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A fact which no one will attempt to deny, is, that a Frenchman will always concur in opinion with any journal he may be in the habit of reading for the space of six months. Thus, the Journal des Debats, which is furious against M. de Villele, may seriously injure the interests of that minister between this and January 1827; that is to say, during the six months in which the dullness of a country residence renders the journals all-powerful in France. The Journal des Debats, and the best articles from the pen of M. Fievée, are likely to prove very fatal to the ministry, through their influence on the little party who every evening assemble round the king in his saloon at Saint Cloud. There is, however, a circumstance which tends in some degree to counterbalance this inconvenience. It is generally supposed that, in one way or other, each of the noblemen who form the king's court, receives annually from M. de Villele the sum of one hundred thousand francs. These gentlemen, at least the most delicate among them, do not take the money directly from the hands of the minister in bank notes, as used to be the custom in the Luxembourg palace. Matters of this sort are managed better now-a-days. A nobleman hints to his Majesty that he wishes to exchange one of his estates for a certain portion of Crown forests, or any thing else he may choose to fix his fancy on; striking a bargain, in which, according to general opinion, the said nobleman is no loser. A great deal was said last year respecting the affair of the Baroness de Fenestranges, through which M. de Villele obtained, not the friendship, but a temporary cessation of the animosity of the Polignac family. Those who wish to learn the particulars of the exchange of the barony of Fenestranges, may refer to the account given of that affair in the Moniteur. It goes back to the time when the Duchess de Polignac was in high favour with Queen Marie-Antoinette.

I will endeavour to give you an idea of the saloons in the country-seats of our nobility; but I will begin with a sketch of the saloon of Saint Cloud, for which two or three little facts will suffice.

In spite of the dullness of the king and his court, they all endeavour to be as lively as possible; and any little gaiety that occasionally shows itself, is all that now remains of the esprit which prevailed at Versailles in the reign of Louis XV. The air of elegant gaiety, which never forsakes Charles X., has this advantage, that, in spite of the advanced age of most of the king's private friends, and that fear of the people which constantly pervades their minds, the French court is perhaps less dull than any court on the Continent. The king's saloon appears to great disadvantage when compared with the other saloons of Paris. The few ladies who, three or four times a week, enjoy the honour of an invitation to his Majesty's card-parties at Saint Cloud, always return to Paris under the idea of having escaped from the dullest place in the world. They do not consider what their own drawing-rooms would be if the company dared not converse on any subject but hunting. Politics, religion, literature, and science, are matters to which no allusion, however remote, can be made in the presence of Charles X. All the sciences are regarded as jacobinical at the French court. The Duchess d'Angoulême, who reads the debates of the Chamber of Peers in the Moniteur, is the only person who ventures to allude to politics. She sometimes asks one of the company, how some particular peer of the liberal party spoke in the sitting of the preceding evening. The individual to whom this question is addressed, wishing to please the princess, (whose principles are what you would call in England high Church and State), probably gives an unfavourable account of the speech of the liberal peer. The Duchess then, with her coup de boutoir, replies, "Sir, you know nothing of the matter. He made a very good speech."

Any remnant of gaiety which may still survive at the French court, is likely to terminate with the reign of Charles X. When the Dauphin succeeds to the throne, our court will present all the insipid gravity and dullness of a German court, without any of the good-heartedness which usually distinguishes the latter. The Emperor Napoleon used to be addressed by the

title of Your Majesty ; and Louis XVIII., conceiving that this expression had been profaned by being applied to the Emperor, introduced the custom of speaking to the king in the third person. Louis XIV. and Louis XV. were always styled Your Majesty; but that form of address is for ever dishonoured by having been appropriated by Napoleon, and in speaking of Charles X. it is usual to say, "The King did me honour to intimate," &c. In England, I presume persons of fortune find more enjoyment in the country than in town. In France, on the contrary, a country residence is the dullest thing imaginable; and people in general leave town only from motives of economy, because they have spent three-fourths of their income during the five winter months in Paris. Our men of fortune have no political occupation in the country. In every corner of France all public business is settled by the sub-prefect and the mayor, who direct their attention to the most trivial as well as the most important matters. Napoleon would willingly have spared every Frenchman the trouble of eating his own dinner. In France the Government takes all the burtheu of public business off the hands of the people. In the country, therefore, the men soon get dull; and they are compelled to read the newspapers for amusement. The women are not quite so badly off: they are relieved from the trouble of dressing, and have nothing to do but to receive visits.

French society has of late become so prudish and dull; and it is so dangerous to depart from common-place in the company of females, that French conversation, formerly so brilliant, is now a corvée, from which we should be happy to be relieved. The greatest pleasure enjoyed by our ladies of fashion, who have quitted Paris during the last month, is, that they are relieved from constraint. It may be asked why people subject themselves to a constraint which is productive of no advantage? It will probably be supposed that a wealthy French family cannot hesitate to purchase polítical influence at the cheap price of a little cant. But such an idea, which would naturally be the first to suggest itself to an Englishman, is so foreign to our manners, that a rich Frenchman would be unable to comprehend it until after having read three or four Voyages en Angleterre. If a French peer, with an income of one hundred thousand francs, do not take out a licence called a port d'arme, he is liable to be arrested by the garde champêtre of any petty mayor.

When a French peer goes to his country-seat, he has nothing to do but to amuse himself. Some, not for the sake of amusement, but by way of killing time, apply themselves to agriculture, and expend twenty thousand francs in improving a piece of land, which, after this expenditure, will not produce two hundred francs more than it previously did. Happy is he who, like the Marquess de Louvois, or the Duke Decazes, discovers an iron or coal mine, and sets about working it and speculating in trade.

A rich French peer residing on his estate in the country, has really no political influence. He is, like the poorest man in the province, under the tutelage of the sub-prefect of his arrondissement, and this year he is likely to be annoyed by the cure or the bishop. If a French peer wishes to cut down a few trees on a road on his own estate, he writes to request the permission of the mayor or sub-prefect, which, at the expiration of six months, may perhaps be granted.

A curious adventure which lately took place in the garden of the Tuileries, has afforded no small amusement to the Parisians. On one of the late warın evenings, a nobleman, connected with some of the first families in France, went, accompanied by a female relation, to take a walk in the Tuileries. The heat being oppressive in the crowded walks, the Marquess d'Owith his companion, repaired to a less frequented part of the garden. Having reached the statue of Cleopatra, which adorns the flight of steps leading from the Tuileries to what is called the Terasse du bord de l'eau, the Marquess observing a priest pass by, said in a low voice to the lady who accompanied him, "Those are the men who now govern us."

The silence which prevails in this part of the garden, enabled the priest to

hear the remark made by the Marquess, and without further ceremony he began to call out lustily, "Guard! guard! the ministers of the Lord are insulted! Help, help! My life is threatened!"

"Who has spoken to you, Sir?" said the Marquess d'O- petrified with astonishment. "Who dreams of insulting you? You are surely mad!" The priest continued to roar, and the Marquess, losing all patience, was about to collar him. This was probably just what the priest wanted to provoke him to. But the lady who accompanied the Marquess conjured him to depart. "You are regarded as a liberal," said she. "You have been implicated in a conspiracy. This priest will get you arrested, and when once you are imprisoned, Heaven knows when you may be liberated. The word of a priest will be believed before that of a gentleman."

The Marquess, though a man of undoubted courage, ran off on observing the approach of a detachment of the royal guards, who were attracted to the spot by the furious outcries of the priest. It was now about nine o'clock. The twilight favoured the flight of the poor Marquess, and when the guards reached the spot, where the priest still continued bellowing with all his might, they found nobody near him but the lady, who had by this time fainted with the fright. The priest directed the soldiers to pursue the wretch who had insulted a minister of the Lord, and who, he said, had probably concealed himself among the trees. But the Marquess, who is man, was soon beyond the reach of his pursuers.

a very active Incredible as this story may appear, I can vouch for the accuracy of my statement. When any instance of oppression or annoyance takes place in the provinces, the Parisians usually say:-"Oh, that is far from Paris, such things could not happen here." Or, "The man who has been arrested must have acted imprudently!" But the affair I have just described, happened in the garden of the Tuileries, in a publicly frequented place. It has excited no small degree of astonishment.

I know not whether the Duke of Orleans be an ambitious man, but the above little anecdote has occasioned him to be much talked of. His Royal Highness is distinguished for his hatred of the Jesuits and theocratic government. Charles the Tenth, amidst his little court at Saint Cloud, knows nothing of the matter, or is so much awed by the influence of the priests, that no Journal dares to allude to it.

The disaster which lately befel M. Dupin, the celebrated lawyer, has been the occasion of a great deal of merriment. That gentleman, who loves to see himself puffed off in the Journals, was counsel for the Constitutionnel, in the cause in which that paper was engaged some months ago. The Jesuits vowed to have their revenge. M. Dupin having had occasion to visit Amiens on business, the Jesuits of Saint Acheul sent their pupils to deliver to him complimentary addresses in Greek and Latin. M. Dupin, pleased with the young gentlemen, who assured him that his eloquence was more powerful than that of Demosthenes and more graceful than that of Cicero, unluckily accepted an invitation to dine at Saint Acheul. The Jesuits took care to invite the self-styled liberal advocate on the day of the procession of the féte-dieu, and they played him a most wicked trick; for, by some stratagem or other, they contrived to make him hold one of the ribbous of the canopy which covered the host.

If such a trick had been played to M. de Chauvelin, to M. Roger Collart, to M. Dupont de l'Eure, or any other man known to be a sincerely honest liberal, he would have been heartily laughed at, and there would have been an end of the matter. But it irretrievably ruins a man like M. Dupin. It strengthens by a fact which is easily understood, and which cannot be denied, those suspicions, however unjust, which have been entertained respecting M. Dupin's family. M. Dupin will never be a deputy, and will never obtain any influence. His brother has been created a Baron and a Knight of Saint Louis by M. de Villele.

Another high reputation has been lost during the last month. The two first volumes of M. Chateaubriand's works have appeared; and in spite of a general discharge of puffs from the journals-in spite of M. de Chateaubriand's present disgrace-in spite of the sinister predictions which he directs against the Bourbons, though they have made him a peer, and given him a cordon-bleu, his new novel has been thought pompously dull, and the "Itineraire à Jerusalem" has been declared an insignificant production, full of gasconades and self-conceit, and, what is worse, very heavy and insipid. It would have been greatly admired in 1810. There cannot be a stronger proof of the advancement of good sense in France during the last fifteen years, than the failure of the publication of M. de Chateaubriand's works.

On the other hand, no time could possibly be more favourable than the present for the appearance of a good work. The families who have just quitted Paris for the country, have taken with them nothing worth reading, nothing comparable to M. de Barante's "Ducs de Bourgogne," and M, Thierry's" History of William the Conqueror," which last year helped to wile away the tedious evenings at the Chateaux.

The "Last of the Abencerages" is discovered to be merely a copy of "Zaide," a_romance which was exceedingly popular at the latter end of Louis the Fourteenth's reign, about the year 1690. Though the idea of making the French people retrograde is the favourite chimera of most of our nobility, and though M. de Chateaubriand has for several years been exercising his talents with the view of converting the French of the nineteenth century into the faithful subjects of the monarchy of the seventeenth, yet this last attempt at retrogradation has proved far from successful. This is easily accounted for. The author has chosen for his victims the very persons whose interests he intends to flatter. A young lady of noble family will admit, as far as you wish, the necessity of bringing back the French people to what they were in the reign of Louis the Fourteenth; but owing to that austerity of manners, which is now so prevalent, novel-reading is one of the greatest pleasures this poor young lady can enjoy. Now, if you give her dull novels, however much she may admire your retrograde intentions, she will have good sense enough to tell you that you have failed in your object. Such has been the fate of the "Last of the Abencerages." The four principal characters have the great fault of being perfect. This would not, perhaps, render them positively insipid, if they were described in detail, and by a succession of picturesque anecdotes. But the noble author attaches more importance to dignity of diction than to the accuracy of the ideas which he has to express. In other words, he writes the language which is employed by Cathos and Madelon in the " Precieuses Ridicules." Style seems to be the constant and earnest object of M. de Chateaubriand's attentions; and the admirers of emphatic diction will find enough to please them in the " Abencerages." The author has described in dignified language petty circumstances, such as would have shocked Racine.

M. de Chateaubriand uses very dignified phrases to express vulgar ideas. This talent will be in its proper place in the Moniteur, if there should be occasion to draw up an account of a royal ceremony in the official journal; such, for example, as the coronation of Charles the Tenth.

But the author has not observed, that extreme loftiness is only attainable in French by the rejection of words degraded by common use. Now this rejection casts at once a veil of obscurity over the language; which is a deadly fault in a novel. This is well understood by the admirable author of " Old Mortality;" and hence his perfectly easy and natural style. It is the thoughts which are grand and delicate, when in "Ivanhoe" he paints Rebecca's greatness of soul, or the pride of the Knight Templar; but the language is simple. Sir Walter Scott often repeats the same word in the same sentence. The trimness of M. de Chateaubriand's style is, perhaps, suited to a political pamphlet, especially of the royalist class. In these, the author recalls wellknown ideas to the mind of his reader. But the case is very different in a

novel; for, on perusing one page, the reader ought never to be able to conjecture the contents of the next.

You will excuse the time I have occupied in describing the causes of this last failure, which the author of the "Genie du Christianisme" has sustained. All the journals, and consequently all simpletons, have been for these two months past constantly proclaiming him the greatest genius in France. M. de Chateaubriand certainly is, of all others, the man whom our aristocrats would be most glad to see endowed with eminent talent. He is of noble birth, he is a peer, and his manners are most remote from any thing vulgar. This would make a fine picture to hang up against your Lord Byron. But notwithstanding all our boasting, perhaps the most that can be said on this subject is, that in the present times, when some talent and information is found everywhere, but genius nowhere, M. Chateaubriand falls the least under mediocrity of any of our prose-writers.

What M. de Chateaubriand has been all his life aiming at, is that moving kind of eloquence, which may be called unction, the power of impressing on those he addresses, the persuasion of his sincerity; but he has never succeeded. Bernardin de St. Pierre, when he explains the cause of the flux and reflux of the sea, in his "Studies of Nature," believes full as much what he states, as does the author of the "Génie du Christianisme," when he boasts of the Sacrament of Confirmation. But I know not how it happens in these two similar instances that Bernardin de St. Pierre frequently displays unction, and that M. de Chateaubriand always wants it. You always feel that you have to do with a very clever fellow, who is trying to humbug you.

When M. de Chauteaubriand hits upon a good idea, and does not labour too much to express it in fine language, like the Madelon of Moliere, he reaches the perfection of academic style. In its most brilliant days, the French Academy never listened to more pretty meaningless phrases than the following. He is speaking of the Spaniards.

"Il (l'Espagnol) a peu de ce qu'on appelle esprit, mais les passions exaltées lui tiennent lieu de cette lumière qui vient de la finesse et de l'abondance des idées. Un Espagnol qui passe le jour sans parler, qui n'a rien vu, qui ne se soucie de rien voir, qui n'a rien lu, rien étudié, rien comparé, trouvera dans la grandeur de ses résolutions les ressources nécessaires au moment de l'adversité."

In magnificence of style, the celebrated Buffon has nothing superior to the passage above quoted.

GENERAL CHAPALANGARRA.

In our number for the month of April 1826, an article by a foreign correspondent appeared, entitled, “ Adventures of an Italian Emigrant from the year 1820 to the present day," in which the character of General Chapalangarra, (by the name of Ciapalangara) who was governor of Alicant in 1823, is unjustly aspersed. The article in question was inadvertently inserted, and with no intention on our part to injure the general, whose honour appears to us to be untarnished, for we have every reason to believe that there was no foundation whatever for the charges there brought against him, and we wil lingly take this opportunity of doing this act of justice to his character.

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