of the passport under a false name, the crime of the prisoner was acknowledged, but in terms most honorable to himself. Mention was made of his loyalty, and of the frankness of his avowals. This ordinance of "no cause of action" was not made until the expiration of two months, and during all this time poor Santa-Rosa remained a prisoner at the prefecture of police in one of the rooms of the Salle Saint-Martin. The first days of the arrest having passed, I obtained permission to visit him every day, and some others afterwards obtained the same permission. It was then that I learned still better to know the character and the mind of Santa-Rosa. At the first moment he had two fears the first was that of being delivered up to Piedmont, that is, to the scaffold; the second, that the excitement of all this affair and the visit of the police might be sad to my health, perhaps even fatal to me. When he saw me enter his prison in apparently better health than usual, his serenity of mind returned to him, and during the two months that he remained in the Salle Saint-Martin I did not hear him complain either of his fate or of any one around him. He prepared himself to die well, if delivered up to Piedmont, and read no longer any thing but his Bible. Afterwards, when this fear was removed, his attention was directed to the details of the proceedings against him. He was touched by the regard testified for him, and penetrated with respect for the excellence of the French law, and for the independence of the magistracy. Santa-Rosa should have been seen in his prison. It was a very good room, airy, salubrious; he was in no bad condition, and enjoyed himself wonderfully. The jailor, who had long followed his occupation, and who had acquired some knowledge of men, soon saw with whom he had to deal, and did not treat him as an ordinary prisoner. He always called him Monsieur le Comte, and this was not displeasing to Santa Rosa, who spoke to him with kindness, and concluded by so far securing his affections that this jailor seemed entirely like an old servant of his house. SantaRosa was informed by him as to his fortune, his family, his children. The other consulted him. Santa-Rosa gave his advice with mildness, but with authority. One would have said that he was again at Savigliano in his mayoralty, speaking to one of his employees. When he left the prison the jailor told me he was losing a great deal. It was so in my own house. My nurse loved him more than she loved me; and even now, after the lapse of twenty years, she speaks of him only with the utmost tenderness. It was in this prison that I met Santa-Rosa's old servant in the army of the Alps, Bossi, a bad head and a good heart, who knew not how to manage his affairs, but who would have willingly given all that he had to his old master. It is needless to say that these two months, during which we passed two or three hours of each day together in the Salle Saint-Martin, united us more and more closely. It seems, after the ordinance of "no cause of action" rendered by the magistrate, M. Debelleyme, that the result of that affair ought to have been at least to leave SantaRosa tranquil at Paris. Such was not the case. At first there was a primary arrest by the police. It was necessary that the royal court should interpose, and formally pronounce a dismissal, if no other cause of arrest should be met with. Through the police of M. Corbière, opposition was made even to the execution of the second judgment; and after Santa-Rosa had been justly declared out of the reach of further arrest, and consequently free, M. Corbière, by ministerial interference, decided that M. de Santa-Rosa and several of his compatriots, arrested in the same manner as he, should be consigned to some province under the surveillance of the police. Alençon was the prison, somewhat larger than the Salle Saint-Martin, to which Santa-Rosa was condemned by the Minister of the Interior and of the Police. That shameless and wicked act towards a man evidently inoffensive, and who was able to find consolation only at Paris, in the company of a friend whose liberal opinions and very tranquil life (since that life was nearly all passed in his bed) were known, that act which destroyed Santa-Rosa in separating him from Paris and from me, caused him, by its useless rigor, a real irritation. He protested, demanded permission to remain at Paris, or passports for England. No answer was given him, and he was transferred to Alençon. Here are portions of some of his letters from Alençon, which make known to us the life which he led there, his sentiments and his labors: "ALENCON, May 19, 1822. "I have not received the response of the Minister, yet I was expecting it much. I shall not cease to complain, should it be for no other reason than to remind them of their injustice. They like very well to see those they have persecuted resigned and silent: I shall not give them that pleasure. "Besides the works which we agreed upon, I ask of you, 1st, M. de Bonald, Législation Primitive;' 2d, M. de la Mennais de l'Indifférence; 3d, Châteaubriand de la Monarchie selon la Charte." "ALENCON, June 11. 66 "We arrived yesterday at Alençon. The orders of the Minister subject us to the surveillance of the local authority; and this surveillance will be exercised in the following manner: Every day, at the hour of two, we must present ourselves to the Mayor, and enter our names in his register; that is all. I have declared very calmly, very simply, but in terms very clear and very significant, my position to the Mayor. He had no good reasons to 'Yesterday your two letters, that of the 3d and give me for all this, and I demanded none of him that of the 9th, reached me at the same time. I either good or bad. The intercourse, too, was not had need of them. The uneasiness which I felt in very animated, but it was polite, which did not receiving nothing from your dear person began to hinder it from being sufficiently interesting to your become anxiety. It would have been folly in you good-natured friend. Besides, I love the Mayors, to make a journey when it is so warm. Do not be and for a reason. One of them is a good old man, astonished in regard to the books which I ask you with a feeble, pleasant voice. His colleague, whose for; you must know that nothing more awakens in name ends in ière, and who walks as straight as an me the power of reasoning, and above all of feeli, did not receive us so well. I have promised ing vividly my ideas, than the reading of works myself that if I ever become again ruler of my which combat the truth with a certain force. Bedear city, I will guard myself from giving unplea-sides, in those which I ask you for, one finds true sant moments to the poor devils who shall be brought to me. I am going to live the life of a hermit; that will console me for being no longer in my prison of Paris. The indignation which the injustice that I experience causes me has not diminished, but I shall not let it trouble my repose. This is enough to say about myself. I am coming to a subject that I cannot quit. You think you are really better than in November last; this better ought to give you a beginning of courage, because it is a beginning of hope. Reflect a little on the pleasure, the vivid, the inconceivable pleasure of becoming again yourself, and on the pleasure I shall feel to see you in the full possession of your power of thought and action." "ALENCON, June 2. and strong things by the side of the most deplorable sophisms. In a word, Bonald and La Mennais oblige me to rise from my chair, the fire in my face, and to walk in my chamber, assailed with a torrent of vivid and grand ideas. I feel more what I really am in reading the writings of our adversaries than in reading those of our friends; for, in our friends, how certain things trouble me, ch grin me! It is only the indignant man who can be true and strong, for indignation has nothing personal in it. I finished yesterday the "Esprit des Lois." The last books, which had almost caused me ennui for twenty years, and even thirty, have been singularly pleasing to me this time. I found an explanation of many things, and among others of my sojourn at Alençon. How much time it takes to bring about an emancipa"I am lodged, my dear friend, in the street aux tion! I yield to necessity, my friend; but Alençon Cieux, in the house of M. Chopelain, an upholsterer. is one of the saddest necessities of the eighty-four I have two chambers sufficiently large, and conve- departments of the kingdom. I am so lonely! nient encugh; but a sorry view upon the street, But tell me, ye unfortunate, is it not solitude that and upon a small ugly court, has replaced the lake, you need! Yes, but not this. This is worth the Alps, Vevey and Clarens, which I had under nothing to me. I know myself, and I feel that this my window a year ago. I wished yesterday to see banishment to Alençon is a frightful misfortune to the environs I found the stagnant Sarthe and me. That which I needed was precisely that some quite fertile fields. By dint of search I found Arcueil of sweet memory, that solitude at the a little shade in an arbor of apple-trees. The city haven of Paris; that alone remains to work for. is very badly built; it has a passable public gar- But this is my last complaint; you shall have no den, and quite a number of comfortable landlords. more of it. Would that I could finish by a capiTo judge by certain vague indications, the Alenço-tolo in terza rima in praise of our dear Paris! I nians are very good people, somewhat curious, but keep for you your room; you shall choose the very innocently so. I do not believe them to be apartment on the north side or that on the south litigants, Normands as they are, for their court-side. I occupy the former during the day, and house is only half constructed. The cathedral is sleep in the latter. I am a great lord, as you see. large, with painted windows; but the interior is So, devoted friend, come, you and your Plato; you half Gothic and half bad Greek. I heard a priest shall be well received. But you shall come only there preaching to some children. He cried loud when the journey can do you good; understand enough, but I did not understand one word of his me, when it can do you good; cosi e non altrimenti. beautiful discourse: it was nevertheless in French, O my friend, I am convinced that your philosobut delivered according to the custom of Nor-phy, in the present state of things, would bring mandy. "I am enamored of Paris; there is a good portion of myself in that city which I always wished to hate, and have ended by falling in love with. great good to men. Are you not frightened to see in Europe great religious and moral truths abandoned almost without defense to the blows of two sorts of men equally opposed to the order and prosperity of society? Do you not see that vic- well conceived and well done. In the second part, tory, on either side, will be only an achievement it is sought in what manner different governments against true liberty, the alliance of which with true grant or limit these guaranties. Here, Daunou is morality is an imperishable law of eternal order neither sufficiently comprehensive nor sufficiently Dear friend, in this strife of evil against good, in profound. In my work I shall refer this second this contest between the two principles, (but no; part to a point of view rather practical than theoevil is not a principle, it is only an act,) it becomes retical, and I shall enter into details for want of one's duty to make his voice heard when he has which the work of the orator resembles a book of the consciousness of its force. That edition of Pro- geometry rather than one of politics. Perhaps I clus, and even that translation of Plato, have shall commence by publishing a small portion of crossed your true career. .. I, my friend, I my work; for example, the conciliation of the have health, a tender heart which is full of warmth, guaranties which liberty claims with those which an imagination made for that heart; I have a just force claims, that is military organization, in a free spirit, but no profundity; and I have an education government. It is only one point, it is true; but so defective, or, to speak more truly, I am so igno- do you not think, my friend, that the careful farming rant upon a great number of important points, that of a part of the territory that lies fallow is more it becomes an almost insurmountable obstacle to useful for the advancement of science than a culmost of the enterprises that I would undertake. I tivation of the whole, the result of which would be have without doubt a certain practice and a knowl- uncertain? There are without doubt geniuses of edge of the material of affairs which is rarely immense vigor who can lay hold of every thing, joined to an ardent imagination; it is this which like Montesquieu; but I am not one of those. can make of me a citizen fit to serve my country Besides, ours is the time for culture by parcels. during the storm and after the storm. But it is in a We are so far advanced that a vast enterprise, if it very differently exalted manner that you can serve is superficial, could not be useful, and perhaps we human society. I, who have the consciousness of are not yet ripe for a great enterprise profoundly an indefinite lengthening of my moral existence, of conceived and perfectly executed. If I could have my existence of will and freedom, who have it for cultivated well my lot, my dear friend, I should you and for me,-I earnestly desire that your pas have deserved well of my fellow-men, and should sage upon the earth may be marked by your influ- have obtained sufficient reputation to assure and ence upon the prosperity of other passengers, no embellish my existence. I have also formed the great good being without great reward. You see, project of a work on Circumstances; but I fear my friend, that I love you well, and like a true that I shall not be able to execute it. I had some devotee as I am. unwell days at the end of June. Do you know that my head sometimes refuses to work? I have also a troublesome rush of blood to the brain. Woe to me, if I do not take much exercise! And I am yet quite young. I believe I shall be a long time young in tenderness of heart and in the en"You have commenced the session of the Cham-chantments of the imagination. My mother was bers by the discharge of pistols; that is a touching imitation of English usages. You take what is best from your neighbors; I compliment you for that. As for me, I confess to you that I would prefer that Alençon should be somewhat more like Chester, Nottingham, or some other town of the British empire. Will M. Roger-Collard have occasion to confound his adversaries, as he did last winter? I fear that he has not chosen a question worthy of him. Remember me to him: you know my feeling of preference for him; it is of long standing. "The Congress of Florence does not cease to run through my head. There is something very odious in that abandonment of the Greeks to the more or less ready vengeance of the enemies of the Christian faith. Adieu, my dear friend. I love you because you love me, because you are a Platonist, and because you are a Parisian, and still more for an occult reaSon which is worth more than all the others because it is not expressed. I felt it yesterday on receiving your two letters after some days of expectation." only thirteen years old, and there is something in me that responds to this extreme youth of maternity. I feel that I am young, and that I am not completed. My heart alone received the finishing hand. "Have I told you that Sismondi wrote me a letter filled with kindness? I have received also a letter from Fabvier, of whom I shall speak to you another time, and for a reason.” That letter of Fabvier, and the ennui which was visibly gaining on the poor prisoner, and, above all, the need of seeing him again, determined me to go and rejoin him, in spite of my wretched health and the positive orders of my physician, M. Laenneck. I confided to no one my determination; took the diligence, and rode fifty leagues day and night; arrived in the most pitiable condition, but finally did arrive. I occupied one of Santa-Rosa's two chambers, and we lived thus during a month in fraternal intimacy. I have often been sick; more than once affectionate cares have been lavished on me: never have I known such cares as those bestowed by him. It would be impossible to describe the tenderness which he showed me, and henceforth I shall speak of it no more. This month passed together in absolute solitude completed our union. I could read in his soul, and he in mine, every feeling and every thought. There was manifested the last degree of confidence, and the veils which still covered the most delicate parts of our life were raised, as it were of their own accord, in those moments of OUR GENERAL REVIEW. AN ABSTRACT AND BRIEF CHRONICLE OF THE TIMES. [OUR readers will doubtless be gratified to find that our monthly review of literature will also contain a monthly review of things in general-of contemporary history, both in Europe and on our own continent. We mean a notice of those leading facts which are most significant of the times. Retrospects are not always unpleasant things. People in progress sometimes like to pause, not so much to take breath as to look back over the road they have travelled, and congratulate themselves on the headway they have made. They also feel an interest in the breadth and comprehensiveness of the survey. Now-a-days literature is not merely a matter of abstract refinement, lying apart from the high roads of men. It is bound up with the law of movement, partakes of its impulses, and wherever it lives healthiest, should show a lively sympathy with the business of the human family. We hope that, in doing the business of Ariel once a month, putting, as it were, a girdle round the earth in forty minutes, our beneficent Prospero-the public-will smile encouragement, and not withhold the reward of such services.] FRANCE.-France, after all, takes the atten- | her angry face, like grasshoppers. Then she tion first, in spite of the splendid and praiseworthy costermongery of the Crystal Palace. Béranger says, very grandly: "Le sang français des grandes destinées Trace en tout temps la route au genre humain." No doubt she has been a remarkable precursor in great changes, and sometimes leads the van in fine style. She has been a pillar of fire to the nations. But it cannot be denied that she has also been a very bewildering pillar of cloud. She has been alternately cooled down into subserviency to the will of a despotic soldier. She afterwards took back, with a helpless grumble, the Bourbons she had execrated. In a succeeding fit of magnificence she kicked them out again; but clasped a royal Artful Dodger to her bosom instead of liberty. Another vehement eructation, after a time, sent him and his princes, all their regal hopes and household gods, sprawling disastrously against the moon! Then, what but the purest form of republicanism-Liberty, Fraternity, Equality-the "The glory, jest, and riddle of the world." trinity of her old worship! But look again. The noble French nation has discarded its At this moment her tendencies are as uncer- idols of the Provisional days, and put a little tain as those of a meteor. What is she about Bonaparte at the head of the government. to become? We could make a shrewd guess The people forgot the customary_Phrygian at the probable condition of any other Eu- cap, to fall down and worship the Emperor's ropean government at the end of the next old cocked hat! So did not William Tell two years. But what France will be at that upon a memorable Austrian occasion. time nobody can venture to prophesy. Of modern nations she presents the most startling contrasts of elevated heroism and feeble, contented submission. In 1789 she rose, stung with the injuries of a thousand years, and tyrants either perished at her feet or ran from VOL. VIII. NO. IV. NEW SERIES. France seems upon the edge of another explosion: she is always on the edge of something of the kind; and privy conspiracy has its foyers in the city of Paris, with affiliations in other places-a very influential one in the English metropolis. In the beginning of last 24 champaign country, for the most part; and the Berryers are not put out of wind or countenance. As for Louis Napoleon, he mainly relies upon the great mass of the rural population; those who remember Napoleon, as the Portguese remember Don Sebastian; those whom Béranger describes in his "Souvenirs da Peuple:" "Long, long, in many a lowly home, The cot shall know no other story. Mother, to make the moments fly, him if he means to subvert the Constitution. The Generals, Cavaignac and Changarnier, will thwart any of his illegal attempts, and divide the army against him; and Lamartine, to blast his pretensions in their stronghold, pours out his withering denunciations of Napoleon as a vulgar homicide, in his new work, the History of the Restorations. It is commonplace to say that France is the surface of a volcano; but the figure is so appropriate that we adopt it till we can get a better for the purpose. month a plot was discovered having for its object a general socialist revolution. On the 6th ult., one hundred and twenty-five arrests had been made in consequence. M. Maillard, former secretary of Ledru Rollin, was among those arrested, and it is thought the latter himself is implicated deeply in the business. So the matter stands. The approach of 1852 and the Presidential election deepens the interest of all who work for France or think of her. Louis Napolean desires to be chosen for another term, shrinking back from the abyss of oblivion into which he should subside on leaving his present seat. He evidently wishes to create an impression that, without his firm rule and measures of coercion, the Republic would be pulled to pieces between the Legitimists on the one hand, and the RedRepublicans on the other; and he relies very much upon that easy class of the bourgeoisie He has the unreasoning instincts of such peowhich dreads another outbreak and the knock-ple on his side. But a strong power is against ing about of its crockery. There are about "six Richmonds in that field" already, all ling either to the Presidency or to some other shape of authority over the nation. There is the party of Henry of Bordeaux; that of the young 66 County Paris" that of the Prince de Joinville, (as President;) that of Louis Napoleon and the cocked hat; that of the moderate Republicans and Cavaignac; that of the Red-Republicans-this last being, as yet, acephalous. A pretty Medea's "kettle of fish," from which to bring forth the renovated France of the next two or three years! The chances of the two first seem feeble, and, we may add, those of the last named. That of the Prince de Joinville is thought to have some sort of promise in it. He is about to offer himself as candidate for the department of Finisterre, hoping to be returned, to have his sentence of banishment repealed, and then to offer himself for the Presidency. MM. Guizot, Duchatel, and other Orleanist leaders, are opposed to this project. Their aims are all royal. They look for a possible union of the two Bourbon branches and the restoration of the monarchy. Berryer, the worldrenowned legitimist orator and advocate of Henry V., has spoken with his usual boldness in the French Chamber. He laughs at the idea that France is republican, and asks what signs of republicanism has she been showing for the last two years? France, he says, cannot be a republic. "Yes," he exclaims, "I say that the republic is incompatible with the old society of Europe-is utterly unsuited to the genius, wants, manners and feelings of a nation of thirty millions of inhabitants, closely packed together in the same territory, and whose ancestors have been for centuries governed by kings." This is pretty plain speaking-not without some applause. The Mountain roars like the sea in a stiff tempest. But France is not all mountainous; she is a Two naval squadrons are about to be sent from France: one to cruise on the coast of Italy to watch the disturbances that are beginning to threaten the peninsula; the other to the sea of Japan under a Rear Admirala military, scientific, and commercial exploration of those rich lands and waters so long tabooed against the Europeans, and now about to be involved in the vortex of progress. ENGLAND.-In England the noise and excitement of the Crystal Palace are undergoing diminution, and the Church business is beginning to make itself heard the louder. The late law, making the assumption of Catholic Church titles penal, is agitating the empire. In Ireland the hubbub is greatest, as was to be expected, and the Catholic priesthood protest as vehemently as the schismaties of the fourteenth century did. A Catholic Association is organized to war against perfidious Albion in the matter of these titles. Ireland, as much of it as the emigration has left behind, is expected to range itself at the back of the Bishops, and the old business of the O'Connell days is making that miserable terrarum angulus still more ridiculous and deplorable. The intention of the Irish dignitaries is to assume the forbidden style, and then try the thing in court. The Catholic Church will go |