paid to the differences to which ten years had given rise in characters and circumstances.-Another such instance of childish deference, and unworthy self-abasement, is scarcely to be found in history. The Princess De Lamballe, whose favour with the Dauphine is mentioned in the first volume, was made superintendant of the household on the accession of the latter to the throne. According to this writer, the intimacy of these persous, so distinguished for their charms, their rank, and their misfortunes, had no extraordinary nor improper cause: but the Princess, we are told, used her influence over her royal mistress only for the most laudable purpose, that of succouring misery and want; and her solicitude and exertions of this nature were unwearied, and such as shewed a most amiable heart.— The particulars of the coronation at Rheims, the visit of Joseph II., his behaviour, and its prejudicial effects on the Queen, the marriage of the Princess Clotilda with the Prince of Piedmont, the joy on the several accouchemens of the Queen, the patronage afforded to the American cause, its popularity and its consequences, the visit of the Grand Duke of Russia (afterward Paul the Ist) to Versailles, the various devices for his entertainment, and his observations on the curiosities shewn to him, are here all related in an easy and engaging manner. The Royal Family were entertained, by the city of Paris, on the birth of the Dauphin, at the Hôtel de Ville, according to antient custom. The cookery was not agreeable to the King, and he did not conceal his dissatisfaction. A Rhenish carp, which had cost 4000 livres, was set before his Majesty, and it happened to prove hard and unsavoury; when, instead of feigning to be pleased with it, he described it as being what it was: which acerbity of manner, we are told, was natural to him, but did him no small injury in the estimation of a people by whom, heretofore, amiableness and complaisance were regarded as prime virtues. Among the topics of this second volume, we must not omit to notice the declining favour of the Princess De Lamballe with the Queen, who was beginning to manifest her partiality for Madame De Polignac. The third volume, on which we are now entering, announces that the Polignacs had almost wholly estranged her Majesty from our heroine; and that the larter bore this event in the best manner, living retired, and making the relief of the distressed her business.-The visit of the Archduke Ferdinand, the disgrace of the Chevalier D'Arcq, the birth of the Duke De Normandie, (the late poor unhappy Duphin,) and the origin and story of Madame De la Motte, occur this part of the work. The sacrifice of Mme. De la Motte, we learn, cost the Queen her popularity. The crowds which, on every occasion, pressed to see her, and the murmurs of applause which accompanied her whenever she appeared in public, were gratifications which nothing could purchase, and which she now lost never to regain. Instead of courting the people, she bade them defiance; her countenance and manner seemed changed; she regarded the multitude, not with her former looks of grace and affability, but with those of hatred and disdain; and, as she was losing ground in publie favour, the Duke of Here Orleans used all efforts to direct its course to himself. the writer lays claim to a discovery: the Orleans party, as thus represented, was no other than the faction which distracted France under the league, roused from a sleep of centuries, and influenced by the same maxims and conceptions which had swayed it in its former activity: rival powers were again attempting to give a king to France, in order to rule in his name; again the grandees were setting up independent governments; again the Protestants were at work, who, before the reign of Henry the IVth, had sought to erect a republic in the South: Henry delivered France from anarchy; and his descendant, had he possessed the same energy, would have guarded his kingdom against the same curse.This is ingenious but we think that the revolutionary faction, except as far as the Protestants were concerned, bore very little relation te past times. Perhaps, however, the influence of the Protestants in the revolution was very considerable, and much greater than it is generally conceived to have been. We are now called to listen to the disgusting secrets of the French Revolution, to long conversations between Madame De Lamballe and the Duke De Penthièvre, and between the same lady and the Queen; which, however, it must be owned, shew In these pages, the revolution is foresight and dexterity. the entire work of the detested D'Orleans. Many smaller matters, interesting on account of the light which they throw on the extraordinary events of this period, are here given more in detail than in professed histories of the time; of which kind are the accounts of the hurricane of July 1788, and the well-known alarms respecting a pillaging banditti. The former occasioned an entire devastation over an extent of one hundred leagues, by four or five in width; the corn, just ready for the sickle, being not only destroyed, but the ground being furrowed by the hailstones, some of which are said to have weighed not less than ten pounds!-and the latter was the means of inducing the people to arm, and so laid the foundation for that immense popular force, the national guards, The The pictures of the Duke De Penthièvre and his admirable daughter, in Florian's discourse on his admission to the Academy, interest not only by their elegance, but by their fidelity; the conduct of the Duke, as exhibited in this work corresponding with the high reputation for virtue and piety which he maintained through all France. Volume the fourth and last commences with the capture of the Bastille; and uniform gloom pervades the remainder of the narrative. It reflects the highest credit on the heroine of these memoirs, that, though discarded by the Queen in her prosperity, no sooner did she perceive her Majesty in danger, than she warned her of it, and rendered her all the service which could be expected from the most devoted attachment. She encouraged the advances of her royal Mistress, and cheerfully succeeded to that attendance about her person, and that share in her confidence, which were shunned by the friends of her better days, whose intrigues had supplanted the Princess. She seemed most happy in dissipating the Queen's alarms, in partaking of her dangers, and in sharing her sufferings: she had an apartment at the Thuilleries, accompanied her unhappy Mistress to her prison, and felt comparative calmness till the tyrants denied to the fallen Queen the satisfaction of having about her any of her confidential attendants. The only guilt chargeable on the Princess was that of being the intimate and unshaken friend of the Queen; she had always refrained from political matters, but d'Orléans hated her because she was attached to her Mistress. Moreover, he owed her 300,000 livres; and he was aware that the Duke De Penthievre, who loved her as well as if she had been his own child, meant to settle on her a splendid independence. These, we are told, were the reasons of her becoming the victim of his cutthroats. We shall not attempt to sketch any part of this terrible scene; let him, who wishes to have the feelings of his soul harrowed up, read the account of it which is here given. In the course of this last volume, Mr. Pitt is complimented with having a large share in producing the calamities which our neighbours suffered at this and at subsequent periods. It is a curious circumstance, that in almost every French publication, in which politics are introduced, our late Premier is represented as in an eminent degree the author of the miseries of France but we think that the ex- minister must be acquitted of the guilt of carrying on any very effective intrigues in the interior of that country, because he has furnished too many proofs of want of acquaintance with it, to give any probability to the charge.-Madame De Lamballe, we learn, visited this Country country in 1791; and conversations are related, as having passed between her and certain high personages, which a due respect for them has induced us to refrain from introducing into our pages. The authenticity of these communications may appear to some of our readers (whom we beg leave to refer to the work itself) not to he above suspicion. Indeed the whole composition, which is evidently designed to rescue the memory of its heroine from imputation, should perhaps be received with some allowances. We shall only say, Valeat quantum valere potest. ART. XVIII. Mémoires sur la dernière Guerre, &c.: i. c. Memoirs of THE 8vo. 'HE descriptions of warlike plans, of combats, and of skirmishes, which these pages principally detail, can be interesting only to those who bore a part in them, to their near connections, or perhaps, in a degree, to professional men in general: but the few digressions on the passes between the two countries, on the striking scenery of certain valleys which were the scenes of bloody conflict, the specimens of the strange spirit which manifested itself in the armies during the height of the revolution, and the delineations of characters which during the same period rose to mischievous ascendancy, are parts of this volume which present claims to the attention of The last chapter of the work comes the great bulk of readers. also under the latter description; it is rather original, as far as our recollection goes, and it treats of a subject which deserves the attention of all the future historians of wars; for it is an account of the police, of the internal economy, of furnishing the provision and the clothing, of the maintenance of the sick, and of the expenditure of the army, during the whole contest. We are told that, at the beginning of the war, scarcely an individual officer or private in the army of the Western Pyrenées had ever seen the face of an enemy; and the author farther observes that the misfortune of the times had infused into the army, as well as elsewhere, a gloomy mistrustful spirit, which extremely relaxed the bands of discipline, while reverses aggravated an evil which had its origin in the anarchy of ideas, and in a revolution which had extended itself to every point. A character is here sketched, which is by no means uncommon, at the period to which the narrative relates; and which Jo. which confirms the remark that we have sometimes seen made, that the courtier of the despotic multitude is an animal not less contemptible than the dependant of a single tyrant. The commandant, says the author, was a debased being, whom the revolution had rescued from ignominy; a person of unbounded audacity, whose chief business was to criminate others, and to create confusion: he was always heard to decry the Generals, to instill into the raw troops an idea that they were betrayed, and to communicate, with hypocritical sighs, the suffering which they endured in an insalubrious camp, and under an inclement sky. Mentioning the recall of Servan, the author says; all the world knows that, in the horrible contest of the passions which at that epoch agitated the republic, merit was overlooked, services were disregarded, and the ardent spirit of the time seemed as if it would consume all the monuments, and all the men, to whom fame had ever belonged.-Lamenting the dreadful excesses of which the French troops had been guilty in one of their expeditions, he observes that The French character, goaded and irritated in every possible way, had become contemptible; and that the principles of Hebert, then applauded and practised, had plunged the blind multitude into every species of licentiousness and immorality. From the societies of Bayonne, Jean de Luz, and St. Pée, came men devoted to the maxims of the times, who corrupted the soldiery; before whose violence the soundest maxims of reason and the best feelings of our nature gave way, and even that sweet sentiment which takes such lively interest in innocence. Happy he, who during this period of crimes and calamities, practised virtue, and who was held by the ties of friendship! If he till lives, he is a sincere friend, a virtuous citizen ;-he has passed through the most severe trials which the earth ever witnessed.' What an active thing was this French Jacobinism! It had its academies of immorality diffused over the whole surface of a vast country; and it appears that its pernicious science was studied with as much effect, and carried into operation with as much zeal in the most distant seminaries, even in those on the very frontiers, as in those of the metropolis itself. These traits of the revolutionary spirit will appear precious to the philosopher and the historian. La Victoire, one of the French Generals in this army, had been a taylor; and it is said that, on one occasion, he thus addressed his troops; "My friends, you cannot doubt my fidelity to the cause of the Republic: it is not yet a year since I made clothes for you." The author thus describes one of the Spanish valleys: • What a delicious picture did the valley of Baztan present to us, as we were entering it! Descending from the rugged summits of the loftiest |