champagne every day most ostentatiously at his table d'hote, which, be it observed en passant, is an almost invariable mark of bad taste, rarely practised except by inferior Englishmen, and every Russian calling himself Count, and waited upon by a servant in a grotesque livery of green, gold, scarlet, and blue, which is thought by his master to be strictly English, and en jockey." This person is usually accredited by certain introductions, and obtains a kind of a half admission into society, where he at once, by the instinct of his caste, singles out his victims, cheats them at play for his own amusement, and entraps them in politics for that of his government. This is a very frequent species of the tribe; but there is no trade nor calling that he may not profess; he is a newspaper editor, a Jew moneylender, the croupier at a gamblinghouse, the conducteur of a diligence, and perhaps most frequently of all the spy of the government is the danseuse at the opera. It is said by those who know or should know these metters well, that there is scarcely a figurante in the ballet that is not salaried by the police. Whether this be so or not we cannot affirm; but an anecdote we have heard of one of that class greatly disposes us to speak with all leniency of them. and tired of suspecting a man he saw daily about his person, he dismissed him abruptly from his staff, and ordered him to leave Paris in forty hours. The general, who had no conception of the snares by which he was surrounded, was horror-struck at the news, but at once prepared to set out, and proceeded to take leave of his friends. Great was he surprised to find that by no one was his misfortune more felt than by Stephanie, who at once resolved to accompany him into exile, and share his lowered fortune wherever he went. This from one of her class was a sacrifice he never looked for; and amid all his affliction comforted and sustained him. That night they set out for Geneva. This was the moment that Fouché had long looked forward to, when, in disgrace and exile, separated from his friends, removed from all observation, the general would surely betray himself if he were really guilty, and with this intention Stephanie was engaged to accompany him to watch all his movements, observe his very slightest expressions, and report by every post to the minister the events of each day; for months long Stephanie had little else to tell than that the general spent whole days in his study writing, that he saw no one, and that he left the house rarely at all. Fouché himself at last, grown weary It was during the empire that the of the slow progress of discovery, and General G., chef de division, and aid- the time being at hand at which it de-camp to Napoleon, became sus could alone prove valuable, determined pected of carrying on an intrigue with upon a last great effort; he wrote to Austria. Fouché had long watched Stephanie himself, inclosing her a him, but without obtaining the least pacquet of keys, by which any lock could clue which might establish his suspi- be opened, desired her to secure all the cions. The general was a Saxon of general's papers and letters, and start grave and retired habits, mixing little for Paris immediately; to stimulate her in society, and having but few inti-zeal he also sent a long promised, and mates, therefore there was great difficulty in securing his confidence. It was observed, however, that a little Saxon girl that danced at the ballet at the opera attracted much of his atten tion; by her eagerly desired present, "a diamond aigrette" of the value of three thousand francs. Think of the feelings of the poor danseuse as she looked upon her prize. What were all the false glitter of the gems of the "property room" when compared with the rich lustre of the oriental stone. She placed it before her, and as she gazed, thought over in her mind the triumph such a possession would ensure her over her less favoured rivals; she placed it upon her bosom and felt her heart beat more proudly beneath; her cheek glowed, her eyes filled with tears of delight, then suddenly growing pale as death she paused for a moment, and snatching up the etui and the letter she ran to the chamber where the general was writing, burst open his door, and holding out the packet in her hand, fell senseless and fainting at his feet. That same post brought a letter from the general to the minister of war demanding his "retraite," and the week after saw him on his way to Dresden, with his wife, for he had married Stephane, where he has ever since lived in a happy retirement. placed beside the short and stunning annals of crime and misery, vice, misfortune, and condemnation that dreadful book could lay bare? The Livre Noir is the registry of the lives of criminals, from the cradle to the grave-from the child conceived in sin to the suicide taken in the "feiéts de St. Cloud," or exposed upon the table at la Morgue. His every incident is there-from his first step in iniquity to his second-from his early chastisement to his severer punishment -from the trifling offence to the graver crime, all is registered; and his foot track can be traced as he went on from the penitentiary to the prisonfrom the prison to the gallies-from the gallies to the guillotine; or suppose repentance to have seized him, and that he resolve to "sin no more"-it matters not. The deed which perhaps rashness or poverty suggested, is stamped indelibly upon the inexorable page; and the brand upon his brow bears no more damning evidence of his crime than four brief lines of a pen. Conceive, if you can, any thing more horrible than this. Fiction cannot exaggerate-imagination cannot exceed it; and yet in the city, where it is boasted civilization holds paramount sway, this still exists. But the mischief ends not here. All are inscribed herein-natives, strangers, the sojourner for a week, the passer through for a day-their every action, their intentions, their plans. Walk if you will, with a port erect and bosom high, proud in your personal liberty, but Let us now turn to another feature not a stir you give, not a whisper you of this state engine. And here we breathe, but is noted and chronicled would ask a question of you-Have here, to be referred to and brought you ever heard of the " LIVRE NOIR ?" forward whenever suspicion may attach We might almost anticipate your an- to you. Then is the page turned to swer. Few of even the travelled--the finger points to the passage, scarcely any of those who have not travelled-know of its existence. Let us, then, explain. The idea of that imperium in imperio -a police within a police-originated with Fouché, who selected for his agents men of high families but ruined fortunes. The description which Sallust has given us of Cataline can alone convey a just idea of the bribery by which men were seduced from the path of honour and virtue to crime and infamy. Was a young man ruined at play, his resource was ready the alternative to suicide was to sell himself to Fouché-was a rich man bankrupt in a great speculation, Fouché would engage him-were any man's tastes and habits more costly than his means to procure them, an occasional interview with the minister of police a conversation he had listened to repeated a private letter shown, and his credit rose once more at his bankers. From the prince to the beggar there was no safety. The guest at your table the servant behind your chair, were frequently but spies upon your conduct. In the bureau of the secret police, guarded from all human eyes but those of the minister himself or his deputé, in whose charge it is, lies a massive and padlocked volume, whose contents, if known, would thrill the blood and pale the cheek of even the most pampered vatary of romance. What would be all the horrors of Balsac, or Victor Hugo, or Hoffman, or Maturin, when compared with the narratives writ upon those pages? What all the highly wrought and much laboured stories which human talent or genius have ever devised and planned, when and your condemnation follows. The peace, the fortune, the honour of the first houses in France are dependent upon the secresy of these pages-to open it were to spread a civil war through the land. Let us draw from the store of one of the cleyerest tale writers of the day some of the extracts by which he illustrates this terrific volume, which will convey a clearer notion of it than any description, however laboured: "La Comptesse D'Abeille, in every society; deep in the Greek loan, and several companies of insurance; has issued six hundred thousand francs of false money' protected by Prince S. "Celeste (the prude') sold by her mother to an Englishman; changed afterwards for an Irish horse; now dame de Compagnie at Frescati, and a baronne. "Carl Bac, the printer of Les Gueux'-his press concealed in an arch of the Pont de Jena; the papers in a pump at the Isle de Louviers; now printing a song against M. Mole, written by the prefect of the police; wait till June, and then condemn him to the Bagnes de Brest." Such is the "LIVRE NOIR" of the French capital. Long may it be the only city where such a record is found. CHAP. VI.-ENGLISH MINISTERS ABROAD TRAVELLERS AND TOURISTS. WITH your good permission, my dear reader, we shall leave Paris for the present. The sun upon the Boulevards this morning reminded us of Jamaica ; the ices at the Cafè de Paris are at 30 degrees of Raumaur; the theatres are like ovens; the restaurants like furnaces there is, therefore, no time to be lost ere we get on the road. science aver, that a more pains-taking, long-suffering class does not exist. It may seem at first a little strange, that I should thus characterize men whose most ostensible duties would appear to be the possession of some thousands per annum, and a very enviable position in society; but then please to recollect for a moment the annoyances and disagremens to which they are daily, hourly, and half-hourly subjected during the entire six months of every year, when Eugland pours forth upon the continent its myriads of tourists and travellers. The impertinent curiosity of some, the offensive and pushing vulgarity of others, the troublesome selfishness of all, have but one rest, or one outlet-the British Ambassador. He, poor man, is a kind of safety valve for every imaginable explosion. If the traveller, utterly ignorant as he in nine cases out of ten is, of the language of the country he travels in, lose his way, or his portmanteau, he deems it an international question, and expects Apropos of passports-what good. redress from his minister. Is he tempered men Lord Palmerston must charged too much at his table d'hote, pick out for our English ministers the ambassador shall hear of it is abroad. We have seen and heard his immediate remark, and he keeps much of them, and can with safe con- his word. While if on the other Which way will you go-to us it is perfectly alike-we are equally prepared to be your guide to the waterfall of Trolhatten, or the cascade of Tivoli -from "Indus to the Pole," we are yours; whether your taste be with the worthy old lady, converted by the "Tonga Missionaries" to "eat a roast child," or, on the other hand, to sip your pekoe on the wall of China, command us and we are ready to obey. If, however, less ambitious in your views, you are satisfied with a summer ramble, let me book you for a place in our coupé, and we'll start for the Rhine to-morrow. Now then for a passport. hand, not content with passive endurance, he sports the habits of St. James's, and the customs of the west end, and amuse his leisure hours by smashing lamps, beating waiters, and wrenching off door bells-he is wonderfully surprised and scandalized that his minister is not prepared to back him in such peaceable amusements, and rescue him from every consequence of his offences. Think, then, for a moment, what must be the qualifications of the man who represents our sovereign or our government at a foreign court. In the first place, his position as envoy for so great a nation involves duties, and requires capacity of a high order. Of these we shall not at present stop to speak; but let us regard him in his relation with his countrymen. His mornings are spent return ing calls and paying visits to all that interminable tribe of travellers, who, driven by some frightful disease peculiar to our country, can never exist at home. There are sentimental tourists, who must visit every spot, and see every monument upon which they can string a sonnet, or insert a rhapsody. Court-hunting travellers, who, without any pretensions to be admitted into society at home, deem it a right to be immediately presented at a foreign court, and dun their ambassador for a dinner. Poor-law and education commissioner travellers, eager for reports upon the dietary of a work-house, or the number of urchins daily flogged at the national schools. Vertuosi tra vellers, who are determined to pick up Vandykes for thirty shillings, and Correggios for a crown. Sickly travellers, who mistake the ambassador for their physician, and state the case of their liver to him every morning of their stay. Idle travellers-a large class-without any object or butt, who, feeling ennuyeé a la mort, esteem it a duty to waste their tediousness upon others. These are but a few of the peculiarities which distinguish our amiable countrymen and women, as seen abroad; and, generally speaking, your regular traveller is a compound of all the preceding. Well, then, conceive a daily levee of this incongruous mass. all expecting attentions and civilities, dinners, balls, breakfasts, soirees, concerts, introductions, theatre tickets, horses, carriages, and daily visits not to speak of the innkeepers who are to be abused, the couriers scolded, the post-masters corrected, and foreign cus toms to be apologised for and all this by one man, who, Mr. Hume, will tell you, is a lazy sinecurist, preying upon the vitals of the state. Think, too, of the requisites for such a position, and can you conceal your surprise that in all the length and breadth of our favoured land, men are found capable of fulfilling it. He must be a courtier, a linguist, a connoisseur, conversant with every species of invention, in all its details and working; strong upon statistics rich in reports, able to pronounce upon all, from an antique table to a treaty, from a vol a vent to a Velasque. And such is the man who is thus exposed to all the pitiless pelting of vulgar annoyance from Leadenhall-street and ⚫ the Minories, and who, under the penalty of being abused from Norway to Naples, must affect good humour under all this insufferable endurance. Would you rather, then, be a "minister plenipotentiary," or his not only nominal but virtual antipode, an "independent" one? Let us draw breath for a moment, for we confess this canter has "blown" us; and having said this much of our representatives, add a word on those who misrepresent our nation abroad. The old school of English travelling is completely susperseded by something far more offensive. Formerly one only felt amused at the eccentric nationality of the man who came abroad only to rail at and abuse all he saw and heard, and institute comparisons always favourable to his own country. The Englishman that we once met at Versailles, and who good-naturedly informed us, "that the French were a stupid people for although he had been eight years living in the same hotel, not one of the family could speak English," afforded us immense pleasure. The cool insouciance with which he overlooked the fact that he had not acquired any knowledge of French in that time, was a beautifully national trait. But now our traveller would be found with nearly as much ignorance, but an infinity of pretension, talking his unintelligible French to every body, upon every occasion, even when they understand his own language equally well with himself. There is this essential difference between the English traveller of five and twenty years ago and the present day. The former vented all his ill-temper upon every thing which differed from his habits at home-the latter, having picked up some crude and corrupt notions of the continent, evidences his having travelled, by abusing all that is English. The genre of the English resident abroad may be generally guessed at very closely by the place he has chosen to pitch his tent. At Boulogne, it is the fear of the fleet, and her majesty's writs have recommended his abiding place at Caen, he is an economist, passing rich with two hundred pounds per year-eating veal for eight months per annum, and seriously in danger of being eaten by wolves in the remaining four-at Bruxelles, the education of his children, so very cheap, and the many comforts of his own country so readily met with, are his inducements -at Paris, pleasure, play, and dissipation of every sort, with that greatest of all advantages, the power of doing as you like, unwatched and unobserved, are the recommendations-at Nice, the climate-in Switzerland, the scenery-in Dresden, the cheapness-in Munich, the stupidity-for even of this there are votaries at Florence, Rome, and Naples, the fashion. At Boulogne the traveller wears a green Newmarket cut coat, a loose neckcloth, and shepherd's plaid trowsers-smokes in the streets, stares at ladies, plays billiards all the morning, and dines at the table d'hote of the Hotel du Nord, where he has very much the air of being proprietor. At Caen he is a middle aged man, in a blue frock, tightly buttoned-a military cut whisker, and a thirty-two inch stride, that bespeaks the parade and the drill. He may be always met with at the market, about six o'clock in the morning, cheapening fish or bargaining for a melon. At Chamouni he wears a shooting jacket, with forty pockets, carries an Alpine stick, and a botanical box on his back, and tries to jaudle like the Tyrolese. At Nice he has a cough, a pony carriage, and a doctor. In Paris a cab, a liason, and a box at les Italiens. Such are a very few of the chamelion traits of the English abroad, as seen from without. In their "vie intime" we shall look at them hereafter. In our next we shall take you up the Rhine, and we have already engaged apartments for you at Baden for August, where, under our safe guidance, you may walk fearlessly amid the more than St. Anthony temptations of lively intriguantes and most fashionable swindlers. GERMANY, BOHEMIA, AND HUNGARY.* IN whatever view, literary, political, or religious, the present position of Europe may be regarded, there undoubtedly is no country in the condition of which we Britons are more interested than Germany. France-our antipodes in literature and religion ever hitherto our political foe, and never more so in feeling or more likely to become so actively than at the present moment; Russia, in literature and religion thoroughly barbarous, with political interests and aims adverse to the independence of all other governments, and to none more than ours-there remains this vast but ill-united empire, whose literature is the offspring of our own, which was the cradle of our Protestantism, which has the same political foes as ourselves, and with whose true political interests ours are identified. Whatever may be the result of that momentous conflict of opinions wherewith Christendom now shakes to its very centre-by the ruin of Germany our strength must be diminished-in her true prosperity ours must find additional security. While the curiosity of an inquisitive age could hardly permit our neglect of the most extensive and fairest portion of civilized Europe, our interest ought naturally to enhance the anxiety with which our inquiries are prosecuted. It is so much of course, now-a-days, that every one should make the modern grand tour-should take a view of Germany from the deck of a Rhine Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, visited in 1837. By the Rev. G. R. Gleig, M. A., Chaplain to the Royal Hospital, Chelsea. 3 vols. London: J. W. Parker. 1889. Germany-the Spirit of her History, Literature, Social Condition, and National Economy. Illustrated by reference to her Physical, Moral, and Political Statistics, and by comparisou with other countries. By Bisset Hawkins, M.D. Oxon. London: J. W. Parker. 1838. VOL. XIV. D |