THE King of the French is now the most important man in Europe. Independence, vigour, and integrity may make him the preserver of his country from a war which would destroy her commerce, unloose the wildness of democracy, and finish by her ruin. Vanity is the passion of the Frenchman, and it is also his punishment. He is always eager for war. The cause is indifferent to him,-it may be just, it may be unjust, it is all the same to this thirster for tumult,-it may be a ridiculous quarrel, or a deep and bloody resolution of vengeance, it is all the same. The touch of a fan by a Dey of Algiers has been turned into a pretext for invading Africa, slaughtering thousands of the unfortunate and brave peasantry, slaughtering thousands, too, of the unfortunate and brave soldiery of France, expending millions of treasure, and sending fifty thousand troops to make campaigns in a land where they possess nothing beyond the range of a cannon-shot, and from which they will never return. But the tap of a fan on the cheek of a coxcomb consul was enough; it served as a pretext. Apology on apology was offered by the Dey and by the Sultan, but the pretext was not to be abandoned; the expedition was already resolved on, and a war was begun, which will yet eat into the bowels of France.

The Egyptian question is now the grand offence. The whole population of France is stalking about in all the attitudes of insulted dignity; and from the beggar on the highway to the candidate for the smiles of the Minister, all are exclaiming that France is insulted, and that the insult can be wiped out by blood alone. In the mock-heroics of a French opera, the nation mounts its helmet and plumes, harangues on the impossibility of living without "glory," and while the "fortifications of Paris" are growing before its eyes, ridiculously demands the conquest of the world.

Nothing can give a more powerful and painful evidence of the want of moral education among the people, than the universality of this outery. Of all the journals of Paris and the provinces, but one has ventured to doubt whether war is not an evil

whether a great neighbouring country is not better as a friend than as an enemy-and whether the blood and misery of the living generation is not a heavy purchase for the shame, the astonishment, and the curse of posterity. That paper, the Journal des Debats, is presumed to speak the opinion of the King; if it does so, LouisPhilippe is the only rational man in his dominions.

But this clamour is still more characteristic, from its total opposition to the palpable interests of the countless majority of the nation. The Revolution of 1789, though it inflicted immeasurable evils in its progress, yet left one good behind; it broke up the immense inheritances of the nobles, and established a class of small proprietors, capable of constituting a vigorous yeomanry. To those men the idea of change must be full of danger. The peace of the last quarter of a century, too, has raised a race of merchants, has extended manufactures, and has largely promoted the agriculture of France. It has even made Paris the centre of a great money trade, which largely influences the exchanges of Europe, and renders the resources of the national credit available throughout the world. Interests of this order must be threatened with instant ruin by war; yet those proprietors, merchants, and bankers have not uttered a syllable, have not dared to utter a syllable, or, having suffered themselves to be blinded by the national glare of conquest, have joined their voices to the general chorus of the national frenzy.

The still darker feature of this fury is, that it is all directed upon England. Russia may invade Turkey; Austria may keep Italy in bonds; Prussia may tantalize the avidity of France by the retention of the Rhenish provinces; but England, which has seized nothing, which asks nothing, and which has neither inclination to offer insult, nor intention to make war, is the coun try on which the vials of French indignation are to be poured out. The British shores alone are gazed on with) a malignant eye; and the bitterest wish of the heart is not too bitter for the national rage against a country which has, since the peace, poured out mil

lions of its money into the bosom of France; has cultivated all the relations of amity with it in a degree more intimate than any other people; has borne its pettishnesses and follies with good-natured patience; and, to this hour, is enduring its wilful absurdities and petulant provocations with a quietude which amounts to national generosity. Yet what does all this clamour betray but a consciousness of inferiority? Those are the outeries of recollection, the groans of faction trampled under the foot of the British soldierthe involuntary tribute to Waterloo.

Louis-Philippe now stands forth the sole barrier to France against her own frenzy. The popular cry, the provincial , parties, even the journals of his own Ministers, assail him. Yet he has hitherto stood firm. The position becomes a king, but a patriot still more. He might survive a war, but the monarchy and the constitution would run the most extreme peril. On the manly firmness with which he shall show himself the ruler of opinion during the next six months, may depend a question higher than even that of peace or war-the question whether France shall not be revolutionized, her government inflamed into a fierce, loose, and desperate democrary, and the final punishment inflicted on its political crimes in a new invasion of the armies of Europe, a total partition of her territory, and the extinction of her power of evil for ever among nations.

Let France remember that she has never roused Europe but to be driven back with ignominy; that she has never grasped the territory of any neighbouring power for the last three hundred years, but to be forced to relinquish it in the midst of national diss aster; and, above all, that from the earliest ages, from the days of the Edwards and Henries, she has never been engaged in war with this country, but to feel the heavy sword of Eng. land in her vitals. In all our national wars France has been beaten. She was beaten in the last century with Louis the Fourteenth, the most powerful of despots, at her head.

She was beaten in this century, with Napoleon, the most daring of soldiers, at her head; and, when the one saw, the English light troops at the gates of Versailles, and the other saw two capitulations of Paris, where is the ground for despi

sing the chances of a new retribution? Deus avertat omen!

We have taken the following pictures of the history and habits of the French king, chiefly from a work attributed to the pen of the American Minister in Paris, General Cass. The author writes too much with the soreness which has been so often remarked as at once so childish, and so inseparable from his countrymen. But his opportunities obviously gave him some advantage in the delineation of the royal circumstances and character.

Louis-Philippe was born October 6, 1773; he is consequently sixty-seven. But his health is vigorous, and he has no marks of either age or indolence. His countenance is familiar to us from his pictures, and is manly, open, and good-humoured. His frame is largely moulded, but he moves with much

ease.

On the whole, he has much more the look of a prosperous and healthy English gentleman, than of a foreigner. He speaks and writes English very well, and is acquainted with several of the continental languages;— a rather rare acquisition in a country which thinks "French sufficient for every want, and every region of mankind." He has also the unusual merit, in a land where opera-dancers and singers reign triumphant, to respect domestic morality-to be as good a husband as he is an affectionate father; and thus to set an example, which is as much a rebuke to his predecessors as it is thrown away upon his people.

An anecdote, highly honourable to his sense of public duty, is mentioned on the authority of Stevenson, the American envoy in London. Some extraordinary occurrence having called a French statesman to the palace as late as two o'clock in the morning, he found the King in his cabinet, examining the case of a man condemned to execution. The envoy afterwards ascertained that the King keeps a register recording the name of every person capitally condemned, the decision, and its reasons. Frequently, in the still hours of the night, he performs the task of investigating those cases, and adds to the record the circumstances which influenced his decision.

The envoy probably did not know, that the great and good George III. had pursued nearly the same practice fifty years before; weighed the evi

dence with the deepest anxiety; and generally shut himself up in his cabinet at Windsor, (it was presumed in prayer,) during the hour appointed for the execution in London.

The early career of Louis-Philippe seems to have been intended to prepare him for the rank which he now holds. The best teacher of princes is clearly adversity. Swift, with dexterous sarcasm, says, that "riding is the only thing which princes ever do well, because horses are no flatterers." The horrors of the Revolution may be now assisting him to some of that anti-revolutionary wisdom, of which he appears the only present possessor in France. But the difficulties of his early years unquestionably furnished a school in which vigilance, activity, and firmness were the natural lessons. The unhappy politics of his father involved the young prince in the Revolutionary cause. He joined the army, and served with distinction in the invasion of Flanders under Dumourier.

An interesting anecdote connected with this part of his life, was mentioned by the King in an address to his officers, at one of the reviews at Fontainbleau, as an encouragement to good conduct. Among the manœuvres performed at the camp, was the formation of a square to resist the charges of cavalry, the King and his cortege taking their places within the square, as is done upon the field when necessary. In his address to his officers, the King remarked that, in 1792, a charge of the Austrian cavalry, in one of the battles on the northern frontier, had compelled a part of the division to perform a similar square, into which he threw himself, and repulsed the enemy. "In the ranks of that square," said the King, "were two private soldiers; and now, full of honours and years, they are present upon the ground." One of them was Marshal Gerard.

Soult had also been a private soldier. A debate having taken place in the Chamber of Peers, in which it was said the Order of St Louis was never given to private soldiers, Soult stated, on his personal knowledge, that the croix was occasionally so given for distinguished services. "I myself," said he, "was a private soldier for six years before the Revolution, and all my aspirations were bounded by a hope of obtaining this distinction."

He was then a Marshal of France, Minister of Foreign Affairs, President of the Council, and acknowledged the first general of the kingdom.

As the reign of terror advanced, the suspicions of the Jacobins in Paris were turned more dangerously on the young Duke of Orleans. He was then a mere boy; but the blood-royal of France was every where obnoxious, and the guillotine would evidently have been his portion, but for the activity of his escape. He fled into Switzerland, and being wholly destitute of pecuniary resources, and also knowing the necessity for disguise, he became a public professor at an establishment for education at Reichenau. Here he remained eight months, teaching geography, history, the French and English languages, and mathematics. Previously to admission, he underwent a severe and satisfactory examination; and, on quitting the professorship, he received a certificate acknowledging his services. He was then but twenty-two years of age, and he not only managed to preserve his incognito, but was elected a deputy to the Assembly at Coire. He was, however, still anxious to join the army, and left Switzerland to act as aide. de-camp under General Montesquieu, with whom he remained till 1794; but the Jacobins again menaced his life, and he finally abandoned France. He now repaired to Hamburg, thence travelled to Denmark and Sweden, and settled in Norway, at Christiana. There, a curious circumstance occurred, to startle him with fear of discovery. One day, when about to return with a family from the country, he heard one of the party call aloud,"The carriage of the Duke of Orleans !"

His first impression was, that he was recognised; but preserving his presence of mind, and first trying his ground-"Why," said he to the person in question, "did you call on the carriage of the Duke of Orleans, and what connexion have you with the Prince?"

"None at all," was the tranquillizing answer; "but when I was at Paris, whenever I came from the opera, I heard them calling out the carriage of the Duke of Orleans.' Having been more than once stunned with the noise, I just took it into my head to repeat the call."

From Norway he advanced into the country of the Laplanders, and traversed on foot the land extending to the head of the Gulf of Bothnia. He then returned to Denmark, still under an assumed name; but having made up his mind not to serve against France, he declined an invitation to join the army of the Prince of Condé. But the condition of things in France was horrible, and he had to taste of its bitterness. His father had died upon the scaffold, his mother had been imprisoned at Marseilles, and his two brothers had been dungeoned at Marseilles, where they were treated with Republican cruelty. The Duke still contrived to evade pursuit; but this only rendered him a stronger object of suspicion to the men of blood. At length a communication was open. ed between the Directory and the Duchess of Orleans, stating that if she could find out her eldest son, and induce him to leave Europe altogether and go to America, her own condition would be rendered more tolerable, the sequestration removed from her property, and his two brothers be permitted to rejoin him. To this proposal the Duchess assented, and wrote him a letter recommending its acceptance, and adding-" May the prospect of relieving the sufferings of your poor mother, of rendering the situation of your brothers less painful, and of contributing to give quiet to your country, recompense your generosity."

His answer was in the spirit of filial duty. He acceded to her request, and concluded by saying-" When my dear mother shall receive this letter, her orders will be executed, and I shall have sailed for the United States."

The ship" American," Captain Ewing, a regular trader between Philadelphia and Hamburg, was then lying in the Elbe, preparing for her departure. The Prince, passing for a Dane, engaged his passage for the usual amount, (at that time thirty-five guineas.) He found here some of the natural inconveniences of secrecy. Being anxious to avoid observation in Hamburg, he asked permission of the captain to be received on board, and remain a few days before his departure. This demand made the captain conceive that he was embarking an escaped swindler; but, after some re

luctance, he complied. Late in the night before the ship sailed, when the Prince had gone to bed, an elderly Frenchman, who was to be his only fellow-passenger, came on board. This old personage not only found fault with every thing, but was shocked at finding that his little English could not help him. He called for an interpreter, and in the morning, seeing the Prince, and telling him that "he spoke French very well for a Dane," installed him in the office. This curious personage, a French planter returning to St Domingo, probably helped to lighten the weariness of the voyage to him, by the employment. The vessel reached the Delaware after a passage of twenty-seven days. On nearing the American coast, the Prince told the captain who he was, and the captain returned this confidence by anotherthe acknowledgment, that he had supposed him to be committed in some gambling transaction, which compelled him to fly from Europe! The old gentleman, however, was left in ignorance until he heard the news in public, when he called to express his surprise and to pay his congratulations.

The

Philadelphia was at this period the seat of the Federal Government, with Washington for its President. Prince's two brothers had arrived, after an exhausting passage of ninetythree days, which alarmed him with the idea that they had been lost, or again seized by the Directory. The three young strangers were presented to Washington, who invited them to Mount Vernon. The King describes his manners as they have been described by others-he was comparatively silent, methodical in his division of time, and careful in its use. The arrangement of his household was that of a wealthy Virginia gentleman of the old school-unostentatious, comfortable, and leaving his guests to fill up their hours as they thought fit, but at the same time providing whatever was necessary for pleasant employment. One morning, after the usual salutations, the Prince asked him how he had slept on the preceding night. It is probable that his thoughts might have turned upon the evils of the republican press. "I always sleep well," said he, " for I never wrote a word in my life which I afterwards had reason to regret."

From Mount Vernon the brothers

set out on horseback, with nothing but their saddle-bags to supply them, during a journey through the "western country." Washington gave them an itinerary, and they penetrated the country to a great extent-in those days of the Wilderness and the Indian, a bold enterprise. This excursion took up four months, and they travelled about three thousand miles. A fragment of a letter from one of the brothers, the Duc de Montpensier, gives a formidable conception of their experience. It is written to his sister, the Princess Adelaide of Orleans. "To give you an idea of the agreeable manner in which they travel in this country, I shall tell you that we passed fourteen nights in the woods, devoured by all kinds of insects, after being wet to the bone, without being able to dry ourselves, and eating pork, and sometimes a little salt beef and Indian corn bread."

At New York they learned that fortune had not yet grown weary of persecuting their family, a decree having been issued for the expulsion of all the Bourbons from France. The Duchess of Orleans was thus driven to take refuge in Spain, where her sons now prepared to join her. But the American seas being obstructed by French vessels, they set out for the Havannah. On the way the Prince exhibited his skill in the art of surgery, so much to the admiration of a party of settlers going to the West, that they proposed to him to go along with them, and offered him the appointment of surgeon to the village!

They embarked from New Orleans in an American vessel for the Havannah. On their passage they were chased by a frigate under the tricolored flag. This was an anxious moment; for, if found on board the American by a ship of the Republic, they could expect nothing but to be carried to France, and there to share the common fate of the French nobility. But to their great joy they found that the frigate was English, were welcomed on board by the gallant captain, treated with the attention due to their rank and misfortunes, and by him carried to the Havannah.

On his return to Europe, the Duke found his relatives, the royal family of Naples, in Sicily, fugitives like himself. There he married their eldest princess, to whom, after a union

of thirty years, he exhibits unabated respect and attachment.

The public etiquette of the French court now probably approaches as near as possible to the just medium between republican rudeness and sullen and frigid formality. Yet there was something more to be said for the old etiquette of European courts than its tiresome pomp. Many of the obser vances were historic. Some were connected with memorable achievements of the monarch or the nation, and some were adopted, with no unwise policy, to repress the forwardness which the life of courts generated in the gay and the arrogant who form the familiar circle of the sovereign. But they are every where yielding to time, the only safe corrector of the follies of mankind. It was in Spain, where the natural love of the nation for the solemn, the pompous, and the lofty, was shaped into rigour by the Bourbons, that etiquette was systematic and supreme.

A scene in one of Victor Hugo's plays, Ruy Blas, is amusing from its caricature of this iron slavery. The Queen is surrounded by her ladies of honour.

The Queen. "I wish to go out."

The Duchess of Albuquerque, with a profound salutation." When the Queen goes out, each door must be opened by a grandee of Spain having a right to carry a key. Such is the rule. But no grandee can be present at the palace at this hour."

The Queen." Then I am shut up! I am to be killed!"

ence.

The Duchess, with another rever"I am camerara mayor: I my office." The Queen, after a moment of silence. "Quick, my ladies, bring cards, and let us play."

fulfil the dictates of

The Duchess, to the ladies-"Don't move, ladies." Then, rising and making a reverence to the Queen, she adds, "Her majesty cannot play, ac. cording to the established ceremonial, except with kings or the relations of kings."

The Queen, in a passion. "Well, bring those relations."

The Duchess, making the sign of the cross. "God has not given any to the reigning king. The Queenmother is dead, and he is alone at present."