History of Napoleon Bonaparte; including lives of Napoleon the Great, of Louis Napoleon, and of the Prince Imperial

Chapter I. Napoleon Bonaparte

Characteristics of Revolutions — The French Revolution of 1798 — The Power of Opinion — Profligacy of the French Court previous to the Revolution — the Catholic Priesthood — Debauchees at the Confessional — The Palais Royal— The Catholic Church— Infidelity — Oppressive Laws — Maladministration of Justice — Industay Paralyzed — The Bastile — Revolt of the People — Crimes and Sufferings during the Revolution — The Reign of Terror — The French Character — Napoleon Bonaparte — His Influence over European Affairs — Parents of Bonaparte — Varying Fortunes of the Bonaparte Family — Early History of the Bonapartes — They are driven from Corsica — Arrest of Napoleon — His Poverty — He Contemplates Suicide — His Dreams of Oriental Empire — His Prompt Suppression of an Insurrection in Paris — The Boy and the Sword — Josephine — Her Romantic History — Her Opinion of Napoleon — He Marries Her — Character of Josephine — Bonaparte is Appointed to the Command of the Army in Italy — His Extraordinary Successes — His Expedition to Egypt — His Ambition — The First Consul — Marengo — Eugene and Hortense — The Emperor — Marriage of Louis Bonaparte and Hortense — Letter from Josephine to Hortense — Napoleon the Master of Europe — He Distributes Crowns among his Brothers and Sisters — His Divorce — His Marriage with Maria Louisa — Birth of the King of Rome — Invasion of Russia — Disasters — Elba — Waterloo— - ChildrejQ of Louis Bonaparte and Hortense — Birth of Louis Napoleon — Napoleon Charles — Death of Napoleon Charles — Anecdotes — Louis Napoleon and the Emperor — Presentiment foi Presentiment — The Exiles,.....^, .....,,......,..,...» .-i?

VIU CONTENTS.

Chapter II. Kestoration Of The Bourbons

^HBi

Fontainbleau — Infidelity and Immorality — Francis I. and the Wise Fool — The Dying King and the Courtiers — Adventure of Francis I. — Diana of Poitiers and the Duchess d' Etampes — Catherine de Medicis— Gabrielle d' Estrees — Henry IV. — Louis^XlV. — His Queen and his Mistresses — Vice and Devotion — The Lady Gamblers — Madame de Maintenon — The Actress and Her Lover in Lent — Death of Louis XIV. — His Manner of Converting the Huguenots — Louis XV. — His Marriage with Marie Leczinska — A Prince and his Tutor — Anecdotes of the Duke of Burgundy — Pius VII. — Josephine at Fontainbleau — Kapoleon and Maria Louisa— Napoleon and Pius VII. — " Comedian *' — " Tragedian " — Abdication of Napoleon — Parting of Napoleon with the Imperial Guard — The King's Cabinet — Napoleon's Civil Administration — His Character — The Conscription — War and its Crimes and Miseries — The Passion for War — What a Declaration of War really is — Eeview of Bonaparte's Career — The Bourbons — Louis XVIII. — His Escape from France— He Seeks an Asylum in England — The Son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette — His Imprisonment and Death — Louis XVIII. placed upon the French Throne by the Allied Powers — His Policy — ''Nothing Learned, Nothing Forgotten" — Reign of Louis XVIII. — His Death — Charles X. — His Gallantries — Madame Polastron, his Mistress — Coronation of Charles X. — His Desire to Re-establish Despotism — His Unpopularity — The Royal Family — The Solitary Hurrah — Prince Polignac — Expedition against Algiers — Discontent of the People — Character of Charles X.- — Another Revolution — The Pavements of Paris again Bathed with Blood — Infatuation of Charles X. — Queen Hortense — Her Sons — Loviig Napoleon, 68

CHAPTER IIL

THE REIGN OF LOUIS PHILIPPE.

The Three Days of July — Incidents— Victoiy of the People— Deposition of Charles X. — The Duke of Orleans — Ejfile of Charlef

CONTENTS. IX

X. — liouis Philippe Chosen King — Parentage of Louis Philippe — Character of his Father — Madame de Genlis — Education of Louis Philippe — He Joins the Army — Anecdotes — Decapitation of Louis Philippe's Father — Exile — Louis Philippe in Switzerland — He Becomes a Teacher — He Proposes to Visit the United States — His Journey through N'orway and Sweden — He Lands at Philauelphia — Visits Washington — Proceeds to the West — His Adventure with the Indians — He Visits Niagara Falls — Returns to Philadelphia — Poverty — The Rejected Lover — The Amateur Surgeon — Return to Europe — Death of the Duke of Montpensier — Marriage of Louis Philippe — His Effort to Engage in the European Revolutions — His Interview with Danton — Louis Philippe again in France — Returns to Neuilly — Called to the Throne of France— The Duchess de Berri — Administration of Louis Philippe — Peace Sentiments — Family of Louis Philippe — The Princess Adelaide — Her Death — Children of Louis Philippe — The Duke of Orleans — His Marriage — The Duke of Nemours — The Duke of Montpensier — Louisa Marie — Guizot — Anecdote — Guizot*s Marriage — His Literaiy Labors — His Political Fortunes — His Personal Appearance — Thiers — His Early History — Thiers as a Legislator — His Appearance — His Oratory — The War in Algiers — Abd-el-Kader — How the French Exterminated the Arabs — Cost of the War in Algiers — Anecdotes — The Emir and the Bishop, 121

CHAPTER rV.

/ LOUIS NAPOLEON.

Qvien Hortense — Her Sons in the Italian Revolution — Hortense and Louis Napoleon in Paris — Louis Napoleon and the Poles — His Generosity — His Work on the Swiss Confederacy — He Declines the Hand of the Queen of Portugal — His Correspondence with Lafayette — His Plans for Revolutionizing France — His Interview with French Officers — Madame Gordon — Colonel Vaudrey — Persigny — Louis Napoleon Enters Strasbourg — Letter to his Mother — Speech to the Soldiers — Failure — Imprisonment — Defense — Letter to Odilon Barrot — Louis Napoleon is sent to America — Consternation of Louis Philippe — Trial of Louis Napoleon's Accomplices — Letter of Queen Hortense — Her DeatH — dOKTEBfTS.

Louis Napoleon Leaves Switzerland — Goes to England — Death of Charles X. — Death of the Duke d' Angouleme — Removal of the Ashes of Napoleon from St. Helena to Paris — Louis Napoleon at Boulogne — His Defeat — His Attempt to Escape — His Arrest — His Trial — His Imprisonment — His Address to the Remains of the Emperor — The Fortress of Ham — The Constable's Tower — The Capuchin Friar — A Lover's Revenge — Louis Napoleon's Literary Pursuits — His Works — The Nicaraugua Canal — Illness of Louis Napoleon's Father — Escape of Louis Napoleon — Dr. Conneau — Death of the Count of St Leu, 179

CHAPTER V.

Review of Louis Philippe's Reign — -His Purchase of Adherents — Condition of the Country — Electoral Reform — Reform Banquets — The King's Speech — Proposed Banquet in Paris — Its Suppression — Excitement of the People — The Barricades — Battles — The Tricolor Victorious — Louis Philippe's Abdication — His Escape — The Impromptu Monarch — The Duchess of Orleans — The Chamber of Deputies — The Provisional Government — Its Proclamation — Lamartine — His Early Life — The Sermon — Lamartine in the Chamber of Deputies — Laraartine's Associates — Louis Philippe in Exile — His Character and Social Qualities — His Death — The National Assembly — The Provisional Government Resign their Authority into the Hands of the People's Representatives — The June Insurrections — General Cavaignac — Louis Napoleon — His Election to the National Assembly — His Declinature — His Re-election — He enters the National Assembly — He becomes a Candidate for the Presidency — His Addresses to the Nation — Character and Services of General Cavaignac — The Presidential Candidates — Election of Louis Napoleon, 248

CHAPTER VI.

THE BONAPARTE FAMILY.

Instability of the French Government — Changing Dynasties — Bona* parte Familv — Maria Louisa— Her Abandonment of Napoleon in

his Adversity — Count of Niepperg — The Duchy of Parma — Extravagance of Maria Louisa — Parmesan Scandals — Favorites of Maria Louisa — The Son of Bonaparte — Created Duke of Reichstadt — His Character — -His Death — Joseph Bonaparte — His Early Cai'eer — He declines the Crown of Lombardy — Becomes King of J!^aples — Afterward accepts the Crown of Spain — Retires to the United States — Declines the Crown of Mexico — Returns to Europe — His Death — Lucien Bonaparte — His Legislative Career — Quarrel with Napoleon — Refuses to be Placed on the Spanish Throne — His Etruscan Farm — His Death — His Children — Louis Bonaparte — King of Holland — His Philanthropy — His Literary Works — Jerome Bonaparte — His American Wife^ — King of Westphalia — His Dissipation — His Queen — Eliza Bonaparte — Pauline Bonaparte — Her Character — Anecdotes — Carohne Bonaparte — Her Love of Sway — Her Children — The Mother of Bonaparte — Anecdote — Eugene Beauharnais — The Revolution of 1848 — Louis Napoleon, 298

CHAPTER VIL

THE "coup d'etat."

The National Will — Louis Napoleon's First Message — The Constitution of France — The Seeds of Dissension — Louis Napoleon at Ham — Parties in the Assembly — Acts of the Assembly — Speech of Louis Napoleon — French Intervention in Rome — Pius IX. — His Early History — His Elevation to the Pontificate — His Efforts at Reform — Anecdote — The Pope and the Revolution — The Popes Flight from Rome — His Return — Agitation of France — Attitude of the President— The Suffrage Question — Increasing Excitement— The " Coup d' Etat "—Appeal to the People— Arrest of General Changarnier — Of General Cavaignac — Of General Lamoriciere — Of Other Members of the Assembly — Thiers — Decree of the Assemblj' — The Usurpation Resisted — Success of Louis Napoleon — The Elections — The Inauguration of the President — The New Constitution — Arrests — Deportation of Political Oflfenders — Destruction of the Freedom of the Press—

Confiscation of the Orleans Estates — The Duchess of Orleans —Louis Napoleon's Self-vindication — Distribution of Medals among the Military Officers — Oath of Allegiance — General Lamoriciere — Arago, the Astronomer — Independent Action of the Courts — Adjournment of the Assembly and Senate — President's Journey to Strasbourg — Matrimonial Projects — Tour through the Southern Departments — Significant Speeches at Lyons and Bordeaux — Reception at Paris — Announcement of the Empire to the Senate — " Senatus Consultum " —The Popular Vote — Inaugural Address — The Empress — Speech on the Marriage — Marriage Ceremony — Imperial Clemency — Prosperity of the Country — ^Acquiescence of the People — Rigor of the Emperor's Rule — Cavaignac— , 351

CHAPTER VIII.

THE EMPIRE IN ITS RISE AND IN ITS FALL.

Intrigues at Constantinople — Treaty with England — War with Russia — Battles in the Crimea — Two points gained by Napoleon — Birth of Prince Imperial — Orsini's attempt — Italian Wars — Victories of the French — Peace of Villefranca — Gains of France — Victorious War with China — Peace signed at Pekin — Mexico and Maximillian — Sad fate of Maximillian and his wife — Napoleon's attitude during the Polish Insurrection — Declaration of War against Germany — Defeats of the French — Capitulation of Sedan — Napoleon a Prisoner — Napoleon's Death in England — The Empress in England — The Prince Imperial — His Education — His Services — His Death in Africa — Prince Napoleon (Fonfilon.') 430

HISTORY OF THE BONAPARTE FAMILY

OHAPTEE I.

RETROSPECTIVE.

The progress of the human mind, and of human society, is seldom marked by regular and successive steps. At some periods, civilization appears to be stationary ; at others, even to retrograde ; at others again, to spring forward with rapid, gigantic, and almost convulsive strides. This irregularity of advance is, doubtless, ostensible rather than actual. Preparations are gradually made, ideas slowly matured, and the foundations of the future superstructure laid with secret and patient industry. But these subterranean workings are for the most part unnoticed, till, in the fullness of time, a rich harvest of consequences is developed with apparent suddenness, from causes which have been accumulating in silence for many years.

The fall of the Roman empire constituted one of these great eras. It was the demarkation between the old world and the new. From that period, society and nations alike assumed a new aspect, and the world commenced a new career. It was the moral deluge, Rpon the abatement of which a new condition pf r

KETKOSPEOT.

society, new systems of government, and new methods of thought sprung up.

The Keformation effected another mighty change. It introduced pure religion into the realm of almost pagan superstition, civil liberty into the empire of tyranny, and science into the depths of national ignorance. One of its immediate and most momentous consequences was the struggle for constitutional rights, in England, in the seventeenth century — a struggle in which civil liberty and religious freedom and tolerance won their most substantial victory.

The great rebellion against feudal and mental oppression in France, which broke forth publicly in 1789, and resulted in the overthrow of the French throne, is among these memorable transitions, and is deeply interesting to the present generation, being nearest to our own days, most extraordinary in its character, and farspreading in its consequences. !N"o period in history is more fertile in attractions — none presents more scenes of thrilling interest, more subtle problems of character, more intricate intrigues, more truths of political philosophy, or more lessons of profound wisdom. "No period is richer in materials for the contemplation of the statesman, the moralist or the Christian.

The fall of the empires of the ancient world, exhibiting scenes of extensive suffering in their progress, and melancholy calamity in their consummation, bore a far different character. They all perished by invasion. The foreign sword, of all the instruments of ruin the most obvious, rude and simple, struck the diadem from brows already sinking under the weight of sovereignty, and the remains of empires mouldered away by the course of nature.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 15

But the French monarchy was unassailed bj anyexternal violence. In the midst of what seemed to the eyes of Europe the full vigor of life, it perished in rapid agonies, for which the public experience had no remedy, and human annals scarcely a name. Like one of those bodies whose flesh and blood turn into fire, it consumed with internal combustion, and at length, after an interval of indescribable torture, sunk in ashes, and was no more.

This singular result was effected by the agency of a new power — one which must inevitably prove stronger than the fortresses or armed legions of despots — the Power of Opinion ! In the old trials of empire, all the motives of action were confined to the higher ranks. Wars were undertaken by ambitious princes to extend their conijii.fts, or they were occasioned by the rivalry of aspirants to sovereignty. Dynasties might be changed, but the institutions and the laws of the state, the habits and condition of the masses of the people, remained the same. Whatever might be the result, the calamities of war fell with equal weight upon them, while they never experienced its benefits. The French Revolution was of a^difierent character. It was a warfare between the People and the Sovereign — a rebellion against Privilege and for Equality. It was not a conflict to decide who should be recognized as the oppressor of the people, but it was a warfare against Oppression itself.

Perhaps the world never saw, since the days of Sar danapalus, a court so corrupt, a nobility so profligate, and a state of society so utterly contemptuous of even the decent affectation of virtue, as existed in France

16 EETROSPECT.

from the reign of Louip XI Y. until the overthrow of Louis XYI. A succession of dissolute women ruled :;he king and controlled the deliberations of the cabinet ; lower life was a sink of corruption ; the whole a romance of the most scandalous order.

Yice may have existed to a high degree of crimioality in other lands ; but in no other country of Europe, or of the earth, was vice ever so public, so ostentatiously forced upon the eyes of men, so completely formed into an established and essential portion of fashionable and courtly life.

It was a matter of course that the king of France should have a mistress ! She was as much a part of the royal establishment as a prime minister was of the royal councils, and not unfrequently, if not always, her power was greater and more arbitrarily exercised than that of this high officer. And, as if for the purpose of offering a still more contemptuous defiance to the common decencies of life, it often happened that the mistress was a married woman!

Yet in that country the whole ritual of Popery was performed with scrupulous exactness. A numerous and powerful priesthood filled France ; and the ceremonials of the national religion were performed continually before the court, with the most rigid formality.

The king had his confessor, and the mistress invariably had hers. The nobles attended the royal chapel, and had their confessors. The confessional was never without royal and noble solicitors of monthly, or, at the furthest, quarterly absolution. Still, from the whole body of ecclesiastics, France heard few remonstrance against these public abominations. Their ser-

VICES OF THE NOBILITY. 17

moils, few and feeble, sometimes declaimed on the vices of the beggars of Paris, or the riots among the pea-santrj ; but no sense of scriptural responsibility, and no natural feeling of duty, often ventured to deprecate the vices of the nobles or the shameless and revolting debauchery of the throne.

Around the king was clustered a crowd of venal nobles, who contended for his favors with adulation, and breathed only in the sunshine of his smiles. Wholly destitute of independence of spirit, these nobles were licentious and arrogant, battening without shame on the spoils of the people, and priding themselves on the lineages they disgraced.

The Palais Royal was for a long time the seat of the revolting impurities of the most impure court in Europe. Built by a prelate on whose head rested the innocent blood of the Huguenots, and probably built out of their spoils, it was destined, in the possession of Philip Egalite, (father of Louis Philippe.) to make a further progress in the corruption of the public morals. He divided his palace into tenements, and hired them out to every pursuit of every purchaser, however vile. From this assemblage of gaming houses, and nests of the most daring and the most forbidden violations of law, human and divine, was poured forth, in its time of ripeness, the misery of France. The government, which had criminally endured such a center of abomination in its capital, and had even suffered a scandalous revenue to be raised out of its pollutions, was the first to feel the evil. The Palais Eoyal suddenly combined with its character as the chosen place of the low luxuries of Parisian life, the new character of the

8 EETEOSPECT.

jiead-qnarters of revolution. There were to be found ■'■■he haranguers against the state ; there were the conf ieracies which marched to the overthrow of the 1 rone. If the government of Louis ^YL had been ,' ^ake to the primary obligation on all governments of • 'arding the national morals, this glaring scandal ■■ juld not have been suffered an hour — the gates of the Palais Eoyal would have been closed on the whole race of its professors of abomination.

The clergy, too, shared in the general corruption. Tlieir wealth was enormous ; their luxury excessive and ostentatious ; and all pretensions to superior sanctity or correctness of manners had long since been abandoned. Indeed, many of the highest rank among them were pre-eminent for their licentiousness. Generally speaking, it might be said, that, for a long time, the higher orders of the clergy had ceased to take a vital concern in their profession, or to exercise its functions in a manner which interested the feelings and affections of .men.

The Catholic church had grown old, and unfortunately did not possess the means of renovating her doctrines, or improving her constitution, so as to keep pace with the enlargement of the human understanding. The lofty claims to infallibility which she had set up and miaintained during the middle ages — claims which she could neither renounce nor modify, now threatened, in more enlightened times, like battlements too heavy for the foundation, to be the means of ruining the. edifice they were designed to defend. To retrace no footsteps — to abandon no dogma, continued to be the mottoes of the church of Rome. She could explain

THE CHUKCH OF EOME. 19

nothing, soften nothing, renounce nothing, consistently with her assertion of infallibility.

The whole trash which had been accumulated for ages of darkness and ignorance, whether consisting of extravagant pretensions, incredible assertions, absurd doctrines which confounded the understanding, or puerile ceremonies which revolted the taste, was alike incapable of being explained away or abandoned. It would certainly have been (humanly speaking) advantageous, alike for the church of Eome and for Christianity in general, that the former had possessed the means of relinquishing her extravagant claims, modifying her more obnoxious doctrines, and retrenching her superstitious ceremonials, as increasing knowledge showed the injustice of the one, and the absurdity of the other.

But this power she dared not assume; and hence, perhaps, the great schism which divides the Christian world, which might otherwise never have existed, or at least not in its present extended and imbittered state. But, in all events, the church of Rome, retaining the spiritual empire over so large and fair a portion of the Christian world, would not have been reduced to the alternative of either defending propositions, which, in the eyes of all enlightened men, ai-e altogether untenable, or of beholding the most essential and vital doctrines of Christianity confounded with them, and the whole system exposed to the scorn of the infidel. The more enlightened and better informed part of the French nation had fallen very generally into the lattei extreme.

Infidelity, in attacking the absurd claims and

20 RETEOSPECT.

extravagant doctrines of the church of Kome, had artfully availed herself of those abuses, as if they had been really a part of the Christian religion ; and they whose credulity could not digest the grossest articles of the papist creed, thought themselves entitled to conclude, in general, against religion itself, from the abuses ingrafted upon it by ignorance and priestcraft. The same circumstances which favored the assault, tended to weaken the defense.

Embarrassed by the necessity of defending the mass of human inventions with which their church had obscured and deformed Christianity, the Catholic clergy were not the best advocates even in the best of causes ; and though there were many brilliant exceptions, yet it must be owned that a great part of the higher orders of the priesthood gave themselves little trouble about maintaining the doctrines, or extending the influence of the church, considering it only in the light of an asylum, where, under the condition of certain renunciations, they enjoyed, in indolent tranquillity, a state of ease and luxury.

Those who thought on the subject more deeply, were contented quietly to repose the safety of the church upon the restrictions on the press, which prevented the possibility of free discussion. The usual effect followed ; and many who, if manly and open debate upon theological subjects had been allowed, would do)jbtless have been enabled to winnow the wheat from the chaff', were, in the state of darkness to which they were reduced, led to reject Christianity itself, along with the corruptions of the Komish church, and to become absolute infidels instead of reformed Christians,

CONDITION OF THE ffiOPLfi. •21

The number of the clergy, who were thus indiffere»it to doctrine or duty, was largely increased, since promotion to the great benefices had ceased to be distributed with regard to the morals, piety, talents, and erudition of the candidates, but was bestowed among the younger branches of the nobility, upon men who were at little pains to reconcile the looseness of their former habits and opinions with the sanctity of their new profession, and who, embracing the church solely as a means of maintenance, were little calculated by their lives or learning to extend its consideration.

Beneath all, there was the bulk of the population, urban and rural, who may be said to have literally possessed no rights, except that of paying taxes. All the burdens of the state fell on the industrious and productive classes. The nobility and clergy were exempt from taxation. The most oppressive mode of collecting prevailed. Two-thirds of the whole land of the coun try was in the possession of the nobility and clergy, who, not content with their fiscal exemption, imposed upon the cultivators feudal dues and services of the most onerous and harassing description.

The right of killing game was reserved to the landlords ; and tenants were even forbidden, by special edicts, to till their ground, or reap their crops, if the preservation of young broods might be thereby endangered. Game of the most destructive kind, such as wild boars and herds of deer, was permitted to go at large through extensive districts, without any inclosnres to protect the crops. Numerous edicts existed which prohibited hoeing and weeding, lest the young partridges should be disturbed ; taking away the stubble lest the birds should be deprived of shelter ; mowing hay, lest their eggs should be destroyed ; manuring with night-soil, lest their flavor should be injured Manorial courts were scattered through the land, to take summary vengeance on delinquents in any of these particulars. In fact, the rural population was, to a certain extent, in a state of serfdom, continually ex posed to galling and degrading tyranny, which the inhabitants of towns escaped only to undergo humiliations and vexations of an analogous nature.

It was impossible that agriculture could flourish under such untoward circumstances. Instead of being protected and encouraged in his indispensable calling, the husbandman was regarded as a species of drudge, appointed by nature to toil for the benefit of superiors. The king, the nobility, and the clergy, all considered him in this light, and contended which should wring from him the most in the various shapes of taxes, rents, dues, and tithes. Thus cultivation was in the rudest state, and the naturally fertile soil yielded but a fraction of the produce it might have been stimulated to rear. Travelers who visited France at this epoch, concur in representing abject poverty and wretchedness as the universal lot of the peasantry.

E'or was it otherwise with commerce. Industry was fettered by a thousand shackles. Eulers have, in every age and country, with strange perversity, marked trade and its followers for their legitimate prey, and, in the alternate guise of exaction and restriction, labored to cramp its development. The right to carry on business, to exercise a profession, was a matter of purchase. I^ot only were there chartered guilds to

MALADMlNISl'EATION OF JtJSTICS. 2S

enter through a long novitiate and a heavy outlay, but the king also was to be bought. Licenses might be obtained from him to monopolize certain callings within a particular circuit, such as those of barber, wood-vender, sausage-maker, &c. When the royal treasury needed a sudden replenishment, multitudes of these licenses used to be issued, which were bought up in the first instance by capitalists, and subsequently resold by them through the country at a considerable advance. A regular traffic was at times maintained in this singular species of paper-money, prices being ruled naturally by the prospect, more or less promising, of^plundering the community.

The corruption and uncertainty prevailing in the administration of justice likewise tended to thwart the operations of commerce. Judicial offices were subjects of bargain and sale in every part of the kingdom, disposed of to the highest bidders, wholly irrespective of competency. Hence bribery flowed as a necessary consequence, and the courts of law degenerated into mere marts, where justice was openly bartered for gold. Thus jprivilege was the grand characteristic of France at this period, ranging through all the ramifications of her disjointed society. First, the high nobility, with sinecures and pensions often hereditary, crouched in sycophancy around the court, and regarded all others as made to minister to their gratifications, l^ext, the inferior nobility or gentry, who alone were eligible to be officers in the army and navy, and to fill sundry important offices ; both exempt from taxation.

Thus the French labored under a despotism to which the horrors of Hindoo servitude were comparative

M ruteospect.

freedom. Without trial bj jury, without means of justice, subjected to the most atrocious oppressions, in person and property, bj the grand seigneurs, the position of a French subject was far less enviable than that of an Egyptian fellah of the present day. The life of a peasant was less valued than that of a wild boar, and long centuries of tyranny had left him but little else of humanity than its form.

A volume would scarcely suffice to define all the oppressions to which the French subject was exposed ; and how great soever were his wrongs, the semblance of justice was to be had only through the influence of the beauty of a female relation, or bribes in money, that were openly and shamelessly administered. The Bastile was crowded with the victims of private animosity, consigned to loathsome dungeons without the pretense of crime, by arbitrary arrests obtained from a corrupt executive through favor or money. These victims numbered 15,000, in the reign of Louis XY. Safety for persons and property there was none ; and the social relations of the lower classes were exposed to the debaucheries of the seigneurs; among the long catalogue of whose infamous " rights," the " haiser de mariees^^ and the " silence dc grenouilles^'^ were at once the most odious and the most ridiculous. The nature of the latter, was a requirement on the peasants to beat constantly the waters of the marshy districts, in order to keep silent the frogs, lest their croakings should disturb the lady of the seigneur during her confinement. This duty might be commuted for a sum of money, or the delinquent caught, and hung up without ceremony at the door of the grand seigneur.