1816.]

A Trip to Paris in August and September 1815.

these, and least of all with a foreigner. "In a dispute between a stranger and a native of France," observed a Frenchman to me," the Frenchman must have a right and a half on his side in order to gain his cause;" so much will the presumed ignorance of the foreigner be allowed to tell in his favour.

At public exhibitions, and other public places, where either Frenchmen are adinitted only on certain days, or where but a limited number of people can be placed, the foreigner is admitted every day, or has the preference given him before the natives. I feel no inclination fastidiously to inquire into the basis of this kind of politeness, as I have heard others do, who suspected vanity to be at the bottom of it, since Frenchmen consider them selves as a nation far superior to all others. Whether it be owing to this nation having been so much deceived, or to a consciousness of their own propensity to deceive, they show a most obvious disposition to suspect finesse every where; and the most palpable reason or cause they are sure to reject in search of a more recondite one. Perhaps this may also be a trait of vanity, which assumes an air of greater penetration than what belongs to the multitude. Buonaparte knew well how to avail himself of this feature in the character of Frenchmen, when he wished, in the course of his operations, to make them look to any cause suitable to his purpose, rather than to the most obvious and real one. There are men now in France, who pretend to so much penetration, as not to believe that Buonaparte escaped from Elba without the connivance of the English, who were desirous of renewing the war with France because they observed the French manufactures prosper too rapidly. "L'on en veut jusqu'a nos fabriques; voila le secret" said a French gentleman from the south to me, who had been an officer in Buonaparte's guards, and was sufficiently imbued with that political insight for which Buonaparte thought it good. policy to give them credit. A French officer related in company, in the presence of a friend of mine, that he had been commissioned by the magistrates of a country town to purchase a sword, Without intending to question the justice of this observation of our correspondent, we cannot help adverting to the case of a respectable English gentleman of the name of Kean, who, for no other ostensible of fence than that mentioned above, was but a few months since assassinated by a Frenchman in the streets of Paris.-EDITOR.

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which was to be presented to a Prussian general, as a compliment for the good conduct of his men whilst they were quartered in that town; "but," added the French officer, "I shall ask the Prussian general to give me his address; for as we shall in two years be at Berlin again, I intend to call on him, and de

and the sword back of him."-Whilst I was standing on the Boulevards, looking at a print-shop, where there was exhibited a print of Buonaparte, with his face cut up into figures, and near it a portrait of Louis XVIII., I was addressed by a Frenchwoman with a very expressive countenance, pointing to these portraits: "A present qu'il est bas; on se moque de lui; il vaut bien ce gros roi; on le reverra; il n'est pas mort." I hope I am right in thinking that this woman will not prove a Cassandra.-A Frenchman, a fellow-traveller in a diligence, could not bear the idea that he should be thought so destitute of penetration as to believe that the King of England is still alive, without, however, being able to mention a single reason why his death should be concealed.

The political fate of France, which has delivered her into the possession of foreign armies, together with her domestic differences, give a great check to the display of the national character; whilst that original character has during the Revolution exhibited itself under so many different aspects, that it must be very difficult for an observer to seize upon the genuine and radical features of that character.

On an occasion where the French character was the subject of conversation, and surprise was expressed that the better part of the nation should have so tamely submitted to the sway of so many factions of the most unprincipled individuals, a French diplomatic gentleman replied: "The French, when collected in a numerous body in the face of the world, under the eyes of History and Fame, will attempt the most heroic exploits; but if you take a Frenchman separately, under circumstances of great difficulty, and endeavour to make him take a decisive and active part in the cause, which to himself appears to have justice on its side, he will shrug up his shoulders, wring his hands, and--shed tears!" This at least corresponds well with the observation of Buonaparte upon the character of Murat, in one of his intercepted letters written to his sister, the wife of Murat. As the French when assembled in great numbers may be ca

488

A Trip to Paris in August and September 1815.

pable of the highest enthusiasm of courage, so they seem also in such situations subject to panic; whilst the last revolution alone has produced more than sufficient instances to show that individually they can brave death, even certain death by the hand of the executioner.-I have read in some history of France, that formerly, when an engagement of consequence was to be entered into by individuals in that country, the parties were made to swear upon the tomb of some eminent saint to the performance of their engagement; but that, in process of time, it was found necessary to take the parties to the tombs of several such saints to try to bind them to the execution of their engagement. A French historian, in noticing an eminent person among his countrymen, describes his character as most excellent, only that he was apt not to keep his word. This trait, as well as too great a readiness to proffer their services, seems to me to be the effect of the want of a sufficient degree of strength in the character.-Whatever defects may appear to attach to the character of Frenchmen in particular, they are allowed to be exempt from that mastervice-drunkenness. What difference the absence of this vice must make in the happiness of the lower classes of the people, may not only be conjectured, but is evident from the appearance and conduct in public of those people in this country; nay, the superior classes may bless their favoured lot, that their nation is not contaminated by that vice, in the train of which the poet or painter might depict every crime that has a namea horrid procession!

The revolutionary career which France has run during so many years, has introduced an unexampled variety of political opinions, which were all kept compressed by the energy and splendour of Napoleon's government. These are now let loose and Heaven knows what settlement will ultimately take place of this chaos of opinions of ultra-royalists, limited monarchists, republicans, democrats, and those who do not know what they want, but are dissatisfied with what they have. An old, intelligent, French gentleman, of great respectability, contemplated this confusion of opinions with despair; thinking that it would ultimately lead to a division of the territory of France among the neighbouring powers. The mass of the French nation, I am inclined to think, still cling with their affections to Buonaparte. Such attachments are not founded upon reason only,

[July 1,

but upon a long habitual feeling. The men between twenty and thirty years of age, the hearts and arms (though not exactly the brains) of a nation, know little of the Bourbons; and these now come among them with disgrace and subjection preceding them, though the Bourbons be not by any means the cause of it. Instead of bulletins of their victorious Emperor from the Kremlin, halfway between Paris and Bagdad, and of splendid triumphal arches, they must now hear the decrees of the Bourbon king for raising contributions for foreign armies in possession of their country; the triumphal arches in their capital are before their faces despoiled of their de corations; and their boasted trophies of the master-pieces of art torn away from their splendid and costly depository. The enlightened-and God send it to be the greatest part of the nation!-mast view this in its proper light; and see in the unbounded ambition of Napoleon, and in the slavish submission of the nation to him, the source and cause of the present unparalleled overthrow of France. Political liberty, for which the revolutionists overturned whatever was before held sacred in France, and sacrificed every principle, every human feeling— together with the happiness, property, and lives of millions-was entirely lost sight of, like a small star, in the blaze of the meridian sun of vain-glory; and the most hideous despotism lost all the borror of its infernal features when mounted in the dazzling car of victory. It is from weak monarchs, not from energetic tyrants, that liberty wrings concessions;— the true and intelligent friends of rational liberty in France must, therefore, consider the present state of the government as greatly favourable to their views; whilst Napoleon would have erased from the alphabet the very letters that compose the word LIBERTY, and summed up his whole political creed in the words GLORY but SLAVERY, or DEATH. To obey the Emperor, and promote the glory of France, was the basis of the new system of education introduced by this arch-despot; who, it is notorious, went so far as to have expunged from the edition of the classics to be used in schools, every passage having a tendency to feed in the youthful bosom the sacred flame of liherty, and of hatred of tyranny; whilst every new publication was obliged to undergo a similar mutilation. Yet Napoleon knew how to give to his despotism an appearance of liberty," observed a French lady; for among the

1816.]

Remarks on the Natural History of the Eagle.

489

like the tangled weeds in a long-neglected field. Here you may meet with regicides and judges of the Septembral tribunals, as well as with old royalists, worm-eaten with devotion to absolute monarchy.--When I was the other day introduced to the Abbé he said: "Tous les

hommes, qui aiment la religion, la vertu et la morale, font une seule famille." Yet this abbé put his signature unsolicited to the sentence of death of the King. There was less consistency in the ejaculation of this abbé than in an admired courtezan's exclaining: “Quand vous serez la bas sous la terre, dous ne jouirez de rien, jouissez donc !"

prince the subscriptions that were going on among the English in consequence of the battle of Waterloo. "Ah!" said this amiable prince, " that is a noble nation;" and pointing to the silk coverings of the chairs and sofas in the rooms, "look, sir," said he; "here you will find the richest embroideries. It is thus that these men here spend their money."

ladies also Napoleon has a great number of adherents. This lady was a mother of two, if not more, sons; for to many a mother the military system of Napoleon held forth the delightful prospect of see ing her sons returning in the splendid uniform of a general of division, covered with decorations, and possessed of an estate. That they might return cripples was a chance which their sanguine temper would not allow them to dwell upon. Nay, I remember an English mother, when I congratulated her on the peace, sbaking her head, and observing: "We have three sons in the army-what is to become of them?"-"When my boy," observed a French gentleman to me, I dined a few days ago with the sees an officer in a fine uniform, deco- Prince, who inhabits a palace berated with military orders, he cries: longing to the Duke -.In a converPapa, I shall one day be such a man!"-sation after dinner, I explained to the How is this military spirit, created by the Revolution, and nourished during so many years, to be subdued at once into the sober disposition of men of business? The revolutionary state of France has lasted too long to expect a new order of things to be introduced with much less agitation than what attended the former change; and difficult beyond measure must be the task of those men who, by their judicious and prudent measures, are to render harmless the electric matter with which those clouds are charged that float in the political atmosphere of convulsed France. When you consider the situation of the government of the Bourbons on their return-the soldiers, who swore fidelity to them, concealing the cockade of Buonaparte at the bottom of their knapsacks-generals, magistrates, postmasters, collectors of taxes, &c. all either palsied, or acting clandestinely or openly in support of the usurper the moment he appears-where can you look but to the enlightened, generous, but energetic, measures of the Allied Sovereigns, to prevent a catastrophe which every one possessed of human feelings must deprecate, and contemplate with horror: I mean a general anarchy in France, under a government which has not a firm hold of the nation. It is undoubtedly as just as it is expedient that the French people should be made to feel some of that distress which they have so long been in the habit of inflict ing on their neighbours; yet retaliation is a two-edged sword, which may severely Jacerate the hand that wields it unskil fully.

The various species of political characters bred in the hot-house of the Revolution remain yet interwoven with society here,

We regret that we have not been able to introduce the whole of this interesting communication into the present volume. The remainder, forming two portions of about the same length as those already given, shall appear in our next numbers.-EDITOR.

MR. EDITOR,

THE history of the eagle, as it regards some particulars, is I believe rather obscure; at least I do not recollect ever to have met with any certain account of its age, &c. Some suppose that it attains great longevity-say about 100 years; but I do not believe this to have been very satisfactorily ascertained. Still it is affirmed that it lives to an extraordinary age. Now, I should be much pleased if any of your correspondents would kindly communicate what they know on the subject. I believe there is an old tradition that this bird, after it arrives to a certain great age, becomes re-invigorated, and actually receives fresh youth and strength; and this idea is in some measure borne out in Scripture; for we find in Psalms, ciii. 5, the eagle mentioned thus: "Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's ?" These words certainly favour an idea of the kind; and I should. much wish to learn whether there is any evidence of what is

490

On the Leviathan-On the Restoration of the Jesuits.

here hinted, that after the eagle becomes old, its youth is actually renewed.

The royal bird is, more than any other, celebrated by poets; and it is very often mentioned in the Scriptures. Poets have always been very fond of comparing the aspiring pride of ambitious man to the towering flight of the eagle; and in Scripture ideas of swiftness and exaltation are very generally associated with the eagle's flight; as, "Riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven:" (Prov. xxiii. 5.) And Pope says:

"With engle-speed she cuts the sky." The pen in hand, allow me to trespass a little longer on your indulgence, to inquire of your ingenious readers for some information respecting the leviathan, so terribly described in Job. Opinions differ widely as to this animal; some writers say it is the whale, and some affirm that the crocodile is meant. As to its being the whale, I think the description of the leviathan does not warrant a supposition of the kind; indeed I believe (I give my opinion humbly, and with deference) there is no ground for presuming it to be the case. Judging from the terrific and awful picture handed down to us of this wonderful creature, I should take it to be any thing but the whale. There certainly appears to be more reason for supposing it to be the crocodile; some of its terrible characteristics, so emphatically and frightfully set forth, approach the properties of the wily monster of the Nile. In a Hebrew prayer, which very finely describes the power of God, as it is manifested throughout the creation, and the magnificent glory and greatness of his works, the huge leviathan is introduced in these words:

[July 1,

the revived cause of jesuitism; and I earnestly hope that the same motives will incline you to direct a constant eye to the future general progress, as well as every particular proceeding of this ob noxious institution, in every country where it may unhappily obtain a footing. In the facts to which you have alluded in your notice of a foreign pamphlet, (page 235) designed to expose some of the infamous practices of the Jesuits, as evidenced by existing records of their past conduct, I only regret that they appear to be of a character to forbid your giving any detail of them with the view of extending the circulation of this welltimed and salutary caveat.

What, however, has been already done by the Emperor of Russia in prohibiting the members of this society from teaching in his dominions, will, it is to be hoped, operate as an example to other courts (surely Protestant ones, at all events) to refuse admission into their states of the members of an order whose very existence is coupled with the return of the worst features of popish thraldom. It is a wise adage which teaches us (and may sovereigns show a just sense of their own interest in being in time taught by it)

"venienti occurrere morbo."

As a sincere friend to political order and substantial peace, I am sorry to contemplate any evil resulting from the restoration of legitimate power in Europe, and should therefore have ardently rejoiced had this absurd revival of an execrable institution been the only one to be dreaded from the arrangements to which the happy overthrow of the Corsican despotism has led; because I am

willing to hope this is one which may יצרת לשחקבו

; there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein (the sea). This is figuratively attributing inconceivable strength to the leviathan, and setting it in power and majesty far above all the creatures of God's creation.

The sentiments of your intelligent correspondents upon the foregoing will gratify many, but none more than yours, &c. Swansea, May 9, 1816. A TRAVELLER.

"Decipimur specie recti." HOR.

MR. EDITOR,

IN no instance of the manly and independent spirit with which you devote your Magazine to the diffusion and support of public and patriotic principles, have I witnessed its exercise with greater satisfaction than in your just hostility to

possibly produce its own cure, by the renewed intrigues of its members calling for their renovated extermination. Unhappily, however, in the well-intended plans of the late European Congress, some of the new territorial arrangements, so far from tending to secure permanent repose, seem to have sown the seeds of the very evil which its laborious

* As I feel singular exultation in recording any successful instance of opposition to the insidious devices of this artful community, I am happy to add to the above that of a Catholic court (the Brazils) being reported to have sent a spirited remonstrance to the Pope against the restoration of an order, for the interminable dissolution of which, in conjunction with other powers, that state, under the reign of Clement XIV., had so strenuously contended.

1816.] On the Union of the Austrian Netherlands with Holland.

deliberations were directed to obviate. The instance to which I now more particularly wish to allude is, the junction of the Belgic provinces with the new kingdom of the Netherlands--an amalgamation (if I may be allowed the term) which appears to me as promising not the shadow of a well-founded prospect of stability.

Although in such an opinion I may widely differ from many of the wellwishers to the peace of Europe, more sanguine than myself in their expectations of its permanency, I shall truly rejoice to find the event justifying their, rather than my own, sentiments upon this deeply-important subject. With your permission, I will, however, briefly state the grounds on which I found my apprehension as to the too probable inefficiency of this arrangement as an intended check to the future inroads of France; and at the same time I shall beg leave to suggest what I conceive would have been a more likely means of preventing the success of any such design on the part of France for the recovery of the Belgic portion of this new Sovereignty-an object which, however the presence of the cautionary army now on its frontiers may for a time prevent, I am confident that country will never cease to cherish the hope of sooner or later effecting.

My grounds for conceiving, therefore, that the new kingdom of the Netherlands (as far at least as the late Austrian provinces are concerned) has no great prospect of permanent stability, are, in the first place, founded on this eager feeling of the French to regain a country so intimately connected with what they consider their glory, and for so many years forming an integral portion of their acknowledged territory. There is no question that, in the event of any new rupture, (and the very circumstance of the late treaty of Paris providing for the temporary occupation of the northern frontiers of France fully confirms the existence of such a fear) the French would direct the whole fury of their first onset on this country, as the very scene where all their laureis were blasted, where their national honour was humbled, and where one of the finest armies their vaunted chief ever carried into the field was so completely routed and overthrown.

Their first object, therefore, will be to recover this soil; and it forms another chief ground on which I build my fears of the instability of the new Belgic sove

491

reignty on its present construction, that whenever such an attempt is made to regain this territory, (and which attempt it is evident will be made with all the ferocity and desperation which the wounded pride of Frenchmen can bring to such a contest,) the power of this state is far too weak, and much too deficient in the essential materials of self-protection to have any chance of resisting the overwhelming torrent. Nor is it to be otherwise than expected, that in the lapse of a few (perhaps very few) years, the present feelings and fervour of the allied protectors of this new state will have in a great degree subsided, and they may feel far too indifferent, if even not disunited themselves, to offer any efficient aid to a helpless sovereign in the tremendous and unequal conflict; and if ever they were so disposed, the return of their dismantled armies to the peaceful pursuits of domestic employ within their own distant territories, far removed from the scene of action, would render their aid too tardy in its application to impede the bursting storm.

Admitting then this reasoning to be correct, (which I fear there is too much probability to consider it,) the idea I have of what would have been a more likely means of averting so deplorable a result, will follow as a natural deduction; and this is, that instead of connecting this most favourite of all the dissevered portions of the late French empire with a powerless state, it should have been united to one of adequate political consequence, as well as physical strength, to maintain its own independence, and protect itself from every hostile attack. Had this country, instead of being attached to the house of Orange, been ceded to Prussia in conjunction with its present new acquisitions in the former ecclesiastical electorates, a far happier prospect of the continuance of European tranquillity would have been secured by the deliberations of the Congress than the best-founded hopes on the present system can possibly warrant.

The house of Orange might have been amply reimbursed for the sacrifice of its patrimonial states in Germany, and have been still rendered a sufficiently respectable power, by the addition to the sovereignty of Holland of the territories included between the ancient Dutch frontier and the course of the Ems; thus extending its limits in an eastern, instead of southern direction. Instead, there fore, of bordering, as a contiguous kingdom, on France itself, and consequently