Journal; who, when Thamas Kouli Khan begins to make a noise in the world, proves that he is a boy from county Tipperary, one Thomas O'Callaghan.

The modern Germans were roused by this bold attempt to deprive the ancient Teutonic race of its supremacy; but, as usual, they reasoned by appealing to their imagination for facts, and by substituting one theory for another. Leibnitz was their champion; but it was reserved for Freret, (1714,) then merely 'élevé en titre de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres,' to demonstrate the fallacy of the advocates of the Gauls in his first dissertation, never followed by a second. Some of the positions in his essay excited the jealousy of the government. It is difficult to discover what was the precise cause of the offence; but it seems that the Germans had incorporated in their disquisitions certain invectives against the supposed pageant of an universal monarchy; and Freret's agreement in his results with them, may have been deemed a breach of his allegiance due to the Grand Monarque.' As far as questions so obscure are capable of demonstration, Freret proved that the Franks were a league of the German tribes of the Netherlands, probably the Sicambrians of Cæsar. The reading of the paper excited great discussions in the Academy des Inscriptions. A lettre de cachet transferred the young historian to pursue his studies in the Bastile; and, when released from his seclusion, he sought refuge in the safer territories of Greece, Asia Minor, and Assyria; and France was left to other hands.

The depression of the nation in the last years of the reign of Louis XIV., had created an obscure and yet earnest desire for the means of imparting new vigour to the body politic. Many began to deem that the traditions of the past would give lessons for the future. Fénélon, believing equally in the natural rights of man, and in the power of history,' (1689,) had wished to restore the States-general to their constitutional power. For this renovation, Conventions of Notables were to be the preliminary, as a transition from the past to the existing circumstances of the monarchy. Fénélon therefore planned, for the instruction of the Duke of Burgundy, what may be termed a general constitutional survey of the French Empire: we use this term advisedly with respect to the dominions united under the ancien régime. In 1695, circulars were addressed to the Intendants, requiring them to transmit reports or mémoires upon ancient policy and forms of government of the provinces united to the crown. These mémoires are now in manuscript in the royal library. It is said that the rédacteurs have in general slurred over the evidence of the institutions which limited the power of the crown; but, judging from the abstracts which are published, and

the

the extracts which we have seen, they seem, nevertheless, to contain important particulars of the practice of the constitutions (however impaired) of the Pays d'états; besides many archæological and statistical facts, of which it is probable that, in many cases, no other details are preserved. They provoked discussion and enquiry; but none of the learned of the age answered to the call; and the pen was taken up by an heraldic antiquary, a man of marriages and descents, of crests and quarterings, but who had studied hard, and was gifted with great clearness of intellect, the Count de Boulainvilliers. He began (1727) by an abridgement, or rather compression, of the mémoires of the intendants, accompanied by several historical treatises. This was followed or accompanied by his celebrated Histoire de l'Ancien Gouvernement de la France,' planned, as he informs us in his preface, to form a general introduction to the mémoires of the intendants-a history, not of wars and battles, but of the political destinies of the monarchy. Boulainvilliers is singularly neat and methodical as an historical analyst; and he was also a diligent and a conscientious enquirer. In his manner, there is a species of military frankness and disinvoltura which place his productions amongst the most lively and interesting of their class. He has all the good and pleasant qualities of an ancien gentilhomme; but then he is a gentilhomme every way, an aristocrat to the very marrow of his bones. The internal sentiment of this writer was grounded upon the American principle of the utter impossibility of communicating equal rights to different races;-a thing no more to be thought of than making horses charge on two legs, or dragoons gallop on four. Depuis la conquête, les Français originaires ont été les véritables nobles, et les seuls capables de l'être.' The Franks, or the real noblesse,' are his whites: all the rest, the ennobled, the tiers 'état,' the roturiers,' are his coloured men, transmitting the stain, the lick 'of the tar brush,' from generation to generation, from ever to ever. According to his views, the ruin of the ancient constitution was effected by the attacks made upon the nobility in front and in rear-by the enfranchisement of the commons and the usurpation of the crown.

'Deux grands événements arrivés dans la monarchie ont amené la ruine graduelle de cet ordre de choses. Le premier fut l'affranchissement des serfs ou gens de main-morte, dont toute la France était peuplée, tant dans les villes que dans les campagnes, et qui étaient, ou les Gaulois d'origine assujettis par la conquête, ou les malheureux que différents accidents avaient réduits en servitude. Le second fut le progrès par lequel ces serfs s'élevèrent, contre tout droit, à la condition de leurs anciens maîtres. Depuis six cents ans, les roturiers esclaves, d'abord affranchis, puis anoblis par les rois, ont usurpé les emplois et les dignités de l'état,

tandis que la noblesse, héritière des priviléges de la conquête, les perdait un à un et allait se dégradant de siècle en siècle.

Tous les rois de la troisième race ont voulu son abaissement, et travaillé, comme sur un plan formé d'avance à la rúine des lois primitives et de l'ancienne constitution de l'état ; ce fut pour eux une idée commune d'anéantir les grands seigneurs, de subjuguer la nation, de rendre leur autorité absolue et le gouvernement despotique. Philippe-Auguste commença la destruction de la police des fiefs et des droits originels du baronnage; Philippe-le-Bel poursuivit ce projet par la ruse et par la violence; Louis XI. l'avança près de son terme. Leur postérité est parvenue au but qu'ils s'étaient proposé; mais, pour l'atteindre pleinement, l'administration du Cardinal de Richelieu et le règne de Louis XIV ont plus fait, en un demi-siècle, que toutes les entreprises des rois antérieurs n'avaient pu faire en douze cents ans." *

In spite of his doctrine of the unalienable prerogatives of the descendants of the first conquerors, Boulainvilliers wrote under a strong parliamentary feeling. He admired and venerated the system which calls each rank and order to co-operate in the government of the state. He never condescends to praise England; still it is evident that the example of England was always before him. Much of his stern theoretic disdain of the tiers-état is humanized when he beholds them in their place in the States-general of the realm; and, like the many honest intolerants who draw logical conclusions from moral premises, but in whom the right reasoning of the head is happily set wrong by the inconsistency of the heart, he would have shrunk from the realization of his own syllogisms. What he most fully yields to, is the dislike which he entertains to the jurists. Between them and the old noblesse there existed, to the last, a bitter feud. It is the strong grasp of order and reason, which has always rendered the ascendency of the law so distrustful to the proud nobility and the prouder rabble.

Boulainvilliers was perhaps the first who clearly made known the antagonism of the two races; and, as an historical analysis, his positions must always remain unshaken; but he failed morally, as all do who push a theory to extremes. The tone gave more offence than the matter; and the tiers-état soon found an energetic champion for their liberties. This was the Abbé Dubos, the son of a tradesman of Beauvais, a worthy burgess and échevin of the town; and whose talents, with perhaps as small a portion of court intrigue as was compatible

* Histoire de l'Ancien Gouvernement de la France, etc., t. i. p. 291., t. iii. p. 135.

† Histoire Critique de l'Etablissement de la Monarchie Française dans les Gaules, (1734.)

with any species of advancement, had raised him to the very honourable situation of perpetual secretary of the Academy. With few writers has Fame dealt more unfairly. For forty years and more, Dubos enjoyed the most commanding reputation; and now, who quotes his name? Probably there is no one of our readers who has not read Montesquieu, or one who has read Dubos; and whoever is in this predicament, considers the latter as nothing but a superficial visionary. But the work of Dubos, the production of a practical diplomatist, keen, subtle, and deeply learned, is the developement of palpable fallacy, incorporated by him with an immutable historical truth. First, as to the fallacy, it lies in the supposition, that the first settlement effected by the Franks in Gaul, was the result of a voluntary alliance with the Roman or Romanized inhabitants, treating upon equal terms, and rejoicing in each other's aid and friendship. L'époque de l'établissement des Francs sur les bords du Rhin est celle du premier et du principal traité d'alliance entre ce peuple et les Romains. Dès lors les deux nations furent unies par une amitié constante, à peu près de la même manière que la France et la Suisse, depuis le règne de Louis XI. Les Romains ne déclarèrent jamais la guerre toute la nation des Francs, et la masse de celle-ci prit souvent les armes en faveur de l'empire contre celle de ses propres tribus qui violait la paix jurée. Il était de l'interêt des Romains d'être constamment alliés des Francs, parcé que ces derniers mettaient la frontière de l'empire à couvert de l'invasion des autres Barbares; c'est pour cela qu'à Rome on comblait d'honneurs et de dignités les chefs de la nation Franque. Les anciens traités d'alli. ance furent renouvelés au commencement du cinquième siècle par Stilicon, au nom de l'empereur Honorius, vers 450, par Aétius, au nom de Valentinien III., et vers 460, par Aegidius, pour les Gallo-Romains, alors séparés de l'Italie, à cause de leur aversion contre la tyrannie de Ricimer. Childéric, roi des Francs, reçut de l'empereur Anthémius le titre et l'autorité de maître de la milice des Gaules; son fils Clovis obtint la même faveur après son avénement, et il cumula cette dignité Romaine avec le titre de roi de sa nation. En l'année 509, il fut fait consul par l'empereur Anastase, et cette nouvelle dignité lui donna dans les affaires civiles le même pouvoir qu'il avait déjà dans les affaires de la guerre ; il devint empereur de fait pour les Gaulois, protecteur et chef de tous les citoyens Romains établis dans la Gaule, lieutenant et soldat de l'empire contre les Goths et les Burgondes. Vers l'année 540, ses deux fils Childebert et Clotaire, et Théodebert, son petit-fils, obtinrent, par une > cession authentique de l'empereur Justinien, la pleine souveraineté de toutes les Gaules.'-(Thierry, Considérations, t. i. 86, 87.)

The proof of the theory from which he deduces the primitive equality of the noblesse and the tiers-état, occupies what Montesquieu calls trois mortels volumes.' But with all their length, they are any thing rather than tedious-exhibiting, as they do, a remarkable combination of literary and forensic talent; for in fact the Abbé's work is a plaidoyer on behalf of his clients, executed

with profound erudition. As an argument, the book fails from its too manifest art: to use the colloquial phrase, it is overdone. Dubos destroys the dignity of his truths by their dexterous combination with delusions. He gains the victory without producing conviction; you know you are beat, but you do not know whether it is by strength or by stratagem: you are entrapped into admissions by a hint, and after staggering you on some collateral point by a quotation which is just short of the mark, he overwhelms you by another which is nothing to the purpose. All this is parodied admirably, though not quite fairly, by Montesquieu, in the passage in which he engages to prove, by reasoning à la Dubos, that Persia never was conquered by the Greeks:- D'abord je parlerais des traités que quelques unes de leurs villes firent avec les Perses: je parlerais des Grecs qui furent à la solde des Perses, comme les Francs furent à la solde des Romains. Que si Alexandre entra dans le pays des Perses, assiégea, prit, et 'détruisit la ville de Tyr, c'était une affaire particulière comme 'celle de Syagrius. Mais voyez comment le pontife des Juifs 'vient au-devant de lui: écoutez l'oracle de Jupiter Ammon: ressouvenez-vous comment il avait été prédit à Gordium voyez comment toutes les villes courent, pour ainsi dire, au' devant de lui, comment les satrapes et les grands arrivent en foule. Il s'habille à la manière des Perses; c'est la robe con'sulaire de Clovis. Darius ne lui offrit-il pas la moitié de son 6 royaume ? Darius n'est-il pas assassiné comme un tyran? La 'mère et la femme de Darius ne pleurent-elles pas la mort d'Alexandre? Quinte-Curce, Arrien, Plutarque, étaient-ils contem'porains d'Alexandre? L'imprimerie ne nous a-t-elle pas donné des lumières qui manquaient à ces auteurs? Voilà l'Histoire 'de l'Etablissement de la Monarchie Française dans les Gaules.' * But with all his mistakes and sophisms, or rather in spite of them, Dubos dispelled, and for ever, the thick clouds which concealed the true form of medieval history; whilst Montesquieu, floating on the surface of historical enquiry, has scarcely left a page which really advances historical knowledge. Ďubos discovered the great truth of the continuance of the Roman people, the Roman institutions, all the identity of ancient Roman society, subsisting among the barbarians and beneath their domination; and surviving until the departing empire became the basis of the medieval states ;-a truth which, since developed with greater force and clearness by Savigny, Guizot, and Thierry, and by some in our own country,

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