THE CHEVALIER D'EON.*

IT is perhaps doubtful, whether the misfortunes of the Chevalier d'Eou in his lifetime were equal to those which he has met with since his death at the hands of his biographers. When he came to London in 1762, as Secretary of the French Embassy, with a high reputation as a soldier, and no slight one as a diplomatist and a man of letters, good-humoured, vivacious, interested in everything, whether politics, finance, war, literature, or society, a favourite of the Ministers, a confidential agent of the King, it might have been expected that he was entering on a career which would lead to honour, fortune, and fame. To the courage of a soldier, however, he united the small and slender person, and the delicate features, of a woman ; and to these be added a coldness of temperament which is not ordinarily characteristic of the military profession. He had cultivated letters no less successfully than diplomacy or military affairs. A Doctor of Laws of the Sorbonne, he had already produced, besides several slighter books, a really remarkable work on the French finances, and another on taxation among the ancients, which not only shows wide reading, and a complete knowledge of antiquity as it was then understood, but contains many acute observations in reference to the state of France, and an amount of knowledge and good-sense in dealing with political and economical questions, rare, or perhaps unique, among the adventurers of the eighteenth century. But his life, beginning with high hope and much brilliancy, was embittered by disappointment and failure, and perhaps worse than this, by the ridicule necessarily attaching to a captain of dragoons, and Knight of St. Louis, who spent the last forty years of his life in the disguise, and under the description, of a woman, and in the shadow of a mystery which, though long since really explained, has served as a peg upon which unprincipled writers

have hung, without any foundation, all sorts of stories discreditable to the unfortunate Chevalier.

Upon the retirement of the Due de Nivernois, the Chevalier was promoted to the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary, and for six months represented France at the Court of St. James's. But he had also other duties to perform. That Louis XV. intrigued against his recognised Ministers, is well known; and the complete history of his correspondence with his secret agents has been revealed by the Due de Broglie, in his remarkable and interesting work Le Secret du Rol, intended principally as a defence of his uncle, the Count de Broglie, for many years at the head of the secret correspondence of the King. Among these secret agents was the Chevalier d'Eon, who, besides his official communications with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, kept up a close correspondence with the King or with the head of the Secret Department ; and who at the time when the Due de Praslin was, in perfect good-faith, contracting a treaty of peace and alliance with England, was engaged with the King and the Count de Broglie in preparing an elaborate scheme for the invasion of this country, behind the back as well of Praslin and Choiseul as of their great supporter, Madame de Pompadour. It was with the arrival of the Count de Guerchy as Ambassador that d'Eon's misfortunes commenced. Empty, pompous, stupid, and avaricious, the former was in all respects the opposite of the Chevalier, and possessed neither the good nor the bad qualities which are generally considered to mark his countrymen, and which d'Eon possessed in a large degree. How the Chevalier quarrelled with the Count, how he refused to descend from the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary to that of Secretary, and to present his letters of recall at the Court of St. James's, how he accused the Count of attempting to murder him, and induced the Grand Jury of Middlesex to return a true bill against the Ambassador, are matters of history. They will be found detailed at length in the two large volumes which the Chevalier printed in 1764 and 1765; and they are related quite as tediously, and at almost as great length, in Captain Teller's book, more than one-third of which is occupied with the history of these discreditable squabbles, in which the folly, extravagance, and insolence of the Chevalier, can only be explained upon the assumption, as Louis XV. wrote to Tercier, that his promotion to the rank of Plenipotentiary had turned his head, and that he had for the moment taken leave of his senses. In the meantime, rumours were afloat—whether originally started by the Chevalier or by his enemies it seems now impossible to say, but arising, no doubt, from his personal appearance—that he was really a woman in the disguise of a man. These rumours soon reached the French Court, and in the end a pension was only granted to d'Eon upon the terms that he was "to resume," and never to quit, the dress of his sex. To these humiliating terms the Chevalier, when over forty years of age, agreed, and passed the greater part of the rest of his life in the dress of a woman, and under the style of Mademoiselle la Chevaliere d'Eon. Whether the French Government was really persuaded that he was of the female sex, or whether the disguise was originally insisted upon in the expectation, which, indeed, proved well-grounded, that he would thus lose the power of inflicting further annoyance on the King and the Ministers, we do not know ; but one thing is certain, that there is not the smallest particle of evidence of the Chevalier having ever adopted this disguise previously to 1764. The last thirty years of his life were spent in England, where he died in 1810 in great poverty.

A career so strange naturally linked itself to romances and adventures of all kinds. In 1836, M. Frederic Gaillardet published Menwires du Chevalier d'Eon, professedly founded upon the family papers of the Chevalier preserved at Tonnerre, and upon the archives of the Foreign Affairs of France. A more discreditable tissue of lies never issued from the press. Every kind of story which could be suggested by the strange career of the Chevalier, and which would be suitable to the reputation of a Faublas or a Casanova, is there seriously stated as a fact. These stories include intrigues with ladies of the highest rank, and the most unblemished virtue. More than twenty years later there appeared a new work on the subject, with the name of Louie Jourdan (the editor of the Siècle) on the title as its author. It did not fall under M. Gaillardet's notice until 1866, when he found that it was simply an unblushing plagiarism, copied word for word from his Afgmoires. On his calling attention to the matter, M. Jourdan said that he had not written a word of it, that it was composed by a young journalist of the day, M. "E. D.," to whom he (M. Jourdan) had merely lent the use of his name to enable him to sell his book ! M. Gaillardet now, in order to render the discomfiture of MM. Jourdan and "E. D." complete, publicly announced that there was not a word of truth in a large part of his work, that it was nothing but an amplification of imaginary facts, and a tissue of romantic adventures, which he thought it probable, when he wrote the book, might have happened to the Chevalier, but which he was now satisfied had no foundation of truth. It is hard to say which of the three actors in this discreditable drama comes out the worst. M. Gaillardet then published what purports to be the authentic lifer:wires of the Chevalier, and it is this volume which has served as the basis of the book before us.

Captain Telfer writes (as a biographer should do) with a warm admiration for his hero, and a determination to clear his character from the censures of the Due de Broglie, and to prove that in his denieles with the Count de Guerchy and the French Ministers, the Chevalier was in the right. But we cannot accept the Captain's narrative as accurate ; nor can we acquit him of misleading statements on matters of importance. He relies absolutely upon Gaillardet, and justifies his reliance by the authority of the Due de Broglie, who, though he certainly goes out of his way to compliment Gaillardet upon "his trustworthy work printed in 1866," adds, "But even this contains many unfounded assertions, whose falsehood I have been able to detect." Yet Captain Telfer deliberately inserts documents, and extracts from documents, printed by Gaillardet, and purporting to emanate from the Archives Etranghres, which the Due de Broglie (writing with the authority of a Minister for Foreign Affairs) had rejected as absolutely inconsistent with

undoubtedly genuine papers to be found in the Archives, and he more than once comments on M. Gaillardet's "too ready credence to lying narratives and apocryphal documents." In

a passage which, among other things, may be taken as an example of the irritating manner in which Captain Telfer mixes up his pronouns, and refers to the Chevalier sometimes as "she," sometimes as "he," he writes :—

"There is good evidence that d'Eon was received by the Empress [Elizabeth] in female habiliments; that in this disguise she ingratiated herself with her Majesty, gained her confidence, and interesting her in the object of his mission, had succeeded in reviving her old feelings of attachment towards France and towards Louis XV., her suitor of days gone by."

We have failed to find a single trace of this "good evidence" in Captain Teller's book, or elsewhere. The story is unhesitatingly rejected by the Due de Broglie, who says justly "that this piquant narrative has no foundation whatsoever. Not the least trace of it can be discovered in any authentic document at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs."

We regret that Captain Telfer, who has had access to the large collection of the Chevalier's papers, which at his death fell into the hands of his generous friend, Christie, the auctioneer, and are now in the possession of his descendant, has not given us an account of the substance of these papers, and that he has added no new information respecting those portions of the Chevalier's career which it would really be most interesting to elucidate, namely, the first twenty-eight and the last thirty years of his life. These last, one would suppose, would be dealt with in the papers in question; while no biography can pretend to be adequate which is not based upon an investigation of the manuscripts at Tonnerre, which unquestionably would throw much light upon the early part of his life. Yet these Captain Telfer does not profess even to have looked at. Nor has he consulted, or even traced, the other manuscripts of d'Eon. Among the most curious of these, are collections and notes for a most elaborate edition of Horace, and The d'Eon Christian Journal ; ou, Le Livre le plus necessaire 0. l'Heureuse Journee du Voyageur Chretien ear la Terre. Even on the points that we should have thought the papers to which Captain Teller has had access would give him accurate information, he is full of mistakes. The

sale of the Chevalier's library, originally advertised for May, 1791, took place, not as here stated, on May 24th, 1793, but on

February 3rd and 4th, 1792. The sale in May, 1793, was of an entirely different collection, and was made by Leigh and

Sotheby. Nor is there anything in the book from which we can infer that the author has read a word of any of the published works of d'Eon, except those relating to Guerchy and Beaumarchais. He gives us neither an accurate nor a complete list of these works, and has evidently never heard of d'Eon's curious correspondence with Anacharsis Clootz, or, indeed, of other books that he wrote or translated. But Ids-economical and financial writings give as a much higher opinion of the Chevalier's abilities 'than the 'actions of his life, and really deserve, what they have never :received, a 'serious examination . and a judioious criticism. A more .acc.nrate.acquaintanoe with the images and history of France mould have enabled Captain Teller to avoid such biumlers as the 'references to the Due de Broglie as "his Grace," and Louis XV. as ' "his most Catholic Majesty."

THE ITALIAN POLITICAL RENAISSANCE.*

TEM story of the unification of Italy raider the House of Savoy is one that, however often told, must always be fascinating, and, indeed, dear, to English Liberals. For that u.nificatian has not only brought about the prospect---let us hope that it is a good deal more than .a prospect—of an entente cordiale between the two countries in Europe that have least reason to be jealous of each other ; but it was in itself the triumphant application of English Liberal principles, regarded from the international standpoint, to Italian circumstances. What Cavour owed 'personally and politically to this country, he told with that charming frankness which he had in common with Charles James Fox, and critics and biographers have repeated the statement a hundred limes. "The signal superiority of Count Cavoar," says M. de lia,zade, the most brilliant and enthusiastic of these critics, "consists in his having been a real Liberal in the strongest and fullest acceptation of the -word. The liberty in which he believed, both from instinct and reason, wasto him no -empty formula, nor was it an engine of destruction, or an implement of war against :the Church or the State ; it was a regular system of public guarantees, impartially applied, and patiently worked out, as free from sabterfuge as from violence." It is in the Cavour spirit, and from the C.avour point of view, that Mr. Probyn tells once more, and in a compact volume, .the history of Italy from 1815 to .1878, the history which centres round the names of Charles Albert, Cav-our, Garibaldi, and Victor Emanuel, c/ara ,et venerabilia atcrmina, representing tragic failure, political achievement, patriotic devotion, royal knight-service. The biography of Count Giuseppe Pasolini, the modest but universally-respected Italian states-man, who began -his public career by believing in a patriotic Pope, and closed it believing-in a patriotic'King—a translation and abridgment of which from the affectionate pen of .his .son has been published by the Dowager Countess of Dalhousie— covers almost exactly the same ground as Mr. Probyn's book. Pasolini was born in 1815, .and died in 1876, only two years before his king and his friend, La Marmora. The more comprehensive work gives a bird's-eye view of one of the most hopeful transactions in the evolution of recent _history; the more sectional portrays one of those combinations of public and private virtue in an individual, which render national progress at once possible, desirable, and permanent.

We confess to having some difficulty in criticising Mr. Probyn's book, on account, not of its faults, but of the character of its excellences. As a politician, he .does _not show any prejudices, antipathies, or fads. As regards literary style, lie pursues the even, tenor of his way, indulging neither in pathosnor in bathos, but not infrequently rising to a "chaste, constitutional, better class Mouse of Commons style of eloquiruce,"as when he contemplates the future of Italy through the spectacles of Manzoni. Perhaps the best passages in Mr. Probyn's work .are those in which he describes the abortive attempt of Venice, under the imperfectly appreciated Daniel Manin, to throw off the yoke of Austria and absolutism. Of Cavonr, Garibaldi, and the other _agents in the work of unifying Italy, Mr. .Probyn has nothing novel or even very notable to tell. He is adz, whit too severe upon the fated Bourbon Princes, who gave such substantial aid, against their will, to the Italian patriots; but we think he -scarcely does justice to the circumstances which hampered Charles Albert, .although it must be admitted that that unfortunate Prince owed his defeats quite as much to moral weakness as to the superior strategy of Badetzky. Mr. Probyres conclnding remarks strike us

as rather. thin, and read like extracts from The Statesnutn's XearBook, or some such reference-book, _padded out with a .little history and political sentiment. There is a drawing-room, ".-enoh a pity "air in statements like these :—

" There is still extreme poverty amidst the poorest classes in many parts of the 'Peninsula. This has given rise to disease, discontent, and the spread of socialisticwiewe. Were taxation less' heavy, these ovils would betliminiehed. It may well be nsked,.whether the-real strength of the country -would not be more increased by.lessening the burdens now weighing it down than by the maintenance of such enormous armaments, and the costly 'experiments of lundred+ton gnus-and -huge ironclatle. A omatented Nand prosperous people is, after all, the surest foundation of national greatness and istrength."

iButune.know no better mannal.of ,the Italian political .renaismance than.this—none marked by sach.fairness, or such a just -sense of historical proportion.

"On February 12th, 1848,"-says Mr. Proby.n (p. 112), ".P.ope Pius IX. formed a Ministry, inowhich no less than three laymen of high character held portfolios, Count Basolini,Signor Sturbinetti, and -the Prince -of Teano, Michele Gaetani." . At p. 136.he has to record, "After' the Papal allocation of April 29th, 1848 (the purport of which was that .Pius IX. :found he -could notithrowin his lot 'with that of .Italian patriotibm as against Austria), had been in -public, the Ministry resigned. It was not .possible for such men as Minghetti,Pasolini,and Sturbiraetti to sanction a policy which'would not allow the Roman .troops to unite with :their brother Italians in endeavouring to.free Italy from foreign domination." It is.thus that Mr. Probyn speaks of -the creditable first public .appearance, and of • the equally creditable disappearance, of the Italian -statesman whose biography—a -model of modesty and filial affection—the Dowager Countess of Dalhousie has carefully translated and judicionslyabridged. No one who is reasonably well informed an the history of Italy:for the last two generations, can he quite ignorant of the high-minded country gentleman of Ravenna, whom patriotism and an hereditary love of polities and Liberal ideas compelled to .take a part in-publiclife ; who, in 1848, was the confidant of Pius IX., but declined to-abandon Liberalism 'for his 'sake ; who, in 1862, was Victor Emannel's Foreign Minister, and was twice entrusted with a special mission:to France. and England, in fol filling which hornet-with Russell and Palmerston; who was Governor of Milan after the union of Lombardy-with Piedmont, and of Venice, vrben Venetia also had been enfranchised,:and who died President-of the Italian Senate. Pasolini had neither the intellectual calibre of Cavour,-nor. the patriotic passion of Garibaldi. Re belon gedamon g politicians 'to' the other of the Aarons and:liars, wholear up-the -hands of Moses,till the burderrand heat of the clayare over,and Joshua can report that he is victorious.all along th not exactly dominated,-but be was certainly led by more daring -spirits 'than himself-notably by Marco Minghetti; to . such an extent • that in -this biography -we find his amiable wife, the daughter of •Baolo Bassi, and therefore a born patriot, sighing gently over :the selfishness of politicians. -But 'Pasolini was a 'man of a -very high character, whombiscon-temporaries and allies 'respected and -relied .upon, and who, indeed, followed the advice -which we find him giving to one of-his *sons,—`" Be the efficient man of whom people say, ' Oh ! if we only -had him here, he-would make things right.' " Whatever he did, he did 'well; 'position and responsibility were in-variably thrust upon him—he-never sought them. In a-very interesting chapter, bearing-the title -".Domestic 'Habits," his son says:that he was "a living' example of personal-religion. Robed notimbibed it-from 'the minnte religious practices which so strongly pervaded the school education of his -day,-ten ding more to for malitythan to spiritual devotion ; :liaddie..builtxtpitis -by the study of the Fathers .of the 'Ohurch,ralthough in -early youth-he devoted to them a considerable part of his time. It was more through constant association with his own-father that he was confirmed in religious principles, which...he received, 'not-as a dead-letter, hut . as a liviag.force to inspire and .direct the outward actions. . . ..A reverent and abiding sense of what is -above this world, a willing obedience to the precepts of the Church as guardian of revealed truth, and a stedfast faith in the -.Creator, were apparent in all his .reasonings, and in every action of his life." There is no reason to believe that Pasolini ever inqnired into the ecclesiastical pretensions of the Church of Rome. Like.most busy men, he, no doubt, was.con-tented to practise the Cartesian 'morale :par pro-vision, and to accept, without fanaticism, the established religion of the country in which he was born. Bathe was essentially a man of piety.in,Jonbert's sense, as.'"not a theolegy, or a theosophy, but a bond, a yoke, an indissoluble engagement." ,llialetters.to:his sons . abound with it, mingled invariably, however, with tendermess, As in finch a passage as this,—" I .regret that -my letters lave.alwa3rs.a tendency to sermonisingowhich is "not Jively.for -you! But how should it be otherwise ? I lave lived _fifty years, you only twenty.; and I, knowing by experience the line on which:yea ax just entering, can tell you a great many facts about it which' you would otherwise have-to find.out.for yourself... I do, not. enter. into. the famibf news, as you are sure to have it all from your-mother and brother: sir you seeyonr_oldfattier takes the-dry part of the-correspondence as his particular duty." Again:—" I have no wish to be a domineering, tiresome old.: man; and. if: it pleases God, to give you.. an enlightened understanding, I know you wilLgo on.well without advice from me. For thisI prayearnestly, as the first of blessings to be desiredfor yen." Pasolini was a shrewd man of the world, in spite-of his piety, and,hessometimes. expresses the results-of his. experience with a grace not unworthy ofBalthasar G-racian himself. Here, are two examplest—"-In social relations good.

humour is the best sort of prudence Even in the politics of life, the evangelical motto of" good-will to all men' comprises the truest practical wisdom." This book, would; indeed, have beea worth publishing if only for the revelation it affords of the character of a simple yet truly noble Italian gentleman. Pasolini was happy in his, domestic life. hisone great misfortune being the' death in 1869 of his son Eneas, a promising young soldier: His wife, too; died before him.

Weconfess to a little regret that in this book we had not been brought more closely-in' coutact_with some of the leading personages of the Italian Revolution, especially Pius IX. (who wawfor some time andatirnate personal friandiof.Pasolini) and Cavonr. Here iwa-glimpseof Garibaldi, who dined with Pasolini whew hewas Governor -of Milan :— "I remember bitecontingveyoutehouse in the twilight on March 24th shortlybefore the dinnephour; dressed in grey trousers and the historical red shirt. He brought with him his sons Menotti and Rieciotti, Gi3nertr1a Dixie,Thine and others. His manners( wenw perfectly politeeerd.courteens throughout the evening ; and one might have said he was on his guard in a company among whom be was anxious to carry himself irreproachably Later in the evening Garibaldi, at our request; relate(' very simply. some.of, his: waradventures in America and daring the Sicilian Expedition. He gave many explanations, evidentlyminimising his own merits, as-though more anxious to tell_ the truth and let things appear natural, than to colour, them by high-aoundiug words. He stayed late, and left with us et-,pantingte.pleasant remembrance of his.noble.aspect, finevoice, and pure, agreeable, language ; also. of, his-modest demean oar,he spite ofthealmost divine•honours,which were rendered to him in these days by hieenthusiastie admirers. My father said,' I felt myself a Garibaldian all that.eveninge " Wemar appropriately close our -notice. of an_ Italianwho, nevertheless; had many-of thecharacteristics of.an. Englishman, by. quoting.one.or two of the. observations made by him during hiw visits to -thiscountry:— " InEngland, reman-is. a man-, not, as. withns, araere contributory, atom to the amass 'out of which is -evolved thwcollective existenee; he is_soteething.more in England than a.oipher. Since. being in England,. which ieruled by old man, I have.come to believe that this world is for the young, who must govern it ; and that the agect-eppose themseivecein vain:to the,progreasoftlai younger generation._ This is truly a peaceful country ; such wealtk.and prosperity ! Good order seems natural and spontaneous ; but their liberty is of ancient growth here, like the-grand old trees in their parks On our arrival in. Londom shortly bawl). the_ close of. the Parliamentary session, we found all the legislators impatient to get out of-town, and it was a great thing. for them that no troubleashould, arise to spoil their vacation. This. occasioned my father's remarlc, that the excessive loveofcountry sports., prevailing over political anxieties, might be. a sign thatEngland, rich and happy in the heights of prosperity; was beginningto rest upon her-laurels ; and.that, although by,. no means-on thedecline, she would never take a higher. piers among nations' than at present."