evening prayers, and saw his form as he knelt before the crucifix which the piety of succeeding ages had erected in his hermitage. The image of many a patron saint has been seen to shed tears, when a reverse has happened to the Tyrolese arms; and the garlands which are hung round the crosses of the Virgin wither when the hand which raised them has fallen in battle. Peasants who have been driven by a storm to take shelter in the little chapels which are scattered over the country, have seen the crucifix bow its head; and solemn music is heard at the hour of vespers, in the higher chapels of the mountains. The distant pealing of the organ, and the chant of innumerable voices is there distinctly perceptible; and the peasant, when returning at night from the chase, often trembles when he beholds funereal processions, clothed in white, marching in silence through the gloom of the forests, or slowly moving on the clouds that float over the summit of the mountains.

A country so circumstanced, abounding with every thing that is grand and beautiful in natural scenery, filled with Gothic castles, over which ruin has long ago thrown her softening hand, peopled by the phantoms of an extravagant yet sublime superstition, and still inhabited by a valiant and enthusiastic people, seems of all others to be the fit theatre of poetical fancy. It is truly extraordinary therefore, that no poet has appeared to glean the legends and ballads that are scattered through this interesting country, to perpetuate the aërial beings with which superstition has filled its wilds, and to dignify its mouldering castles with the recital of the many heroic and romantic adventures which have occurred within their walls. When we recollect the unparalleled interest which the genius of the present day has given to the traditions and the character of the Scottish people, it is impossible not to regret, that no kindred mind has immortalized the still more wild and touching incidents that have occurred amidst the heroic inhabitants and sublime scenery of the Tyrol Alps. Let us hope, that the military despotism of Austria will not long continue to smother the genius, by restraining the freedom of those higher classes of her people where poetical talents are to be found; and that, before the present traditions are forgotten, or the enthusiasm which the war has excited is subsided, there may yet arise the ScorT of the south of Europe.

in which they are interested. This striking difference in the national character of the two people appears in their different modes of conducting war. Firm in the maintenance of their purpose, and undaunted in the discharge of military duty, the Swiss are valuable chiefly for their stubborn qualities-for that obstinate courage on which a commander can rely with perfect certainty for the maintenance of any position which may be assigned for their defence. It was their stubborn resistance, ac cordingly, which first laid the foundation of the independence of their republic, and which taught the Imperialists and the Burgundians at Laupen and Morat, that the pride of feudal power, and the ardour of chivalrous enterprise, may seek in vain to crush "the might that slumbers in a peasant's arm." In later times the same disposition has been evinced in the conduct of the Swiss Guards, in the Place Carousel, all of whom were massacred at their post, without the thought of capitulation or retreat being once stirred amongst them. The Tyrolese, on the other hand, are more distinguished by their fiery and impetuous mode of fighting. In place of waiting, like the Swiss infantry, the charges of their enemies, they rush on unbidden to the attack, and often accomplish, by the hardihood of the enterprise, what more cautious troops could never succeed in effecting. In this respect they resemble more nearly the Highland clans, who, in the rebellion in 1745, dashed with the broadsword on the English regiments; or the peasants of La Vendee,who,without cannon or ammunition, assaulted the veteran bands of the republic, and by the fury of their onset, frequently destroyed armies with whom they would have been utterly unable to cope in a more regular system of warfare.

One reflection there is, which may be drawn from the determined valour of the Tyrolese, and their success against the disciplined armies of France, which it is of the utmost importance to impress steadily on our minds. It is this; that the changes in the art of war in modern times has produced no alteration on the ability of freedom to resist the aggressions of despotic powers; but that still, as in ancient times, the discipline and the numbers of arbitrary governments are alike unavailing against the stubborn valour of a free people. In every age, and in every part of the world, examples are to be found of the defeat of great and powerThe great circumstance which distinguishes ful armies by the cool and steady resistance the Tyrolese from their neighbours, the Swiss, which characterizes the inhabitants of free to whom in many respects they bear a close states. This is matter of proverbial remark; resemblance, is in the animation and cheerful- but it is of the more importance to observe, ness of their character. The Swiss are by na- that this general steadiness and valour, which ture a grave and heavy people; nor is this pe- seek for no support but in the courage of the culiar character the result of their republican individual, can be attained only by the diffusion institutions, for we are told by Planta, that their of civil liberty, and that the value of such quastupidity had become proverbial in France be-lities is as strongly felt in modern wars as it fore the time of their republic. The Tyrolese, was in any former period of the world. It is on the other hand, are a cheerful and lively related by Homer, that at the siege of Troy, people, full of fire and animation, enthusiasti- the Trojan troops, in whom the vicinity of cally devoted to their favourite pursuits, and Asia had introduced the customs of oriental extremely warm in their resentments. Public warfare, and the feelings of oriental despotism, games are frequent in every valley; and the supported each other's courage by shouts and keen penetrating look of the peasants shows cries during the heat of the battles; while the with what alacrity they enter into any subject | Grecians, in whom, as Mitford has observed.

is ample room," as a late eminent writer* has well observed, "for national exultation at the names of Cressy, Poitiers, and Azincour. Sc great was the disparity of numbers upon those famous days, that we cannot, with the French historian, attribute the discomfiture of their hosts merely to mistaken tactics and too impetuous valour. They yielded rather to the intrepid steadiness in danger, which had already become the characteristic of our English soldiers, and which, during four centuries, has ensured their superiority wherever ignorance or infatuation has not led them into the field. But these victories, and the qualities that secured them, must chiefly be ascribed to the freedom of our constitution and the superior condition of the people. Not the nobility of England, not the feudal tenants, won the battles of Cressy and Poitiers, for these were fully

men who drew the bow with strong and steady arms, accustomed to its use in their native fields, and rendered fearless by personal competence and civil freedom.†

the monarchical form of government was even then tempered by a strong mixture of republican freedom,* stood firm, in perfect silerce, waiting the command of their chiefs. The passage is remarkable, as it shows how early, in the history of mankind, the great lines of distinction between the courage of freemen and slaves was drawn; nor can we perhaps anywhere find, in the subsequent annals of the world, a closer resemblance to what occurred in the struggle between English freedom and French despotism on the field of Waterloo. "The Grecian phalanx," says the poet, "marched in close order, the leaders directing each his own band. The rest were mute; insomuch, that you would say, in so great a multitude there was no voice. Such was the silence with which they respectfully watched for the word of command from their officers. But the cries of the Trojan army resembled the bleat-matched in the ranks of France, but the yeoing of sheep when they are driven into the fold, and hear the cries of their lambs. Nor did the voice of one people rise from their lines, but a confused mixture of many tongues."+ The same distinction has been observed in all Now, after all that we have heard of the art periods of the world, between the native un- of war being formed into a regular system, of bending courage of freemen, and the artificial the soldier being reduced to a mere machine, or transitory ardour of the troops of despotic and of the progress of armies being made the states. It was thus that the three hundred subject of arithmetical calculation; it is truly Spartans stood the shock of a mighty army in consoling to find the discomfiture of the greatthe defile of Thermopyla; and it was from the est and most disciplined army which the world influence of the same feeling, that, with not less has ever seen, brought about by the same devoted valour, the fifteen hundred Swiss died cause which, in former times, have so often in the cemetery of St. James, in the battle of given victory to the cause of freedom; to find Basle. The same individual determination the victories of Naefels and Morgarten renewwhich enabled the citizens of Milan to over-ed in the triumph of the Tyrolese patriots, and throw the whole feudal power of Frederic the ancient superiority of the English yeomanry Barbarossa on the plain of Legnano, animated asserted, as in the days of Cressy and Azinthe shepherds of the Alps, when they trampled cour, on the field of Waterloo. Nor is it perunder foot the pride of the imperial nobility haps the least remarkable fact of that memoon the field of Sempach, and annihilated the rable day, that while the French army, like the chivalry of Charles the Bold on the shores of Trojans of old, animated their courage by inMorat. It was among the free inhabitants of cessant cries; the English battalions, like the the Flemish provinces, that Count Tilly found Greek phalanxes, waited in silence the charge the materials of those brave Walloon guards, of their enemies: proving thus, in the severest who, as contemporary writers inform us, might of all trials, that the art of war has made no be knocked down or trampled under foot, but change on the qualities essential in the soldier; could not be constrained to fly by the arms of and that the determined courage of freemen is Gustavus at the battle of Leipsic ; and the still able, as in the days of Marathon and celebrity of the Spanish infantry declined from Platæa, to overcome the utmost efforts of milithe time that the liberties of Arragon and Cas-tary power. It is interesting to find the same tile were extinguished by Charles V. "There

* Mitford, i. 158.

† Ως τότ' ἐπασσύτεραι Δαναῶν κίνυντο φάλαγγες
Νωλεμέως πόλεμονδε. κέλευε δὲ οἶσιν ἕκασος
Ἡγεμόνων· οἱ δ' ἄλλοι ἀκὴν ἴσαν οὐδέ κε φαίης
Τόσσον λαὸν ἕπεσθαι ἔχοντ' ἐν ςήθεσιν αὐδήν
Σιγῇ δειδιότες σημάντορας· ἀμφὶ δὲ πᾶσιν
Τεύχεα ποικίλ' ἔλαμπε, τὰ εἱμένοι ἐςιχόωντο.
Τρώες δ', ώςτ' οΐες πολυπάμονος ἀνδρὸς ἐν αὐλῆ
Μυρίαι ἐς ήκασιν ἀμελγόμεναι γάλα λευκόν,
Αζηχες μεμακυῖαι, ἀκούουσαι ὅπα ἀρνῶν·
“Ως Τρώων αλαλητός ἀνὰ στρατὸν εὐρὺν ορώρει.
Οὐ γὰρ πάντων δεν ὁμὸς θρόος, οὐδ' ἴα γήρυς,
̓Αλλὰ γλῶσσ ̓ ἐμέμικτο· πολύκλητοι δ' ἔσαν ἄνδρες.
Iliad iv. 427.
Memoirs of a Cavalier, by Defoe.

qualities distinguishing the armies of a free people in such distant periods of the world; and it is the fit subject, not merely of national pride, but of universal thankfulness, to discover, that there are qualities in the composition of a great army which it is beyond the power of despotism to command; and that the utmost efforts of the military art, aided by the strongest incitements to military distinction, cannot produce that steady and unbending valour which springs from the enjoyment of CIVIL

LIBERTY.

* Hallam's Middle Ages, i. 74.
Froissart, i. c. 162.

FRANCE IN 1833.*

The leading circumstance in the present condition of France, which first strikes an English observer, and is the most important feature it exhibits in a political point of view, is the enormous and apparently irresistible power of the central government at Paris over all the rest of France. This must appear rather a singular result after forty years of ardent aspirations after freedom, but nevertheless nothing is more certain, and it constitutes the great and distinguishing result of the Revolution.

Such has been the centralization of power by the various democratic assemblies, who, at different times, have ruled the destinies of this great country, that there is hardly a vestige of power or influence now left to the provinces. All the situations of emolument of every description, from the highest to the lowest, in every department and line of life, are in the gift of government. No man, in a situation approaching to that of a gentleman, can rise either in the civil or military career in any part of France, unless he is promoted by the central offices at Paris. These are general expressions, which convey no definite idea. A few examples will render the state of the country in this particular more intelligible.

OBSERVATIONS made on the spot by one who | vernment; we know the landmarks of the has long regarded the political changes of civilization which is receding from the view, France with interest, may possibly be of ser- and have gained some acquaintance with the vice, in conveying to the public on the other perils of that which is approaching; and comside of the Channel some idea of the present bining recent with former experience in our state and future prospects of a nation, avow-own and the neighbouring country, can form edly followed as the leader by the liberal party a tolerably accurate idea of the fate which all over the world, in the great work of politi-awaits them and ourselves. cal regeneration. Such a sketch, drawn with no feeling of political or national animosity, but with every wish for the present and future happiness of the great people among whom it is composed, may possibly cool many visionary hopes, and extinguish some ardent anticipa- | tions; but it will at least demonstrate what is the result, in the circumstances where it has been most triumphant, of democratic ascendency; and prepare the inhabitants of Great Britain for the fate, and the government which awaits them, if they continue to follow the footsteps of the French liberals in the career which has been recently brought, on this side of the channel, to so triumphant a conclusion. Most of the educated inhabitants of Great Britain visited France, during the restoration; many of them at different times. Every one thought he had acquired some idea of the political state and prospects of the country, and was enabled to form some anticipations as to its future destiny. We are now enabled to say, that most of these views were partial or erroneous. They were so, not so much from defect in the observation of France, as ignorance of the political principles and passions which were at work amongst its inhabitants; from want of experience of the result of democratic convulsions; from judging of a country over which the wave of revolution had passed, with the ideas drawn from one which had expelled its fury. We observed France accurately enough; but we did so with English eyes; we supposed its inhabitants to be actuated by the feelings and interests, and motives, which were then at work among ourselves; and could form no conception of the new set of principles and desires which are stirred up during the agitation of a revolution. In this respect our powers of observation are now materially improved. We have had some experience during the last three years of democratic convulsion; we know the passion and desires which are developed by arraying the lower orders against the higher. We have · acquired an acquaintance with the signs and marks of revolutionary terror. Standing thus on the confines of the two systems; at the extremity of English liberty, and the entrance of French democracy, we are now peculiarly qualified to form an accurate opinion of the tendency of these opposite principles of go

*Blackwood's Magazine, October and December, 1833.-Written during a residence at Paris, and in the north of Francè, in the autumn of that year.

The Chamber of Peers, who now hold their situations only for life, are appointed by the Crown.

The whole army, now four hundred thousand strong, is at the disposal of government. All the officers in that great body of course receive their appointment from the War-office at Paris.

The navy, no inconsiderable force, is also appointed by the same power.

The whole artificers and officers connected with the engineers and artillery, a most numerous body in a country so beset with fortifications and fortresses as France, derive their appointments from the central government.

The custom-house officers, an immense body, whose huts and stations are set down at short distances all round France, are all nominated by the central office at Paris.

The whole mayors of communes, with their adjoints," amounting over all France to eighty-eight thousand persons, are appointed by the central government, or the prefects of departments whom they have nominated.

The post-office, in every department throughout the kingdom, is exclusively filled by the servants of government.

The police, an immense force, having not sous-prefets, procureurs du roi, and in gene less than eighty thousand employés in constant ral all the legal offices of every description, are occupation, and which extends its iron net appointed by government. The only excepover the whole country, are all appointed by tion are the judges du paix, a sort of arbiters the minister at the head of that department. and mediators in each canton, to settle the The clergy over the whole country receive trifling disputes of the peasants, whom they their salaries from government, and are ap- are permitted to name for themselves. pointed by the crown.

bar or the senate, chiefly by acquiring the suf- | 1797; when Napoleon seized the reins o frages of the greater number of the citizens; power in November, 1799; when he declared and hence the popular independent line was himself emperor, and overturned all the prin the one which in general led soonest to fame ciples of the Revolution in 1804; when he was and eminence. Commerce and manufactures vanquished by the allies in 1814; when he reopened up a thousand channels of lucrative sumed the helm in 1815; when he was finally industry, independent altogether of government dethroned after the battle of Waterloo; when support; and many of the most important the revolt of the barricades established a re branches of patronage, great part of the church, and the majority of all establishments for education, were in the hands of corporations or private individuals, often in opposition to, or unconnected with, ministerial influence. But the reverse of all this obtains in France. There little commerce or manufactures are, comparatively speaking, to be found. With the exception of Paris, Lyons, Bourdeaux, Rouen, and Marseilles, no considerable commercial cities exist, and the innumerable channels for private adventure which the colonial possessions and immense trade of Britain open up are unknown. All the private establish- | ments or corporations vested with patronage in any line, as the church, education, charity, or the like, were destroyed during the Revolution of 1793, and nothing left but the great and overwhelming power of government, standing the more prominently forward, from the extinction of every rival authority which might compete with its influence.

.

volutionary government in the capital; when the suppression of the insurrection at the cloister of St. Merri defeated a similar attempt two years afterwards, the obedient departments were equally ready with their addresses of congratulation, and on every one of these various, contradictory, and inconsistent changes, France submitted at once to the dictatorial power of Paris; and thirty millions of men willingly took the law from the caprices or passions of a few hundred thousands. The subjection of Rome to the Prætorian guards, or of Turkey to the Janizaries, was never more complete.

It was not thus in old France. The greatest and most glorious efforts of her people, in favour of freedom, were made when the capital was in the hands of foreign or domestic enemies. The English more than once wrested Paris from their grasp; but the forces of the south rallied behind the Loire, and at length: expelled the cruel invaders from their shores. The forces of the League were long in possession of the capital; but Henry IV., at the head of the militia of the provinces, at length conquered its citizens, and Paris received a master from the roots of the Pyrenees. The Revolution of 1789 commenced with the provinces: it was their parliaments, which, under Louis XV. and XVI., spread the spirit of resistance to arbitrary power through the country; and it was from their exertions, that the unanimous spirit, which compelled the court to convoke the states-general, arose. Now all is changed; not a murmur, not a complaint against the acts of the capital, is to be heard from Calais to Bayonne; but the obedient departments are equally ready at the arrival of the mail, or the receipt of the telegraph, to hail with shouts a republic or an empire; a dictator or a consul; a Robespierre or a Napoleon; a monarch, the heir of fourteen centuries; or a hero, the child of an hundred victories.

From the same cause has arisen a degree of slavish submission, in all the provinces of France, to the will or caprice of the metropolis, which is almost incredible, and says but little for the independence of thought and character which has grown up in that country since the schoolmaster has been abroad. From the habit of looking to Paris for directions in every thing, from the making of a king to the repairing of a bridge, from overturning a dynasty to breaking a stone, they have absolutely lost the power of judging for themselves, or taking the initiative in any thing either of the greatest or the smallest moment. This appears, in the most striking manner, in all the political changes which have taken place in the country for the last forty years. Ever since the bones of old France were broken by the Constituent Assembly: since the parliaments, the provinces, the church, the incorporations, were swept away by their gigantic acts of democratic despotism, the departments have All the great and useful undertakings, which sunk into absolute insignificance, and every in England, and all free countries, emanate thing has been determined by the will of the from the capital or skill of individuals, or ascapital, and the acts of the central government sociated bodies, in France spring from the goat its head. When the Girondists, the illus-vernment, and the government alone. Their trious representatives of the country districts, were proscribed, the most violent feelings of indignation spread through the south and west of France. Sixty-five, out of the eighty-four departments, rose in insurrection against the despotism of the capital; but the unwonted exertion surpassed their strength, and they soon yielded, without a struggle worth the notice of history, to its usurped authority. When Robespierre executed Danton and his adherents; when he himself sunk under the stroke of the Thermidorians; when Napoleon over threw the national guard of Paris, in October, 1795; when the Directory were expelled by the bayonets of Augereau, on the 18th Fructidor,

universities, schools, and colleges; academies of primary and secondary instruction; military and polytechnic schools; hospitals, charitable institutions, libraries, museums, and public establishments of all sorts; their harbours, bridges, roads, canals-every thing, in short, originates with, and is directed by, the government. Hence, individuals in France seldom attempt any thing for the public good: private advantage, or amusement, the rise of fortune, or the increase of power, constitute the general motives of action. Like the passengers in a ship, or the soldiers in an army the French surrender themselves, without a struggle, to the guidance of those in possession