character of Bégearss; no one recognised in this portrait one of the most enlightened and estimable men of the age, and the calumny was only the more disgusting on that account. This piece was, however, revived in 1796, and, after the representation, the author, at the end of his career, presented himself once more on the stage, where he received applauses, contested by some hisses. Beaumarchais' first dramatic performance, Eugenia, had appeared in 1767; the most interesting situations in this piece he had borrowed from the Diable Boiteux of Lesage. In 1793 he published papers in answer to Lecointre de Versailles,

his accuser.

BERTRAND DE MOLEVILLE,

COMPTROLLER of Bretagne, then minister of the marine. Being the king's commissioner at Rennes, in 1778, and charged, with the Count de Thiard, with dissolving the parliament, he was in danger of losing his life in a commotion, in which the young men undertook the defence of the parliament. On the 4th of October, 1791, he was appointed minister of the marine, in the place of M. Thévenard. On the 31st of the same month he made a report to the legislative assembly on the state of the naval force of France, on the organization of the marine, and on the laws which remained to be made relative to the service of the ports and arsenals. The majority of the committee of the marine soon declared against him, particularly the deputy Cavelier of Brest. On the 7th and 8th of December, he was violently accused by the deputy of Finisterre, and by the deputy Cavelier, as having deceived the legislative body, by declaring the officers of the marine were at their posts, and having betrayed the nation, by employing aristocrats in the expedition destined to carry success to St. Domingo. The discussion was adjourned, and on the 13th of the same month, he presented a paper in answer to these accusations. The assembly ordered it to be printed. On the 19th of December, he delivered a speech on the disasters of St. Domingo, and on the means of remedying them. Though he had described the friends of the negroes, as the instigators of these disasters, the assembly was sufficiently pleased with this discourse to order it to be printed. On the 29th he was again denounced by a petitioner, calling himself a member of a commercial house in India, and by the deputy Cavelier. On the 13th of January, 1792, the committee of the marine made a report against the paper of the minister Bertrand, relating to the dismissions delivered to the officers of the marine of Brest. The discussion was long, the debates tumultuous, and the deliberation adjourned. On the 19th, the minister went, accompanied by his colleagues,

to present to the assembly the recapitulation of his arguments in his defence, and explanations concerning the facts imputed to him; this affair was again adjourned. On the 1st of February the committee of the marine made a new report against him. After tumultuous debates, the assembly decreed that there was no ground of accusation against this minister; but on the following day they decreed, that observations on his conduct should be presented. Hérault de Séchelles was charged with the denunciation: he read it, on the 1st of March, to the assembly, who adopted it. On the 10th it received the king's answer, which was honourable to the minister, and declared that Louis XVI. continued his confidence to him, though he had been denounced to him. A few days after M. Bertrand, at the solicitation of other ministers, and principally of M. Cahier de Gerville, gave in his resignation, and was succeeded by M. de la Coste. At this period Louis XVI. confided to the ex-minister, the direction of a secret police, commissioned to watch over the Jacobin party, and influence the national guard and the sections. In the month of May, Cara having denounced him to the Jacobins, as one of the principal members of the Austrian committee, Bertrand complained to the court of correcting police; but the justice of peace, Lariviére, who had admitted this complaint, was accused by the legislative assembly, as having illegally pursued several deputies. In the course of June, M. Bertrand sent to Louis XVI. the plan of the justice of peace, Buot, his principal secret agent, for naturalizing the tribunes of the assembly. After the events of the 20th of June, he presented another to this prince, for securing his departure from Paris, but indiscretion and perfidy prevented the execution of it. Five days after, the tenth of August, Bertrand de Moleville was accused, in consequence of a report of Gohier, and of the demand of Fouchet. He encountered great dangers, and at last reached London, where he settled after this period. In that country he published a voluminous history of the revolution, which had great success there, on account of the accuracy of the facts, of which the author was a witness, and especially on account of the severity of its principles. This valuable work has been translated into English, and reprinted at Paris in 15 volumes; it is certainly one of the most complete collections concerning the revolution, and it would be difficult to find elsewhere more courage and exactness on this head. M. de Bertrand did not return to Paris after the 18th of Brumaire, year 8, (9th of November, 1799) and he appears to have remained attached to the house of Bourbon. In 1804, he was pointed out, in a pamphlet published by Méhée, as having tried to seduce him to attach him to the same cause; and in May 1805, he was also marked out in the same manner in the trial of Duluc and Rosselin, who were condemned to death by a military committee.

FROM THE UNIVERSAL MAGAZINE.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL MACDONALD.

[From the Philosopher of Gen. Sarrazin.]

STEPHEN Macdonald was born at Sedan, in the department of the Ardenness, the 17th of Nov. 1765. His father, of Scotch origin, had him educated with great care. He left college in1784, to enter in the Legion of Mallebois, which he left in 1786, for the regiment of Dillon, which he entered as an under-lieutenant: he successively passed through the different degrees to that of colonel, which he obtained on the 1st of March, 1793, in the 2d regiment of infantry of the line, called Picardie, which was then in garrison at Thionville.

Brave, intelligent, and well-informed, Macdonald distinguished himself in every affair in which he was engaged in the army of the north: he was appointed general of brigade after the taking of Menin; he made the campaign of 1794 under the orders of Pichegru. On the 12th of Jan. 1795, he crossed the Waal on the ice, with his division. All the generals in chief under whom he served till the peace of Leoben, spoke very highly of him in their reports to the directory.-Whilst his comrades were rendering him that justice which was due to his talents and his bravery, the representatives of the people who with the army of the north, caused him to experience the greatest inconveniences: they even pushed their hatred (inspired by his frankness) so far as to dismiss him. Pichegru complained loudly of this, and said they wished to disorganise his army, by depriving it of its best officer. The deputy, St. Just, answered him, "We have dismissed Macdonald, because neither his face nor name, are republican: we restore him to thee, but thou shalt answer for him with thy head." This opinion of the deputies without doubt, at that time influenced the committee of public safety, and afterwards the directory, which prevented that officer from being intrusted with a chief command till 1799, when he was appointed to replace Championnet, at the army of Naples. Macdonald had distinguished himself by many successful engagements with Gen. Mack. When he attacked the French army in the Roman states, Championnet, exasperated at the dilapidations committed by the Sieur Faitpoult, commissary of the directory, had given him orders to quit Naples in twenty-four hours, with his band of pillagers. Faitpoult raised the standard of revolt against the general in chief; but he was laughed at, and his decrees were turned into ridicule. He was obliged to quit the field of battle with many personal insults, the authors of which I am far from wishing to justify.

Macdonald, who had not forgotten the reproaches of St. Just, conducted himself in such a manner as to persuade the directory that he respected their authority; both in the general in chief, whose orders he punctually obeyed, and in the commissioner Faitpoult, whose fate he appeared to lament. The firmness of Championnet was considered as mutiny: he was ordered to quit Naples, and to resign the command to Gen. Macdonald. That general was not afraid of the task which was imposed upon him. One might say that the whole kingdom, not even excepting the capital, was in insurrection. There was no travelling without considerable escorts. The army was obliged to fight in the Abruzzes, in the Pouille, in the principality of Salerno, and even to the very gates of Naples. The various movements of the troops were so well combined, that in a month's time every thing was calm, except in the territory of Otranto, where the remains of the insurrection appeared concentrated, under the orders of Cardinal Ruffo.

The army of Naples was under the orders of General Sherer. When he was beaten on the Adige, on the 26th of March, 1799, he gave orders to Macdonald to unite his troops and to join him by forced marches in northern Italy. The Neapolitans, informed of the successes of the Austrians, ran to arms, and the massacre of the French recommenced with fresh fury. In spite of these great obstacles, in a mountainous country, all the columns of the army succeeded in effecting a junction. It would have been dangerous to commence the retreat without having overawed the multitude by some daring stroke which might insure the confidence of those who were friendly to the French, and deter the insurgents from following at their heels. Avellino, Castellamare, Lacava, and Sorento, were attacked and taken, after some sanguinary conflicts. The army commenced its retreat on the 12th of May, and on the 26th was in Tuscany, united with the divisions of the army of Italy, detached by Gen. Moreau. Macdonald may be reproached for having lost 10 days in combining his movements with Moreau: he ought to have rushed from the heights of the Appenines into the plains on the right bank of the Po, proceeded rapidly up this river, and effected a junction with the army of Italy, in the environs of Voghera. The 13th of June he attacked Modena, and in two hours overthrew the column of General Hohenzollern, which was posted upon the glacis of the place. The French grenadiers entered the town with the Austrians, and made more than 2000 prisoners.

The divisions of Montrichard and Rusca, which ought to have seconded the attack of Modena, by the route of Bologna, not having yet arrived, Macdonald was informed that a column of cavalry retarded their march: it was a squadron of the legion of Bussy, to which all means of retreat were cut off by the taking

of Modena. Macdonald, fully confident that that body would surrender without any difficulty, advanced towards the grand road, within a quarter of a mile of the infantry, which was stationed on both sides of the road. By way of precaution, I observed to Macdonald, that I thought I had better remain with my grenadiers, and that he would do the same. 'Don't you see,' replied he, very courteously, that they are caught as though in a mouse trap? When he was an hundred paces distant from the Austrians, he hollowed out to them to surrender. We surrender?' replied the officer, and returned his sabre into its scabbard, continuing to advance with the greatest tranquillity. When come up within pistol shot, he ordered his troops to draw their sabres, and to charge; he himself falling upon Macdonald, struck him three blows with the sabre upon the head, threw him off his horse, and then mingled with the escort, which, attacked by the whole squadron, took to flight. The grenadiers were very much embarrassed about firing, for fear of killing their own men. After a fray of ten minutes, a few Austrians succeeded in entering Modena, where they were made prisoners; the greater part of them, however, perished; in this latter number, was the commanding officer, well worthy of a better fate. He was a young man of eighteen, of a good countenance, and of considerable abilities. His generous resolution of forcing his way to rejoin his army, cannot but be praised; he would have succeeded in it, had it not been for the ambuscade of grenadiers. Macdonald, who was supposed dead, came off quit for the three cuts of the sabre, which were but slight, and the contusions occasioned by the fall from his horse.

On the 17th the advanced guard reached Placentia, and on the 18th General Ott was attacked and beaten. The coming up of the Russian advanced guard, forced the French to draw back and to take a position on the right of the Trebia. On the 19th the whole army was reunited upon the right bank of the river. Two strong van guards were stationed upon the left bank. Suwarrow and Melas attacked them with the choice of their troops, made a great slaughter, but could not force them to quit their position. The 20th of June, Macdonald acted upon the offensive : he crossed the Trebia with the whole of his army, 40,000 strong. Gen. Melas was at first beaten. Suwarrow, who was gaining in the centre, sent Gen. Rosemberg to the succour of his left; and the French were obliged to draw back to their old positions. There was for a moment, a rout in the centre. Macdonald, who was there, had nearly been drowned in the Trebia; he was carried away with the fifth regiment of light infantry, which, being panic-struck, had retreated in the greatest confusion, throwing down their muskets and knapsacks. The cause of this rout was