of the two great branches of the Bourbon family defeated a measure which they imagined could only be aimed at themselves.

At this time there was living in London, depending on the charity of a female companion not his wife, the man who is now called "the man of the age." Debts forced him to inhabit that obscure quarter of the great metropolis which is given up to needy Frenchmen, and known as Leicester Square. On the few occasions when he was seen in the society which the elegant D'Orsay and Lady Blessington assembled at Gore House, he is described as sitting apart, wrapt in that apathy which, whilst it veils the dreams of Genius, often, likewise, clouds the feeble intellect of a fool. The first public record we find of his doings in London, is his appearing as a candidate for membership in the Special Police of the county of Middlesex; and, in the next place, we read that, at a tournament given by Lord Eglintoun, this child of destiny amused the noble company by performing on his knees a tilting match against one of the hereditary legislators of England. At this time he made a furtive visit to France, but, finding that the soldier on guard at the gate of the town he first entered, had induced his wife to sport the musket and give the countersign, whilst her lord was discussing, in a neighboring tavern, the advantages of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, he went back to his seclusion, feeling that his hour had not yet come; and, when conscious that the voice of destiny demanded his presence in France, it was only by funds raised by his female friend upon the trinkets that had been received as tributes to her charms, that he was able to obtain that £1,000 which had been refused him by the chief of a great commercial house; and to effect a landing on that soil which was to bear his impress for ever. His highest aspirations were to be President of the Republic, and all parties seconded him, as one who would fill the vacant seat till permanent arrangements could be made for bringing in their own candidate. When he had

attained the President's office a rcekless habit of expenditure soon brought him in debt for more than he could ever

pay, whilst the legislative body, disgusted at his incapacity and want of self-respect, were on the point of depriving him of his office. The Princess Mathilda, his fair cousin, observed that he must choose between a prison and a coup d'état. With instruments as unscrupulous as himself he chose the latter. $5,000,000 were taken, in gold, from the Bank of France, and divided amongst a soldiery brutalized by wine and excited by hopes of plunder, and a pretended revolution was discovered. The members of the legislative corps were arrested in their peaceful beds and hurried off, they knew not whither; the soldiers fired on the unoffending people, and the Empire received the baptism of blood.

That after the overthrow of all who opposed him he should settle into the quietude of a surfeited hyena, seems, in the eyes of that large portion of the community who regard success as the criterion of merit, as entitling him to that respect which is due to a great and good man. Let us contrast with this picture the life of the able writer and accomplished gentleman whom he is striving to destroy.

Charles Forbes, Count de Montalembert, was born in London on the 10th of March, 1810. He is the representative of an old family of Poitou, and his father was a peer of France, and ambassador at Stockholm from the court of Charles X. His mother was an Englishwoman. At the outset of his career he was an advocate of the union of Catholicism and democracy, of which Lamennais was the apostle, and was one of the editors of a journal founded to advocate that union, called L'Avenir. He subsequently commenced a sort of crusade against the University, and opened in April, 1831, in conjunction with MM. de Coux and Lacordaire, a school called the Ecole Libre. His opposition to the existing government brought him at last before the Police Correctionelle, but during the process his father died, and as M. de Montalembert then became a peer of France he claimed the right of being tried by the Upper Chamber, by which he was condemned to a fine of 100f. His defence pronounced before the Chamber may be considered as the beginning of his political career, but he was prevented, by his not having

attained the legal age of thirty, from taking his seat until 1840.

The condemnation of Lamennais by the Pope greatly increased the severity of M. de Montalembert's orthodoxy, and, both by writing and speaking, he made himself henceforward known as the great champion of Catholicism. He published his famous Life of Elizabeth of Hungary in 1836. In 1842 he strongly opposed the educational measure of M. Villemain, and in the following year he published his Catholic Manifesto. He married in 1843 the daughter of a Belgian Minister, Mademoiselle de Merode, and after a short absence from France he returned to deliver in the Chamber of Peers his three celebrated speeches on the liberty of the Church, the liberty of education, and the liberty of the monastic orders. In 1847 he established a religious association to work in favor of the Sonderbund. He also made himself notorious for the active part he took on behalf of oppressed nationalities, and on the 10th of Feb., 1848, he had a solemn funeral service celebrated at Notre Dame to the memory of O'Connell.

After the establishment of the Republic M. de Montalembert was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly, and there acted sometimes with one and sometimes with another of the parties that divided the Assembly. He was opposed to the measure for again requiring journals to furnish security, to the continuance of the state of siege, and to the admission of Louis Bonaparte. But at the end of the session he supported M. Dufaure in a Bill for the restriction of the press, and was loud in his approval of the French expedition to Rome. He was re-elected by the department of Doubs for the Legislative Assembly. He there distinguished himself principally by the part he took in preparing the law to restrain the suffrage within narrower limits, by his frequent encounters with M. Victor Hugo, his only rival in oratory, and by his defence of the President. When the coup-d'état came he protested strongly against the imprisonment of the Deputies; but he, nevertheless, was named a member of the Consultative Commission, a distinction he declined, and was elected, in 1852, into the Corps Legislatif. As a French

biographer laconically, but happily, expresses it, "il y representait presque seul l'Opposition."

At the late election, in 1857, he was defeated in the Department of the Doubs by the Government candidate, and had since retired from public life until this article in the Correspondant brought him again before the world. Of course M. de Montalembert is not a Liberal after an English fashion. But we cannot doubt that years and experience have taught him something. And especially as regards England no one can now be a more zealous, discriminating, and firm friend to everything that is English than M. de Montalembert. No one, also, can doubt that he is one of the first men in Europe both as a writer and as a speaker; and both by his eminence and his great interest in literature and education he is among the leaders of the French Academy, of which he was elected a member in 1852.

Thus we see it is not surprising that the Count de Montalembert, inheriting with his English blood that horror of oppression for which the British have ever been remarkable, should deeply feel the outrage which has been perpetrated on France, nor that, possessing two nationalities, he should strive to introduce into one country the advantages which the other possesses. The great feature of the Anglo-Saxon character is its progressive tendency. Other nations make temporary frantic exertions to free themselves from oppression, and then sink back, as it were, exhausted by the effort; but the Anglo-Saxon, firm in his purpose, makes each triumph a basis on which to found new hopes and build up new barriers to despotism. The liberties of England date from Magna Charta, and yet Magna Charta was but a permanent recognition of principles previously established by usage. The great stride in the civilization of England was effected when the theory that the king can do no wrong was modified by the acknowledged responsibility of the ministry, for the acts of their sovereign. Up to the time of Charles I. we find the monarch striving to extend his prerogative, and brought in direct and angry antagonism with the Parliament. The execution of Strafford was the first acknowledg

ment that a minister is liable to the penalties of treason for advising and countenancing oppression, and the concession of the Petition of Right settled for ever the limitation to the authority of the king to any attempt to set aside the rules founded on these two precedents. The old answer of the Barons, "Leges Angliæ mutari nolumus," has ever been returned. The joy of the people at the restoration induced them to receive back Charles II., without limitations of any sort; but this encroachment of his brother on civil and religious liberty, caused those restrictions which excited the anger of William III., and induced the early Georges to visit with so much pleasure their continental dominions, whilst there were periods when they all thought seriously of abandoning England for ever. The Reform bill was also a mighty stride towards Democratic principles, and by taking from the ministry the power of control over elections, it has probably prevented the possibility of the re-occurrence of such an anomaly as that presented by Pitt, when he carried on the government with a sovereign and a parliament opposed to his views. Whilst the settled principle that a ministry must retire on being out-voted, now makes the Government particularly cautious of public opinion, and assimilates it as nearly to ours as its hereditary aristocracy will admit. It is a sad rebuke to national pride to reflect on the little incidents which often sway the destinies of a people. It is an historical fact, that kingly power was tendered to Washington; that his feelings were eminently aristocratic; and that a disregard of his merits by his government first weaned him from England ;-had he then been blessed with a son, is it probable that he could have resisted the temptation to establish his family on a throne? Where then would have been our model Republic? What would have indemnified the world for the loss of our example? We admire the patriotism that can induce our ladies to put aside their instinctive timidity, and appeal to their countrymen to aid them in purchasing the home of our First President. We venerate the self-denial which can enable a successful statesman to merge his reputation with posterity in an oration to