traordinary tumult informed Marie Antoinette and her husband that they were to reign; and, by a spontaneous movement, which deeply affected those around them, they threw themselves on their knees; both pouring forth a flood of tears, exclaimed, O God! guide us, protect us, we are too young to govern.'

The powerful and striking sentiment of piety, and of the weight of the kingly obligations in Louis XVI. and his Queen, at this awful moment, contrasts, almost to a burlesque effect, with the petty artifice employed in the midst of their grief to reconcile their leaving the infected palace with the decorum and immutable etiquette which environed their minutest actions.

"The Dauphin had settled that he would leave it with the royal family, the moment the king should breathe his last sigh. But, upon such an occasion, decency forbade that positive orders for departure should be passed from mouth to mouth. The keepers of the stables, therefore, agreed with the people who were in the king's room, that the latter should place a lighted taper near a window, and that at the instant of the king's decease, one of them should extinguish it.

"The taper was extinguished. On this signal, the body-guards, pages, and equerries, mounted on horseback, and all was ready for setting off."

The details which Madame Campan gives of the interior of the royal family, during the early part of the new reign, are often curious, and always interesting. They almost uniformly shew in the King great personal amiability, combined with utter nullity as a sovereign. The Queen they exhibit as a thoughtless and gay young woman, such as a queen and a beauty at her age might be expected to be, before the dreadful contingencies of the Revolution had called into activity the prejudices and the apprehensions of her maturer life. This part of Madame Campan's volumes is also occupied with a developement of the court intrigues and petty jealousies, by which the aristocracy engendered and nurtured into consistency those odious calumnies, of which the terrorists afterwards availed themselves, in decrying the Queen, and repressing the sympathies of the people in the hour of her trial and execution.

The object of the author in dwelling upon this part of the life of her royal mistress is to excuse her levities, and to refute the graver charges brought against her. Marie Antoinette is, however, already in the hands of an impartial posterity, and we are more interested in the narrative, as it tends to throw light on the great political struggle in which we ourselves engaged.

The feelings of the King and Queen respecting the American revolution appear to have been rather different from what has been imagined, and by no means coincided with the conduct pursued by the French government. In attacking the British interests, by encouraging the Americans, the royal family of France certainly sinned against legitimacy with their eyes open. Both Louis and Marie Antoinette seemed to have been heartily ashamed and afraid of their republican allies. On this subject Madame Campan observes:

"Franklin appeared at court in the dress of an American cultivator. His straight unpowdered hair, his round hat, his brown cloth coat, formed a contrast with the laced and embroidered coats, and the powdered and perfumed heads, of the courtiers of Versailles. This novelty turned the enthusiastic heads of the French women. Elegant entertainments were given to Doctor

Franklin, who, to the reputation of a most skilful physician, added the patriotic virtues which had invested him with the noble character of an apostle of liberty. I was present at one of these entertainments, when the most beautiful woman out of three hundred, was selected to place a crown of laurels upon the white head of the American philosopher, and two kisses upon his cheeks. Even in the palace of Versailles, Franklin's medallion was sold under the King's eyes, in the exhibition of Sevres porcelain. The legend of this medallion

was:

'Eripuit cælo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis.'

"The King never declared his opinion upon an enthusiasm which his correct judgment, no doubt, led him to blame : however, the Countess Diana having, to keep up to her character as a woman of superior talent, entered with considerable warmth into the idolatry of the American delegate; a jest was played off upon her, which was kept secret enough, and may give us some idea of the private sentiments of Louis XVI. He had a vase de nuit made at the Sevres manufactory, at the bottom of which was the medallion with its fashionable legend, and he sent the utensil to the Countess Diana as a new year's gift. The Queen spoke out more plainly about the part France was taking respecting the independence of the American colonies, and constantly opposed it. Far was she from foreseeing that a revolution at such a distance could excite one in which the day would come, when a misguided populace would drag her from her palace to a death equally unjust and cruel. She only saw something ungenerous in the method which France adopted of checking the power of England.

"However, as Queen of France, she enjoyed the sight of a whole people rendering homage to the prudence, courage, and good qualities of a young Frenchman; and she shared the enthusiasm inspired by the conduct and military success of the Marquis de la Fayette. The Queen granted him several audiences on his first return from America."

The folly of the French government in thus importing American notions, while they drew tighter the line of feudal restrictions at home, is well displayed.

"The constitution desired for the new nation was digested at Paris, and while liberty, equality, and the rights of man, were commented upon by the Condorcets, Baillys, Mirabeaus, &c. the minister Segur published the King's edict, which, by repealing that of 1st November, 1750, declared all officers not noble by four generations, incapable of filling the rank of captain, and denied all military rank to those who were not gentlemen, excepting sons of the chevaliers de Saint Louis. The injustice and absurdity of this law was, no doubt, a secondary cause of the Revolution. To be aware of the extent of despair, nay of rage, with which this law inspired the third estate, we should form part of that honourable class."

A similar decree was at the same time put forth respecting the eligibility to church dignities within the narrow pale of aristocracy, and confining the clergy of the tiers état to the expectancy of parochial cures. "Can we," says Madame Campan, "be astonished at the part shortly afterwards taken by the deputies of the third estate, when called to the States-general?" (p. 235.)

Of Beaumarchais and his celebrated comedy, Madame Campan speaks in the language of a professed courtier. She calls it a play in which " manners and usages the most respectable are given up to popular and philosophic derision." The manners and usages of the courtiers formed under Louis XV. respectable!!! Those who live separated from the mass of the people can never be made to understand that nothing can become a permanent object of ridicule, which is not

essentially ridiculous. The Marriage of Figaro is played in all possible shapes on our English stage, without its political tendencies being even noticed. The whole venom of the play, at the time it was produced, lay in the truth and apropos of its satire. Its terrible philosophy is now the mere common-place of pamphleteers. Madame Campan relates, with the most unsuspecting innocence, the following speech of Louis XVI. on the occasion. "That's detestable; that shall never be played: the Bastille must be destroyed, before the license to act this play can be any other than an act of the most dangerous folly. This man scoffs at every thing that is to be respected in a government."

Madame Čampan and the editors of her work, between them, give three separate versions of the affair of the diamond necklace. Upon the whole, however, they leave the reader something more in doubt than they find him. The clue which should lead to the truth is lost for ever; and nothing is left but the most provokingly contradictory suppositions. That Madame Campan herself believed in the Queen's innocence is evident, and her testimony is of some weight; but that innocence can only be established on data not less incredible than the guilt of a queen would be. That the Prince de Rohan, a veteran courtier, could not have discovered the cheat put on him by an actress, who is said to have personated the Queen in an interview with him in the dusk of an evening, is scarcely within the bounds of possibility : and the facility with which this nobleman contrived to communicate with a confidential friend, and procure the burning of his papers, after his arrest in the palace, is explained in a way that throws some suspicion of collusion between him and the royal family. The grief and disappointment of the King and Queen, on his acquittal, shews that they felt the circumstances as a condemnation of the Queen. That the Cardinal Prince was guilty of intentional fraud there is not the slightest proof. But the intrigues of the great nobility, his relations, and of the whole body of the clergy, to impede his being brought to trial, throw much obscurity even over this point. Whether, however, the Cardinal took the imputation of being a dupe on himself to screen others, or whether he escaped through this interference of the great corps to which he belonged, it is certain that the wretched Countess La Motte, a poor and destitute adventurer, supported by no extrinsic interests, was alone punished; and this circumstance worked powerfully against existing institutions, even with those who did not believe the Queen guilty of the fraud.

The major part of the last volume of these memoirs is occupied with the domestic events of the palace, from the commencement of the Revolution to the death of the King. This is a field too wide to enter upon at the close of this long article: we shall therefore content ourselves with observing, that, amidst many affecting anecdotes of the last days of the monarchy, and some traits honourable to the royal sufferers, there is abundance of evidence, as well direct as unintentional, of the hopeless weakness of the King, the restless intrigue of the Queen, and the fatal duplicity of both, in their professions of attachment to the new order of things. The hatred of the Queen to that constitution which her husband had sworn to maintain, though by no means unnatural in one so circumstanced, blinded her completely to her own situation. She had but two objects constantly before her

eyes, which resolved themselves into one,-escape to the frontiers* and a counter-revolution. Occupied exclusively with these ideas, the Court took no pains to possess itself of the Revolution, and conduct it to the happiness of France and the security of the throne. This error was even more unpardonable in the royal family than in the aristocracy, because self-preservation should have led them right. "Empechez le desordre de s'organizer," was the sensible remark of a Monsieur Dabucq, who on some occasion was consulted by the royal family. But the aristocrats, and the Queen at their head," preferred every thing, even the Jacobins, to the establishment of a constitution; and dreaded lest its acceptation, under other circumstances than those of restraint, should afford it a sanction, sufficient to support the new government." "The most unbridled disorders seemed preferable, because they buoyed up the hope of a total change." (Vol. ii. p. 165.) This avowal, coming from such a quarter, is decisive; and exculpates completely the constitutionalists of 1789, who laboured with zeal and sincerity to consolidate the new system, and to reconcile liberty with a regal government. But the aristocrats of that day, like the ultras of the present moment, looked to nothing but their own selfish interests. The game they then played is the same their successors are now playing. Theirs was a spirit which admitted of no compromise, saw no dangers, comprehended no obstacles; a spirit which put every thing to the hazard, and played "le tout pour le tout," a spirit of temerity, not of courage; and as foreign from calculation, as it was from humanity. This was the spirit which armed France against the persons of the King and Queen, and hurried them from the throne to the scaffold. And the same spirit is now arming all Europe, not against one throne and one king, but against unlimited monarchy wherever it exists, or at least against every crowned head that has not the wisdom and the force to repress its blind and dangerous activity.

Madame Campan, like her predecessor Dangeau, seems to have collected her anecdotes, without always considering how they would tell : and in the simplicity of her heart, she has rendered herself an unexceptionable evidence of political errors, she neither saw nor understood. Yet this very circumstance gives additional weight to all she says; as it leaves her divested of the malice which misrepresents, and the spirit of system which seeks to distort events.

To the lovers of anecdote her volumes will afford a rich treat; and the quantity of collateral evidence brought forward by her editors, while it increases this stock of amusement, assists the memory of more serious readers, and adds largely to the value of the publication. M.

In the preparations for flight, a trait of human nature in the great deserves mention. The Queen insisted on having a complete troupeau for herself and another for her children; and though Madame Campan urged that a Queen of France would find chemises everywhere, she persisted in making purchases of linen, which endangered an instant discovery of her intentions. She had likewise a superb nécessaire upon which she also set her heart: and her persevering efforts to get this sent out of the country, or to have a similar one made for the flight, were in her circumstances yet more extravagant and whimsical.

THE GREAT MAN OF THE FAMILY.

EVERY family, I believe, has its great man: my maternal uncle, Sir Nicholas Sawyer, is ours. His counting-house is in Mark-lane, where he lived for a period of twenty years: on his being knighted, however, he thought, and his wife was sure, that knighthood and city air would not coalesce; so the family removed to Bedford-square. Our family live in Lime-street, and I am in the counting-house. The knighthood and the Bedford-square house at once elevated my uncle to be the great man of the family, insomuch that we, the Wodehouses, are at present rather in the shade, and the Sawyers in the full blaze of the sun. My father is naturally too indolent a man to trouble his head about this; but my mother has a growing family that must be pushed. Sir Nicholas is apt to dine with us now and then, and my mother, upon these occasions, schools us to what we are to say and do, as Garrick was said to have tutored his wife. My sister Charlotte is told to like Handel's music, to which the great man, being what is called "serious,' is partial; my brother John, who is articled to an attorney, is told to pull Boote's suite at law out of his pocket; I am told to dislike port wine, and to be partial to parsnips; and even little Charles is told to lisp"The Lord my pasture shall prepare." I question whether the Quaker meeting-house in White-yard-court can muster such a congregation of unfledged hypocrites. When Sir Nicholas issues one of his dinner edicts, it occasions as great a bustle in our establishment, as Queen Elizabeth's created when she quartered herself upon Kenilworth castle. I will mention what happened last Wednesday. There is very little variety in the infliction. The narrative of what passes at one dinner may serve for a hundred.

Sir Nicholas Sawyer is in the habit of looking in at our countinghouse in his way to his own. That is to say, whenever he condescends to walk. At these times he uniformly tells us why he cannot have the carriage. It is wanted by Lady Sawyer: upon one occasion to accompany Lady Fanny Phlegethon to the opening of the new church at Kennington: upon another, to pay a kind visit to the poor Countess of Cowcross upon a third, to attend Mr. Penn's Outinian Lecture with Lady Susan Single. Last Wednesday morning he paid us one of his usual visits; and having skimmed the cream of the Public Ledger, asked my father if he dined at home on that day? My father answered yes; as indeed he would have done had he been engaged to dine off pearls and diamonds with the Royal Ram. "Bob," said my father to me, "do run upstairs and tell your mother that your uncle will dine with us to-day." I did as I was bid, and on opening the parlour-door, found my mother teaching little Charles his multiplication-table, and Charlotte singing to the piano "Nobody coming to marry me." As she had just then arrived at "Nobody coming to woo," which last-mentioned monosyllable she was lengthening to woohoo-hoo-hoo, in a strain not unlike that of the "Cuckoo harbinger of Spring." This was unlucky: the cadenza might have been heard down in the counting-house and any thing more opposite to Handel could not well be imagined. I delivered my message: my alarmed mother started up; Charlotte threw away her Hymen-seeking ditty, and pouncing upon Acis and Galatea began to growl" Oh, ruddier than