21 APRIL 1883, Page 14

BOOKS.

MR. FOOTMAN ON MODERN UNBELIEF.* Tins is perhaps the calmest, the most courageous, and the steadiest effort to look modern unbelief in the face which we have yet had from a clergyman of the Church of EnglandInadequate, of course, Mr;Footman knows it to be. The limits of two lectures of this kind are confessedly inadequate to state fully the most critical points either of the unbelief of the day, or of the reasons against that unbelief. We ourselves should have insisted on some points under both headings as of primary importance which Mr. Footman has ignored altogether. Weshould have assigned a somewhat different proportion of valueto other points. But differences of judgment on matters of thiskind are absolutely inevitable, and we never differ with Mr. Footman without feeling that his judgment may be weightier than our own. There is in his little book a steadiness and a resolution to see the worst of his opponents' case, and to see it without hysterics or affected horror, which gives us the greatest. confidence in his judgment. And in his "reassuring hints,' though he omits some heads on which we should have laid great stress, and insists more on others than we should have insisted, he never takes a weak point, or, to use Sydney Smith'sold simile, attempts to keep out the Atlantic by trundling his mop.

In noticing this book, we can but give, first, an instance of the manly and vigorous way in which Mr. Footman faces the factsof unbelief, then, of the pertinence and thoughtfulness with which he meets the principles of that unbelief; and, finally, say something of points of the case which, even in his short review of the subject, we wish that he had not ignored. It would be hard to sum up the modern argument against divine design in Creation, we think, more forcibly than Mr. Footman manages it in the following pages :—

" Do you not think, we may say, that there is evidence in nature, including the structure of our human frame, of design, of a purpose ?Were not, for instance, the lungs adapted for respiration ? No, says. Professor Clifford, in a popular essay, or Sunday lecture, ' you must distinguish, you must not argue as you would about the design of a corkscrew. A corkscrew was made by man with a purpose in hismind. No one made our lungs. The respiratory apparatus was. adapted to its purpose by natural selection (i.e., by the gradual preservation of better and better adaptations, and the killing off of theworse and imperfect adaptations).' This is an unconscious adaptation.' This is said in a lecture delivered to hundreds, printed and lying on the drawing-room tables of hundreds. Not only so, Mr. Bradlangb, in the twentieth thousand of a pamphlet jest published,. points out that in his opinion the argument from Design does not prove the creation of something out of nothing, because all you have is the adaptation of what are already pre-existing substances. He quotes, too, in this same paper (twentieth thousand) from a man whoa did much to popularise materialism, G. H. Lewes, ' There is not a single known organism which is not developed out of simpler forms. Before it can attain the complex structure which distinguishes it,. there mast be an evolution of forms which distinguish the structures of organisms lower down in the series. On the hypothesis of a planwhich prearranged the Organic World, nothing could be more unworthy of a supreme intelligence than this inability to construct an organ at once, without making several tentative efforts. Would, there be a chorus of applause from the Institute of Architects if such profound wisdom as this were displayed by some "Great Architect of houses' ? One of the great characteristics, you see, of our modern unbelief is that it finds for itself a popular voice with such amazing rapidity. Therein lies its danger to men for our time. It is hardly out of the lips of the student before it is in the ears of the multitude. The philosophical speculation, especially if it have in it a dash of an ironical innuendo, is so soon thrown in as a 'new light' among thepassions and prejudices of the crowd. We miss no small part of the significance of the situation, if we ignore this most striking acceleration of the pace at which the sceptical, the atheistic, the antiChristian ideas are moving from class to class in this one generation. But I have quoted this arraignment by Lewes and Bradlangh of theprocesses of Infinite Wisdom, not only becomes it seems to me (circulated as it is by tens of thousands) to be one of the most dangeroms and deadly of the weapons of Atheism, but because it leads me briefly to notice that Pessimism which would destroy all one's joy in theworks of God, and in the old tradition that the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. It is very important in this respect to notice how thoroughly the method of attack is changed from that of the Deistic controversy of the last century. Then it was the glorification of Nature, in order to depreciate the arguments for the need of a Revelation, with which Christianity was assailed. Now, we find ourselves depreciating Nature, and finding in her alleged imperfections and apparent cruelties an argument against the benevolence or against the omnipotence of God. One is reminded of the assertion of a once distinguished lawyer, circulated in a widely-read magazine *Aide after his death, that there was so much pain and misery in Nature, that if he knew she were about to perish, and if, by lifting Shia finger, he could save her from annihilation—he would not lift it. One is reminded of the doctrine of Schopenhaner that the world is the worst of all possible worlds, and that annihilation (almost equiva:lent to the Nirvana of Buddhism) is the highest end of man. One is -reminded, too, of a more popular philosopher, Hartmann, who determines, not with a yawn of ennui, but philosophically, that existence is in itself an evil, in proportion as its range is larger and you know it spore. The whole constitution of the world (so stupidly does it work) would be an unpardonable crime, did it issue from a power that knew what it was about, which, of course, upon the Materialistic theory, it -does not. But one is reminded, still more forcibly, of that tremen-dons indictment which Mr. Mill (a still more popular philosopher) 'brings against Nature, in the first of these celebrated and widely

• circalitted essays, which contain the explosive shell with which my 'Cambridge friend threatened me some years ago, as certain to be thrown into the Christian camp. In sober truth,' says Mill, ' nearly all the things which then are banged or imprisoned for doing to one another, are Nature's every-day performances.' And let us remember, this short but trenchant sentence is a fair specimen of the conclusions of the whole paper. In short, I know not in the whole range of English literature a more tremendous catalogue of charges against Nature, than that which this essay contains. It will lake a good deal of preaching to undo its effects on men, and yet it cannot be ignored with impunity."

Nor do we think it would be possible to meet the force of that statement more powerfully and wisely than Mr. Footman meets it,, in the corresponding passage of his second lecture :—

" The thought of the pain, of the apparently undeserved and hope. less and useless suffering of which this earth has been for countless ages the theatre, is a thought which generates harassing and harrowing questions, as to the goodness of God ; and apart from the Revelation of God in Christ, I must own I know of no answer to those -questions, no answer which even hope itself can seize on as completely reassuring. I suppose that each man has some difficulty, some thought which weighs at times very heavily, and which he feels is too heavy to be rolled off without the aid of the Christ who has redeemed him. Bach a difficulty, such a heaviness assails my own mind at times when I think of the indifference, the apparent cruelty, 'the devouring maw, of Nature's laws. As a Christian, indeed, I can afford to look at this awful thought steadily and often. Nay, if I want words to express my sense of the incubus which seems to lie upon the Universe, and which suppresses at times the Hosannas of rapture, I can find none so apt as those of the great Apostle, when he tells us that the whole creation groaneth and traraileth together in pain until now.' But at the same time, I must candidly avow that, on the ground of 'Natural Theology,' I am frequently embarrassed as I think of the problem which it sometimes ventures to solve, that of the Character, the Nature, and the Disposition towards the sentient Creation of the Eternal God. This being the case, I shall revert to this painful and difficult matter again, in the second division of this paper, in which I shall have to bring into prominence the more strictly Christian aspect of the whole subject. In the few remarks which follow here, we shall try to offer only the considerations which Natural Theology seems capable of affording or suggesting on this point to her students. In the first place, I think we learn from -a contemplation and study of Nature, that the production of pleasure, or of the pleasing or soothing sensations of which animal life is capable, is not a paramount object of its Author and Governor. As things are now, and as things have been so far as we can trace them -back, the process of creation and of development seems too terrific to permit us to rest in what I may venture to call the Hedonist view of Ood. Neither does it seem to me that Nature indicates that the paramount object of its Creator is the preservation of individual sensitive existence, except for a very limited period, nor even that of any one type or species, except for a correspondingly limited period. If no being can be called good in whose works and ways one or other or both) of these ends cannot be discovered as their final cause, then I do not see how from Nature alone you can say that God is good. I speak with great diffidence, with great deference, but so far as I can -see, the law which is paramount, and the farthest reaching in Nature, is the one which combines int.) one decree these two clauses: Be fruitful and multiply—slay and eat.' And the main object, if I may venture so to construe in inadequate language the apparent object of an Infinite Mind proclaimed in facts, seems to be the production, through sacrifice, of higher life out of the death of the lower. The more I read and think and try to observe of 'Nature,' the more deeply does this view of God's work in Nature seem ingrained in me. This may at first seem rather a melancholy conclusion, and it certainly does add a sadness often to my daily life, even to my daily meals, but it adds, too, a sacredness to them, and helps me to find an answer to -my friend who asked as we sat down to feast together, Why should this act of all others be made religions in this arbitrary way by " grace ?" ' If then this be the teaching of Nature as to the end of its Creator's work in her, we can see how readily she lends herself to the charge or the suspicion of cruelty or indifference to suffering,—especially in the ears of those who go to Nature with a feeling that if her god were good and benevolent there would be no _pith,. inherent in her system at all. On the other hand, if we fully recognise the purpose which, as I have said, Nature seems to lead us to infer is paramount in the mind of her Author, we shall be very much struck with the immense and incalculable amount of happiness which prevails in the sentient creation at any given moment, and which has prevailed upon the earth through countless ages of prehistoric times. The feeling which will then attend our contemplation of Nature will be one of wonder that a design and a method which, prior to experience, we should have said must be attended at every turn by individual suffering, and must have almost excluded pleasure from the universe, should yet have been executed in a manner so wise and so kind as to have filled the earth with such a vast aggregate of pleased and enjoyable existences."

The difficulty in this suggestion is not to understand how pain may and often does minister to the higher life of those who unquestionably have a higher life than that of pleasure or pain, but how the almost intolerable pain of creatures which, so far as we know, have no such higher life at all, and which suffer

in a manner which does not even admit of their transmitting a

nature annealed by endurance to their posterity,—the pain, for instance, of the giraffe flying through the desert with a panther draining its life-blood firmly seated on his back,—can be even sub sidiary to a higher purpose at all. We can see that a destructive instinct does answer good purposes in the evolution of the higher nature, and that it is not easy to conceive the existence of such an instinct, in such a world as ours, without some consequences which are purely grievous, such as the long agony which indi vidual creatures may suffer in the act of dying. But the experi ence which we have of sacrifice which is healing, ennobling, the very highest thing we can conceive, can hardly reconcile us to instances of lonely animal suffering which are absolutely unknown to all creatures except the victim itself, and which leave no moral trace in the universe when the suffering comes to an end. Nevertheless, it may be fairly said that the knowledge which we now have of the immense value and meaning of sacrifice in the higher planes of the moral world, should make us hesitate to dogmatise on appearances even in the cases where suffering seems to answer no end at all. Little as we know of the ultimate end of animal life, we are founding an argument on our ignorance only, when we assume that there can be no after-life for the lower victims of innocent suffering, no afterlife in which the mere endurance of great suffering may answer some considerable purpose, such as we often see it answer in the higher world of human consciousness. A priori, one would have supposed that the higher and more sensitive the nature, the worse would be the evil of suffering. As we know that this is false in the case of man, to the secrets of whose nature we have a real access, it would be very rash to assume that in the case of those creatures to the secrets of whose nature we have no real access, no good purpose is answered by the sufferings they undergo. At all events, Mr. Footman's suggestion puts the matter in its true light. Undoubtedly, the first purpose of the Creator has not been the production of happiness, but the production of something to which happiness is quite subordinate ; and only those, therefore, who can assure themselves that the production of happiness is the only legitimate end of moral action,—an assumption absolutely contradict ing the teaching of Revelation,—are in a position to arraign the Universe as a failure. We may add that any one who can feel sure of such a doctrine as this must be one of the poorer thinkers of the world, and not worthy of much intellectual respect.

And now let us say a word on the few central points which, as it seems to us, Mr. Footman has ignored, on both sides of the picture. And first, we think he has laid too little stress on the materialistic, as distinguished from the agnostic, view of Nature. It is quite true that the two views are inconsistent ; that you

cannot first plead that there is no such thing as " cause " at all,—

that " cause " is an illusion of the mind, and can mean nothing but "invariable antecedent,"—and yet appeal to the primary

physical forces of the universe as the sole and sufficient causes of all the intellectual and moral life which appears to come out of them. The two views are perfectly inconsistent, it is true. It is also true that the former or agnostic view is, as Mr. Footman has duly perceived, much the more formidable philosophical form of doubt of the two. But we believe it to be for popular purposes far the less effective form of doubt. A truncated, inadequate cause,—like material force,—is much more intelligible to the popular mind than Hume's agnostic view that "cause" is an illusion, and that we know really nothing in the world in the nature of causes except uniform antecedents. The real explanation of creeds like Mr. Bradlaugh's and those of the Freethinker is not Hume's philosophy, but the idolatry of material force, the picture of the Universe as an iron chainwork of physical destiny from which no atom, and no mind,—mind being assumed to be nothing but an inexplicable backwater of atomic forces,—can escape. It is this which overawes the popular imagination. It is this which drives men to regard themselves as mere puppets in the hand of some over-mastering power which, though itself unintelligent, enslaves the intelligence to which it has unwittingly given birth. It is not science as a thinker like Mill understood science, but science as the ordinary mechanician understands it, which so subdues the imagination of men as to charm away that consciousness of true inward power which, whether it be exerted or not exerted, is either exerted or not exerted at their own discretion. And just as Mr. Footman has more or less ignored the fatalistic side of the popular materialism, so it seems to us that he has ignored the true antidote to it, in that ineradicable consciousness of man's power to change his own destiny which dispels the dream of fatalistic materialism, and shatters, in thousands of millions of places at once, the iron framework of the Materialistic as well as of the Agnostic creed. Mr. Footman insists admirably on the absolute knowledge of personal identity as confuting the agnostic philosophy which disowns all knowledge of true Being. We wish he had insisted also on our equally unconquerable belief in the power of the will either to resist or not to resist the solicitations which so often beset us,—i.e., in our power to make our destiny other than we actually shall make it, and in our former power to have made our destiny other than we actually have made it. To any one who can eradicate—as some Necessitarians fancy that they have eradicated—this belief, either the agnostic or the materialistic fatalism is, of course, credible; to him who owns that he cannot eradicate it without weaving a thread of positive insanity into his moral life, every sort of fatalism and every kind of final agnosticism becomes incredible. Dr.Chalmers's idea of the divine cause as the one root of allembracing law—so much admired by Mr. Footman—seems to us to approach dangerously near the Pantheistic fatalism which philosophically annihilates man, in order to make more of God. Another very strong confutation of materialism of the vulgar kind is to be found in the unquestionable facts more and more thoroughly verified by science every day, as Mr. Gurney and Mr. Myers are proving, which show that intelligence often works, where there is no physical organ of intelligence,—no brain and body present to explain it.

Another point on which Mr. Footman might, we think, with profit have enlarged more than he has done, is the strong testimony of human language to an origin of human nature in something not below, but above man. If, according to Hume and the sceptics generally, the words cause,' duty," liberty,' effort,' are full of illusion—if the chief duty of philosophy, in fact, be to explain them away, and show how much less they mean than they are popularly supposed to mean—may we not fairly ask how, then, in the name of all that is reasonable, words grew into our language which filled it with a mystery and idealism and a sense of the supernatural, for which there was absolutely no ground,—why, if human words come only as the stammering utterances of animal life awakening for the first time to its own powers, and groping after something like rational self-guidance, they embarrass us with a whole heaven of divine obligation and a whole philosophy of inverted significance, for which there is no basis ? It has always seemed to us that the testimony of those little words why," because,' ' will," must," can," ought,' to a class of notions which, if they represent pure illusions, could hardly have got into our minds at all, is decisive as against the philosophy either of pure agnosticism or pure fatalism. These, however, are mere suggestions of central points which we think Mr. Footman might have improved his manly and thoughtful survey by including within his range. None the less, we recognise gratefully the vigour and candour of his two papers, and recommend them to the Clergy of all denominations as worthy of their respect and emulation.

DIARIES OF PRINCESS AMALIE OF SAXONY.* FREQUENTERS of the Royal Theatre at Dresden before 1870 must have been familiar with the figure of an old lady who, on most nights when a good performance was given, could be seen sitting in an armchair in the royal box. Occasionally, plays were acted that bore the author's name of "A. Serena," and then spectators would send friendly glances up to this lady's seat ; for she was none other than Princess Amalie of Saxony, who, under this pseudonym, wrote a series of comedies and dramas. Many of these hold their own to this day on the boards of the German stage, while five were ably translated into English by Mrs. Jameson, as excellent pictures of German social life, and yet another six were translated anonymously some years after. And good pictures of German life they are, for the author, princess though she was, laid the scene of her plays, with few exceptions, in higher circles ; and she certainly caught the tone, reproduced the conditions, the modes of thought and feeling, that characterise the German middle class, with surprising fidelity. On the death of this princess, there were found among her papers twelve large volumes of journals, kept from her childhood till shortly before her death, thus extending over nearly seventy years of the most painful, but most interesting period of German history. By permission of the present King of Saxony, Robert Wa1dmiiller, the accomplished poet and novelist, has been allowed to publish extracts from these diaries, and a very attractive book they form. The period of the Napoleonic disorders in Europe were the times when the saying is more than commonly true, that " uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." We know much of this from the historical point of view, but it has hitherto been little given to us to know how the prominent sufferers in the drama felt, what they thought and experienced. Here, in• the diary of this intelligent Saxon princess, we encounter an often laconic, but most graphic presentation. Were the volumenot otherwise interesting, it would be interesting on this account alone. But it abounds in attractive features, in the pictures it gives of the life of the times generally, of the simplicity mingled with rigid etiquette of the Saxon Court. Moreover, the Princess was a great traveller; she visited Italy ten times as guest of her sister, married to Archduke Leopold ; she visited Spain, to stay with her sister Josepha, Queen-Consort of Ferdinand VII. ; she came in contact with most of the notabilities of her day, and a brilliant galaxy of names gleam across her pages. Goethe, Napoleon and his Marshals, the little King of Rome, Louis Napoleon, Charles X., three Popes, Cardinal Antonelli, Nelson, Metternich, Washington Irving, Scribe, and many more. Indeed, in an idle moment, the Princess once amused herself with summing-up the famous people she had known, and the famous people she had visited ; the former number amounted' to 472, and the latter to 398.

Princess Amalie was the eldest daughter of Prince Max of Saxony, brother to the childless King Anton, whose wife becamea mother to her and her brothers and sisters, when an early death deprived them of their own. Their home was the royal". palace at Dresden, and here, in the midst of a Court distinguished by its love of culture, the Princess early imbibed that taste for music and literature that led her to exercise her powers in both: arts, and eventually to become something more than a distinguished dilettante in one. She was allowed to remain unmarried,. though various eligible partis were offered to her. She did not wish to share the fate of most princesses, and enter upon marriage without love. In one of her dramas, with evident reference to herself, she makes a princess say to her royals mother,—" I have been permitted intimately to gaze upon themajesty of the Throne from early childhood, and it can neither tempt nor dazzle me." Her simple, direct, amiable nature is. further reflected in another passage from her plays. She makes her heroine say :—" There is other happiness in life besides that found in love." "And what is that P" "Pleasure in the joysof others." The same unadorned straightforwardness characterises the diary of the Princess.

Amid the wealth of material contained in this volume, we cam only dip here and there. It is amusing to read that Prince• Max was one of the first persons to have his children inoculated, Princess Amalie narrates how they were kept three weeks in quarantine in a separate building, their parents being only allowed to speak to them through the window. The operation was regarded as most serious, the doctor handsomely remunerated, and, in accordance with the taste of the time, a memorial' " repos " was built in the Park, bearing the inscription,—" Dis an promeneur, que to n'existes qu'en na4moire de l'inoculation, heureuse," &c. The Princess was only twelve when Napoleon occupied Saxony and visited Dresden. With heart and soul she was attached to the German cause, and so were her brothers and sisters. Herein they differed from their Royal uncle, whose fidelity to Napoleon was, later on, to cause annoyance to his• family. The girl notes the various victories of the Emperor in, tones of despair in her diary. In 1809 she had to fly with her family from their capital, the first of several such sad journeysthat they' were forced to take during the ensuing years. To theprivations they then suffered, the contact they had with common life, the Princess ascribed her knowledge of conditions outsidethe charmed circle of a Court. Many a night she had to sleep. on straw; on the first occasion they were thankful to get shelter in some wretched rooms, and to sleep upon chairs. During theconference of potentates held at Dresden in 1812, the Princess frequently saw Napoleon. Of his impatience she has preserved a characteristic anecdote. " On May 25th," she writes, "boarhunting at Moritzburg. Napoleon found the dejeiiner too long, so he said quite suddenly, Que l'on serve le dessert,' which was at once done, so that the roasts were never brought on, much to the annoyance of Aunt Elizabeth." A few months later, the family were once more seeking safety in flight, suffering much bodily discomfort and yet more mental torture from the contradictory and disquieting rumours that reached them from Saxony. In June, 1813, they were back in their beloved Dresden. " Heaven grant this may prove my last flight journey! she writes, a wish not to be fulfilled. For the time being, Napoleon was more master of the situation than ever. He had taken up his temporary abode in Dresden, and ruled in autocratic fashion. At his State banquets, held in honour of his victories, he insisted on the presence of the whole Court, the gentlemen placed on one side of the room, the ladies, including the Princess, on the other ; all obliged to stand and watch the tyrant dining. Napoleon's day was kept with great pomp. The Princess wonders if it be an omen that the firework initials " N. and M. L." become accidentally extinguished on the Elbe. Napoleon himself communicated the news that he was about to wage war against Austria to the Princess Theresa, the wife of Prince (afterwards King) Antony. Very characteristic is the story of how, when she dame into his presence, she found him standing on one leg and kneeling with the other on a chair. In nonchalant fashion, he addressed her with "La Princesse Therese Sera filch& contre moi, parceque je fais le guerre a as famille, mais elle doit y etre accoutumee." " On ne s'accoutume pas ces chosen-lii," replied the lady, with firmness and presence of mind. The reply scarcely pleased the Emperor. This time the children of Prince Max did not leave Dresden, and Princess Amalie became acquainted with all the horrors of war in close proximity. Of the misery that prevailed in the city she furnishes a touching picture. Dying soldiers were to be met staggering in all the streets. Even the royal conservatories were full of wounded. Bread ran short, the captives suffered the pangs of starvation, and wherever it was possible they would let down their caps, gloves, or whatever else they could turn into bags, and solicit alms from the passers-by. The royal family were absolutely cut off from all intelligence. Not till October 27th did they hear from a journeyman that Napoleon had been defeated at Leipzig, and even then the news was so mere a rumour that they dared not credit it. Once again the family of Prince Max had to seek safety in flight, and nearly two years were passed by them in Prague, shunned by their equals as allies of the French, whom in fact they detested as cordially as the other European Sovereigns did. This pained the Princess exceedingly. On learning the entry of the Allies into Paris, she notes,—" If only he has not set them some trap." "The peace vexes me," she records afterwards, "for France remains larger than before." When Prague illuminated in honour of the event, she writes :—" It was a splendid spectacle, but it hurt me, so that I left the windows. All are glad, for all there is peace, but we alone are pursued and shunned." She wept so much for the fate of her country and its king, her uncle, that she injured her eyesight, and could not read for a time, and scarcely write. She even took the bold step of inditing a private letter to the Emperor of Russia, entreating him to intercede for her beloved uncle, "Hellas !" she says, " s'il faudrait une victime, je me devonerais volontiers aux malhenrs qui menacent ma famine, pour l'en preserver." She does not say, and probably she did not know, that the preservation of Saxony after the overthrow of Napoleon was chiefly due to the diplomacy of Talleyrand. Very interesting is the account the Princess gives of the first meeting of the Emperor of Austria with his daughter, after Napoleon's abdication. She calls it "terrible." "For the first moment, the two stood opposite each other like statues. Then the little one began to play with the Emperor's sword, upon which father and daughter wept. After the peace of 1814 the family continued to live their quiet domestic existence, writing and acting plays and operettas. Various marriages of the younger members brought about festivities; the quaint ceremonies that took place are recorded by the Princess.

Of the various visits paid by her, that to the Court of Madrid is the most entertaining. She paints most humorously the medley of etiquette and informality that characterised it. Thus, when the family dined en famille, "the princesses appear in the deepest negligee, the Infanta gener

ally with her hair in curl-papers ; no one waits for any one else, everybody helps himself without ceremony." By way of greeting, the members of the family only address each other by their Christian names. " When many of them come into the room together, this sounds like some litany," writes Princess Amalie. The whole tone of the Court appears to have been touched by this strange mixture of ancient formality and modern, innovation, and the taste displayed was equally bizarre and confused. The aristocracy cared only to witness translations from French melodramas ; Calderon was played solely to an audience of workpeople. Grotesquerie in every shape and form. was eagerly cultivated by the better classes, with some strange results. Thus the Princess tells of a house that was built in the Chinese style ; an obelisk stood in front of it, upon the roof sat a statue of Dante, the principal salon was painted like the inside of a ship, the bed was an organ that played when lain on, and so forth.

In 1850, after a happy and varied life, divided between literature and friends, the Princess had the misfortune to lose her eyesight. An operation partially restored it, but she had to save her vision, and the entries in her diary become scantier. The war of 1870 broke her heart. She had lived to see another Napoleonic war against Germany; she remembered too vividly the sufferings inflicted by the first ; she could not share the Army's hopes of victory. On September 18th she was gathered, to her fathers.