Tarbes, because he was unacquainted with her person: no other prelate, they said, would have been so ignorant.

It was not by the indolent and dissolute character of Louis XV. it was not by a ministry under the control of an aged priest-nor by a court swayed by unprincipled and selfish women, that the growing evils could be arrested or remedied. The introduction into a nation of any system of ideas not of mature growth requires to be managed by a most firm and careful hand. The great revolution of modern times-the translation of power from the upper to the middle classesbegan in France while her statesmen were watching the smiles of a mistress, haggling for the price of a place or ruining a rival by an epigram. The engagement of the passing hour, both politically and socially, was the single object of men in power,

The change in men's minds and opinions, especially at a distance from the capital, was caused merely by the loss of respect for things established. Few instances of oppression, or even hardship, to the general body of the people, can be laid to the charge of that careless and unscrupulous reign. The occasional misery of the peasantry arose from the unequal workings of former customs-not from particular acts of the government itself. Here and there an instance of oppression by some collector of the revenue occurs, or the nomination of an unpopular officer through court influence would excite a temporary discontent; but the very outcry made upon these occasions proves their rarity. The maladministration of the government was almost or altogether negative, and mere negligence never excites any serious troubles. It was the relaxation of every hold of respect or regard by which the different orders of society were held together which broke down the ancient order of feelings and ideas. From the palace to the cottage the same humour spread of treating the occurrences of life as one universal jest. No tie so sacred but it was gnawed asunder by the biting tooth of ridicule. A nation of triflers is but a sorry spectacle. The misery produced by recklessness is not long in producing discontent and opprobrium from those who suffered even by their own faults; for when did unrespected masteralbeit the mildest and most inoffensive-keep clear from censure? Thus the transition went on: during the regency, trifles became serious: during the ensuing reign, serious things become trifles from both arose disorganization, discontent, distress, and the revolution.

The petty tyranny exercised at the court of Louis XV. is in itself a sufficient proof of the paltriness of men's feelings. The

cells of the bastile were crowded with prisoners: one, an author of eminence, suspected of having written some trivial satire on a peer-another, a fop who had elbowed a minister at a levee; here, an intrusive man of gallantry who had thwarted a courtier in his intrigues-there, the courtier himself charged with making a joke offensive to one of the royal mistresses. None were imprisoned for serious offences, because none were sufficiently serious to commit them; and one almost laments the absence of some great crime or determined traitor to dissipate the disgust of eternal triviality.

The humbler memoirs of the day often quote instances of amiability of character in those about them, and even of energy and perseverance in the cause of a friend, which would indicate the existence of a better order of feelings amongst the second classes of society: but we find in these rather the ebullitions of momentary impulsions than a fixed habit of duty or benevolence; and the affectation with which stories of the kind are usually related proves that they owe much to their dressing up. Even these grow fewer as we proceed, and everything melts at last into a systematic selfishness: the picture of society is a tame scene of a cold sunny sky, and a broad unvaried garden where every one is rifling his neighbour's flowers. In fact, the corruption of the regency had spread like a gangreen into every class. The vices of the great were at first detested, then derided, at last imitated: men became familiarised with infamy even by scorning it; and thus scenes carried once to outrage from their novelty, and still more because it required a contempt of society to indulge in them, became common in the world of fashion-softened, it is true, in appearance, because tolerated and therefore deprived of the zest of violence; but in reality equally licentious, equally base, equally degrading. The total idleness of the times increased the evil: the war excitement was over-excitement of business there was none: gambling was ruinous, power impossible; a vicious gallantry alone was left as a means of renown and amusement.

The circumstances of society called into existence a multitude of writers, who found ready success in the tastes of the day. Wit and philosophy are things sufficiently easy when allowed full play, with equal freedom on every subject: themes held by previous ages sacred, both from ridicule and reason, present a thousand new objects for both when thrown open at once to an unrestrained license. For ages the French had relieved their minds in the midst of every misery by joking in rhyme; in the pressure of famine they fed themselves with a song; in commercial ruin they put the theorists of the day into

couplets, and jingled them with their own notions. This predilection was often turned to political account, and an obnoxious statesman destroyed in fortune and reputation by six lines sung by fishwomen in the markets. A collection of French epigrams of the eighteenth century would make one of the most amusing volumes in this world.

The ruling taste was taken up by writers of eminence as soon as they could venture to allow their names to be affixed to such productions. The successors of Louis XIV. had not the same means of attaching poets to their court, or aweing them by their power. Thus, the epigrammatic turn became systematised, polished, fashioned into poems, disquisitions, tales; and in this way presented too many temptations to be neglected even by authors of the highest genius. To write was like galloping in the desert without let or hindrance-no wonder if the writing were vivid, various, and exciting.

The philosophy of the day was the natural offspring of licence of thought coupled with sensuality of manners. By none is a reputation more easily achieved than by writers of sensual philosophy. When the mind panders to the body by mixing bright and fanciful dreams with the grossest ideas-when it allows itself to be persuaded that it is labouring when it is only dreaming-when it believes it is not degraded because it etherialises its degradation-to such writers, glowing descriptions and new fancies are offered by the very subject itself; and the reader admires a series of reasonings which he can so easily understand, and which superadds the gratification of his vanity to that of the morbid excitement of his passions.

The following is the account given of the prevalent tone of conversation by an unprejudiced witness-the Marquis d'Argenson:

"Our current conversation runs in epigrams-in ridiculous storiesin apish tricks of which the only object is to wound our neighbour-in disobliging sallies. Common places, misplaced remarks, indolence in reasoning because no one will listen, unconquerable prejudices, contempt of every thing, unweighed criticism-such is the age. If any one endeavours to sift a question to the bottom or to develop a proposition, he must make up his mind to be interrupted-to be bawled down-to every thing, in fact, which savours of bad company, though this in our days takes place in the best. We have, in fact, scarcely a right to complain; for I have seen the same disturbance-the same Babylonian confusion-in the presence of the king himself: he could not put in a word without being taken up, right or wrong. The Gascons, whom we think so superficial and so ignorant-what are they but exaggerated Frenchmen? To sum the whole, every man has a thousand things to say and nothing to think. The wits of the day are

of such malignity that their only pleasure is in mischief and the confusion of humanity-their only frankness is the disclosure of their malice. The fact is, the more the age becomes ignorant the more it becomes critical. There never was less reading or more discussion of books--there never was less serious study or more promptness to judge men and things. To this state have we arrived in France."

These are the opinions of a man of the world in a book of quiet and unexaggerated memoirs.

Somewhat of this criticism applies, we fear, to our own time and country. With us, too, sarcasm takes the place of reasoning, and authors have too generally lost all soundness of thought and feeling in their anxiety to be pretty and clever. The difficult task of delineating human nature with the firm and manly pencil of truth is omitted for the far easier attempt to draw strange and fanciful portraits, exaggerated specimens of a particular class, or deformed and uncouth specimens of humanity; and this in a style replete with jargon, affectation of metaphor, contorted ideas, and a morbid sentimentality. On the other hand, what passes for wit is usually a smart impertinence, or some old idea tricked out in a grotesque dress, worthy only of a schoolboy's admiration of a scarecrow. Is there not, besides, in our current literature a hastiness of judgment-a redundance of phrases and a lack of depth of thought or study--which might bring down the Frenchman's censure, shorn of some of its severity, on our own heads?

The men who had been to school under the monarchy of Louis XV. were the authors of the first revolution: the men who had been to school under the first revolution were the authors of the second. The education of the first, inert and purposeless, bore more terrible fruits than that of the last, which had at least a purpose, however violently developed. The fiercest impulses are found in the emptiest bosoms. The result of the second revolution was a profound and universal dissatisfaction in the minds of the people. Unable or unwilling to see that the course of ideas among mankind had been contrary to their natural characteristics, they were at a loss to find the precise fault of their own, which had lowered the station they once held in Europe. Hence a series of charges against their king, their statesmen, their clergy, of ruining their consequence in the eyes of foreigners and the consciousness of consequence at home. The loss of the former they owe, in great part, to their continued admiration of qualities which other nations have found troublesome and inconvenient. As we have before observed, the code of honesty has been substituted for that of honour. For a long time men admired the careless and bril

liant cavalier, who had so brave a bearing while he seduced their wives, robbed them of their property, or deprived them of their good name. The power to do all this presupposed the power of entertainment and fascination, so gratifying to the selfishness of society, which accepts so many pleasures without analyzing their principles: but, as the constitution of society become more complicated, men began to find that they were paying for their entertainment too dearly. The more varied relations of life brought other qualities into play not quite consistent with those once prized so highly, and society found its interests so strongly engaged that it forgot its admirations. But a people who had prided itself so long and so highly on their superiority in the code of gallantry could not so easily rest satisfied with its abolition. They found the cultivation of the new order of virtues much too homely and uninteresting: they felt likewise that, in abdicating the ancient order of things, they abdicated their own superiority. Hence a Frenchman, ever ready to fire at the smallest reproach to his country on the score of honour, cares very little to reproach it himself, before even a foreigner, on the score of honesty. We have known a French virtuoso declare that he would trust any Englishman alone in his cabinet, but not one of his own countrymen. The witnesses examined before the Trade Committees of the House of Commons, while dilating on the singularly pleasant personal manners of the French merchant in transacting his business, have all admitted that it was very necessary to examine his packages. The inspection of the invoice was never sufficient.

Another extraneous change, which has affected the relative consideration of the French nation, is to be found in the growing respect for established laws, which has become more and more decided elsewhere, even in the wildest countries. The same increased complications of society have rendered, turbulent lawbreakers altogether unbearable. Without carrying the doctrine of race too far, no one can assert that the Celtic population have ever been distinguished by their respect for ordinances. But this is not all. Another of the characteristics of the code of honour was the violation of all law, provided it could be done cleverly and with due éclat. Hence in France, from time immemorial, there have existed two sets of antagonists, one exercising their ingenuity in breaking the law and the other in preventing them. The consequence has been, on the one side a series of vexatious and perplexing regulations, enacted as if for the mere purpose of hampering society; and on the other an innate habitude of hating and evading these same regulations, regarded by half the world as personally directed against them