alike his character and his opportunity. His high-souled wife spurned him from her presence, and demanded her brother at his hands. In a month D'Alençon was dead, and slept in a dishonored grave, when he might have chosen a glorious one. Bonnivet had fallen at his post, a brave soldier, although a defective general. Bourbon sought him through the field, burning for a personal encounter with his mortal enemy. When he gazed on his lifeless body, covered with wounds, he exclaimed, with mingled feelings of bitterness and compassion, "Miserable man! it is to you that both France and myself are indebted for our ruin." This decisive victory, and the captivity of Francis, spread dismay throughout Europe. The power of Charles V. had no longer an opposing check. The French army was annihilated; Milan was immediately abandoned, and in a few weeks not a Frenchman remained in Italy. By the success of Pavia and its important consequences, fortune seemed to make more than full atonement to Bourbon for her former fickleness. Had he then asked himself, with Zanga, "How stands the great account 'twixt me and vengeance?" he would have found the scale inclining in his favor beyond all reasonable calculation, and might have dedicated a temple to Nemesis in token of gratitude. To all outward appearance his star was high in the ascendant. He had gained a great battle, which placed him in the first rank of first-rate generals; he had broken the power of France, and seemed to hold her destiny in his hands; the king who had wronged him was a vanquished prisoner; the minion who had supplanted him was cold in death; the only woman he had ever truly loved was a widow, and within two months the impatience of the captive monarch submitted to the reluctant conditions, that he should receive her hand, with the restitution of his forfeited honors and estates. Successful treason was never before so perfectly triumphant. But even then the worm that never dies was gnawing at his heart; the despotic influence of opinion was withering his laurels while they clustered most thickly on his brow, and within the flowing plumes of his helmet the grim skeleton sat, dart in hand, already preparing the blow which, within the short space of two years, prostrated his ambitious hopes, and closed for ever his stormy career. The moral is profound, the application salutary, and the lesson invaluable. De Lannoy, the Viceroy of Naples, more cunning in diplomacy than effective in battle, conducted Francis to Madrid, with the view of making his own advantage with the Emperor, to the exclusion of the superior claims of Bourbon and Pescara. Bourbon hastened after him to look after his own interests, and in the loudly taxed De Lannoy with treachery and presence of Charles, cowardice. Pescara did the same by letter, and offered to prove his allegations in personal combat. The Emperor received Bourbon with the external show of deference, but with inward dislike. The proud Spanish nobles shrank from his contact, and extended to him no hands of fellowship. They stood aloof, and made no secret of their personal contempt. Robertson, following Guicciardini, says: "Notwithstanding his great and important services, they shunned all intercourse with him to Marquis de Villana to permit Bourbon to reside such a degree, that Charles, having desired the in his palace while the court remained at Toledo, he politely replied,' that he could not refuse gratifying his sovereign in that request,' but added, with a Castilian dignity of mind, that the Emperor must not be surprised, if the moment the Constable departed, he should burn to the grouud a house which, having been polluted by the presence of a traitor, became an unfit habitation for a man of honor.'"* This speech appears to have suggested to Sir Walter Scott the answer of the stern lord of Tantallon to the double-dealing Marmion, when, under something like similar circumstances, he offered him his hand at parting, having been his imposed guest by the king's command "My manor, halls, and bowers, shall still A noble and sensitive nature, like that of Bourbon, notwithstanding his fall, must have felt keenly the taunts he was compelled to endure; and still more acutely the overacted courtesy of King Francis, to whose presence he was occasionally admitted, and the studied reserve of the Princess Marguerite, then at Madrid, with whom he had a confidential communication on political points, but in which old memories and associations were neither revived nor alluded to. Time rolled *See Robertson's Charles V., v. ii. b. 4. on. few parallels, either for the boldness with which it was conceived, or the unscrupulous disregard of all the laws of civilized war, with which it was carried into execution. He announced to his soldiers that he would lead them to the attack and pillage of Rome, and place at their disposal the treasures of the richest city in the world. They followed him with alacrity. In the depth of winter he began his march with a large and motley force, but without money, magazines, artillery, or field equipage. The inhabitants of northern Italy gazed in terror as he passed along. The garrisons of the different fortresses manned their ramparts, and watched anxiously his onward progress, marked by a track of desolation, portentous as the tail of a comet, on the line he had taken. Bourbon accompanied his men on foot, sharing their coarse food, enduring all their privations, and even joining in their camp ballads, in which they jeered his poverty, eulogized his valor, and expressed their confidence in his fortunes. The burden of their favorite song consisted of two Spanish lines, which may be thus translated Francis obtained his liberty by submit- | By great address, and the influence of their ting to terms which he repudiated, as wrung attachment to his person, he restored them from him by compulsion, the moment he set to discipline and obedience, and feeling the foot on his own soil. Pescara having been necessity of striking a blow while there was tempted into wavering allegiance, died sud-vet time, resolved on an enterprise which has denly, not without suspicion of being poisoned. Bourbon thus became more necessary than ever to the Emperor, who, glad to get rid of his presence, and to retain his services, sent him back to Italy in supreme command, with a promise of the investiture of Milan as the reward of success. But he supplied no funds either to feed or supply the army, who were authorized to plunder the unfortunate Italians, and to live at free quarters wherever they could obtain them. Bourbon felt that he was thus reduced to a captain of banditti on a large scale, but he had no alternative. When he entered Milan the magistrates and principal cities loudly entreated his mercy, and assured him that their resources were exhausted. The situation of Bourbon imposed on him acts of violence extremely repulsive to his natural character, which was generous and humane. He promised to withdraw and encamp beyond the walls, if the inhabitants would raise among themselves a sum sufficient to defray the arrears of pay due to his troops. They had already suffered from bad faith, and placed no confidence in his assurances. Some authorities have stated, that he then voluntarily called Heaven to witness that if he broke his pledged word, he wished that the first shot fired at the next battle in which he was engaged might end his life. He falsified his promise, and his death before the walls of Rome has been quoted as a judgment. But it appears more likely that the anecdote was the child of the catastrophe, and may be classed with the popular traditions which tell us that the cunning Athenian artist, Perillus, was the first victim of the brazen bull he presented to Phalaris; that Dr. Joseph Ignatius Guillotin, who died in peaceful retirement in 1814, was the first victim of the humane invention which bears his name; and that Dean Swift was the first inmate of the lunatic hospital he endowed with his fortune, but which was not erected until several years after his death. How many, or rather how few, of these ingenious coincidences are founded in fact is a puzzling question, to be decided as the organ of credulity or unbelief predominates in the development of the reader. The army of Bourbon, driven to extremity by want of everything, and seeing no prospect of pay or further plunder, mutinied. "We are as good gentlemen as you, And quite as rich, without a sous.' On the evening of the 5th of May, 1527, he encamped on the plains in the neighborhood of Rome, and having inflamed the passions of his soldiers, by pointing out to them the palaces and churches into which the riches of Europe had flowed for many centuries, early on the following morning he led them to the attack of the Eternal City. To render himself more conspicuous, both to friends and enemies, he wore a surcoat of white tissue over his armor, and, well knowing the force of example, planted the first ladder with his own hands. He was determined to distinguish that day either by his death, or by a success which should resound through the nations of the world. His foot had scarcely reached the third round of the ladder, when he was struck mortally by the ball of a retreating sentinel (who fired at random), and fell to the ground. He called on one of his attendant squires, Louis Combald, to cover his body with a cloak, that the soldiers might not be discouraged by the news of his death, and expired in a few moments, with their shouts of victory ringing in his ears. No time was granted him 'for repentance, even if his thoughts turned that way; no friendly hand proffered the offices of religion, even if his agony of mind and body | permitted him to require them. He fell with courage worthy of a better cause, and in the exercise of military abilities which would have placed him high in the temple of fame, had they been employed in the service of his country, and not at the head of her enemies. Take him for all in all he was a mighty, though an erring spirit; perverted from the true course of honor by circumstances he neither sought nor created, and driven into a career which carried its own punishment at the moment of the greatest apparent triumph. Benvenuto Cellini, in his eccentric autobiography, claims the merit of having shot the Duke de Bourbon with his own hand, but nobody believes him. He says: "Levelling my arquebuss, I discharged it with deliberate aim at a person who seemed to be lifted above the rest, but the mist prevented me distinguishing whether he was on horseback or on foot. Then, turning suddenly about to Alessandro and Cecchino, I bid them fire off their pieces, and showed them how to escape every shot of the besiegers. Having accordingly fired twice for the enemy's once, I cautiously approached the walls, and perceived that there was an extraordinary confusion among the assailants, occasioned by our having shot the Duke de Bourbon. He was, as I understood afterwards, that chief personage whom I saw raised above the rest."-Vol. i. p. 120. The memoirs of Cellini are full of marvels; a tissue of improbable adventures, in the style of those of the renowned Baron Munchausen. He was skilful with chisel and graver, unequalled in the moulding of silver and gold, almost as cunning in his art as Tubal-cain, the first instructor of every one who wrought in brass and iron; but he dreamed strange fantasies, and wrote them down as truth. Many pens have described with harrowing eloquence the horrors which ensued on the capture of Rome by the army of Bourbon. Men of various nations, mercenary traders in human life, who sold their services for hire, unrestrained by discipline, infuriated by the loss of their commander, and prompted by the thirst of rapine, were let loose on the devoted city; nor did their outrages cease, as is commonly the case, when the first fury of the storm was over, and temporary excitement was glutted to satiety. For many months the helpless inhabitants, without distinction of age, rank, or sex, were plundered, outraged, and murdered. Pope Clement | VII., who had taken refuge in the Castle of St. Angelo, was obliged to surrender at discretion, and was treated little better than a common malefactor. Priests were torn from the altar, and virgins suffered violation in the arms of their mothers. The booty in ready money exceeded one million of ducats, and that large sum was more than doubled by ransoms and confiscations. The systematic, organized barbarism exceeded all that had been inflicted in earlier ages by the hordes of Alaric, Genseric, or Odoacer. The excesses of an army professing Christianity, subjects of a Catholic monarch, in the sixteenth century, and in the acknowledged capital of the Christian world, have left in the shade the cruelties perpetrated in the ages of ignorance by heathen Huns, Goths, and Vandals. To match their unbridled license, to equal their proceedings in atrocity, we must trace down the pages of modern history, until we arrive, a hundred years later, at the dark chapter which describes the sacking of Magdeburg by the remorseless Tilly. War, the great safety-valve, but at the same time the heaviest scourge of society, has never been exercised in all its gloomy terrors without a redeeming ray of heroism, so completely as in these two memorable instances. A thirst for plunder, the worst of all human passionsthe cupidity or exigence of the brigand, and not the martial spirit of the soldier-was in either case the exciting cause. Bourbon had only attained his thirty-eighth year, when he fell, as described, before the walls of Rome. At the same age died Gustavus of Sweden, on the plains of Lutzen. But the latter perished in a bright field of glory, in a just cause, and with an unblemished reputation. We have endeavored to bring under one view all that credible authority has disclosed with regard to two eminent personages, whose lives and characters suggest points of strong comparison. The modern presents a duplicate of the ancient, under very similar circumstances. Whatever may be the influence of times and manners in moulding the actions of men, the general features of human nature will always be found to be the same. In one respect, Coriolanus stands above Bourbon. He almost redeemed his disloyalty to his country, by pausing in the hour of triumph, and yielding up public resentment to natural affection. Bourbon suffered no touch of feeling to interfere with his steady march of vengeance, on which he was permitted for a time to advance with destructive power. The wrongs of Coriolanus were more exclusively public wrongs. He was driven into banish-ish Rome, rather than to exalt himself. Bourment by the voice of the majority. His coun- bon hoped to find a throne in the dismemtrymen repudiated him; he was disfran- berment of the French monarchy. The venchised, and became, by their own act, a free geance of Coriolanus was lofty and unselfish. citizen of the world. The wrongs of Bour- That of Bourbon was never separated from bon were private wrongs, the more stinging, personal ambition. We can justify neither perhaps, inasmuch as they arose from per- entirely, while we may pity and palliate the sonal enmity, jealousy, and ingratitude. Rome conduct of both. It is more easy to find exwas the enemy of Coriolanus. The King, his cuses for Bourbon than for either Bernadotte mother, and Bonnivet, not France, were the or Moreau, who, in our own days, appeared enemies of Bourbon. Coriolanus relented in arms against their native country, and asunder abject supplications. It does not ap- sisted to strangle her when already gasping pear that Bourbon was ever cordially invited beneath the pressure of confederated Europe. to return, that the offers of the King to rein- They sought to overthrow an ancient rival state him were sincere, or that he ever wa- who had gone beyond them, without caring vered in his schemes of retaliation. On the much by what means the object was accomwhole, the conduct of Coriolanus was more plished; and the chances are, that neither defensible, on broad grounds, and the close would have objected to fill his seat had the of his life more consistent with the elevation opportunity presented itself. of his character. Coriolanus sought to punJ. W. C. From the Edinburgh Review for April. MEMOIRS OF THE RESTORATION.* MONSIEUR DE CHATEAUBRIAND has somewhere observed that the Government of Louis XVIII. was the best resting-place of France on the declivity of revolutions. The force of this remark is increased by the impartiality of advancing time, and the experience of more deplorable vicissitudes. At the present moment especially, when the condition of that great nation is such that we are more disposed to avert our eyes from its voluntary servitude than to commemorate and applaud its sacrifices for freedom, the fifteen years of the Restoration deserve to be remembered as an era of extraordinary promise; and we the more lament the bigotry and the follies which hurried it to a grievous and early termination. The Government of the French Restoration combined the varied and abundant talents of more than one age. Amongst its elder servants and advisers, the lofty traditions, the great names, and the refined manners of the old French Court were not yet extinct, for the Duc de Richelieu and *Politique de la Restauratian en 1822 et 1823. Par M. LE COMTE DE MARCELLUS, Ancien Ministre Plénipotentiaire. Paris: 1853. the Duc Mathieu de Montmorency sate in its councils; to these were added the statesmanlike prudence of M. de Villèle, the judg ment of M. de Serre, the brilliancy and eloquence of M. de Chateaubriand. The Chamber of Peers, hereditary in rank and independent by position, included all that was most eminent in the military and civil service of the Empire, as well as of the Royalist party. The Chamber of Deputies was alternately swayed by the austere gravity of M. Royer Collard, and the vehement eloquence of Manuel or General Foy. The schools teemed with the instruction and the eloquence of the first thinkers of the age. Guizot had invoked the genius of philosophical history and constitutional government; Victor Cousin rekindled among the countrymen of Descartes the august but almost extinct traditions of a school of ideal philosophy; Villemain gave new life to literary criticism; whilst Thierry, Thiers, and Mignet, opened their career by the narrative of revolutions whose influence was heightened by the force and fidelity of their language. Even poetry revived once more on the prosaic soil of France; for Lamartine opened a vein of sentiment in meditative verse which none of his countrymen had attempted; Casimir Delavigne and Victor Hugo gave a romantic color to the lyrics of a new age; and Béranger, the most national of French writers since La Fontaine, found, in the slight melody of his songs, touches to stir the hearts of a people. Why pursue the contrast which these recollections, scarce a quarter of a century old, suggest to the mind? We cannot recall a more mysterious reverse in human affairs than that this short and splendid period should have left no traces on the French nation, except in the imperishable pages of her literature; and that by far the greater part of the men we have named-illustrious in every department of philosophy and government-should have survived the constitution they founded, the monarchy they served, the liberty they loved, and even the epoch they adorned. pregnant with interest, for the Congress of Verona was about to assemble. The question of the intervention of the Holy Alliance in the internal affairs of Spain lowered on the political horizon. The Eastern question was to be considered; the ascendancy of Austria over Italy consolidated; and the questions of the Slave Trade and of piracy in the American seas discussed. But, more than all the rest, a change of vital moment had taken place, for the first time since 1815, in the spirit of the Foreign Minister of England. Lord' Castlereagh had framed and followed a system of policy more conformable to the views of Prince Metternich than to the public opinion and interests of the English people, for he had sacrificed the popularity and, in some degree, the influence of the British Cabinet to an habitual compliance with the views of the continental confederacy. Upon the occurrence of the melancholy event which This reflection may suffice to account for terminated his career, Prince Metternich the peculiar interest with which we turn to spoke of it as 'an irreparable loss,' and the the political annals of the Restoration, even expression was never forgotten or forgiven. in the diffuse and inaccurate pages of M. de by Lord Londonderry's successor. Mr. CanLamartine's last historical production. But ning was often wrong in his judgment, often Louis XVIII. deserves a more trustworthy misled by his own vivid imaginative powers; historian, and we have no doubt that the but he aspired to restore England to the memoirs and the correspondence of his reign independence and the spirit of her own proud will gradually disclose to the world the ex- and free policy in the councils of Europe; istence of far greater ability and liberality and whilst the House of Commons rang with than was supposed to exist at the Bourbon his eloquence, and the world with his fame, Court; especially, for example, the extensive he found himself opposed by the diplomatic collection of historical and personal reminis- maxims, the manoeuvres, the artifices, and cences, still in manuscript, to which the ven- the resentment of every other Court, not exerable Chancellor Duke Pasquier is under- cepting that of France. This change might stood to have recently put the finishing touch. have given an immediate and peculiar interThe volume before us is one of the earliest est to the duties which M. de Chateaubriand contributions to the history of this period; still discharged at the Court of St. James. and although we can place neither M. de But the ambition of that singular personage Chateaubriand nor M. de Marcellus in the was already directed to higher objects. Lonfirst rank of the political servants of the don afforded no sufficient field to his insatiaCrown of France, their private and authen-ble vanity. At the very moment when Mr. tic correspondence is extremely characteristic, and it deserves the more notice in this country, as it concerns transactions in which the British Cabinet of 1823 played a very prominent part. It was upon the 16th of September, 1822, that Mr. Canning relinquished the GovernorGeneralship of India to which he had been appointed, and received, for the second time, the seals of the Foreign Office, then vacant by the death of Lord Londonderry, which had taken place about a month before. M. de Chateaubriand had been up to that time the ambassador of France in London; and M. de Marcellus, then a young diplomatist of twenty-four, had just joined the Embassy as its secretary. The moment was one Canning took office, Chateaubriand aspired to figure amongst the plenipotentiaries of France at Verona, to defeat his rivals and to supplant his colleagues on the most active scene of European politics, and eventually to assume, on the fall of M. de Montmorency, the direction of the foreign policy of the House of Bourbon. Never were the emulous and often conflicting tendencies of French and English diplomacy swayed by two men in whom an enthusiastic temperament and inordinate personal ambition were more conspicuous than in M. de Chateaubriand and in Mr. Canning; never did these dangerous gifts acquire a greater ascendancy over the traditions of official routine and the rules of public law. The contest, which began in a |