proprietors of national domains, reassured by the Charte, did not conceal from themselves that the invasion of the emperor, by bringing back a second restoration, would bring it back perhaps irritated and revengeful, and their goods be the ransom of the re-conquered country. The Orleanist party, as yet in the background, but full of foresight, were irritated at a second empire being interposed between them and their ambition. The liberals and republicans, as yet making common cause, lost, with a feeble restoration, full of future concessions, the hope of constituting representative liberty, or of founding one day a durable republic, when the people should have exercised themselves for sovereignty under the gentle tuition of a wise and aged king. The ultra-royalists alone rejoiced in the madness of their confidence.'-Ib. pp. 86, 87.

Of the movements and intrigues in Paris, for Napoleon, for the king, and for the Duke of Orleans, our author gives an interesting account. Soult, Ney, and Benjamin Constant were loudest against the usurper, while the Chamber of Deputies acted with manly vigour and patriotism. As a general rule, Paris was unanimous against Bonaparte. But he had taken Lyons without a struggle; armies melted away at his name and increased his force. He was already everywhere saluted as the reigning sovereign. At Lyons he issued decrees restoring all his own officials, expelling all emigrants, restoring the tricoloured flag, the imperial guard, confiscating the property of Bourbons and Bourbonists, and dissolving the Chamber of Deputies, Peers, and the Charter. Ney soon joined him with his army, and then he was at Fontainbleau. Meanwhile, before the great phantom of the empire, the monarchy had fled. General Excelmans, at the head of a large force of half-pay officers, joined by a portion of the masses, declared for Napoleon and took possession of the Tuileries, where the emperor arrived in the middle of the night:

'He was escorted by some officers, by some brave soldiers belonging to the different regiments he had met, and by a hundred of his Poles from Elbe, true Mamelukes of the North devoted to his worship, whose uniform, physiognomy, voice, and gesture communicated, as he went along, that enthusiasm, at the same time warlike and servile, by which they were animated towards him. His generals and familiers, the most eager to find again a master, to become under him masters of the empire, went on horseback to meet him. They surrounded his travelling-carriage, at the back of which they caught sight of him, pale and feverish, by the light of torches brandished by cavaliers before the horses. He entered Paris as he would a bivouac after a battle. Profound silence and deep solitude reigned in the streets, on the Boulevards, and on the quays, which he followed to reach the bridge of Louis XVI., the avenue of his palace. At the extremity of the bridge on the quay of the Tuileries, some groups of people, who had waited for him from dawn, saluted his carriage by a few cries, which were not echoed on either bank. The carriage disappeared at a

gallop under the vault of the gallery of the Louvre, which leads from the quay to the court, and stopped before the steps of the Pavilion of Flora. There he found himself suddenly in the midst of his people, the people of his camp and of his court. The three or four hundred soldiers of all arms, of all grades, generals, officers, subalterns, privates, spread through the courts, and panting with impatience, had scarcely heard the rolling of his carriage, before they threw themselves at the head of the horses, at the door, under the wheels, like Indian idolaters under the wheels of their idol, and opening the carriage with the violence of fanaticism, they bore their emperor in their arms, and carried him, by the light of torches, and with cries of delirium and phrenzy, from step to step, from landing to landing, from hall to hall, unto the very cabinet and bedchamber of Louis XVIII., where all marked the precipitation of a nocturnal departure, and where the tears of the king and his servants had not had time to dry upon the farewell proclamation. In the midst of this intoxication, all concentrated in a small body of familiers interested in this triumph, and in the interior of his apartments, Napoleon and his companions of the Island of Elba could not keep from a feeling of sadness and disappointment on seeing the solitude and silence of the capital. Was it worth while to have traversed the sea and France, precipitated his march, raised an army, affronted Europe, to be received by the coldness and terror of the people, by isolation and, by night.'-Ib. pp. 191-193.

The historian then adds a few lines which are evidently meant as much for Louis Napoleon Bonaparte as for his uncle:-: But if the people did not protest by civic opposition, it protested in general, by its grief and by its distance. Never did history witness more audacity in the usurpation of a throne," more base submission of a nation to an army. France lost that day something of its character, the majesty of its law, the liberty of its respect. Military despotism substituted itself for opinion. The pretorians played with a people. The lower empire of Rome witnessed amongst the Gauls one of those scenes which humiliate human nature and degrade history.'-pp. 194, 195.

Lamartine proceeds to show that the French people were only to be conciliated by liberty. The sole policy that could end successfully was a revolutionary policy, capable of arousing the sympathies of the nation. Napoleon had to pretend a leaning to republicanism in order to live. He relied on Fouché, talked over Benjamin Constant, who had threatened so much, promised liberty of the press, representation, and succeeded in putting down every insurrectionary movement, even in La Vendée. The episode of the Duchess d'Angoulême at Bordeaux is touching, eloquent, powerful. It is one of the writer's most exquisite morceaux. It will be read apart, like the murder of the Duke D'Enghien, as a splendid epic. At Bordeaux, as elsewhere, the people, believing in constitutional liberty and peace with the

Bourbons, gave way with difficulty to the military. The visit of the duchess to the barracks, and her failure, is admirably told.

All was settled in France when once the Duke and Duchess d'Angoulême had yielded, but Europe was now to decide her future fate. Napoleon from the day of his landing from Elba had talked of peace; he had now to mask his intentions, to prepare for war, while simulating peace. The congress of Vienna was still sitting-that immense congress of emperors, kings, generals, and diplomatists, who had undertaken to lay down permanently the political map of Europe, in the immediate presence of a hundred thousand foreigners, and with the whole civilized world looking on. Alexander, his wife Eliza beth, his brother the Duke Constantine, Nesselrode, Stakelberg, and Capo d'Istria his counsellors, Pozzo de Borgo, a Corsican, and hater of Napoleon; the king of Prussia, hostile to Napoleon as the murderer of his wife, with his brothers William and Augustus; the prince of Hardenberg and the baron de Humboldt; the king of Denmark, the king of Bavaria, the king of Wurtemberg, the king of Saxony; all the sovereign princes of the North and of Italy; Lord Castlereagh, Wellington, Blucher, Talleyrand, and the emperor of Austria, with Eugene Beauharnais. Such were the men who were astounded at the news of the resurrection of the Empire. The sovereigns were furious:'A European war against France, which had executed Louis XVI. and twice crowned Napoleon, was the first cry of the sovereigns and their advisers. Its immediate conquest before the nation had time to furnish new armies to Napoleon, its division afterwards, so that the members of this great body might never join again to upheave the weight of the worldsuch were the half-spoken resolutions. The Bourbons had showed themselves incapable of reigning; the sovereigns must, therefore, abandon them to their fate, and destroy an empire of which they could neither guarantee the obedience at home nor limit the ambition without.'-pp. 312, 313.

The Bourbons were thus to be abandoned, France was condemned. Talleyrand, however, saved her for his own sake, because without France he was nothing.

The narrative in which Lamartine tells how Talleyrand, after vast exertions, saved the desperate cause of the Bourbons, is powerful and eloquent. It is history passionately related. He accomplished thus the fate of Napoleon. The partition of France would have broken up the congress, and ensured the victory of the usurper, who would have had every Frenchman with him. War was in consequence declared in the name of the Bourbons against Bonaparte, who feigned to disbelieve in hosti

lities to the last moment. But all were against him, even his wife, who would not receive his communications. After various other efforts, Napoleon tried an autograph letter to all the sovereigns-in vain. He tried to corrupt Talleyrand-in vain. To obtain possession of his son-in vain. Meanwhile Fouché was betraying him. Napoleon knew it, but was afraid to show his resentment. He put off the day of action as long as possible, but an accident set Europe on fire.

Murat, son of a simple cultivator at Bastide, of Spanish race, powerful, brave, chivalrous, heroic, entered the army at fifteen. For five years he was a common soldier. But war came, and in 1792 his hopes were realized. At the end of the year he was an officer. A few years and he was aid-de-camp to Bonaparte at Milan

Who bestowed on him in friendship all that young Murat gave him in admiration and devotion, attached him to his fortune, took him to Egypt, witnessed his cavalry charges against the Mamelukes, understood the communicative electricity which his valour inspired in the troops, saw in him the onward impulse and enthusiasm of the army, brought him back to France where he came to dazzle and enslave the Directory, and confided to him the part of audacity and armed action at St. Cloud, on the 18th Brumaire. All knew how Murat, left by Bonaparte with his grenadiers at the door of the orangery while Bonaparte entered the Council of Five Hundred to apostrophize and dissolve, received in his arms Bonaparte rejected, disconcerted, almost fainting, put him again on horseback, gave back audacity to his resolutions, urged forward his soldiers, concealed his uneasiness, reproved his retreat, and consummated his fortune and his crime by dispersing with his bayonets the disarmed representatives.'pp. 365-367.

Murat loved Caroline Bonaparte. He dared not ask for her. Napoleon gave her to him. The two families were henceforth one. After conquering Naples, Murat became governor of Paris, and paved the way to the empire by his grandeur. But to his eternal honour be it said, he tried to save the Duke D'Enghien, and with Caroline wept his death. After the establishment of the empire he was great admiral, and took the command of the cavalry. He became sovereign of the grand duchy of Berg, then conquered Spain with the promise of being its king, but received in exchange the kingdom of Naples :

'Murat deceived, dissatisfied, in despair at having conquered and covered with blood Spain for another, conceived a profound resentment for a favour which he looked upon as an outrage. He fell ill of that languor which follows disappointed ambition. He refused to see the emperor, shut himself up in bitter solitude, and at last received the throne of Naples, not as a kingdom but as an insult from his benefactor. He

took possession of it in 1808, drove out the English from the island of Caprea, whence their flag offended his eyes in his palace, dazzled his people by his glory, attached them to him by his grace, and governed them with a wisdom and a goodness which caused him to be adored in Italy. His court brilliant with the luxury of arms, of festivities, of pleasures, was one continued intoxication of war, ambition, and love.'-p. 372.

Lamartine does credit to the memory of a man, whose son is but a vulgar servant of the ambition of Louis Napoleon:-' A crown took nothing from his intrepidity. He was still the first cavalier of the empire; the battle roused him. But the gentleness of his heart made him dislike blood. What he wanted at the head of his squadrons was not the death of his enemies, it was their flight, and victory. His bravery was a thunder-cloud which dispersed everything.'-p. 373.

Murat boasted that he had never killed a man. During the disastrous and fatal campaign of Moscow he was Napoleon's right hand, commanding his hundred and fifty thousand cavalry. He was his friend and companion, soon, however, to be denounced, because, failing to rally the fugitives of the great army, he rejoined his wife and children at Naples. His thought now was to save his kingdom, and until the first occupation of Paris, with one or two moments of indecision, he remained aloof from Napoleon, even at the last confederacy against him. But this was but the act of the politician, the man remained still attached to his brother-in-law.

'A courier rejoined him on the 13th April, 1814, at twelve o'clock, under the walls of Plazentia. He was walking at this moment with General Coletta in the garden of a country house, near the town where he had established his head quarters. He opened his soul full of anxiety, of contradictory designs and remorse to General Coletta, a man of good counsel, of remarkable talent and resolution, but a Neapolitan attached above all to his country. Murat opened the letter brought by the courier, read it in silence, turned pale, moved away from Coletta, stepped here and there without knowing where he went, like a man mortally wounded, raised his hands to heaven, looked down at the earth, then coming back to Coletta and some other generals of his suite, who had come up astounded at his attitude, he announced to them the taking of Paris, the dethronement and captivity of Napoleon at Fontainebleau, the irremediable fall of the empire, and he wept. The enemy, the despot, the tyrant, had disappeared from before his eyes; in Bonaparte he now only saw the friend falling at last under the blows of fortune, and falling believing him faithless, and seeing him among his enemies.'-pp. 392, 393.

Despite the secret conventions between Murat and the allied sovereigns, it was determined to dethrone the upstart king. Murat knew it, and when the plan of a return from Elba was opened to him, he received the news with delight. He heard of