LOUIS THE IGHTEENTHS
however, the work of some one intimately acquainted with the in-
trigues of the time, and give a very excellent account of the royal responsibility: who stand hem een a country and the accomplish- story of the Revolution. meat of its just hopes. The French Revolution is neither more The time occupied by the four volumes now published, and nor less than the history of a Reform which the People were forced which are to be followed by others, is exactly that of the first and to take into their own hands. They who will give nothing, most important years of the Revolution. Louts the Eighteenth frequently have all taken Bonn them : they who will give to-day, was then called Monsieur, being the next brother to the reigning refuse to-morrow, and always do what they ale forced to do when it is too late, in the end get nothing but disgrace—and it is well Monarch, the unhappy Louts the Sixteenth. Monsieur was dis- . posed to look favourably on the progress of a Constitutional Re-
. form, and, consequently, was not in very good odour at the Tui- leries. With his royal brother he remained on terms of intimacy,
classes in this country : ,they will see how aystem of Reform was and felt called upon, on several occasions, to give his advice and botched and blundered until the counts y became absolutely efferated with alternate disappointment and wild gratification. endeavour to set him right. He appears to have usually prevailed
for the moment, but the evil counsellors who beset the King con-
trivet! before long to put him upon his old plan of see-sawing—now scarcely be said to have fallen on France—a single generation was „joining heartily with the people, and now prevailed upon by his
wife, either to run away from them, or, by underplotting and in-
trigue, to get back again that which in the open day he was • Comte D ARTOIS was understood to be the lover of the Duchess DE POLIONAC, the pretending to grant. It was said at the time, that had Monsieur been on the throne, the Revolution would have been a Reform : this is not impossible, for Monsieur was not ruled by his wife. Louts the Sixteenth was in a worse condition than if he had en- tirely resigned himself to the hands of the Queen and her entour- age. In that case, there would have been a short but a sharp struggle; and the Monarch in all probability would have been -dismissed, like his successor CHARLES the Tenth, with life and limb, and perhaps a portable civil list. But instead of being • ruled only by his wife, the unhappy King kept a conscience (the French have no Lord Keeper), and he was only ruled perhaps every other day by the insolent Austrian. And then others, who saw the ruinous consequences of the course he was upon, would interfere, and give him an impetus in the right direction; but he was quickly brought up again by his wife, the Abbe VERMONT, and a bishop and prince or two, who got about him. So that even good advice turned to evil; it only produced vacillation, with all its bitter consequences,—ridicule,andeontempt, and delay ; and, what is more, sanctioned all the charges of bad faith and hypocrisy her for the destruction of so many habitual sources of innocent satisfaction? brought against the Monarch, and thus poisoned even his most vir- Was she now, as she ought to be, the unique object of his thoughts? He turned tuons actions, for they but appeared the more heinous for wearing his head away in shame at the consciousness of feeling how unable he was to Soe ustve a form.
1 1
One of the greatest mischiefs produced by the Queen's inter- ference, was the constant change of Ministers it caused, and the ejection at several times of such men as TURGOT and NECKER,- men who, had they been supported by the Court, might have saved the monarchy by the establishment of a constitutional go- vestment. But no; these were men not to be comprehended by a foreigner,a German and a woman. Besides, they were economical, and interfered with the wasteful expenditure of the public money, and the lavishness with which it was bestowed upon favourites. TURGOT was ousted from a post where he was performing the most essential service to the whole nation, because the Queen took pet at his refusing to honour an enormous demand made upon the treasury for money. She, of course, the child of a despot, and a stranger to French usages and French spirit, was utterly unable to understand the rights of a people : they were her subjects when they shouted " Vive In Reine f'—canaille, and all that was vile, when they cried " Vive la Nation !" Her only idea of a country was, that it was something to pay taxes and obey ; and that if not, it should be brought to reason by " cold iron: "There are the troops," she would say : troops being, in the royal pericranium, to a throne what spurs are to boots—something to make the mare to go—in other words, something to screw taxes out of the subjects. Being a woman, and an ignorant one—as most German Prin- cesses arc—she was accessible both to flattery and fears. When she was not to be worked on by one, the other was never-failing. Then, all her favourites—and they were naturally in the Church, and the Ultra Nobility—had some nostrum of their own to recom- mend : every Abbe had a minister is his pocket, who would set every thing to rights in an incredibly short time. Thu4 was the Archbishop of Sens brought in,—one of the most incapable of men in such a crisis : he was the pocket minister of the Abbe VER- MONT, the Queen's Secretary. It was thus that NECKER Was turned out. The Queeo detested him because he was no courtier; the Nobles hated him because he was a Reformer ; and the Comte D'Airrots,* afterwards CHARLES the Tenth, was furious against him chiefly because he was a favourite of the People,—and Comte s and the People have never yet been able to keep friends. From that time to this, they have been at daggers-drawn. In the Council, it seems, he never could talk of the canaille without dais. ping his hand on his swold : and when the first collision took place between the troops and the people, he cried out that Prince LAMBESC, who commanded that day, was " un brave," and that he alone could drive the mob before him. Very soon after, unluckily, the Prince arrived running away and in a dreadful fright. " Ah !" said the Comte DARroiS, "how did the people learn to fight?" He had no idea of lighting, except as a consequence upon chilling. However, no man m these days understands better how the people can fight. He lives at Holyroud, a warning to Princes who stand near a throne, and who may possibly occupy it, to beware of taking up the war against the national opinion. What a nation is, was hardly understood in those days, and it may not surprise us how the immediate successor of Louts the Fourteenth and Louis the Fif- E MEMOIR S. teenth miscalculated and misinterpreted the national will : but in WHETHER these Memoirs are really by Louis the Eighteenth, as our time, and with our aids to thought and just reflection, it is an wishes : and that they pretend to be, it is not easy to say. Probably nut : they are, unpardonable crime to tamper with a nation 's
man or woman, be they who they may, incur a most tremendous when it ends there.
We recommend these Memoirs to the study of the higher s The consequences we all know : the suffering, however, can in part only afilicted, but the whole of the evil-doers and nation- mockers were involved in one gulph of ruin.
trigue, to get back again that which in the open day he was • Comte D ARTOIS was understood to be the lover of the Duchess DE POLIONAC, the
acknowledged lavoutite of the Queen; so that his inthwice bad two immediate
channels. Ile was said to be more powerful the., the Throne. It is remarkable that these were the very words ;timed at the Duke of CUM REMAND, in the memorable vouch of Mr. Hers, on Lord ERRINGTOWS motion on Thursday night. The Duke was standing near the bar (as a spectator), supported by the Marquis of Lotsoorrosair and Lord CARNAR,ON.
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