The mild, honest, heroic countenance of The sight of all the marvels of Europe gathArchduke Charles presents a wondrous re- ered together at the Musée Napoléon, less, lief to these masks of the back chambers. as he observed, for the glory of art than for It was the morning after Essling, numbered the glory of one man, filled him with melanby Thiers among the victories of Napoleon, choly. Leroi, the coiffeur of Josephine, he but which does not prevent the Austrians relates, had passed over to Marie Louise, viewing that hecatomb of forty to fifty thou- but venturing one day to remark to the emsand men as a sanguinary triumph, that M. press, seeing her in a high dress, "Ah! de Varnhagen first saw the Austrian gener- madame, when one has the good fortune to alissimo. The friend of Beethoven was play- possess such a handsome bust, what a pity ing a sacred melody on the piano! As it is it is to hide it," he was incontinently shown customary in Italian operas for the heroine the door, never to be admitted again. to prelude her appearance by an improvisation on the harp, so M. de Varnhagen had to wait till the melody was concluded before the archduke received him, which he did with a grave dignity, and, mounting on horseback, they proceeded on a military inspection. At that epoch Archduke Charles was the soul of the Austrians. Short and thin, his whole appearance indicated a nervous susceptible temperament. The labors and fatigues of war had no effect, however, upon the natural fragility of his form, which, in Napoleon, had disappeared in the "empâtement" of his person. He was doted upon by the soldiery, for his heroism, courage, intrepidity, good sense, and amiability, were alike uncontested. No man since the time of Wallenstein enjoyed a similar popularity with the army. Add to this, his power was absolute and uncontrolled. He had no chambers, no ministry, not even an emperor to interfere or thwart him in any thing he thought proper to do. The Germans breakfasted at Prince Metternich's and dined at Prince Schwarzenberg's. At the former, a discussion is related as having taken place between Gall and Sternberg upon the delicate topic of religion. The count had brought the phrenologist to admit that religion was necessary, "were it only to keep the populace in control." "And we, on our side," said the incorrigible philosopher, "what should we do without the salutary terrors that religion inspires to the ruling powers?" M. de Varnhagen was soon satiated with the pleasures of Paris. He declares that he soon experienced no desire to penetrate farther into this "pompous void." Upon most of the faces, he says, met with in public, he could perceive but one expression, that of lassitude, weariness, disgust, the expression of a constant want to escape from one's own self, perchance from one's conscience. The only spot where he found comfort and repose was at the boarding-school of Mademoiselle Henriette Mendelssohn, where the select of the day assembled, after the pupils had gone to bed, in the gardens, to hear a daily letter from the exiled Madame de Staël. M. de Varnhagen saw the hero of Essling twenty years afterwards, at a time when, without noise, trouble, or remorse, he had, like most of the archdukes, withdrawn into a modest, quiet retirement. The old man still took pleasure in talking of Wagram. M. de. Varnhagen took an active part at "It was a great, a terrible battle," he said, that sad and fatal fire which consumed the "that we lost, but neither I nor my soldiers Hôtel de Montesson, on the occasion of the were to blame; every man fought like a festivities given to celebrate the nuptials of hero, and only a few days afterwards they Napoleon and Marie Louise. He describes sustained another attack with indomitable the emperor as arriving with the empress bravery; to do more was beyond human on his arm, with a serious, hard, "almost power." It was always expected that so up- wicked" look-not one trace of amiability! right and competent a person, with known Those present, he declares, hated one anliterary tastes, would have left some memo- other, and would rather have met on the rials of that great war behind him; but he field of battle than at such humiliating festivdid not do so. "It will be for our nephews," ities. Shameful and melancholy hypocrisy! he used to say, "if our nephews take any in- A Tyrolese ballet was performed in front of terest in what we have done." the Château de Laxenbourg; a real postilIn 1810, M. de Varnhagen was at Paris. ion brought despatches from Francis to his daughter; at midnight dancing commenced, exceeding mediocrity, and he had for a minPrince Esterhazy giving his hand to the ister a M. de Berstett. Having no male dequeen of Naples, Eugène Beauharnais, vice- scent, it became a question of partitioning roy of Italy, leading out Princess Pauline his territories. To avert this catastrophe, Schwarzenberg. After the dance, the em- M. de Berstett had an interview with the peror and empress walked among the crowd, Emperor Alexander, at that time at Aix-lawhen a sudden gust of wind set fire to some Chapelle, and, by dint of weeping for the gauze. It was so slight that Count Bentheim imaginary grievances of his master, sucput cut the taper with his hat, and Count ceeded in exacting from the czar, who had Dumanoir, tearing down the decorations, never seen a diplomatist weep before, a trampled out the fire with his feet. But, promise that the integrity of the duchy alas! it had extended higher, out of reach, should be preserved, and that, failing a diand had attained the light trellis-work that rect issue, a morganatic branch should be supported the decorations. Everybody be- legitimized. This trick made Metternich gan to run, some even shouted treachery. and De Gentz laugh heartily when they Prince Schwarzenberg ordered the emperor's heard of it. carriage to a back door, so that he might retire with less impediment. Napoleon angrily counterordered it to the front. This part of the story has been always hitherto incorrectly related even in the pages of the Moniteur. Prince Joseph Schwarzenberg was in the mean time rushing through fire and smoke in search of his wife. He had last seen her dancing in an adjoining salon. He rushed in, but found no one. Once more he penetrated into the mansion, now in flames at every point; he found a form enveloped in fire, with a diadem on her head. The princess also wore a diadem; he bore her out, but it was the Princess de Leyen. A Swedish officer, bearing out another lady, declared that the princess was still behind. At the most imminent risk of his life, he attempted to penetrate once more, but it was just as the walls gave way, and all was buried in one common ruin. The next day General Hulin, Dr. Gall, and M. de Varnhagen were digging together among the ruins, when they discovered a human form, that of a female, but calcined and irrecognizable. It was, however, soon detected to be all that remained of Princess Schwarzenberg by a collar of medallions, upon which were engraved the names of her children. One only remained without an inscription; it had been left for the child that she bore in her bosom, and which perished with her on that fatal night. And yet this czar, who thus disposed of principalities when the coalition had overthrown the usurpations of Napoleon, pretended to possess liberal ideas. He declared at the Diet of Warsaw that liberal institutions, which had been confounded with subversive and disastrous doctrines, when carried out with pure and conservative intentions, were alone calculated to ensure the happiness of nations. Unfortunately, the foul assassination of Kotzebue by the fanatic Sand came to give a deathblow to the hopes of the liberal party, of which M. de Varnhagen was one of the distinguished upholders, and at the head of which was incontestably the Duke of Saxe Weimar, the friend of Goethe and of Schiller. A favorite saying of that intellectual prince was, that it was by freedom in teaching, and by the antagonism of opinions, that the truth was arrived at. Princess Louisa, wife of the duke, was as intellectual and as strong-minded as the prince, who wished to make his little capital of Weimar the head-quarters of German liberty as well as of German arts and literature. The 15th of October, 1806, Napoleon returning from the battle of Jena, met her at the top of a staircase. "Who are you, madame?" The duchess introduced herself. "I pity you, then," observed the emperor, "for I shall crush your husband." The Princess Louisa was not terrified by this brutality; she visited the emperor again, M. de Varnhagen was appointed minister and he, to rid himself of her remonstrances, at Carlsruhe shortly after leaving Paris. said, "Believe me, madame, there is a The reigning prince was the Grand-Duke Providence that orders all things, and I am Charles, to whom Napoleon had given as a only its instrument." But he afterwards wife Stephanie de Beauharnais, a niece of said of the princess: "There is a woman Josephine. This Charles was a prince of to whom our two hundred guns imparted 66 no fear." And he said to M. de Müller, the | salons; but M. de Varnhagen himself attests Weimarian ambassador at Potsdam, "Your princess acted like a man, and won all my esteem." that his radicalism had another and a more natural source. "I have seen the men and the things of my time," he used to say; "I M. de Varnhagen, like De Humboldt, be- have long and silently meditated upon what came more and more radical in his old age. I have seen, and the result has been an inMany have attributed this to the influence tense disgust of the world." "Society," of his intellectual wife, the celebrated Ra-again he would say, "is lost, ruined in the hel; but reading over his Memoirs, nine higher classes, to whom the friction with polponderous tomes, of which the least has itics has rubbed off all that educational vareight hundred pages, we find the official nish and good tone that formerly distinman, be he emperor, king, general, or diplo- guished it, and aristocracy thus finds itself matist, so laid bare, his actions traced to every year losing more and more of its privsuch miserable sources, his conduct repre- ileges, at the very time that democracy is sented as guided and influenced by such ig- aggrandizing and organizing itself." A radinoble principles, that the impression re- calism of such a nature is a mere sign of old ceived is that it was the mere result of all age and weariness. It is not given to every his many years' experience of great men and one to be a Metternich or a Talleyrand; of public life. In reading such a book, it is never to shrink before a responsibility, never like going behind the scenes with the man- to yield a line of action once decided upon, ager, who introduces one to a piece of tin, or bend before the storm. It is only weak and says it is with that, that we imitate and wayward temperaments that, after such thunder; and to a cracked bell, saying it is long monologues with their consciences, come with that, that we sound the massacre of St. to the conclusion that, the higher classes beBartholomew. It is certain that Rahel, whom ing corrupt, the people, whom they do not the Germans designate as a feminine Ham- know, have much chance of being better. let, had a great influence on the formal yet Radicalism with such an origin is scepti loquacious diplomatist who had the happi- cism, and nothing more. It despairs of one ness to call himself her husband, as she had, class, and scarcely ventures to hope better indeed, upon all her contemporaries; and it things of another. Men of action go to no is equally well known that she affected the such extremes. cynicism of the French Republicans in her THE MAN OF SENSIBILITY.-He is of a very | adore him for thus delivering him, and said he forgiving temper; but the worst is, he forgives would joyfully sacrifice the life he had saved, at himself with full as much ease as he does any time, on his least command. The next day another, which makes him have too little guard the gentleman met him again, and asked him over his actions. He designs no ill and wishes how he did after his fright; when the man, into be virtuous; but if any virtue interferes with stead of being any longer thankful for his safety, his inclinations, he is overborne by the torrent, upbraided him for pulling him by the ear in such and does not deliberate a moment which to a manner that it had pained him ever since. choose. Confer an obligation on him, and he is Thus that trifling inconvenience, in twenty-four overwhelmed with thankfulness and gratitude: hours, had entirely swallowed up the rememand this not at all owing to dissimulation, for brance that his life was owing to it. Just so he does not express half he feels. But this idea doth the gentleman I am speaking of act by all soon gives place to others, and then to anything the world-The Adventures of David Simple (by which is in the least disagreeable to him, and he Henry Fielding's Sister). immediately sets his imagination (which is very strong) to work, to lessen all you have done for him; and his whole mind is possessed by what he thinks your present ill-behavior. He has often put me in mind of a story I once heard of a fellow, who accidentally falling into the Thames, and not knowing how to swim, had like to have been drowned; when a gentleman, who stood by, jumped into the river and saved him. The man fell on his knees, was ready to IN one of the Highland graveyards occurs the following epitaph : "Here lies interred a man o' micht, From Blackwood's Magazine. body could predict what the character of the new administration was to be. The obscurity in which the new rector had buried his views was the most extraordinary thing about him. He had taken high honors at college, and was "highly spoken of;" but whether he was high, or low, or broad, mus tive, nobody in the world seemed able to tell. "Fancy if he were just to be a Mr. Bury over again! Fancy him going to the canal, and having sermons to the bargemen, and attending to all sorts of people except to us, whom it is his duty to attend to!" cried one of this much-canvassed clergyman's curious parishioners. "Indeed, I do believe he must be one of these people. If he were in society at all, somebody would be sure to know." Ir is natural to suppose that the arrival of the new rector was a rather exciting event for Carlingford. It is a considerable town, it is true, now-a-days, but then there are no alien activities to disturb the place-no man-cular or sentimental, sermonizing or decoraufactures, and not much trade. And there is a very respectable amount of very good society at Carlingford. To begin with, it is a pretty place-mild, sheltered, not far from town; and naturally its very reputation for good society increases the amount of that much-prized article. The advantages of the town in this respect have already put five per cent upon the house-rents; but this, of course, only refers to the real town, where you can go through an entire street of high garden-walls, with houses inside full of the retired exclusive comforts, the dainty, economical refinement peculiar to such places; and where the good people consider their own society as a warrant of gentility less splendid, but not less assured, than the favor of majesty itself. Naturally there are no Dissenters in Carlingford-that is to say, none above the rank of a greengrocer or milkman; and in bosoms devoted to the Church it may be well imagined that the advent of the new rector was an event full of importance, and even of excitement. "Lucy dear, Mr. Bury christened you," said another not less curious but more tolerant inquirer. "Then he did you the greatest of all services," cried the third member of the little group which discussed the new rector under Mr. Wodehouse's blossomed apple-trees. "He conferred such a benefit upon you that he deserves all reverence at your hand. Wonderful idea! a man confers this greatest of Christian blessings on multitudes, and does not himself appreciate the boon he conveys! "Well, for that matter, Mr. Wentworth, you know-" said the elder lady; but she got no farther. Though she was verging upon forty, leisurely, pious, and unmarried, He was highly spoken of, everybody knew; but nobody knew who had spoken highly of him, nor had been able to find out, even by inference, what were his views. The Church had been low during the last rector's reign that good Miss Wodehouse was not polemiprofoundly low-lost in the deepest abysses cal. She had "her own opinions," but few of Evangelicalism. A determine dinclina- people knew much about them. She was tion to preach to everybody had seized upon seated on a green garden-bench which surthat good man's brain; he had half emptied rounded the great May-tree in that large, Salem Chapel, there could be no doubt; warm, well-furnished garden. The high but, on the other hand, he had more than brick walls, all clothed with fruit-trees, shut half filled the Chapel of St. Roque, half a in an enclosure of which not a morsel, exmile out of Carlingford, where the perpetual cept this velvet grass, with its nests of daicurate, young, handsome, and fervid, was on sies, was not under the highest and most the very topmost pinnacle of Anglicanism. careful cultivation. It was such a scene as St. Roque's was not more than a pleasant is only to be found in an old country town; walk from the best quarter of Carlingford, on the walls jealous of intrusion, yet thrusting the north side of the town, thank Heaven! tail plumes of lilac and stray branches of which one could get at without the dread apple-blossom, like friendly salutations to passage of that new horrid suburb, to which the world without; within, the blossoms young Mr. Rider, the young doctor, was de- dropping over the light, bright head of Lucy voting himself. But the Evangelical rector Wodehouse underneath the apple-trees, and was dead, and his reign was over, and no- impertinently flecking the Rev. Cecil Went |