed, by charges of infantry and cavalry; in no case was time afforded to form barricades which could offer any real resistance; and the leaders of the insurrection, who had in

the mean time installed themselves as a new Convention at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, were surrounded, and for the most part captured. M. Ledru Rollin was, by accident or connivance, one of the few who escaped.

Thus, one after another, have the heroes of February 1848 disappeared from the political scene. The republicans of the eve have been each in his turn destined to recede before the republicans of the morrow. This was in the first instance the fate of the Alberts, the Louis Blancs, Barbés, Blanqui, and Caussidière; next, that of the Lamartines, the Marrasts, the Aragos, and the Crémieuxs; then it came to the turn of the temporary military dictator, General Cavaignac; now nearly the last dregs of the Republic have been sifted from the honourable company of their fellow-representatives-lovers of order, or followers of legitimate, monarchical, or imperialist ideas. Soon, not a trace will remain of the Republic of 1848. The almost bloodless victory, for which French society has to thank the devotion of the army to the name and person of a Bonaparte, and the admirably firm, prudent, and able measures taken by General Changarnier to preserve the capital and various seats of government from surprise, will no doubt have considerable influence both upon France internally, and upon the whole politics of Europe; but viewed within itself, it is only one step towards that ulterior great struggle which still remains to be fought out between the three really great and intelligent parties that remain confronted-the Legitimists, Orleanists, and Napoleonists. That the Socialists and Communists should be the first to fall, no one endowed with the mere attributes of common sense could fail to anticipate; but with Algerine generals ready to take command of opposing parties, and with able political leaders attached at the same time to opposing interests, it would be absurd to say that the last triumph of order over anarchy was also a final triumph of an existing state of things over all external and internal discord.

THE HABITUE'S NOTE-BOOK.

BY CHARLES HERVEY, ESQ.

Obituary of the month: Marie Dorval; Angelica Catalani-Receipts of the Parisian Theatres-Malle. Lavoye-Juvenile fête at the St. James's TheatreMr. Mitchell's benefit-"Le Comte Ory"-Madame Damoreau; Lafont-Madame Doche-Rentrée of Moriani.

NOT many weeks ago, an application was made by some of the most eminent literary men in France, including Victor Hugo, Alfred de Vigny, Jules Janin, and Alexandre Dumas, to M. Léon Faucher, then Minister of the Interior, warmly advocating the re-engagement at the Théâtre Français of Madame Dorval, who had not appeared there for seven or eight years. Scarcely had their petition been delivered, when news arrived of the sudden and severe illness of the celebrated artiste at Caen, where she had intended performing some of her favourite characters, and, a few days later, of her return to Paris almost in a dying state. The consequences of this imprudent step were, as might be expected, fatal; and on Sunday, May 20, she breathed her last, regretted not only by her friends-and they were many-but by all who still cherished a recollection of her extraordinary talent.

A detailed biography of Madame Dorval is a desideratum in dramatic literature-the various notices published respecting her dealing, for the most part, far less with fact than with fiction. I am not, indeed, aware of the existence of any authentic data beyond the few scattered notes which I have hastily collected together, chiefly from original sources, and which I now offer to my readers, with selections from my own private memoranda.

Marie Dorval was born in 1792, but the place of her birth is not recorded; at the age of nineteen she had already commenced her dramatic career at Bayonne, where the officers of the garrison, with whom she was a great favourite, nicknamed her little Boulotte. Report hints that, while there, her beauty, or the charm of her acting, possibly both, added a marshal of France to the list of her admirers, which, if we may judge from contemporary accounts, must have been a tolerably long one.

From that period we lose sight of her until 1818, when we find her performing her Parisian noviciate at the Porte St. Martin-a theatre then in high vogue, owing to the popularity of its chief supportersPotier, Philippe, and Jenny Vertpré. Of these, the dramatic celebrity has already become matter of tradition; but there yet remain, after the lapse of more than thirty years, two humbler members of that once brilliant troupe-two living witnesses of its past glories, who have been handed down as heir-looms by every successive manager, and without whom in the eyes, at least, of its veteran habitués-the Porte St. Martin would be an anomaly. These are Vissot and good old Möessard. By slow but sure degrees, Madame Dorval worked her way up the fag end to the head of the company. The almost unnoticed débutante was soon forgotten in the impassioned actress, whose extraordinary native energy, physical and mental, more than compensated for the absence of that conventional correctness which is too often the attri

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