vent themselves from being thrown down and trampled on; and the course which they take is determined, not by reflection or choice, but by the direction of the impulse by which they are pushed onward. The secret of this change in the aspect of the world and in the character of its movements is, that a power has been set in motion in the masses, which acts in the moral world with the same gigantic force as steam does in the physical world; the power of the carnal, selfish intellect, developed and heated to high pressure temperature. That power, brought to bear upon every part of the social machinery, without the influence of religious principle to regulate and direct it, is every where endangering the ancient institutions which present obstacles to its progress, and scattering destruction and desolation around it. Its development has been so simultaneous, its results are being so rapidly communicated from country to country, that the distinctive features of national mind and character are fast disappearing before the influence of a cosmopolite civilization, or rather, we should say, perhaps, a cosmopolite barbarism; for there is no greater savage than the intellectual savage, the savage of civilized life.

The peculiar character of that power, that which it exhibits every where and under every variety of circumstances, is an exclusive reliance on the intellect of man, an exclusive devotion to his material interests. It recognises no connexion between this world and another, so as to place the social aims and appliances, the theories and institutions of this world, in subordination to the higher purposes of that other world. It deals with religion as with a mere matter of private opinion, which is to be kept out of the calculation of legislatures and governments, except so far as the agreement of a considerable number of individuals in one and the same belief may give to that belief a certain social importance; and accordingly, the numerical strength of any given creed is the measure of the countenance and support which it may be expedient to give to it. The difference between truth and error in matters of religion is as completely set aside as if no such difference existed; Popery and Catholic truth are looked upon as two different systems of Christianity, just as the Linnæan and Natural Systems are two different systems of botany; and their respective merits are discussed much in the same way as those of the narrow and the broad gauge. Of reverence for principles of revealed and eternal truth that infidel power knows nothing; for the experience of past ages it has a sovereign contempt; it pays honour only to its own crude speculations, and has confidence only in its own rash experiments.

This power, the growth of which dates about a century back, and which, confined in the first instance to the world of literature,

is working its way more and more down into the masses, is evidently gathering strength in preparation for a tremendous struggle, which probably will constitute the final crisis of this world's existence, and which will have for its object entirely to annihilate every principle and every system which has directly or indirectly an origin higher than of this earth; to throw down every altar and every throne, and to proclaim the omniscience of reason and the omnipotence of the popular will; to abrogate every divine right as a treasonable offence against the sovereignty of man. Meanwhile, as in ordinary warfare skirmishes between the outposts, and onslaughts between the more advanced bodies of the hostile armies, precede the mighty battle in which the opposing hosts are drawn up in the fulness of their strength, and by which the fate of empires is finally decided, so before the last and universal conflict between the carnal power of the intellect and the spiritual power of religion, partial contests take place from time to time, and of these the first and fiercest was the fearful and bloody drama enacted in France half a century ago. After the license of anarchy had reached such a height as to render even the iron rod of military despotism a blessing, and after this despotism had in its turn rendered itself intolerable by its haughty and oppressive bearing, the opposing principle, which recognises a divine ordinance set over the affairs of men, seemed for a moment to regain its ascendancy; but the power of infidelity was only repressed and not subdued; it soon rose again triumphant, and prudently avoiding the excesses by which its former victory had been turned into defeat, it ranged itself under the self-imposed discipline of the Napoleon of Peace.

It is in this light that, after stripping them of all the adventitious incidents of circumstances and persons, the events must be regarded, which, as the works enumerated at the head of this article show, have become matter of history, before the ink has had time to dry, with which the ordinances of the 25th of July and the compact of the 9th of August were written. Whatever might have been the faults of the unhappy monarch who staked and lost his crown; whatever the errors of his ostensible ministers; whatever the insidious character of the secret influence by which both were directed; however upright, on the other hand, may be the intentions, however consummate the ability, however noble the bearing of the prince who took hold of the proffered reins of power, still the fact remains, that CHARLES X., by the grace of God, King of France, was the expression of the principle of a divine ordinance in church and state; and that LOUIS PHILIPPE, by the will of the people, King of the French, is the representative of the self-sufficiency of man in matters both

of religion and of government. It is true that the religion, under the auspices of which Charles X. ruled and forfeited his kingdom, is a corrupt religion; and it may be that he strained his regal power beyond its legitimate compass; but the question at issue was not the truth of the faith which he maintained, or the legality of the acts of his government; it was against the very principle of a state religion of any kind whatever,-against the principle of a royal power which took its rise in the appointment of God, and not in the will of the people, that the nation rose under the auspices of leaders, who openly declared that France could and should have no peace until the principles of 1789 should become the basis of the constitution. This is equally apparent from the account of both the writers whose works are now lying before us, notwithstanding the general opposition of their views, and the personal bitterness with which they treat each other in their writings.

As regards M. Capefigue, he has no pretension to be the advocate of any principle, or to have any definite standard by which he weighs men and parties and their proceedings. Success appears to be the criterion by which he forms his estimates; his heart's allegiance is to the powers that be; not, however, because they are ordained of God, but simply because they are, and while they are, the powers. This point is urged against him with considerable effect by M. de Polignac, in his Réponse à mes Adversaires, in which, adverting to the epithet, tête foible, applied to him by M. Capefigue, he says:

"No doubt that author has never found himself compromised in any grave or serious political event, for, if I am not mistaken, after having been the faithful partisan of the restoration, to which he even gave the support of his pen in the Quotidienne and in other journals, while it had the wind of fortune in its favour, he abandoned its cause, and visited it with his wrath, in the very first days of its adversity; in one word, having always ranged himself on the side of the stronger, he could not but escape always from the dangers which accompany a reverse, and thus earn for himself the designation of a tête forte."-Polignac, Réponse à mes Adversaires, p. 56.

The anecdotes which M. Capefigue tells of his childhood, when M. Anglès-Capefigue (whether his father, or another near relative, does not appear) fell a victim to the murderous excesses of the revolutionary bands at Marseilles, accounts for his instinctive detestation of all party violence; and his own statement, that in the course of his political career he has had the opportunity of seeing and hearing every shade of opinion, being admitted to the political circles of the different parties, marks him as a man whose principles are of no very decided cast. If he has any pre

dilection for one system or set of men rather than another, it is for the administration which was displaced by M. de Polignac, towards whose chief, M. de Martignac, he appears to have entertained sentiments of great personal devotion; a circumstance which accounts in a great measure for the feeling of personal hostility with which he regards his successor. His religious views, though not Ultramontane, are those of a decided Romanist, and he agrees with M. de Polignac in charging the French Revolution upon Calvinism; but of the truths of religion he speaks occasionally in a somewhat staggering tone, which leaves it doubtful whether "Catholicism is, to his mind, more than an eminently useful system of restraint upon the passions of mankind. In speaking of the condition of the working classes under the restoration, he says:

"Was it not frightful to think of the demoralization of the inferior classes of society? Who, then, could cast their minds into the mould of a social and moral system? Religious education, doubtless, could do it; that is to say, a teaching adapted to the want among them of morality and comfort. In taking popular instruction out of the hands of the ecclesiastical corporations, the Constituent Assembly had, I believe, committed an error; because the religious bodies bridled the passions at the same time that they imparted light. Men who labour much, and in the sweat of their brow, can hardly help feeling a certain irritation against the state of society which condemns them to incessant toil. The working man will therefore remain restless and insubordinate, unless the belief in a future life is inculcated upon him, unless obedience is made a matter of duty with him, unless the legends of heaven and hell are presented to his mind."-Capefigue, L'Europe depuis l'Avènement du roi Louis-Philippe, tom. i. p. 253, 254.

This, it must be confessed, does not sound very satisfactory as to M. Capefigue's own personal belief in those "legends," and savours more of political conservatism than of faith in matters of religion. In a writer who has taken in hand the history of a conflict in which religion bears so conspicuous a part, we hold this to be a material disqualification; but it is not the only one of which we have to complain. M. Capefigue has evidently had access to a very large mass of state papers and despatches, and through his acquaintance with men of different political parties, to many private channels of information. But instead of making use of these for the purpose of presenting his readers with characteristic sketches of the events he treats of, and of the men that took a part in them, bearing, by reason of the opportunities at his command, the stamp of authenticity, M. Capefigue is content to daub his pages with interminable transcripts of documents, connected together by incoherent fragments of narra

tive, and desultory trains of reflection, the most prominent quality of which is, what in his own language is expressively called platitude. Often, indeed, the transcripts are taken from documents already known to the public, by means of the journals and other records of the history of the times; but occasionally they are unpublished pieces, which M. Capefigue has the merit of making known for the first time. This merit he takes care the reader should not overlook, impressing him duly with the fact that all the secrets of the diplomatic world have been surveyed and scanned by the author who has undertaken to guide him through the mazes of contemporaneous history. "J'ai parcouru longtemps les archives des affaires étrangères, et la correspondance secrète des ambassadeurs." "Un grand nombre de mémoires secrets étaient mis sous les yeux de Charles X.; j'en ai eu plusieurs dans mes mains." "J'ai eu dans les mains les dépêches qui furent lues au conseil des ministres." Such are some of the ever-recurring phrases by which M. Capefigue points out to his readers the vast extent and secret character of the materials which he has had at his disposal; materials which, if we are to believe him, are accessible to no one but himself; "C'est à l'aide d'une grande masse de faits et de renseignements, qui ME SONT PERSONNELS, que j'ai rédigé ce travail," he says, of his account of the Congress of Vienna. Now when an author gives extracts within inverted commas, it can hardly be supposed that they are not what they profess to be; when he makes a general statement of his own on the strength of what he has had dans les mains and sous les yeux, it would be unfair to suspect that, like Sheridan, he "has no bag," by the contents of which he might establish his assertions; and if the information to which M. Capefigue so refers, is all real and genuine, he is undoubtedly to be applauded for the extent of it which he has collected together. Yet after all,—and here it is where M. Capefigue's mistake lies, to command an abundance of materials is one thing, to possess judgment and talent for using them properly, quite another thing. As a man does not become a painter by laying in a large stock of colours, so a man does not become a historian by poring over a large mass of documents; a truism copiously illustrated by the volumes of our author, between whom and a historian there is all the difference which there is between the scene-painter, who represents a certain set of objects agreeably to the stage directions, and the artist who embodies in his picture some high thought of the mind, to the setting forth of which every object he delineates is subservient. Yet even this fault, great as it is, is not the most serious which we have to find with M. Capefigue's performance. There is, in the very extent and depth of the secret information of which he boasts, a something