a post-chaise might be found a half-league | Chambers. The men who, like myself, feel the full from Alençon, with some devoted friends, to transport Santa-Rosa in disguise towards a seaport where the means of flight to England would be arranged. We recognized in this proposition the heart of him who made it; but we immediately rejected it. Flight, on the part of Santa-Rosa, would have been almost avowing that he doubted his right; it would have been dishonoring the judgment of "no cause for action" rendered by the French justice, and wickedly suspended by the police of M. Corbière. Upon that, Santa-Rosa and myself did not even deliberate. But Santa-Rosa saw with fright the moment arrive when I should return to Paris, and when he should dwell alone at Alençon, without friends, without books, without aid for his heart and his studies. In the mean time there was in the Chamber of Deputies a lively discussion, in which several members of the opposition complaining of the tricks of the French police towards the Italian refugees, M. Corbière, Minister of the Interior and the Police, pretended that the refugees were not of the same opinion as their defenders, and that they were satisfied with the conduct of the French Government towards them. Santa-Rosa found the words of the Minister as false as his conduct had been unjust, and he believed it due to his honor and the honor of his companions in misfortune to publish the following letter in answer to the discourse of M. Corbière: "MY LORD:-A member of the Chamber of Deputies, rising, at the session of the seventh of this month, to speak against the abuses of the administration, judged it proper to designate the treatment which the Piedmontese refugees receive in France. It pleased your Excellency to say, in reply, that these strangers show themselves grate ful for the protection of the French Government and for the benevolence of the King, and there was a manifestation of surprise at the injustice of such complaints. Such are the expressions stated in the Moniteur of August 10th. Other journals, doubtless less exact, have made your Excellency speak with a hardness which would not be in accordance with your character. "My Lord, after having been conducted here by your orders, and after having in vain addressed to you my complaints, I might have had recourse to the Chambers. I did not do it. Constrained by my principles to remain a perfect stranger to the affairs of every other country than my own, I preferred to wait in peace till the Government should repair its injustice, rather than become the subject of a lively discussion in the midst of the I 66 extent of their misfortunes and those of their country, do not like to have them spoken of; but, my Lord, the words which you have caused to re sound, and which are spreading through all Europe, force me to break silence. To be ungrate ful for benefits, to disavow a protector, is wickedness; to suffer one to attribute to us, to impose upon us gratitude, when the injustice which op Presses us weighs upon the heart, is also wickedness. The proscribed Italians, my Lord, will never descend to that: they may be pursued, imprisoned, overwhelmed with misfortune; they will not forget what they owe to their own char acter and to that country, so dear and so unfortunate, whose reputation is their first care. I own it would have been sweet to enjoy the benevolence of the French Government, to live under the protection of the author of the French Charter, by which liberty has appeared after forty years of opposition. Other kings of France protected the Italians proscribed for the same cause, and the last defenders of the liberty of Florence and Sienna found in France a second country, under the shade of the throne of Francis I. and Henry IL 'Behold what has happened to me in France. came with a Swiss passport and with a borrowed name, in the false belief that this precaution might secure me a peaceable abode at Paris. I lived in that city and the country during four months; my conduct was without reproach? The 23d of I was tranquil, and should I not have been so when last month I was seized by the agents of the authority, in a public place of Paris, and conducted to the prefecture of police, where I read on the mandate of arrest which was presented to me these words: Detected in seditious intentions. I asked to be conducted before the Prefect of Police, and I immediately declared to him my real name. After a long interrogation I was entered in the jailer's book at the prison of Salle Saint Martin, and my trial came on in course. The magistrates must have found in my conduct and in my papers a very complete absence of signs of culpability in political matters, because the procedure was reduced to a case of irregularity of passport. I was expecting to be judged and condemned upon this last point. I knew my wrong; I was resigned to bear its penalty. I had committed only one material fault, it is true; nothing was purer than my intentions, but this was still a contravention of law, and it is not justifiable in my eyes. The French magistracy did not think it a duty to insist on a rigorous and literal application of the law; it disdained to bend, under any cir cumstances, its lofty principles of equity. The primary court returned a verdict of 'no cause of action.' The public ministry opposed this first judgment. The royal court pronounced a second favorable judgment, and ordered my release in the accustomed form. I then asked your Excellency for the privilege of enjoying French hospitality, that is, for the privilege of living in France under the protection of the laws of the kingdom. I be lieved that the French Government ought to indemnify me by this good act for all that unjust apprehensions in regard to my political conduct had made me suffer. This illusion, of which I am not ashamed, soon vanished; I saw myself at first | taken up arms only in the hope (unfortunately retained nine days in prison, simply upon a letter deceptive) of securing the independence of the from the Prefect of Police to the door-keeper; a crown of the country, and to give legitimacy by real violence exercised upon my person, which, public institutions to the government of a family after the decision of the royal court, could be de- which was always dear to them,-men who, when prived of its liberty only in virtue of a new war-power was concentred momentarily in their hand rant issued by the magistrate. The response of by the force of circumstances, and in the midst of your Excellency arrived. It was an order to the the greatest dangers, oppressed no one. Prefect of Police to conduct me with a guard to Alençon, to remain there under the surveillance of the local authority. As soon as I arrived at the place of relegation, I wrote to your Excellency that I no longer asked the French Government for an asylum in France, but for passports to England. I received no response, and you, my Lord, had doubtless forgotten my claim when you uttered in the tribune the words which I have cited. "These facts, which do not concern me alone, and which are nearly common to me with MM. Muschietti and Calvetti, my compatriots, arrested at the same time with myself, and banished with me, are known to your Excellency, and might, if necessary, be proved by the authentic documents. I carefully preserve the judgment of the royal court of Paris, as a monument of the protection which my innocence found before the French magistracy. "Now, my Lord, I ask you whether we have been treated in France with justice or with injustice, with benevolence or with malevolence; whether we have been protected or whether we have been oppressed? We have not been sent to the scaffold, erected at Turin for the authors of the revolution of March, 1821; a minister never dared to present such a measure for the signature of a son of Henry IV. But we are retained in France against our wish, we are deprived of our liberty, notwithstanding the tribunal of royalty solemnly recognized our innocence; in a word, it is not hospitality which is accorded to us, but a prison. We should have asked for that, my Lord; then only would the words of your Excellency have been irreproachable. As for me, that which I have asked, that which I still ask, is a passport or hospitality without odious conditions; and I ask it publicly, in the interest of truth and that of my own personal dignity. It shall be known that it is not true that the conduct of the French Government inspires us with gratitude. My Lord, when Europe shall be closed to us, we will go to another hemisphere rather than resign ourselves to an asylum so dishonorable; but we are not reduced to this extremity. Several of our unfortunate compatriots live in peace under the protection of old England, and a great number have found beyond the Pyrenees a generous nation which, forgetting in some part its own calamities, has loaded them with benefits. "After all that I have just said, my Lord, it will be possible to judge whether France is an asylum for the unfortunate; and I should have nothing to add if your Excellency had not applied the expression of merited misfortune. The name of the illustrious citizen who first proclaimed the maxim to which your Excellency makes allusion, will always be pronounced with respect by the good of all countries; but the application could not regard us: it does not regard men who have "I have spoken only in my own name, my Lord; but I have the courage to believe that no one of the Italian refugees in France will wish to contradict me. There is not one who knows how to violate truth and honor. "I am, with respect, my Lord, "Your very humble and very obedient servant, "The Count DE SANTA-ROSA. "Alençon, August 14, 1822." One would think that this noble and defying language must have irritated the congregated police. Soon an arrest from the Minister of the Interior transferred SantaRosa from Alençon to Bourges, aggravating his situation and driving him at every hazard to quit France, where he no longer hoped for a supportable hospitality. But I resume my narration at my departure from Alençon, and my return to Paris, August 12. The following are the fragments of our correspondence during the month of August and the month of September: "ALENCON, August 14. "I wait with an impatience, of which you can form no idea, for the news of your journey. I have earnestly recommended you to God. I had not for a long time felt his presence so vividly in my heart. I have implored upon you all the benedictions of Heaven; that Heaven may protect you, that it may give you strength to support prosperity as well as adversity. Every thing comes from heaven, you well know. Write me two words of Laenneck and Plato. If the first is not discontented with your condition, so much the better; if he makes up a face, remember he is only one man. I trust and always trust in you. You, a man so beloved by your friends, offend God if you contemplate your existence with a sombre eye. There are cruel, bitter misfortunes which you do not understand, and which produce the effect of slow poison. The organization of my body does not feel its effects: it is so strong! but the soul... But it is better to speak of something else, and to come back to the material of life. Here is the letter to M. Corbière. It is somewhat strong, but truth is truth. The original will go to-morrow by way of the prefect to whom I shall send it myself. "I am too much occupied with the consequences of my act to permit me to continue tranquilly my studies. The haughty La Mennais does me no good; I like my dear Catholic Church better, when I defend it in the name of reason, not against good philosophy, but against bad. This proud skepticism repels me in place of attracting me. Bonald is an entirely different man; he is a great thinker, but he pushes his systematic ideas to the length of extravagance, and has very little regard for facts, although he cites many." " "ALENCON, August 20. I am very well satisfied with having done my duty, and I await the results with perfect tranquillity If any ministerial or ultra journal should publish an article against me or my letter, respond to it if you think proper, and as you shall judge best. In case you see any serious storm gathering over my head, I am prepared to cross into England at a moment's warning: govern yourself accordingly, and mention it to Fabvier. But if, as I hope, my contradictions are received in silence, I shall remain in our dear France, which, culpable as she is, attaches me to her I know not by what charm. Yesterday I took a short walk about Alençon. I saluted the setting sun for you. Oh, my dear friend! how I feel the need of you! What divinity has united us? I have seen, I have loved you; and how deeply did I feel it the day of your departure from here! Do you know with what rapidity our so confiding friendship has been formed? It must give us some pleasant days. I shall have need of knowing that you are happy, tranquil, serene. I have faith in you. Also I wish you to be happy, somewhat through selfishness. If you are happy, you will occupy yourself with more success in solacing my profound sorrow. Do not, by a culpable pity, diminish in a single degree, in the least degree, this intimacy, so lively and true, which you have with me. I could not be mistaken in that, and it would render me really unhappy. You are my heart's last object of attachment." "ALENCON, August 24. "My work advances; the whole plan of the work is determined upon. The title will beConcerning Liberty and its Relations with Forms of Government. I shall soon commence writing; but at present I can think only of the Congress of Verona. You see that it is no longer doubtful. It is my duty to designate to Europe what this new Congress is going to do, especially so far as Italy is concerned." BOURGES, September 6. "Well! I am here at Bourges. How painful this journey has been to me! I wish to restrain myself from thinking any more. The prefect, Count de Guigné, received me with politeness, but I avowed to him that he had very severe instructions in regard to me, and he sent me back to the mayor, who testified to me, with much honesty, his desire to mitigate my situation. In fact, I was very discontented with his proposition: "I count upon having your word of honor as well as that of these gentlemen,' (for I found here four other refugees, MM. de Saint Michel, de Baronis, de Palma, and de Garda,) without which he told me he should be obliged to make the city literally my prison; to keep a constant surveillance over me; to obstruct me; to interdict me even promenades, for they are extra muros; in a word, he forced from me in some sort this word of honor. I gave it to him for ten days, for the purpose of looking around a little for whatever I might see. My situation is therefore worse, as you see, and twenty times a day Alençon causes me regret. Finally, I am installed in a very humble chamber containing a small study, where I shall work, at home with soldier-like and very tranquil people, nearly resembling my hosts at Alençon. What do you counsel me in regard to my son? I have a desire to send for him. If you see no serious objection, send the letter which I addressed you from Alençon for my wife. If things should take the worst turn, and I should be banished to some place in Hungary or Bohemia; if my son would follow me, he alone could aid me to support a horrible existence. My friend, send the letter; my heart is here in a lacerating solitude. Yes, if you have no grave reasons for opposing me, send the letter, and let me not die without having one moment of happiness. I wrote my wife that at the reception of the letter which she will receive by the way that I have indicated, she should send my son to Lyons, where she will direct him to some merchant; there are so many there who correspond with Turin. From Lyons to Paris, it is a journey of only two days. "I have said nothing of Bourges. Nothing is remarkable save the cathedral, which is a large and very fine Gothic church. But the sanctuary reserved for the priests leaves no passage to the altar. Your French priests keep the Christians very far from God; they will repent it one day. "What has become of the argument of the Phedo? Do you recollect the day that was entirely devoted to the reading of those pages that had been written in the midst of so many pains of soul and body? They belong to me, or rather I belong to them," etc. "BOURGES, September 15. Oh, my friend, how unfortunate we are in being nothing but poor philosophers! For me the prolongation of existence is only a hope, to have the virtues and the faith of my mother. an ardent desire, a fervent prayer. I should like To reason is to doubt; to doubt is to suffer. Faith is a kind of miracle; when it is strong-when it is true-what happiness does it give! How many times, in my study, do I raise my eyes to heaven and ask God to reveal to me, and above all to give immortality. "I have a study, and I pass in it the greatest part of my day; at first from eight to eleven, then I go out to breakfast with my comrades. I sometimes take a walk in the garden of the bishopric: I enter it at one, or a little later, and remain till five. I dine alone, in ten or twelve minutes, and go to search out a promenade with an almost serene heart; but I find only stagnant waters, stony fields, sometimes a little grass under a row of wal nut trees, and then I sit down and read, often interrupting myself to meditate or dream. You made my promenade very pleasant day before yesterday. I began by writing you in my head a charming letter. Nothing, or next to nothing of it remains to me; but I had an hour which called to mind eighteen years of my life, and owed it to 1851. Santa - Rosa. you, my good friend. Does not this give you pleasure, and do you not like to have me speak of it to you! "I still entertain the project of writing on the Congress of Verona. In the mean time I continue my readings, and I have commenced putting to paper the fundamental ideas of the work which is my habitual thought. The farther I advance, the deeper I penetrate into the subject, the more I see Bonald has some the clouds gather about me. profound and admirable things; he has others which make one laugh with pity, or which excite indignation. Bonald and Tracy are alike in their depreciation of the ancients-those ancients to whom we are so much indebted, and whose ven erable relics have renewed the civilization which had perished. Christianity has perhaps hindered civilization from sinking into an abyss of barbarism; but its revival is due to the ancients. Now we mock at our masters, and proclaim that we are wise, enlightened and great, while there pass in turn from us so many things that should hum ble us. ... It appears to me necessary, and, more over, radically true, that an essential difference should be established between general utility and individual utility. General utility, which I also call, for the sake of explaining it to myself, equality of liberty, ought to be the end of law. This general utility is also the prosperity and the greatest good of all individuals. Happiness consists in doing what one wishes to do. That all may have it, nothing must be done injurious to others. The development of the rights of man is the aim of the legislator, as the teaching of the Decalogue is the aim of the priest. God is the centre of all this. The submission of force to the laws which protect the feeble cannot be explained without God. The liberty of all can exist only in the social state. Upon what conditions?-how? The first thing is to put liberty above the power of the majority. This is what Rousseau has by no means done. Certainly we cannot put it there altogether, for no social existence would possibly be in it. But for the principal guarantees of the individual, or, in other terms, as to the most precious portion of liberty, I think it cannot be left to the discretion of the majority. There remain for it constitutional and administrative laws. I would call those social laws which trace the limits for the exercise of liberty on the part of each so as to guarantee it to all. That they are called rights, duties, guarantees, is of no consequence. Rights can be translated into duties, and vice versa." *The history of our country has demonstrated that liberty is safe with the majority. The decisions of the majority are by no means infallible; they cannot, as Mr. Carlyle has clearly, yet in a spirit quite too fierce, not to say savage, shown, alter eternal tact; they cannot suspend the law of gravitation, nor make wrong right; but these same decisions of the majority, especially so far as settling the fundamental principles of liberty, and determining those primary laws of justice that exist in the nature of things, that are stamped upon the human mind, that serve as the basis of all good government, are concerned, will oftener accord with absolute truth than any other decisions that can be had among men. He that is a party to his own liberty will not be likely to betray it; liberty is then sefer with the majority than with any limited numO. W. W. ber. "BOURGES, September 21. "To-day the prefect has sent for me, and has asked me whether I still intended to leave for England. The Minister has instructed me to put you this question, and ask you, in case you wish to go, whether you would prefer to embark at Calais or Boulogne?' I answered him that I did not wish to remain in France unless I could enjoy full liberty; that if this were not granted me, I should eagerly accept passports for England. I then besought the prefect to ask for me the privilege of going to Calais without the attendance of a guard, The prefect offering my word of houor to follow the course which should be prescribed for me. has this evening answered the Minister, and probably in five or six days the order or the permission to depart will arrive. 66 You understand well that I could make no other response than the one which I have made. I shall therefore bid adieu to France, to your country; but I do not renounce it. European society Perhaps the dis will have some years of calm. quiet which my person inspires so inopportunely in certain spirits will pass away. I shall then return to see you, and probably to establish myself near you in the capital of Europe. I have need of this hope. You see, my friend, it is Providence which leads me by the hand into England; it is necessary to yield. I have a tranquil heart; there is no place for doubt, for perplexity; and such is the only condition that can deprive me of half my powers." 66 "BOURGES, September 27. I was entirely prepared to winter at Bourges; but I avow to you the thought of recovering my liberty touches me infinitely. I beg of you, if it is in your power, to procure me some letters for London. "O my friend, I go to England with a tranquil heart, because I see myself, thus to speak, driven by the circumstances in which I find myself, and in which I am placed by conduct, the details of which you understand. But I go not with a gay heart; I leave you in France. Your name in the balance, had always inclined it to this side of the channel; but my position is clear-either liberty in France and at Paris, consequently at the height of my wishes, or in England. There is nothing intermediate either possible or proper." I shall "BOURGES, October 1. M. Leranchet has "I start to-morrow at noon. answered that he would not permit that I should 1 shall therefore go to Calais without an escort. have a guard. I pass by Orleans and Paris. Day after to-morrow, between half-past five and seven, I shall arrive at Paris. I have promised to remain at Paris only during the necessary time to pass, in some sort, from one diligence to another. have scarcely time to grasp you by the hand, and to embrace you. I am tranquil, because my resolution was demanded by my situation; but I feel at the bottom of my heart a sadness mixed with disquiet. I am sure of regretting Alençon more than once; but it is Providence which drives me ... My friend, you to England, and I obey. are a large part of my moral existence. If you knew with what heaviness of heart I write you! There are very few persons-no, I believe there is only one upon earth to whom I write with more emotion than to you." Santa-Rosa was right; we were scarcely able to see each other a few moments, on his way at Paris. It was permitted him to go to my house accompanied by a gendarme; and it was before this gendarme that we bade each other the adieus which were to be eternal. Doubtless neither he nor I had any distinct presentiment of this. On his part, he was sustained by the thought of accomplishing a duty; on my part, I was afraid of yielding to a kind of selfishness by retaining him in France, in the midst of the watchings and the tricks of the police; and yet a secret instinct filled up for me, with an inexpressible bitterness, this fatal hour, in which it seemed to me that I should lose me. him for ever. We exchanged scarcely any words, and I conducted him back in silence to the diligence, which bore him far from Soon he had left the France for which he was fitted, and was lost, as it were, in the immense desert of London, without fortune, without resource, without any real friend: he who knew how to live only to love or act. After the first moments of unquiet activity for the purpose of making for himself a supportable situation, the unfortunate soon fell into a profound melancholy, from which he escaped only soon to fall into it again; so that finally the ennui of this life, either solitary or dissipated, led him to the magnanimous and mournful resolution which placed him for a moment, with a certain éclat, upon the stage of the world, before he disappeared for ever. During the sojourn of Santa-Rosa in England, our correspondence did not cease to be intimate, serious, and tender, as it had always been; but it is necessarily very monotonous, singularly filled with affectionate sentiments, abortive projects, deceptive hopes; sad picture, which I cannot bear to describe, so I will only cite a few fragments of the letters of Santa-Rosa, in order to give an idea of his interior situation. "LONDON, November 26, 1822. It is however necessary that I should tell you the reasons of my silence, or rather that I should prove to you that I have not ceased to think much of you. The better way of proving it would be to send you the contents of three letters I began, and then tore up, through an impulse not of impatience, but of friendship. They would Do not be too much have been really afflicting to you. I spoke in them to you with a tone so melancholy of my dejection and my interior sadness, that it would have been cruelty to send them to you, persuaded as I am, as I always shall be, of the depth of your sentiment for me. alarmed; or rather I should say to you, who know and feel that all life is in interior existence, be believed myself undone. Good God! is not that seriously alarmed. I have had days in which I to feel one's self dying? At bottom, I have nothing with which to reproach England but the kind of life which I lead. To make calls; to of the city to the other; the necessity of learning receive them; insignificant coursings from one end English, and a decided repugnance to giving my self the trouble to learn it; a disquieting future, if I do not make practical use of my faculties; expenses much above my means, etc. My work the time, when I am able to think. I have already on the Congress of Verona occupies me almost all written many pages in my head on the walks of London. I hope this small work will be useful I shall write it in French; I shall get it translated I shall publish it here; then I shall send you a into English without its costing me any thing, and copy of my manuscript, authorizing you to retrench and modify every thing that might frighten a Parisian bookseller. Despite of the moderation which will always guide my pen, it is impossible I shall put my name to this production, it will be to forget, while writing, that I am in England. As able, if it succeeds, to give me the commencement of a reputation which will quadruple the price of my works. I am going to commence the work as soon as the Congress of Verona shall have published a declaration. This is necessarily the point of departure. I am now going to speak to you of the acquaintances which I have acquired at London. "I put in the first rank Sir James Mackintosh, Whig member of Parliament, the brother-in-law of Sismondi, and of Jeffrey, the principal editor of the Edinburgh Review. Information which has appeared to me immense, and a very enlightened political philosophy, characterize Mackintosh, if I am able to judge. Moreover, his reputation in speaks French correctly rather than easily: he England is very advantageously established. He knows much of Paris. You know perhaps that he defended your revolution against Burke, and his voice is constantly raised in Parliament in favor of ameliorations. I have also made the acquaintance the cause of national independence and social of Austin and his family. He is a young advo cate, obscure as yet, but a real thinker, and a dis ciple of 'Bentham, with whom he and his wife are cellent character, wonderfully learned for a wo particularly acquainted. She is a person of exman, but none the less amiable. She is very willing to give me some lessons in English, by which lessons from a lady of twenty-seven or eight, and I am little profited, in spite of the attraction which of a very agreeable figure, might offer.* This is |