power of receiving bequests, especially death-bed bequests for religious foundations, was circumscribed; then that attempts were made to crush the freedom of religious discussion, by making attacks upon the religion of the state a high crime and misdemeanour; then that the persecuting spirit of the Romish Church was again exhibited in all its blood-thirsty hideousness, extorting from the king's government a project of law in which desecration of the holy vessels was made a capital offence, and the horrible punishment of the parricide decreed against him who should lay sacrilegious hands upon a consecrated wafer! It was then that a peer of France proposed to substitute for the black veil in which the face of criminals is enveloped when they are led out to execution, in the case of persons condemned to death for sacrilege, a red veil, with a view to give to the religion of Christ an additional sanction in the hearts of the people; then that the bench of bishops, unwilling that their votes should be lost for the support of this sanguinary measure, declared that, contrary to the ancient maxim, Clerici ne intersint vindicta sanguinis, they would give their opinions and their suffrages, alleging that the question was not as to the application, but only as to the enactment of a law affecting human life; then that one of their number, Cardinal Bonald, horrified the Chamber by opposing to the remark of M. de Chateaubriand, that the character of the Christian religion was to pardon rather than to punish, the merciless reply: "If the good owe their life to society by way of service, the wicked owe it by way of example. A former speaker has observed that religion enjoins upon man the duty of forgiveness; but at the same time it enjoins upon the power the duty of punishing; for, says the Apostle, 'he beareth not the sword in vain. The Saviour prayed for forgiveness for his murderers, but his Father heard Him not; nay, He extended the punishment upon an entire nation. As for sacrilege, by a sentence of death you remit it to its natural judge."

Such were the indications which the Church party gave of the spirit by which they were animated, when they imagined that the power had completely passed into their hands. A people sincerely attached to the principles of the Christian faith might by such exhibitions have been goaded into a reaction; how much more a nation which had scarcely emerged from the public profession of infidelity, the vast majority of which could see nothing but the mummeries of priestcraft in the ceremonies, for the protection of which the bloody axe of the guillotine was so clamorously invoked. But while a review of the pretensions and proceedings of the Congregationist or Jesuit party makes it evident that a reaction must have been the inevitable consequence of their sense

less and wicked conduct, it is no less evident, on the other hand, that the spirit from which that reaction proceeded, is a spirit essentially evil, a spirit which, as it gives not to God the honour due unto his name, never can bring down a blessing upon human society. And to this side of the picture we must now turn, if we would obtain a correct view of the deplorable condition of France, given up to the conflicting influence of two evil and destructive principles, while in the place where truth ought to stand with healing in her wings, there is nothing but a miserable void. For this purpose we turn back again to the work of M. de Polignac, who after reviewing the different aspects under which France has exhibited herself at the different phases of her history since the revolution of 1789, in a series of spirited sketches, sums up in the concluding chapter his judgment of her present political and social condition.

“If,' he says, we cast our eyes upon the country as a whole, we see a perpetually restless and diseased society, given up to a few empiricks, who consult it without listening to it, and prescribe for it

5 We deeply regret that our limits will not permit us to follow M. de Polignac through these interesting sketches. They are written in an animated style, and contain much deep thought and many striking observations, which will amply repay the labour of an attentive perusal. We must content ourselves here with giving an outline of his argument. After the introduction, in which he announces the principles and the general plan of his work, he takes up in the first chapter the history of France at the death of Louis XIV., and traces the development, in the course of the eighteenth century, of the infidel and antimonarchical notions which led to the French revolution. The second chapter follows the course of that revolution through the excesses of blasphemy and cruelty which characterized it; the third chapter contains a rapid outline of the career of Napoleon; the fourth chapter gives the history of the restoration down to the fall of the Villèle ministry; the fifth that of the Martignac administration, and of his own down to the critical epoch of July, 1830; the sixth is occupied with the July revolution itself; the seventh is devoted to an examination of the principles of that revolution and of the government that has risen from it; and the eighth to a discussion of "the Utopian notions of government current in the present age." An appendix contains a variety of interesting documents. 1. A collection of extracts from the writings of the philosophers of the eighteenth century. 2. A short history of the order of the Illuminati. 3. A memorandum of the attempt at a negotiation between Bonaparte and Louis XVIII., made by the former in 1803. 4. The justification of the Duc de Vicence from the charge of his having been accessory to the murder of the Duc d'Enghien. 5. A memorandum of M. de Polignac's own mission to the south of France during the Cent-Jours. 6. Memoir addressed to the king by M. de Polignac and several other peers, in explanation of their refusal to take the oath of obedience to the charter. 7. Letter addressed by Monsieur (Charles X.) to his brother, Louis XVIII., in 1818. 8. Memorandum respecting the Duke of Montmorency's manuscript history of the Congress of Verona. 9. Memorandum touching the opinion of the Duke of Orleans on the subject of the Spanish succession. 10. Historical notes touching the resignation of M. de Chateaubriand in 1829. 11. Report of the Ministers to the king, on which the ordinances of July, 1830, were founded. 12 and 13. Memoranda respecting the military force at Paris at the period of the July revolution.

without knowing or examining its ailment; every one individually sets himself up as supreme judge of the actions of others, and appeals to a sovereign will which is continually invoked and nowhere to be found; the electoral colleges carry the sceptre, the elective Chamber wears the crown, every thing is made to rest on the nation; the electors beget the deputies, and the deputies the laws, and the kingpeople, indignant to see its sovereign power concentrated in the hands of an exceedingly small number of its own subjects, rises every now and then to vindicate its injured rights, on which occasions it issues its decrees in the public streets by means of barricades, paving-stones, daggers and gunshots. This conflict of incongruous interests and rights creates in the nation a state of secret and constant perturbation, which renders it always dissatisfied with the present, and often careless of the future which it does not yet foresee or comprehend; on falling back upon itself, it finds within itself only individualities, whom no social tie links together for any common purpose; every where isolation reigns, and, following quickly in its wake, selfishness, rendered more intense by the religious eclecticism which the heads of the instructing body are propounding; and in consequence of this we see, in the moving panorama which this nation presents, opinions, wishes, interests, fears and hopes continually crossing, thwarting and opposing each other, often without motive and without result. The friend of to-day becomes to-morrow an enemy, and vice versa the fist that strikes to-day, is to-morrow extended as a friendly hand; the faces change their masks, the characters are inverted, the legitimists become liberals, and they in their turn cry up the restoration; it seems as if the entire population was thrown into a state of movement and agitation by the shaking of the fool's bell.

"And this is what is called a state of society!

"But, it may be said, France presented nearly the same moral aspect under the restoration. I am very much disposed to admit this; and the consequence was, that the restoration did not last long; yet withal we must not forget that the elements of disorder were not then altogether the same. The dissolvent principle of the sovereignty of the people was not then the constituent basis of our society; the disorganising action of that principle was gradually introduced into it by its followers; it was then that the struggle began; some imprudent friends of the throne, seduced by brilliant theories, the consequences of which escaped their notice, aided, unknown to them, the triumph of the hostile principle; the monarchy succumbed. Now that principle is victorious, it is in the ascendant: it is acknowledged as the foundation stone of the institutions which rule the country; its rights are secured; in vain it is attempted to paralyze its action; it is always able to regain its strength and its ascendancy, but on condition of keeping society in a state of perpetual commotion; because rest is death to it."-Polignac, Études Historiques, pp. 366-368.

But by far the most interesting part of the observations of

M. de Polignac on the present condition of France, is the view which he takes of the existing system of public education.

"It makes one's heart ache to see poor France given up into the hands of sceptical sophists, who are witty upon every subject, and do not show common sense in any thing. By the permission of Providence, the discussion of a question relative to public instruction has brought their evil will and their secret tendencies to light. Henceforth, at all events, the heads of families and the moral and religious part of the country must consider that they have had sufficient warning; for our new philosophers have abundantly revealed their arrière-pensée. According to them the antiquity of the Church of France, which counts its centuries, is to render homage to the forty years' existence of the present university, which alone comprehends the method of education suitable for the young; a method which consists, as far as politics are concerned, in not considering the first revolution as a long continued crime, nor Bonaparte as an usurper overthrown by his own fault; and as regards morals and religion, in respecting in the child the liberty of conscience; whence it follows that you must let him wander about without guide, without advice, among all sorts of religious creeds, and all the ancient and modern systems of morals, from those of Epicurus and Plato to those of Locke and Spinoza, with which it is absolutely necessary that he should be made acquainted; leaving him at a subsequent period to discriminate between error and truth, to choose whatever belief or system he likes, or, if it should so please him, to adopt none at all; for which reason also the instruction in philosophy which gives a clear and distinct knowledge of natural and divine subjects, is to be left without control in the hands of that infallible university. That university affects surprise that the ministers of the living God, appointed by Him for teaching successive generations all moral and religious truth, should take offence at the erroneous and impious principles which the teachers of the university school seek to inculcate into the hearts of the young men. What right, indeed, has any one to doubt the moral and religious orthodoxy of these teachers, considering that several of them, with the approbation of their superiors, hesitate not to proclaim by word of mouth and in writing, that the question as to the existence of the soul is premature;' that Christianity has become extinct, and is nothing more but dust or a tomb,' that the pretended divine revelations are nothing but human conjectures;' that the theology which suited formerly, is 'nowadays fit only for children;' that 'religion is the work of men,' and other like doctrines. Our modern philosophers, with a view to give to their darling work a greater authority, pretend to revive the rights of the ancient French universities of the time. of the monarchy; but they purposely forget to mention, that at that period no other than Catholic teaching obtained. in public instruction; a professor who should have departed from it, would have been turned away in disgrace; the discussion respecting the privilege of conferring degrees, attributed to the universities, was then quite a secondary question. It is really amusing to see, moreover,

what pains these same philosophers take to place their university establishment under the patronage of the supposed virtues which they ascribe to its founder Bonaparte, who, a Turk in Egypt, and in Europe the jailor of the sovereign Pontiff, had considered the restoration of public worship merely as a political engine, and the colleges which he established, only as nurseries for training up citizens to the profession of arms; and yet they have expunged by their own mere authority one of the fundamental articles of the institution which they patronize; the article which laid down the precepts of the Catholic religion as the basis of the instruction to be imparted in the university. No doubt they prefer the teaching of a moral and religious eclecticism, or even of pantheism, for, as they say, liberty of conscience is, above all, to be respected in the child.

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"What is the result? The child grown up to be a young man, accustomed to decide all the grave questions of morality and religion according to his tastes and his unbridled inclinations, reserves to himself very properly the same independence when the decision turns upon questions of politics and government, which are much less important than the former. Thence arise naturally conflicts of opinions, of wills, of rights, and, in a very short time, social disorder. What indeed are human laws in the eyes of those who trample the laws of God under foot? Thus is immorality of life engendered by immorality of teaching; and what immorality of teaching can be greater than that of not daring to condemn moral and religious error in the presence of youth?

"We have only to cast our eye upon the present state of France, in order to ascertain the depth of the evil which such a system of instruction has at last introduced even into the less enlightened classes of the population; there irreligion calls forth the corruption of morals, and begets oblivion of the first social duties. Accordingly the number of crimes increases daily; cases of theft, assassination, poisoning, are multiplied at a frightful rate; and justice itself has lately been constrained to avow that, within the space of no more than ten years, society had been horror-struck by ninety-five parricides. In addition to these excesses, against which the French Criminal Code cannot prove otherwise than impotent, there is an extravagance of another kind, but of not less guilty a character, the disgust of life carried out into suicide; never was self-murder more frequent in France than it is at present. Debauchery thinks to find in it a refuge from shame; misfortune, an end to its suffering; ennui, an oblivion of every thing in the abyss of annihilation; even the veriest children sometimes endeavour to get rid of an existence which they find already too long. Life, in truth, is often no more than a heavy burden to him who concentrates in it all his hopes." -Polignac, Etudes Historiques, pp. 376-380.

Lest it should be supposed that the picture here drawn by Prince Polignac, of the demoralization of the rising generations of France, is exaggerated, we place side by side with it an extract from the account which M. Capefigue gives of the state of society