Souvenirs of the Second Empire. By the Comte de Maugny.
(Dean and Son.)—The author begins with a striking parallel between the Court of the Third Napoleon in 1809, and that of Louie XVI. in 1788. A third may be added in the Scriptural words : "As in the days before the Flood, they were eating and
drinking and knew not until the Flood came and took them all away," We have some curious stories of the splendour and prodigality of the Imperial circle, nowhere more conspicuous than at the Chateau of Compiegne. There is some interesting reading of a eartain kind in the Comte do l!eTaugny'is " Souvenirs ; " but they do not make 'us regret, probably were not intended to make us regret, the Second Empire. His moral is curious, for he quotes the words of Heinrich Heine " The Fiends are the comedians-in-ordinary of the Almighty." When they depart from this rile and play tragedy, the world is not the happier for the change.
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