lette of St. Helena. Even the little bust, with its" simboles de nature à propager l'esprit de rebellion et troubler la pays publique," may now safely be stored among the odds and ends of Mons. Charles Rouy's shop, in the Galerie Vivienne.* The peace of Europe would not be disturbed more than it at present is, by the personal appearance of Napoleon Bonaparte's eldest son, who is seen in every street and assembly of Paris, without one glance of conspiracy being turned on him, save those from the bright eyes

* Mons. Rouy, marchand de curiosités, was some time since cited before the tribunals, for having exposed to sale some little figures in bronze, of the Duc de Reichstadt, with "certain symbols, of a nature calculated to excite rebellion, and disturb the public peace." The commissary sent to make the seizure entered with all the politeness ascribed to the police of the present day, and began with, "Monsieur, j'ai l'honneur de vous souhaiter le bon jour.” "Bon jour, Monsieur," replied the equally polite marchand; "qu'y a-t-il pour votre service?" "J'ai l'honneur de vous prévenir,” said the polished familiar of the police, " que je viens pour saisir le buste, que voilà du Duc de Reichstadt.” Duc de Reichstadt!" replied Monsieur Charles Rouy;

"Le

of ultra duchesses, of which he is the cynosure. "Elles se l'arrachent, comme elles se sont arrachées son père," said a gentleman to me, as we sat in a public assembly, at the Institut, admiring the fine intelligent countenance of this interesting young man, who was hitched between two beauties of the Château-the victim, and not the agent, of a conspiracy which he was doubtless alike unable and unwilling to resist.

"mais pas de tout; c'est le buste de Mons. le Duc de Bourdeaux." "C'est égal," said the officer, seizing the effigies of the ex-king of Rome, and carrying them off, as a proof of the delinquency of the seditious shopkeeper. And he was right in the observation. Duc de Reichstadt or Duc de Bourdeaux, as far as the nation was concerned, c'étoit parfaitement égal. The case is different, as between "la charte" and "l'état c'est moi."

father."

They tear him from each other, as they did his

238

MORNING DRIVES.

MEUDON-SEVRES.

ONE hears every day in Paris, instances of commercial prosperity, and of the independence. and security of non-feudal fortunes, strongly contrasted to the submission of all trading interests to the caprices of despotism, in former times, of which so many deplorable anecdotes are on record. Somebody pointed out to me a house, near the Porte St. Denis, projecting somewhat into the street. Large offers had been made by the government to the proprietor, an humble bourgeois, for the purchase of this mansion,

either to remove it as a nuisance, or for some other purpose, I forget what. But he refused all offers, though they came backed by authority; and when pushed hard to leave his favourite domicile, by something like a threat, he affixed over his door a placard, bearing this inscription: "I am the master in my own house." So, also, "Milord Egerton," (as that gentleman was called,) refused to surrender his garden in the Rue Rivoli, on which the constituted authorities desired to carry on the arcade opposite the Tuileries, which, since the death of the sturdy proprietor, has been completed. Think of a tradesman or a foreigner refusing to tumble down his house, or give up his gardens, in the time of Louis the Fourteenth!.

The moment the grand monarque, his minister, or his mistress, fixed their cupidity upon an agreeable site, or a noble mansion, no rank nor wealth protected the possessor from the invasion of his rights. Ruel, the fa

vourite seat of Cardinal Richelieu, upon which millions of the public money had been spentwhere so many of his atrocious, secret executions had taken place-where the unfortunate Marechal de Marillac suffered death,-Ruel, with its terrible oubliettes, its magnificent gardens, and artificial cascades, (the first ever seen in France,) thus became, by a sort of poetical justice, a confiscation to royal avarice. It had attracted the attention of Louis the Fourteenth, who had taken shelter there, with his mother, during the troubles of the Fronde. The Duchess d'Aiguillon, Richelieu's mother, was then its proprietor; but the wishes of the king were laws; and her supplicating expression of the sorrow she felt in being obliged to part with her property was of no avail.

The manner in which St. Cloud was obtained, by an escroquerie of Cardinal Mazarin,*

"The Cardinal, wishing to purchase some country-seat for Monsieur, the king's brother, fixed his eyes upon St.