and even instruct-he may be a lecturer or it, is to injure the Protestant cause, as well a polemic, but a preacher, in the Pauline as to be guilty of a great uncharity. Emisense, he cannst be. On the other hand, he nent Catholics can be named, for whom all who looks at man's spiritual relations so ex- the world feels reverence, and if we could clusively as to ignore his intellectual ele- forget all actual examples, the origin of the ment, soon degenerates into monotonous rant, Catholic church as springing out of the aposor drivelling sentimentalism. Spirituality is tolic age, though degenerately, might, a the most reasonable thing in the world, but priori, convince us that Christian people it is nevertheless distinct from reason in its have gone from its bosom to heaven. By foundation and its functions. So the pulpit an easy transition, those who for the first orator is at the same time like other orators, time are brought to believe that there have and different from them, and thus is to be been in times past, Catholics who were singuided by the same canons of eloquence, cere Christians, may be induced to admit, and others also. This has been perceived by that there may be some such at present. our author and brought out by him, as by no This would be no inconsiderable improveother writer upon sacred eloquence, that we provement in Christian charity, for there are acquainted with. Indeed, we think a are not a few, who as at present advised, preacher's library must be incomplete, in would promptly reject the proposition. We which this work is not found, to be once tho- think the reading of this book, will be profiroughly studied, and frequently referred to table to all such. Nor need they be afraid afterwards. that they will be brought to any concession The plan of the book gives occasion for il- that will imply a lessening either of their lustrating a very important religious doc-admiration for Protestanism, or of their oppotrine-the power of the truth upon the con- sition to the Catholic system. The author science. This is exhibited very impressively is a zealous French Protestant minister, in the case of the Christian consciences of and understands, as Americans cannot, the Bossuet and Bourdalone, and also in a differ- errors and the iniquities of Catholicism, and ent way and with different results upon the the exhibition of them is a masterly and natural consciences of Louis and Madame de most valuable accomplishment of his book. Montespan. Does he make us respect the piety as well There is one feature of the book which is the genius of Bossuet, and exhibit him as new, but we believe just, and at this time, in one of the most evangelical as well as one our country, seasonable, and yet we are not of the most sublime annotators upon Isaiah? sure that it will be acceptable to all readers. Does he awaken our warm sympathy This feature is the favourable view presented for Bourdalone, in his conscience-struggles of the sincere piety of some of the most em- and cause us to rejoice with him when coninent Catholic dignitaries of the period. Not science triumphs? Does he inspire us with merely of the Fenelons, uncle and nephew, love for the spiritually-minded and enthusiwho may well claim the brotherly sympathy astic Fenelon? Yes-but all the time you of Protestants, but also of Bourdalone the feel, though the author never says so, that Jesuit, and especially of Bossuet, the great what is to be admired is their Christianity, polemic bulwark of the Catholic church, and and not their Catholicism-that they are of course the pre-eminent antagonist of the good men in a church of error-they are Protestant system. Too many of us are apt uncorrupted but not uncontaminated-that, to feel that there is absolutely nothing good in short, they all, not excepting Fenelon, in the Catholic Religion, and this not altogeth- lack something-and that something is found er unnaturally or unreasonably, as there is in in the great Protestant, Claude. That somefact so little-that because there are so few thing is an unsuperstitious soul, made free therefore there are within its pale, absolute- by the clear perceptiou of the great truth, ly none truly religious, and that there never that God is not only the supreme but also the have been any such. Now this is narrow-exclusive giver of salvation, and the Bible mindedness, not to say bigotry. To believe it the only rule of faith and practice.

one must be ignorant of history, and to assert This Claude is magnificent-so full of ge

nius, and courage, and piety, and let it be while anticipatory allusions to the after-peradded of brotherly love. We have not that petrated enormity of the revocation of the exact acquaintance with the ecclesiastical Edict of Nantes frequently occur. By the history of the period, which would enable us way, he think that we deals with Bossuet to determine whether there is any exaggera- rather too gently for his complcity with this tion in the features of this sketch as the por-measure. In a note refering to the trial of trait of an actual historical character. We Fenelon at Rome, he nullifies in a manner only know that Claude was one of the ablest not to be gainsaid or avoided, the claim of opponents in argument of Bossuet, and one infallibility for the Pope. And all this is of the most conspicuous and beloved of the done without the slightest malice or even French Protestants. But we take the delin- acerbity, and therefore is all the more effeceation as the type of the spirit of Protestan- tual. ism, and as such, we are sure that there is If then this book will tend to cultivate the no exaggeration in it. For it is the same charity of some Protestants, it will strengthspirit that was seen in Luther, and Knox, en the faith of all. In this it is like the efand Milton-in the Waldenses, the Pilgrims fect produced by a visit to a Catholic counof Massachusetts, and the Huguenots of try. No Protestant can visit France, withof South Carolina. out being convinced that there are some

The style of the book, especially in dialogue has that vivacity, just this side of the epigrammatic, which is the characteristic of French writing, and the translator deserves great praise for having so completely preserved its spirit, while at the same time he has admitted so few translated Gallicisms.

As may be supposed, the author has not good Catholics, nor without feeling more asfailed to present in positive tracts the char-sured than ever, that the Catholic is a false acter of Catholicism as exhibited both in its church. As a historical sketch of some of ministers and its votaries. Indeed we could the principal personages of the period, the not describe the times of Louis XIV. with-book is very interesting. Considering the out doing this. limited character of the subject, and that the Thus we have the King and Madame de time of the action is no longer than one day, Montespan, communing very regularly and we are surprised at the number of portraits devoutly, upon the faith of priestly absolu- he has placed upon his canvass, and all of tion, and Louis actually hearing with sur-them celebrities and realities. Unquestionprise, that his life is in violation of the ably his talent this way, whenever he chooses seventh commandment, or rather, according to exercise it, will distinguish our author. to the Catholic forgery of God's law, explained in a note by the author, the sixth commandment. The idea had not occurred to him before, though he could not be but struck with the obviousness of it when once presented. And there is Pere la Chaise, the King's confessor, who whenever he received notice that the King needed absolution, had All in all, we think we have given the himself bled, that he might plead sickness, outline of a remarkable book. Let us see. and thus avoid, endangering on the one hand, It has a dramatic movement and denouehis conscience by granting sacramental ab- ment-it is an elaborate essay upon pulpit solution to an adulterous King, and on the eloquence-it is a forcible comparison of other, his lucrative position by witholding it. Catholicism and Protestantism-it is a serWhat a picture of lubricity! How fitting mon-it is a piece of historical portrait paintto preserve his memory, is the great Parisian ing—and it is full of truth, charity learning, cemetery, called by his name, and glittering piety, seriousness and vivacity. If it is all with splendid sepulchres full of dead men's this, and it assuredly is, according to the bones! and the slaveish subservience of the best of our knowledge and belief, it is cerchurch to the King, the adulation of the tainly one other thing-it is original-if in courtiers in the very house of God, and the his subject or his mode of treating it, his sengeneral falseness and trickery of the Catho- timents or his style, the author is a borrower, lic church in its principles and its perform- his originals lie outside the limited tracks of ances, are sketched with a steady hand, our reading. S. L. C.

ready on the route with the troops. On one occasion these warlike predilections nearly cost me my life. It was the night of the

MEMOIRS OF MY YOUTH.*

▲ Translation from the French of M. François Arago. battle of Poises-Fortes. The Spanish sol

I.

diers in their flight mistook the road. I was

I have not the foolish vanity to imagine upon the public square of the village before that any one, even in a future not very re-daybreak; I saw a corporal and five horsemote, will have the curiosity to inquire how men ride into the square, who exclaimed, my early education was conducted, or in when they saw the tree of liberty-" Sonos what manner my intellect was developed; perdidos!" I ran immediately home, armed but inasmuch as certain biographers, wholly myself with a lance left there by a soldier. ignorant of the facts, have given on this sub-placed myself in ambush at the corner of a ject details entirely inaccurate, which would street, and gave the corporal a blow with my imply negligence on the part of my parents, lance as he passed. The wound was not I feel constrained to correct them. dangerous; nevertheless a blow from his

I was born on the 26th of February, 1786, sabre was about to punish my boldness when in the commune of Estagle, a former prov- some peasants, armed with pitchforks, came ince of the department of the Eastern Pyre- to my assistance, threw the dragoons from nees. My father, a graduate of the school their saddles, and made prisoners of the party. of law, possessed a small property in arable I was seven years old when this occurred. lands, in vines, and olive-groves, the reve- My father having gone to Perpignan to renue of which maintained his numerous fam-side, as treasurer of the mint, I was sent as ily. I was then three years old in 1789, a day scholar to the academy of that town, four years in 1790, &c., &c. The reader has before him the means of judging whether it is true, (as has been asserted and published,) that I was steeped in the excesses of our first revolution.

where I occupied myself exclusively with the study of polite literature. Our classic authors became the object of my predilection. But the direction of my thoughts was suddenly changed by a singular circumstance,

My parents sent me to the primary school which I will now relate. of Estagel, where I learned early to read. While promenading one day on the ramand write. I took, besides this, private les-parts of the town, I saw an officer of the ensons in vocal music. In a word, I was nei-gineer corps superintending repairs. This ther more nor less advanced than other chil-officer, M. Cressac, was very young; I was dren of my age. I enter into these details bold enough to approach him and ask him. only to show how much those are mistaken, how he had obtained his epaulettes so young. who have published that I was unable to read "I come from the Polytechnic School," at fifteen years. answered he.

"What school is that?"

"It is a school which you may enter by undergoing an examination."

"Is a great deal required of the candi

"You will find that in the programme

Estagel was a halting place for a portion of the troops who came from the interior on the route to Perpignan, or who were making their way directly to the army of the Pyre-) nees. My father's house was consequently date?" nearly always filled with officers and soldiers. This, added to my deep irritation on account which the government sends every year to of the Spanish invasion, had inspired me the administration of the departments; you with tastes so decidedly military, that my will find it also in the numbers of the jourfamily was obliged to have me closely watch-nal of the School, which is in the library of ed, in order to prevent me from concealing the Central School."

myself among the soldiers who were setting I ran immediately to this library; and read out from Estagel. It often happened that there for the first time the programme of the they caught me a league from the village al- studies required of the candidates. From that moment I abandoned the classes of the Central School, where I was taught to ad

*Ouvres de M. François Arago, publiées sous la direction de M. J. A. Barral. Paris. 1854.

VOL. XXI-13

mire Racine, Corneille, La Fontaine and ine them at Paris. I was myself too sick to Molière, and confined my studies wholly to the undertake this long journey, and returned to mathematics. This department was under Perpignan. the charge of an old priest, the abbé Verdier,

that an officer ought to understand music and fence, and dance well, I devoted the first hours of each day to the cultivation of these three polite arts.

There I listened momentarily to the ena very respectable man, whose knowledge treaties of my family and renounced all idea. went no farther than through the very ele- of the career opened before me by the Polymentary course of La Caille. I saw at a technic School; but my taste for mathematiglance that the instructions of M. Verdier cal studies very soon swept away my resowould not suffice for my admission into the lution. I increased my library with the Polytechnic School. I decided then to study, works of Euler, La Grange and Laplace, and myself, the newest works, which I obtained commenced the study of them with great from Paris-those of Legendre, of Lacroix, ardor. Finding in the journal of the School and of Garnier. In reading these works I such works as that of Poisson on Elimination, met often difficulties beyond my strength. I imagined that all the pupils were equal to Luckily there was at Estagel a gentleman, M. this geometer, and that it was necessary to Raynal, who pursued the study of the trans- raise oneself to his height in order to succendental mathematics in his hours of recre-ceed. From this moment I continued to ation-a strange thing, and perhaps with- prepare myself for the career of Artillerist, out example in all the rest of France. It the aim of my ambition; and as I had heard was in his kitchen while giving his orders to numerous domestics for the labours of the morrow-that M. Raynal read with profit the "Hydraulic Architecture" of Prouy, the Mechanique Analytique, and the Mechanique The day of the examination arrived at last, Céleste. This excellent man gave me often and I went to Toulouse in company with a useful advice; but I must say I found my candidate who had studied at the Communal veritable master on the back of a treatise on Academy. It was the first time that stuAlgebra by M. Garnier. This book-cover dents from Perpignan presented themselves was composed of a printed leaf upon which for examination. My comrade, intimidated, some blue paper was glued;-the perusal of failed completely. When I, in my turn, took the page not covered rendered me curious to my place at the board, there occurred beread that portion concealed by the blue paper. tween M. Monge, the examiner, and myself, I raised this paper with care, after having the following strange dialogue— moistened it, and read beneath this advice given by D'Alembert to a young man who had communicated with him on the subject of some difficulties which he met with in his Sir, my comrade knows much more than studies: "Go on, go on, sir, and the light he appears to know; I hope to be more lucky will come to you." That was for me a ray than he; but what you have just said to me of light; instead of endeavoring obstinately could well intimidate me and render me unto understand at once the propositions which able to avail myself of what I know." were presented to me, I admitted their truth provisionally, passed on, and was surprised the next day to find that I understood perfectly that which appeared the evening before veiled with thick clouds.

"If you are going to answer like your comrade, it is useless for me to question you."

"Timidity is always the excuse of the ignorant; I make the proposition not to examine you, in order that you may avoid the disgrace of an overthrow."

please: it is your duty."

"Sir, I know no greater disgrace than that I thus mastered in a year and a half, all which you are inflicting on me at this mothe subjects contained in the programme of ment. Will you interrogate me, if you admission, and went to Montpellier in order to stand my examination. I was then sixteen years old. M. Monge, the examiner, was detained by sickness at Tolouse, and wrote to the candidates that he would exam

"You are haughty, sir; we will see directly whether this pride is justifiable." "Proceed, sir; I am ready."

M. Monge asked me then a question of ge

ometry, which I answered in a manner to my examination for admission into the School. soften his prejudices. From that he passed Something analogous happened at my first to a problem in Algebra, the resolution of a mathematical examination, for passing from numerical equation. I had the work of La- one division to the other. The examiner grange upon this subject at my fingers' ends; this time was the illustrious geometer LegenI analyzed all the known methods of solu- dre, whose colleague and friend I had the tion, developing their advantages and disad- honor of becoming a few years afterwards. vantages; the method of Newton, &c., &c., I entered his room at the moment when M. all were passed in review; the answer oc- T., who was to stand his examination before cupied a whole hour. Monge's good feeling me, was carried out in a fainting condition having returned entirely, he said to me: by two waiters. I believed that this circumstance would have moved and mollified M. Legendre; but nothing of the sort. "What is your name?" said he to me, roughly.

"I could from this moment consider the examination as finished; I will, however, for my own amusement, ask you two more questions: What are the relations of a curve and its tangent line?"

I regarded the question as a particular case of the theory of osculation which I had studied in the Traité des fonctions analytiques" de Lagrange.

"Lastly," said the examiner, "how do

you determine the tension of the different cords which compose a funicular machine?"

I discussed this problem, following the method laid down in the "Mechanique Analytique."

I was more than two hours at the blackboard.

M. Monge now going into the other extieme, arose, came and embraced me, declaring formally that I would occupy the first rank upon his list.

"Arago," I answered.

"You are not French, then ?"

"If I was not a Frenchman I would not be here before you; for I have yet to learn that a student has been received into the

Polytechnic school without proving his na

tionality."

"But I maintain that no man is a Frenchman who calls himself Arago."

I maintain, sir, that I am a Frenchman and a true Frenchman, however strange my name may appear to you."

"It is well; we will not discuss the point farther;-go up to the black-board."

I had scarcely taken up the chalk when Legendre, returning to the subject which pre-occupied him, said to me—

"You were born in the provinces recentShall I say it? During the examination ly united to France ?"

of my comrade, I had heard the candidates No, sir; I was born in the department from Toulouse utter very unamiable sarcasms of the Eastern Pyrenees, at the foot of those on the pupils from Perpignan; it was above mountains." all as a reparation for my native town that the action of M. Monge and his declaration transported me with joy.

Why did you not tell me that at once; all is explained now. You are of Spanish origin, are you not?"

"That is to be presumed, but in my humble family, authentic documents are not preArrived at the Polytechnic School at the served, which would have enabled me to asend of 1803, I was placed in the exceedingly certain the civil standing of my ancestors; noisy brigade of the Gascons and Bretons. each one there is the son of his works. I I would gladly have studied thoroughly, phy-declare to you again that I am a native of sics and chemistry, if my noisy comrades France, and that ought to suffice." had allowed me time for it. As to the Analytical Mathematics, I had learned before entering much more than is required for graduation.

I have just related the strange words which M. Monge addressed to me on commencing

The vivacity of this last reply had not disposed M. Legendre to favor me. I perceived this very soon; for having given me a problem which required the employment of double integrals, he interrupted me saying

"The method which you are following