OF all living statesmen, there is none more strongly marked by peculiar individuality than M. Thiers; of all living statesmen, there is none whom it is so difficult to sketch. He

resembles those portraits covered by fluted glass, which present striking features, but which totally change with the point from which you view them. M. Thiers, as a journalist, in the bureau of the National, or the columns of the Constitutionnel-M. Thiers in the tribune, assailing the ministry-M. Thiers in the same tribune, as president of the council, defending cabinet measures-M. Thiers, the historian of the consulate-M. Thiers at the head of his hospitable board, in the splendid halls of his mansion in the Place St. George, are different individuals, yet the same personage, and all marked by strongly characteristic features.

Born poor, he had wealth to make -born obscure, he had fame to acquire. Having failed at the bar, he became an homme de lettres; and, aspiring to distinction in political life, he enlisted in the ranks of the liberal party, more from necessity than from inclination. It was the only party then open to a parvenu and an adventurer. He commenced by some grotesque revivals of revolutionary associations, and costumed himself à la Danton. Like other persons of lively imagination, he was devoured with wants, and was indebted for the first means of gratifying them to the munificent spirit of M. Lafitte. His reputation, however, whatever estimate may be made of it, is the creation of his own genius, aided, certainly by opportunity, for without the occurrence of the revolution of July, M. Thiers would probably now be nothing higher than the idol of some literary coterie in a provincial town.

M. Thiers is now in his forty-ninth year, having been born at Marseilles, on the 15th April, 1797. His father was a locksmith, and belonged by family and descent to the working class; bis mother gave him an origin a shade less humble,being descended from a mercantile family, whose reverses reduced her

condition to the level of her husband. It has, therefore, been truly observed that M. Thiers was not, "in coming into the world, cradled on the lap of a duchess." In childhood, as in youth, he had all the disadvantages of poverty and obscurity to struggle with; but, on the other hand, he had those advantages, also, which a necessity for exertion always affords to those in whom great talents are combined with insatiable ambition.

The condition of his parents would have excluded him from the advantages of education, were it not for the influence of some of his maternal connexions who had sufficient sagacity to discover in the child traces of intellec. tual endowments sufficiently apparent to excite an interest, by which he was placed on the foundation in the Impe rial Lyceum at Marseilles. His progress there soon justified the discrimination of those to whom he owed the opportunities of education thus afforded. He was loaded with scholastic honours.

The course of education established at these institutions under the Empire, was mainly directed to military qualifications, and consequently the exact sciences held a prominent place I and distinction in these was the surest road to honour. From the first M. Thiers manifested a decided aptitude for this department of his studies, and obtained high honours in it. The traces it left on his mind are visible in all his writings and speeches. But for the events of 181415, his destination would, probably, have been different; but the fall of the Empire, and the Restoration, directed his talents into other channels, and at eighteen he entered himself as a student in the school of law, at the city of Aix, in Provence, not far from his native place.

Here he became the friend and inseparable companion of a youth who, like himself, sprung from the lower strata of society, had his fortune to make, and felt within him the instinct which prompted the pursuit of fame in letters and in politics. The two friends prosecuted together their pro

fessional studies, were admitted to practise at law the same day, were competitors for the same prizes, and destined to pursue together, during the remainder of their career, a common course. They have never separated. Through poverty and wealth

in the obscurity of the garret, and the splendour of the palace, they have still been, as in boyhood, hand in hand. This friend was M. Mignet.

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With little natural inclination for the dry study of the law, the two young friends obeyed a common instinct, and gave themselves up to the more fascinating pursuits of literature, philosophy, history, but more especially politics, and the ambitious and aspiring spirit of Thiers soon acknowledged a presentiment of the brilliant future which awaited him. Already he was the acknowledged leader of a party among his fellow-students. ready he engaged in debates, and harangued his comrades against the government of the restoration. Already he evoked the memory of the empire, and appealed to the glorious deeds of the republic. It will be easily believed that such a turbulent spirit was soon upon the black list of the professors, execrated by the commissary of police, worshipped by the students, and that his activity and talents were as sure to lead him to scholastic honours as his superiors were unwilling to confer them on him.

An amusing and characteristic anecdote is related of this early period of his career. A prize was offered for competition in 1819, the subject of which was an eulogy on Vauvenargues, by the Academy of Aix. Thiers determined that he would compete for this honour, and accordingly sent in his manuscript in the customary manner, accompanied by a sealed packet containing the name of the author, not to be opened except the composition was declared successful. It had, however, transpired that the author of the piece, which was beyond comparison the best of those which were tendered, was the turbulent little Jacobin, who had excited to such a degree the fears and hostility of the professors, who were chiefly royalists. It was, consequently, declared that the prize would not be granted to any of the pieces, but would be postponed to the following year. When

the next year arrived, the piece of Thiers was again offered as before, but to the infinite delight of the superiors, a composition had been transmitted from Paris, incontestibly superior, to which the prize was awarded; but in order to compensate Thiers for the decision of the preceding year, they granted him an accessit, which is an official acknowledgment of his piece having held the second place of

On opening the packet containing the name of the candidate to whom the prize itself was awarded, the astonishment and mortification of the professors may be conceived at finding that the individual on whom they must confer the honours was M. Thiers himself. In fact, he had caused the second essay to be transcribed by another hand, and more completely to blindfold the judges, had sent it to Paris, from whence it had been forwarded to them, thus impressing them with the idea that it came from a Parisian candidate. Both the prize and the accessit were, in spite of the hostility of the heads of the academy, conferred on Thiers.

At the bar of Aix, Thiers soon found that it was vain to struggle against the disadvantages of his birth in a place where the humbleness and obscurity of his origin were so notorious, and where the spirit of aristocracy had never been repressed even in the heat of the Revolution. Impelled by a common feeeling, and full of aspirations after future fame, his friend Mignet and himself determined to seek their fortunes in Paris, where alone genius, as they thought, could surmount the difficulties which were opposed to it. They, accordingly, packed up their little all, put themselves into the banquette of the Diligence, and started, on a fine morning in July, 1821, for the capital, as rich in talents and in hopes as they were poor in cash.

During the first months of their residence in Paris, tho two adventurers took a lodging which, since their arrival at wealth and distinction, has been visited with as much interest as the house in which Shakspeare lived, at Stratford-on-Avon, is viewed by the worshippers of the great dramatist, and its description is familiar to all the lovers of French literature. In a dirty, dark street, near the Palais

Royale, called the Passage Montesquieu, in the most crowded and noisy part of Paris, you ascend by a flight of steps into a gloomy and miserable lodging-house, in the fifth floor of which a smoked door conducts you into two small rooms, opening one from the other, which was the dwelling-place of two men whose celebrity, within a few short years afterwards, filled the world. A common chest of drawers, of the cheapest wood, a bed to match, two rush-bottom chairs, a little rickety nutwood table, incapable of resting steadily on its feet, and a white curtain, formed the inventory of the furniture of the abode of two men, one of whom, in a few years, rose to the office of prime minister of France, and the other to the highest place in the historical literature of that country.

Those who have visited the two friends in their obscure attic, and have since partaken the sumptuous hospitality of M. Thiers, in his splendid mansion in the Place St. George, will find abundant food for reflection on the vicissitudes of human affairs, and will admit that

Mignet had brought from the south introductions to M. Chatelain, then principal editor of the Courier Francais, to which journal he immediately became a contributor. M. Thiers had found means to introduce himself to the notice of Manuel, who at that moment had been raised to the highest pitch of popularity and influence by his violent expulsion from the Representative Chamber, at the instance of the ministry of M. Villele. Manuel, in whose veins also flowed the warm blood of the south, received him with the utmost cordiality and kindness, presented him to M. Lafitte, under whose auspices he was received among the writers for the Constitutionnel, which at that epoch was the most influential journal on the continent of Europe. This laid the foundation of the fortune of M. Thiers. It was, in fact, all he needed; it was the opportunity which fortune placed in his path, and it cannot be denied that he turned it to good account o enevol The traces of his genius were are soon conspicuous in the columns of the VOL. XXVIII.-No. 167.

Constitutionnel, and his name was pronounced with approbation in all the political coteries of the opposition. He soon became a constant and admired frequenter of the most brilliant salons, and was counted among the most esteemed friends of Lafitte, Casimir Perier, and Count Flahaut. The Baron Louis, the most eminent financier of that day, received him as his pupil and guest.

His natural endowments were admirably calculated to enable him to turn to profit the innumerable opportunities which were thus opened to him. Combining a memory which allowed nothing to escape it, with an astonishing fluency and quickness of apprehension, he was enabled, without neglecting those exigencies of the daily press to which he was indebted for his elevation, to pass much time in society, speaking much, hearing more, carefully depositing in his memory, as food for future meditation, the matter of his conversations with the leading actors in the great drama of the Revolution and the Empire. These he passed in review with a keen and observant eye: the aged survivors of the Constituent Assembly; members of the National Convention; of the Council of Five Hundred; of the legislative assembly; of the Tribunate, Girondists, Mountainists, generals and marshals of the empire, diplomatists, financiers, men of the pen and men of the sword, men of the head and men of the arm. He conversed with them, questioned them, and extracted from their memories of the past, and their impressions of the present, inexhaustible materials for future speculation.

As M. Thiers' relations with society became more extended, he was rendered sensible of those material inconveniences which result from straitened

pecuniary resources. Fortune, however, of which he appears to have been, even from infancy, a favourite, soon came to his relief. He had become acquainted, soon after his arrival in Paris, with a poor and obscure German bookseller, named Schubart, who passed for a person of some learning, but whose knowledge, in fact, extended little beyond the mere titles of books. This individual had conceived an extraordinary predilection for M. Thiers. He acted as his secretary and his agent, sought for him the documents

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which he required, found a publisher for him, and in a word, hired for him a more suitable lodging than the attic in which the two friends had installed themselves, on their arrival from the south. This humble but ardent admirer had often spoken with enthusiasm to M. Thiers of his countryman, M. Cotta, proprietor of the Allgemeine Zeitung, or Augsburg Gazette, as a remarkable man who had, by honorable industry, acquired an immense fortune, of which he made a noble use." Originally a bookseller, he had become a noble, and as such was received and acknowledged by the hereditary aristocracy of his country-the proudest and most exclusive in Europe; simple master of a printing-office, he was admitted to the intimacy of the most illustrious of the age, the kings of Prussia, Wurtemberg and Bavaria, of Goethe, Schilling, Schlegel, and the highest nobles of Saxony. By means of his journal, he became the depository of the confidential measures of all the governments which made those treaties between Northern and Southern Germany, on which the commercial prosperity of the country rested. Just at this time, it happened that a share in the property of the Constitutionnel was offered for sale. Schubart determined to spare no exertion to procure it for his idol Thiers. With this view, he actually started for Stutgard; there persuaded Cotta to lend the funds necessary for the purchase, returned and realized his object.

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the revenue arising from this share (which was then considerable) was placed at the disposal of M. Thiers. This arrangement remained a secret, and M. Thiers was allowed to enjoy the reputation of being joint proprietor of the Constitutionnel, the most influential journal of Paris. This act of generosity was generally ascribed at the time to M. Lafitte, who was certainly quite capable of it, and with whose known munificence it was quite in keeping. The poverty of Schubart, which from day to day increased, rendered him the last individual who could have been supposed to be able to bring about such an event. One who knew this unfortunate and enthusiastic person has alleged, that after

M. Thiers had arrived at the summit of his power and greatness, he met, on a burning day in summer on the Cologne road, along the bank of the Rhine, a poor man whom affliction and fatigue had oppressed to such a degree as partially to alienate his understanding. He was then being con. ducted to his family at his native town. He looked at the narrator with a vacant stare without recognizing one whom he had so often seen with his favourite protegé. This wretched individual was Schubart, the most humble, the most devoted, and the most forgotten of the friends of the late prime minister of France.*

The course of life that Thiers pursued at this time, and in which he has since persevered through all the brilliancy of his successes, affords an instructive lesson to those who aspire to elevate themselves and struggle as he did against the disadvantages of birth, position, and even of person and manners. He rose at five in the morning, and from that hour till noon, applied himself to the labours of the journal, which soon in his hands quintupled its receipts. After having thus devoted six hours to hard labour, which most persons consumed in sleep or idleness, he would go to the office of the paper, and confer with his colleagues, among whon were MM. Etienne, Jay, and Everiste Desmoulin. His evenings were passed in society, where he sought not only to extend his connexions but to collect information which he well knew how to turn to account. In accomplishing this object, some struggle was necessarily maintained to subdue the disadvantages of his physical defects.

In stature he is diminutive, and although his head presents a large forehead, indicative of intellectual power, his features are common. His figure clumsy, slovenly, and vulgar, An enormous pair of spectacles, of which he never divests himself, half conceal his face. When he begins to speak, you involuntarily stop your ears, offended by the nasal twang and intolerable provincial sing-song of his voice. In his speech, there is something of the gossip-in his manner something of the lacquey. He is restless and fidgety in his person, rocking his body

from side to side in the most grotesque manner. At the early period of his career to which we now refer, he was altogether ignorant of the habits and convenances of society, and it may be imagined how singular a figure he presented in the elegant salons of the Faubourg Chausseé d'Antin. Yet this very strangeness of appearance, and singularity of manner, gained him attention, of which he well knew how to profit. His powers of conversation were extraordinary. No topic could be started with which he did not seem familiar. If finances were discussed, he astonished and charmed the bankers and capitalists; if war were mentioned, or victories referred to, the old marshals of the empire listened with amazement to details of which they had been eye-witnesses, better and more clearly told than they could themselves describe them. In short, in a few months, M. Thiers became the chief lion of the salons of the notables of the opposition under the restoration.

The course of study of the history of his country, during the half century just passed, which his business as a journalist rendered necessary, and the many opportunities of personal intercourse with the most prominent of the survivors of those extraordinary scenes, had unconsciously enabled him to collect a vast mass of materials, documentary and oral, connected with the great events which passed in France and in Europe, in the interval between the fall of the Bourbons and their restoration. He determined to turn those rich materials to account, and decided on undertaking his "History of the Revolution."

The progress of political events, and the tendencies manifested by the court to a retrograde policy, rendered it evident to M. Thiers, that a struggle was approaching in which a spirit of opposition would be called for, different from that which an old established journal like The Constitutionnel was likely to tolerate. The more youthful among the rising journalists repudiated the measured tone of the leading papers, and hailed with undissembled satisfaction the project of a new journal, which should include the fresh and young blood of the press. Sautelet, an enterprising publisher, urged M. Thiers to take the lead in

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the new opposition paper. The project of the National was announced. It was rumoured that several leading political characters had secretly engaged in support of it, by accepting shares. Among these were M. Lafitte and Prince Talleyrand. Those rumours, although they had no foundation, served to magnify the importance of the enterprise in the public eye. However, in truth, the only real supporter of M. Thiers, in this undertaking, was the Baron Cotta before mentioned.

For a long time, during the early part of his career, the mind of Thiers was powerfully impressed with the character and renown of Talleyrand; and he longed for the moment when an opportunity should present itself of meeting, under favourable circumstances, so remarkable a man; one who had made three governments, and who, after having pulled down two of them successively, now seemed inclined to crush the third; a man who had dared to break with Napoleon, and yet retained his head; who had, a second time, Europe against him, and still retained, over Europe, a power which no other individual living possessed. At last M. Lafitte obtained permission to present Thiers at the Hotel Talleyrand. The prince received them in the same green drawing room where, at various times, during the preceding thirty years, he had by turns, received most of the emperors, kings, and princes of Europe, all the ministers, past and present, and all that had been most distinguished by genius in the world. On one of these chairs, on which MM. Thiers and Lafitte took their seats, the Emperor Alexander had listened to the first words which had been said to him in favour of the Bourbons; there had been created the provisional government; there the Holy Alliance had been compelled to make some concessions to France; and there, at a later period, was consolidated that alliance between France and England, which had so long been a favourite project with Talleyrand, which he pursued with unrelaxing perseverance under the empire, and under the restoration, and which he accomplished on the ruins of all those regimes which had shut their ears against his advice and remonstrances.