From Chambers' Journal. THERE are recorded, in the history of mankind, many words with which everybody is acquainted, and in the genuineness of which everybody believes. Sometimes the whole signification of a great event lies, so to say, hidden in them. They give vent to a common and public feeling, and therefore they are accepted by high and low, with no more distrust than the fact itself to which they refer. Antiquity has transmitted to succeeding ages many words, both simple and sublime, worthy of the deeds of the heroes of the time. In this case, inquiry is of no avail, and we must accept all such sayings as truthful traditions. All we are able to do is, to examine whether the words attributed to Alexander, Pericles, Cincinnatus, or Caesar, are worthy of these great men; and if we find they could have said so, why, they did say so. But, happily or not for the time of the moderns, historical criticism is there less difficult; and it is really curious to inquire whether the words which are attributed to high persons, especially to crowned heads, were truly uttered by them. No history abounds more than that of France in historical sayings-in mots, as the French say; and in no other country does a single word, when appropriate to the circumstances, produce so much sensation. Yet it so happens, that scarcely any of these famous mots are authentic; and, strange as it may seem, it is precisely those that are received without question that are the most false. It would be an easy task to demonstrate that the greater number of the words put in the mouth of Napoleon Bonaparte are nothing but popular fiction. But go to the farm and the "And workshop; there, the cry of the sentryif you are the Petit Caporal, you shall not pass - and other familiar discourses between the mighty emperor and his affectionate soldiers, are more readily believed than the address at the foot of the Pyramids or the adieu of Fontainebleau. There exist thick volumes full of apocryphal Napoleon anecdotes: in this respect, he is inferior to none, not even to Frederick the Great of Prussia. There is also a word commonly attributed to the celebrated General Kleber, who succeeded Bonaparte in Egypt as commander-in-chief, and who is said, by nearly all the historians, to have flattered the future dictator by exclaiming, "You are as great as the world." The truth is, that the simple and heroic Kleber never uttered these words; for he, like his republican colleagues, Desaix and Alexandre Dumas, foresaw and feared the ambitious designs of the talented Corsican. General Alexandre Dumas at least - the father of the illustrious romance-writer always denied the statement; and it is certain that he, the gallant friend of Kleber, Desaix, Augereau, and Brune, lived and died under the first empire greatly neglected. We come now to an anecdote of a more pleasing character. Every History of the two French restorations of 1814 and 1815 relates that the Duc d'Artois, afterwards King Charles X., in making his entrée into Paris, pronounced the words: "Nothing is changed in France; there Who has not read, in the appalling history of is only one Frenchman more." Happy words the execution of Louis XVI., the beautiful sen- in the mouth of a prince returning from exile, tence put in the mouth of the Abbé Edgeworth and happy the Bourbons if they had always when the unfortunate monarch was on the point kept these words in mind! But, here again, of receiving the deadly blow of the guillotine : we must declare that this promising sentence "Son of St. Louis, ascend to heaven!" Have was never uttered. The famous Talleyrand, of we not all, on hearing these pious and exalted cunning memory, had in the evening of that words, been touched to the heart; and did one eventful day a rather select party assembled at of us ever doubt the accuracy of the record? his hôtel, and asked the company, as a matter The priest must have said so, is the common of course: "What did the prince say?" The notion. Not only did all the important histo- general answer was: "Nothing at all." "But," rians of the French Revolution, M. Thiers in- exclaimed the sly diplomatist, "he must have cluded, vouch for the accuracy of that scene, said something; "and addressing a well-known but, whether in the hut or the palace, in the political writer, he continued: "B, you are home of the republican or of the royalist, every-a wit; go into my closet and make a mot." body takes the words of the Abbé Edgeworth for B- went, and came back three times; his a granted truth. And, nevertheless, the worthy wit was at fault, and his ideas did not satisfy clergyman declared publicly in writing, more the company. At last he returned a fourth than thirty years ago, that the words were a time, and pronounced with triumphant emmere invention: he never uttered them on the phasis the above-mentioned patriotic words: scaffold of the Place de la Révolution. And Nothing is changed in France; there is only yet, in spite of that public declaration, the one Frenchman more." Talleyrand applauded : touching farewell is still repeated again and the Duc d'Artois had found his mot; and the again. For critics, it is no more an historical next day the papers made it known to the world, saying, but the rest of the nation take it as and, as an old French author says, "In this such, and thereby give expression merely to manner history is written." their own feeling. From The Examiner. cess has he had, for example, to the motives and intentions of Napoleon by elaborate perusal of all the official documents of the empire, that he seems to us quite unable to raise himself above or guide himself through the laby Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire (History of the Consulate and Empire). Par M. A. Thiers. Tome XII. Paris: Paulin. ALTHOUGH M. Thiers, at the commencement rinth. He is choked by his very plethora of of this volume of his history, states that his knowledge. Let us cite an instance. work is entirely completed in manuscript, The great mistake of Napoleon, that which the present publication only brings us down impelled him to his extravagances and proto the period of May 1811. There remain duced his ruin, was mainly his system of conthe last Spanish campaign, that of Russia in tinental blockade, and his project for ruining 1812, and the memorable struggles of 1813, England by excluding its trade from Europe. '14, and '15. In less than three or four vol- Now M. Thiers, who has read in the imperial umes more the subject can hardly be included. archives all the fine reasons which confirmed The eleventh volume comprised Talavera, Napoleon in this one fatal idea, actually puts Walcheren, and the Divorce, and was chiefly faith in those reasons and arguments, and remarkable for its severity towards Soult, and cannot help betraying an opinion that the its over-indulgence to Napoleon in the repu- calculations were in his belief well founded. diation of Josephine. The twelfth volume But if so, Napoleon was right in pursuing his treats of the continental blockade, and of favorite theory. It was to complete the conTorres Vedras and Fuentes d'Onor. We tinental blockade he engaged in the Spanish cannot say that it is remarkably interesting. war and pushed into Portugal. It was to But it must be admitted that these Span- complete the continental blockade he made ish campaigns offer an ungrateful subject to a Austria his irrevocable enemy by depriving French writer who has continually throughout her of Illyria. It was to complete the conthem to censure the policy of the great na-tinental blockade he annexed Holland, Hantional hero, and to expose the deficiencies of his lieutenants. To explain incessant defeat is not an inspiriting task. We must not wonder if M. Thiers a little flags as a narrator in this part of his labors. over, the Hanseatic Towns, and Oldenburg to the French empire, thereby provoking Russia, and necessitating war with that power. It was literally imperative upon him to do all this, if he was right in supposing that England could only be reduced by closing the shores of the continent against her, and putting French custom-house officers in every port. M. Thiers is perfectly inconsistent, therefore, in representing the system of continental blockade as feasible, effective, and wise, while at the same time he blames Napoleon for following up the system in the only possible effective way. Perhaps anticipating some such remark, he prefaces his present volume by an essay on the writing of history, in which he asserts that the merit of such a work consists not in the graphic, picturesque, or passionate, but in clear, cold, calm intelligence. This quality M. Thiers certainly possesses to an eminent degree, and, if he so pleases, he is at liberty to make it his chief excellence. But no man better knows, or has more clearly shown, that such critical and intellectual qualities do not exclusively suffice for the writing of a success-tinental blockade was a gigantic absurdity in ful history. The truth is the very contrary of what M. Thiers assumes. The truth is that the con itself, leading necessarily to the most monBut setting this aside, and taking M. Thiers strous absurdities in order to carry it out. on the lower ground where for the present he The results which M. Thiers avers it was is most content to place himself, we must con- likely to produce were visionary. To surfess that few writers have had such advan-round the shore of Europe with a dyke that tages for writing contemporary history as M. was to keep out all colonial and manufacturThiers. A large sharer in the affairs and ing produce, when this produce was six times politics of his country, admitted to all its se- the price on the shore that it could be had crets and archives, all that he says and writes for a mile out to sea, was an utter impossimust necessarily command attention. But bility. Yet for this Napoleon braved and prothese advantages, if they have helped, have voked the enmity of all Europe, whereas in also weighed him down. Such intimate ac- simply abandoning this preposterous scheme he might have counted on its friendship or of other countries as well as in those of France. submission. But alas! M. Thiers, bewildered From London and from Vienna, from Berlin by the numerous official documents he must and from Madrid, the details must finally be have spent years in perusing, has ended in viewed, compared, and sifted. M. Thiers taking his political economy from Napoleon, has written an excellent French account of about the worst and most exploded of schools. the great man and his reign, as fair and intelIt has considerably injured the veracity, and ligent as could reasonably be expected. altogether warped the judgment, of the latter his History of the Consulate and the Empire, portion of his history. though more valuable from its hidden and official sources than his History of the Revolution, is far inferior to it in spirit, in eloquence, and in philosophic view. It is not thus the great narrative should have been written. The materials for a fair and luminous history of Napoleon's epoch were to be sought in the libraries and archives But MURAT — AND WHICH IS THE TRUE STORY? -The task of reconciling the discrepancies between contemporaneous historians has frequently been attended with considerable difficulty, and various ingenious theories have been propounded to account for contradictions between positive eye-witnesses of a fact. The subjoined extracts are a very remarkable example. Probably, of all the distinguished officers of the grande armée, none has been more frequently the subject of description than Murat. That unfortunate hero, at least, did not seek to hide his light under a bushel and we should imagine that the whole French army must have been well acquainted with his demeanor and habits in action. Lamartine professes to give his own account, as communicated by his friend and minister. Mr. Beamish quotes the words of his emperor, commander, and brother-in-law. How are we to reconcile the two? There are probably officers still living who have charged with him, and could settle the point. Lamartine, in describing him, says he always wore a short broad Roman sword, with a mother-of-pearl handle, decorated with the portraits of his wife and children; certainly not the weapon a cavalry officer would select to do great execution. And he moreover adds, that he never drew it but once to encourage his escort to fall on a hostile squadron. This new mode of warfare appeared to Bonaparte so likely to succeed, if applied to actual use, that he determined upon its adoption, and succeeded beyond expectation. A reference to the details of that battle will be found to assimilate so com"Murat,' said Napoleon, was a most sin-pletely with Milton's imaginary fight, as to leave gular character. . . . Every day Murat was engaged in single combat, and returned with his sabre dripping with the blood of those he had slain." From the notice of "The Uses and Application of Cavalry in War, by N. L. Beamish," Athenæum, No. 1450, p. 919. "Il disait au Comte de Morburg, son ami et son ministre ... Ma consolation la plus douce quand je repasse sur ma vie de soldat, de général et de roi, c'est de n'avoir jamais vu tomber un seul homme mort de ma main. Il n'est pas no doubt of the assertion. I had this fact from Colonel Stanhope, who had just heard it related by Colonel Campbell himself. Colonel Stanhope was then at Stowe, the Marquis of Buckingham's, where I was dining and heard it repeated. It has never to my knowledge been in print, nor have I ever heard the circumstance repeated by any one but myself. Colonel Stanhope has been long dead, as well as Colonel Campbell. The time of my hearing the above was 1815.-J. BROWN. Notes and Queries. From The Spectator. "PET" CRUISES WITH THE BALTIC FLEET.* ing; for what gives interest to adventure is the manhood displayed in meeting and conquering difficulties, the cheerfulness of spirit, A YACHT suggests to persons familiar with the physical endurance, the readiness of wit Cowes and the waters of the Solent, visions and inventiveness of resource, as much as the of aristocratic grandeur and luxury; Mayfair novelty or striking character of the scenes and Melton taking their pleasure in fast-sail- witnessed. And the man who twice pering boudoirs instead of in morocco-lined car- forms the voyage to the Baltic in a mere riages or on thoroughbred hunters; beauties cockle-shell of a boat must have all these and dandies in elaborately naval masquerade, qualities in abundance. But Mr. Hughes with champagne for grog and Gunter's cuisine was attracted to the Baltic by the stirring for salt-junk and biscuit; sailors as trim as scenes he expected to witness there, and the Guardsmen on parade, sails white as swans- disappointment of the first naval campaign down, and ships that inside and out look as did not prevent him from sharing the hopes. He if they had just been unpacked from a first- of the nation in regard to the second. rate upholsterer's warehouse, bright with bur- went with his mind full of the old achievenished metal and polished wood, roomy, ele-ments of the British Navy, with an imaginagant, and costly. With all this factitious tion that had revelled in its deeds of daring splendor and unsailor-like luxury, the real courage and skilful seamanship, to a combienjoyment of a sea life must form but a small nation of which we owe our renown and our portion of a rich yachtman's compensation for his outlay; and the man who really enjoys amateur sailing, the man who has the true spirit of a sailor, will rather regard all this as an incumbrance. Mr. Hughes has perhaps gone to the opposite extreme. Few professional sailors would choose to cross the German Ocean and cruise in the Baltic, even in summer, in a Thames cutter of eight tons measurement; and fewer amateurs could handle such a craft smartly enough to have even a chance of escaping the manifold perils of winds, waves, rocks, and shores. The owner and captain of the "Pet" is a clergyman, a scholar, and a Fellow of a College at Cambridge. However admirably he may discharge himself of these several functions, there is one other for which he would be, in our opinion, and we should think in his own, much better suited, and that is the command of the most dashing frigate in her Majesty Queen Victoria's service. The Church is none the worse for such men as he is, and Cambridge University is much the better for them; but the higher ranks of the British Navy seem just now very decidedly to want them, unless the Admiralty, as we suspect, has more to do with the naval disappointments of the last two years than either captains or even admirals. As a narrative of personal adventure, Mr. Hughes' Log would at any time be interest *Two Summer Cruises with the Baltic Fleet, in 1854-5; being the Log of the "Pet" Yacht, 8 Tons, R. T. Y. C. By the Rev. Robert Edgar Ilughes, M. A., Fellow of Magdalen College, Cambridge. Published by Smith and Elder. power. How in both cases he failed to see what he went for, is a tale we all know too well. But such a witness is worth all the newspaper professional correspondents. He has no party to serve, no motives of speech or reservation but what are patent and honorable; the stamp of veracity is on every sentence of his book-not only the intention to speak the truth and nothing but the truth, but the capacity of perceiving facts and of not perceiving falsehoods. He mixed too with the officers of the fleet; so that he is enabled to reflect in his journal the real feelings of this class on the events of the last two years in the Baltic, and their own share in them. We have heard much of the service the Swedish fleet of gun-boats, numbering 256, might render us in the Baltic operations. Mr. Hughes, who saw them manoeuvering at Slitehamn in Gottland, thus records his experience: "As regards their gun-boats, I must speak with very faint praise. It is the custom in newspapers to write at random about the very important services they might render us in the I must beg leave to differ from present war. this opinion in toto. The Swedish gun-boat for defensive purposes in a sheltered harbor might be of some little service, but for general warfare they are entirely out of date. They are about fifty feet long by perhaps sixteen in width. At either end they carry a 32-pound Paixhan gun. The direction of the gun could only be altered by slueing the craft round, and unless she should 'unhappily be between two enemies, she she can only use one gun at a time. Neither gun is available unless the boat is end-on her enemy, and consequently exposed to a raking fire. They sail miserably; and the heavy ord- | Swarto, may possibly each have a casemated nance fore and aft make them so laborsome in a fortification of great extent and regular form, sea-way, that they are quite unfit to be trusted like those represented in the fashionable lithooutside; the bow and stern, moreover, are neces- graphs; but if so, they are at all events persarily cut away to make room for the guns, and fectly invisible, and the appearance of the they form complete water-traps. Three or four islands is that which I have just described. such craft, with a force of six or eight guns, There was a little waspish battery on Gusrequire as many men as would man a steam tasfvaerd, facing N. W., which particularly disfrigate; and, however formidable they may have tinguished itself by firing at every ship's gig or been formerly to a sailing-vessel in a calm, an cutter which came within range, and by the active steam gun-boat or sloop would now give singular and absurd inaccuracy of its practice. them the stem one after the other with impunity. "The Swedish officers are perfectly aware of the inefficiency of these antiquated machines, and probably a few years will see the last of them. Such as they are we found them in admirable order, as neat and smart as hands could make them. "The next day we had our first taste of a Baltic breeze it blew hard and rained heavily, and a nasty chopping sea tumbled into the bay and broke against the rocks. We lay quietly in safety and smooth water, and amused ourselves by watching the manoeuvres of the gun-boats, which were knocking about inside. They were miserably wet, and worked and sailed under their three lugs so unsatisfactorily that we were entirely confirmed in our opinion that, except in the finest weather, they never could have been formidable; and now, under all circumstances, they are entirely bowled out by steam." · "There is one English sketch which I have seen in the shop-windows of London, Gottenburg, and Stockholm, bearing the suspicious name of Walker, which portrays a huge precipitous island; the idea borrowed, I fancy, from the Bass Rock or Ailsa Craig, covered with flocks of sea-fowl and lashed by ocean billows. Tremendous granite batteries frown downward upon the awe-struck spectator, and a line-ofbattle ship, dwindled to her cock,' sails underneath, her royal mast reaching as far as the knees or the garters of this Pelion upon Ossa! All this is sheer imagination. We had a good gauge for the height of the island just behind the highest ground lay a dismantled line-ofbattle ship stripped to her lower masts, and her white mast-heads and the fore and main-tops just showed above the roofs of the buildings. This was not the Russia nor the Ezekiel, but a third ship, which never showed in front." Here is part of a description of the defences Newspaper readers may remember that Mr. of Sweaborg, which curiously illustrates the Hughes got into a scrape with his little boat fabulous character of those works of pictorial at Sweaborg. Here is the story; time, imand literary art which the interest of the pub-mediately after the bombardment : "On Sunday evening, my friend Mr. Lodge, of the Indian Army, a great enthusiast in military matters, was most anxious to see what damage we had really done, and what progress ing new works of defence. the enemy had really made in raising and arm lic in the scenes of the war has produced: "Upon Bakholm two large sloping turf forts were placed, distinguished by flag-staffs, and mounting guns of great range. Facing the N. W. point of this island there is, I believe, upon Gustasfvaerd a stone fort, guarding the passage, which mounts three tiers of guns. It is entirely the Pet under way, and we went in; there was Accordingly, an hour before dark, I got invisible from the sea; but it has so completely got hold of the imagination of newspaper-writers a nice evening breeze blowing towards the 66 shore, and we carried our largest sails. 66 isles on the left, we stood straight in for Vargö, Leaving Rönskär and its group of rocky passed a little low black rock in two fathoms, and reached a distance of about a thousand yards, or rather less, from the citadel. As we were in the act of hauling our wind, a light puff of smoke leaped from the heights of Bakholm, quickly followed by the report and the roar of the shot as it came nearer and nearer, and plunged sullenly into the sea. and print-sellers' artists, that I have never seen "Another and another followed; the citadel took up the fun; the ship Ezekiel,* not to be outdone in courage, joined in the riot; and the great St. Nicholas battery, on Stora Rentan, chimed in. Hot shot, cold shot, solid shot, hollow shot and shell, the whole evil generation of iron projectiles, were hurled by three batteries of a first-class Russian fortress and a * Probably the 74 of that name which fought with us at |
