can boaft. The hiftory of the French monarchy, like an epic poem or tragedy, prefents before the reader's imagination one perfect whole, having, according to the law of Ariftotle, a beginning, a middle, and an end. In feveral other refpects, too, this hiftory, if it cannot deserve to be called perfect, is entitled to commendation. The narrative clofely follows the order of time, and the dates are carefully inferted. The characters of the author's ftyle are neatness and perfpicuity. The work is enlivened with frequent anecdotes, and diverfified with many curious particulars, respecting the ftate of religion, philofophy, arts, and manners." +" As to the author's political and religious principles, he appears to be a temperate, or rather cautious, perhaps not very confiftent, friend of freedom."

Such were the opinions of unprejudiced critics of the merits of this work on its firft appearance; and certainly credit may be given them for not speaking too highly in its favour. To the new edition before us, is prefixed the following dedication.

"To the Right Honourable William Windham, the enlightened state fman and the genuine patriot, whofe high fenfe of public duty fubdues every felfish feeling; whofe fentiments of honour rife fuperior to the allurements of rank, the temptations of power, the frowns of faction, and the clamours of the vulgar; whole ardent love of his country makes him inflexible in his oppofition to her enemies; whofe fervent attachment to rational freedom renders him the determined foe of political licentioufnefs; and who unites to the wildom that appreciates the eloquence that commands; this Hiftory is dedicated, as a tribute of public juftice, and as a mark of private gratitude and esteem, by his much obliged, most humble, and most faithful fervant,

London, Oct. 25, 1802.

THE AUTHOR."

At the conclufion of his preface the author remarks;

"In these volumes fome fentiments will certainly be found which the author could have wifhed to correct, fubfequent reflection and experience having railed in his mind confiderable doubts of their accuracy; alas! what mind, except that of a Burke, fo replete with political wifdom, sagacity, and forefight, or one fo bialled by prejudice, or fo warped by faction, as to be utterly incapable of improvement, but must have been improved by the awfully impreffive leffons which the wonderful events of the last ten years have afforded to every inhabitant of the civilized world ? After mature confideration, however, it has been deemed more proper to leave fuch fentiments, which, though they certainly arife out of the facts recorded, neither increafe nor diminish the weight and confequence of thofe facts, to the unbiassed judgment of the reader, than to render them exactly conformable to his own prefent mode of thinking."

What thofe fentiments are, the accuracy, or, more properly, the justice, of which the author appears to doubt, it is left to the reader to discover. Conceiving that the critics above quoted have

Analytical Review, Vol. 14. p. 487.

+ Idem. Vol. 17. p. 482. formed

formed a tolerably correct eftimate of the work, we fhall add no opinion of our own, but lay before our readers fome extracts, which may enable them to judge for themselves.

The author's defcription of the maflacre of the Armagnacs at Paris by the Burgundians, in 1418, during the feuds which prevailed between thofe rival factions, reminds us of fome of the fcenes which marked the progrefs of the late revolution, in that feat of faction, profligacy, and vice.

"At this time, a ftrong party of the Paris militia, confifting chiefly of butchers, who had long been ablent on predatory excurfions, returned to the capital, and communicated to the populace, already inclined to acts of defperation, the fame ferocious and fanguinary rage which glowed in. their own bofoms. They propagated a report that the friends of the dau phin only waited for an opportunity to furprize the town, exterminate the Burgundians, and releafe the conftable with all the other prifoners. Thefe rumours, it is faid, were encouraged by Lifle-Adam, Guy de Bar, Mailly Bournonville, de Lens, and other leaders of the Burgundian faction. The queen, and the duke of Burgundy, who were then at Troyes, being informed of the fuccefs of their plans, fent a meflage to their confidential friends, intimating that the total annihilation of the oppofite party would be the only effectual method of establishing their own authority; and that, without that, neither of them durft venture to come to Paris.

*

"On the 12th of June, the dreadful fcene began: the populace, frantic with rage, flew to arms, forced open the doors of the prifons, murdered the gaolers and guards, made the prifoners walk out one by one, and mailacred them as they palled, Armagnacs, Burgundians,t criminals, debters, all were butchered without diftinction of rank, age, or fex. Not a prifon nor dungeon efcaped the active malignity of thefe fanguinaay ruffians. The grand Châtelet made a vigorous refiftance; its wretched inhabitants afcended the towers, and attempted to repel the attacks of the mob; for fome time they exhibited the ftrange fight of prifoners fuftaining a tiege; at length, however, the building having been fired in different parts, they were compelled to furrender. The merciless rabble then forced thefe miferab'e victims to precipitate themfelves from the tops of the towers into the ftreets below, on pikes which they held to receive them. In the court-yard of the palace, and in the environs of the gates of Paris, to dreadful was the mailacre, that the mob food up to their ancles in hu man blood!' When the barbarians had cleared the prifons, they spread over the different parts of the town; not a fireet but was the scene of numerous murders; whoever wished to get rid of an enemy, a rival, or a creditor, had only to point him out as an Armagnac, and he was infiantly difpatched.

"Chron. MS. No. 10297."

"Villaret, tom. xiii. p. 467. But whatever Burgundians were murdered muft have been through mistake; as it cannot be fuppofed that a mob, inftigated, if not hired, by the queen and the duke, would have di rected their vengeance againft their own party."

"Villaret, ubi fupra."

"The fcenes which followed these horrid affaffinations were still more abominable. All the atrocious acts of cruelty which inhuman rage tired, though not fatiated, with murder, could invent, were exercifed on the lifele's bodies of the Armagnacs. The conftable, the chancellor, and his fon, the bishop of Coutances, were faftened together with a cord, and dragged round the city on three fucceffive days, exposed to the infults and derifion of an infolent rabble; from the body of the former they had contrived to cut off a quantity of flesh, which they formed into a kind of fafh, and tied round his waift. The monfters, infinitely more ferocious than the most favage beafts of prey, ripped open the bellies of pregnant women, and, as the unborn babes lay palpitating in the wombs of their murdered mothers, they burst into a laugh, and exclaimed- Observe these little dogs, they move still. Luxembourg, Harcourt, Foffeufe, Lifle-Adam, de Bar, Chevreufe, Chatelus, and the other leaders of the Burgundians, at the head of two thousand men at arms, attended thefe horrid execu tions, and even seemed to encourage the rabble by faying, My children, you do well! Revenge was fharpened by intereft; enriched by the plunder of their murdered countrymen, not one of the chiefs of the faction-as all contemporary hiftorians affirm-but gained more than a hundred thousand crowns, by this dreadful revolution. Three thousand five hundred men were mallacred during the three first days of the tumult; among whom were the conftable, the chancellor, feven prelates, a great number of the nobility, and many of the judges of the parliament. When all the mis chief was done, a prohibition to pillage was iffued; the mob, however, paid little attention to an order, which they knew was given only to preferve appearances. Such of the partizans of the Armagnacs, as had efcaped the general massacre, fled with precipitation from this fcene of

horrors."

At the close of the long and turbulent reign of the fixth Charles, there is a long differtation on the laws, cuftoms, manners, and amufements of the age. Here the origin of theatrical diverfions is noticed, and the nature of the earliest scenic representations defcribed. The first regular ftage was built, in the village of Saint Maur des Foffés, near Paris, which was much frequented by pilgrims, at the latter end of the fourteenth century; and the first performance was a mystery, entitled "the Hiftory of the Death of our Saviour," whence the fociety afterwards received the appellation of "the Brotherhood of the Paffion."

"About the fame period, another description of actors started up, whose performances were of a different caft, and the bond of whofe union was a conformity of tafte for pleasure, and of inclination to raillery. The folly and abfurdities of their fellow-citizens formed the object of their exhibitions; and no whimsical nor ridiculous adventure efcaped their attention. This company was compofed of young men of the beft families in Paris; they affumed the appellation of les Enfans sans Souci; their leaders took the title of Prince of Fools, and their performance was called The Exhibition of Fully. They were at once authors and actors. They erected a stage at

* Idem. ibid.

the

the Halles. The town and the court were equally delighted with their representations, and Charles the Sixth confirmed, by letters patent, the joyous institution. The prince of fools was acknowledged king of the empire he had founded; he wore, by way of crown, a hood with affes' ears; and once a-year he made his public entry into Paris, followed by all his fubjects.

"The attornies' clerks, known by the appellation of Bazochiens, invented, about the fame time, another fpecies of dramatic performances, called Moralities; in which the fictions of allegory were combined with historical facts. But as thefe compofitions were found infipid, the actors of the Ba zoche entered into a negociation with the Enfans sans Souci, who allowed them to play farces, on condition of being permitted to introduce moralities on their own stage. The clerks of the Châtelet, and even those of the chamber of accompts, diftinguished by the title of Jurisdiction of the Holy Empire, followed the example of the other clerks, but their fuccefs was neither fo durable, nor fo brilliant. Several private citizens joined the Bazochiens; and in the number of these voluntary affociates are to be found the names of fome celebrated men-fuch as John Defure, and Clement Marot, who compofed as well for the Bazoche as for the Enfans sans Souci. The licentiousness which prevailed during the civil wars that broke out immediately after the establishment of thefe focieties, introduced into their exhibitions a degree of malignancy and perfonal fatire, which were authorized by the diforders of the times. This abufe was corrected by the ma giftrates as soon as the union of the oppofite factions had reftored tranquillity to the kingdom.

"These theatrical amufements were not confined to the metropolis; there were few provinces that were not diftinguished by fome fimilar inftitution. Evreux and Rouen had their Coqueluchiers and their cuckolds, (Cornards); the chief of these laft, who was called Abbot of the Cuckolds, was elected once a-year, on Saint Barnabas's day. He always wore the mitre and the crofier. The object of this inftitution was the fame as that of the Enfans sans Souci.

"It is rather furprizing, that, notwithstanding these efforts, and the general difpofition of the people to mimicry and raillery, a nation, in other refpects, ingenious, lively, and strongly addicted to pleasure, fhould have remained to long without forming any idea of true comedy, which did not appear in France till fome centuries after the first dawning of the dramatic art. The progress of that art was much less rapid in France than in Greece, though, in fome provinces, the French had begun in the fame manner as the Greeks, and had, moreover, the chefs d'œuvre of those great maiters to serve them for models. Sophocles and Æfchylus made the theatre at Athens flourish fifty years after Thefpis; and they were foon fucceeded by Aristophanes. But Corneille and Moliere did not appear till the feventeenth century; and more than four hundred years before, a fimilar fociety to that which Thefpis inftituted in Greece, had been established at Dijon. This allociation, called La mere folle et l'infanterie Dijonnoise, fubfifted till the year 1630, when it was fuppreffed by Lewis the Thirteenth.*

"All orders of people were infected by the furor-theatricus. The flu

1

dents of the university put on masks, acted farces, chofe a prince of fools among themselves, drefled themfelves like bishops, and, in that state, ran about the streets, committing a thousand diforders. The rector made feveral fruitless attempts to put a stop to thefe riotous proceedings; and the parliament and even the king were obliged to interfere, before they could be brought to reafon. Among the different kinds of exhibitions, we must not omit to notice the indecent fcenes which paffed in the churches, where the most holy myfteries of religion were imitated by troops of vulgar actors. These impious farces, for which the fuperftitious fimplicity of an ignorant age could alone furnish an excufe, fubfifled till the latter end of the fixteenth century. The parliament, in 1571, ordered the parishioners of Saint Nicolas to abolith the cuftom of profaning their church, on the feaft of the holy facrament, by imitating Jefus Chrift, the apofiles, and prophets-an exhibition accompanied by the most indecent and difgutting buffooneries.

"As foon as the brethren of the paffion found that their mysteries no longer excited the curiofity of the people, who were more agreeably amufed by the farces of the Enfans sans Souci, they entered into an associa tion with their rivals, and as they played together, the pious fcenes were mingled with profane interludes, which were called Le jeu des pois pilés.-Such were the ridiculous diverfions of the French at this period. At first, thefe affociations, or confraternities, were composed of actors who had no object of intereft in view, but only fought to procure amusement or inftruction. But when theatrical exhibitions began generally to prevail, many perfons devoted their whole time to them--and they were the first comedians by profeffion. The celebrity which the Enfans sans Souci had acquired, made thefe affume the fame appellation, which has led fome writers to fuppofe they were the fame focieties. Thefe comedians played fometimes at Paris, but the brethren of the Paffion, in virtue of their pris vilege, prevented them from fixing their refidence in the capital. At length, however, the parliament having fuppreffed the reprefentation of mylieries, and the brotherhood, either from fcruple or incapacity, refuing to play profane pieces, they let a new theatre, which they had recently purchased, to the comedians; this theatre ftood on the fame fpot where the late Italian theatre flood.

"Neither genius, plot, nor invention, must be expected in the dramatic poems of thefe times. Scenes follow feenes without order or connection. The time of action is half a century and fometimes more. The pallages from fcripture are quoted literally; Jefus Chrift is made to preach fermons, half Latin, and haif French; and to adminifter the facrament to his apottles, by a confecrated wafer-Saint Anne and the Virgin are brought to bed upon the ftage, with no more precaution than that of drawing the curtains of the bed. Judas plays at chels with the son of the king of Scarioth, and a quarrel enfuing, he kills his antagonist, then murders the father, and marries the mother. Mahomet is mentioned seven hundred years before his birth, and is placed among the Pagan deities. The governor of Judea fells bithopricks by auction. Satan begs Lucifer to give him his benediction. When they are going to caft lots for the garment of Chrift, the devil brings the dice, and orders the foldier to whom he delivers them, if he thould be alked whence they came, to fay he had them from the devil; they then throw, and the lofers curfe their fate, the devil who invented dice, and all those who fhall ufe them in future.

Such