pregnant with danger to the state, as leading the poor to charge all their grievances immediately on the government.

But it is not only by assisting to carry the act into practical operation that the gentry of England can aid in securing the benefits it has in view, with the accompaniment of the least possible contingent evil. By tranquillizing the minds of the poor in their respective neighbourhoods, with regard to the character of the change; by setting the intention of the government and legislature in what we hope may be considered as its right light; by closely watching the conduct of the commissioners, and remonstrating wherever they conceive mischief likely to arise from their proceedings: but, above all, by encouraging and aiding the poor to depend more upon their own exertions, and less than they have hitherto done upon parochial support; by providing them with garden allotments, which, as experience has now fully shown, are so valuable and so perfectly harmless a help to the partially-employed labourer; by hunting out modes of giving employment of a private and productive nature to those who would otherwise be forced upon the parish; by devising works of a public and not unprofitable character, for those who are thus forced, whereon they can usefully and industriously labour until some more permanent means of disposing of them be adopted; by assisting the emigration of those who are decidedly in excess beyond the permanent average demand for labour through the year; and by promoting the formation and continuance, on true and salutary principles, of benefit societies for the mutual insurance of members against every casualty, misfortune, or infirmity; it is by these and other active exertions of a similar character, which the circumstances of every district or individual will suggest, that the gentry and clergy, and the respectable middle classes of England can, and, we firmly believe, will exert themselves to effect more, far more, than is within the power of any government commission, towards ameliorating the moral and physical condition of the poor, and restoring those virtuous and industrious habits, that energy and independent spirit, which were formerly characteristic of the English labourer, but which an abusive administration of the poor-law has gone far of late years to extinguish. Let us see a thorough determination among the higher and middle ranks to co-operate, by these various modes, each in his sphere, and to the extent of his means, in furthering the great object of the amended poorlaw, and preventing it from being perverted into an instrument of evil-and we shall have slender fears of the result. The intelligence and the benevolence of these ranks present, in fact, the only

guarantee

guarantee for the safe working of this important experiment. And, with respect to the poor themselves, much as they have been libelled recently, and by none more, we regret to say, than by the late commissioners and their assistants,-we entertain the same confidence in their good dispositions which has been eloquently and forcibly expressed by Mr. Osler in one of the communications printed by the poor-law commission.

The poor deserve all the attention we can give them; they are grateful and respectful to their superiors, and most kind to one another. If treated with harshness, contempt, or neglect, they will resent it, and they have a right to do so; but let any one manifest an interest in their concerns, address them kindly, assist them with discrimination, refuse, when necessary, with mildness, and reprove with temper, and he will never find reason to complain. As the almoner of public charities, I have been brought into contact with thousands of them of all grades, from the respectable artizan down to the imprisoned felon. I have never been treated with disrespect; and have far more frequently had reason to blush at the excess of their gratitude, than to reproach them for unthankfulness*. Their kindness to one another in their distresses is most exemplary and affecting. When pleading for a neighbour, they will indeed urge the absence of every claim upon themselves, and their inability to afford any assistance; but after the aid they have been soliciting has either been obtained or denied, they will cheerfully divide their morsel, and perform voluntarily and gratuitously every service. Their faults are on the surface, and are often nothing more than that coarseness of manner which belongs to their station; but whoever will study them thoroughly, will be compelled to admire their general character, and will feel it an enviable privilege to be enabled to relieve distresses in which it is impossible not to sympathize, and to place them generally in circumstances which shall afford scope and encouragement to their virtues.'-p. 180.

We must not conclude without expressing our belief that the government have made a judicious selection in appointing Mr. Frankland Lewis to be the chairman of the Central Board; and that the community owes much gratitude to that gentleman for undertaking this very laborious function. His name and character ought to assuage many jealousies, and do much to excite hearty co-operation among those of his own class and station throughout the country.

*This beautiful sentence recalls Wordsworth's more beautiful stanza :— 'I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds

With coldness still returning;

Alas! the gratitude of men

Has oftener left me mourning.'-Simon Lee.

ART.

ART. XI.-Souvenirs Historiques sur la Révolution de 1830. Par S. Bérard, Député de Seine et Oise. Paris, 1834.

OUR readers will recollect* that amongst certain nameless

names' which the Three Days brought into notice, there was one Bérard. This man had been two or three years a deputy, but had never ventured into the tribune, and seemed, by his talents, character, and position, very little likely to play a prominent part in a great political movement. He, however, was the confidential friend of M. Lafitte, and, in the meetings of the deputies which took place during the contest, he distinguished himself by his seditious activity; and while the great majority were, either through timidity or constitutional scruples, willing to enter into terms with Charles X., Bérard-probably instigated by Lafitte-took the lead in urging the dismissal of the elder branch and the elevation of the Duke of Orleans to the throne. It was to Bérard's house that the Duke de Mortemart, the king's new minister and plenipotentiary, was-by the curious coincidence we before t observed upon-conducted; it was he who told the Duke 'il est trop tard;'-and it was mainly through his management that this negociation failed. It was he, too, who undertook the preparation of the new charter, to which he had the honour of giving his name for it was and is familiarly termed La Charte Bérard. On the establishment of the new government Bérard had his share of the spoils, though not quite so large a one as he expected; for he thought that, as he had made Louis Philippe king,' Louis Philippe ought, in return, to have named him, at least, a member of his cabinet. Instead, however, of this, he was only made a privy councillor and Directeur Général des Ponts et Chaussées, a place equivalent to our First Commissioner of Woods and Forests. Although M. Bérard afterwards considered this as une des premières fonctions de l'Administration,' yet he no doubt must have been somewhat mortified to see placed in the superior rank of cabinet ministers persons who, like Guizot, Broglie, and Sebastiani, had, during the crisis, exhibited-not merely timidity and vacillation, but a desire to accommodate matters with Charles X. Whatever was the reason, he certainly soon became somewhat of a frondeur, and began to hint that the king he had made did not do full justice to his other great work-the Charter.

We think our readers will be amused, and, if they reflect a little, instructed, by the following account of the first day of the new royalty-which, as well, indeed, as every page of the book, offers a most curious exhibition of the disgrace of what successful audacity has called glory,' of the meanness of its affected '

6

* See Quarterly Review, Vol. XLIX. p. 478.

gran

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deur,' the low selfishness of its ostentatious 'liberality,' the shabby intrigues of its popular independence,' the despotism of its professed freedom,' the narrowness of its boasted nationality,' and, above all, the strange mixture of falsehood and force, of courage and cringing, of the blood of the Bourbons with the boue de Paris which has marked the whole personal conduct of Louis Philippe.

At the inaugural assembly of the two Chambers, when the crown was, on the proposition of Bérard, publicly conferred on Louis Philippe,

'Casimir Perrier, the President of the Deputies, read with a loud and declamatory voice the declaration of the Chamber. When he came to these words, "The general and pressing interest of the French people calls to the throne His Royal Highness PHILIPPE OF ORLEANS," the king elect interrupted him with" LOUIS PHILIPPE."-Perrier, correcting himself, repeated "Louis Philippe of Orleans,” &c.p. 408.

After explaining and ridiculing the doubts of his fellow kingmakers whether they should call their creature Louis XIX. or Philippe VII., and the intermediate device of thus calling him Louis Philippe, because that combined name had no historical antecedents, he proceeds,

• When the ceremony was over, the king went out shaking hands at a prodigious rate with the peers, the deputies, and even the crowd through which he walked to his carriage. I blamed this shaking of hands in the Lieutenant-General on the 31st July, 1830; I approve it still less in the King on the 9th August. It is not from any regard to royal dignity that I censure this familiarity, but because it is the expression of a falsehood-because it fraudulently affects a kind of equality which is neither in the thoughts of him who gives nor him who receives this indecorous greeting.

'I had received in the morning a note from one of the king's aidesde-camp to invite me to dine at the Palais Royal. I arrived rather late,-[how lucky that the sentinel at the door did not tell M. Bérard, as he had told M. de Mortemart, il est trop tard !]-they were just going to dinner. I slided-without being, so to speak (pour ainsi dire), observed-into the crowd of guests. The chief actors of the revolution were present at this banquet, which was royal only in its magnificence. Every one seemed as much at ease as if he were dining in a friend's house; but it is right to add, no one trespassed beyond the bounds of a respectful familiarity. But alas! this real citizen-royalty did not last long. Those who were about the king did not like a crowd of familiar competitors, and they soon created a kind of court. The king began to find himself isolated in a certain degree from the simple citizens—[simple indeed!]-and by degrees he came to know nothing of their wants, to forget their interests, and, in a word, to become a king just like any other.'—p. 410,

Here

Here we see the germ of M. Bérard's discontent. HE, the founder of the monarchy, happened to come late to this inaugural feast-they had the ingratitude not to wait dinner for him—nay, he was, pour ainsi dire, unnoticed, and he soon discovered symptoms that the citizen-king' was to become a king just like any other.' The king, on this occasion, however, saw his mistake in time, and after dinner seized an opportunity of paying his court to M. Bérard.

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'I had not spoken to the king or queen, and did not seek an opportunity of doing so, when, after dinner, strolling out on the terrace which divides the court and the garden of the Palais Royal, I was met by the king. He came up to me with the most affable air, and, after a few words of the kindest civility, he added, "M. Bérard, I shall never forget the tact and judgment with which you know how to seize an opportunity. In two most important circumstances you were the first to see what ought to be done, and the first to do it." Sire," I replied, "when one is inspired-[this reminds us of Joseph Surface's 'the man who- ]-by the love of one's country, one is seldom wrong, and always in a hurry to attain his object-that which we have accomplished to-day will receive the approbation of all France." His majesty then asked me if I was acquainted with the queen; and on my answering in the negative, he ran to a short distance, took her by the hand, and brought her to me. I present you, my dear,* THE man who has done us such services, and to whom we owe such deep obligation." The queen having addressed me-[the queen addressed him!]-in obliging terms. "I am happy," I replied to her [lui répliquai je-every word is precious,]" that that which deserved my respect and affection happened to be in accordance with the interests of France-had they required another course, that other course I should have taken." This freedom, perhaps a little downright (brusque), was very well taken, and produced fresh compliments to me. I was complimented also by the Duke de Chartres and Madame Adelaide.

'I was then a considerable man to whom they-[on-the king and queen, the heir-apparent and the princess royal, dwindled into on-the Iliad in a nut-shell!]-to whom they openly avowed that they owed some gratitude, in whose praise they never could say enough! My favour, to use the language of the courtiers, was so great, that it seemed to excite their envy, and I was able, during that evening, to form some idea of the intoxication of courts.'-Ib.

Like other intoxications, this evaporated by next morning, and, as poor M. Bérard informs us, with a very natural expression of wonder and disappointment, he never again entered the Palais Royal as a favourite-no, not even as a guest; which was the more remarkable, because the king was in the habit of inviting everybody.

* We are obliged to insert the words 'my dear' to render the familiar effect of the tutoyement which Bérard puts into the King's mouth.