on the subject of this ill-fated princess, it is not difficult to see that she had not only inherited the name, but also the character of the reigning family of Austria. She displays their love of splendour, coupled with extreme stinginess; their sensuality, their regardlessness of the feelings of others, their quickness in taking offence, and their lasting resentments. Hers was the suspicious haughtiness which to this day marks the family of Habsburg, and hers was also that foolish confidence, the offspring of indolence, not of generosity,-which makes them mere tools in the hands of their servants. Her marriage with Louis XVI. was intended to cement the political union, which ended the feuds of the Bourbons with Austria. But Marie Antoinette was not made to reconcile the French people with their old foes. They could never forget that she was a foreigner: the hateful name of "l' Autrichienne insulted her on the throne, and followed her to the very scaffold. 66 She and her husband were made to be the victims of the great convulsion which had now become inevitable. They were commonplace people in an extraordinary position and an extraordinary time. They were neither good nor bad enough to overcome the difficulties which on all sides hemmed them in. That was their crime; their fate was neither unprecedented nor unforeseen. A member of the Academy had assembled a splendid dinner party at his house. There were many courtiers and philosophers, and among them a writer, who, at a later period, opposed the Revolution and perished in it. His name was James Cazotte. All were merry. They talked of the progress of Reason, of coming events which cast their shadows before,' and hailed the approaching reign of the mind, freed of its fetters. Cazotte alone was silent. They wished to hear his opinion. He said, for him the future was full of awful apparitions. Condorcet would have bantered him, but Cazotte said: "You, M. Condorcet-you will take poison to escape from the hangman's hands." Everybody laughed. Cazotte went on prophesying. He said, Chamfort would be reduced to open his veins. He told Bailey, Malesherbe, Rocher, they were to die on the scaffold. The Duchess of Grammont smiled. For mercy's sake spare our sex!" "Your sex? -You, madame, nor you alone,-you will ride in a cart to the place of execution, with your hands tied together behind your back." Cazotte's face wore an expression of deep gloom. His old age, his long white hair, the mournful glance of his eye, impressed his words with a lugubrious gravity. The guests trembled. "I am sure," said Madame de Grammont, "the wretch will refuse me a confessor.' "I do, Madame. The last victim whom they will indulge with one will be" He hesitated one moment, and then continued" will be the King of France." This was too much. All the guests rose from their seats. Cazotte himself was about to leave the room, when Madame de Grammont, intending to dispel the gloom which his words had thrown on the assembled company, went up to him, saying, "Well, Sir Prophet, what is your fate?" Madame, said the old man, "when Jerusalem was besieged, there was a man who, for seven days, went to and fro on the walls of the city, crying out, with a loud voice, Woe to Jerusalem! But on the seventh day he cried, "Woe to myself!' And in that moment he was struck by a large stone, which crushed him." Saying this, Cazotte bowed and retired. 66 This extraordinary story is told by La Harpe, who describes himself as a witness of the scene. Cazotte belonged to the metaphysical sect of Illuminates, who were then very popular in France, and pretended to have a knowledge of future events. It is not one of the least anomalies of that extraordinary time, that the same people, who crowned Voltaire and revered Diderot, should have shown an equal respect to Mesmer and St. Martin. Scepticism went hand in hand with superstition. Nor is the name of sects, which they gave to the Schools in their philosophy, less characteristic; it shows how far the "Philosophical Century' was from practical reasoning. There were a few who thought, and many who believed. There were many ideas, many plans, many projects. Each announced itself as a revelation,-as a doctrine which could not be amended or discussed, but must be accepted with implicit faith. New ideas were not sounded, but adopted, no matter how they jarred with others. People swore by authorities. To this circumstance do we ascribe the many errors and wild experiments of the time. After what we have said of Law, it need hardly astonish us that Necker too is a favourite of Louis Blanc. He does not indeed attempt to conceal the brilliant financial forgery of his notorious Compte rendu, in which Necker by a common trick of counting-house jugglery palmed an enormous deficit upon the nation under cover of a fictitious surplus of half-a-million of pounds. He sympathises likewise with the following remarks of the famous banker:-" The man who first put some paling round a piece of land and sowed his grains therein, has he by this act obtained an exclusive privilege, so that he and his descendants should possess this land to the end of time?" And he next asks the landed proprietors, "Is your title of possession registered in heaven? Did you bring the soil with you from some planet? What power have you which you do not hold from society ?"* These are the sentiments of a French Minister of State in 1774, and another French Minister in 1848 gives them his adhesion, complaining at the same time that the former does not go far enough. And the society of France, who idolised Necker and his work, while they obstinately refused to take one part of the burden under which the people groaned, upon their unloaded shoulders, pretended nevertheless to be shocked by the excesses of a Revolution, to the horrors of which they had amply contributed. For the excesses of gentlemanly cruelty were quite as revolting, though less glaring than the unbridled fury of the populace. The harvest of the year 1774 had been bad. The people began to suffer; their minds were open to that vague feeling of restlessness, which precedes Revolutions. Threatening rumours are afloat — they listen. A word, which causes them to tremble, the word Famine has been pronounced. Dijon became the scene of an insurrection. A mob surrounded the town-hall. Their cry was for bread. The commander of the town came out on the balcony, to address the populace. His words were few and simple; the Revolution furnished them with a commentary. He said, "Mes amis ! l'herbe commence à pousser. Allez paître!" He asked the famishing wretches to eat grass with the beasts of the field. The agitation spread. From town to town it proceeded towards Paris. Pontoise, Poissey, St. Germain, and lastly Versailles, rose in arms, and the 3rd of May, 1775, was fixed upon for an outbreak on the capital, when the rioters were at last dispersed. Two of the leaders were hanged on the Place de Grêve. An old man, who had seen the Revolution from beginning to end, told M. Blanc the story of this execution. The death of these two men left a painful impression. They suffered for the excesses of the panic, and their last cry, addressed to the People, was that they died for their cause. The Court could afford to joke on these occurrences, and the ladies wore caps “ à la revolte.” But the People were serious and gloomy. 66 * Vide Necker, Sur la Legislation et le Commerce des Grains. Part I. chap. 24. Our space does not allow us to follow the course of events, from the convocation of the National Assembly to the ultimate destruction of Feudalism on the memorable 4th of August, 1789, which concludes what M. Blanc calls the first act of the "Revolution Bourgeoise," and which occupies the latter half of his second volume. But at a later period we shall perhaps be at liberty to resume our report. The subject will then have received some new lights from the events which have drawn our attention to this work.XAVER XANTEN. DAY-DREAM ISLAND. A THOUSAND, yea, a thousand isles, Fair places, fresh as with the bloom Ah, yes! not yet hath vanish'd hence That gives to human innocence, A human Paradise! And not amidst these lovely fanes From sordid hopes, and selfish pains, Can aught more beautiful be known Than that delicious spot Where dwelt-a king on Nature's throne- A very king that Fairy wight, Of creatures, lovely to the sight, Ten thousand trees his courtiers were, And birds, that thro' the spicy air And myriad flow'rs of brightest dyes, The kid, the squirrel, and the roe, Did leap and scream, and murmur low 'Twas thus that pigmy Elf was king, It was, in sooth, a radiant home, The Ocean, clad in glassy sheen, The cocoa and the foodful palm, And bountiful banyan. The fig, the tamarind, the vine, The myrtle, deck'd in bloom of snow, Each lovely and each gracious thing The very sand upon the shore As that which tells the minutes o'er |