so much attached,-a dreadful tragedy ending in desolation. All this was before their eyes; and at the same time they knew they had very great influence on the minds of the people; an influence in all probability sufficient to persuade them to a quiet submission, at least till it should be ascertained how the grand train of events, which the people of a single province could not stop or control, would be likely to terminate. And also they were sensible what advantages or mitigations they would probably be able to gain for these endangered provincials, by means of the great merit they would have with the ruling powers from such a pacific exercise of their influence. Such was the state of the case at the awful crisis, when the commotions among the people rendered it impossible for their chiefs any longer to avoid taking a decided part. And that, with such a view presented to them, they could decide, with a reckless and cruel rashness, to join, and inflame, and lead the insurrection, evinces, we think, such a moon-struck state of mind, as hardly ever fell on worthy men before. No doubt there is something fine and generous in their self-devotedness and bravery, and their retrospective and uncalculating loyalty; and if nothing but just their own gallant persons could have been committed to the hazard, the whole affair would have been a very splendid display of chivalry but there were the women and children, the aged and the sick, the dwellings and the gardens;-there was, in short, whatever had the breath of life,' and whatever was for the sustenance and accommodation of life: all was to be plunged into that horrible wreck and misery,-which was foreseen as an almost inevitable consequence; insomuch, that when the most melancholy presages were realized, these leaders, those of them who survived, felt they had no cause for surprise. But we are amazed that when they actually saw the inexpressible misery and hopeless perdition in which their people were involved, we find none of them deploring, with anguish, that instead of restraining them from the desperate enterprise, they had actively led them on to its fatal consummation. The infatuation was absolutely incurable. When myriads of the insurgents had perished, amidst every variety of misery, and the daily perishing remainder were making hopeless forced marches in Brittany, and other tracts to the north of the Loire, encountered at every turn by hostile armies, and in acknowledged expectation of speedy destruction, our Author makes some remarks on the peasants of Brittany, (who were in their hearts favourable to the royalist cause,) to the effect of reproaching them for not being so insane as the Vendeans.

The Bretons could not easily be induced to undertake a war like the one in which we had been engaged. (!!) They are capable of strong attachments, and of a determined courage; but they have too

little ardour and decision. They live more asunder than the Poitevins, and are much less obedient to their chiefs. They are wilful, more interested, and less active, than the Vendeans. They cannot bear the idea of their houses being plundered and burnt. Thence the different character of the wars of Brittany from that which marked the insurrection of Poitou.' p. 415.

The selfish dastards! They could not bear the idea of their houses being plundered and burnt!' which was not probably just that for which they had built, and furnished, and stored them! They wished, belike, to live for themselves and their families! and could not comprehend the felicity or the glory of giving their little hard-earned property to the fire, and their families and themselves to the sword, from horror of having their mass said by men who had taken an oath to a popular form of government, or as a dutiful sacrifice to a corrupt, rapacious, and then defunct court!

We are a little apprehensive that those readers of the above paragraphs, who have not seen the book which has suggested them, may be inclined to tax our accumulation of strong epithets, as a rhetorical exaggeration of style. But let them read the book, and they will acknowledge that no language can be wrought up to the tragical character of a great part of the story. It is such a scene of miseries, as very few records of barbarity and calamity can rival. And no story was ever more excellently told. If we are tempted into an excess of epithets, it is a fault of which the Marchioness is never guilty. Her narratives have an admirable simplicity and brevity. They are almost miraculously clear of all that verbiage, and artificial pomp, and cold cant, and inane exclamation, so prevalent and disgusting in French composition. She never seems to aim at that same thing which is lost by aiming at it-effect. Indeed, her mind is so perfectly familiar with all the forms of terror and suffering, that she seems never in the least to think about the effect they are adapted to produce, in representation, on persons who have not beheld such things. She relates the series of frightful adventures, and narrow escapes, and brilliant feats, and sudden calamities, and bloody executions, much in the manner of a person who should be hastily recounting them to other persons known to have been equally familiar with such things in some other place, and would therefore be sensible it would be mere impertinence in such company to flourish, and exclaim, and aggravate. We can imagine her shewing an unaffected surprise at the appalled feelings of some of her readers. And then, the number of the facts rapidly crowding on her memory, allows her no time for formal reflections or rhetorical amplification. Such a desultory warfare involves a greater diversity and multitude of remarkable incidents, than a regular campaign. It requires a greater number of operations to

bring it to a conclusion; and it admits, if the combatants on both sides are resolute, of a much greater number of alternations of success, before any success can be decisive. In this Vendean war, besides, many of the operations can be described as a kind of personal combats, displaying the character and the valour of individuals, many of whom were well known to the writer. She was immediately involved in a great part, and in the most tragical part, of its operations and perils, being necessitated to accompany military parties, in all manner of alarming situations, by day and by night, in sunshine or in storm, and under the most distressing personal circumstances, such as required all the benefits of indulgence and repose. She somewhere expresses, but with far less emphasis than the case deserved, her wonder how it was physically possible for her life to be maintained through such a rugged course. She was naturally excessively timid; and on various occasions in the course of the narrative she confesses ingenuously how much she was terrified, among horsemen and cannon, routs, flights, and mangled bodies. At the time of the first breaking out of the insurrection, she could not sit on horseback without apprehension, even when there was a man to lead the horse; but greater causes of emotion will annihilate the less; very early in the warfare, hearing a report of her husband being wounded, at a place nine or ten miles off, she galloped a bad horse to the spot, over a rough country, in three quarters of an hour, and was never afterwards, she says, in any fear of riding on horseback. She became inured to hunger and cold, to rags, and sleeping on straw amid noise and tumult, and at last passing whole nights in the fields and woods, without the smallest shelter, to escape the searching parties of the furious republican as

sassins.

We did not take up the book with any design of attempting an abstract of the history: that would be quite impossible within any reasonable limits; nor is it at all necessary for a book so easily obtained, and which so many will read. It is crowded with remarkable particulars. Military records of crimes and miseries have often a sort of gloomy monotony, which reduces the mind, after a while, to a stupified gloomy loathing sameness of consciousness. Less of this effect is produced by this work than by almost any other we have read, it is so inspirited by diversities of incident, the romantic and sometimes fanatical character of the warfare, and the lively simplicity and feminine sensibility of the narrative.

It is quite melancholy to see almost all the persons whom the Author brings prominently forward to notice in the early part of the story, perishing successively in its progress. After herself, the two most conspicuous and interesting persons, are her husband

Lescure, and Henri de Larochejacquelein, the brother of the man who afterwards became her second husband, which second husband also fell fighting at the head of another insurrection during the last short reign of Bonaparte. Lescure was mortally wounded in what may be called the middle period of the first insurrection, when its most favourable events were past, and its fortunes were fast declining towards despair. He lingered a number of days in a state which inflicted the bitterest anguish on his wife. There appeared some slight ground for hope, had it been possible for him to be in a state of quietness, with the requisite comforts and medical care. But the army was retreating in disaster and privation, hourly harrassed by the enemy; it was necessary for him to be hastily dragged along, amid his unrelieved sufferings; and he died in a kind of cart on the road. Henri appears to have been a most admirable youth, virtuous, generous, affectionate, and quite a Rinaldo in battle. He met his fate at a later period, from a republican soldier whom he had at that moment called upon his own man to spare. He was only twenty-one years of

age.

The whole story (and the veracity of it would be beyond all doubt, even if it were not corroborated by innumerable other testimonies) gives a horrible representation of the general conduct of the republicans. They were a vast pack of blood-hounds. They rioted in the massacre of the helpless, the wounded, women, and children, and even the unoffending neutral inhabitants who alleviated any sufferings of the royalists in their retreats and wanderings. Most of their leaders, above all the notorious Westermann, were worthy of their followers. Several of them, however, are honourably distinguished; and it is not less honourable to the Marchioness, that she makes the exception with a grateful emphasis.

She confesses there were some instances of cruelty on the part of the royalists; but she says that most of these were in the way of reprisal, provoked by the horrible atrocities of their enemies. She constantly asserts that they were systematically moderate and forbearing,-at least the armies commanded by Lescure, Henri, and their immediate coadjutors. Of the dispositions of some of the other leaders, especially Stofflet and Charetti, she speaks much less favourably. She excepts too, from the praise of clemency, De Marigny, a very brave and able officer in immediate connexion with her husband. She mentions him as a remarkable instance of a man previously humane, rendered savage by the events of the war.

There are many curious instances of the influence of the priests, and the power of superstition. One priest, himself evidently a courageous man, exhorting the over-powered and

flying royalists to return to the combat, boldly and literally assured them of paradise' if they should fall. He was be lieved, and they went fiercely back with him, exclaiming that they were "going to paradise." On returning successful they seem to have literally worshipped both him and his crucifix. The Author says the priests did not fight, as that would have been regarded by the whole army as a profanation of the sacred character; but they often exposed themselves with a daring and generous devotedness in helping the wounded, or performing the last offices for the dying. She says their influence was uniformly and zealously exerted against cruelty and revenge. Some worthy examples are recorded.

Few things in military history will be found more curious than the economy of the royalist camps. There was very little of the subordination essential to an army. Officers and soldiers, seigneurs and peasants, seemed to be all on an equality; and each man fought from his own individual impulse to defend the country and its social system. After a successful battle, there was no possibility of preventing most of the peasants returning to their homes for a short time; but they would promptly come again at the circular summons of the chiefs. They were never reduced to a complete military organization. They displayed a wonderful bravery; but, nevertherless, they were liable to panics, which often caused disasters, and exceedingly distressed their leaders.-Their system of fighting was formed judiciously, but indeed necessarily, upon the peculiar form of their woody and intricate country.

The losses in a long succession of bloody combats, (in which, however, their enemies suffered a much greater destruction,) and the continual augmentation of the republican armies, reduced the main body of the royalists at last to cross the Loire, in hopes of finding co-operation or shelter in the more northern provinces, in which they believed there was a strong disposition to favour the royal cause. They received, however, no important accessions to their wasting strength; the republican armies advanced upon them in mighty mass and continual reinforcement; and the spirit of the peasants was no longer the same. They had lost their beloved country, for the sake of which they had risen in arms; and they had no systematic large political view, on which to prosecute a war against the republic. They fought repeatedly and desperately, and often with temporary success. They came, however, day after day, in still plainer and nearer view of their fate,-a fate inevitable at all events, unless they could recross the Loire. In the attempt to do this they failed; and after some last mournful and desponding efforts, the remainder