the dazzling pleasures of a court. In a country-house purchased for her by the King, she passed the happiest moments of her life in rural occupations, and in the exercise of

benevolence.

The Revolution came and changed these peaceful and happy occupations. Elisabeth saw with terror the convocation of the Statesgeneral; but, when they had begun their operations, she devoted herself to consoling her brother, and alleviating to him all the distresses with which he was successively loaded. On the 6th of Oc

tober she went to his chamber, and inspired him with the firmness he displayed, and the next day accompanied him to Paris. She then wrote to one of her friends, "we have been brought back to the Tuileries, where nothing is ready, but we slept from excessive fatigue. It is certain we are prisoners here, my brother does not believe it, but time will teach him that it is so. Our friends think like me, that we are lost. We have no hope left but in God, who does not abandon those whom he loves. My brother is perfectly resigned to his fate; his piety increases with his misfortunes." When the aunts of

Louis XVI. left France, Madame Elisabeth was at first to accompany them; but, at the sight of the dangers which surrounded the royal family, she hesitated; and when Marie-Antoinette said to her, "And do you too abandon us?" she vowed to her to share her fate, and she kept her word. In vain were endeavours made to prevail on her to retire to Turin to her sister. "A woman," answered she, "has only cares and consolations to offer; I owe them to those who are in need of them." It was she, indeed, who became the consoler of her friends; it was she whose gentle, but inflexible courage, often supported theirs in the midst of those long trials calculated to overcome the steadiest virtue. The enemies of her family were not disarmed by her virtues, and she was condemned to death on the 10th of May, 1794. The evening before, she was forced from the Temple at seven o'clock in the evening, to be conducted to the Conciergerie, where she was interrogated for form's sake by Deliège, Vice-president of the Tribunal. The next day she was sent to the scaffold with twenty-four other victims whom she did not know. She ascended it with calmness and resignation, did not utter a single complaint, and seemed happy to go and rejoin, in another life, those whom she had loved so much in this.'

The account of Louis XVI. is replete with similar effusions of attachment to the Bourbons, and to the cause of royalty. Louis, say these writers, possessed all the private virtues, but he reigned in an age of depravity, in which these virtues were despised, and became the cause of his misfortunes.

"Son cœur ne sut qu' aimer, pardonner, et mourir ;

Il auroit su regner, s'il avoit su punir.”›

In conformity with the monarchical feelings of the writers, the Vendéeans are mentioned in terms of approbation and cordiality; which is particularly exemplified in the account of one

of

of their principal leaders, D'Elbée. This officer had received a regular military education, and, being forty years of age at the time of the commencement of the troubles, possessed much more knowlege and combination than the majority of the commanders in the revolutionary war. After having repeatedly overcome the republicans in the course of 1793, he was appointed generalissimo of the Vendéeans: but he was always ill obeyed. His followers were little accustomed to the perseverance which is necessary in war; and the other chiefs were more disposed to run hazards for the sake of individual aggrandizement, than to consult the benefit of the common cause by acquiescing in the direction of a superior. D'Elbée was wounded in battle in the autumn of 1793; and, taking very little care of the wound, apprehensions were entertained of its becoming mortal. He was not, however, allowed the chance of benefit from time and attention, but, immediately on the capture of Noirmoutier by the republicans, he was condemned to death, and, being so weak that he was carried to the place of execution, he was shot in his arm-chair at the foot of the tree of liberty.

The same disposition, which actuates the present writers in regard to the adherents of the Bourbons, is evinced in treating of the campaigns with Austria. General Beaulieu was the

first military opponent of Bonaparte, and was defeated by him in three successive battles; yet, in the work before us, the failure of the Austrian commander is ascribed more to the fault of his military assistants than to a display of talents on the part of his antagonist.

II. Literary Characters. — Of all the men of letters who fell victims to the Revolution, none were more deservedly regretted than Bailly. He was born in 1736, and directed his chief attention to the study of astronomy. The Revolution found him a retired and modest student: but, when persuaded to come forwards, he took a more decided part against the court than we might have expected from his previous habits. When, in the capacity of mayor of Paris, he received the King at the town-hall in July 1789, he said, "Henry IV. conquered his people; here it is the people who have reconquered their king." As the Revolution advanced in horror, Bailly determined to withdraw from active life: but the agents of Robespierre discovered him in his solitude, and carried him to the scaffold in November 1793. He had been brought some months before as a witness on the Queen's trial, and had the courage to declare that the facts related in the act of accusation were false and forged. Of this philosopher and politician, however, the most interesting particulars have already been given to the

public,

public, and in our pages. The same may be said of another prominent literary sufferer, Madame Roland; who, democratic as were her tenets, receives a merited eulogium in this work.

The talents and fate of Vergniaud have also been generally known. He was born in 1759, and practised as a counsellor at Bourdeaux. Elected one of the representatives of the department of the Gironde, he was soon rendered conspicuous by his eloquence. After having co-operated for a season with the violent measures of the revolutionists, he took part, in autumn 1792, against the Jacobins; and, on the trial of Louis XVI., he urged a reference to the decision of the people. Henceforwards he was marked for destruction; and, on 10th April, he, Guadet, and Gensonné, were denounced by Robespierre. On this occasion, Vergniaud succeeded, after much interruption, in getting possession of the tribune, and answered the studied invective of his adversary by an extemporaneous speech which may be regarded as a model of courage and eloquence. He may be characterized as the orator of the imagination, and he was accustomed to deliver his discourses with a seductive flexibility of voice. The night before his execution was passed in conversation with several fellow prisoners, who were about to accompany him to the scaffold. During this gloomy meeting, he spoke long and forcibly of governments and revolutions; and he threw away some poison which he had kept till then, saying that, since "he had not enough to share with the companions of his destiny, he would not forsake them."

Of the celebrated Condorcet, a fair account seems to be given: but the circumstances of his life are familiar to our readers. With regard to the immediate cause of his death, it is here remarked: On his arrival at Bourg, he was shut up in a dungeon, and forgotten for 24 hours; the man who went the next day to carry him a little bread and water, found him motionless and cold. It appears that Condorcet, losing all hope, perished either by a quick poison, which it is said that he always had about him, or of inanition and faintness, being worn out with want and fatigue.'

Rabaut St. Etienne (J. P.) a lawyer, a man of letters, and a minister of the reformed religion, was deputy from the tiers état of the seneschalate of Nîmes to the States-general. An ardent convert to the new philosophy, a sworn enemy to the Catholic clergy, from whom he said he had met with insults, he missed no opportunity of destroying their body; and we may with justice place him among the number of men in whom the sectarian spirit added greatly to revo Tutionary enthusiasm. He early announced in his writings that " all the ancient establishments were hurtful to the people; that it was necessary to renew the minds, change the ideas, the laws, the cus toms, the men, the things, the words; in short, to destroy every

thing, in order to be able to create every thing afresh." But he forcibly combated the opinion of those who desired that the Convention should itself try Louis XVI. He maintained that it had not a right to do so; that the constitution had not created it a court of judicature; that to the tribunals alone belonged such an act, and that it must even be confirmed by the people. "I am tired," cried he, "of my portion of despotism, and sigh for the moment when a national tribunal will make us lose the forms and features of tyrants.'

He opposed with great energy the terrorist party which was oppressing the National Convention; and, particularly on the 14th of May, he supported a petition from the Bordelais; but on the 15th (a day when he made fresh efforts against the Montagne) a decree of arrest was passed against him, as a member of the faction of statesmen. He then escaped, and at first fled to Bourdeaux ; but a decree of outlawry having been passed against him, on the 28th of July he came and concealed himself near Paris; was arrested on the 4th of December, delivered up by an old friend, of whom he went to beg an asylum, and executed the very next day, pursuant to the sentence of the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris. He was 50 years of age, and a native of Nimes. We owe to him as a writer, Letters on the Primitive History of Greece; Considerations of the Interests of the Tiers-Etat, and a Historic Summary of the French Revolution, to which Lacretelle the younger has written a sequel.'

We shall now quit the enumeration of literary victims of the Revolution, to mention a few of those who have been so fortunate as to survive it. Madame Genlis is one of the most voluminous authors of the present age; and her works, it is computed, would form above forty volumes:

• Madame de Genlis, who was remarked from her entrance into the world for agreeable accomplishments, a cultivated mind, and a charming person, married young, and was early enabled to mix the colours of which she has since composed her pictures. Formed to observe. society, the absurdities of which she seizes to admiration, all the shades of which she distinguishes with accuracy, and the perfidies of which she divines with skill, it would doubtless have been desirable that she should not have been called by the nature of her connexions to play a part in the Revolution. She left France in 1792, and remained in Germany till the accession of Bonaparte. Her novels contain, besides pictures which have the air of striking likenesses, that profound knowledge of the iniquity of the world, which no person can describe so faithfully who has not long had its models before his eyes, and preserved its cruel remembrances in his heart. The government granted her, in 1805, a pension of 6000 livres.'

Fontanés, the poet, had the courage to present to the Convention, during the reign of terror, a petition in behalf of the wretched inhabitants of Lyons. After the fall of Robespierre, he was appointed a professor at Paris and a member of the Institute, but found it necessary in 1797 to withdraw into England, where he remained until the accession of Bonaparte. In

1803, he allowed his political ambition to get the better of his literary ardour, and forsook his poetical labours for a place in the Legislative Body. In consequence of these injudicious aberrations, the public continues to be deprived of an epic poem under the title of "Greece preserved," in which he had made some progress, and had given rise to very favourable impressions on the part of those friends who had an opportunity of hearing the manuscript read. His case, we believe, is not uncommon among French literati, who are much more remarkable for ardour in commencing than for perseverance in prosecuting a work of magnitude.

Cardinal Maury was born in 1746, and had acquired consi derable reputation by his talent for preaching, before the tumults of the Revolution. He came forwards in the constituent assembly as the zealous advocate of the crown, and persevered in that course with a courage which must be regarded as highly creditable to him when due allowance is made for the surrounding dangers. His private character has not escaped censure, but all parties were united in praising his intrepidity and eloquence; and the frankness of his conduct seems to have been one of the means of preserving his life. "At least he does not seek to betray us, but openly supports the cause he has embraced," said the people of the capital. A striking instance is recorded of his presence of mind in perilous circumstances, when the crowd pursued him, and rang in his ears the fatal cry of "To the lamp-post."-"When you have put me in the place of the lamp," said he coolly to those who came near him, "will you see the better for it?" He fortunately left France at the end of 1791, and thus escaped the judicial murders of the Jacobin reign: but all his near relations fell victims to that execrable tyranny. On his retiring to Rome, it was judged politic to invest him with high honours, by way of affording an example of the determination of the Pope to reward those who should support the cause of the throne and the altar. He was therefore made a bishop, and eventually a cardinal; on which it was pleasantly remarked, with reference to the red hat worn by these dignitaries, that the Pope had done more than the whole national assembly of France :—“il a fait rougir l'Abbé Maury." It was not till 1805 that the Cardinal discovered a disposition to become a subject of Bonaparte; when the latter, aware of the importance of attaching to him a man of so much weight in the church, received him with open arms, and placed him, soon afterward, at the head of the ecclesiastical affairs of France. Of his talents as a writer, we recently took occasion (Appendix to Vol. Ixix.) to render a full report. Much of the secret history of the French Revolution

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