were ever more eloquent on any subject than Moreau when he spoke of his favourite art of war; of his own military history or that of others; it was impossible to be more patient of contradiction or dullness, and it will be confessed by those who had the good fortune to eat at the same board with him, that he was often exposed to lectures on war not even as reasona ble as the harangue of the Greek Sophist to Hannibal, and which were very differently borne-that is, with the most benignant, exemplary complaisance. On all subjects he displayed strong, sound, sagacious sense; the manliest candor; and, in discoursing of his compeers or enemies abroad, an entire superiority to jealousies and resentments of any description. The simplicity of his tastes and habits, particularly while at home on his farm, the easy access to him, the communicative fellowship enjoyed by all who sought his acquaintance, were matter of unceasing surprise to those who could not well dissociate, in their mistaken prejudice, European greatness from a certain haughty reserve, and sententious austerity of demeanor. He often furnished us with an opportunity of repeating what Tacitus so beautifully says of Agricola, in allusion to similar merits. Adeo ut plerique, quibus magnos viros per ambitionem estimari mos est, viso aspecto que Agricolâ, quærerent famam, pauci interpretarentur. If we were disposed to indulge in a parallel, the character and fate of Agricola as delineated by Tacitus would furnish some striking points of similitude. Moreau stood towards Bonaparte as Agricola with Domitian. The reception which the Roman tyrant gave VOL. I. to Agricola on the return of the latter from his career of glorious conquest in Britain, was precisely that which Moreau, as we have heard him relate-had from Bonaparte on their first meeting after the creation of the consular government. "Domitian," says Tacitus, "received Agricola with a cold salute, and without uttering a word, left the conqueror to mix with the servile creatures of the court." The consciousness of obligation, as well as the jealousy of an equal military renown, awakened the implacable hate of Bonaparte. He knew that, on his arrival from Egypt he had been designated for the post of first consul by Moreau himself, whom the leaders of the conspiracy against the directorial government had primarily wished to fix in the station, and who, though he never prized the character of Bonaparte, by no means suspected that he would have either the inclination or ability to give to France her subsequent aspect. He courted the enjoyments of private life, and thought the dispositions and habits of the other, better fitted to the salutary task of crushing the factions by which France was distracted. He relied, with the credulity proper to a generous nature, upon the constant professions of all around him and of Bonaparte himself, for the establishment of a government of checks and balances. "The ground of the hostile proceedings against Agricola," continues Tacitus," was neither a crime against the state, nor even an injury done to any individual. His danger rose from a different source; from the heart of a chief who felt an inward antipathy to every virtue; from the real glory of the man; from the lustre of his 2 T name." We have here the clue to In the European league of 1813 the persecution of Moreau. There against the universal dominion of was, in addition, no other of the those armies, he thought he saw military leaders whose profession- the means of the emancipation of al reputation was seconded, as in France All his earnest enquiries the case of Moreau, by a great and meditations about her internal personal popularity, by known condition, conducted him irresistimoderation, benevolence, and sin- bly to the conclusion that neither gleness of character, so as to she nor Europe could enjoy make him the natural refuge of tranquillity but by the restoration the nation from the wild tyranny, of the Bourbons. He was far from which was about to be established. entertaining a predilection for We can pronounce with confi- them or their cause on any other dence, from direct observation, ground. When he consented to that there never existed a more lend his aid to the re-establishment ardent, thorough patriot than Mo- of that family, he made a sacrifice reau; all his aspirations were for of personal feelings and inclinathe liberation and prosperity of tions;-when he consented to apFrance. While there, he was not, pear among the allies at all, in opas Tacitus remarks of Agricola-position to French troops, it was "one of that class of patriots who conceive, that by a contumacious spirit, they show their zeal for liberty, and by rashness, without any real advantage, provoke danger or court death." But he would have died cheerfully, have made any effort, have braved any peril, could he have reasonably hoped to effect thereby any permanent national good. At no time, in the interval between the elevation of Bonaparte and his banishment, did circumstances allow him to entertain this expectation. During his exile, he was incessantly on the watch, though he did not conspire, for an opportunity of devoting himself to the rescue of France from military despotism. His martial career had not blunted in him the keen relish and discriminating judgment of liberty which had at first propelled him to the field. He estimated justly and detested cordially the empire of the sword. He understood and reprobated the spirit which animated most of his great colleagues in arms, and which they had infused into the French troops. an act of the most magnanimous self-immolation. His heart was rent asunder at the bare possibility of the situation in which he found himself at Leipsic, as the antagonist of a French army. We have seen him shed tears over the fate of his country, but a little time previous to his embarkation for Europe; and witnessed, too plainly to doubt for a moment the sublime purity of his motives,the agony which he suffered from the conviction, that nothing but the overthrow of the French armies could preserve France and Europe from permanent subjection to the worst of tyrannies. He accepted the invitation of the allies to join their standard, and left the United States, under an impression that he would be able to form, out of the multitude of French prisoners confined in Russia, a national French army, which, with him at their head, would proclaim a constitutional monarch -a Bourbon, and by their example, produce a general defection among the followers of Bonaparte. He trusted that his appear ance with such a force on the borders of France would be sufficient to dissolve the imperial despotism, and preserve the soil which he may be said to have worshipped, from the foot of the foreign invader. Had it not pleased Providence to allow him to be cut off at the battle of Leipsic, such might, and probably would, have been the result. Had he survived, France would, in all likelihood, have been spared not only the first sanguinary struggle within her bosom, but the re-appearance of Bonaparte, the battle of Waterloo, and its fatal quences. Moreau would have "lived down the judgments of ignorance and the calumnies of malice." France would have acknowledged him as her saviour and father; as the true hero of her military annals,-superior to Bonaparte in the science of war-infinitely so in genuine courage, that which faces undaunted every form of adversity, and for which even the most specious obloquy is but an incitement in the pursuit of a great patriotic end. conse We cannot leave the subject of this great martyr in the cause of his country, without first quoting, in abridgment, from the writings of eminent Frenchmen, opinions concerning the French armies, precisely such as those we have heard him express, and which are sufficient,-if the previous tenor of his life be not enough to silence all reproach, for the justification of a much stronger part than he proposed to act when he set sail from the United States. "The army," says Pichon in his able pamphlet,*" has been indus * France under the domination of Bonaparte. triously fashioned to become a tool of despotism and a stranger to national feeling. I am not a Frenchman,' said one day in a drawing-room a general of note, I am but the chief of a body of armed men, and I would burn Paris, if the emperor ordered me to do it.' The army was the only part of the nation which could, by means of a patriotic concert and energetic language on the part of its chiefs, arrest the course of those oppressions of which it was the blind instrument. From the moment that the nation lost all share in the formation, the levy, and the payment of the troops, there no longer existed a national army. The creation of an imperial guard, which alone constituted a chosen band of near sixty thousand men distinguished by the most invidious preferences, contributed to give the army a completely pretorian character. It is difficult to conceive to what a pitch espionage, delation, and favouritism were carried in the political government of the army:-every thing in its domestic management was arbitrary and violent, and calculated to infuse a violent and arbitrary temper. The spirit of the army, already vitiated by Bonaparte when general in chief in Italy, was gradually brought to the degree of corruption which we witnessed. There was a general sympathy and collusion in the system of spoliation and pillage officially announced as the real end of the war. After the rupture of the treaty of Amiens, the pillage of England was formally promised the troops. In the midst of the almost universal cupidity, and obsequiousness to Bonaparte's designs, Duroc might well sneer at the noble reply which Moreau made, when he received through him, the offer of a command in the expedition against England." "I see, said Moreau, with deep chagrin, that pains are taken to pervert daily more and more that noble spirit which animated the army in the outset of our revolution, and of which the springs were a passion for glory, love of country, and the enthusiasm of liberty. Is it expected to revive this spirit by proclamations which invite the army only to the abuse of victory?" The three wars of Germany and the war of Spain consummated that depravation which Moreau apprehended. The colossal fortunes, the dotations formed out of contributions levied on cities, and states, or the spoliation of churches and palaces, the habits of luxury and pomp, and absolute command, created an insatiable appetite for plunder, and extinguished all natural sentiment, and independence of character in the military." "I cannot speak of the department of war and the army without being led to the most sorrowful reflexions. The French have for twenty years astonished all Europe by their courage. We have seen generals, now the glory of our armies, rise from the ranks; and yet, with so much bravery in the camp, did there exist in the cabinet a cowardice such as the slavery from which we have just emerged, necessarily implies. The French have shown that they can brave death, but not obscurity and poverty. They have acted, in the field, under a strong sentiment of honour and fidelity; in the cabinet, they have been cowards, dissemblers, traitors to conscience and duty. The general officers have never recollected, when returned to Paris, that they were citizens; that they had a right to participate in public discussions; to consult public opinion, to support it, if necessary, with the weight of their character and authority. They thought only of enjoying their empty honours and immense riches; they forgot, that they had, even with a view to their own security, a country to defend, legal guarantees and constitutions to require. Let us confess, however reluctantly, that, since Pichegru and Moreau, the civil mind seems to have become extinct among them. They allowed themselves to be insulated, segregated from the nation, and set in array, as it were, against themselves, chained down, intimidated by the vilest espionage. What an enigma will not this seem to our descendants. I repeat that while we superabounded in the courage of the field, there was a total want of civil courage." Thus far M. Pichon, than whom and we speak again from a close personal acquaintance there does not, we believe, exist a truer Frenchman; one more zealous for his country's honour, or less disposed to show her character to disadvantage in any the smallest particular, Let us listen, however, to another authority as little to be suspected. M. Michaud, a member of the French institute and a zealous Frenchman, of the first order of intellect, holds the following language on the subject of the French military. "It was, above all, in the army that the spirit of cupidity and domination, the avidity to follow the example and share the high fortune of Bonaparte, displayed themselves. From the common soldier up to the ge *See his eloquent pamphlet-Histoire des Quinze Semaines twentieth edition. Paris, 1815. ing to him alone for honours and wealth, lost sight of country, and identified all glory with his elevation. When on the accession of Louis XVIII. the French people hailed the new monarch with joy, the army sympathized in none of their hopes or emotions; scowled upon the national compact, and only thought of bringing back him who would restore to it the fatal prerogatives of war and victory. On the return of Bonaparte, the pride and pretensions of the military exceeded all measure; the people were summoned to rise in defence of what they the military called their glory; every spot over which the imperial eagles waved, seemed to belong to the army; France was, in fact, treated like a conquered country by those who boasted of protecting the independence of her territory!" neral, each had cravings which war alone could satisfy. To content all the desires cherished in the army the world must have been for a long time in convulsion. The soldiers were incessantly told that they were the saviours of France; they finished by believing that France had not treasures great enough to repay their services. They heard so much of their glory, had it so often repeated in every shape that the nation was nothing without them; they were saluted with such lofty encomiums, that their pride knew no bounds, and inspired them with sovereign contempt for all that was not military. The citizen was as nothing in the presence of the soldier. It was no longer the army that was to sacrifice itself for the preservation of the people; but the people for that of the army. In the first years of our political troubles, the French armies, under such leaders as Moreau and Pichegru, were satisfied with the glory of their exploits; they abstained, while they emulously defended our soil, from mingling in the factions which contended for power. At length when the leaders of the dominant factions could no The copious extracts which we longer reign by means of the po- have already made from this work, pulace, they called in the bayonet -on Arabian and Italian literato their aid. The 13th Vendémaire ture, may enable the reader to -the convention was shielded by form some judgment of the exethe bayonet from the vengeance cution of the whole. It is, indeed, of the people; the 18th Fructidor a delightful repast throughout. -the cause of the directory tri- We do not know that we have umphed in opposition to the na- ever experienced greater pleasure tional will by means of the same than in perusing these four voauxiliary, commanded by Bona- lumes of M. Sismondi, expecially parte. He effected the revolution that part of them which treats of of the 18th Brumaire, with his Spanish literature. They convey grenadiers, and in order to make much curious information historithe army completely his own, cal as well as bibliographical, and studiously fomented the vices are regulated by the maxims of which stifle the fire of patriotism sound criticism. The literatures of in such bodies. His legions em- the Provençale language, of the ployed in distant conquests, look-Italian, the Spanish, and the Por De la litterature du Midi de |