FRENCH LITERATURE AND LITERARY MEN SINCE THE FEBRUARY REVOLUTION.

THE part which the press has played in the revolution of the 24th of February is too curious to be overlooked. The share which it had in bringing it about is sufficiently well known; but it might have been thought that when not words but deeds were required, pen and ink would have to give way to other weapons. But no. In the very heat of the conflict, while as yet none could tell what would be its issue-a band of combatants seized upon a printing-press, a compositor of course was easily found among the insurgents, he placed himself "at case," and forthwith composed, while others pulled off a placard of "Vive la République," to be stuck upon the barricades.

As the émeute went on there was a demand for brief striking addresses; and when the popular cause had gained the victory, the majority of the people as yet knew nothing of the new government, the prize which their hard fighting had won. Proclamations therefore were wanted, and these written on the press itself, were instantly composed and printed at railway speed. During the revolution of '89, a man, said to be a lawyer, was seen every day running about Paris, buying up all the placards, proclamations, journals, pamphlets, engravings, caricatures, in short all the multitudinous utterances of the voice of the people, that could be obtained. Should any one have been similarly occupied during the days of February, he may have obtained perhaps a still more curious collection; for many varying gusts of popular feeling, which then passed away in mere noisy breath, were this time "fixed and frozen to permanence" in printer's ink; and many rapidly changing aspects of events, which then swept for a moment across the surface of the agitated waters, are now daguerreotyped and preserved for the future historian of the epoch.

The productions of the first day of the revolution, while the press worked amid the din of battle, present of course curious specimens of typography; there could be no attempt at correction, but the sheets were tumbled into the world with all their imperfections on their heads. On the second day the presses were already invaded by enterprising individuals, desirous of commencing forthwith the publication of new journals, for there were no longer stamps to be bought, or securities to be given, every one was free to play at editing a paper as soon as he liked; and this may explain the prodigious quantity of journals which have since made their appearance at the price of one half-penny, but which, nevertheless, like worthy King Stephen with his breeches, we cannot but pronounce "all too dear." We cannot think of giving even their names, as they amount to nearly a hundred. Some of them have lived only through two or three numbers, some have enjoyed an ephemeral existence of a single day, and others have perished in the embryo prospectus state. One is stated to have been rejected even of the newsvenders, and to have been sold in the café by its editor! One, the "Petit Homme Rouge," announces that it will appear sometimes; another, the "Haute Verité," states, with

exemplary frankness, that it will come out as often as the subscribers furnish the means. Verily great must be the faith of the simpleminded proprietors in the attractions of "La Haute Verité," if they think they can venture on such a statement-may they in no wise lose their reward. The writers of these papers have been divided into serious journalists, that is to say, those who have for a long time followed the newspaper press as a profession, old politicians who had retired from the world, but in whom the revolution has rekindled some sparks of their wonted fire, a host of young authors, mostly of romances, who now cry "It's all over with novel writing! Vive la politique !" and others who have never yet written a word, but who believe that the revolution has gifted them with a sort of plenary inspiration. Much of real talent is nevertheless also pouring itself out in this impetuous torrent, now sweeping on at a rate that makes a close examination of its contents impossible. Of what we can properly call books, scarcely any have made their appearance for months, but pamphlets have come thick as autumnal leaves. There is one however which has claims to attention, The "Solution du Probleme Social," by M. Proudhou. It is said to exhibit very great talents; to be written with earnestness of purpose, and an iron severity of logic. Here and there too, like a "sunbeam that has lost its way," in these stormy times, we meet a quaint piece of literary dandyism, wearing the fashion of twenty years ago, such as the "Souvenir of a visit to M. Chateaubriand during which he permitted me to read to him my tragedy of Velteda, of which the subject is drawn from the Martyrs" in verse. Just imagine, reader, in the midst of this whirlwind, a long account of a visit in verse! Of the pamphlets an immense number have been of course compositions on the theme of Louis Philippe, with variations. We have "Maria Stella, or the criminal exchange of a young Lady of the highest rank for a Boy of low degree." We find also one entitled, "Mysterious and apocryphal birth of Louis Philippe," "The Amours of Louis Philippe," "The Correspondence of Louis Philippe and Abd-el-Kader," a comic squib that you hear recited on the bridges and in the streets; the "Crimes of Louis Philippe," "The Truth concerning Louis Philippe, his treacheries, his baseness, &c. from his birth to his flight."

In the pamphlets as well as in the songs and caricatures, M. Guizot follows his royal master as closely as the confidante "mad in white linen" her mistress Tilburina. Few established names appear among those of the authors of the pamphlets, which with the periodicals constitute almost the sole literature of France at the present moment, and the "Lettres au Peuple" of Madame Sand, do not appear to have created any sensation. One literary man, who has lately made his appearance, is certainly too remarkable to be passed over. This is a poetical newsvender, who does not know how either to read or write, but stands by the printing press, and dictates his effusion to a compositor, who has at least a tincture of "humane letters." A very amusing illustration of the condition of literature, and literary men is afforded by M. Mery in his "Paris Républicain." One morning, he says, chance led him towards that part of the Boulevarde which runs along the Parc des Monceaux. The fine trees threw a pleasant shade over a crowd of the national workmen (lucus a non lucendo) who are, or are supposed to be employed there. The soft green sward formed a

delightful couch for a slumbering inspector, a party of the travailleurs was busily engaged at a game of quoits, and others assisting (in the French sense), that is looking on. Here at least labour seemed to be very satisfactorily organised. One man, however, clad in a blouse of coarse ticking, was actually at work, and with an energy worthy of a better object, was levelling and scraping the ground at the side of a ditch that might just as well have remained in statu quo. But perhaps there is some mystery in this matter which common minds cannot penetrate.

"I stopped," says M. Mery, "to meditate upon it. The workman smiled, stopped his work, and leaning upon his spade in the way stage gardeners and labourers are accustomed to do, said,

"You are trying to find out what I am doing? If you are not more busy than I am, citizen, we may as well have a gossip for an hour or two."

"With all my heart," was the reply; "I am a workman as well as yourself; a workman in prose, and I and my brethren are waiting to see whether some economist will not have the goodness to organise our labour."

The National workman put away his spade forthwith, seated himself on the turf, his visitor offered him a cigar, and the conversation began. Each party, before fairly launching into it, naturally wished, in these revolutionary times, to know something of his companion's political tendencies, whether he considered himself a Legitimist, an Orleanist, a Fourrieriste, a Humanitary, a Saint Simonian, a Barbesian, a Socialist, a Federative, a Communist, a Jesuit, a Gallican, an Absolutist, or a Republican, and if a Republican, whether of '89, '92, '93, on the 9th of Thermidor; a tolerable variety of opinion to choose amongst.

"You wish to know my political opinions," said M. Mery. "Well then, I am a partisan of the existing government."

"And what is the existing government?" asked the workman. At this question M. Mery perceived that he had to do with a man who was not to be put off with a mere sounding phrase, and was preparing to explain, when the workman answered himself.

The world," said he, " has been governed in many different ways. Before man existed by the Ichthyosauri and other extinct dynasties, the duration of whose reign is somewhat uncertain; then by the nomadic royalty of shepherd kings, by the settled royalty of the first city, by the floating royalty of Noah, by priests in Chaldea, by women in Assyria, by prophets in Judea, by warriors in Persia. Rome has counted among her sovereigns one shepherd, one demi-god, seven kings, decemviri, tribunes, consuls, dictators, triumviri, emperors, prætorian guards, and sovereign pontiffs. The ablest people the world has yet seen, began its search for the best kind of government thirteen centuries before Christ, and perished shamefully under the name of the Lower Empire in 1448. In France, which is the land of imitation, we have made trial of all ancient governments, as if they had been good ones; the Romans gave but two hundred and eighty-six years to their royalty experiment; we gave it fourteen centuries, and after that we had a republic, a directory, a triumvirate, a consulate, an empire, and a few constitutional monarchies. These, it is true, have been all failures, but we never lacked excellent reasons

to prove, after every overturn, that France had now adopted the best possible form."

By this time M. Mery began to look with great curiosity at his learned workman, and to consider whether he might not be the great organiser of labour himself, working in disguise, like the Czar Peter, in the dockyard of Saardam. But he now proceeded to show that, after so many vain attempts, France had come to the conclusion that the best government is none at all; that, for the last three months France had been governed by the absence of a government, by a nonentity. Any government that had existed would have been overturned on the 17th of March and the 15th of May, but it was impossible to overturn what was not. The prætorian guards of order, namely, two hundred thousand Parisians, with common sense and muskets in sufficient quantities, are ready to be called together at any moment by beating a drum, and at last the disturbers themselves will grow tired of the everlasting rappel. Either France has no government, or that government is no other than the national guard of Paris; and it has its abode not at the Hôtel de Ville, but in a palace of fifteen leagues in circumference.

And who after all was this wonderful workman? No other than a private Professor of History, who, before the 24th of February, had a circle of pupils, and was able to get a living. "But now, when the living history of the present is every day passing under our windows, furnishing us with amusement every evening and rousing us from our sleep every night, who will devote himself to the study of the past? Motives of economy too have induced parents to withdraw their children, so that the career of wandering professors like myself has been entirely broken up. Here among the national workmen are thirty men of letters like myself, and here we gain our daily bread without expending much of the sweat of the brow.' The only thing that afflicts me is to see so many millions expended on such useless and barren works, and here is another proof that we have no government. At Rome, twelve thousand Hebrews built the Coliseum in two years. In the middle of the third century Volusian, the son of the Emperor Gallienus, passing by Arles, found soldiers and labourers wanting employment, and he made them build the amphitheatre. An architect of Agrippa, travelling in Gaul, rewarded the good conduct of some soldiers and colonists by ordering them to build the bridge of Gard, and the amphitheatre of Nismes. We are paid four times as much as the workmen of Gallus and Agrippa, and this," said the workman, looking round him, "is what we are doing."

"But why," said M. Mery, "do you not write, and get some one to publish a good work on history?"

At this question the workman burst into a shout of laughter that, for the moment, put to silence the cavatinas of the nightingales in the surrounding trees. "Citizen," he replied, "ask me at this moment to find you a griffin, a sphinx, a hippogrif, a minotaur, a winged dragon, and I will not despair of being able to comply with your demand. But a being so wildly fabulous as a publisher, who would in this present month of June, 1848, undertake to publish in Paris an historical work! So preposterously fantastic a creature as that, I cannot undertake to look for."

ROBERT EMMETT AND ARTHUR AYLMER;

OR, DUBLIN IN 1803.

BY W. H. MAXWELL,

AUTHOR OF STORIES OF WATERLOO," ETC.

NEVER was a more inauspicious day chosen for an important ceremony than the 24th of June, 1803. As evening drew on, the arrivals at the castle presented to the ambushed conspirator a singular and anomalous appearance, for, at the interval of a few minutes, courtly equipages and small parties of horse in turn arrived. If the Irish government had been apathetic before, their present activity now offered a curious contrast. While the plot smouldered, none could guess its extent; but the executive powers lay dormant. When explosion proved impotency to an extent beyond contempt, then every organ they could command appeared to be called into action. The vis inertia of the royalists required now and then a little terrorism to rouse it. Blood-money was still liberally dispensed. Sirr and his myrmidons drove a roaring trade. With Emmett's mad plot for weeks they had been perfectly acquainted, and they, as in interest bound, looked on, fostered, and matured it. That the leading members of the last night's outbreak had headed to the Wicklow hills, was readily discovered; and, in scattered bands, yeomanry and regulars were hunted on in close pursuit. A hot day and hard riding had brought the most active troopers to a stand; and party after party, ranging from half a dozen to a troop, sought a place where they knew that they would be warmly welcomed, and picketed their horses in front of Aylmer Castle.

Every arrival-every occurrence, was noticed from his concealment by the fugitive. He saw the horse he rode last night led in by a serjeant's party of dragoons. A singularly-coloured roan-the animal was remarkable,-and from the attention with which she was examined by the precursors of the party, Aylmer fancied that with the horse himself was perfectly identified. His conjecture was correct; he had been already denounced by an informer as the last night's rider, and, consequently, his hiding-place, as it was conjectured, could not be very distant from the spot where the horse he rode, saddled and bridled, had been found.

Strange the name had not escaped; and the description of the rider's dress and person was both contradictory and confused. He was a gentleman; on that point all agreed; and he exercised an authority over the young leader that was never disputed, while from all the rest of the conspirators he kept aloof, and haughtily rejected every attempt that might lead to association. A mystery was connected with him, and among the wretched rabble already taken or denounced, all broken tradesmen or drunken artificers, the rider of the roan horse to all the royalist rebel-hunters seemed a stag of the first head, and one whom it would be equally honourable and profitable to run into. Who was he? and where was he? The first inquiry none could answer; but to the second, circumstances went far to prove that he must be in the immediate neighbourhood of those who were so deeply interested in his apprehension.