reading of her will, heard for the first time of her marriage with M. de Rocca. In that document she bade her children proclaim the fact, as also the birth of a boy by this union. A relative and intimate friend of Mme. de Staël's gives us an account of her first meeting with her second husband:

"A young man of good birth excited much interest at Geneva by the stories current about his bravery, and by the contrast between his age and his fragile appearance and shattered health; the result of wounds received in Spain, where he had served in a French hussar regiment. A few words of sympathy addressed to him by Mme. de Staël produced a most wonderful effect; his head and heart took fire. 'I will love her so well,' he vowed, that she will end by marrying me!' and he was right. Their affection for each other was of the deepest and tenderest kind. She lived in perpetual fear of losing him, owing to his delicate health; and yet it was he who survived her, but only a year; he died at Hyères, more from grief than from his infirmities, in his thirty-first year."

We have said nothing of the person of this singularly gifted woman. "She was," to quote the words of a contemporary, "graceful in all her movements; her face, without being handsome, attracted your attention, and then fixed it; a sort of intellectual beauty radiated from her countenance, which seemed the reflex of her soul. Genius was visible in her eyes, which were of a rare splendor; her glance had a fire and strength that resembled the flash of the lightning, and was the forerunner of the thunder-roll of her language; her large and well-proportioned figure gave a kind of energy and weight to her discourse. To this was added a certain dramatic effect. Though free

from all exaggeration in her dress, she studied what was picturesque more than what was the fashion. Her arms and hands were beautiful, and singularly white."

This picture is an attractive one, and paints Mme. de Staël in very different colors from those generally used by her portrayers. It is only natural that a woman who had all her life been before the world, should be variously judged by various people. A celebrated writer of her own day, who knew the author of Corinne both as an author and a woman, said that she would not be impartially judged until a century had gone by. Napoleon raised her to a pedestal of martyrdom by his unmanly and cruel persecution, and the éclat of her genius hid her individual faults and errors in a haze of glory. She was hated by the flatterers who fawned on the tyrant because she dared to defy him. Some considered her a cold, masculine woman, who had none of the charm of womanhood about her; while others, dazzled by her talent, idealized her as a sort of demigod. Distance enables us to estimate her more justly. She was a woman of unrivalled energy of character, of incomparably brilliant parts, and endowed with a heart equal in tenderness to the power of her genius. Her written style gives but a faint idea of the lustre of her conversation. She was, perhaps, quite unparalleled in this last sphere. The play of wit, logic, and grace never flagged for an instant, but kept her hearers spellbound as long as her voice was heard. Once, at a soirée at Mme. Récamier's, she got into a discussion with the Archbishop of Sens, as to whether it was an advantage or a misfortune for a nation to be in debt; the archbishop took the latter view of the question, and they kept

up the ball for two hours, until the excitement among the guests became so great that they stood upon chairs in the adjoining salon to enjoy the brilliancy of the intellectual combat. She was, as her death attests, a devout believer in Christianity. On one occasion, after listening to some metaphysicians crossing lances over their pet theories, she remarked: "The Lord's prayer says more to me than all that."

From the repetition of this divine prayer during her long nights of sleeplessness she drew patience and resignation. By birth and education a Protestant, she never allowed her lofty mind to be prejudiced against Catholics, and often spoke with enthusiasm of the heroic courage of the martyred priests and bishops of the memorable 2d of September, 1792. The Imitation of Christ was her constant companion and solace during her long illness. This woman of genius was a devoted mother. Her literary pursuits did not interfere with her maternal duties: she superintended the education of her children herself, and often impressed upon them that, "if they fell away from the path of honor and duty it would be not alone an irreparable sorrow, but a remorse" to her, as she would accuse herself of being the cause of it.

She was not happy in her first marriage, which was purely one of "arrangement." There was no sympathy of taste or ideas between her and the Baron de Staël; her separation from him was nevertheless a deep source of pain to her, and she never would have consented to it but for the ruinous state into which his imprudence and extravagance had thrown her financial affairs, and which must have led to the utter ruin of his family if they had been left longer in his hands. When his

increasing years and illness dema ed the consolation of her compani ship, she returned to her husb. with affectionate alacrity, and de ted herself to him until his death.

The multiplicity of Mme. de Sta writings earned for her the sobri of "the female Voltaire." She gan to write when most girls of age are still in pinafores; her ea works are like the flights of a you eagle, betraying the fearless teme of conscious power, combined w the inexperience of youthplunges into depths, and soars heights of metaphysics and philo phy with all the audacity of untau genius. The Influence of the I sions on the Happiness of Nations Individuals is one of the most st ing of those juvenile feats, and y quickly followed by others in same field. Her novels are doubtedly the first of her claims enduring fame. Delphine is s posed to be Mme. de Staël as she w and Corinne as she wished to They are both masterpieces of the mantic school prevalent in that da and they both inaugurated a n reign in fiction. The closing ye of the author's agitated life we devoted to the compilation of the v umes entitled Considerations on i French Revolution-a work of gre magnitude, and which was intend to embrace the full exposition a justification of her father's poli and life, and a philosophical analys of the theories of all known forms o government, as well as an elabora history of the causes and effects o the Revolutionary crisis. The pla was colossal in scope, and almost in finite in the variety of subjects it i cluded; but death did not wait fo her to finish it. Amongst her ea liest literary productions we must no refuse a passing mention to her dra matic efforts. She was not twent

when Sophie and Fane Grey earned for her a place amongst the most mature and brilliant writers of the period. There is no doubt, if she had had leisure to pursue this vein, Mme. de Staël would have enriched the French language with some remarkable comedies and tragedies. Her works were collected after her death by the Baron de Staël, her son, and form a series of eighteen large vol

umes.

The interest of the subject has led us into a some what lengthy sketch of the life of this distinguished lady.

French annals furnish a study, almost unique, of women who were models of all womanly virtues, and yet by their brilliancy, wit, and conversance with public affairs were fitted to be the advisers of rulers and statesmen. We are very far from wishing to see the sex drawn out of their proper sphere, but when by natural and acquired talents they evince a vocation for affairs of state, we think that governments may wisely accept their counsel, and that their services are worthy of permanent record.

THE rivalries of the French and English for dominion in the northwestern corner of our republic have deeply impressed themselves upon the pages of our history. The element of religious controversy was not the least of the exciting causes which made that frontier the scene of angry strife. The French carried the Catholic faith wherever they erected the arms of their kings, and the natives flocked with ardor and conviction around the standard of the cross. Whatever may have been the merits of the respective parties in the contest for dominion, it is now the settled voice of history that the Catholic missionaries were actuated by motives far above all earthly considerations, and that their cause was that of no earthly king, but was the sacred cause of the King of Heaven.

Sebastian Rale was born of a good family in Franche-Comté, in the year 1658. At an early age he entered the Society of Jesus. After passing

through the novitiate, he was engaged in teaching at the College of Nismes. To fine natural abilities he added great industry, and thus became an accomplished scholar. A foreign mission was the object of his holy aspirations; and, after his ordination, he received directions from his superior to embark for Canada. He sailed from Rochelle on the 23d of July, 1689, and, after a voyage without accidents, arrived at Quebec on the 13th of October following. As his destination was the mission among the Abnakis, the Men-of-theEast, he employed his time at Quebec in studying their language.

It was not long, however, before he was sent on the mission to St. Francis, an Abnaki village, containing about two hundred inhabitants, most of whom were Catholics. Among these, the gentlest of the Indian tribes in the North, his first essays at his favorite vocation were made by this illustrious missionary.

He had commenced the study of the Abnaki dialect at Quebec; surrounded, as he now was, by the Abnakis themselves, he prosecuted that study with great industry. While acquiring their language, he was also engaged in writing his Abnaki catechism and dictionary. Every day he spent some time in their wigwams, in order to catch from the lips of the Indians the idioms of their language; and he often subjected himself to their merry laugh by uttering some sentence for the proposed catechism in his broken Abnaki, which, as they rendered in the pure idiom, the patient student copied in his book. After two years' labor at St. Francis, he was selected by the superior to succeed the missionary of the Illinois, who had recently died, because that mission required a father who had already acquired some one of the Algonquin dialects.

Before setting out for his Illinois missions, he spent three months at Quebec, studying the Algonquin language. On the 13th of August, 1691, he launched his little bark canoe, for his long and arduous voyage to the West. Slowly they moved onward; he and his companions landed night after night to build their fire and erect their tent, which consisted of their little canoe turned up, as their only shelter from the storms. After those long days of labor and fasting, their slender meals were made upon a vegetable, called by the French tripe de roche.* His companions were so exhausted on reach ing Michilimackinac that he was obliged to stop and winter there. Well may the historian remark of these expeditions of the Catholic missionaries to the West that "all must feel that their fearless devotedness, their severe labors, their meek

* Indian name Kanghéssanak; botanical, Umbilicaria Muhlenbergii.

but heroic self-sacrifice, have thr a peculiar charm over the early tory of a region in which the rest spirit of American enterprise is go forth to such majestic results."*

F. Rale wintered at Michilima nac with the two missionaries stat ed there, one of them having the of the Hurons, and the other of Ottawas. Here, with the aid of Chaumonot's grammar, he lear sufficient of the Huron tonguekey to most of those spoken in nada-to assist the Huron mission Scarcely had the spring opened, w F. Rale was urging his canoe al the western coast of Lake Michig He passed by the villages of Mascoutens, Sacs, Outagamis Winnebagoes, Foxes, and others, he came to the bottom of the la Having reached the Illinois pa by river and partly by portage, launched his canoe on that river, glided down its stream one hund and fifty miles, till he came to great town of the Illinois India This town contained about two th sand five hundred families, and rest of the nation were scatte through eleven other villages. Rale was welcomed to their cour by the greatest of Illinois fea "the Feast of the Chiefs," at wh the appetite was penanced by feed on dogs, which were esteemed greatest of delicacies among Indians, and of which a large nu ber had been served up on this oc sion in honor of their distinguish guest. To every two persons an tire dish was allotted. The fath manifests no great relish for t food he received, but he express the greatest admiration and astonis ment at the powerful eloquence a wild beauty of the oration with whi he was regaled on this occasion.

* Francis' Life of Rale, in Sparks.

F. Rale devoted himself with zeal to the care of his new flock. His principal difficulty consisted in overcoming in them the practice of polygamy. "There would have been," he writes, "less difficulty in converting the Illinois did the Prayer permit polygamy among them. They acknowledged that the Prayer was good, and were delighted to have their wives and children instructed; but when we spoke on the subject to the braves, we found how hard it was to fix their natural fickleness, and induce them to take but one wife, and her for life." Again, the father writes: "When the hour arrives for morning and evening prayers, all repair to the chapel. Not one, even the great medicine-men-that is to say, our worst enemies--but sends his children to be instructed, and, if possible, baptized." The good missionary had the consolation of baptizing numbers of sick infants before death carried them off, and there were among the adults many devout Christians, to whom the faith was dearer than their lives.

After two years thus spent among the Illinois, his superior recalled F. Rale for other duties about the year 1695. During the return to Quebec, he instructed fully in the faith, and baptized, a young Indian girl, whose edifying death afterwards this zealous father esteemed an ample consolation and recompense for all the trials and hardships of his life. On arriving at Quebec, he was assigned to the mission in the heart of the Abnaki country, which F. Bigot had re-established.

But this field, which F. Rale now entered as a minister of the gospel of peace, had become, during his absence, the scene of war. While he had been laboring on the distant banks of the Illinois, the Abnakis had sustained injuries from their English neighbors which provoked them to take up the hatchet in defence and retaliation.

Maj. Waldron, of Dover, had, in 1675, seized four hundred Indians of their tribe, and sold them into slavery in the West Indies. Though deeply incensed at this revolting crime, the Indians remained quiet till 1688, when, upon a breach of the peace of 1678 on the part of the English, they could no longer restrain their fury. The war-cry was sounded through the land, bands of infuriated and injured braves rushed upon the English frontier, Dover was taken, and Waldron himself fell a captive into their hands, and suffered a death most shocking, it is true, but one which all must admit he had deserved as many times over, if that were possible, as there had been victims of his rapacious inhumanity. Pemaquid was next taken, and destruction was visited upon the entire line of frontier settlements. The colonists now proposed a peace, but the Indians had already suffered too much from the violation of treaties. They exclaimed: "Nor we, nor our children, nor our children's children will ever make a peace or truce with a nation that kills us in their halls."

But the Abnakis, unsupported in the war by the French, were finally constrained to accept the offer of peace-a peace as deceptive as former ones had proved.

The following year the great and brave chief Taxus went to Pemaquid, with some others, to propose an exchange of prisoners: admitted into the fort for this purpose, they were treacherously fired upon, two of them were killed, and Taxus killed two of the garrison in cutting his way through to make his escape.

This being the condition of the country at the time that F. Rale was sent there by his superior as missionary to the Catholic Abnakis, it may be easily judged how far that state of things is justly attributable