: him the character of factious; but he had neither | his share in repressing a riot on that very spot the qualities nor even the defects of a conspirator; three years before and, finally, that "the murder he may have helped with his purse and name, of the Duke of Orleans was a demonstration popular movements, which would have equally against certain members of the Mountain who had happened without him, and which had a very dif- plotted his elevation;" as if it were not the Mounferent object from his elevation."-Mignet, 108. tain itself which put him to death; as if the hisWe need not stop to expose the confusion, self- torian had not just before told us that the duke contradictions, and general falsehood of this pas- had no party and no plots; and as if he had been a sage; but our readers will contrast the hesitating victim of the same innocent and interesting class hypothesis that the "duke might have helped with as the queen, or Bailly, or the Girondins ;-for the his purse," with the bold assertion that "whether crimes of the latter, great as they were, can never he did or not, it produced no result." Again: in be justly placed in the same category with the inthe relation of the frightful events of the 5th and famy of Egalité. 6th of October, 1789-the real pivot on which the Revolution turned from good to irretrievable evil, and which was the indisputable movement of the Duke of Orleans-his name is not even alluded to; but by and bye, on occasion of his subsequent visit to England, it is thus mentioned : "The Duke of Orleans-who, wrongly or rightly, was considered the planner of the insurrection, consented to go on a mission to England." -Mignet, 131. 66 Wrongly or rightly." And this complaisant doubt is expressed by a philosophical historian of a fact as notorious as the sun, and admitted by the pusillanimous evasion of the culprit, which broke up the confederacy between him and the more daring Mirabeau. The third direct mention of him is in a general attempt of M. Mignet to varnish over some of the most atrocious murders of the convention by a kind of classification motivée : "The Dictatorial government [the Committee of Salut Public] struck at all the parties with which it was at war in their highest and most sensitive places. The condemnation of the queen was directed against Europe that of the Twenty-two [Brissot, &c.] against the Girondins-that of the wise [le sage!] Bailly against the Old Constituant party-and, finally, that of the Duke of Orleans against certain members of the Montagne, who were suspected of plotting his elevation."-Ib., 405. We have been led to notice these passages, not by selection, but because they comprise the whole of what M. Mignet thinks proper to tell us of the share of the Duke of Orleans in the revolutionhe does not so much as allude to his vote for the death of the king, nor even to the assumption of the name Egalité-a most significant silence: to which we may add, as an appropriate pendantthat no description, nor, as we recollect, any mention of that revolutionary saint, whose influence worked so large a portion of M. Mignet's miracles the Guillotine-is allowed to sully the pages of his philanthropic history and the stupendous horrors of the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris, with its 3000 victims-the Noyades of Nantes-the Mitraillades of Lyons-the proconsular massacres in all the great towns of France-are huddled together, and rather concealed than recorded in these few vague and unintelligible words-"Death became the only rule of governing, and the Republic was delivered over to daily and systematic executions:" to which the impartial historian takes care to append a gentle hint that, for whatever mischief was done, the sufferers themselves were really the guilty parties by the resistance with which the revolution had been originally met all that followed, we think, was natural-inevitable and if we were to push this philosopher's reasoning to its obvious conclusion, we should find that poor Louis XVI. was guilty not only of his own murder, but of cutting off the heads of the thousands of all ranks and parties that followed him to the scaffold. We shall see by and bye that M. Thiers' "History" is also composed on exactly the same absurd and mischievous principles. This exceeds the former passage in absurdity and falsehood, and really requires a few words of exposure. That bloody mockery of justice, the Revolutionary Tribunal, is kept altogether out of sight, and M. Mignet endeavors indirectly to palli- We are not reviewing M. Mignet-though we ate its murders by thus presenting them as the acts confess we ought to have done so long ago; but of a government invested by the perilous circum- all the French biographers and critics admit that stances of the country with a dictatorial right of he and M. Thiers were so identified in principle, war against its public enemies-a nefarious princi- and so evidently "fingers of the same hand," that ple never alleged by the original murderers. He we could not overlook the connexion and mutual would have us believe-contrary to all evidence, elucidation of their histories-coming from the contrary to the knowledge of all-not a few-sur- same "atelier"-at the same period of timeviving witnesses-that the murder of the prostrate under the same patronage-and, as we think the and helpless queen was a stroke of public policy result shows, for the same ultimate purpose. Beagainst Europe; as if the previous execution of sides, we were not sorry to have an opportunity of the king, and declaration of war against the very expressing, however late and however cursorily, name of monarchy throughout Europe, had not our very unfavorable opinion of Mignet's workrendered the death of the queen a mere personal, for his skeleton style and method have obtained for wanton, and unmeaning cruelty :-that "the mur-him a kind of primû facie reputation of accuracy der of the Twenty-two was directed against the Girondins;" as if the Twenty-two were not themselves the Girondins :-that" the murder of Bailly was meant to intimidate the old constituants;" as if any one, at that time, cared, or even thought of the old constituants; as if it were not one of the most striking and notorious facts of the whole revolutionary tragedy, that the poor morosoph Bailly was rather tortured to death than executed, in the Champ de Mars, in personal vengeance of and impartiality which he assuredly does not deserve. An ordinary reader may sometimes suspect that M. Thiers is too brilliant to be trusted, while Mignet seems too dry to be doubted; whereas, in truth, they are, though by different processes, equally deceptive. Thiers' portrait flatters the Revolution by altering the details-Mignet's coarser and colorless hand falsifies the outline. Here, in strict chronological order, we should pursue our observations on M. Thiers' first His tory; but it will be more convenient, we think,olutions only can produce, and the hope of whica to complete our slight sketch of his life before has been the chief incentive of all the revolutions we proceed to any detailed examination of his of France, M. Thiers, as minister, gave Captain work. Laplace a complimentary dinner on his return from this expedition, which M. Thiers had so narrowly and for himself so luckily escaped. We have said that his articles in the Constitutionnel had given him a political position; and his "History," written in the sense of the prevailing But. M. Thiers' revived zeal, and the imporpublic opinion, and hardly less a measure of oppo-tance of the crisis, now required another and more sition than his newspaper articles-which it resem-vehement organ than the measured, and somewhat bled in many respects-obtained him, at least with monotonous essayism of the Constitutionnel; and his own party, which was still stronger in the lit- with funds supplied from the same source as all erary than the political world, a more determined the other expenses of this opposition, "les som and permanent reputation. But still the wished-mités financières de la Gauche," that is, M. Lafor revolution did not arrive: the respectable and fitte-he, with his old friend Mignet, and a not unpopular ministry of M. de Martignac seemed younger and more dashing one, Armand Carrel even to adjourn any immediate probability of it; founded the National. The principles and characand the activity and ambition of M. Thiers seems ter of Carrel reflect some light on those of his asto have become somewhat impatient of the fruit-sociate. Educated in the Royal Military School less conflict he was engaged in. "He began,' of St. Cyr, he was remarked for his early turbusays M. Sainte-Beuve," to contemplate a 'Gener-lence. In 1819 he joined the army as a sub-lieutenal History.' ”—He does not say of what; but adds, "that for this new object M. Thiers thought it necessary to prepare himself by a diligent study of the higher sciences." "Those who have had the pleasure of a long acquaintance with M. Thiers remember-not without charm-this, as I may call it, scientific phase of M. Thiers' life. He studies Laplace, Lagrange -studies them pen in hand-smitten with the love of the higher calculs, and making them. He traces meridians (des méridiens) at his window, and arrives in the evening at a party of friends, reciting, with an accent of enthusiasm, those noble and simple last words of the Système de la Nature. 'Let us preserve, nay, carefully augment, the storehouse of these high pursuits, the delights (délices) of thinking beings.""-Mignet, 236. Whatever doubts this high-flown passage may excite as to the scientific acquirements of either M. Sainte-Beuve or M. Thiers, it would be uncivil to doubt the facts: we, therefore, must believe that M. Thiers actually makes his calculations "pen in hand;" and that he has accomplished that heretofore undiscovered problem of finding more than one meridian for the same window. The meridian of a window every schoolboy can find with two pins and a gleam of sunshine. ant, and being in garrison at Béfort, became involved in the military conspiracy of 1822, in which Lafayette and the comité directeur of Paris were so seriously implicated. On this occasion Carrel withdrew or was removed from the army; and on the French invasion of Spain, he joined the Spanish insurgents, and served under Mina, against his own countrymen. Being taken prisoner in the course of this affair, he was tried and twice condemned to death, but the sentences were successively set aside for technical irregularities; and on a third trial, as is usual in such cases, indulgence prevailed, and he was acquitted. He then came to Paris, and fell into the same course of literature, and we suppose, under the same patronage, as Thiers and Mignet. He was a regular contributor to the Constitutionnel, and published abridgments of the histories of Scotland and Modern Greece; and in more direct furtherance of the grand conspiracy, a history of the counter-revolution in England under Charles II. and James II. This work was suppressed by the government, and we have never seen it; but we presume it was an amplification of the heads of our preceding synopsis. When the July revolution removed Thiers and Mignet to ministerial office, Carrel was rewarded, more obscurely and scantily, with a secret mission into Belgium, and was subsequently offered a préfecture. These, we believe, seemed to him an inadequate recompense, and he continued in the chief direction of the National, in which he showed not a little mortification and dépit, at the inconsistency and ingratitude of the citizen monarchy; and in 1838 was killed in a half personal, half journalist duel by M. Emile Girardin, who had just started La Presse, at half the usual price of its contemporaries. About the time that M. Thiers was thus in his "scientific phase," it happened that M. Hyde de Neuville, the Minister of Marine, was preparing a voyage of discovery under Captain Laplace. The scheme attracted M. Thiers' active and inquisitive propensities; he asked, says M. Sainte-Beuve, and obtained, the consent of the minister and the commandant to his joining the expedition; and M. Hyde de Neuville even proposed to him the office of historian (rédacteur, of the voyage. All was arranged: M. Thiers had taken leave of his friends, and was on the point of embarking, when the Martignac ministry was overthrown, and, on the accession of M. de Polignac, M. Thiers sagaciously foresaw the approach of a political tempest, in which he should be more in his element than in the storms of the ocean. He unpacked his trunks, and resumed his pen. The story has been doubt-down as the inexorable and only rule for the coned but it affords his panegyrist an occasion to re- duct of affairs-" the Charter-the whole Charter, mind us of Oliver Cromwell about to sail for New and nothing but the Charter;" to employ against England, when turned back by a proclamation of the government every power and means that were the royalty that he was destined to overthrow. M. not expressly forbidden in the charter, and to deny Sainte-Beuve candidly adds, that he does not com- them every power and means of visitance that pare M. Thiers to Oliver Cromwell; though" bon were not specially recognized. "Confine," said gré mal gré, ce souvenir, saut tout d'abord à l'es-M. Thiers, these Bourbons within the four walls prit." By one of those turns of fortune which rev- of the Charter; shut the doors, stop the chimneys, The earlier days of the National, to which we must return, were brilliant and successful. M. Thiers' conception of his subject and object-the principle, so to call it, of his warfare was as sagacious as its execution was bold and able. It was to paralyze the government and push it eventually to its own destruction, by affecting to lay "M. Thiers' conduct in these critical and decisive moments, from the 26th to the 31st July, may be comprised in two facts-he contributed more than any one to the opening act-the protest-and as much as any one to the closing one.”—Mignet, 240. operation-and even in his history, M. Thiers would have escaped some strange blunders if he had been less confident in his own military skillbut in such a conflict as that of the Three Days, and under his very peculiar circumstances, M. Thiers' absence from a resistance which he had so directly instigated, reminds us, involuntarily, of the "relictû non bene parmulû" of another little Epicurean-for whom, however, it may be said that he never professed to be a Brutus, nor ventured to criticise the campaigns of Cæsar. This circumstance is rendered the more piquant, by M. Thiers' own observations on "Robespierre's having during the three days that followed the insurrection of the 10th of August-stood aside (resté à l'écart) till the revolution had been accomplished; and then coming forward to claim the merit and recompense of the victory, of which he had been the trumpeter, not the soldier" (iii., 13.) This is certainly a curious coincidence:-M. Thiers little thought that he was anticipating his own history under the name of Robespierre! and we shall soon force them to jump out of the windows." This was logical; it was bringing to practical proof Mr. Burke's philosophical objections to pen and ink constitutions, whose theories can never provide for the incalculable contingencies of human affairs; but it is equally applicable to the charter of Louis Philippe, or any other extempor- This mode of covering M. Thiers' retreat during ized paper constitution, as that of Louis XVIII.; the three days-by "comprising his conduct in and it is, in fact, the best excuse that can be made two facts" which occurred, one before and the other for Charles X. and his ministers; for it is an ad- after them, is admirable, and we are inclined to mission on the part of M. Thiers that government, exclaim" C'est du Mignet tout pur!" In regular under such a formula as “nothing but the char-war it would be very presumptuous and foolish for ter," was impracticable. So M. Thiers himself a civilian, accidentally present, to intrude his cofound it when he became, under the revised charter, Louis Philippe's minister. The mitraille of St. Méry, the massacre of the Rue Transnonain, and the laws of September, were no more than successful imitations of what Charles X. had been driven to attempt, though he had neither the heart, head nor hand to execute.* We have never changed our opinion on the extreme rashness and folly the fool-hardiness alternating with faintheartedness of the Polignac government; but the best excuse we can find for it is the sagacious principle on which M. Thiers conducted, as journalist, the opposition of the National, and the energetic measures by which he subsequently, as minister, quelled the insurrections of his former friends, associates and admirers. M. Thiers is the | best apologist for M. de Polignac. We are sorry for the sake of M. de Polignac that the authority of his antagonist and imitator is of so little value. The National had a large share in preparing men's minds for a change; but on the appearance of the Ordonnances M. Thiers had a more immediate and personal part in deciding the new Revolution. The Ordonnances on their first appearance produced little effect, and would probably not have occasioned an insurrection, but that the editors of the newspapers whose presses were next morning seized were convoked at the office of the National, where they agreed to and signed the celebrated protest drawn up by M. Thiers, which was immediately printed and published all over Paris, and which became the immediate signal for revolt. Then came the Three Days-during which, as in the beginning of the Revolution, the working hands showed so much courage in the streets, and their instigators so much doubt and hesitation-not to say personal weakness-in their councils. M. Thiers himself, though he had had the courage to set fire to the train, did not wait for the explosion. We should have expected from his temper, his energy, and the peculiar taste which he professes for military affairs, to have seen him prominent in the conflict which he had taken so forward a part in exciting. But no!-Immediately after signing the protest he retired to Montmorency, a village a few miles from Paris, and did not reappear till early on the morning of the 30th, when the victory had been won, and when deputies and journalists were seen hastening from their respective retreats to divide the spoil. This part of M. Thiers' history no longer reminds M. Sainte-Beuve of Oliver Cromwell, and he jumps à pieds joints over the Three Great Days -with a dexterity worthy of the historical school which he eulogizes: *"Oui; après deux ans de règne, Louis Philippe a déchiré la Charte aussi manifestement que Charles X., et bien plus manifestement encore, car il l'a déchiré après la révolution, après l'introduction dans la Charte de dispositions destinées à prévenir de pareilles violations." Cabet, Rév. de 1830, p. 181. We do not, however, on a calm consideration of the whole case, attribute M. Thiers' disappearance to a want of physical courage-neither his countrymen in general, nor those of that particular part of it to which he belongs, have ever been deficient in personal bravery, and M. Thiers, in some subsequent émeutes in which he happened to be personally exposed, showed sufficient firmness. We attribute it rather to political prudence—a ramification of the same system which induced the Duke of Orleans to hide himself, at the same period, in a summer-house of his park. There were, in our view, three parties to the July movement. First, the Republicans and the mob, who thought of nothing but the overthrow of the existing authority: these took the field thoughtlessly, instinctively, and boldly. Secondly, the Constitutional Conservatives-at the head of whom were the Duke de Broglie and M. Guizot, and, with a shade more democracy, Casimir Perier;-their wishes did not go beyond a change of ministry, or perhaps, by way of guarantee, an abdication in favor of the Duke of Bordeaux-they regretted the insurrection, or at least its extent and violence, and to the last possible moment would have gladly compromised the dispute. Thirdly, Lafitte and his satellites, Thiers, &c., who may be called the Orleanists,-who had prepared the mischief, and assembled, bribed, and intoxicated the populace, but, doubtful both of their cause and of their candidate, kept aloof, watching events and waiting their opportunity. It seems to us that they were playing the same game as the Orleanists of the first revolution. They had calculated on just so much commotion as should intimidate the king into a transfer of the crown to the Duke of Orleans, and were surprised and alarmed to find that the populace, victorious beyond calculation or ex was, pectation, was not very ready to devolve the sov- eloquence that at once established his character as ereign power, of which it had-to the tune of a speaker, and opened to him immediately the à bas les Bourbons"-possessed itself, upon the cabinet, and eventually, twice over, the presidency first prince of the Bourbon blood. Our reviews of the council. As a minister, we have already of the works of Sarrans, Mazas, Bérard, and Bon-stated that he was now as vigorous and decided in nellier* have informed our readers of the difficulty suppressing incendiary articles in the press and that M. Lafitte eventually found in accomplishing incendiary movements in the streets, as he had his object; and it may have been, and probably been while a journalist zealous in provoking them; this uncertainty that determined M. Thiers' and he showed on all occasions a flexibility of triduan retreat into the valley of Montmorency. principle, a levity of personal conduct, a contempt Fortunately, however, for France and the world, for political consistency, with a firmness of pura strange combination of accident, common sense, pose and a power of debate, which created more and hocus-pocus, placed Louis Philippe on the of wonder than respect, more conviction of his throne of those whom, even yet, he dares not to talents than confidence in his principles or esteem call his ancestors; and after some ministerial ex- for his character. He proposed, for instance, periments at a more comprehensive administration, severe laws against unauthorized assemblages; M. Lafitte was declared first minister with a cabi- and resisted with great pertinacity the amnesty for net of his democratic friends. M. Thiers had political offences; towards both of which the aualready been admitted into the conseil d'etat and thor of the meeting and protest of the journalists the Legion of Honor, and now became under sec- on the 26th of July might have been expected to retary of state for the finance department-while show some sympathy. He was close to Louis his Pylades, M. MignetPhilippe at the Fieschi attentat, and elevated perhaps by the noble example of the king, showed on that occasion no deficiency in personal courage ;he defended with more than his usual zeal and ability the unconstitutional and rigorous but necessary laws of September; and signalized himself in forwarding the erection of the sixteen exaggerated Bastilles, which replace on the whole circumference of Paris the single and inoffensive bugbear whose capture and destruction he so triumphantly celebrates. His constant expression while minister used to be, "Nous sommes le ministère de la résistance," that is, in opposition to the movement party, of which he had been the chief "after the remarkable days that overthrew the -He has been since elected secretary of the 66 Of M. Thiers' brilliant career we shall say no more than is necessary to our view of his literary character. He was immediately elected to the chamber by his native department, the Bouches du Rhône but his first speeches were not successful. His appearance was mean, and his voice disagreeable; and the tone and temper of his harangues seemed, says one of his biographers, copied from the convention :-the violence of his doctrine frightened the moderate; the bombast of his style offended everybody." He, however, soon discovered this double error, and began to moderate his opinions and improve his rhetoric. When, after a four months' ministry, M. Lafitte was dismissed by the wise, and indeed necessary, ingratitude of Louis Philippe, M. Thiers was subjected to much obloquy for not following his friend and patron into opposition; instead of which he took occasion to express his strong dissent from his former associates, and to applaud the prudential policy of Casimir Perier. With an equal share of sagacity and versatility, he knew, as well as the Roman patriot, that "There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune;" and he turned his knowledge to better account than poor Brutus, by throwing himself boldly into the inviting current of royal favor. It was, we think, on the question of the hereditary peerage that he first distinguished himself as an orator:he took, contrary to all expectation, and in opposition to the whole course of his life, the aristocratic side, and made a speech of mingled argument and *Quarterly Review, Sarrans, vol. xlviii.; Mazas, vol. xlix.; Bérard, vol. lii.; Bonnelier, vol. lv. We must for a moment interrupt our political narrative to state that a year or two after his appointment as minister of the interior, M. Thiers was elected into the French Academy:-This, however-considering that the earlier portion of his history had been ten years published, and its conclusion about eight, and seeing that in the mean time such men as Pougerville and Viennet, Jay and Tissot had been elected-looks as if the compliment had been paid rather to the minister than the historian-though it is no very high compliment to M. Thiers to admit that there were not many of the forty who had greater claims to that literary distinction. We do not believe that it was ever more true than at the time of M. Thiers' election, that they were " quarante qui avaient de l'esprit comme quatre." But while M. Thiers was thus ready to advocate, adopt, and enforce a severely repressive and even despotic system of internal administration, he was not insensible to the decline of his popularity, and endeavored to retrieve it by the aggressive violence of his foreign policy, and by not only pandering to, but actively exciting the worst passions and prejudices of the French people. As the surest mode of regaining the favor of the movement party, he endeavored to revive the revolutionary fever of hostility to England; and was in 1840, as all must remember, on the point of indulging the Jacobins and Bonapartists with a new struggle against the "perfide Albion." War, in short, a revolutionary war, is now the programme or principle of M. Thiers: so says a writer whom that very design has evidently propitiated "That is the predominant idea of M. Thiersthe great object to which all his political alliances and all his parliamentary policy are now subordi nate. 40. 6 'There must be,' he lately said, another | being the most monstrous system of deception that, twenty years' war in Europe before it can be set- we believe, the annals of literature can exhibit tled on its true basis, and I hope that I shall live to of such a work we say, it is obviously impossible make at least half of it.' When that time comes, that the limits of a review can afford any sufwe shall probably see that he again will be found ficient exposure, or anything like a pedetentous the man of the crisis."-Gal. des Hom. Illus., p. refutation: a lie is conveyed by a word, or even by the omission of a word, which it would take In adopting and pursuing this course, M. Thiers pages to disprove; or it may be spread over an was probably influenced by a combination of mo- extensive surface like a varnish, which it would tives first, his natural inclinations, we cannot call be endless to endeavor to pick off bit by bit; and them principles, are revolutionary; secondly, he yet we feel it to be absolutely necessary that we was the more inclined to take this line because his should support our heavy charge against M. Thiers rival, M. Guizot, had adopted, with all the firm- by distinct evidence, which may, as far as it goes, ness and consistency of his pure, amiable, and hon- wash off the foul matter like a solvent, and satisfy orable character, the conservative and peaceful line our readers that it would have the sanie effect if of policy for France and for Europe; and thirdly, applied to the parts to which we have not room to because, foreseeing that he could not long "run extend it. Had we time and space in any proporwith the hare and hold with the hound," he was, tion to the abundance of our materials, the task in prudent anticipation of a difference with the would be easy enough-the proofs overflow: our king, preparing the elements of a reunion with the only difficulty is the embarras du choix; and the popular and agitating party. His previsions were danger, on the one hand, of prolixity and tediousaccomplished; he has ceased to be the king's min-ness-or, on the other, of being charged with the ister, and has now, we believe, pretty well re-blunder of the Greek pedant in producing a brick gained-not the confidence-no one has anything or two as a specimen of his house. We shall enlike confidence in him-but the cooperation of the party which he had not only abandoned, but for a season persecuted. deavor to avoid these opposite dangers, and yet do substantial justice to the case, by taking—we cannot call it choosing-for special examination some of those events and passages, whose transcendant prominence and importance would naturally require and excite M. Thiers' best diligence and highest talents, and which every reader will allow to be the most obvious, and, to the historian, the most favorable, tests that could have been adopted; and at least above all suspicion of being, Before we enter into details, we must, in order We said we should only deal with M. Thiers' political life as it affected his authorship; and some of our readers who have not minutely watched M. Thiers' proceedings and publications, may ask what then all this detail has to do with his histories? We answer, a great deal-everything: the fruit of his involuntary leisure has been the "History of the Consulate," and we are convinced by us, invidiously selected. that as his first history was written in a spirit of hostility to the elder Bourbons, with some per-that our readers may understand their import and adventure indistinct view to the introduction of the Duke of Orleans-so this second history is written, not in fact from any love of Bonaparte's principles or memory, but to electrify France with a galvanic exhibition of his false glory-to collect round M. Thiers all the old malcontents and all the young enthusiasts, and renouncing Louis Philippe as quasi-legitimate, to amalgamate-in opposition to him, M. Guizot and the conservative party throughout Europe-all the various discontents and ambitions that may choose to adopt the recollections of either the republic or the Empire as their stalking-horse of faction. The History of the Consulate is therefore still more decidedly a party manœuvre than the History of the Revolution; and we do not believe that there is in Europe any politician or any man of letters at all acquainted with public affairs, who regards either of these bulky yet flimsy works in any other light than as -what Lord Brougham is said to have wittily and truly called them-" pamphlets monstres." effect, apprize them generally of the tactics by which M. Thiers conducts his narrative. He was well aware that former Jacobin writers had defeated their own purpose by their blind violence and incredible calumnies. Many recent publications, and a calmer retrospect of all the facts, had conciliated public opinion towards Louis XVI. and the still more slandered queen, and had dissipated the monstrous delusions under which these innocent, and now lamented victims, had been dethroned and murdered. M. Thiers' own sagacity and, at all events, the prudence of the bookseller for whom the goods were originally manufactured, probably saw that though Ca ira and the Carmagnole might still make a riot in the streets, they would not, in the year 1823, sell a book in ten volumes octavo. Men's minds had gradually recovered-under the severe though opposite disciplines of the Republic and the Empire-from revolutionary delusions, and were shocked at revolutionary recollections; and it was clear that a reHaving thus stated what we believe to be the vival of revolutionary principles could be neither real motives and object of these publications and politically nor commercially successful, unless actheir author, we shall now commence our examin- companied and recommended by some profession ation of them in the historical character they as- and appearance of candor and justice. This idea, sume; and our readers will see, as we proceed, however, was more wise in the conception than that the details fully confirm the impression of inac-easy in the execution; for, in truth, the whole curacy, partiality, and imposture, which their gen- revolution was, from beginning to end, such a eral aspect and the peculiar circumstances under which they were written originally produced. Of a work so voluminous as "the History of the Revolution," and of which, we repeat, every line betrays a fraudulent spirit, and every page some perversion of fact-which, by the employment of petty artifice and by the accumulation of discolored details, has arrived at the dignity of mass of fraud, tyranny, cruelty, and terror, that anything like real candor or substantial justice was quite incompatible with the apologetical design. M. Thiers' principles, temper, and time of life made the mask of moderation peculiarly awkward and irksome to him;-and accordingly nothing can be more flimsy, and indeed insulting to common sense and common honesty, than his pretence |