(the Right Honourable CHARLES JAMES) was third son of the Right Honourable Henry Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, and of Lady Georgina Caroline Fox, eldest daughter of Charles, second Duke of Richmond. He was born January 24, 1749. (N. S.)

Mr Fox received the first rudiments of his education in a private school of some celebrity kept by a Mr Pampelune at Wandsworth. In 1758 he was sent to Eton, where he gave early promise of his future eminence. In the beginning of summer 1763 the mistaken indulgence of his father carried him first to Paris, and then to Spa. After wasting idly three months abroad he was sent home to England, and at his own desire, he went back to Eton. He had left school a boy; he returned to it with all the follies and fopperies of a young man. At Spa he had been initiated in play, and his father, whose fondness for him was excessive, had encouraged him in a propensity, which was the source of much future unhappiness to both.

In autumn 1764 he was removed from Eton and sent to Oxford, where he was placed at Hertford College under the tuition of Dr Newcome, afterwards Primate of Ireland. At Oxford as well as at Eton he distinguished himself, not less by his powers of application, than by the quickness and superiority of his parts. The following letter, which he preserved with care, and used to show with triumph, when reproached for idleness, is a curious document of his diligence in study while he was at college. "You judge rightly," says Dr Newcome in a letter to his pupil, "in thinking that I should be much surprised by the information which you were so obliging as to give me. But, on reflection, I think you have done well to change the scene in such a manner, and I feel myself inclined to envy you the power of doing it. Application like yours requires some intermission; and you are the only person with whom I have ever had connection to whom I could say this. I expect that you will return with much keenness for Greek, and for lines and angles. As to trigonometry, it is matter of entire indifference to the other geometers of the college (who will probably continue some time here), whether they proceed to other branches of mathematics immediately, or wait a term or two longer. You need not, therefore, interrupt your amusements with severe studies; for it is wholly unnecessary to take a step onwards without you, and therefore we shall stop till we have the pleasure of your company. All your acquaintances here whom I know are well, but not much happier for your absence." This letter was probably written in spring 1765, when Mr Fox made a second excursion to Paris with his mother.

In autumn 1766 he quitted Oxford, and accompanied his father and mother to the south of Europe, where Lord Holland had been advised to pass the winter on account of his health. He remained with them at Naples during the winter, and not finding a good Italian master there, taught himself that language. In the following spring he attended them as far as Turin in their way to England, and then went to Genoa to meet Lord Fitzwilliam, with whom and Mr Uvedale Price he spent the summer in Italy, chiefly in Tuscany. In the beginning of winter he rejoined his father and mother at Paris, and accompanied them to Nice, where he passed with them the winter of 1767-8. It was during this long residence in Italy that he contracted his strong partiality for Italian literature. In a letter to Mr Fitzpatrick, written from Florence in September 1767, he conjures him to learn Italian as fast as he can, if it were only to read Ariosto. "There is more good poetry in Italian than in all other languages I understand put together." He appears to have indulged freely at this period in all the pleasures natural to his time of life, but never to have intermitted entirely his application to study. Je travaille toujours le matin, he says in another letter written from Nice. Acting plays was also at this time one of his favourite passions, though he confesses that the last time he acted, he fell far short of his own expectations; "but then," he adds, "my expectations, it must be confessed, were very high." In the course of this journey he made a visit to Voltaire at Fernay in company with Mr Price.

He did not return to England till August 1768; and having been elected one of the burgesses for Midhurst. in his absence, he took his seat in the ensuing session, and made his first speech in the House of Commons, on the 15th of April 1769, in support of the decision in favour of Colonel Luttrell on the famous Middlesex election. He spoke, says Horace Walpole, with insolence, but with infinite superiority of parts.

Lord Holland, father to Mr Fox, had begun his political career as an adherent of Sir Robert Walpole, and continued ever after one of the steadiest friends and warmest admirers of that great statesman. The treachery of the Pelhams to his patron excited an early prejudice in his mind against all the members of that family, and the falseness, folly, and fickleness of the Duke of Newcastle added contempt and distrust to his dislike. After a long rivalship with Mr Pitt, he was finally driven from the Cabinet by a coalition of the Pitt and Newcastle parties, and reduced to the subordinate, though lucrative employment, of Paymaster of the Forces. In this situation he was found by Lord Bute at the conclusion of the war, and recommended to the King as the only person in the House of Commons who had courage and ability to defend the peace against Mr Pitt and the Newcastle party. It was with great difficulty he was prevailed on by his Majesty to undertake this office, but when engaged in it, he performed it most successfully. For his services, on this occasion, he was rewarded with a peerage; but the part he had taken estranged him for ever from his old friends, the Dukes of Cumberland and Devonshire, and other leaders of the Whig party. It was at this period that his son Charles received his first political impressions, and there is still extant a copy of French verses written by him in 1764, in praise of Lord Bute, and full of invective against Mr Pitt. When brought into Parliament, he was, therefore, in the first instance, connected with the Duke of Grafton's administration, which, though originally formed under the auspices of Lord Chatham, had been gradually sinking into a mere Court party.

Mr Fox was not of age when returned to Parliament, and probably for that reason, after his first speech, he took little part in public debate till January 1770. During this interval he made another excursion to the Continent, where he is chiefly taken notice of for his losses at play. He had, as already mentioned, acquired a passion for play as early as his first journey to Spa; and for many years afterwards, when not engaged in active political business, play and Newmarket were his chief avocations. His losses were such as early to embarrass, and finally to ruin, his private fortune; but so great a hold had these pursuits taken of his mind, that, till the payment of his debts in 1794, he could never prevail on himself to renounce them entirely. From that moment he gave them up for ever.

In February 1770 he was rewarded for his support of Government with the place of Junior Lord of the Admiralty, which he retained for two years, and resigned on the 20th of February 1772, partly in consequence of some slight offence he had received from Lord North, and partly because he had resolved to oppose the royal marriage bill, "which, in place," he says, "I should be ashamed of doing;" but he had no thoughts, he adds, "of going into opposition." He had an immediate and satisfactory explanation with Lord North, but to punish him for his speech against the royal marriage act, which was a measure entirely the King's own, he was suffered to remain a considerable time out of office. At length, in January 1773, he was made one of the Lords of the Treasury, a situation he continued to fill till his memorable quarrel with Lord North in the following year.

Some gross and scandalous reflections on the Speaker of the House of Commons, written by the celebrated Horne Tooke, having appeared in the Public Advertiser, Mr Woodfall, printer of that newspaper, was called to the bar of the House, and having there confessed himself publisher of the libel, he was declared guilty of a breach of privilege; on which Mr Herbert moved, that he should be taken into the custody of the serjeant-at-arms. The House, unwilling to engage in a fresh contest with the press and the city, were disposed to acquiesce in this motion; but Mr Fox, thinking the punishment inadequate to the offence, without consulting Lord North, moved, as an amendment, that Mr Woodfall should be committed to Newgate. Lord North found himself compelled by this motion to resist Mr Herbert's proposition, but though he substituted the Gatehouse for Newgate, as a less objectionable place of confinement, he was left in a minority on the division, the original motion being carried by a great majority. Incensed at this disgrace, and determined to punish his youthful colleague for his temerity, he had a new commission of the Treasury made out a few days afterwards, in which the name of Mr Fox was omitted. This happened in February 1774.

Long before his breach with Lord North, Mr Fox had formed an intimate acquaintance with Mr Burke, one of the leading members of the Whig or Rockingham party in the House of Commons; and to the friendship he contracted with that gentleman may, in a great measure, be attributed the decided change in his political character and opinions, which commenced at this time. He had been brought up by his father in the maxims and principles of Sir Robert Walpole; and from this education, he derived the love of peace, the good humoured spirit of conciliation, and ardent attachment to civil and religious liberty, which were afterwards the most conspicuous features of his public character, and are certainly the chief merits of the Walpole school. But the tone and character of Sir Robert Walpole's policy, though suitable, and, perhaps, necessary for the times in which he lived, was no longer adapted to the state of the country. When the Jacobites renounced their idol without changing their creed, and transferred to the House of Brunswick the same allegiance they had borne to the Stuarts, the weapons which Sir Robert had employed to preserve the constitution became, in the hands of its enemies, instruments of its destruction. Mr Burke was the first to perceive, or at least the first to explain, the change that had taken place in our internal government, and the first to point out a plan of systematic opposition in Parliament, as the only means of preventing, or at least of retarding, what Mr Hume has called the euthanasia of English liberty. In Mr Fox he found a pupil ready to receive his lessons, and prepared by character and turn of mind to act upon them with fortitude and perseverance. From Mr Burke's example and instructions, Mr Fox caught more elevated notions of public principle than had animated the successors of Sir Robert Walpole; and from the writings and conversation of the same great man, he learned the necessity of party connections in a mixed government like ours, to counteract the influence of government, and preserve a due balance of power between the Crown and the people. The American war roused all the energies of his mind. The discussions to which it gave rise involved all the first principles of free government. The vicissitudes of the contest tried the firmness of its opponents. Its duration exercised their perseverance. Its magnitude and the dangers of the country called forth their powers. The progress of Mr Fox was steady and uninterrupted. So early as the beginning of 1775, we are told by Gibbon, that "he discovered powers for regular debate, which neither his friends hoped, nor his enemies dreaded."

But, notwithstanding the brilliancy of his talents, and the reputation he acquired in the House of Commons, the levity and want of decorum of his private life, the dissipation in which he indulged, and the embarrassments in which he was involved, prevented him, for some years, from obtaining the weight and consideration with opposition due to his extraordinary abilities and exertions. So late as the beginning of 1778, he was under no engagements with any set of men; but, though not absolutely engaged in party connections with the Whigs, he had determined on no account to abandon their principles; and from a cool consideration of his own character, and a just conception of the prevailing sentiments of the country, he had already fully made up his mind to the fate that ultimately awaited him. "People flatter me," he says in a letter to Mr Fitzpatrick, written in 1778, "that I continue to gain rather than to lose character as an Orator; and I am so convinced this is all I ever shall gain (unless I chuse to be one of the meanest of men), that I never think of any other object of ambition.—I am certainly ambitious by nature, but I have, or think I have, totally subdued that passion. I have still as much vanity as ever, which is a happier passion by far, because great reputation, I think, I may acquire and keep; great situations I never can acquire, nor, if acquired, keep, without making sacrifices that I will never make. If I am wrong, and more sanguine people right, tant mieux, and I shall be as happy as they can be; but if I am right, I am sure I shall be happier for having made up my mind to my situation."—He expresses great joy at the prospect of Fitzpatrick's return, who he knew would be of his opinion in certain emergencies that might arise.—"I shall be told by prudent friends that I am under no sort of engagement to any set of men. I certainly am not; but there are many cases where there is no engagement, and yet it is dishonourable not to act as if there was one. But even suppose it were quite honourable, is it possible to be happy in acting with people of whom one has the worst opinion, and being on a cold footing (which must be the case) with all those whom one loves best, and with whom one passes one's life?" With these sentiments, it is not to be wondered at, that he rejected overtures made to him by Lord Weymouth, in summer 1778, to join administration; nor with his powerful talents and unremitting exertions, the inflexible steadiness of his public conduct, and the unexampled force and vehemence of his eloquence, that he gradually acquired the perfect confidence of the Whigs, and came at length to be considered as the leading member of the Rockingham party in the House of Commons. It ought to be recorded to the credit of Mr Burke, that he witnessed with pleasure, unmixed with envy, the progress and elevation of his pupil, and cheerfully resigned to him the station he had so long himself occupied in the party. The day of triumph at length arrived. A resolution against the further prosecution of the American war was carried in the House of Commons. Ministers still lingered in office, but the fears of a direct vote of censure compelled them to resign. The King, whose pertinacity in support of his favourite principles of government had been the chief, if not the sole, cause of the apparent reluctance of his Ministers to retire from office, was compelled at length to yield to the wishes of his Commons; but in the very act of forming a new administration, he contrived to sow the seeds of disunion in its bosom. The opposition to the American war had been composed of two parties, united in their disapprobation of that contest, but disagreeing on many other points of external as well as of internal policy; both calling themselves Whigs, but Whigs of different schools; the one consisting of the old Whig connection, formed and educated in the principles of Mr Burke; the other composed of the friends and followers of Lord Chatham. At the head of the first was the Marquis of Rockingham; the leader of the second was the Earl of Shelburne. His Majesty began by sounding Lord Rockingham, through the Chancellor. The demands of Lord Rockingham were, to have full power to recognize the independence of America, and authority to bring forward, as ministerial measures in Parliament, bills for reducing the influence of the Crown, by abolishing offices, excluding contractors from the House of Commons, and depriving revenue officers of their votes at elections; and, with respect to reform in the representation, or limitation of the duration of Parliament, he declined to lay himself under restrictions. After taking time to consider this answer, his Majesty sent for Lord Shelburne, and had a conference with him at Buckingham House. Two days afterwards he sent for him again, and offered him the Treasury, which his Lordship declined, saying, that no administration, suited to the present emergence, could be formed, unless Lord Rockingham was at the head of it; on which the King desired him to go to Lord Rockingham with an offer of the Treasury, and to add, that he had full powers from his Majesty to treat both with respect to men and measures, with one reservation only, that he should himself be one of the Secretaries of State. The first impulse of Lord Rockingham was to decline this offer, upon the ground, that if it was the King's intention to place him at the head of the Treasury, his Majesty could have no fit objections to conversing with him on the arrangement of the administration; but his friends persuaded him to overlook that objection, lest his refusal should be ascribed to pique or jealousy, at a moment when the public was extremely impatient for the formation of a government. Many fatal consequences ensued from the negotiation taking this course and passing through the hands of Lord Shelburne. No direct communication took place between the King and the Rockingham party, who were to compose the majority of the Cabinet, with respect to the measures to be pursued, till after the administration had been formed. Lord Thurlow, a decided partizan of the old system, and enemy to every species of reform, was retained as Lord Chancellor; Mr Dunning having been prevailed upon by his friend, Lord Shelburne, to wave his pretensions to that office. When this arrangement was communicated to Mr Fox, he told Lord Shelburne plainly, "that he perceived the administration was to consist of two parts, one belonging to the King, the other to the public." But the worst effect of all was the impression left on the mind of Lord Shelburne, that he alone possessed the confidence of his Sovereign, to the exclusion of his colleagues. This persuasion bred distractions in the Cabinet, which soon became a theatre of dissension and open division; and these divisions, whispered about, weakened the government, while it lasted, and contributed materially to its fall.

Of this short-lived administration, the principal measures were the pacification of Ireland and the bills for economical and parliamentary reform, which, though short of the public expectation, are still the most important acquisitions of that description obtained since the accession of the House of Hanover. The death of Lord Rockingham dissolved the ministry over which he presided. The Treasury was immediately offered to Lord Shelburne, on pretence that, having refused it before, it naturally devolved on him on Lord Rockingham's death. His acceptance of it destroyed the former balance of parties in the Cabinet, and overset entirely the balance of power in the government. Mr Fox and Lord John Cavendish immediately resigned, and, after some interval, they were followed by Lord Keppel. The Duke of Richmond and General Conway remained in office; the latter from simplicity; the former from dissatisfaction at seeing the Duke of Portland preferred to himself as leader of the Whig party. The other members of the Cabinet were friends of Lord Shelburne.

Mr Fox has been severely blamed for his precipitancy on this occasion; and, though his resignation was a measure that could not long have been deferred, the time at which it took place makes it, perhaps, liable to that imputation. It followed so immediately the appointment of Lord Shelburne to the Treasury, as to have the appearance of being the result of disappointed personal ambition rather than of any difference on public grounds. It reduced his friends, who were in office, to the alternative of immediately following his example, or of passing for adherents of Lord Shelburne; and, as the whole of his motives could not at that time be explained in public, it gave an opportunity to the Duke of Richmond and others to keep their places without forfeiting their characters. It took place at the close of a session of Parliament, and left Lord Shelburne and the court for six months in undisturbed possession of the government. It was a cruel disappointment to the public, which had expected a firm and united administration on the principles of those who had opposed the American war and the system that gave rise to it. But to those who judged rightly the elevation of Lord Shelburne to the Treasury was the utter extinction of these hopes. The Rockingham party had found in Lord Shelburne an active and spirited ally in opposition; but they had never been confidentially united with him; and though ready to co-operate with him in a subordinate office, they were not prepared to act under him as Premier. It was not the impatience and dissatisfaction of Mr Fox alone that broke up the administration. As soon as the appointment of Lord Shelburne to the Treasury was known in Dublin, the Duke of Portland determined to resign his office of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Lord John Cavendish could with difficulty be prevailed upon to postpone his resignation for a few days. Mr Burke urged strongly to Mr Fox the impossibility of his remaining long in office as a clerk under Lord Shelburne; and, it must be owned, that, in the subsequent treatment of his colleagues, that nobleman fully justified the apprehensions then entertained of his future conduct. Elated with the fancied possession of court favour, he from that time forward treated the other ministers as mere cyphers,—made additions to his Cabinet, without consulting or even apprising them of his intentions,—and is even said to have settled and concluded the terms of his peace with France, without the advice or participation of his Secretaries of State.

There were, besides, before the death of Lord Rockingham, differences of such importance in the Cabinet as must have led to a dissolution of the administration. It was the policy of Mr Fox to detach Holland and America from their unnatural connection with France; and the great object of his foreign politics was, to form a continental alliance as a balance against the House of Bourbon. The system of Lord Shelburne was to conciliate France, to cultivate a confidential understanding with her government, and to treat her allies as so many inferior and dependent powers. Mr Fox had recommended and carried in the Cabinet (23d May 1782) a resolution to instruct Mr Grenville, his Majesty's Plenipotentiary at Paris, to propose the independence of America in the first instance, instead of making it a condition of a general treaty; and this offer, to which his Majesty's consent had been obtained, was actually communicated by Mr Grenville to Dr Franklin. Lord Shelburne, though obliged to acquiesce in the determination of the Cabinet, endeavoured afterwards to represent the offer as only conditional, to be recalled if not accepted as the price of peace; and this explanation having been adopted by a majority of the Cabinet after the illness of Lord Rockingham, Mr Fox declared his determination to resign. The discovery of a mysterious negotiation at Paris contributed to strengthen this resolution. It was a great object with Mr Fox, in pursuance of his system of policy, to open a free and unreserved communication with Dr Franklin. Through Mr Grenville he had hoped to accomplish this design, and he had nearly succeeded in his purpose, when he discovered, to his infinite surprise and indignation, that Lord Shelburne had been carrying on a clandestine intercourse with Franklin through Mr Oswald, and had received from him and made to him important communications, which had not been imparted to his colleagues. This discovery, which was made before Lord Rockingham's death, destroyed all confidence in Lord Shelburne among the friends of that nobleman, though, from the delicate nature of the transaction, it was impossible at the time to make it the subject of public animadversion or even allusion.

The resignation of Mr Fox and his friends compelled Lord Shelburne to strengthen his government from every quarter where support could be obtained. Mr Pitt, who had declined accepting a subordinate office in the Rockingham administration, became his Chancellor of the Exchequer. Rigby, Dundas, and Jenkinson, old supporters of the American war, attached themselves to his train. A negotiation was opened with the remaining partisans of Lord North, which only failed of success in consequence of Mr Pitt, with more judgment than feeling, making personal objections to Lord North himself, which wounded the pride, and excited the indignation, of his friends and family. When Parliament met after the signing of the preliminaries of peace, there were three parties, nearly of equal strength, in the House of Commons; that of the Minister, reinforced by the court, and several of the most objectionable members of Lord North's administration; the Rockingham party, who had gone into opposition with Mr Fox; and, lastly, Lord North and his friends. That three separate parties, so equally balanced, should continue to act in the House of Commons without some coalition, was not to be expected. A re-union of the Whigs would have been most acceptable to the public; but recent differences, mutual recriminations, and distrust of Lord Shelburne, rendered such a coalition impracticable. The personal objections, so harshly and acrimoniously stated against Lord North, had exasperated his friends against the ministry. Nothing, therefore, remained, but a junction of the two parties in opposition; and this coalition, which time would naturally and imperceptibly have brought about, was hastened and matured by the coincidence of their opinions against the peace. The first step was to concert an amendment to the address of thanks on the preliminary articles signed at Versailles, and this amendment was carried in the Commons by a small majority; but not without great indignation being expressed in the House, and a violent outcry raised out of doors at the apparent junction of the two parties. No coalition had yet taken place. Lord North was still at liberty to have formed an administration without Mr Fox; and it was the opinion of one of the most judicious friends of the latter, that to undertake the government with Lord North, "was to risk their credit with the public on very unsafe grounds." On the part of the Whigs, there seems to have been a momentary hesitation, whether to proceed farther, or to step back. "Unless a real good government is the consequence of this junction," says one of the most sagacious of the party, "nothing can justify it to the public."—"There never was a case of more difficulties and dangers to the real friends of Whiggism and good principles." The die was at length cast; and in an evil hour, if we are to judge, not from principles, but from results, the coalition was effected. The united strength of the two parties procured a vote of censure on the peace. Lord Shelburne, who still flattered himself with the possession of court favour, is said to have proposed an immediate dissolution of the Parliament. But he had served his turn, and was no longer wanted. His Majesty judged rightly, that the time was not yet come for so bold a measure, and allowed his Minister to resign.

A long interval ensued before the coalition administration was formed. Repeated attempts were made to detach Lord North from Mr Fox; and when these had failed, it was stated as an indispensable preliminary to any ministerial arrangement, that Lord Thurlow should be continued as Lord High Chancellor. But the fatal effects of a secret enemy in the Cabinet had been too severely and too recently felt, to concede a point of so much importance. A complete change of administration was insisted upon, and was granted at last, but with the worst possible grace, and with every symptom of ill humour and dissatisfaction. It was not merely the triumph of the coalition that filled the royal bosom with such indignation. His Majesty considered the Rockingham party as enemies to his just prerogative. Nor could he forgive them for their zeal against the American war, and inflexibility, when they came into office, in insisting on the unconditional acknowledgment of American independence. "The extraordinary and never to be forgotten vote of February 1782, and the hurry for negotiation that after ensued," had, in his opinion, lowered the spirit of the country, and given confidence to its enemies; and, in his own mind, had produced such indifference on political subjects, that he felt no anxiety for the arrival of the definitive treaty, or concern for the delays that retarded its conclusion. When it was suggested to him, that a wish on his part to receive a minister from America would be favourably received in that country, and might tend to preserve peace and restore harmony in future, he is said to have replied with bitterness, That to receive a minister from America, he could never say would be agreeable to him, and that he should ever have a bad opinion of any Englishman, who could accept being an accredited agent to that revolted state. With such feelings rankling in his mind, is it to be wondered at that his Majesty was hostile to an administration, the majority of which had zealously concurred in the grant of independence to America?

The coalition Ministry was hardly settled, when a misunderstanding arose about the establishment of the Prince of Wales; and so skilfully had the affair been managed on the part of the King, that if his Royal Highness had not submitted entirely to his father's pleasure, the administration must have been overturned almost as soon as formed. But, though no change was attempted before the meeting of Parliament, his Majesty contrived on every occasion to show ill humour to his Ministers, and no one, in a situation to observe, could doubt for a moment, that he only waited for a favourable opportunity to turn them out. The India bill afforded such opportunity. That measure was represented as an invasion of chartered rights,—as the establishment of a ministerial oligarchy, independent both of Prince and people. The nation, disgusted and offended at the coalition, listened with credulity and favour to these accusations. The King, who had carefully disguised his sentiments to the last moment, procured the rejection of the bill in the Lords, through the agency of Lord Temple, and instantly dismissed his Ministers.

The coalition Ministry was at an end, but its leaders still possessed the confidence of the House of Commons. The cry of secret influence was raised, and more violent addresses carried to the throne, than had ever been presented to a Prince of the House of Brunswick. Lord Temple, who had accepted the seals, grew frightened at the storm he had raised, and gave in his resignation. Even Mr Pitt became alarmed in the progress of the contest, and the firmness of the Duke of Richmond alone prevented him from following the example of his kinsman. But, as the struggle proceeded, the voice of the people was every day more unequivocally declared in support of the new administration. Courtiers and reformers,—churchmen and dissenters,—squires and nabobs,—joined in execrating the coalition and applauding the Minister, in professions of attachment to the King, and declarations of hostility to his Commons. After the attempt of the country gentlemen to make a new coalition of parties had failed, the majorities of opposition began to diminish; and when some necessary votes had been obtained, this refractory House of Commons was punished, by a premature dissolution for its want of subserviency to the Crown.

Our limits will not permit us to follow, with the same minuteness, the political life of Mr Fox in the subsequent parts of his public career. From 1784 to 1792, he was leader of a powerful party in the House of Commons, in opposition to Mr Pitt. His most remarkable exertions, during that period, were against the Westminster Scrutiny—on the Regency—against the abatement of Impeachments by a dissolution of Parliament—on the Libel Bill—and on the Russian Armament. He never published or corrected any of his speeches, except the one on moving a new writ for the borough of Tavistock; and of those published in the newspapers, and since collected, his speech on the Scrutiny is the only one so well reported, as to give the reader an adequate notion of his style of speaking. It failed, at the moment, in procuring justice for the Westminster electors; but the impression it made on the House was such, that, in the following year, an end was put to that odious and vexatious piece of chicanery, worthy of the pettifogging genius of its inventor, but disgraceful to the minister who gave it his countenance and support. We have not room to discuss at length the Regency question. The case was new and unprovided for. There was no direct precedent, nor legal authority in the kingdom to make one. Constitutional analogy pointed out the heir-apparent as the fittest person to exercise the royal authority during the indisposition of the King; and the same analogy indicated the great Council of the Realm as the body most competent to declare the incapacity and apply the proper remedy. Strict or legal right there was none on either side. The Prince had no legal right to the Regency; nor till they chose to declare it themselves, had the two Houses of Parliament any regal right to elect a Regent, or to fetter him, previous to his election, with restrictions. The contrivance to create, first, a phantom, and then a Regent, was a clumsy piece of machinery, nearly allied to treason. The claim of right advanced for the Prince was a flimsy speculation of Lord Loughborough, adopted on his authority, without due examination, by Mr Fox, who returned in haste from Italy, while the discussions on the Regency were pending. As explained afterwards, the doctrine, if not true, was at least harmless. But the opportunity was skilfully laid hold of by the minister, for the purpose of making his rival unpopular, and of gaining time for the King's recovery, which Addington, who had great experience in such maladies, assured him, from the beginning, would certainly take place. In his argument against the abatement of Impeachment by a dissolution of Parliament, Mr Fox had the support of Mr Pitt, and never was a more triumphant reply than his answer to the present Lord Chancellor. Of the Libel Bill it is unnecessary to say a word. The country still profits by it, and regards it as a most important security to our constitutional freedom. By his exertions on the Russian Armament, he had the satisfaction to save his country from, at least, one unnecessary, unjust, and expensive war. We must hasten to an occasion where his efforts were less successful.

The beginning of the French Revolution gave universal satisfaction to the friends of liberty in this country. Soon after the taking of the Bastille, Mr Fox describes it "as the greatest, and much the best event that ever happened in the world;" and adds, "all my prepossessions against French connections for this country will be at an end, and indeed most part of my European system of politics will be altered, if this revolution has the consequence that I expect." When the King of France was brought back from Varennes, a report having been circulated in England that it was the intention of the National Assembly to bring the Queen to trial for her life, he composed a letter to Barnave, one of the leading members of the Assembly, with whom he was personally unacquainted, exhorting him against such a measure of useless cruelty, which could not fail to bring disgrace on the cause of liberty. The letter was never sent, in consequence of the report proving to be unfounded, but we subjoin some extracts from it, in order to show the spirit in which it was written. After an apology for obtruding his advice on one who was unknown to him, except by reputation, and stating the bad impression that any unnecessary severity to the Queen would produce in England;—after praising the Assembly for the firmness they had displayed on receiving the news of the King's escape, and urging them to show as much clemency and moderation in prosperity, as they had manifested coolness and resolution in danger;—after stating the argument for sending the Queen out of the country, or, at most, for confining her in a place of security, he proceeds as follows: "De l'autre coté, si on la juge cette malheureuse femme, qu'on la condamne, et qu'elle subisse son sort, je ne sais que trop bien que ce seraient les ennemis de la liberté qui en triompheront. On la peindra cette liberté comme feroce et cruelle, on tachera de la rendre odieuse, et parmi les ames faibles on ne reussira peutetre que trop bien. Le despotisme a toujours eu l'adresse de se servir des passions des hommes pour les subjuger. Il a eu à ses gages la superstition et l'intérêt personnel, et il serait bien facheux que la pitié, la plus aimable de toutes les faiblesses humaines se rangeat aussi de son coté. Je ne sais si je me trompe, mais il me parait que vous êtes precisément dans la position ou vous pouvez faire une action belle et generouse sans le moindre danger; c'est-à-dire, que vous etes dans la prosperité la moins equivoque. Vous avez donne par vos travaux la liberté à votre patrie, et vous trouvez dans elle une recompense aussi touchante que juste. Travaillez actuellement pour le genre humain et faites aimer la liberté à toutes les nations de la terre en prouvant qu'elle nourrit dans l'ame non seulement les vertus males comme le courage et la justice, mais aussi la douceur, la moderation et la clemence."—Such were the sentiments and conduct of a man, who was afterwards represented to his countrymen as the blind apologist of all the horrors of the revolution, and indifferent spectator of the calamities of the royal family of France!

As the revolution departed from its original character of justice and moderation, its favourers in this country began to fall off. Mr Burke, scandalized at the confiscation of church property, was the first of the Whig party to declare against it. His violent and outrageous quarrel with Mr Fox in the House of Commons is too well known to need to be here related. No event of his life had ever given such unfeigned sorrow to Mr Fox, as this breach with his old friend and political instructor. But he had soon many other losses of the same sort to deplore. The excesses of the revolution, the democratic form it assumed, the fear lest its example should prove contagious in England, filled with alarm the older, richer, and more Aristocratic members of the Whig party. Younger and more ardent spirits, looking to the goodness of the cause, disregarded the unfitness of the instrument used to promote it; and, exulting in the progress of political freedom abroad, thought the occasion favourable for extending and enlarging our constitutional rights at home. A schism was gradually formed in the Whig party, which the formation of the Society of the Friends of the People, and the royal proclamation in May 1792, brought to a public explosion. Mr Fox was eagerly courted on both sides, but if he appeared to hesitate, it was only to keep his friends, if possible, together, and prevent a permanent separation, which he foresaw would invest the minister, as it did, with absolute power. But the revolution of the 10th of August, the massacres of September, the success of the French arms under Dumourier, the violence and indiscretion of the friends of reform at home, spread a panic terror over the land; and the minister, who had trifled and temporised till it was too late, found himself unwillingly forced into a war, which he had not wisdom to avert or genius to conduct.

We cannot follow Mr Fox in his opposition to this disastrous war, nor in his subsequent efforts for the restoration of peace. On no occasion was the vigour of his intellect, the sagacity of his foresight, the firmness and resolution of his character, more conspicuous than during the struggle he maintained against overwhelming majorities from 1792 to 1797. Till the Duke of Portland, and other alarmists of the Whig party, joined administration in 1794, he always flattered himself with the hope of renewing his connection with his old friends, when their fears should have subsided; and at every harsh or violent act of the Government, his letters express surprise, that the men with whom he had acted so long should support such measures. When finally separated from his old aristocratic connections, and convinced by fatal experience that the House of Commons had sunk into the passive instrument of ministerial power, his opinions became gradually more inclined to Parliamentary reform, from utter despair of seeing the revival of those party connections to which he had been accustomed to look for the preservation of public liberty. But, if he appealed to the constituent body against their representatives, he only followed the example which the Court and his great opponent had given in the memorable dissolution of 1784. Nothing indisposed him so much against the House of Commons as the indifference it manifested on every occasion where liberty was infringed, or injustice committed by the government. "Arguments against the war and our alliances," he observes, in a letter written in 1794, "are favourably heard in the House of Commons, though they do not get us a vote; but sentiments of liberty, and complaints of oppression, are very little attended to, however well founded. In short, liberty is not popular; and, of those who are attached to it, there are too many who have wild and impracticable schemes of government, to which the miserable state we are in, both with respect to foreign affairs and our constitution, gives more plausibility and credit than they are by their own merit entitled to. The country seems divided (very unequally I admit) between the majority, who are subdued by fears, or corrupted by hopes, and the minority, who are waiting sulkily for opportunities for violent remedies. The few who are neither subdued enough to be silent through fear, nor desperate enough to give up regular opposition, in expectation of more violent measures, are weak both in numbers and weight; but, though weak, we are right, and that must be our comfort." But, however changed the sentiments of the country, his own opinions of the value of political liberty were not altered. "I believe," says he, in another letter to the same correspondent, "the love of political liberty is not an error; but, if it is one, I am sure I shall never be converted from it, and I hope you never will. If it be an illusion, it is one that has brought forth more of the best qualities and exertions of the human mind than all other causes put together; and it serves to give an interest in the affairs of the world which, without it, would be insipid."—"We live," he observes on another occasion, "in times of violence and of extremes, and all those who are for creating, or even for retaining, checks upon power, are considered as enemies to order. However, one must do one's duty, and one must endeavour to do it without passion." After relating the final junction of his old friends with administration, he adds, "You will easily imagine how much I feel the separation from persons with whom I had been so long in the habit of agreeing; it seemed in some way as if I had the world to begin anew; and, if I could have done it with honour, what I should best have liked, would have been to retire from politics altogether; but this could not be done, and therefore there remains nothing but to get together what remains of our party, and begin, like Sisyphus, to roll up the stone again, which, long before it reaches the summit, may probably roll down again."

The last of these extracts shows that, notwithstanding the defection of some of the friends he most loved and esteemed, he was still convinced of the necessity of party connections, in order to maintain the cause of liberty in this country. He argues the question at length with his correspondent, and concludes by saying, "But the decisive argument upon the subject appears to me to be this: Is there any other mode or plan in this country by which a rational man can hope to stem the power and influence of the crown? I am sure that neither experience nor any well reasoned theory has ever shown any other. Is there any other plan which is likely to make so great a number of persons resist the temptations of titles and emoluments; and, if these things are so, ought we to abandon a system from which so much good has been derived, because some men have acted inconsistently; and because, from the circumstances of the moment, we are not likely to act with much effect?" It was with great reluctance, however, and with great violence to his own wishes, that he persevered in this fruitless struggle. "I am quite sick of politics," he says in August 1794; "and attend to them only because I think it a duty to do so, and that it would be unbecoming my character to quit them at such a moment." His desire to retire from public life became stronger in the following year. "I grow every day to think less of public affairs," he says in April 1795; "I wish I could be persuaded that it was right to quit public business, for I should like it to a degree that I cannot express; but I cannot yet think that it is not a duty to persevere. I am so sure that secession is the measure a shabby fellow would take in our circumstances, that I think I can scarcely be right for us. But, as far as wishes, no man ever wished any thing more. I am perfectly happy in the country. I have quite resources enough to employ my mind, and the great resource of literature I am fonder of every day. However, events and circumstances may happen, which may make that right, which I am sure would be pleasant, and I think it not unlikely but they may."

The popular spirit manifested against the treason and sedition bills, in winter 1795, revived his public zeal, but was far from giving satisfaction to his mind. "My view of things," he writes in November 1795, "is, I own, very gloomy; and I am convinced that, in a very few years, this government will become completely absolute, or that confusion will arise, of a nature almost as much to be deprecated as despotism itself. Ministers mean to bring on the first of these evils, and I cannot disguise from myself that there are but too many who wish for the second." After his success at the Westminster meeting against the bills, he says, "It is clear we have the popularity, and I suspect we shall have it universally among the lower classes. I need not tell you how I dislike this state of things, but I cannot submit quietly to Mr Hume's euthanasia, which is coming on very fast." As he became more persuaded of the existence of a strong spirit of liberty among the lower classes, he became more inclined to the popular doctrines of parliamentary reform. In 1796, he expresses himself in the following manner upon that subject: "Perhaps, instead of saying now that the power of the House of Commons ought to be first restored, and its constitution considered afterwards, it would be better to invert the order, and to say, parliament should first be reformed, and then restored to its just influence. You will observe that I state this opinion as being mine now, in contradistinction to those times when the Whig party was only beaten, but not dispersed, and when I certainly was of a different opinion. At present I think we ought to go further towards agreeing with the democratic or popular party than at any former period, for the following reasons: We, as a party, I fear can do nothing, and the contest must be between the Court and the Democrats. These last, without our assistance, will either be too weak to resist the Court, and then comes Mr Hume's euthanasia, which you and I think the worst of all events; or, if they are strong enough, being wholly unmixed with any aristocratical leaven, and full of resentment against us for not joining them, will go, probably, to greater excesses, and bring on the only state of things which can make a man doubt whether the despotism of monarchy is not the worst of all evils."

The time at length arrived when the state of things to which he alluded in his letter of April 1795 came to pass. His remaining political friends were persuaded that it was useless to persevere longer in their parliamentary exertions, and that it was even "in some degree hurtful, as tending to deceive the country into an opinion that the House of Commons was still a place in which it was worth while to try the effect of argument and reason." When he found that no good was to be done in Parliament, that no beneficial impression was to be made on the country, and that the friends for whom he was ready to sacrifice his time and inclinations wished him to retire from public life, with doubt and hesitation in his mind as to the propriety of the measure, he gave his consent to the secession; resolving no longer to attend his duty in the House of Commons, unless particularly called upon to do so by his own constituents.

Having once retired to St Anne's, he found such enjoyment in the calmness and tranquillity of a country life, that it was with the utmost difficulty he could now and then be brought back to the House of Commons. The happiest years of his life were those he passed in retirement, from 1797 to 1802. He still took a lively interest in public concerns, and applauded and encouraged the exertions of his friends, when they returned to Parliament, but he could seldom be induced to follow their example. His time passed placidly and agreeably, in books, conversation, and the society of his family. He had always been fond of gardening, and his residence in the country gave him a turn for farming. Of the amusements of his early years, the love of shooting was the only one in which he continued to indulge, and the exercise it gave him preserved his health. His passion for literature, which had never subsided entirely, revived and became stronger than ever. Poetry and criticism were his favourite pursuits, and history his amusement. He applied with ardour to the study of the Greek tragedians, and as his proficiency increased, he found an agreeable occupation for his mind in the niceties and difficulties of that noble language. Some time after his retreat, he conceived the plan of writing a History of the Revolution of 1688. He had, many years before, expressed himself in the following manner of the work of our great historian: "I think Mr Hume's history of Charles I. the most mischievous book that ever was written. It is written with more art than any other part of his work infinitely, and is, I think, in that view a masterpiece. I do not think any answer to it or comment on it would do much good, or at least not so much as another history of the times written with his art, or even with the half of it, in the opposite view." But, though his opinion of the utility of a new history of the civil war, as an antidote to Hume, may possibly have first turned his thoughts to a work on English history, the period he selected for his own labours shows, that he had no intention to set himself up as a rival to that great historian. His sole object seems to have been, to tell the story of the Revolution, to explain how it was brought about, and to show in what its constitutional value consisted. Had he lived to complete his plan, the criticisms on Hume, in his introduction, would have formed but a small part of his book.

Mr Fox went abroad with Mrs Fox in summer 1802, partly from curiosity to see France after the extraordinary changes that had taken place in that country, and partly to collect documents for his history. As the constant friend of peace, he was received with enthusiasm wherever he went by the French people, and treated with distinguished civility and attention by their Government. He had several long conversations with the First Consul, in which the latter talked to him, with the utmost freedom, on a variety of topics,—on the Concordat then recently made,—on the Trial by Jury,—on the licentiousness of the English newspapers,—on the difference between Asiatic and European society. On one occasion, Napoleon having insinuated that Mr Windham was concerned in the assassination plots against his person, Mr Fox vindicated his old friend with warmth against so odious and unfounded an imputation. Having finished his labours at Paris, during which he collected a large mass of materials for his history, he went to La Grange, the country seat of his friend La Fayette, and, after passing some days there most agreeably, returned to England.

On his arrival in London he found great irritation in England against the Consular Government, and an absurd cry for war raised by the newspapers, and re-echoed by all who expected in any way to profit by that calamity. Ministers were apparently undecided, and, in the hopes of confirming them in a pacific disposition, he resolved for a short time to renew his attendance in Parliament. "I shall attend on the address," he says, "because, though, if the ministry is warlike, I have no hope of dissuading them; on the other hand, if they are pacific, I may serve in some degree to encourage them." Besides his general objections to war, where it could be avoided with honour, he thought there was "in this case a moral certainty of failing in our object, and of aggrandizing France still more than we had done." Peace should be preserved, "if it could be done with honour;" and he had no doubt it might, provided our Government was so disposed. If Pitt, who had not yet declared himself, should be for peace and Addington, there would be no occasion for the old Opposition taking an active part; but if he should join the war party, or "hold a conduct between peace and war," then Addington will want support, "and the support given him will be both useful and honourable." He had been told, that he should "be as much abused for pacific language now as he had been ten years before, but being in Parliament, he was determined not to blink such a question;" and, on making the trial, found "his speech in favour of peace better received by the House than any he had made since the Russian armament." The country in general, he was persuaded, was inclined to peace; and while there was "hope of contributing to prevent war, he felt himself in a manner bound" not to discontinue his attendance in the House of Commons. When the short session before Christmas closed, he still thought Ministers sincerely desirous of maintaining peace. "If I have any fears," he says on the 29th of December 1802, "it is only from a suspicion of a want of courage in Ministers to speak out what they really think, and if they should long continue to be afraid of speaking bold pacific language, ill humours may arise, and war begin without any wish for it in either government."

It has been invidiously said, that Mr Fox, after his return from Paris, was unwillingly dragged from his retirement by the importunity of his friends, in order to support their views in Parliament, and that his health and comfort were sacrificed to their party objects. The fact is directly the reverse. It was he, who urged them to attend, not they, who solicited him. His return to public life was his own spontaneous act, unsolicited and unexpected by his friends. His object, in the first instance, was to assist in the preservation of peace; and when the message in March 1803 had opened his eyes to the real intentions of the Ministry, his indignation at the hollowness and duplicity of their conduct made him persevere in his parliamentary attendance. From the state of parties in the House of Commons he began also to entertain hopes of the revival of a Whig Opposition, such as had existed before the fatal schism in 1792; and with his opinions of the necessity of party connections, as the only means of maintaining public liberty in this country, there was no personal sacrifice he was not willing to make for the attainment of such an end. The revival of his former connection with his old friends was the object nearest to his heart; and in Lord Grenville, though a new associate, he found, as he had formerly done in Lord North, an honourable coadjutor, with whom he could act in perfect confidence, though they had differed warmly on points that were no longer the subjects of public discussion. He was even ready to form a junction with Mr Pitt, till he discovered that Pitt, though willing to join in opposing particular measures of administration, would not break with the Court by going into regular opposition. It is a certain fact, that, of all his party, Mr Fox was the person most anxious to form a coalition with Lord Grenville; and, that whatever difficulties occurred to retard that junction, they arose not from him, but from his friends. He considered then, as he had done from the time of the American war, the influence of the Crown to be the most dangerous enemy to good government in this country; and the violence expressed for war, after the royal message, contrasted with what he conceived to have been previously the general disposition for peace, he regarded as a strong confirmation of all his apprehensions. "The King's Minister," he says in March 1803, "be he who he may, is in peace, at last, all powerful; whether or not, in case of a war, the universal apprehension of mischief from the weakness of those men could do any thing may be more of a question, but even in that case I think the Crown in earnest would beat us all." This influence, he contended, not only governed men's actions, but even swayed their opinions. "I should not be surprised," he says in January 1804, "if, in a short time, the present Minister is reckoned the ablest man in the kingdom; or, if that cannot be compassed, it will be thought and maintained, that a Minister without abilities is the best for this country." He was anxious for a junction of parties, not from motives of personal ambition, but in order to counteract this servility. "A stand should be attempted, which, though unsuccessful at present, will keep something alive against other times. To temporise is certain, absolutely certain, confirmation of the evil; no nation ever did, or ever can, recover from slavery by such methods."

The first distinct overture for a formal coalition of what were then called the New and Old Opposition, was made in January 1804, and came from the friends of Lord Grenville. It was proposed to co-operate in a systematic opposition, for the purpose of overthrowing Mr Addington's administration, and of substituting in its place one upon the most comprehensive basis possible. To this proposal Mr Fox was willing to have acceded at once; but owing to some repugnance on the part of his friends, it was settled, that the two parties should co-operate and concert together the measures to be brought forward in Parliament, in order to give to their debates and divisions all the strength they could, without any formal or compact engagement in case of success. The same proposition had been made to Mr Pitt, who owned that the present Ministry was weak and inadequate to the crisis, that their dismissal would be a benefit to the country, and that, in case of such an event, an administration should be formed on the broadest possible basis. If his Majesty, on such an occasion, were to send for him, he should think it right to endeavour to comprehend in the arrange- ment all parties, and even those who had been most hostile to him; but though, on many points, he would support the new opposition if it took place, he was determined never to engage with any set of men in systematic opposition. Such was the state of parties at the meeting of Parliament in February 1804. As the session advanced, Mr Pitt grew more hostile to Ministers; and, after the Easter recess, the three parties in opposition acted in concert with so much vigour, that Mr Addington thought it prudent to resign. Mr Pitt, who was sent for to form a new administration, had previously declared that he would endeavour to form one in conjunction with Lord Grenville and Mr Fox; but if he found his Majesty impracticable, he should feel himself bound to try one by himself. The result is well known. His Majesty was found to be impracticable on the subject of Mr Fox. Lord Grenville, though unfettered by engagements, refused to concur in an administration from which Mr Fox was excluded; and, by his conduct on this occasion, "satisfied those persons of the old opposition," "who had been most prejudiced" against a junction of the two parties. Mr Pitt, abandoned by all, except his personal friends and adherents, was compelled to coalesce with the wrecks of the administration he had contributed to destroy.

After various ineffectual attempts, during the recess, to strengthen the government, Mr Pitt found himself obliged, before the meeting of Parliament, to take back Mr Addington into office. A fresh quarrel ensued; and, at the close of the session, Mr Addington (now Lord Sidmouth), and his friends, again resigned. Insinuations were then thrown out of an intention to negotiate with Opposition; but, if such overtures had been made, the new engagements contracted on the Continent, independent of other reasons, must have put a stop to the negotiation. Russia, offended at the arrogance of Napoleon, had expressed her desire to form a closer connection with Great Britain. It had been the advice of Mr Fox, that advantage should be taken of this disposition to propose reasonable terms of peace to France, under the mediation of Alexander; and, if these were refused, to conclude a defensive alliance with Russia, but on no account to provoke a fresh Continental war, which must ruin Austria, if unsuccessful. Unhappily this advice was not taken; Austria was seduced, or rather bribed, into a declaration of hostilities. The war was pre-eminently unfortunate, and all hope for a time extinguished of any balance to the power of France upon the Continent.

The death of Mr Pitt dissolved the administration he had formed. Lord Grenville was sent for by the King, and had no difficulty in persuading his Majesty to accept of the advice and services of Mr Fox. When the different parts of the new administration were to be cast, his hope and desire of peace induced Mr Fox to take the office of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; and, before his fatal illness, he had begun a negotiation for peace with every apparent prospect of success. The short time he was in office prevented him from realizing the sanguine expectations which his friends and the public had conceived from his past conduct and principles of government. It ought to be remembered, however, that it was to his firmness Mr Windham was indebted for the success of his limited service bill,—a measure that had to encounter every opposition which power and prejudice could raise against it; and that to his exertions, and to those of Lord Grenville, was owing a resolution of both houses of Parliament to abolish the slave trade, which Mr Pitt, in the plenitude of his power, had failed to obtain.

Mr Fox had inherited an uncommonly vigorous constitution; but, about two years before his death, he had an illness at Cheltenham, which probably laid the foundation of the malady that occasioned his death. His attendance on Lord Nelson's funeral, in January 1806, brought on a complaint to which he was ever after occasionally liable. The duties of office, and the fatigue of constant attendance on the House of Commons, did not tend to restore or confirm his health. About the middle of June he had symptoms of dropsy, both general and local, and soon afterwards his complaint had made such alarming progress as to excite the greatest fears for his life. The universal interest excited in his fate afforded the surest evidence of his great popularity. From the remotest corners of the kingdom, letters arrived daily to his family, expressing the deepest concern in his situation, and recommending remedies of all sorts for his disease. His malady, in the mean time, gained ground daily, and his physicians were at length compelled to have recourse to the common surgical operation for dropsy of the belly. The relief obtained, as usual, was but temporary. The operation was repeated, and soon after he fell into a state of languor, from which he never recovered. He expired on the 13th of September 1806, having retained his senses and understanding to the last. It has been said, that his death was accelerated by the exhibition of digitalis, administered in the vain hope of effecting a perfect cure of his disease; but the story is utterly false and unfounded, and has been publicly contradicted by his physicians. The cause of his complaint was ascertained to be a scirrhous affection of the liver.

"Mr Fox," to use the words of one who knew him well, during the last fifteen years of his life, and who has delineated his character with equal truth, force, and discrimination, * "united in a most remarkable degree, the seemingly repugnant characters of the mildest of men, and the most vehement of Orators. In private life he was gentle, modest, placable, kind, of simple manners, and so averse from dogmatism, as to be not only unostentatious, but even something inactive in conversation. His superiority was never felt but in the instruction

* Character of Mr Fox, by Sir James Mackintosh.—Published in Dr Parr's Collection, entitled, Characters of Mr Fox, by PHILOPATRIS VARVICENCIS. which he imparted, or in the attention which his generous preference usually directed to the more obscure members of the company. The simplicity of his manners was far from excluding that perfect urbanity and amenity which flowed still more from the mildness of his nature, than from familiar intercourse with the most polished society of Europe. The pleasantry perhaps of no man of wit had so unlaboured an appearance. It seemed rather to escape from his mind, than to be produced by it. He had lived on the most intimate terms with all his contemporaries distinguished by wit, politeness, or philosophy, or learning, or the talents of public life. In the course of thirty years he had known almost every man in Europe whose intercourse could strengthen, or enrich, or polish the mind. His own literature was various and elegant. In classical erudition, which by the custom of England is more peculiarly called learning, he was inferior to few professed scholars. Like all men of genius, he delighted to take refuge in poetry, from the vulgarity and irritation of business. His own verses were easy and pleasant, and might have claimed no low place among those which the French call vers de société. The poetical character of his mind was displayed by his extraordinary partiality for the poetry of the two most poetical nations, or at least languages, of the west, those of the Greeks and of the Italians. He disliked political conversation, and never willingly took any part in it.*

"To speak of him justly as an Orator would require a long essay. Every where natural, he carried into public something of that simple and negligent exterior which belonged to him in private. When he began to speak, a common observer might have thought him awkward; and even a consummate judge could only have been struck with the exquisite justness of his ideas, and the transparent simplicity of his manners. But no sooner had he spoken for some time, than he was changed into another being. He forgot himself and everything around him. He thought only of his subject. His genius warmed and kindled as he went on. He darted fire into his audience. Torrents of impetuous and irresistible eloquence swept along their feelings and conviction. He certainly possessed above all moderns that union of reason, simplicity, and vehemence, which formed the prince of orators. He was the most Demosthenean speaker since the days of Demosthenes. 'I knew him,' says Mr Burke, in a Pamphlet written after their unhappy difference, 'when he was nineteen; since which time he has risen, by slow degrees, to be the most brilliant and accomplished debater the world ever saw.'

"The quiet dignity of a mind roused only by great objects, the absence of petty bustle, the contempt of show, the abhorrence of intrigue, the plainness and downrightness, and the thorough good-nature which distinguished Mr Fox, seem to render him no unfit representative of the old English character, which, if it ever changed, we should be sanguine indeed to expect to see it succeeded by a better. The simplicity of his character inspired confidence, the ardour of his eloquence roused enthusiasm, and the gentleness of his manners invited friendship. 'I admired,' says Mr Gibbon, after describing a day passed with him at Lausanne, 'the powers of a superior man, as they are blended, in his attractive character, with all the softness and simplicity of a child: no human being was ever more free from any taint of malignity, vanity, or falsehood.'

"The measures which he supported or opposed may divide the opinion of posterity, as they have divided those of the present age. But he will most certainly command the unanimous reverence of future generations, by his pure sentiments towards the commonwealth, by his zeal for the civil and religious rights of all men, by his liberal principles favourable to mild government, to the unfettered exercise of the human faculties, and the progressive civilization of mankind; by his ardent love for a country, of which the well-being and greatness were, indeed, inseparable from his own glory; and by his profound reverence for that free constitution which he was universally admitted to understand better than any other man of his age, both in an exactly legal and in a comprehensively philosophical sense."

(D.D.D.)

* This is true of Mr Fox in the latter part of his life only. Till his separation from his old friends in 1793 his mind was too full of political subjects, not to take an eager part in political conversation even in private; and when a young man, instead of being somewhat inactive in conversation, he was very much the reverse. Dr Johnson was mistaken in supposing him habitually silent when in company, and has assigned a reason for his supposed taciturnity quite inconsistent with his real character. SITUATION AND EXTENT; FACE OF THE COUNTRY; CLIMATE AND SOIL.

This important part of continental Europe extends from the 43d to the 51st degree of N. lat. and from long. 8.25 E. to long. 4.43 W. The greatest length of France, above 600 miles, is from E. to W. viz. from Alsace to Brittany, a province which projects into the Atlantic like a wedge, and without which France would approach in form to a square. Its breadth from N. to S. is about 560 miles; its superficial extent, not yet exactly ascertained, is computed to exceed 200,000 square miles, or 128 millions of English acres.

Though in point of extent of coast and ready access from the interior to the sea, France is far inferior to Britain and Ireland, she is, on the other hand, more fortunate, in these respects, than the vast inland territories of Austria and Russia. She has the advantage of these countries likewise in strength of natural barrier, the Pyrenees forming a great bulwark on the south-west; the Alps on the south-east; the Jura and the Vosges mountains on the east. The Netherlands are the only open part of the frontier of France; the only part where the desire of extending her territory is at all confirmed or justified by the circumstances of her physical position. It is there, accordingly, that her sovereigns have been tempted to aim at foreign conquest, and where, after being repeatedly flattered by temporary triumphs, their armies have been overpowered by coalitions, and they, as well as their subjects, made to suffer dearly for the short-lived acquisition.

The surface of France exhibits, in general, an advantageous succession of high and low ground. Less level than Poland, the north of Germany, or the greater part of European Russia, it is, on the whole, less mountainous than Spain or Italy, and may with great propriety be compared to England, with this distinction, that, while in the latter the mountainous tracts are in the north and west, in France they are in the south and east. Passing over the lofty ridges which form the frontier line of France on the side of the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Jura, the Vosges, and confining our attention to the interior, we find throughout Flanders, Picardy, Normandy, and the countries to the north and south of the Loire, a level country, diversified occasionally by hills, either insulated or in succession, but by none of the massy elevations entitled to the name of mountains. These we do not meet until reaching the south of Champagne and north of Burgundy, near the sources of the Meuse, the Moselle, the Saône, the Seine. From this bleak quarter (lat. 47 and 48) a very long range of mountains proceeds from north to south in a direction parallel to the course first of the Saône and subsequently of the Rhone, until, on approaching the Mediterranean, they branch off to the south-west and join the Pyrenees. Their greatest height is in Auvergne, about lat. 45, where this chain, or more properly a lateral branch of it, attains, at the mountains called Cantal and Puy de Dame, an elevation of fully 6000 feet, and has its highest ridge covered with snow during a great part of the year. Another, but a much less lofty range, extends from Bordeaux to the south-east, a distance of 150 miles, until it reaches the Pyrenees. The smaller chains are numerous in the east and south-east of the kingdom, viz. in Lorraine, the Nivernais, Dauphiny, Provence; also in part of the interior, particularly the Limousin and Guienne. They are interspersed with extensive plains, but, on the whole, the south and east of France are rugged and elevated tracts, and may be said to be to that country what Wales and Scotland are to Great Britain.

The course of the great rivers is easily connected with this view of the surface of the territory of France. The Moselle, the Meuse, the Marne, the Aube, the Seine, the Yonne, taking their rise on the northern side of the mountain chain, between lat. 47 and 48, flow all to the north or north-west, until reaching the sea, or quitting the territory of France. From the southern slope of the same range proceed the Saône, the Doubs, the Ain. These, along with many smaller streams, are all received by the Rhone, which flows almost due south, with a full and rapid current, until it reaches the Mediterranean. The Loire has by much the longest course of any river in France. It rises to the southward of lat. 45, flows in a northern direction above 200 miles; turns, near Orleans, to the west, is joined by the Cher, Indre, and Vienne from the south, and, after receiving the Sarthe from the north, falls into the Atlantic below Nantes. The Garonne, a river of less length of course, but of a great volume of water, descends from the French side of the Pyrenees, flows northward, and, after receiving from these mountains a number of tributary streams, of which the chief is the Arriège, turns to the westward near Montauban (lat. 44); it falls into the Atlantic after being augmented by the waters of the Tarn, Aveyron, Lot, and finally the Dordogne, all flowing from the western face of the mountains of Auvergne.

France has very few lakes, either in the mountainous districts of the south, or in the great levels of the north and west. It contains, however, a number of maritime inlets, forming inland bays, and communicating with the sea only by a channel of greater or less width. These occur partly on the south-west coast in Gascony; more in the south and south-east in Languedoc and Provence. Their want of depth prevents them from serving as roadsteads for shipping, and they are useful chiefly for fishing, or for the manufacture of bay-salt.

France has much less of artificial or ornamental forests, plantations than England, and much more of natural forests, the total extent of ground covered by wood being computed at seventeen millions of acres, or one-eighth of the territorial surface of the kingdom. Forests are found in almost every department. Lower Normandy contained several of considerable extent. There is a large one at Fontainebleau, only 45 miles from Paris; and a larger to the north of the Loire, in the vicinity of Orleans. Those situated in the neighbourhood of the sea, or of navigable rivers, or of great works such as glass-houses and iron-founderies, have long been subjected to an improvident consumption, so that at present the principal forests are at a great distance inland, particularly in the east of the kingdom, in the department of Ardennes, and in the long mountainous tract that forms the boundary of France on the side of Switzerland.

The want of ornamental plantations, and still more the almost total want of hedges, forms a great deduction from the beauty of scenery in France, and deprives the country of the cheerful aspect so striking in England. The nearest approach to the latter is seen in travelling through the fresh pastures and gentle eminences of Normandy; of the other provinces, some, like Picardy, Champagne, Poitou, consist of wide uninteresting levels; while others, such as Auvergne, part of Upper Languedoc, and the vicinity of the Alps and Pyrenees, contain a bold but bleak scenery. The most beautiful and picturesque views are to be found in the Limousin, or on the borders of the great rivers. The banks of the Loire from Orleans westward are proverbially beautiful. The Rhone, bordered by mountains, has generally a bold and occasionally a wild aspect. The Seine, equally wide, but much more tranquil, flows through verdant but less striking landscapes.

In a country of so great extent and of such diversified surface as France, it is difficult to condense a description of the climate into a few comprehensive heads. The most natural division is into the North, South, and Central regions. The north, comprising Flanders, Picardy, Normandy, Brittany, and, in general, all that part of France, that would be bounded on the south by a diagonal line from lat. 47 on the west to lat. 49 on the east frontier, bears a great resemblance, both in temperature and produce, to the south of England. There, as with us, the predominant culture is wheat, barley, oats, rye, and such fruits as apples, pears, cherries; also hemp, flax, rapeseed. It is here, and here only in France, that the natural pastures are rich and extensive: here also the species of wood, oak, ash, elm, bear a close resemblance to ours. The central region may be said to comprise the country to the south of the Loire, or rather of the diagonal line we have mentioned, until reaching a similar line in lat. 45 on the west and 47 on the east frontier. Here, with the exception of the mountainous parts, the winter is sensibly shorter and milder. Wheat, barley, oats, and rye, are still cultivated, but maize begins to appear, and vines become general. The weather in this great inland tract is much more steady than in the north. In the summer months there is little rain, and storms, when they occur, are frequently accompanied with hail; but, on the whole, the temperature is perhaps the most pleasant in France, being exempt equally from the oppressive heat of the south and the frequent humidity of the north.

The third region, comprehending the whole breadth of the French territory from lat. 45 and 46 to lat. 43, and in some parts to 42.30, approaches in climate to the heat of Spain and Italy; it being necessary, in the summer months, to suspend all active exercise during the middle of the day, and to reserve it for the morning and evening. A shaded situation is here the desideratum for a dwelling and a supply of water for agriculture. Wheat is partially cultivated; barley, oats, and rye, only on the high grounds; maize is very general, and vines supply not only the main article of export, but the usual drink of the inhabitants. The common fruits are olives and mulberries, and, in a few very warm situations, oranges and lemons. Pasturage is good only on mountainous or irrigated tracts. To pulmonic invalids the climate may be advantageous, but, in this respect, also material distinctions occur from locality, the winter in the south-east of France being at intervals very cold from the vent de bise, a piercing wind that blows from the Alps and the mountains of Auvergne.

Brittany, projecting into the Atlantic, is as rainy as Ireland or Cornwall. Normandy, with part of Picardy and French Flanders, may be compared to our inland counties. In the interior of France the rains are less frequent, but far more heavy; so that there is much less difference in the quantity of rain that falls in the course of the year than in the number of rainy days. The atmosphere of France is much less cloudy than ours. The most frequent wind in the north of France, as in Britain and Ireland, is the south-west; it prevails also, but to a less degree, in the central part of the kingdom. In the south of France the more common winds are from the north.

The difference of temperature between London and Paris is not considerable, nor is the degree of heat found to be intense along the west coast of France, until reaching or rather passing Poitou. In the interior it is much more perceptible, being strongly felt at Lyons, and still more in the latitude of Nismes, Aix, Marseilles, and Toulon. On the whole the variations of climate between the north and south of France are considerably greater than between the north and south of Britain, where the effect of difference of latitude is so much modified by the vicinity of the sea. We know, besides, of no such variation as the very material one indicated by the diagonal line from east to west, the latter being two degrees colder in consequence of the breezes and vapours of the Atlantic.

The harvest begins in the north of France between the 20th and 25th July; in the central part about the middle of that month; in the south in the end of June. September and October are the months of vintage. The great hazard to the corn of the central part of the kingdom arises from violent storms of rain and hail; in the south from the want of rain in spring. In winter the vent de bise proves often destructive to the olives. The great heats are in July, August, and September; a time of much annoyance in the south of France from gnats, flies, and other insects; scorpions even are found in that warm latitude.

To exhibit a classification of the different kinds of soil is a task of difficulty in any extensive country, and in none more than in France, where a striking difference prevails not only in contiguous departments, but in contiguous districts of the same department. In Flanders, Picardy, Artois, Normandy, and the Pays de Beauce, a fertile tract to the south of Paris, the soil consists frequently of a loamy mould; in the central and southern parts of the kingdom it is often lighter; while the greater part of Brittany, and of the departments along the western coast, have a heathy soil naturally unproductive, but capable of considerable improvement. But these collective estimates are liable to great deductions; and the attempts made by Arthur Young and other statistical writers to calculate the proportion of the different descriptions of soil, whether loam, heath, chalk, gravel, &c. are considered by the French as far from successful; even the more systematic effort made by their own government, in the beginning of this century, to compute the value of land by masses de culture, that is, by classing all kindred soils under one head, proved, altogether abortive. We shall forbear, therefore, all such vague calculations, and proceed to state the value of annual produce in the different departments, endeavouring to class the latter in lots, according to their position and relative productiveness.

Average annual income of the various departments of France, computed by the English acre, and in Sterling money, taking the words "annual income" in the most extensive sense, as comprising the rent of land, the farmer's profit, and the house rent of houses in towns.*

The fertility and high state of cultivation of French Flanders, and the near approach made to it by part of Normandy and Picardy, are apparent from the following returns. The chief objects of culture there, as in England, are wheat, oats, barley, and rye; the pasturages are extensive; the horses, cattle, and sheep numerous.

Sterling. | Sterling. Nord (French Flanders), - 23s. 4d. | Somme, - 15s. 6d. Seine Inférieure, 22s. 10d. | Pas de Calais, 15s. 6d. Calvados, - 18s. 6d. | Manche, - 13s. 8d. Eure, - 13s. 7d.

The inland province, called formerly, from the rivers along its circumference, the Isle of France, comes next in the list of relative productiveness. The objects of culture are similar to those of Flanders and Normandy, viz. wheat, oats, and barley; but the pasturages are less rich and extensive.

Seine et Oise, 17s. 3d. | Oise, - 13s. 6d. Seine et Marne, 13s. 7d.

The district around Paris forms the centre of the above departments. There the average return is stated at 72s. 9d. the acre; but as this includes house rent, and is altogether a peculiar case, we proceed to the next great division of open country.

Alsace, though in some parts mountainous, is, in others level and fertile, particularly adapted to pasture and the culture of wheat.

Bas Rhin, - 14s. 3d. | Haut Rhin, 12s. 6d.

Brittany has in several parts good pasturages, and a soil adapted to the culture of wheat. Many other parts, however, consist of unproductive heaths. The general backwardness and poverty of the province are but too strikingly exemplified by the following return:

Ille et Vilaine, 8s. 10d. | Aborbihan, 6s. 8d. Loire Inférieure, 8s. 0d. | Finisterre, 6s. 8d. Cotes du Nord, 7s. 7d.

Here also are extensive landes, or heath. Vines are partially cultivated, but the general produce consists of wheat, oats, barley. The pastures are extensive, though less rich than in Normandy.

Eure et Loire, 10s. 4d. | Mayenne, - 8s. 3d. adjacent to Maine, Anjou, and the inland tract Orne, - 9s. 7d. | Loiret, - 8s. 0d. the Loire. Maine et Loire, 9s. 6d. | Indre et Loire, 7s. 2d. Sarthe, - 9s. 5d.

Of this great tract parts are level, and parts are mountainous. The climate, though in general steady, is very different in its degree of warmth, according to the elevation of the ground. Hence a considerable discrepancy in the relative fitness for pasture, for corn culture, or for vineyards. Unluckily the water communication is very limited, there being hardly any canals, and the rivers being too near their source to be navigable.

Aime, - 12s. 0d. | Aube, - 7s. 0d. Haute Saône, 10s. 8d. | Yonne, - 7s. 0d. Saône et Loire, 10s. 0d. | Doubs, - 7s. 0d. Jura, - 9s. 1d. | Marne, - 6s. 10d. Ain, - 8s. 8d. | Haute Marne, 5s. 8d. Cote d'Or, 8s. 3d.

The six following departments, similar to the above in latitude, and not materially different in climate, are of very inferior productiveness; in some parts, from the mountainous nature of their surface; in others, on account of extensive heaths, muirs, marshes, and tracts of sand. The objects of culture continue to be wheat, oats, and rye: vines and maize are raised in the warmest exposures.

Loire et Cher, 5s. 9d. | Allier, - 5s. 0d. Nievre, - 5s. 8d. | Cher, - 4s. 3d. Vienne, - 5s. 1d. | Indre, - 4s. 1d.

Lorraine is a mountainous country, containing extensive tracts of sheep pasture. Its chief agricultural products are oats and wheat.

* See Chaptal, De l'Industrie Française, Vol. I. p. 209. Situation, Moselle, - 8s. 7d. | Meurthe, - 8s. 0d. Extent, &c. Meuse, - 7s. 6d. | Ardennes, 5s. 8d. Vosges, - 6s. 3d.

Auvergne. This extensive province, and the departments to the south and south-west, are, in general, mountainous, cold, considering their latitude, and thinly peopled. The chief product of the high grounds is rye. The best departments are those of the

Loire, - 8s. 4d. | Ardèche, - 6s. 6d. Puy de Dome, 8s. 1d. | Haute Loire, 6s. 2d.

The following, situated to the south and west of the above, are all poor and thinly peopled:

Cantal, - 5s. 2d. | Corrèze, - 4s. 3d. Aveyron, - 4s. 10d. | Lozère, - 3s. 8d. Haute Vienne, 14s. 4d. | Creuse, - 3s. 5d.

Here we attain a more genial climate, and a country, in general, well adapted to the growth of the vine. But a great part of this tract (Dauphiny and Upper Languedoc) is mountainous; and the export of wine is consequently attended with much more difficulty, than along the banks of the Garonne. Wheat, maize, and silk, are the other principal products.

Rhone (including Lyons), 13s. 9d. | Bouches du Rhone, 8s. 11d. Vaucluse, 10s. 0d. | Gard, 8s. 10d. Var, - 9s. 1d. | Isère, - 8s. 2d. Hérault, - 9s. 1d. | Aude, - 7s. 8d. Drôme, - 5s. 11d.

Of the following ten departments, some are indebted for the amount of their return to the extent of their vintage; others to their productiveness in wheat or maize. In pasture or in cattle these departments are far from abundant.

Tarn et Garonne, 13s. 0d. | Haute Garonne, 10s. 2d. Lot et Garonne, 11s. 7d. | Charente, - 8s. 11d. Gironde (including Tarn Bordeaux), 10s. 6d. | Tarn, - 8s. 4d. Charente Inférieure, - 10s. 2d. | Gers, - 7s. 8d. Dordogne, - 7s. 0d. Lot, - 6s. 2d.

It remains that we notice a few departments so particularly circumstanced, as not to fall under any of the preceding heads.

This country, so peculiar in its surface, and not likely to recover for ages the devastations of civil war, is naturally fertile. Its products are wheat, oats, and, in the warmer situations, maize.

Deux Sevres, 8s. 0d. | Vendée, - 6s. 8d.

Three-fourths of this department consist of sandy downs; the remainder produces maize, wheat, and vines; but the average annual produce is only 2s. 1d. per acre.

Here the degree of fertility becomes less and less, the more we approach to the elevated line that separates France from Spain. This rugged region contains great tracts of pasture. The corn raised is maize, wheat, oats, or barley, according to the altitude and temperature of the district.

Basses Pyrénées, 5s. 7d. | Arriège, - 5s. 0d. Pyrénées Orientales, - 5s. 7d. | Hautes Pyrénées, 4s. 8d.

Lastly comes the still more lofty barrier of France to the south-east, the products of which are a little wheat in the valleys; and, in the higher grounds, pasture, with corn of the lighter species.

Hautes Alpes, 2s. 1d. | Basses Alpes, 2s. 0d.

We refer our farther remarks on this valuation to the section on AGRICULTURE.

II. DIVISIONS, CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL.

Nothing can be more simple and uniform than the territorial divisions of France since the Revolution. Instead of old provinces or counties, disproportioned in size, and having frequently their chief town at one or other of the extremities, the departments of France have almost always the capital in the centre, and, in their extent, approximate in a great degree to equality. Each department is divided into three, four, five, or more arrondissements; each arrondissement into seven, eight, or nine cantons ; and each canton into twelve, fifteen, or more communes. The communes in France are nearly similar to our parishes, though they are constituted communes, by having a civil, instead of a clerical functionary. The numbers of each class are as follows:

Departments since the peace of 1814 (including Corsica), - - - 86 Arrondissements, - - - 368 Cantons, - - - 2,669 Communes, - - - 38,990

A far different result this from the gigantic empire of Bonaparte, which, after his latest acquisitions in 1810, extended to Rome in the south, and to Hamburg and Lubeck in the north, comprising above 130 departments, and a population (see our article EUROPE, p. 193) of forty-four millions. But of all these splendid conquests, none, with the exception of the Netherlands, formed a substantial addition to the power of France. The Italian provinces, separated by a vast natural barrier, were inhabited by a people, who bore the ascendancy of their northern neighbours, only until circumstances should enable them to throw off the yoke, and become incorporated into one great and independent state; while the Germans, still more distinct in habits and language from the French, were indignant at their humiliation, and eager to rise with the first appearance of foreign aid. Belgium alone had no natural barrier, no political attachment, to oppose to a union with France.

The ecclesiastical division of France is into bishoprics and archbishoprics. These, before the Revolution, were numerous, there being 18 archbishops and 112 bishops; but as that great political change hours, bore particularly hard on the clergy, of whom, as of the noblesse, the great majority were adherents to the Bourbons, the number of prelates was reduced first to 85, and eventually (in 1801) to 50, viz. 9 archbishops and 41 bishops. On the restoration of the Bourbons, measures were taken to re-augment their number; and, in 1817, a new Concordat, concluded with the court of Rome, pronounced the creation of 9 additional archbishoprics and 33 bishoprics, carrying the totals respectively to 18 and 74. Such, however, is the division of opinion, and the habit of procrastination in political affairs in France, that the new arrangement is as yet (1820) but partially carried into effect. The 18 archbishoprics are,

Paris, Bordeaux, Bourges, Besançon, Tours, Albi, Rheims, Arles, Rouen, Aix et Embrun, Vienne, Toulouse, Auch, Narbonne, Cambray, Avignon, Lyons, Sens.

As there are in France 86 departments, and only 76 bishoprics, a diocese necessarily comprehends a larger tract of country than a department.

A farther distribution of the French territory is into military divisions, or great districts, comprising four or five departments. Of these there are in the whole kingdom twenty-two, each having a general of rank, and a body of officers, stationed in a central town.

III. HARBOURS; NAVIGABLE RIVERS; CANALS; ROADS; BRIDGES.

In this important point France is considerably inferior to England, her long tract of coast, opposite to the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay, being indifferently provided with sea-ports, and those on the southern shore of the Channel, forming a striking contrast to the spacious maritime inlets on the side of her rival. To begin from the north-east, Dunkirk has a small harbour in the interior of the town, approached on the Dutch plan by a canal leading from the sea. Boulogne has a shallow road-stead, indebted for its celebrity under Bonaparte, to the facility of giving protection by land-batteries near its entrance to a numerous assemblage of small craft. The port of Dieppe is exposed, and, of course, unsuitable for winter; that of St Malo is better, and, on doubling the projecting part of Brittany, we find, in the southwest of that province, L'Orient, a port adapted to the entrance of large merchantmen. Proceeding farther to the south, we find at La Rochelle a small, but secure harbour, and at Bordeaux, a river nearly equal in width to the Thames at London. From this there is no sea-port, until reaching Bayonne, a place of no easy access. On the Mediterranean, France has the ports of Cette and Marseilles, the latter spacious and secure.

Nantes, though a large commercial town, adjoins a shallow part of the Loire, and vessels of burden are obliged to load and unload at Paimbœuf. The great dock-yards and naval stations of the kingdom are at Brest and Toulon, both excellent harbours, and at Rochefort, which is situated on the river Charente, near its mouth. In all these the accommodation for shipping is the gift of nature; but at Cherbourg the case is very different, that port containing works, of which the labour and expence (see our article BREAKWATER) have been very great. Its road-stead, extensive but open, has a sea-wall, which, though now in a state very different from its original destination, affords some protection from the swell of the sea; and its spacious dock, excavated since the beginning of this century, at an expence of L.3,000,000 Sterling, is capable of containing fifty sail of the line. Havre de Grace, the best mercantile harbour in the north of France, has also been formed at a heavy expence.

The square form of France, favourable as it is for Inland Na-military defence, subjects the greater part of the vigation. country to the want of those ready and economical means of transport by sea, which form the great physical advantage of Britain and Ireland. Unluckily, this want is very imperfectly supplied by the inland waters, canals being very thinly spread, and the navigation of the great rivers subject to many obstructions; occurring in one part from rapidity, in another from shallowness; at one season from drought, at another from overflow. The application of steam to navigation promises to correct in part this most inconvenient tardiness; but the accommodation that will even then be afforded by the Loire in the interior, the Rhone in the south, the Seine in the north, and the Garonne, with its Canal du Languedoc, in the south-west, will be but a small portion of what is furnished by our numerous intersections in England, or of what is wanted for so extensive a territory as that of France.

The canal of Languedoc, excavated about the year 1668, was the first example in Europe of inland navigation on a great scale. Its length is about 150 miles; its general breadth 60 feet; its depth only 6 feet. As a scientific work, it did honour to an age as yet little advanced in engineering, but in a pecuniary point of view, it was unproductive, the tolls never having paid the interest of the very large sum (L.1,200,000 Sterling) expended on it. It extends from the Mediterranean, near Agde, to the Garonne below Toulouse, and will ere long be prolonged in a northerly direction to Montauban.

The canal of Briare is of earlier date, and of much less extent; the object here was to open a navigation from the Loire on the south, to the Seine on the north, by a canal running almost due north, a distance of forty miles; it then receives from the west the canal of Orleans, proceeding also from the Loire, after which the canal is continued to the north, under the name of Canal de l'Oing, till reaching the Seine. The canal of Picardy is a work of the present age, having been begun shortly before the Revolution, and prosecuted under Bonaparte; it extends from the Oise in a northerly direction towards Lille, and is remarkable for its long tunnel near St Quentin. The Canal du Centre unites the Saône and the Loire in the early part of the course of the latter. The canal of the Ouxcq was dug, not for a commercial purpose, but to convey the water of that little river to Paris, for the consumption of the inhabitants. At a village called La Villette on the north side of Paris, there has been lately excavated, at the expense of a million Sterling, a basin, approaching in size to our London docks, and calculated, when the necessary canals shall be completed, for the deposit of merchandise brought from Havre and Rouen on the one side, and from Flanders and Champagne on the other. In the south of France, there is a short canal proceeding from the Rhone, near Tarascon, in a south-west direction to the Mediterranean, and called, from its vicinity to a well known annual fair, Canal de Beaucaire. These are as yet the chief canals of France. They have been made by associations of individuals as in England, or at the charge of government; but on either footing they proceed very slowly, France being very deficient both in capital and commercial enterprise; and most of the works, so loudly vaunted under the sway of Bonaparte, such as the canal of Burgundy, and the canal from the Rhine to the Rhone, being as yet in their infancy.

The great roads in France are managed, not as with us, by county commissioners, but by government Bureaux or Boards, the chief of which are at Paris. The extent, under their direction, is about 30,000 miles; the annual expenditure from L. 1,300,000 to L. 1,500,000, the whole defrayed without one toll or turnpike. An attempt was made under Bonaparte to levy tolls; but this excited so much clamour in a country where commercial intercourse is carried on almost wholly by land-carriage, that it was found indispensable to seek the necessary funds from another source,—a tax on salt. The great roads in France are, in general, in tolerable condition; but no epithet can convey an idea of the wretched state of the cross roads in almost every department; full of hollows, encumbered with stones, or inundated with water, they receive hardly any repair, but are abandoned, year after year, to the effects of the elements.

The great roads in France are much wider than in England, exhibiting frequently a long straight avenue, lined on each side with chestnut trees or other large trees. They are often paved like a street for many miles in succession; the art of road-making being as yet too little understood, to prevent material injury from the heavy waggons and ill constructed wheels, without resorting to this unpleasant alternative. Travelling is thus much less agreeable than in England, particularly as the villages want neatness and cheerfulness, while most of the towns along the road are disfigured by narrow crooked streets, in which new stone buildings are often mixed with antiquated wooden structures, such as have disappeared from our provincial towns, for nearly a century back. The clumsy vehicles, formerly used for stage-coaches in France, are now replaced in Agriculture, most frequented roads by coaches in the English style; and the mails are now conveyed in a kind of chariot called a malte-poste.

The French have as yet but few cast-iron bridges, all their great structures of this description being of stone. Of these, the chief are the bridges over the Loire at Orleans, Tours, and Nantes; those on a smaller scale over the Seine at Paris, and those over the Saône and Rhone at Lyons. The Pont du St Esprit above Orange, over the Rhone, is a long structure of sixteen arches. At no great distance from it is the Pont du Gard, one of the most entire and beautiful monuments of Roman architecture, composed of a triple tier of arches, erected for the purpose of conducting an aqueduct over the river Gardon. This magnificent structure is 157 feet in height, 580 feet in length at the bottom, and 872 at the top. Of the lately erected bridges in France, the most remarkable are those over the Seine at Neuilly near Paris, and over the Oise at St Maixent, along with two of larger dimensions, viz. one over the Garonne at Bordeaux, the other over the Seine at Rouen.

IV. AGRICULTURE.

The agriculture of France is in a very different state from that of England or Scotland, being marked by a degree of backwardness, not a little surprising in a country so far advanced in many departments of art and science. The causes, however, are not difficult of explanation. France never enjoyed, till lately, the advantage of a representative body; and the condition of the peasantry was long far inferior to that of the same class in England. No ecclesiastical reformation had taken place, to remove a valuable part of the national territory out of the hands of indolent life-occupants; and the grands seigneurs, the other great body of landholders, devoted their attention to Paris and Versailles, without bestowing a thought on their lands or their tenantry, except to extract from them the means of defraying their expenses in the capital. To this was added a system of taxation, less heavy indeed than that to which we are subject ed in England, but extremely crude and impolitic, as evinced in the gabelle, or tax on salt used in private families, and in the corvée, or obligation on the peasantry to labour on the high roads. To these were joined the humiliating enactments of the game-laws, and the more substantial injury of tithes; for the clerical body in France levied this pernicious assessment as in England, though possessing, in property, lands of the computed rent of five millions Sterling.*

Another great drawback on French agriculture was the insignificant size of the occupancies, whether held as farms or in property. A French agriculturist, on a small scale, has little idea of selling his paternal acres, and converting the amount into a capital for a farm. He is much more likely to go on as

* See Necker's Financial Works. Agriculture, the proprietor of eight or ten acres of land, and the cultivator of as many more. The mode of paying rent was equally singular: money-rents were general only in the north or most fertile parts of France; they did not, on the whole, exist in more than a fifth or sixth of the kingdom before the Revolution. A more frequent species of tenure was by a grant made under a reservation of a fine—of a quit rent—or of certain servitudes, of which the least burdensome were sending corn to the mill, or grapes to the press of the proprietor. But of all indications of poverty and backwardness, the most striking was the system of metairie described by Dr Smith; a practice, by which a tenant, having little capital of his own, receives from the proprietor the live-stock and implements necessary for cultivating his petty tenure, and divides with him its produce. This wretched method was, and still is common, not in the north or north-east of France, but in many of the poorer districts of the centre and south. There are, it is to be remarked, several distinctions in this system; the landholder, in some parts, providing only half the cattle and seed; in others, the whole. There is, of course, a corresponding difference in the apportionment of the produce.

La Révolution a été faite pour le cultivateur is a common saying in France; indeed, that great convulsion improved so much the situation of the agriculturists by cancelling, at one decisive blow, the tithes, the game laws, the corvée, and other relics of feudal servitude, that, after all the horrors of Jacobinism, and all the tyranny of Bonaparte, the escape from former degradation still preserves an attachment to the Revolution among this pacific class. Farther, the sale of the church lands transferred a valuable mass of property from indolent into active hands. But with this we must terminate our eulogy on the Revolution, the farther progress made by agriculture, having been caused, less by any political change, than by the gradual effect of experience and diffusion of information. The degree of agricultural improvement in France since the Revolution has certainly been less than in England and Scotland, and in one very material point, that memorable convulsion has tended to retard it; we mean by that law (suggested by a jealousy of the ascendancy of the noblesse) which obliges the owner of property, whether in land or money, to make an almost equal division of it among his children. The parent of two children has the free disposal of only one-third of his property; the parent of three children of only one-fourth; the residue being shared equally among all. The claim of primogeniture is thus in a manner annulled; and a law, apparently wise and equitable, proves the source of great injury to agriculture, by multiplying the petty lots of land throughout a country where they were already far too numerous.

We have already mentioned, in stating the average produce of the departments, the chief objects of culture in France; it remains to exhibit a table of the apportionment of the French territory at large to different species of culture. (Chaptal, Vol. I. p. 206.)

<table> <tr> <th></th> <th>English Acres. Agriculture.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Arable ground of all kinds, poor and fertile,</td> <td>56,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Pasturage and meadow lands,</td> <td>17,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Vines, nearly</td> <td>5,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Kitchen gardens,</td> <td>800,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Miscellaneous culture,</td> <td>2,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Plantations, viz. chesnut woods,</td> <td>1,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Orchards,</td> <td>900,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Hop-grounds, osieries, nurseries,</td> <td>200,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Olive grounds,</td> <td>106,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Pleasure grounds and pleasure gardens,</td> <td>40,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2">2,246,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Woods regularly cut for fuel,</td> <td>16,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Woods allowed to grow for timber,</td> <td>1,100,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2">17,100,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Heath and other lands of insignificant value,</td> <td>10,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Land totally unproductive in an agricultural view, viz. rocks, summits of mountains, surface of roads, sites of towns, public walks, beds of rivers, and canals,</td> <td>17,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ponds, small lakes, inland bays, marshes,</td> <td>1,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2">18,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2">128,146,000</td> </tr> </table>

To this we add a shorter though not less interesting table; viz. the

Comparative Culture of France and England as exhibited in proportions of 100.

<table> <tr> <th></th> <th>France.</th> <th>England and Wales.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Land under tillage of every description, including vines,</td> <td>50</td> <td>34.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Land in grass, whether natural or sown,</td> <td>13</td> <td>42</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Land in forests, plantations, copses, hedges,</td> <td>15</td> <td>4</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Poor land, as heath, marshes, commons; also land totally unproductive, as rocks, mountains, summits, beds of rivers, roads,</td> <td>22</td> <td>20</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2">100</td> <td>100</td> </tr> </table>

This parallel, brief as it is, puts in a striking light the very different state of agriculture in the two countries. The surprising proportion of land in France under tillage is owing to the smallness of the occupancies, the cheapness of labour, and the general use of bread instead of animal food by the lower orders. The last is connected with another remarkable circumstance,—the very slender proportion of land under pasture, of which the main cause is the dry climate of the south and central part of the kingdom. In the proportion of poor and unpro- Agriculture. ductive land, the two countries are nearly on a par, but the French incur a very heavy disadvantage by using wood instead of coal for fuel, and covering with forests many tracts which might be made available either to pasture or tillage.

Nett Return of Land in France reckoned by the English acre, and calculated from official surveys.

<table> <tr> <th></th> <th>£</th> <th>d.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Tillage (average of poor and fertile soils),</td> <td>11</td> <td>0</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Vines,</td> <td>37</td> <td>0</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Meadow land,</td> <td>37</td> <td>0</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Natural pasturage, chiefly mountainous,</td> <td>3</td> <td>6</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Woods,</td> <td>7</td> <td>6</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Chesnut plantations,</td> <td>7</td> <td>6</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Orchards,</td> <td>15</td> <td>0</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Kitchen gardens,</td> <td>45</td> <td>0</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Various kinds of culture, viz. nurseries, hop-grounds, olive-grounds, &c.</td> <td>18</td> <td>6</td> </tr> <tr> <td>General average of all France per English acre,</td> <td>9</td> <td>1</td> </tr> </table>

We proceed to add a few remarks on French agriculture, with reference to articles less known or less generally raised in England. Buck wheat is cultivated extensively in Normandy and the north of France, partly as green food for cattle, partly for the diet of the peasantry; it is generally sown in June and reaped in the end of September. Rape-seed is very general in French Flanders and Normandy; it supplies oil for the market and food for cattle, either when green or in the cake. Colza (cole-seed) is raised for the same purposes. Tobacco would be generally cultivated in France, did not the restrictions of the excise confine it to certain licensed parts, which are chiefly in Alsace and Picardy. Flax is raised very generally not merely in French Flanders, Alsace, and Normandy, but in the provinces of the west and south, where the family of almost every peasant rears a little stock annually to be spun by his wife and daughters. Hemp also is raised in many parts of France, particularly in the north. Maize is a plant of great importance, whether for the food of man or of cattle; when intended to stand for harvest, it is planted in rows with very little seed, and yields more than twice the quantity of wheat that would be produced on the same space. During its growth, the leaves are stripped regularly for the food of cattle; and in some districts it is sown thick and mown merely for that purpose. Such valuable substitutes have as yet prevented turnips from being generally introduced in France. Even potatoes were long very little known, and it is only during the last half century that the dislike to this root has disappeared. Chesnuts are most common in the central part of France, where they supply no inconsiderable portion of the food of the peasantry. In the south, the fruits are chiefly olives, almonds, mulberries, figs, prunes; oranges are partially cultivated in the south-east extremity of the kingdom, on the verge of Italy, but with great uncertainty, for a severe winter is fatal to these trees, and in some measure to the olives.

Irrigation is little understood in the north of France, but in the south the want of frequent rain Agriculture renders it a primary object of attention; it in fact determines the ratio of productiveness, since the warmth of the sun seldom fails to ripen whatever, whether grass or corn, has received an adequate supply of water. It takes place in some parts by guiding the rills from the side of the hills and mountains; in others, by digging wells or raising water by a wheel; and in the vicinity of rivers by diverting a portion of their stream.

The culture of the vine extends more or less over Vines fully the half of France, beginning so far north as Champagne, and spreading over the country to the south and west. This culture is, however, very limited in Champagne and even in Burgundy; in Provence and the lower part of Languedoc the climate is warmer, and the culture general; though not managed with such skill as along the banks of the Garonne, where the spirit of improvement is excited by a demand for foreign markets. As vines succeed in light and unproductive soils, their culture gives a value to much ground that would otherwise be useless; and the petty subdivisions of land are here less injurious than in the case of corn. From the great variety of soil and climate, the quality of French wines is very various. The amount produced has been considerably increased since 1790, as well from the division of many large estates as from the quantity of waste land that has been brought into culture. It is computed that nearly 5,000,000 acres of land are planted with vines, and that the value of the annual produce is from L.28,000,000 to L.30,000,000 Sterling, of which about a tenth or twelfth part only is exported. A farther quantity, equal to about a sixth of the above, is made into brandy, for brandy is distilled wherever vines are grown; and of it also, the best qualities are in the vicinity of the Garonne.

The minuteness of the Cadastral survey has led to official calculations in France of products which have not yet engaged the attention of other governments. Madder is cultivated on a small scale, partly in the north, partly in the south of France; its chief use is in dyeing woollens and cottons. Wood is used for yellow and green colours; saffron, cultivated formerly to a great extent, is now confined to one district (the Gatinois) in the south of France; hops are raised only in Picardy and French Flanders.

Value of the following articles produced annually in France:

<table> <tr> <th>Article</th> <th>L.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Wine,</td> <td>20,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Raw silk,</td> <td>600,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Hemp,</td> <td>1,200,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Flax,</td> <td>800,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Madder,</td> <td>200,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Wood for fuel and timber of all kinds,</td> <td>5,600,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Olive-oil, rape-seed, and cole-seed,</td> <td>2,800,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Tobacco,</td> <td>300,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Chesnuts,</td> <td>300,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2">40,800,000</td> </tr> </table>

Of the following articles, similar to the produce of our own soil, we subjoin not the value merely, but the quantity and average price: Wheat, Rye and mixed corn (meteil), Buck wheat, Barley, Peas and beans, Potatoes, (56,928,000 boisseaux) Oats, Maize and Indian corn, Wool, Merino, 2,000,000 lbs. at 1s. 8d. per lb.; second quality, metisse, 8,000,000 lbs. at 1s. 3d.; third, or common quality, 70,000,000 lbs. 10d.

<table> <tr> <th>Quantity in Winchester quarters.</th> <th>Average Price.<br>s. d.</th> <th>Annual Produce.<br>L.</th> <th>Agriculture.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>18,508,000</td> <td>41 8</td> <td>38,558,000</td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td>10,886,000</td> <td>27 10</td> <td>15,150,000</td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td>3,022,000</td> <td>14 0</td> <td>2,115,000</td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td>4,520,000</td> <td>23 2</td> <td>5,236,000</td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td>646,000</td> <td>41 8</td> <td>1,346,000</td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td>0 10½</td> <td></td> <td>2,491,000</td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td>11,524,000</td> <td>20 10</td> <td>12,000,000</td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td>2,265,000</td> <td>27 10</td> <td>3,152,000</td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3"></td> <td>3,583,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3"></td> <td>83,631,000</td> </tr> </table>

Of the pasturage ground of France, occupying one-eighth of its territory, the chief part is in Normandy, Brittany, and other humid quarters of the north and west. In the south, the natural pasture is confined to particular districts, chiefly mountainous; in the low grounds, the grass, whether natural or sown, is brought forward only by means of irrigation. Clover and sainfoin are cultivated in France, but chiefly in the north and north-east; lucerne is much more general, being raised not merely in the north, but in the central and southern provinces, wherever irrigation is practicable and the soil and climate are favourable. The art of improving cattle by breeding is little understood in France, nor is there much judgment shown in gradually fattening them by a removal to richer pastures. Still the beef and mutton of the north and west are very good, their price varies from province to province, but very seldom from year to year; the general rate is 30 per cent. less than in England. Butter is made and used throughout the chief part of France as in England, but cheese comparatively little. In the south, however, even butter is little known, and its place in cooking is supplied by olive oil, an unwelcome ingredient to a northern palate.

One of the latest novelties in French pasturage is the introduction, in 1819, of a large flock of Cashmere goats, which were sent to browze in the Eastern Pyrenees, and are said to experience little inconvenience from the change of climate.

In the number of horses, as well as in their size and beauty, France is greatly inferior to our country. In the performance of labour, however, the inferiority is much less conspicuous; large, old-fashioned carriages, drawn by four or six horses, are seen proceeding along a paved road much more easily than we should anticipate from the weight of the vehicle, the knotted harness, and the diminutive size of the animals. The same observation is applicable to the ploughs, the carts, the waggons of France,—all awkwardly built, but all dragged on with expedition,—the strength of the horses surpassing the promise of their appearance;—a strength, however, attended by a circumstance of no slight inconvenience, very few of these animals being gelded. A French mail-coach performs only five instead of seven miles an hour as with us; but this is owing less to inferiority in the horses, than to the state of the roads, and to general want of dispatch at post-houses.

Of the aggregate of horses in France (about 1,500,000) more than half belong to the northern provinces, viz. Normandy, Brittany, Picardy, Alsace, and the Isle of France. In the central and southern departments, a great proportion of the work is done by oxen, which are more suitable to petty farms, and mountainous districts. The total of horned cattle in France, in 1812, was reported officially as follows:—(Chaptal, Vol. I. p. 197.)

Bulls, - 214,000 | Cows, - 3,910,000 Oxen, - 1,702,000 | Heifers, - 856,000

Sheep are reared in almost every province, the gentle elevations of the north, and the mountains of the south being alike favourable to them. The mutton is good; but, in the art of improving the fleece, the French have as yet much to learn. Merinos were first brought from Spain in 1787, and formed into a royal flock at Rambouillet. The quality, originally good, has been progressively improved, and distributions of Merinos have been successively made to proprietors of sheep pastures in all parts of the kingdom. The consequence has been, that, in many districts, the weight of the fleece has been nearly doubled. Still, in the more backward parts of France, very little attention is paid to the care of sheep, or to the improvement of the wool. The animals are not folded during night, but crowded into covered buildings (bergeries), and exposed, particularly in winter, to much injury from going suddenly into the air.

Mules are almost as little known in the north of France as in England. In the central and southern parts they are reared very generally. Poultry, in France, is both larger in size and more abundant than in England.

Even in the north and north-east of France, the size of farms are of small extent. To occupy 200 acres, Farms. or to pay a rent of L. 200 a-year, places one in the foremost rank of farmers. Larger possessions are common in pasture districts, that department of agriculture admitting, in France, as in England, of a greater concentration of capital, and extension of business than in the case of tillage. But such districts are rare, and in by far the greater part of France, the farms under tillage, if farms they can be called, are of 50, 40, 30, and often so small as 20 Agriculture or 10 acres, there being, it is computed, no less than three million of such petty occupancies in the kingdom. In the south of France, the system of melairie is still prevalent, nearly on the same footing as in Lombardy and Tuscany. That such insignificant occupancies are adverse to all enlarged ideas of farming, is sufficiently obvious; and to their many disadvantages there can be opposed only this single benefit—that no spot of tolerable soil is neglected, even the space given by us to hedges being reserved for culture.

The beneficial effect of long leases is as little understood in France as it unfortunately is in a great part of England. The common method is to let land for periods of three, six, or nine years. The peasantry, though very illiterate, are by no means a slow or phlegmatic race. They exhibit, as Frenchmen in general do, no small share of sprightliness and activity in the individual, with very little concert or combination in the mass. They are content to hand down the family occupancy from father to son, without any idea of altering their mode of life. The dwellings of the farmers, and still more of the cottagers, are, like those of our forefathers half a century ago, the outside having frequently a pool of water in its vicinity, while the inside is miserably bare of furniture. Their implements are equally rude, and discover but too clearly that the price of iron is beyond their reach. Their harrows have wooden teeth; and even the ploughs, in some backward districts, are almost entirely of wood. The cart in common use is an awkward medium between a cart and a waggon, being as long as the latter, and not broader than the former. The singularity, to an Englishman, is to see a vehicle of great length and burden supported by a single pair of wheels. Corn and hay, in France, are not stocked, but housed. The winnowing machine is, in a measure, unknown; the threshing machine altogether. Threshing often takes place in the open air, and is, in general, performed by the flail. In the south of France, the antiquated mode of treading out the corn by horses and mules is still prevalent.

The diet of the French peasantry is very simple: Bread and cyder, with soup, pease, cabbage, or other vegetables, form its chief ingredients in the northern provinces, while, in the central and southern, the same aliment are in use, with the substitution of thin wine (vin de pays) for cyder, and of chestnuts for the pears and apples of the north. Bread is, still more than with our peasantry, the grand component part of diet, and the article of which the price determines the comfort or distress of the lower orders for the year. Butcher meat is reserved for the tables of the middling and upper classes.

The landholders in France give almost no attention whatever to beautifying the country; its aspect is consequently monotonous, without plantations, seats, or cheerful cottages. The peasantry live in villages, frequently ill built and ill situated. The purchase of land, however, is the favourite mode of investing money in France. It sells, in general, for 25 years purchase, while the public funds seldom fetch above 16 or 18. The French have little confidence in government stock; and, in fact, very little knowledge of its nature. There is at Paris a society similar to the Board of Agriculture in England, and forming, like it, a central point for corresponding with the different agricultural societies in the kingdom. It holds a sitting twice a month, and a public meeting annually, for the distribution of prizes. The French have also (since 1819) a corn law, permitting imports and exports only when the home market shall be above or below a specific rate. This law, somewhat similar to ours in form, is materially different in its operation, the limitation prices being very low, and the landed interest, in France, having no power to create an artificial enhancement. The Revolution, by breaking landed property into fragments, has destroyed the ascendancy of its owners as a separate interest. The members of the French House of Commons are, in general, lawyers, merchants, or propriétaires, that is, owners of land and houses on a scale which we should account very small. Even in their House of Peers, the country interest is of little account. The chief difficulty the French government have to contend with, in regard to the corn trade, is the popular prejudice that freedom of export raises the home price. The south of France being in a great degree appropriated to the culture of the vine and olive, stands in need of an almost annual import of corn. The north is very different; yet the smallness of the farms, the use of bread in every meal of the day, and the want of agricultural capital, are great drawbacks on export. In the present century, the only shipments of consequence have taken place in 1810 and 1814, both years of unusual abundance.

Of the 17,000,000 of acres which we have mentioned as covered with wood in France, the proportion belonging to government is about 3,700,000 acres. A very small part of this is allowed to grow for large timber. The rest is subject to an annual cutting and sale, for fuel, a purpose for which coal is very little used in France, except in the case of forges, glass-houses, and other large works. In the government forests, gross mismanagement took place during the disorders of the Revolution. Extensive tracts were sold for an insignificant consideration, while, in those that remained, timber was felled with a lavish hand, and without any regard to the ultimate effect on these valuable properties. The case, however, was altered in 1801, when a special board, appointed for the care of the forests, introduced the most satisfactory regulations. In the years of financial pressure (1815, 1816, and 1817), it was proposed to effect sales of these great domains: but a fair price being unattainable, government continues to keep them, and derives, from the wood annually cut and sold, a revenue of from L.700,000 to L.800,000 Sterling. Fuel being little wanted in the south of France, the forests are confined to remote and rugged situations. These, like most of the forests of the kingdom, harbour a multitude of wolves, which are frequently destructive to the sheep and lambs. Regular officers, called Lieutenants de Louveterie, are appointed for wooded districts; and, on occasions of heavy loss, recourse is had to a general Agriculture battue, of which the usual result is a partial destruction of these animals, without any sensible reduction of their numbers at large. Bears, also, are found in the forests, but they are much more rare, being confined to the high lying districts in the Alps and Pyrenees.

After these observations on the agriculture of France, it remains to compare its produce with that of our own country—an inquiry that naturally divides into two parts—the total, or, as it is termed, the gross amount produced, and the nett income afforded after all deductions for expence of culture. First, as to the gross produce, Dr Colquhoun estimates the property created in Great Britain and Ireland, in the year 1812, by agriculture, in all its branches, at nearly L.217,000,000

Add for seed corn, not included in this estimate. Also for the increase of our population, and corresponding increase of our produce from 1812 to 1820,

33,000,000

L.250,000,000

Deduct for decrease in prices by the change from war to peace, 25 per cent.

62,500,000

Remains, L.187,500,000

The amount of property annually created by agriculture in France is computed, by M. Chaptal at L.190,000,000

This calculation was made in peace, and at prices (see the preceding corn table) so low that, to bring them to an equality with our own, even in peace, we must make an addition of 80,000,000

Together, L.270,000,000

Those readers who imagine that the addition for the difference in the value of money is too large, have merely to refer to the quantities of produce in the preceding corn table, or to the surer test afforded by the relative population of the two countries. Supposing that our population is now increased to 19 millions, that of France still exceeds it by fully 10 millions, a number which, were the consumption of the individual the same, would imply, on the part of France, an annual production of the value of above L.280,000,000. If to this a small addition be made for the French produce exported, our estimate will be found to make the requisite allowance for the plainer fare of Frenchmen, and a small allowance will be deemed sufficient when we take into account the very cheap diet of the Irish part of our population. But the point to be explained is not how France produces so much, but how she does not produce more. Britain and Ireland are to her, in territorial extent, in the proportion of 61 to 100, but in produce they are as 69 to 100. As the soil of France, if not superior, on an average, to that of England and Ireland, is greatly superior to that of Scotland or Wales, to what are we to look for the inferiority of her produce? There are, we apprehend, two main causes—first, the waste of large tracts in wood, and next, the inadequacy of manual labour, largely as it is afforded by her dense agricultural population, to counterbalance the productive powers of the capital and machinery applied by us to agriculture.

We come next to the question of the clear income arising from land, the amount of which was seldom above a fourth part of the gross produce, since it implies a number of very heavy deductions, viz. the support of the farmers, their families, their servants, their cattle; the mortality and depreciation of live stock; wages, wear of tools and implements; in short, of every description of charge that intervenes between preparing the ground for culture, and realizing its produce in money. In regard to France, we are enabled to proceed in such computations with considerable accuracy, in consequence of several late estimates made by order of government, of which the highest, and we believe the most accurate, made in 1815, gives, for the clear return of the land, about L.52,000,000

To which adding, to bring the low prices in the valuation to a par with our own,

23,000,000

Total, L.75,000,000

a sum, including not rent merely, but rent and farmer's profit together. In England, our best authority for this purpose is the return made under the property-tax act, in 1810, a time when our paper currency was but slightly depreciated. This return gave, for England and Wales, for rent solely, about L.29,000,000

Add for Scotland and Ireland, a computed amount of 11,000,000

Deduct for decrease of rent, increase of poor-rate, and other burdens since 1810, 25 per cent.

40,000,000 10,000,000 30,000,000

The collective income of the farmers of England and Wales, in 1810, was, like the rent, about L.29,000,000, to which, making a similar addition for Scotland and Ireland, and a similar deduction for the fall of prices, and increase of burdens, the result is a farther sum of 30,000,000

In all, L.60,000,000

In these returns of nett income the balance is considerably more in our favour than in those of gross produce. In the one Britain and Ireland are to France as 69 to 100; in the other as 80 to 100. To what is this extraordinary disadvantage on the side of France to be attributed? We answer, to the employing of manual labour instead of machinery, and to the very great addition thus caused to the number of persons to be supported out of the produce of the land before realizing its proceeds. In England and Scotland the agriculturists are not to the population at large as 40 to 100; and, after making a large addition for Ireland, which bears, in its petty occupancies, no slight resemblance to France, the result does not give, for our whole population, 44 persons in 100 dependent for support on agriculture. But in France, this proportion exceeds 60 in 100; and there are thus to be supported out of agricultural produce above 5,000,000 persons more than there would be, were the proportion of agriculturists as in Britain and Ireland.

The average income of the whole kingdom, per English acre, is, we have already said, But as this includes the rent of houses in towns, there is to be deducted, on that account, a sixth, or

Leaving

To which, adding one-half for the very low prices in the French estimate,

The result is

per acre, valuing the produce according to the currency of English markets. This comprises both landlord's rent and farmer's profit. There are at present no satisfactory means of computing either separately; but, if we suppose them equal, the rental of France is only L. 26,000,000 From which, by a single tax, the Foncier, a deduction is made of above 5,000,000

Leaving L. 21,000,000 Equal in England, after making allowance for the difference of money, to L. 30,000,000

In other words, the rental of Britain and Ireland, after allowing for the difference of money, and after deducting tithe, poor-rate, and taxes of every kind, is equal to that of all France,—a proof, if any were wanting, how much more our landholders are favoured by the Legislature than those of the same class on the south side of the Channel.

V. MINES AND QUARRIES.

Of gold there are hardly any mines in France. Of silver there are several in the mountainous districts. A far more important metallic treasure is the iron ore found in a number of the mountainous departments; in the east, in Lorraine and Champagne; in the interior, in Auvergne and Languedoc; and in the south-west, in the Pyrenees. Of copper also there are mines, not deficient either in quality or quantity; but it is, above all, in regard to these that France experiences the want of canals, to convey from one mine to another either the ore or the coal, which, by some of their writers, is aptly termed cette force vive en lingots. To smelt one ton of copper requires two, or two and a half tons of coal,—a rapidity of consumption which no forest can long supply. Coal has been discovered in more than half the departments of the kingdom, and will, doubtless, be traced in others; but the want of water communication limits its consumption so much, that the whole value of coal annually extracted from the mines in France is not above L. 2,000,000 Sterling; nor is the quality in general so good as in England. At St Etienne, near Lyons, are excellent coal mines; but there being no iron mines in the vicinity, there are no iron works, and no consumption of fuel on a large scale: the coal is of use only for domestic fuel, and for the manufacture of hardware. Altogether, there are in France 500 metallic mines, great and small; the number of workmen employed on them is about 18,000. The mines, like other large undertakings in France, are under the direction of government; being superintended by a board at Paris (Conseil Général), and having an Ecole Royale with public teachers, the whole under the control of the minister of the home department. This, however, does not prevent their machinery being in general very clumsy and antiquated.

Turf fit for fuel, as in Ireland, is found in various parts of France, and is likely to be used, as wood becomes progressively scarcer.

Salt is made in various parts of the kingdom. Salt The works corresponding to the salt mines, or rather to the brine springs of Cheshire, are called, from their position, Salines de l'Est, and are situated at the small town of Salins in Franche Comté; they are wrought by undertakers on lease, yield about 20,000 tons a-year, and afford a considerable revenue to government. The heat of the climate on the south and south-west coast of France is favourable to the evaporation of salt water, and consequently to the formation of bay salt; the name given to salt made, not by the action of fire, but by the heat of the sun, operating on sea water, inclosed in a shallow bay (in French étang), so as to produce a saline deposit. The duty raised from salt in France is in all nearly L. 2,000,000, a sum of great importance to the Treasury, but attended with fully as much injury to the productive powers of France, as our salt-tax to those of England. The Revolution began by abolishing entirely the odious Gabelle, and salt being soon after made in great quantities, and sold very cheap, became the object of a most extensive consumption, being given to cattle as food, mixed with manure on the fields, or scattered as a stimulant to vegetation at the foot of olive trees. But this extended use of salt was of short duration. No sooner was the power of Bonaparte consolidated, than he ventured to impose a tax on salt, less impolitic and oppressive indeed than the gabelle, but which had the effect of limiting the use of this article to such a degree, that the consumption of bay salt, instead of amounting to L. 1,000,000 Sterling, does not at present exceed L. 100,000. The consumption is confined to domestic purposes, and to a trifling export; yet the few cattle that still receive salt as a part of their food are visibly in better condition than those that are deprived of it.

France is in general much better supplied with quarries than England. The vicinity of Paris abounds in quarries of freestone. The case is similar in the mountainous districts, and even in several, such as Lower Normandy, that are comparatively level. The houses are consequently built of stone in those cities, which, like Paris or Caen, are in the vicinity of quarries. In other situations they exhibit a mixture of stone and brick. Slates being comparatively rare, the roofs of the houses are generally of tile, and the annual value of this rude species of productive labour,—the manufacture of bricks and tiles, may be computed at nearly L. 1,000,000 Sterling. There are marble quarries in several of the mountainous districts; but not situated so as to admit of export.

VI. MANUFACTURES.

Our historical notices of French manufactures are very imperfect, until towards the year 1600, when the wars of religion were brought to a close, and peaceful industry received encouragement from Henry IV. and his minister Sully. It was then that the patronage of government was extended to the manufacture of silk, of glass, of jewellery, of gold and silver tissues; also of the finer woollens and linens; for the coarser kinds had been established many centuries before. But the great extension of the finer manufactures of France took place after 1668, during the reign of Louis XIV., and the ministry of Colbert. It was then that workmen were invited from Holland, and induced to settle at Sedan and Abbeville, places still celebrated for their woollens.

viz. Eastern Pyrenees, Carcassone, Do. Limoux, In Languedoc, St Afrique, and Rhodez, Do. Castres, Albi and Mazamet, North of France, Vire,

Lizieux also in the north had nearly the same number of workmen (5000) throughout.

The finest qualities of woollens are made at Sedan, in Champagne, and at Louviers, in Normandy. In these the only material is Merino wool. At Elboeuf and Darnetal, both likewise in Normandy, the qualities are very various, the prices being from 6s. to 28s. the English yard. Carcassonne and Limoux owed the origin of their extensive manufactures to the abundant supply of wool from the pastures in the Pyrenees. Since the reduction of their exports to the Levant, an alteration in the quality of their cloths has opened to them a vent in the interior of France. The mountainous districts in Languedoc contain great numbers of sheep, and are the seat of the manufacture of serges, tricots, and other coarse woollens, most of which are made, not by workmen collected in a factory, but on the domestic plan still followed in part of Yorkshire, and in the north-west of Wales. In the hamlets or villages of the departments of the Tarn and Aveyron, almost every house has its loom, and during the evenings in winter, or in the day time, when the weather is adverse to country labour, the women employ themselves in spinning, and the men in weaving.

A highly-finished species of the woollen manufacture, viz. shawls, veils, ladies' cloth, &c. has been introduced in the present age into France. Rheims is the seat of this important branch, and employs, in the town and neighbourhood, no less than 20,000 workmen. Similar articles are made at Paris. Two towns very remote from each other, Lodève in the south, and Vire in the north-west of France, manufactured, under Bonaparte, very largely for the army. French woollens are, in general, much thicker than ours. In the fine qualities, the raw material forms (Chaptal, Vol. II. p. 131) somewhat more than half the cost. In ordinary qualities, it is somewhat

<table> <tr> <th></th> <th>1789.</th> <th>1800.</th> <th>1812.</th> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td>4,400</td> <td>4,500</td> <td>6,200</td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td>6,700</td> <td>8,500</td> <td>10,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td>10,400</td> <td>13,600</td> <td>18,300</td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td>3,000</td> <td>3,800</td> <td>4,800</td> </tr> </table>

In the south of France also, establishments were formed for making the light cloth suited to the Turkey market, so that, towards the year 1700, the manufactures of France, as well for woollens as other articles, had made considerable progress; we mean, that they had arrived at the state to be expected from a people of great activity, but of little combination. The manual labour of the workmen was ingenious; the machinery extremely imperfect; the linen, the paper, and, in some measure, the woollens and hardware, found their way abroad, because in the rest of Europe these manufactures were very backward; and, in particular, because the exports of England were then very limited. The repeal of the edict of Nantes was a very impolitic measure, but its consequences have been much overrated, for England has profited very little by the extension of her silk fabrics; and Brandenburg, the chief resort of the French emigrants, has never become an exporting manufacturing country.

Another and a more important error is the current notion that French manufactures were formerly (from 1650 to 1750) more extensive and flourishing than at present: also that they underwent an almost total extinction during the Revolution. These, like many other impressions, in regard to France, rest merely on the loose allegations common in that country, where current report almost always partakes of the marvellous. Official data, wherever they are preserved, far from sanctioning such fluctuations, are in favour of a progressive, though slow increase.

To begin with the oldest, and most widely diffused woollen branch, woollens, we find * that the relative numbers of workmen, at three distinct intervals, and in very different parts of the country, were as follows:

* Costaz sur l'Agriculture et les Manufactures de la France, p. 108. less; but it is only in the slight qualities that the price of labour goes considerably beyond that of the materials. The computation for the whole country is, that a value of L.4,000,000 Sterling in wool, becomes converted into a manufactured value of L.9,000,000, of which a tenth only is exported; for, though French woollens in general are more substantial and durable than English, the inability of their merchants to give long credit prevents their competing with us in the United States, or other foreign markets. The cloth, in France, which corresponds to our superfine, and which is worn, in general, by the upper ranks, is very fine and durable, but heavy. In price, it varies from 22s. to 35s. the English yard.

The cotton manufacture was introduced into France about 1770, and at first in the south of the kingdom, the raw material being supplied, not from America, but from the Levant. From the south, this manufacture passed, about 1780, to Rouen, St Quentin, Paris, Lille, and other parts in the north, extending with a rapidity surpassed only by that of England. At present, and for many years back, the great import of cotton is from the United States. The total of the raw material annually brought into France is calculated (Chaptal, Vol. II. p. 150) at an average of L.3,500,000, and the value of the finished articles, after adding the labour and profit in every stage, at nearly L.8,000,000. This is not above one-fourth of the amount of the cottons annually made in Britain; for, in this great department of manufacture, the French have only followed our steps, adopting our machinery after a certain lapse of time, and equalising us, perhaps, in the durability of the fabric, but seldom in its elegance or cheapness. The last is, in a great measure, owing to the centre of the manufacture being at Rouen and Paris, places where the support of workmen, including the extra price of fuel, is not less expensive than in Lancashire. The districts at present most remarkable for the cotton manufacture are,

<table> <tr> <th></th> <th>Looms in 1812.</th> <th>Workmen in 1812.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Normandy, Rouen, and adjacent towns,</td> <td>10,800</td> <td>40,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Lyons and Tarrare,</td> <td>8,000</td> <td>23,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>French Flanders, Lille, Cambrey,</td> <td>10,100</td> <td>20,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Paris, and its districts, not ascertained.</td> <td></td> <td>7,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Picardy, St Quentin, and adjacent towns,</td> <td>10,700</td> <td>14,600</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Abbeville, Amiens, and their vicinity,</td> <td>5,600</td> <td>14,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Champagne, Troyes, and adjacent towns,</td> <td>7,000</td> <td>13,700</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Alsace, Mulhausen, Bischweiler, &c.</td> <td></td> <td>19,000</td> </tr> </table>

Cotton yarn is often made in a different place from cotton cloth. Paris and French Flanders are the chief quarters for the supply of the former article, which is sent in quantities to Rouen, St Quentin, and other places. In former years, cotton yarn used to be smuggled in great quantities from England, but this is now limited to the finer qualities.

The cotton manufactures of the more substantial kind, called Bonneterie, such as stockings and caps, are carried on in Champagne, in Normandy, and in the department of the Gard, in Languedoc. The total of the workmen, young and old, employed on cotton in France, appears to be about 200,000 The number of works for spinning cotton yarn nearly 300 Looms for making Bonneterie (in 1812) above 10,000 Looms for weaving cotton cloth, 70,000

In the extent of her linen manufacture, France is greatly superior to England; not that her soil is better adapted to the growth of hemp and flax, but because England depends on importations of linen from Ireland and Germany; and the spinning of flax does not form the occupation of our female peasantry. In France, particularly in the north, every farmer, and almost every cottager, covers a little spot with hemp or flax sufficient to employ his wife and daughters in spinning throughout the year; a stock of linen being the usual dowry of these humble occupants of the soil. The weavers reside in towns and villages. In Normandy, Lisieux, Dieppe, the neighbourhood of Havre, Yvetst, Bolbec, and the more inland towns of Vimoirtiers and Domfront, are all remarkable for one or more branches of the linen manufacture. The more backward province of Brittany manufactures, at Rennes, St Malo, and Vitré, quantities of coarse linen, canvas, and sacking; but Anjou affords a much superior article; the toiles de Laval have long been in repute, and give employment, in Laval and the contiguous towns, to nearly 25,000 workmen. Lille and its populous district have very extensive manufactures of hemp and flax, for the number of workmen so employed, directly or indirectly, in this part of French Flanders, is not short of 50,000. Since 1790, fine linen has, in France as in England, been in a great measure replaced by fine cotton: the two together employ, at St Quentin (in Picardy) and the neighbourhood, no less than 40,000 workmen. In a very different part of the kingdom, the province of Dauphiné, there are carried on linen manufactures of various qualities, the prices being from 1s. 6d. to 5s. a yard.

Cambries, thread, gauze, lawn, rank among the leading manufactures of the north-east part of France. They are made at St Quentin, Valenciennes, Cambrey, and in a smaller degree at Douay, Chauney, and Guise. Lace is still more general, being made in quantities at Valenciennes, Dieppe, Alençon, Caen, Bayeux, Argentan. Machinery has as yet (1820) been very little applied to this manufacture in France, and the number of women employed by it is very great.

The hemp annually grown in France may be computed, as a raw material, at L.1,200,000, the quantity imported at L.200,000; together, L.1,400,000, a value which is doubled in the coarse, and tripled in the finer manufactures. Of this quantity of hemp the half is made into canvas and thread, a third into cordage, and the remainder into cloth for domestic use. Of the flax annually used, the value, as a raw material, is about L.800,000; a sum which is tripled when made up into thread, linen, and mixed stuffs, and much more than tripled in the finer qualities. On the whole, the value of the finished fabric from hemp is supposed (Chaptal, Vol. II. p. 142) to be about L.4,500,000 That from flax, including lace, 3,000,000 Add for the domestic manufacture of the peasantry, 2,500,000 Total value made in France, from the stoutest sail cloth to the finest lace, L.10,000,000

French linen differs in quality according to the place of manufacture; but, in general, it is thicker and stiffer than Irish linen, while, in whiteness, it is inferior to the linen of Flanders and Holland. It is, however, a substantial and durable article.

France has at present (1820) 330 blast furnaces, the position of which is regulated by that of the iron mines. They are chiefly in the mountainous departments of the Dordogne in the southwest, and of the Haute Marne, the Haute Saone, and the Cote d'Or, in the east of the kingdom. Of forges for malleable iron, called forges à la Catalane, there are eighty-six scattered throughout different departments, but chiefly in the hilly part of Languedoc. There are also a number of wire works in France, in which, as in the blast furnaces, there has been, since 1790, a progressive but very slow increase, altogether different from the rapid advance of the iron-works of England previous to 1815. The stationary character of these works has evidently been owing to the deficiency of fuel and of water communication; disadvantages which prevent the hardware manufactures from being concentrated in cities or populous districts, and cause them to be spread over the country in petty towns or villages, with a very limited division of labour, and a consequent inferiority of execution. The result is, that France does not export hardware, and that in nothing is the inferiority of domestic accommodation in that country more conspicuous than in articles which belong to the province of the locksmith and cutler. The amount of pig iron annually made in France appears (Chaptal, Vol. II. p. 154) to be about 100,000 tons. The value of the hardware of the kingdom, inclusive of cutlery, arms, and other articles of nice workmanship, is computed at L.8,000,000 or L.9,000,000 Sterling. The annual import of iron and steel is only from L.2,000,000 to L.3,000,000. In copper, the case is different, the importations greatly exceeding the home produce. Of lead, also, the chief part is imported.

In this department France possesses, both from physical causes and from long established manufacture, a decided superiority. Mulberry trees were introduced in the fifteenth century, and were first planted, not in the south, but in the central part of the kingdom, near Tours. That town was the seat of the earliest silk manufactures, and it was not till 1600 that the culture of the mulberry was carried southward. It is now prosecuted in twelve departments, which, in 1812, produced as follows (Chaptal, Vol. I. p. 181):

<table> <tr> <th></th> <th>Silk in Cocoons.</th> <th>Silk in Cocoons.</th> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <th>lbs.</th> <th>lbs.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Indre et Loire,</td> <td>35,500</td> <td>Brought over, 6,175,800</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Allier,</td> <td>6,300</td> <td>Vaucluse, 2,200,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ain,</td> <td>12,500</td> <td>Gard, 1,710,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Loire,</td> <td>35,500</td> <td>Hérault, 486,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Isère,</td> <td>1,847,000</td> <td>Mouths of the Rhone, 873,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ardeche,</td> <td>2,737,000</td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Drome,</td> <td>1,502,000</td> <td>Var, 210,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td>6,175,800</td> <td>11,654,800</td> </tr> </table>

The mulberry thrives in a variety of soils, and may be planted with success in neglected borders or in waste lands; the labours of the silk-worm last only six weeks, after which the cocoons are in a state to be purchased for winding or carding. These processes reduce the quantity so much, that the produce of an average year does not exceed 560,000 lbs. soie grêze, worth 20s. or 21s. the lb.; and 322,000 lbs. organized silk, at 25s.

To this is to be added an equal quantity of foreign silk imported, chiefly from Italy. The cost of manufacture nearly doubles the value of the raw material in the plainer qualities, and in the highly finished, such as fine ribbons, may be said to triple it.

State of the Silk Manufacture in 1812.

<table> <tr> <th></th> <th>Looms.</th> <th>Workmen.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Tours,</td> <td>320</td> <td>960</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Gange (in Languedoc), (stocking looms),</td> <td>922</td> <td>1000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Avignon,</td> <td>1600</td> <td>5000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Nimes,</td> <td>4900</td> <td>13,700</td> </tr> <tr> <td>St Chammond and St Etienne, to the west of Lyons; ribbons chiefly,</td> <td>8200</td> <td>15,450</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Lyons,</td> <td>10,700</td> <td>15,500</td> </tr> </table>

Paris also contains extensive silk manufactures. As the persons indirectly supported by such a branch greatly exceed the number of weavers, it is no exaggeration to compute at 60,000 or 70,000 the individuals, young and old, supported in Lyons and its district, by the silk trade in all its different stages. This important manufacture has undergone considerable fluctuations, having suffered a diminution, previous to 1790, from the general introduction of cottons, and having felt severely the calamities of the Revolution, which necessarily reduced the consumption of an article of luxury. At present the amount of the silk manufacture of France is nearly L.5,000,000, a sum equal indeed to its amount in 1790, but which shows that this manufacture has not kept pace with the increase of wealth and population,—a consequence, doubtless, of the cheapness and beauty of the cotton fabrics. The export of French silks is about a third of the quantity made.

Leather in France is not taxed as with us, and the effects of the exemption are apparent in the price of the articles of which it is the chief material; all of which are cheaper by a third than in England. The value of leather annually prepared for sale in France is (Chaptal, Vol. II. p. 187) nearly L.3,000,000 Sterling; when made up into articles as boots, shoes, saddles, harness, its value is nearly double.

Jewellery, as well as watch and clock making, are carried to a considerable extent in France, particularly at Paris; a time-piece is there a much more frequent article of ornamental furniture than in England, and the number of new watches made annually in the kingdom, is not less than 300,000; altogether, the value of these different kinds of workmanship amounts to L.1,500,000 of which more than the half is made in the capital. The works in bronze, belong still more particularly to the capital, and form, in their different branches and stages, of which gilding is the chief, a farther annual value of L.1,500,000 Sterling.

Paris is remarkable for other fabrics of taste and luxury; in particular, the porcelain of Sèvres near St Cloud, and the beautiful but very expensive tapestry of the Gobelins. The materials of the latter are silk and the finest woollen thread; the subjects woven into the work are taken from paintings executed on purpose. Both the establishments have been long conducted by government at a sacrifice, and both are now on a reduced scale, the articles being far too costly for private individuals. The latter are more frequently purchasers of passamanerie, by which is understood artificial flowers, fringes, gold and silver lace, with a variety of trifling but tasteful articles, all sufficiently adapted to a city where so much more is thought of display than of utility.

The value of all the soap made in France is computed at L.1,400,000. The main ingredient is olive oil, and Marseilles was formerly the seat of this manufacture for almost all France; an advantage owing both to the extent of the olive-grounds in the south-east of the kingdom, and the vicinity of Marseilles to Italy, the Levant, and Spain, whence soda and olive oil were imported in vast quantities. The disorders of the Revolution, and the establishment of similar manufactures in other parts of France, have caused to Marseilles the loss of a third of its soap works; they are still, however, very extensive. Of the oil used in France, whale-oil forms a very small proportion; the great supply is of vegetable oil, viz. the rape and cole-seed of the north and the olive-oil of the south. The collective value of these is very considerable,—not short (Chaptal, I. p. 186) of L.3,000,000 Sterling, almost all consumed in France, where lamps instead of candles are in very general use.

Beer, formerly little drank in France, has become of extended consumption since 1790; but even at present, the quantity used does not exceed L.2,000,000 Sterling, its place being supplied by cider in the north, and by wine in the south. The consumption which corresponds to that of our home made spirits, and, in a great measure, to that of our rum, is in brandy, of which the value annually made is between L.2,000,000 and L.3,000,000 Sterling. Farther, there are at Paris a number of establishments very recently formed for the singular purpose of distilling from potatoes a spirituous liquor which (Chaptal, Vol. II. p. 197) has been generally approved, and has been brought into competition with brandy.

Of hats, an article which in France is made more durable, but much less light and pleasant than in England, the manufactures, formerly concentrated at Lyons and Marseilles, are now diffused throughout several towns; the value annually made is about L.1,000,000 Sterling. Perfumery is made extensively in the south, where, from the mildness of the climate, aromatic plants are abundant. Paper being exempt from the heavy duties of England, is sold in France on very reasonable terms, while in quality it is equal to our own. The value annually used in printing, in writing, and in the hanging of rooms, is computed at fully L.1,000,000 Sterling. Of glass, the manufacture has been much improved and extended during the present age. Whether for mirrors, for windows, or for bottles, this article in France is good and of a moderate price. The number of glass-houses in 1818 was 185; the value of their manufacture L.900,000. As to earthenware, it is only since 1790 that English pottery has been successfully imitated in France. It is now made to the value of L.200,000 or L.300,000, while the coarse earthenware, fabricated in almost every province of the kingdom, is computed at L.600,000.

Saltpetre, till lately a monopolized manufacture, is now unrestricted, and is made to the value of somewhat more than L.100,000 annually. Sulphuric acid has, since the beginning of the present century, been greatly lowered in price and increased in quantity; its annual manufacture represents a value of nearly L.300,000. Muriatic acid is used in whitening linen and cotton, and is made to an annual value of L.100,000. Soda is manufactured in France to the value of L.100,000; copperas L.100,000; alum L.250,000.

Summary of the computed Value of Goods annually manufactured in France.

<table> <tr> <th>Manufactures</th> <th>L.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Woolen manufactures, fully</td> <td>9,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Cottons, nearly</td> <td>8,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Hardware,</td> <td>9,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Canvas, linen, lace, cambric,</td> <td>10,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Silk, nearly</td> <td>5,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Leather,</td> <td>6,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Jewellery, watches, clocks,</td> <td>1,500,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Bronze,</td> <td>1,500,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Soap,</td> <td>1,400,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Spirituos liquors,</td> <td>2,400,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Beer,</td> <td>2,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Cyder and perry (wine reckoned under agriculture),</td> <td>2,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Hats,</td> <td>1,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Starch and perfumery,</td> <td>1,500,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Paper,</td> <td>1,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Glass,</td> <td>900,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Earthenware and pottery,</td> <td>800,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>All lesser manufactures,</td> <td>13,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Total,</th> <th>L.76,000,000</th> </tr> </table> Labour in Paris is as much dearer relatively to the provincial towns of France, as labour in London relatively to those of England. It still remains for us to remove from our capital some manufactures, which have been most injudiciously established there; but the French have carried this false calculation much farther, Paris being the centre not only of ornamental fabrics, such as jewellery, bronze, sculpture, cabinet making, but of a number of coarser employments, which a very slight change of plan might transfer to a cheaper quarter. There are at Paris periodical exhibitions of French manufacture held once in three or four years; the last (in August 1819) was very brilliant, and honoured by the presence of the king, the princes, the nobility, and all eminent men of science. There is also in that capital a Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, a collection, on a large scale, of models of all instruments or machines that relate to arts and manufactures.

To make regulations for the mode of manufacture was formerly a favourite course with government in England as in France; but the existence of a representative body, and, above all, the revolution of 1688, caused many of these enactments to fall into disuse among us, at the time when they were maintained among our neighbours with inflexible rigour. From the time of Colbert (1660) the French ordonnances prescribed peremptorily the length and breadth of serges, of druggets, in short, of every kind of cloth calculated for export, under the plausible idea, that all these precautions were necessary to establish a reputation for quality. It is a curious fact, that these rules were desired by the manufacturers themselves, and were long considered the safeguard of French industry. A change introduced in 1779, and which gave leave to every manufacturer to follow his own method, provided he distinguished the goods thus made from those that were in conformity with the regulations, was of very short duration. The power of habit and prejudice prevailed. New ordonnances, issued the succeeding year, revived the former limitations, and the manufactures of France were not put on an unrestricted footing till the revolution. Much inconvenience had also been sustained from the absurd law which prevented a workman from settling in business in any town, except that in which he had served an apprenticeship. This law was abrogated in 1767.

The manufacturing industry of France is confined, far more than ours, to the home market, whether we look to the supply of the raw material, or to the export of the finished articles. Her imports are large only in cotton and silk; in wool and iron they are not considerable; while in flax, hemp, and leather they may be termed insignificant. In exports the limitation is still more striking; her hardware, her linen, her woollens, her cotton, her leather, and, in a great measure, her silk, being confined to the home market,—a restriction owing partly to our manufacturing superiority, more to the capital of our merchants, and their ability to give long credit. The productive industry of France is consequently much less subject than ours to sudden fluctuation. It follows nearly the same routine year after year. On the occurrence of a war, or other political change, the commerce and manufactures of our neighbours, to borrow a phrase of Talleyrand (Letter to Mr Fox, 1st April 1806), se replient sur eux-mêmes. Need more be added, to show the error of those who maintain that, half a century ago, her manufactures were of great amount, that they were almost entirely suspended by the Revolution, and indebted for their subsequent revival to the exertions of the government. The fluctuations, at no time of great amount, have related chiefly to the export trade, and owed their origin to the general hostilities of 1793.

An analysis of the causes of success in manufacture is instructive, as showing that excellence, where it exists, is the natural result of specific causes, and by no means a consequence of that general superiority, the belief of which is so dear to the vanity of every nation. The individual talents of workmen in France and England may fairly be considered on a par; the quickness and activity of the French being counterpoised by their volatility and want of adherence to a given object. The leading advantage of their manufactures is solidity, arising from the comparative cheapness of labour and raw materials. Hence the durability of their woollens and silks. Hence also the cheapness of their paper and leather. The points of inferiority are much more numerous, but may be almost all traced to one cause—an imperfect division of labour. In England, the facility of water communication may be said to unite several towns into one, facilitating the division of employment, and overcoming the disadvantages of a separate and remote position; but in French towns, instead of the inhabitants limiting themselves to a few manufactures of kindred character, there prevails a habit of endeavouring to make every thing on the spot. Lyons, Rouen, Lille, are populous cities, and entitled to rank with Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds; but there must end the parallel; for St Etienne forms a poor counterpoise to Sheffield, and Birmingham, with several of our other towns, is without a rival. In short, it may be assumed generally, that, in a French town of equal size, the work, not only of manufacturers, but of artisans, is, even in the case of ingenious individuals, much less nice and accurate than in England.

It remains to compare the aggregate value of the manufactures of France and Britain. Adopting the amounts given by Colquhoun and Chaptal, we find the manufactures of Britain and Ireland, including mines and minerals, estimated by the former, for the year 1812, at

L. 123,000,000

Supposing the decrease in price since 1812 balanced by the increase of quantity, we have to deduct the Excise and other duties, which, though drawn back on our exports, are included in the above estimate, and form about

23,000,000

Value of our manufactures without duties,

L. 100,000,000

Of which (see our article ENGLAND, p. 132) there are exported about 40,000,000

Consumed in Britain and Ireland, 60,000,000 Commerce, In France, the amount of manufactures, including mines and minerals, is about L. 76,000,000, of which the exports form only L. 6,000,000 The home consumption, 70,000,000

The large addition for difference in the value of money, which we made in the case of agricultural produce, is not applicable here; several of the articles, as hardware and cotton, being dearer than in England, while others, such as linen, are very little cheaper; so that, on the whole, to bring prices to a level, the calculator ought to take into account the superior durability of several kinds of French goods. The result is, that the population of France, which to ours is as 90 to 60, consumes manufactures only in the proportion of 70 to 60—a difference not a little remarkable, and owing partly to the coarser dress of our southern neighbours, but more to the large proportion of their agriculturists; a class accustomed to make for themselves a variety of articles, both of clothing and furniture, for which the more busy inhabitants of towns resort to the manufactory. This important distinction, viewed in connection with the practice, in French towns, of making articles of all kinds on the spot, will explain a number of points at present involved in obscurity to an English observer; such as the limited intercourse by travelling in France, the want of bustle in the shops, the rarity of extensive partnerships, and the multiplicity of individuals, who, though possessed of some patrimony, are content to follow a petty business, either alone, or with a single assistant—the whole exhibiting a very backward state of productive industry, whether we view it in an agricultural, a manufacturing, or a commercial sense.

Has England reason to dread the rivalship of French manufactures in foreign markets? Not, if we are to draw an inference from the customhouse duties in France, which are maintained less as a source of revenue, than to prevent the introduction of our goods—a singular precaution against a country, where labour is so much dearer. The French are deficient in several main points; in water communication, in fuel, in capital, and, above all, in the habits formed by the long transaction of business on a large scale. We may thus be tranquil in regard to rivalship, from the natives of that or of any country on the Continent; but by no means in regard to the emigration of our own capitalists and workmen, if our present scale of expence and taxation be continued. These would soon find the means of overcoming existing disadvantages. They would carry with them capital and experience. The choice of a maritime situation would obviate the want of canals, and our customhouse restrictions, however they might obstruct the import of their goods into England, would, of course, be unavailing, to prevent their rivalling us in the American or other foreign markets.

VII. COMMERCE, COLONIES, FISHERIES, SHIPPING.

The official returns of French imports and exports were published in a very circumstantial manner previous to the revolution, particularly for the years 1787, 1788, 1789, which were, doubtless, those in Commerce, which the commercial exchanges between France and her neighbours were carried to the greatest amount. The annual exports then were,

<table> <tr> <th>To Spain, above</th> <td>L. 3,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>To Switzerland,</th> <td>700,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>To Italy,</th> <td>1,500,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>To Hamburgh (chiefly in sugar from St Domingo),</th> <td>2,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>To the rest of Germany,</th> <td>2,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>To the Baltic,</th> <td>800,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>To Holland,</th> <td>2,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>To England,</th> <td>1,500,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>To the Levant,</th> <td>1,500,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>(Of which nearly half to Smyrna.)</th> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <th>To St Domingo and all other parts,</th> <td>5,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>In all,</th> <td>L. 20,000,000</td> </tr> </table>

Of this amount there was in wine, brandy, corn, and other products of the soil, L. 10,000,000 Raw materials for manufactures, 2,000,000 Manufactured goods, 6,500,000 Miscellaneous articles, 1,500,000

The war of 1793, by bringing in hostility to the French, every contiguous state, except Switzerland, reduced greatly their commercial exchanges; obliging them to desist from exporting a number of articles, and to raise or fabricate others, for which they had depended on their neighbours. This interruption of intercourse continued, either by sea or land, during more than twenty years; and, since the peace of 1814, the relations of the commercial world have been too unsettled to admit of forming conclusive inferences from the returns of any particular year. At present, however, the imports and exports of France are less than before the revolution, and afford a striking contrast to the rapid extension of foreign trade in a country possessing the command of the sea. It is well that our statements, in regard to the manufactures of France, precede the notice of her commerce, as they enable us to conceive with how little foreign intercourse a very numerous population conducts its productive industry.

The corn, the hemp, the flax, the tallow, which form such important articles of export from the north of Europe to England, are comparatively unnecessary to France. Their timber and pitch are imported there; but the quantities required by a people where ship-building is so limited, are necessarily of little consequence. The farther articles of import are iron, copper, lead, salt, fish, all likewise on a small scale. The returns from France are no longer in the sugar and coffee, which, before the loss of St. Domingo, furnished an annual export to the north of fully two millions sterling. They are limited to wine and brandy—luxuries of which the consumption is confined to a few large towns, such as Petersburg, Hamburgh, Stockholm, Dantzic.

With Germany, at least with the centre and south of Germany, the exchanges of France are carried on by a tedious land carriage, or by a still more tedious river navigation. Here are no canals to facilitate Commerce, the conveyance of bulky commodities; all proceed in a slow routine, except horses and horned cattle, which are imported into France in considerable numbers, and made to travel with expedition. In regard to the Netherlands the case is different. With them there is an easy communication by sea, and, as far as regards French Flanders and part of Picardy, a still more easy communication by canals. From the southern part of the Netherlands the imports into France are coal, hemp, flax, fine linen. From Holland, spirituous liquors, spices, butter, cheese. The returns from France are chiefly wine, silks, brandy, dried fruit. When the Netherlands were subject to France, this intercourse was very active; but since 1814, it is much impeded by restrictions on both sides.

From Italy France imports raw silk, corn, rice, olive oil, and fruit, chiefly lemons, oranges, figs, raisins. The returns, various in kind but small in quantity, consist of wine, brandy, cattle, woollens, linen, leather, hats, stockings, jewellery, glass, hardware. From the Levant the imports, though less than formerly, still consist of raw silk, cotton, wool, corn, dried fruits. The exports, manufactured silks, woollens, stockings, and, in a small degree, hardware, paper, liqueurs, linens, lace. With Spain the intercourse is more extensive. The exports from France are corn, flour, salt fish, wine, brandy, also woollens, cottons, silks, leather, linen, lace, hats; all articles that have passed through some process of manufacture, and bear testimony to the industry of the French. The Spaniards, on the other hand, true to their character, make no returns but in produce and raw materials, viz. wool, silk, fruit, sweet wines, along with some iron and copper. With Portugal the trade of France is not considerable, the staple products (wine and brandy) being the same in both countries.

Were congeniality of feeling, either in an individual or a national sense, the regulator of commerce, the intercourse between the French and Americans would be great; for no nations ever sympathized more cordially with the sufferings of each other, or were more decided in ascribing them to the aggressions of England. But a mutual want of capital restricts the connection. The Americans require long credit, and to give credit exceeds the means of the French. The cotton, tobacco, and rice of the United States are paid partly by wine and brandy, but in a very slight degree by manufactures. This branch of trade will increase with the population and wealth of the United States; but the most ready means of extending French commerce would be with England—a country of customers, whose activity supplies them with the means of giving in exchange a number of useful commodities. At present the intercourse is considerable, but a partial reduction of the customhouse duties, on both sides, would extend greatly the imports from England, viz. cottons, hardware, earthenware, copper, tin, coals,—while it would give a correspondent increase to the French exports, of which the staple articles are wine and brandy; the smaller silks, olive oil, fruit, Commerce, &c., butter, poultry, and, when our laws allow, corn and butcher-meat. In the import of the produce of the soil from France, our course would be clear and direct, our climate not admitting of the growth of the vine, the olive, or the mulberry; but, in regard to manufactures, it is a matter of nicety to say in what articles an exchange would take place, our late improvements in machinery counterbalancing the cheap labour of France in several branches (such as lace), in which our competition would formerly have been hopeless. It is evident, however, that there would be a series of varied and extensive exchanges, not so much perhaps in distinct articles, as in different qualities or shades of quality in the same article or branch of manufacture. These exchanges are necessary for completing assortments in shops, in warehouses, in shipments, and their extent would be such as to be comprehended only by those who are familiar with the endless ramifications of manufacture, or who are aware of the striking exemplification of this truth, afforded by our intercourse with France, in the auspicious interval between the commercial treaty in 1786 and the rupture in 1798.*

The chief commercial business of Paris is necessarily inland, but it is the centre of exchange transactions for France, foreign as well as inland; as London is for England, and Amsterdam for Holland. Havre de Grace is the channel of the maritime intercourse of the capital,—the outlet for its exports, and the medium through which it receives colonial produce, raw materials, and foreign manufactures. Bordeaux is a seaport of great activity, as well for the export of wine and brandy, as for the import of sugar, coffee, and cotton. Marseilles, a larger but a less bustling city, continues the emporium for the trade with Italy and the Levant. Nantes has suffered greatly by the loss of St Domingo, as well as by the abolition of the slave-trade, of which it was the centre. It still exports to Martinique and Guadaloupe linen, hardware, printed cottons, and, like Bordeaux, receives, in return, sugar, coffee, and raw cotton. Rouen, though accessible to vessels of burden, is, like Lyons and Lille, chiefly remarkable for manufactures.

The currency of France is almost entirely metallic, there being only one bank (la Banque de France), the circulation of which is, in a manner, confined to the metropolis; the branch banks at Lyons and Rouen finding it very difficult to extend their issues. The Bank of France is a very solid establishment, possessing funds to the amount of L.4,500,000, while its paper in circulation seldom exceeds L.3,000,000. Though, on all permanent loans, the rate of interest in France is considerably higher than with us, being generally from 6 to 7 per cent., the bank discounts mercantile bills at so low a rate as 4 per cent. The amount of metallic currency in France cannot be short of L.80,000,000 or L.90,000,000 Sterling, and the general introduction of bank notes would effect a saving to the nation of L.2,000,000 or L.3,000,000

* See our article on Cotton Manufacture, p. 405. Commerce, annually. Saving banks, caisses d'épargne, have been lately introduced at Paris.

Land carriage in France costs only from 2s. to 2s. 6d. per cwt. for 100 miles; a cheapness which facilitates the transport of merchandise to the various annual fairs which are still held in every great town in the kingdom, exactly as was done by our forefathers a century ago. This periodical routine begins by the foire de Longchamps, which is held annually at Paris in spring, and is followed by a long list of provincial fairs, of which the chief are those of Béaucaire in Languedoc, and Guibray in Normandy.

The weights and measures of France were reduced, as is well known, to a very simple and uniform scale soon after the Revolution, but there has been much difficulty in accustoming the inhabitants, particularly in country districts, to the adoption of the new system, which unluckily preserved none of the names with which they were familiar. In 1812, a kind of compromise took place, government sanctioning the retention of the old names, such as pounds, ounces, ells, and bushels, but requiring that their contents should be calculated by a reference to the new standard. It is, accordingly, on this footing that business is now transacted in France. The new weights and measures are, in general, larger by a fraction than the old, and the use of the latter is prohibited by law.

The colonial possessions of France are quite unsuited to her greatness in other respects. The insurrection engendered by the Revolution deprived her of the western half of St Domingo, a rich and beautiful territory containing formerly more negroes, and exporting more produce, than all the British West Indies together. The French government seems to have relinquished the hope of regaining this country, at least by military means, and to limit their ambition to their remaining colonies, Martinique, Guadaloupe, and Cayenne. The two first are, like most of our West India islands, cultivated to a considerable extent, but capable of much improvement. The petty island of Marie Galante is in a similar state, but Cayenne forms a part of a most extensive tract, of which one corner only is as yet rendered productive, and which may eventually become a great settlement, though on the score of health it is as unpromising as the adjacent colonies of Demarara and Surinam. Before the loss of St Domingo the annual import into France amounted to 70,000 hhd. of Muscovado or brown sugar, 60,000 hhd. clayed, and nearly 20,000 of fine clayed. Of this very large supply there were exported nearly 40,000 hhd. of brown, and above 60,000 hhd. of clayed, forming, exclusive of any duty, an annual value of between L.2,000,000 and L.3,000,000 Sterling, and affording a most acceptable exchange for a number of imported commodities. But the far greater part of this import has long been lost to France, no sugar is now exported from that country, while, of the quantity required for its consumption, and amounting to about L.2,000,000 Sterling, a considerable part is received from England and the Spanish West Indies.

In Africa the French possess Goree and some factories near the mouth of the Senegal. In the East they have, in the isle of Bourbon, as in Pondicherry, Chandernagore, and some smaller factories on the mainland of India, the means of carrying on commercial intercourse, and their vessels are, like the Americans, admitted to trade with Calcutta, Madras, and other British settlements, on payment of moderate dues; but they possess no power of annoying or even of resisting us in the event of hostilities. The retention of the Isle of France, at the peace of 1814, deprived them of the great receptacle for their privateers in the East; and, in a very different part of the world, the continent of North America, they retain nothing since the cession of Louisiana in 1803. In the seas of Europe, Corsica is almost the only insular possession of the French. They have no great maritime fortresses, like Gibraltar or Malta, and no dependencies of the nature of the Ionian islands.

The fisheries of France are composed, like our own, of those on the coast and those at a distance, particularly at Newfoundland. All along the north coast of France, the fisheries consist, as on our side of the Channel, of cod, mackerel, herrings, and pilchards. On the shore of the Atlantic, and still more on that of the Mediterranean, are caught great quantities of sardines, a fish of passage, which appears periodically in shoals like the herring. The tunny, a fish not known in northern latitudes, is found in the Mediterranean in the early part of summer. It varies in weight from 10 to 25 lbs. and is in like manner caught in shoals. These home fisheries, little calculated for forming seamen, have been left to their natural progress, while repeated attempts have been made by government to extend the fishery in America,—a design favoured by the early possession by France of Newfoundland and Canada, as well as by the long peace that followed the treaty of Utrecht. Towards the middle of last century the French fisheries in America employed annually about 5000 seamen, but the unsuccessful contest with England in 1756 reduced them greatly, and deprived them of their principal station, Cape Breton. The peace of 1783, concluded under better auspices, renewed their right to fish on the banks of Newfoundland, a right subsequently acknowledged by the treaties of 1802 and 1814; and though their only permanent possessions for this purpose are the small islands of St Pierre and Miquelon in the Gulf of St Lawrence, the continuance of peace can hardly fail to give a considerable extension to this fishery. The Greenland fishery presents a less flattering prospect. It was attempted in a former age by the inhabitants of Bayonne, and lately by those of Dunkirk,—a place much better situated for it,—but in either case the shipping employed was inconsiderable, and the whole is subject to capture and stoppage by our superior marine in time of war.

In this respect France was always inferior to England, and a comparison is wholly out of the question, since the loss of St Domingo, and the almost total extinction of the mercantile navy of France by a war of twenty years. Since 1814 attempts have been made by the ship owners in Havre de Grace, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Nantes, St Malo, to re-establish their shipping, but as yet with very limited success; the deficiency of capital, the want of colonies, the fluctuations in trade, the dread which, however unfounded, is general among the present generation, that England will not long allow them to enjoy peace, having all concurred to discourage their efforts. No returns of the mercantile tonnage or seamen are made to the French parliament, but the insignificance of both in the foreign trade is apparent from the annual lists of vessels passing the Sound, or frequenting the great foreign ports, such as Hamburgh, Amsterdam, Cadiz, Leghorn, New York. The intercourse between France and America is conducted chiefly in American bottoms; that between France and the Netherlands in Dutch; and still more that between France and this country in British. Of the packets, that cross the Channel in such numbers since the peace, nine-tenths are British. A solitary French vessel appears, from time to time, in our ports with a cargo of provisions or of fruit. On the other hand, the coasting trade of France is very considerable, the commodities conveyed (chiefly corn from the north, and wine from the south) requiring a great deal of tonnage, and the still more bulky article of timber being occasionally transported by coasters.

VIII. RELIGIOUS AND CHARITABLE ESTABLISHMENTS.

The condition of the church and clergy forms a most important feature in the history and present situation of France. In former times, the Gallican church, without desiring a separation from the Holy See, had often advanced a claim to independence, and maintained long and animated discussions, or rather controversies familiar to those readers of French history, who have attended to the history of the Jansenists and Molinists. The result of these and of the general progress of knowledge in France was an exemption from a part at least of the interference in ecclesiastical affairs, exercised so despotically by the court of Rome, in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. As to pecuniary means, though the income of the lower ranks of the clergy was extremely small, the church of France was in the whole richly endowed; the rent of land and houses, appropriated to abbeys, priories, bishoprics, archbishoprics, and benefices of every description, being computed at five millions sterling, exclusive of the tithes levied, with more or less strictness, throughout the whole kingdom. As a political body, the French clergy were differently situated from the English, having no voice in legislating, but aiming at, and frequently attaining, the highest offices in the executive government.

In 1789, a number of the clergy, both in the upper and lower ranks, participated in the general wish for a political reform, and evinced that disposition, by their readiness in coalescing with the Tiers État, at a time when the majority of the noblesse refused to do it, until compelled by the call of the people, and the positive order of the court. In the highly interesting discussions that ensued during the years 1789 and 1790, several of the leading orators were Catholic clergymen, nor did they in general take the alarm, until the menacing aspect given to public affairs by the too rapid progress of the Revolution. The National Assembly stripped the church of her lands, and declared them the property of the public, providing, indeed, for the income of the clergy, but making the payment of it dependent on government. All this might have passed and been forgiven in the ardent hopes of national benefit from the Revolution, but the Assembly did not stop here. Considering both the court of Rome and the court of France inerately hostile to the Revolution, they determined to detach the clergy from both, and sought to compel their adherence, by imposing on them an oath of fidelity to the new constitution, on pain of forfeiture of their livings. The sincerity of the clerical body was now put to the test, and a striking proof was given of their being actuated by that conscientious feeling, for which the public in Protestant countries are so little disposed to give them credit.—In every rank, whether prelates, curates, vicars, or the humble desservants, the majority preferred the hazard of losing their livelihood to taking an oath at variance with their conscience. The violent party continued to triumph at Paris, and the non-conforming clergy had no alternative, but to fly their country. Hence the crowds of emigrants, who, in 1791 and 1792, sought refuge in Italy, Germany, and, above all, in England. Those who remained in France were exposed to all the atrocities of the Jacobins. Hundreds of them were sacrificed in the massacres of September 1792, and hundreds were brought to the guillotine in the dreadful years 1793 and 1794. With the fall of Robespierre (July 1794) the executions ceased; but a tone of hostility to the church was still kept up, and accounted an indispensable part of the policy of the revolutionary government. The only class allowed to remain in quiet were the curés, whose humble station and scattered position created no political alarm. It was not till the established sway of Bonaparte (in 1801) that circumstances admitted of cooler calculation, and enabled that artful usurper to seek, in a hierarchy, a prop to his own power, and an engine of opposition to the liberal party—to that party which still hoped to secure to France advantages from the Revolution. With this view, he affected great respect for the Catholic church, passed a Concordat with the Pope, and made a pecuniary provision for a specified number of Sees. His next step was to frame and circulate throughout all France a catechism, calculated to impress the rising generation with a profound veneration for a sovereign, who had been "anointed by the Pope, and received his mission from the Almighty." The power of Bonaparte received in this manner a most substantial support, and would have taken deep root with the lower orders, had he not counteracted it by his subsequent quarrel with the Pope, which assumed an angry aspect in 1809, and became more and more aggravated during the remainder of his reign.

On the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814, the Catholic clergy hailed the change with enthusiasm; but the public, at least the great majority of the middling classes, soon showed a marked distinction between their cause and that of the king. The conduct of Louis, in regard to the clergy, has been marked by moderation and judgment. Religious himself, he has sought to revive similar impressions among his subjects, to enforce the observance of the Lord's day, and to relieve from indigence the deservants, or country curates. But he has placed no clergymen in political situations, nor made any attempt to give the bishops or archbishops seats in the House of Peers. The error of the King, or rather of the Church, consists in not abrogating the superstitious and puerile part of the Romish ceremonial. Processions still take place along the streets, accompanied by the throwing up of incense, the strewing of flowers, and the unmeaning practice of hanging folds of linen for many hundred yards along the front of the houses. Another and more serious injury to productive labour is the observance of saints' days, an observance which, though not enforced by penalties, is enjoined by the precepts of the clergy, and the practice of government.

A Concordat, or compact between the pope and the king, is a transaction of high importance in a Catholic country, where the public are impressed with the belief, that, in all that relates to religion, reference ought to be had to the court of Rome, and that their temporal sovereign possesses authority in such affairs only, as far as it is delegated by the Holy Father. The object of a Concordat is to define the respective powers of the Pope and King. In France the aim of the executive government has long been to secure the patronage of the church, and to stipulate that no bulls, briefs, decrees, or other acts of a nature to agitate the public mind, should be promulgated without the royal sanction. Three centuries ago, when the alarm of the Reformation, and some urgent political considerations, made it of importance to the court of Rome to attach to its cause the reigning sovereign of France, there was passed between Leo X. and Francis I. a Concordat, declaring that the power of nominating the archbishops and bishops of France resided in the crown, the sanction of the pope being required only for their inauguration (institution canonique). This compact was considered a kind of charter, or standard document, in the long discussions which afterward ensued about the independence of the Gallican church, until the whole sunk into insignificance before the storm of the Revolution. During the ferment of that convulsion, the Jacobins, and even the Directory, made no proposition for accommodation with the Holy See, and bade, or affected to bid, it defiance. Bonaparte, more politic, concluded a Concordat, which, though it reinstated only 50 of the 130 Sees existing before the Revolution, stamped him, in some measure, a restorer of the church. That he did not afterwards augment their number is to be accounted for solely by a dread of alarming the revolutionists. The Bourbons, on their restoration, appear to have felt all the delicacy of such a measure; and nothing favours the probability of the charge of their intending to restore the lands, the tithes, or temporal influence of the clergy. Negotiations for a Concordat were early begun with the court of Rome, but its conclusion was delayed till 1817, and the interest with which it was received in France can be comprehended only by persons resident among a people still agitated by political division, and dreading the influence of the clergy, as an engine for the revival of all past abuses. From this, and from differences with the court of Rome that are foreign to our subject, the execution of the new Concordat has been very tardy. Of the 42 additional Sees appointed by it, a considerable part are still vacant.

The prelates of the church of France are as follows:

Cardinals, at present five in number, with an annual income of nearly L.1300 Sterling, 18 Archbishops, average income about 800 74 Bishops, do about 600

The next in rank are the vicars-general, to the number of more than 100; and the chanoines or canons, who also exceed 100; after which come the curés or established curates, in number nearly 3000, and divided into three classes (first, second, and third), with incomes of only L. 40, L. 50, or L. 60, but with certain emoluments, from surplus fees, which vary according to the population of their respective districts. Lastly come the deservants or acting curates, of whom there is one in almost every country commune or parish in the kingdom, amounting, in all, to above 23,000, but with incomes of only between L. 20 and L. 30 a year; a pittance equal to about L. 40 in England, but still too small to provide for even the limited wants of a state of celibacy. There are also a number of succursales, or chapels, appended to large parishes; but of these a considerable number (at present about 2000) are vacant from want of funds, bad repairs of the building, and other causes. These various appointments are all paid out of the public treasury. The expence of the Catholic church to the nation is (Budget 1819) L. 1,100,000 Sterling a year, but as there are other heads of disbursement, particularly salaries to Protestant ministers, the total ecclesiastical charge is about L.1,300,000.

The nomination of all clergymen, whether Catholic or Protestant, is vested in the crown. As to political feeling, the Catholic clergy are, almost without exception, hostile to the interests produced by the Revolution, and attached to the Bourbons.

Female convents have, all along, existed in France, Convents with the exception of a few years of the worst part of the Revolution, when their inmates were obliged to forsake their establishment, and to seek an abode with their relations. Monasteries are, with very few exceptions, abolished, and no idea is entertained of re-establishing the abbeys, priories, and other endowed establishments; the Bourbons and the court of Rome having repeatedly pledged themselves not to disturb the revolutionary purchasers of the church-lands, and to appropriate to ecclesiastical purposes only that proportion of these lands that remains unsold.

What, it may be asked, have been the effects of the Revolution on the state of religion in France? It has subverted the power of the church, and, what is much more serious, the belief of Christianity in the minds of the young and the middle-aged of the male part of the population; but, with the elders of that sex, and with almost all females, the Catholic creed preserves undiminished sway,—a sway that extends much farther than can readily be conceived by Protestants. The extent of this influence is owing to various causes; in part to commendable conduct in the clergy, who, in general, act the part of careful pastors, and attentive visitors in sickness or distress; but, in part also, to that blind credulity with which the tenets of the church are received both by the hearers and their spiritual guides, whose education has, by no means, kept pace with the general progress of knowledge; for it does not embrace the philosophical course of the universities of France, but is conducted in separate seminaries, and on a much more confined plan.

The Protestants in France amount to above 2,000,000, and are most numerous in the south, particularly at Nimes and its vicinity. They are almost all adherents of the Revolution, and a political change, such as that which twice took place in 1815, could not be accomplished in a divided community without a contest; but the alarm then so loudly raised in England in their behalf was founded on exaggeration. The Bourbon government receive with attention the applications of the Protestants, whether for increase of pastors or repair of churches. On the whole, the Protestants of France form an industrious and valuable portion of the population, but they are animated by a strong esprit de secte, by a feeling approaching to animosity towards the Catholics, and, till of late, by a considerable distrust of the reinstated government.

Before the Revolution the poor in France, as in Italy and other Catholic countries, were supported chiefly by the abbeys, priories, or other benefited establishments. On the absorption of these sources of income by the revolutionary government, a provision for the poor became a subject of legislative inquiry, and, after long investigation, it was decidedly determined to avoid a poor-rate on the English plan, but to provide for the aged and helpless an annual fund to the proposed amount of L.2,000,000 Sterling. Several years elapsed before this was acted on, and the fund eventually provided consisted of a revival of part of the old octrois, or dues levied on wine, cyder, spirits, and other articles of consumption, on their entrance into towns—a tax from which the Revolution had lately relieved the public, and which was now disguised under the specious name of octroi de bienfaisance. These dues, however, were soon extended and applied to the general expenditure of the government, after retaining a portion which at present constitutes the only regular fund for the poor. Farther sums are collected by subscription in the depth of winter, or on the occurrence of extraordinary distress. From the public treasury, likewise, there are made occasional issues, in a season of hardship, on the application of the mayors or local magistrates. There are at Paris a number of hospitals, of which by far the largest is the Hotel Dieu. In the provincial cities there are, in general, two hospitals for the poor, one for the sick, the other for the aged. Of other charitable institutions, the principal are the Sociétés de charité maternelle, or associations on a large scale, at Paris and some of the chief towns, for the aid of indigent women in childbirth. Mendicity is not restricted in France, and prevails in many places to a reprehensible degree.

IX. ESTABLISHMENTS FOR THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE.

Education, before the Revolution, was conducted in schools, colleges, and other establishments of old date, at the head of which stood the University of Paris. The provincial universities, twenty-two in number, were of far inferior note, a few only, such as Montpelier, Dijon, Strasburg, Caen, possessing a reputation above mediocrity. Boarding-schools (pensionnats) were established in the towns, but in much smaller number than in England, female education being managed chiefly in convents. There existed throughout France a number of foundations attached to monasteries, schools, and universities, for the purpose of education, the collective income of which was said to amount to L.1,000,000 Sterling. These funds were involved at the Revolution in the same vortex as those of the church, but with a pledge on the part of government, to take on itself to provide for the national education on an improved footing. This object, interesting under any circumstances, and at that time doubly so, from the necessity of attaching the rising generation to the new doctrines, was delayed, amidst the confusion of public affairs, until 1796, when there was passed an act, which, along with many other provisions, directed that schools of two kinds, primary and central, should be established throughout the country. But new troubles retarded the execution of this plan, particularly in regard to the primary or elementary schools. Hence the very defective education of the youth of the lower orders in the interval that elapsed between withdrawing the gratuitous aid of monasteries, and establishing schools on the new plan. Next came the reign of Bonaparte, who, considering education merely as an engine for consolidating his power, placed, by a special act, all the seminaries of the empire under the control of le Grand Maître et Conseil de l'Université de Paris, who delegated this important charge to a board called Commission d'Instruction Publique. This board is maintained by the Bourbons, and it is remarkable that the opposition in the French Parliament acquiesces in the principle of placing the superintendence of education in Government,—a principle as contrary to their tenets as to the established usage in England; but admitted by them from a dread that education, if uncontrolled, would fall into the hands of Education. the clergy, and the rising generation be trained in the prejudices of their forefathers.

Universities. Though the name of University has been of late years exchanged by the French for the more unassuming title of Academy, we prefer using it, as their Academies are in fact similar to our universities. Their number (26) is nearly equal to that of the Cours Royales (see in the sequel the section on Law), and the towns where they are situated are, with very few exceptions, the same, viz.

<table> <tr> <th>Aix</th> <th>Dijon</th> <th>Orleans</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Amiens</td> <td>Douay</td> <td>Paris</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Angus</td> <td>Grenoble</td> <td>Pau</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Besançon</td> <td>Limoges</td> <td>Poitiers</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Bordeaux</td> <td>Lyons</td> <td>Rennes</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Bourges</td> <td>Metz</td> <td>Rouen</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Caen</td> <td>Montpellier</td> <td>Strasburg</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Cahors</td> <td>Nancy</td> <td>Toulouse.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Clermont</td> <td>Nismes</td> <td></td> </tr> </table>

The University of Paris is on a large scale, and comprises a greater variety of classes than any other seminary in Europe, whether we look to medicine, law, science, belles lettres, or theology. Of the provincial universities, some are on a more extensive plan than others, and appropriated, by preference, to the study of particular professions; but, on the whole, they approach nearer to the comprehensive aim of the Scotch, than to the simplicity and uniformity of the English colleges.

Facultés de Droit (classes for a course of law) are held in the following:

<table> <tr> <th>Aix</th> <th>Grenoble</th> <th>Rennes</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Caen</td> <td>Paris</td> <td>Strasburg</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Dijon</td> <td>Poitiers</td> <td>Toulouse.</td> </tr> </table>

The Facultés de Medicine are confined to Paris, Montpelier, and Strasburg; and every medical man who aims at a thorough knowledge of his profession repairs to the capital, for the sake, not only of the classes, but of the hospitals, which are there on a very large scale. Classes of Sciences et Lettres are held in the following universities:

<table> <tr> <th>Besançon</th> <th>Grenoble</th> <th>Strasbourg</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Caen</td> <td>Montpellier</td> <td>Toulouse.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Dijon</td> <td>Paris</td> <td></td> </tr> </table>

Of Theology there are facultés at the following places:

<table> <tr> <th>Aix</th> <th>Lyons</th> <th>Rouen</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Bordeaux</td> <td>Paris</td> <td>Toulouse.</td> </tr> </table>

The Protestants have theological seminaries at two towns remote from each other, Montauban and Strasburg, and students who have gone through their course at Geneva and Lausanne are eligible to clerical charges in France.

While the establishment of elementary schools went on tardily, the case was very different in regard to the Lycées, or great schools frequented by the sons of the middle and upper classes.—These were the objects of Bonaparte's care, both as a nursery for officers, and as a means of interesting the parents in his government. With that view he provided them with a number of bourses or scholarships, and put the discipline of the whole under the direction of the Commission d'Instruction Publique, at Paris. A Lycée consists, in general, of a spacious range of stone buildings, like one of the Colleges in an English University, with courts and play grounds, the whole inclosed with walls. The pupils, at least those who board in the establishment, are under considerable restraint, and go out only with the leave of the proviseur or superintendent. Of the objects of education, the principal are Latin and mathematics; the former occupying four or five years, the latter generally two. Along with these are taught writing and drawing; also geography and history; to which, in the time of Bonaparte, was added the military exercise. The whole course occupies six, seven, or eight years, according to the aptitude of the pupil. The teachers, or professors, as the French complaisantly style them, are, in general, men of education, but seldom animated with that spirit of activity and vigilance which would be formed in an establishment exclusively their own, independent for its increase on their personal exertion. As to expense, the board and education of a boy, at a Lycée, costs from L.15 to L.30 in provincial towns, and L.36 at Paris. On these payments is levied a tax of 5 per cent., called taxe universitaire. A similar impost exists on private schools, with the exception of those for mere reading and writing; and the money thus collected is remitted to the Central Board at Paris. To this fund is added, by the Chambers, an annual vote of from L.60,000 to L.80,000, and the whole is appropriated to purposes connected with public education; in particular to the salaries of the teachers of the less frequented Lycées. Public examinations are held at these establishments, and prizes distributed periodically—the whole on a plan calculated to excite emulation; but no consideration can justify the monopoly of teaching granted to Lycées by Bonaparte, and not yet withdrawn by the Bourbons—a monopoly which empowers the inspector of a Lycée to prevent Latin being taught at private schools. This and other abuses it has been repeatedly proposed to correct, by a definitive law on public education; but that measure, from the urgency of other business, has been postponed from year to year.

Of the lower orders in France, whether in town or country, it is computed that not more than the half are taught to read, in consequence, chiefly, of the want of schools in thinly-peopled districts. The legislature has, at different times, particularly in February 1816, acknowledged this want, and authorized rectors of universities to grant certificates of capacity as teachers to all persons who should be found duly qualified; but no salary is provided, and the aid given by the magistrates of a commune is, in general, limited to a school-room or dwelling for a teacher. In this state of education, schools on the plan of Bell and Lancaster could hardly fail to be the plan of favourably received in France. They bear the name of Ecoles d'enseignement mutuel; and are at present (1820) in number nearly 800; the scholars amount to $0,000. These schools are scattered throughout the kingdom, having been adopted or declined according as the inhabitants or magistrates of a provincial town were disposed in favour of them, or of the rival Catholic establishments, managed by the Frères de la doctrine Chrétienne; a body of teachers supported by the Catholic clergy, while the schools of enseignement mutuel are patronized by the libéraux, or moderate revolutionists. Government has taken no decided part, but has given its sanction to either, as desired by the inhabitants of particular districts. The new plan is, however, acquiring a decided preponderance, the schools of the Frères de la doctrine not exceeding 150 in number.*

The Ecole Normale is a seminary at Paris for training teachers, who are, in general, young men of talent, and receive appointments as masters of schools of the second class, or as assistant teachers at the Lycées. The course lasts generally three years, and the number of students, formerly 70 or 80, is now only between 30 and 60. The education of girls in France takes place partly at boarding-schools, partly at convents. Of the total number of pupils at the seminaries of France, great and small, the latest return was, in 1815, as follows:

<table> <tr> <th>Universities</th> <th>Seminaries.</th> <th>Pupils</th> </tr> <tr> <td>(Of this number two-thirds study law and medicine.)</td> <td>26</td> <td>6,329</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Lycées, now called Colleges Royaux,</th> <td>36</td> <td>9,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Schools of the second class held in towns,</th> <td>368</td> <td>28,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Divinity schools, exclusive of the Facultés de Théologie,</th> <td>41</td> <td>5,233</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Boarding-schools,</th> <td>1,255</td> <td>39,623</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Schools of the first class (écoles primaires), answering nearly to our parish schools,</th> <td>22,300</td> <td>737,379</td> </tr> </table>

The Institute, established during the Revolution, and treated all along with distinction by Bonaparte, has been maintained by the Bourbons without any material change, except its division in 1816 into four academies. Each academy has the separate management of its affairs, but the library, the secretarial department and the collections remain common to all. The Académie Française, composed of forty members, is charged with the department of the French language; that of the Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, with antiquities, monuments, history, and the moral and political sciences connected with history. The Academy of Sciences is divided into a number of sections, partly for Mathematics, partly for Natural History. That of the Beaux Arts is also divided into sections, viz. for painting, sculpture, architecture, engraving, and music. A fund is allotted annually by government to pay the salaries of the members of the Institute, the secretaries, and other persons employed; also for scientific experiments, prizes, &c. The prizes annually distributed by the Académie Française and of Inscriptions are of the value of L. 60; and of twice that value from the Academy of Sciences. The Académie des Beaux Arts gives annual prizes in painting, sculpture, architecture, and music, one for each, and the candidates who gain them are sent to Rome to study at the expense of government. The number of Académiciens is about 200, exclusive of honorary members (Académiciens libres), who are generally public characters of eminence. In electing new members, the usage is for the Academy to nominate and present their choice for confirmation to the King. Each of the academies has its correspondents in foreign parts.

* Rapport par M. Jomard sur le progrès de l'enseignement mutuel. † Jomini, Traité des grandes operations militaires.

X. ESTABLISHMENTS FOR THE PURPOSES OF WAR.

The French army first assumed a regular form under Henry IV.; but its peace establishment, including both horse and foot, did not then exceed 10,000 men, while the whole charge for the war department, including ordnance and half pay, was L. 500,000. In 1610 Henry carried his army to a war establishment of 40,000 men. In 1640, under the able administration of Richelieu, France took an active part in the war of Germany, carrying her force at one time to 100,000 men, and her expenditure to the then unexampled sum of L. 4,000,000 Sterling in one year. In 1659, Louis XIV., already full of ambitious projects, kept up a peace establishment of 70,000 men; and the war of 1672, having brought Germany, Holland, and Spain, into the field against France, the force of the latter was carried to the number of 160,000 men. From 1679 to 1688 there was peace, but Louis passed the interval in preparing for war, and the introduction of the funding system now enabled France, England, and Holland, to surpass all their former exertions. The contest begun in 1688 required on the part of France a force of between 200,000 and 300,000 men. The peace of Utrecht gave a long repose to exhausted France, and the war of 1741 did not, until conducted in its advanced stage by Marshal Saxe, call forth a military force equal to that of Louis XIV. In the war of 1756, the French army was less numerous, and far less ably commanded. During the continental peace of thirty years (from 1762 to 1792) its establishment was kept, with little fluctuation, at 100,000 men.

The war of the Revolution began with a force on the part of France† of only 140,000 men; but this was speedily augmented by the compulsory levies of February 1793, and by the still more comprehensive operation of the requisition in September. The republican spirit was now at its height, and the unlimited issue of assignats led to the maintenance of a force, hitherto unexampled in the annals of any country, ancient or modern. In 1794, the French- men in actual service in the Netherlands, on the Rhine, in Piedmont, the Pyrenees, and the Vendée, appear to have amounted to between 500,000 and 600,000, a force, which, though imperfectly disciplined and officered, baffled the greatest confederacy that had at that time been formed in Europe. In 1795 the assignats lost their power, and France was obliged to reduce her army by a third, but its discipline was now greatly improved. During the campaigns of 1795, 1796, and 1797, as well as in those of 1799 and 1800, the force maintained by France and Holland was between 300,000 and 400,000. At the peace of Amiens, Bonaparte kept up a peace establishment of 300,000 men, and after the renewal of war it was raised * to 400,000, a force with which he triumphed in 1805 over the united arms of Austria and Russia. His annual levy of French conscripts, though apparently only 80,000, amounted (Declaration of the Minister at War, 18th September 1809) to 100,000; a supply which, joined to the recruits of his allies in Germany and Italy, kept up his numbers, and even increased them, notwithstanding the wasteful campaigns of 1806 and 1807 in Poland, followed by the no less wasteful campaigns of Spain. In 1812 the force of France and her allies reached their maximum, Bonaparte having led against the Russian Empire a mass of 360,000 men, while there remained in Spain, Germany, and France, a number which carried the aggregate to between 500,000 and 600,000. Need we then wonder, that, even after the almost total loss of his troops in Russia, there remained a force competent, with the aid of fresh levies, to withstand the efforts of the allies during two campaigns?

In 1815, Bonaparte, in returning from Elba, found under arms in France about 120,000 men, all of whom, with the exception of a few thousands, rejoined his standard. But so sick were the French of war, that the greatest efforts, during the next three months, added only 60,000 to this number, and the loss of one battle exposed all the hopelessness of resistance to the allies.

On the second restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, the army had fallen into a very disorganized state, the disciplined soldiers being dispersed, and the ranks slowly filled by new levies. In the end of 1817, the public saw, with surprise, the Bourbon government propose a recurrence to the conscription as the only effectual method of filling the ranks with men of steady habits; for the army in France, never a receptacle for the refuse of the populace, has, in general, been composed of young peasantry and labourers of good character. Such was its constitution in the war of the Revolution, and its discipline was exemplary, until Bonaparte adopted the unfeeling practice of making war without magazines, and obliged the soldiers to live at free quarters on the inhabitants. The new conscription is indeed greatly modified, the numbers annually required being limited to 40,000, and the term of service to six years; still the measure is compulsory, and falls heavy on the middle and lower classes; the alternative for a youth, when drawn, being either to give up his intended profession or to pay L. 40 or L. 50 for a substitute. In 1819, the French army amounted to 100,000 men; it was soon after considerably increased, and will ere long be carried to 150,000, a number likely to form the permanent peace establishment. This force is composed of

The guards, a numerous corps, consisting of sixteen regiments; viz. eight of infantry, eight of cavalry; each of the former of three battalions; each of the latter of six squadrons.

The cavalry of the line comprises, under the various denominations of chasseurs, dragons, cuirassiers, and hussars, in all forty-eight regiments, but in peace they are on a reduced scale.

The infantry of the line, classed during the Revolution by brigades, and under Bonaparte by regiments, is now (since February 1819) classed by legions, of which there is one for each department, making in all eighty-six, each generally of three battalions: the total number of battalions is two hundred and fifty-eight.

The artillery is composed of eight regiments Artillery and serving on foot, and of eight regiments of horse-artillery. The engineers are a numerous and well educated body of officers; the corps of Ingénieurs Géographes comprises five colonels.

The Swiss troops in the French service amount The Swis. to 10,000, of whom above 4000 are in the guards.

The Maison du Roi, or body guards, are a select corps of young men of family, who go through this service as an introduction to the military life.

The gradations of rank in French service are, sous-lieutenant, lieutenant, capitaine, chef d'escadron, colonel, maréchal-de-camp, lieutenant-général, maréchal de France. The number of the marshals of France will henceforth be limited to twelve; the number of the other ranks, even that of lieutenant-général, is very large, for the etat major, or staff of the army, after a reduction in 1818, consists of 150 lieutenants-généraux, and 260 maréchaux de camp. There are on full pay twice as many officers as are necessary for the duty, but the number of half-pay officers exceeds all proportion; for this part of Bonaparte's vast machine has remained, while most of the private soldiers have sunk tranquilly into the occupations of the lower classes.

Promotion in the French army never takes place by purchase, and not often by special order; seniority at present determines more than half the appointments, a course which, while it renders promotion extremely slow, will eventually give employment to almost all the half-pay officers. Of the soldiers in service, there is still a part of the army of Bonaparte, but the majority are recent levies.

Of the military seminaries of France, the one of Ecole Polytechnique, highest repute is the Ecole Polytechnique,—a school technique for the instruction of young men in mathematics, and drawing for the engineer and artillery corps; none but candidates of talent are admitted, and it is

* Tableau Historique des Guerres de la Revolution. well entitled to the name of a nursery (pépinière) of intelligent officers.

The charge to government of a foot soldier in France does not, in time of peace, exceed L.20 a year; that of the cavalry soldier is nearly double. The pay for either officer or soldier is little more than half the rate in England, and its inadequacy is much complained of. The whole charge of the war department under Bonaparte was about L.20,000,000 Sterling; at present it is about L.6,000,000.

The gendarmerie are not a part of the regular army, but a corps charged with the police duty, and scattered in small divisions throughout all France; their total number, including officers, is 18,000. The gardes nationales correspond to our yeomanry and volunteers; every town of consequence has a corps of this description.

The chief fortifications of France, on the side of Flanders, are the well-known towns of Lille, Valenciennes, Condé, Douay; on the side of the Alps, Embrun, Grenoble, Antibes; on the side of the Pyrenees, Perpignan, Bellegarde, Mont-Louis, Bayonne. The fortified seaports are Brest, Toulon, Cherbourg, Rochefort, Boulogne. France is, without question, the first military power on the Continent, being nearly equal to Russia in population, and greatly superior in pecuniary resources, as well as in the intelligence of the individuals that compose her army.

The superiority of the English navy over the French existed in ages when our pecuniary means were far inferior; and though, during the middle of the reign of Louis XIV. the French, by financial sacrifices, obtained a numerical superiority, one great battle, that of La Hogue in 1692, was sufficient to restore our ascendancy. The war of 1741, however successful on the part of France by land, was, particularly towards its close, unfortunate to her at sea. In the succeeding interval of peace, great efforts were made to reinstate the French navy, but the war of 1756 proved doubly disastrous, and at last swept it almost entirely from the ocean. A very different scene opened in the war of 1778, when France, unembarrassed by a continental struggle, was enabled to direct all her disposable resources to her marine. She was then enabled to keep in an effective state about seventy sail of the line, the crews of which, added to those of the frigates and corvettes, formed a total of 60,000 seamen. The blows given to this force by our navy, towards the end of the war, were repaired with great diligence in the peace; and to prepare young officers for the sea in preference to the land service, became a favourite object in several of the government schools. In 1791, an official report stated the effective French navy at seventy-four sail of the line, sixty-two frigates, and twenty-nine corvettes; a state of preparation which accounts for the resistance made to our navy by the Revolutionary government under all the disadvantages of an unparalleled continental struggle. This proud force, however, disappeared progressively at the capture of Toulon, the victory of 1st June 1794, and still more in the victory of Aboukir, so that Bonaparte, on his accession to power, found the French marine in a very reduced state. He laboured, however, to reinstate it; the years of continental peace, 1801, 1802, 1803, 1804, were favourable to his efforts, and, in 1805, he boasted of having in equipment sixty sail of the line, a force destined to an early diminution at Trafalgar and St Domingo. The Bourbons, on recovering their crown, found little more than half the force that existed previous to the Revolution. It has since received a small augmentation, and amounts at present (1820) to forty-eight sail of the line and twenty-nine frigates, with eleven of the former and four of the latter on the stocks; but there are in active service only five frigates, three corvettes, and from eighteen to twenty schooners and cutters. The annual vote for the navy is only L.1,800,000, not one-third of the same head of charge in England.*

XI. REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE.

Though England is at present so much more heavily taxed than France, the case, in former ages, was very different. The want of a representative body in that country led to the pernicious practice of farming the taxes, and of permitting the contractors (traitans) to make many undue extortions from the people. Sully first endeavoured to moderate these exactions. After him the most assiduous financier was Colbert, who carried, in 1682, the revenue of France to L.5,000,000 Sterling, at a time when the English revenue did not exceed a third of that sum. The long and expensive wars of Louis XIV. produced a great accumulation of debt (nearly L.100,000,000 Sterling), which, after his death, was lessened by an appeal to a singular privilege, of which advantage has often been taken in France, viz. that a new sovereign is not bound to pay the debts of his predecessor in full. During the eighteenth century the revenue of France increased progressively, but more slowly than that of England; the vicious system of farming the taxes still continued. Necker, appointed to office in 1776, sought to teach the French court the value of publicity in financial statements, and gave the rare example of a war conducted for several years without new taxes; the supplies being found by loans, the interest of which was provided for by successive retrenchments in the public expenditure. His successor, M. de Calonne, pursued a very different course, and was found altogether incapable of the measures necessary to remedy an annual deficiency of L.2,000,000 which now took

* The convicts sent to the galleys in France work under the direction of the Admiralty, and as that punishment holds in France the place of transportation, the number thus employed amounts to between 10,000 and 12,000. place. The revenue of France was then about L.22,000,000 Sterling The sum required* for payment of the interest of the public debt was nearly L.10,000,000, leaving only L.12,000,000 for the army, navy, civil-list, and other public expences.

Such was the state of the French finances at a date soon followed by invasion on the frontier, and, in the interior, by all the confusion of the reign of terror. In the era of confiscation and judicial murder, the national debt could hardly be respected. It was not, however, openly cancelled, but the interest was issued in assignats of no value except for purchases of national property. At last, in 1798, on an approximation to regularity in the management of public business, there was passed a law, declaring that one-third of the old national debt should be sacred, and the interest on it payable in bons, or paper receivable in discharge of taxes. This third was called _La tiers provisoire_, but its price in the market continued very low until Bonaparte succeeded to power, and placed Gaudin, afterwards Duke of Gaeta, at the head of the treasury, when means were found to redeem the stocks from their depression, and to resume the payment of the dividends in cash. Could Bonaparte have obtained large sums on loan, his career of aggression and conquest would have been still more rapid; but, on the restoration of the Bourbons, in 1814, the public debt, funded and unfunded, did not exceed † L.123,000,000; its interest L.7,000,000. France had thus a fair prospect of financial prosperity, when the return of Bonaparte, and a second invasion by the allied troops, overthrew public credit, and produced a national loss, which, if to the very heavy contribution we add the general derangement of trade, greatly exceeded L.100,000,000 Sterling. Hence a long list of financial embarrassments; an oppressive addition to the taxes; delay of payment to the public creditor, and loans made at an interest of 8 and even 9 per cent.

Before the Revolution nearly half the revenue of France was raised, as in England, by taxes on consumption, viz. on salt, wine, brandy, tobacco, stamps, leather, and foreign goods, imported. All these were abrogated, in 1791, by the National Assembly, and replaced, by a property-tax (_fonceier_), partly by the ruinous expedient of issuing assignats. This was done to establish the Revolution in the hearts of the people, who continued exempt from their old burdens above ten years, and so necessary was it to observe caution in recurring to these imposts, that it was not till 1803 and 1804, when the power of Bonaparte was fully consolidated, that taxes on consumption were renewed. The amount of the revenue was greatly impaired by this long exemption, and by the general confusion of the Revolution. In 1799, the expenditure‡ exceeded the receipt by L.8,000,000 Sterling. The continental peace, a partial reduction of expenditure and improvements in the collection of the taxes, brought, in 1803, the receipts to L.19,500,000, while the expenditure was L.20,000,000. In subsequent years, both received a progressive augmentation, and, in 1813, the revenue derived from France, exclusive of conquered territory, was about L.27,000,000. Such also was its amount on the occurrence of the disasters of 1815, when the sums raised by public loan proving insufficient, it became indispensable to impose additional taxes. These carried the revenue, in 1818, to nearly L.35,000,000, but as they are already (1820) relinquished in part, and a promise given by government to relinquish more, we proceed to state the revenue of France in that form, which, after the expected modification, is likely to be permanent.

_Fonceier_, or tax on real property, viz. the lands and houses of the kingdom at large. This tax, at the present very high assessment, yields L.10,000,000, but is likely to be progressively reduced to L.8,000,000

_Moblier_, or tax on houses, with reference to the furniture and other effects of the tenant, 1,300,000 _Window-tax_, ............................................. 600,000

_Patentes_, or tax payable by persons exercising trades and professions, 600,000 The above form the _direct taxes_.

_Enregistrement, domaine et timbre_. 6,000,000 These comprise the stamp-duties, and a very heavy tax on sales, legacies, &c. amounting, in the whole, to ............................................ 6,000,000 Sale of wood from the forests belonging to Government, average 800,000 _Customs, ............................................... 2,000,000 _Salt tax_,................................................ 1,600,000 _Droits réunis_, or indirect taxes, being an extensive combination of the exercise duties on wine, spirits, beer, &c. .................................................. 5,000,000 Tobacco and snuff (monopoly of the manufacture). 1,500,000 _Lottery, ............................................... 300,000 Post Office, ............................................. 600,000 _Newspapers, stamps, licences for theatres, &c. gaming-houses, .. 220,000 All other receipts and contingencies, ................... 1,480,000

Total, .................................................. L.30,000,000

The octrois and other charges borne by towns and country districts, without appearing in the budget, amount to L.1,500,000; and if to these be added the charge of collecting, the aggregate of

* Report of Camus to the National Assembly, in September 1790. † Bignon, Exposé comparatif de la France. ‡ Gaudin, Notice historique des Finances de la France. taxation in France will be found to be L.35,000,000, equal, after allowing for the difference of money, to nearly L.47,000,000 in England. Though this is greatly below the amount (see article ENGLAND, p. 149) levied in Britain and Ireland, the taxation of France is, in some respects, more injurious to productive labour. The droit de patente is a direct charge on industry, while luxuries, such as carriages, horses, men-servants, are exempt from imposts of any kind. In the assessment of the great tax, the foncier, there exists a surprising number of over-ratings on the one hand and omissions on the other, which are receiving a tardy remedy by the progress of the Cadastre. Finally, the enregistrement exceeds in pressure all our stamp taxes; being a duty on sales to the extent of five per cent. on the principal, a charge which, in very many cases, delays and even prevents the transfer of property.

The expence of collecting taxes in France is (Speech of M. Ganilh in 1818) fully 9 per cent. on the principal, or 3 per cent. higher than in England; but a more remarkable discrepancy, in the eye of the political economist, is, that while with us two-thirds of the amount are imposed on consumption, in France two-thirds are raised from production. M. Ganilh proposed, in 1814, to approximate to the English plan, by lessening the foncier, and other direct taxes, and by increasing the droits réunis, or Excise duties; but to innovate in taxation is a matter of great difficulty in France.

The subjoined table contains the expenditure of France, after the discharge (in 1820) of all her engagements to the allied powers, and after funding her floating debt.

<table> <tr> <th>Interest of the national debt</th> <td>L. 8,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Life annuities</th> <td>500,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Interest of deposits made by public functionaries on entering on their places</th> <td>360,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Annual appropriation to the sinking fund</th> <td>1,600,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Pensions and half-pay allowances, civil and military</th> <td>2,700,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Clergy—stipends, pensions, and all allowances</th> <td>1,300,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Civil list and princes of the blood</th> <td>1,300,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>House of Peers, chiefly in pensions for life</th> <td>80,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>House of Commons, for printing and other expenses (no pensions)</th> <td>27,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>The annual votes to the different ministers are nearly as follows:</th> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <th>Administration of justice throughout the kingdom</th> <td>700,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Department of foreign affairs for office, charges, ambassadors, consuls, &c.</th> <td>360,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Carry over</th> <td>L. 16,227,000</td> </tr> </table>

Brought forward, L. 16,227,000 Treasury-office charges and abatements of taxes, - - 850,000 Police, † - - 100,000 Army estimates, - - 6,000,000 Navy estimates, - - 1,800,000 Home department, comprising public works, and a variety of local expences, the funds for which, though raised on the spot, are held at the disposal of the minister of the home department, and re-issued on an application to him from the prefects or mayors, 2,500,000 Discount to collectors and others, 600,000 Add a computed amount for all extra or contingent charges, such as relief to the poor under a bad harvest, defalcation of particular taxes, &c. - 1,223,000

Total, L. 30,000,000

The French compute their public debt not by the Public Debt principal, but by the interest payable—a preferable plan to ours, perhaps, since no government entertains a serious intention of paying off the principal; and to negotiate a loan is merely to make a sale of annuities, either for a term, or for perpetuity. Of the ten millions, payable annually to the public creditors before the Revolution, the half was in life annuities, the aggregate of stock, or borrowed capital, not amounting to 100 millions sterling. At present the case is different, the life annuities bearing, as in England, a small proportion to the rest of the debt. On the whole, the interest of the French debt is little more than a fourth of ours. Though their stocks yield an interest of 5 per cent., paid, like ours, half yearly, their price has been low ever since 1813; L. 100 stock having been always purchasable for less than L. 80 in money, and frequently for L. 72, L. 70, L. 68, affording the buyer a return of 7 per cent. on his investment. The very minute subdivision of landed property in France is a great obstacle to the increase of capital. Still, the probabilities seem strongly in favour of a rise of French stock, by a progressive transfer of capital from countries, like England and Holland, where it yields only 4 or 5 per cent. Moreover, the sinking fund of France is now in an efficient state, receiving from the treasury an annual allowance of L. 1,600,000 Its farther supplies arise from the interest of the redeemed stock, sale of wood from the public forests &c. - 500,000 Carrying its total income to L. 2,100,000

In regard to the annual budgets under Bonaparte, it is remarkable, that, while the Exposés, or general declarations, were replete with exaggeration and

* The part that is properly pensions, whether civil or military, cannot, since an act of 1817, exceed L. 920,000. They are, in general, very small, the whole L. 2,700,000 having been shared, in the year 1818, among 196,000 individuals, an average of less than L. 14 a-head. † The expence of the police department was kept secret till 1810, when it was explained, and found, like other mysteries, to have been overrated. falsehood, the arithmetical statements appended to them were fair and accurate—doubtless, on the calculation that the Exposé alone would engage the attention of the French public.

XII. NATIONAL INCOME AND CAPITAL; POPULATION.

Of the official surveys of the French territory, by far the most minute and accurate is the Cadastre, a survey which became indispensable, from the time it was determined to exchange the taxes on consumption for taxes on produce. A return of the rent of land, such as was made under the property-tax act in England, would not have answered, or indeed have been practicable in France, where so many thousand petty lots are cultivated by their proprietors. At first the Cadastre proceeded on the plan of an estimate par masses de culture, or continuous valuation of extensive tracts; but this proving unsatisfactory, it has been conducted, since 1807, on a plan of such minute detail, as to give the value of every separate parcelle, or patch of land. At present (1820) it is completed throughout one-third only of each department; and the inferences drawn from it, in regard to the kingdom at large, are as yet founded on the assumption, that the remainder is similar to the portion already surveyed. The annual expense of the survey is L. 120,000.

It is common to dwell on the advantages of France as situated in the centre of civilized nations, as raising within herself a great variety of products, and as capable of conducting her manufactures with comparatively few imports. Those, however, who have studied the subject thoroughly, will pronounce her real advantages to consist in a temperate climate, in a territory on the whole fertile, in a considerable extent of sea coast, and the possession of a military strength sufficient to protect her from aggression. As yet neither the capital or labour of the French have been judiciously directed; but the disposition to industry exists, and stands in need only of a judicious impulse.

The taxation of France, computed by the individual, hardly exceeds L. 1, 11s. (English value) per head, while that of Britain and Ireland is not less than L. 3, 10s. per head. This, however, is a very inconclusive comparison, the question being not the relative number of the inhabitants, but the result of their productive industry. M. Chaptal computes (Vol. I. p. 225) the value of the land and farming capital of France at fifteen hundred millions Sterling, to which, making an addition for the difference of money, and a farther addition for the capital employed in manufacture and commerce, we arrive at an amount, not unlike the very large sum which Mr Colquhoun gives (see article ENGLAND, p. 140) for the collective capital of Britain and Ireland. But we fix, by preference, the attention of our readers on the annual produce.

<table> <tr> <th></th> <th>Britain and Ireland.</th> <th>France, after making an addition for the Difference of Money.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Gross produce of agriculture (see the preceding section on Agriculture),</td> <td>L. 187,000,000</td> <td>L. 270,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Manufactures, including mines and minerals,</td> <td>100,000,000</td> <td>76,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Commerce, inland and foreign,</td> <td>70,000,000</td> <td>40,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td>L. 357,000,000</td> <td>L. 386,000,000</td> </tr> </table>

But the conclusive return, that which leads to a correct calculation of political strength, is the nett produce of the year.

<table> <tr> <th></th> <th>Britain and Ireland.</th> <th>France, after making an addition for the Difference of Money.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Rent of land and farmer's profit,</td> <td>L.60,000,000</td> <td>L.75,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Rent of houses,</td> <td>16,000,000</td> <td>18,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Taxable incomes, arising from commerce, manufactures, and professions, i.e. incomes of L.50 and upwards,</td> <td>30,000,000</td> <td>not known, but probably not above 20,000,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td>L.106,000,000</td> <td>L.113,000,000</td> </tr> </table>

The commercial calculation is taken from the property-tax return of 1810, deducting 25 per cent., and making an addition for Ireland. Neither the income from the public funds, nor the wages of labour, are reckoned in either country.

The balance of income is thus less in favour of France than the balance of produce; and if we go a step farther, and ascertain the proportion of income disposable for public purposes, we shall find this the final and conclusive result, in our favour, because the number of persons to be supported out of our national income is far smaller than in France. The productive power of our country and people is, therefore, such as to make us capable of greater political exertions than our ancient rival, or any power in Europe What is it, then, which mars this fair harvest, and casts a cloud over our prospects?—the magnitude of our taxation, and the enhancement of our provisions, consequent on that and on our corn laws. These are the causes of the emigration of annuitants, and others, in the middle ranks, and of the distress of so many of our countrymen of a humbler class, who remain at home. In France, the lower orders have never known much comfort; but, from the moderate price of provisions, they are put above distress, by wages which, to us, appear very low. Those of the country labourer in France (Chaptal, Vol. I. p. 245) are only 1s. or 1s. 1d. a-day; of masons, 1s. 8d. and 1s. 4d.; of mechanics in towns, 1s. 6d., 1s. 8d., 1s. 10d., the whole without victuals, or any additional allowance. The wages of the women are a full third lower.*

The difference in the expence of living between France and our country is about a third; that is, L.100 in France is equivalent to L.130 or L.140 in the southern, and to L.120 or L.130 in the northern part of our island. The difference, as far as regards provisions, is somewhat greater; but it receives a counterpoise in the cheapness of our fuel. The proportion now mentioned will be found applicable to the expence of the middle, as well as of the lower ranks. It will be found equally general in the sense of locality, being applicable to France and Britain at large, provided the parallel be made between towns or districts at a similar distance from either capital, Paris being as expensive compared to the rest of France, as London to the rest of England. Fortunately for us, the French have not paid much attention to the price, either of labour or fuel, in the places, such as Paris and Rouen, where they have established their rival manufactures. Another remarkable circumstance is, that various kinds of work, when performed by the piece, are nearly as dear in France as in England, so unaccustomed are our neighbours to simplify a task by the application of method, or the division of employment.

In the end of the seventeenth century, the territory of France, when equal, or very nearly equal to its present extent, appears, from the report of the intendants or provincial governors, to have contained about 20,000,000 of inhabitants. This number was found, by the census made by order of the National Assembly, to have increased nearly a third in the course of a century; the amount, in 1791, being 26,363,600, a number which, by the latest computation, made in 1817, had farther increased to above 29,000,000. These returns show, on the one hand, the exaggerated estimate commonly formed of the waste attendant on the wars of the Revolution; and, on the other hand, that the ratio of increase in France, though considerable, is (see article ENGLAND, p. 149) a good deal below that of our country. The average population of France is 144 inhabitants to the square mile.

Population of France, distinguished by Provinces and Departments.

<table> <tr> <th>Ancient Provinces.</th> <th>Departments.</th> <th>Population.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Flanders</td> <td>North</td> <td>899,890</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Artois</td> <td>Pas de Calais</td> <td>580,457</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Picardy</td> <td>Somme</td> <td>495,058</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="4">Normandy</td> <td>Lower Seine</td> <td>642,948</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Calvados</td> <td>505,420</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Manche</td> <td>583,429</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Orne</td> <td>425,920</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="6">Isle of France</td> <td>Eure</td> <td>421,581</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Seine(containing Paris)</td> <td>780,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Seine and Oise</td> <td>439,972</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Oise</td> <td>383,500</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Seine and Marne</td> <td>304,068</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Aixne</td> <td>442,089</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="4">Champagne</td> <td>Marne</td> <td>311,037</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ardennes</td> <td>275,792</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Aube</td> <td>238,819</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Upper Marne</td> <td>237,785</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="4">Lorraine</td> <td>Meuse</td> <td>284,703</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Moselle</td> <td>385,949</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Meurthe</td> <td>365,810</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Vosges</td> <td>334,169</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2">Alsace</td> <td>Upper Rhine (reduced by the cessions in 1815 to)</td> <td>318,577</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Lower Rhine (reduced by the cessions in 1815 to)</td> <td>391,642</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="4">Brittany</td> <td>Ille and Villaine</td> <td>508,544</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Côtes du Nord</td> <td>519,620</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Finisterra</td> <td>452,895</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Morbihan</td> <td>403,423</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="4">Maine</td> <td>Lower Loire</td> <td>407,900</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Mayenne</td> <td>332,550</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Sarthe</td> <td>410,380</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Maine and Loire</td> <td>403,864</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2">Touraine</td> <td>Indre and Loire</td> <td>275,292</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Loiret</td> <td>286,153</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2">The Orleannois</td> <td>Eure and Loire</td> <td>265,996</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Loire and Cher</td> <td>212,552</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="3">Berry</td> <td>Indre</td> <td>204,721</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Cher</td> <td>228,158</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Nievre</td> <td>241,520</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2">Nivernois</td> <td>Yonne</td> <td>325,994</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Côte d'Or</td> <td>354,486</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2">Burgundy</td> <td>Saône and Loire</td> <td>471,457</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ain</td> <td>304,668</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2">Franche Comté</td> <td>Upper Saône</td> <td>300,156</td> </tr> </table>

* These returns apply not to Paris, but to provincial towns of ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand inhabitants. The want of canals causes a partial difference in the price of provisions, but in no degree to the extent asserted by those who (Edinburgh Review, No. 64, p. 362) adopt too readily the loose allegations so general in France. The cheapness of land carriage would speedily counteract it. <table> <tr> <th>Ancient Provinces.</th> <th>Departments.</th> <th>Population.</th> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="4">Franch Comté</td> <td>Doubs</td> <td>240,792</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Jura</td> <td>292,882</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Vendée</td> <td>268,686</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="3">Poitou</td> <td>Two Sevres</td> <td>254,105</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Vienne</td> <td>253,048</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Creuse</td> <td>226,224</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2">La Marche</td> <td>Upper Vienne</td> <td>243,195</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Correze</td> <td>254,271</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2">Limousin</td> <td>Allier</td> <td>260,266</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2">Bourbonnois</td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Saintonge and Angoumois</td> <td>Charente</td> <td>326,985</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Aunis and Saintonge</td> <td>Lower Charente</td> <td>293,011</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2">Auvergne</td> <td>Puy de Dome</td> <td>548,834</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Cantal</td> <td>251,436</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2">Lyonnois</td> <td>Rhone</td> <td>347,381</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Loire</td> <td>315,858</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2">Dauphiny</td> <td>Isere</td> <td>471,660</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Upper Alps</td> <td>191,771</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2"></td> <td>Drome</td> <td>253,372</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Dordogne</td> <td>424,113</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2">Guienne</td> <td>Gironde</td> <td>514,562</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Lot and Garonne</td> <td>326,150</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2"></td> <td>Lot</td> <td>268,150</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Tarn and Garonne</td> <td>238,722</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2"></td> <td>Aveyron</td> <td>331,373</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Gers</td> <td>286,493</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2"></td> <td>Landes</td> <td>235,550</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Upper Pyrenees</td> <td>198,763</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Bearn</td> <td>Lower Pyrenees</td> <td>383,502</td> </tr> <tr> <td>County of Foix</td> <td>Arriège</td> <td>222,936</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Roussillon</td> <td>Eastern Pyrenees</td> <td>126,625</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2"></td> <td>Upper Garonne</td> <td>367,550</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Aude</td> <td>240,993</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2"></td> <td>Tarn</td> <td>295,885</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Hérault</td> <td>301,099</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2">Languedoc</td> <td>Gard</td> <td>322,144</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Lozère</td> <td>143,347</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2"></td> <td>Upper Loire</td> <td>268,202</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ardeche</td> <td>290,833</td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2"></td> <td>Lower Alps</td> <td>146,994</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Mouths of the Rhone</td> <td>293,935</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Provence</td> <td>Var</td> <td>283,296</td> </tr> <tr> <td>County of Venaissin</td> <td>Vaucluse</td> <td>205,832</td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td>Corsica</td> <td>174702,</td> </tr> </table>

As the departments of France do not differ much in superficial extent, a cursory inspection of such a list as that in the Encyclopædia discloses at once the different degrees of density in the population of the kingdom, exhibiting very clearly the superiority of Flanders and Normandy over the heaths of Poitou and the mountains of Languedoc. The temporary additions to the population of the French empire, made by the incorporation of conquered territory, amounted, in 1801, to 6,000,000, and, in 1811, the time of their greatest extent, to 14,000,000.

The estimates of population in France, subsequent to 1791, are formed, not like our population returns, on an actual survey, but by adding for the period Population, that has intervened, the births, and deducting the deaths, of both of which an accurate record is kept in the public offices. It is thus difficult to compute the relative number engaged in different occupations; a late publication (by Count de Laborde) contains the following estimate;

<table> <tr> <th></th> <th>Persons.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>In agriculture,</td> <td>17,500,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>In manufacture,</td> <td>6,200,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Indigent,</td> <td>800,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Various employments,</td> <td>4,500,000</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Total,</th> <th>29,000,000</th> </tr> </table>

Large as is this proportion of agriculturists, it does not exceed, nor indeed equal, the proportion returned in the official census of 1791.

<table> <tr> <th></th> <th>Population of the principal Towns.</th> <th>Population of the principal Towns.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Paris,</td> <td>713,000</td> <td>Nancy,</td> <td>29,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Marseilles,</td> <td>102,000</td> <td>Rennes,</td> <td>29,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Lyons,</td> <td>101,000</td> <td>Besançon,</td> <td>28,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Bordeaux,</td> <td>92,000</td> <td>Troyes,</td> <td>27,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Rouen,</td> <td>81,000</td> <td>Aix,</td> <td>27,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Nantes,</td> <td>75,000</td> <td>Dunkirk,</td> <td>26,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Lille,</td> <td>60,000</td> <td>Versailles,</td> <td>26,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Strasburg,</td> <td>50,000</td> <td>Brest,</td> <td>24,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Toulouse,</td> <td>48,000</td> <td>Montauban,</td> <td>24,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Metz,</td> <td>41,000</td> <td>Avignon,</td> <td>23,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Nismes,</td> <td>39,000</td> <td>L'Orient,</td> <td>22,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Amiens,</td> <td>39,000</td> <td>Tours,</td> <td>22,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Caen,</td> <td>36,000</td> <td>Grenoble,</td> <td>21,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Montpellier,</td> <td>32,000</td> <td>Poitiers,</td> <td>21,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Clermont in Auvergne,</td> <td>30,000</td> <td>Limoges,</td> <td>21,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Rheims,</td> <td>30,000</td> <td>Havre de Grace,</td> <td>21,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Toulon,</td> <td>29,000</td> <td>St Omer,</td> <td>20,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Angers,</td> <td>29,000</td> <td>Dieppe,</td> <td>20,000</td> </tr> </table>

That the proportion of our population inhabiting towns is greater than in France, is at once ascertained by taking the aggregate of twenty of the largest cities in each; for France, that aggregate is about 1,700,000; for Britain and Ireland, 2,300,000.

The ratio of the increase of population in France is greatest in the lower classes; the middling and upper ranks have seldom large families. Men in such stations in France are much less habituated to steady industry than in England; the openings in trade to respectable employment and eventual competency are comparatively few; and, in very many situations, the incomes are adequate to the support of an individual only. In that country, as with us, the population evidently increases faster since the adoption of vaccine inoculation. The illegitimate births are numerous only in Paris. Of the average mortality in France, there have not as yet been published returns of a comprehensive nature. The climate and soil are, in general, no less salubrious than those of Britain, and the advantages attendant on agricultural habits are enjoyed by a much greater proportion of the population; but a considerable waste of health, and even of life, takes place from the crowded nature of the towns, and the damp position of very many of the cottages. A want of comfort on the part of the lower orders, tends, along with their deficient cleanliness, to the same result; but, on the other hand, the general activity, temperance, and cheerfulness of the people, are all in favour of health and longevity.

XIII. GOVERNMENT.

France, before the Revolution, was much less of an integral body than England, its component parts having been united at a much later date, and each preserving a number of privileges which embarrassed and retarded the action of government. The countries called Pays d'Etat were governed by their own assemblies; taxation was different in different provinces; each clung with pertinacity to the preservation of transmitted usages; and nothing but a general convulsion could have broken down barriers supported by such a mass of separate prejudices and interests. It would be superfluous to enlarge on the different constitutions that followed each other so rapidly during the Revolution,—whether that of 1791, the work of a liberal but inexperienced Assembly; that of 1793, the work of the Jacobins; or the very different one of 1795, perverted first by the Directory, and finally overturned by the usurpation of Bonaparte. There is a brief sketch of each in the article FRANCE, in the Encyclopaedia; and as they have long ceased to interest the public, we proceed at once to the present constitution founded on the Charter granted on the return of the King in May 1814. That charter is appealed to by all parties as the safeguard of the French constitution, and is in substance as follows:

All ranks are equally admissible to public employments, whether civil or military. (The object of this clause is to do away any claim for preference on the part of the noblesse.)

The Catholic is the state religion, but all other religions may be openly professed, and none imply political disqualification.

All sales of national property during the Revolution are confirmed to the purchasers.

The person of the King is inviolable; the responsibility rests with his Ministers.

The executive power is vested in the King; the legislative, in the two Houses of Parliament as in England, with the distinction, that no bill can be brought in but by a Minister of the Crown, Parliament having the right only of praying the King to bring in any particular bill. (This restriction serves to prevent motions which might produce agitation in a country still very divided, and new to the discussions of a representative body.)

The House of Peers cannot be lawfully assembled except at the same time as the House of Commons.

The members of the Commons House are elected for five years, the house being renewable by a fifth annually. No one can be a member of this house unless of the age of forty or upwards; and unless he pays direct taxes to the amount of L. 40 a-year.

The sittings of the House of Commons are open to the public; those of the Peers are private; all money bills must originate with the Commons.

The judges are named by the King; and, when appointed, are not removeable. Juries are employed in criminal cases only.

The House of Peers in France is, in many respects, on the same footing as in England, their number being unlimited; their nomination vested in the crown; their dignity hereditary. Like our Peers they meet every session on the same day as the Commons; and their proceedings, unless accompanied by simultaneous proceedings of the lower house, would be void. Like our Peers also, they take cognizance of charges of treason and of high political misdemeanours; but they do not form a court of judicial appeal. All bills, with the exception of money bills, may originate in either house; but the degree of public interest, excited by the debates of the Peers, is not so great as by those of the lower house. The restrictions as to attending the debates, and printing the speeches of the Peers, though not absolute, are greater than in England.

The King's brothers and nephews, with the princes of the blood (Orleans, Bourbon, Condé), are Peers in right of their birth.

The number of Peers in France is at present (1820) nearly 280, a number comprising two very distinct classes, the old nobility of France, stripped of the greater part of their paternal estates, but dignified by such names as Montmorency, Tremouille, Luxembourg; and the senators or generals of the Revolution, who can boast of no ancestry; and who, in point of property, are, in general, very limited, but who lay claim to public regard for their personal exertions; such are Lanjuinais, Pastoret, Bartholemy, Macdonald. Those who were members of the senate, on the abdication of Bonaparte, were made Peers, and had their life pension (L. 1500 a-year) confirmed to them by Louis XVIII.; but the constitution requires that all future peers shall possess a certain entailed property, the amount of which, evidently adapted to the leveling effects of the Revolution, is only L. 1250 of clear income for a duke, L. 800 for a marquis or earl; and L. 400 for a viscount or baron.

The French House of Commons is, in many respects, similar to the British; each being the arena in which political parties try their strength, and in which the support or the overthrow of a ministry is decided. The nature of the subjects discussed, the privileges of the house, the admission of the public to the debates, are all similar to our usages; but there are some important differences as to the legal qualifications of the members, and the constitution of the body. No one is capable of being elected a representative of the commons till he is forty years of age. The number of deputies or members is regulat- ed by the amount of population. This, however, has nothing in common with universal suffrage, for the basis of the qualification of a voter is property; it being an indispensable requisite that every voter shall pay L.12 a-year in direct taxes. This sum seems a very proper medium. From the nature of French taxation, it comprises a vast number of petty proprietors worth from L.60 to L.100 or L.150 a-year. In like manner, the payment of L.40, the qualification for a member, implies only the possession of L.200 or L.300 a-year.

The right of voting for Members of Parliament in France was long exercised by delegation, the voters choosing a committee (college electoral) composed of persons paying L.40 in taxes, with whom rested the choice and nomination of the member; but this cold and indirect course was abrogated by the law of 5th February 1817; since which the voters have made a direct nomination of their members as in England. In this manner took place the two elections (each of a fifth of the house) in 1817 and 1818. The predilection shown in them to the liberaux, or moderate revolutionists, excited the fears of the royalists; but the King resisted all attempts to modify the established law, until a third trial in 1819, which, by giving another powerful addition to the liberaux, induced both him and his counsellors to project a change. This change is now (May 1820) in its progress through the House, and bids fair to be temperately conducted; the present number of members (258) being evidently too small for so great a country, it is proposed to extend them to 430, and to confine the election of the additional number (172) to electoral committees on the old plan. Another part of the proposed change is to dispense with annual elections, and to declare the whole House of Commons entitled to sit for five years as it is in England for seven.

The new law proposes no change in the qualification of voters. The number of the latter is of course very different in different departments; the medium is from 1500 to 2500, but in the department of Paris they exceed 10,000. In the cities, the majority of the voters are patentes, that is, they derive the property entitling them to vote from mercantile business; but in the small towns, and still more in rural districts, the great majority consist of petits propriétaires. Family influence is of very little account in France; voters, when so numerous and independent, are actuated, as in our popular elections, by motives of more comprehensive operation, such as the public character of the candidate, or a sense of the national wants at the time. The King is bound to convoke the chamber annually; he has, as in England, unlimited power to prorogue or dissolve; but in that case, a new chamber must be called in the course of three months.

The members of the French parliament are now only beginning to reap the benefit of influence; the distribution of patronage not being as yet reduced to a system. The same observation applies to parliamentary tactics; for, though the parties are marked by a very distinct line, their votes are not to be anticipated with so much certainty as in St Stephen's Chapel. The usage, in the French Parliament, is Government to read a speech; and, if at all remarkable, it is soon after printed at full length. Many of these afford tolerable specimens of Parliamentary eloquence, but prepared less with a view to a practical result than to attract attention to the speaker, and to give him son jour de renommée, son heure de gloire.

The cabinet consists properly of eight members; the President, or premier; the Keeper of the seals, or Branch Chancellor; the Master of the Royal Household, and the five Secretaries of State. When, as generally happens, the premier is also one of the secretaries of state, the number of the cabinet is seven. The secretaryships are, as in England, the foreign affairs, the war department, the home department; the treasury, and, finally, the navy; to which are joined the colonies. The functions are so similar to those of the corresponding offices in our own country, that the only branch requiring explanation to an English reader is the police, formerly a separate secretaryship, but blended, since January 1819, with the home department. Exclusive of the care of public tranquillity, and the detection of state offences, the police in France has the surveillance of the newspapers; the latter being subject, before printing, to inspection and alteration by government agents. This unpopular restriction, after being removed in 1819, has been reimposed by an act of the present year (1820), founded on the danger of unreserved discussion during the present animosity of parties.

The privy council in France, as in England, assembles only occasionally by order of the King, and Privé for the dispatch of special business. It is composed of the members of the cabinet, and of a more numerous body of public men styled Ministres d'Etat, a Ministry title implying not that the persons who bear it are actually in office, but of such reputation, either in a civil or military capacity, as to have merited at the hands of the King this high honour, and the pension which accompanies it; their number at present is about thirty, almost all peers; the aggregate of the pensions L.10,000 a year.

The conseillers d'etat and maitres des requêtes are Conseil two classes of men of limited property but good d'Etat education, who have devoted themselves to government business as a profession or occupation for life. The persons who bear these designations, without duty or salary, amount to several hundreds, but there are regularly en activité de service 30 Conseillers d'Etat and 40 maitres des requêtes. They form five permanent committees, each acting under the direction of a minister. Thus, the committee of the home department prepares bills to be submitted to Parliament, or regulations to be adopted in regard to various matters belonging to that ministry; the committees for finance, for legislation, and for the navy, discharge a correspondent duty each in its respective department; while a committee of a more ambiguous title, "du contentieux," takes cognizance of misunderstandings and disputes between the public and the different administrative bodies throughout the kingdom.

The Cour des Comptes is a very extensive esta- Cour des Comptes. blishment, which may be termed a board of general audit; its functions consisting in examining the accounts of the treasury, of the receivers-general, of the paymasters-general, and of the civil list. The members of this board form two classes; the conseillers référendaires, by far the more numerous, who go through the process of examination, and the conseillers maîtres, who sit in three chambers, each of five or six members, and decide on the reports of the référendaires.

The royal household, like other public departments in France, exhibits a long list of high sounding appellations; here are a grand aumonier, grand chambellan, grand euyer, grand maître des cérémonies, grand maître de la garde robe, followed by the intendant du trésor; intendant des forêts; intendant des menus plaisirs du Roi, &c. Establishments, also on a large scale, are appropriated to the princes, the whole attended with a very considerable expense, and evincing, on the part of the court, an unconsciousness that the Revolution has dispelled some ancient illusions, and that the attachment of the more valuable part of the French nation is to be acquired by other means than the display of pageantry.

The plan of provincial administration is uniform throughout all France. Each department has at its head a Prefet or civil officer, who acts as the medium between it and government, maintaining a daily correspondence with Paris, receiving the orders of the minister of the home department, and reporting from time to time on their execution, as well as on all local transactions of interest; whether relating to the collection of taxes, the levy of recruits, the expenditure for roads, or the state of political feeling. The only similar office in England is that of lord-lieutenant; but the duties of a prefet are much more laborious. Another material distinction is that the latter, for the sake, doubtless, of securing his impartiality, is never almost appointed to a department in which he has property or family connections. Each prefet is aided by a Conseil de Préfecture, consisting of three, four, or five members, whose duty consists in taking the detail of business off his hands. The departmental council (Conseil General de Département) is much more numerous, comprising sixteen, eighteen, twenty, or more members; but they meet only a few weeks in the year, nor are they of much use, except to share, as a collective body, the responsibility attendant on the distribution of taxes, or other similar measures.

A Sous Prefet is an officer much inferior to the prefect. There is one to each of the districts called Arrondissement, and he is aided in his labours by a council, unnecessarily numerous, of eleven members.

Lastly come the communes, the smallest of the official divisions of the French territory, and of which there are above 38,000 in the kingdom. The country communes are little else than parishes; but the distinguishing characteristic of a commune consists in having, not a church and clergyman, but a mayor and municipal council. A city, however populous, as Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, forms only one commune; and, on the other hand, when, as very often happens, the population of a commune is at or below 2000, it has still its mayor and council. The mayors, however, have salaries only in the large towns, where their occupations are considerable; comprising the management of the town funds, whether arising from dividends, rents, or octrois, and the disbursement for all public works. The property in land and houses belonging formerly to the towns was, in many cases, lost in the Revolution.

It was formerly the practice to transact a great share of government business in the country towns; but, since 1800, Paris has been rendered as much the general centre and resort in that respect as London,—an effectual means of eluding the old and peculiar usages of the provinces, and of producing uniformity in the execution of the laws, but attended with a surprising accumulation of employees in the government offices of the capital.

The salaries are as follows: Minister, L.4000; Salaries. Under Secretary of State, L.1600; Conseiller d'Etat, L.650; Maître des Requêtes, L.250; Prefet (varies, but on an average), L.1500 a-year; a Sous Prefet, between L.200 and L.300.

The most comprehensive, though the least ancient, order, is that of the Legion d'Honneur; an order instituted by Bonaparte, and maintained on nearly the same plan by the Bourbons. The usual title to admission is the discharge of functions, either civil or military, with distinction; and, in time of war, the performance of an action of eclat. The gradations are, chevaliers, of whom the number is unlimited, and very great; officers, who amount to no less than 2000; commanders, to the number of 400; grand officers, 160; and grand croix, to the number of 80. A member must serve several years as a chevalier before becoming an officer, and the same progressively through the other ranks. Admissions take place once, and frequently twice a-year; a specific number being allotted to each great department of the public service, the military, the judicial, and the administrative.

The other orders are, that of St Louis, which is strictly military; that of St Michel, which dates from 1469, is limited to 100 members, and is conferred as a recompense for distinction in science, literature, or the arts. Eminent professional men and artists, and the authors of discoveries of public utility, constitute the members of this order. The order du St Esprit, created in 1578, and of the very highest rank, comprises princes of the blood, prelates, and members of the order of St Michel—the whole limited to the number of 100.

XIV. LAW, AND ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

In this great department, France shows nothing of the backwardness apparent in her situation in many other respects, but is entitled to the particular attention of other nations, and of none more than our own. Law does not rest on tradition, nor is it necessary to study it in a never ending accumulation of decisions. It is reduced into a compact and definite form, the result of a code formed recently, and with all the benefit of the application of the knowledge of an enlightened age to the principles of jurisprudence. Nothing could be more irregular than the administration of justice in France before the Revolution. The first stage of a process took place before judges appointed not by the King but by the Seigneur, or lord of the district. These judges had power to impose a fine, to decree a short imprisonment, or other correctional punishment, and to give, in a civil suit, a decision subject to appeal. The Senechals and Baillis ranked a degree higher, and were entitled to give a verdict in cases of importance, subject, however, to an appeal to one or other of the Parliaments, of which there were, in all, thirteen in France; and which, very different from the Parliaments with which we are familiar, were composed of judges and public officers of rank. The whole of this inharmonious mass was reduced into a simple and uniform system by the National Assembly, in 1791; the seignoral judges being replaced by justices of the peace, and every district of importance (arrondissement) obtaining its court or tribunal de première instance. The higher courts were not added till afterwards, but the judges of every description were elected by the inhabitants of the province—a right which continued with them until the usurpation of Bonaparte.

But there remained for the National Assembly another and a much more laborious work. Each province had its peculiar code, some founded on the Roman law, others on tradition and local custom, but the whole replete with ambiguity and discrepancy. To digest a complete body of law that might suffice for the country at large, and supersede the provincial codes, was the labour of many years, and of a number of eminent lawyers. It was not completed until the beginning of the present century, when it was promulgated under Bonaparte, and gave to the jurisprudence and judicial constitution of France nearly the form they at present bear. This body of law consists of five codes, entitled respectively, 1. Code civil; 2. Code de procédure civile; 3. Code de commerce; 4. Code d'instruction criminelle; 5. Code penal.

The Code Civil, the first and by far the most comprehensive of these divisions, defines the rights of persons in their various capacities of citizens, parents, sons, daughters, guardians, minors, married, unmarried. It next treats of property in its respective modes of acquisition and possession, as inheritances, marriage portions, sales, leases, loans, bonds, mortgages.

The Code de Procedure Civile prescribes the manner of proceeding before the different courts of justice, beginning with the juge de paix; also the mode of carrying into effect sentences, whether the payment of damages, the distraining of goods, or the imprisoning of the party condemned. It declares, likewise, the course to be followed in transactions distinct from those of the law courts; as in arbitration, taking possession of an inheritance, or a separation of property between man and wife.

The Code de Commerce begins by defining the duties of certain officers, or commercial agents, such as sworn brokers and appraisers; it next treats of partnerships—of sales and purchases—of bills of exchange—of shipping, freight, and insurance—of temporary suspensions of payment, and bankruptcies.

The Code d'Instruction Criminelle, a very different, but equally important division, explains the duties of all public officers connected with the judicial police, whether mayors, assistants of mayors (adjoints), procureurs du roi, juges d'instruction, &c. After prescribing the rules regarding evidence, it regulates the manner of appointing juries and the questions which fall within their competency. Its farther dispositions relate to the mode and nature of appeals, and to the very unpopular courts authorized to try state offences, termed Cours Speciales under Bonaparte, and Cours Prévotales under the Bourbons.

Lastly, the Code Penal describes the punishments awarded for offences in all the variety of gradation, from the penalties of the police correctionnelle, to the severest sentence of the law. All offences are classed under two general heads,—state offences, such as counterfeiting coin, resisting police officers, sedition, rebellion; and offences against individuals, as calumny, false evidence, manslaughter, murder.

These codes,—the first attempt to reduce the laws of a great nation to the compass of a volume, consist of a number of sections and short paragraphs, each paragraph marked by a Number, as a means of reference. The style is as concise as is compatible with clearness. The arrangement is minute and elaborate. The whole is sold for a few shillings, in the shape of one octavo, or of two duodecimo volumes; and copies of it are in the possession, not only of all judges, pleaders, and attorneys, but of agents, merchants, and persons in business generally, who, without being enabled by it to dispense with the aid of lawyers in a suit, find in it a variety of useful explanations, relative to questions of frequent occurrence in their respective occupations.

The Justices of the Peace are very numerous, there being one for each canton, and consequently nearly 3000 in the kingdom. They never are, as in England, clergymen, and seldom country gentlemen, but persons acquainted with law, and in circumstances which make the salary, small as it is (from L. 30 to L.40), an acceptable return for a portion of their time. They are not unfrequently provincial attorneys, or pleaders retired from business. The Justice of the Peace, or juge de paix, is authorized to pronounce Juge de paix finally in petty questions (under 50 francs, or L.2), and to give, in questions of somewhat greater amount (up to 100 francs, or L.4) a decision subject to appeal. He takes cognizance, likewise, of disputes about tenant's repairs, servant's wages, and the displacing of the land-marks of property. No action can be brought before a court of justice in France until the plaintiff has summoned his adversary before a juge de paix, with an amicable intent (cité en conciliation), and received from the juge a procès verbal, showing that the difference could not be adjusted. When the justice is prevented from acting, his place is taken by his first, and, if necessary, by his second substitute. Of the Primary Courts, there is one for every arrondissement, making above 360 for the whole of France. Each is composed of three or four members, of two or three suppléants or assistant members, and of a procureur du roi, acting on the part of the crown. In populous districts, cours de première instance comprise six, seven, eight, or more members, and are divided into two or three chambers. They are chiefly occupied with questions of civil law, and hold, in the extent of their jurisdiction, a medium between the humble limits of the juge de paix and the wide powers of the cour royale; their decisions being final wherever the income from a property does not exceed forty shillings, or the principal forty pounds; but subject, in greater matters, to an appeal to the cour royale. The members of these inferior courts are named, like other judges, by the crown, and hold their places for life; the salary of each is only L. 80 a-year, equal to L. 120 in England; their number, throughout all France, including suppléants, is not far short of 3000.

A section of the Tribunal de première instance is appropriated to the trial of offences under the name of tribunal de police correctionnelle; and here the English reader must be careful to distinguish between judicial and government police; the former having no reference to state offences, such as libel or treason, but comprising a very numerous list of another kind, viz. all offences that do not amount to crimes, or subject the offender to a punishment afflictif ou infamant. These offences, when slight, are called contraventions de police, and are brought before a juge de paix, or the mayor of the commune; when of a graver stamp, and requiring a punishment exceeding five days imprisonment, or a fine of 15 francs, they are brought before the court now mentioned, whose sentences, in point of imprisonment, may extend to the term of five years. The trespasses brought before a justice of the peace or mayor are such as damaging standing corn, driving incautiously in the high way, endangering a neighbour's property by neglecting repairs. The offences referred to the tribunal correctionnel are such as assault and battery, swindling, privately stealing, using false weights or measures, &c.

We now come to the higher courts of justice, which equal in jurisdiction our courts in Westminster Hall, and on the circuit, but with the material distinction, that in France the civil courts are always stationary. The Cours Royales, in number 27, are attached to the chief provincial towns throughout the kingdom. They are all formed on the same model, and possessed of equal power, though differing materially in extent of business and number of members. The number of the latter depends on the population of the tract of country (generally three departments), subject to the jurisdiction of the court. In a populous quarter, like Normandy, a Cour Royale comprises 20, 25, or even 30 judges, and is divided into three or four chambers, of which one performs the duty of an English Grand Jury, in deciding on the bills of indictment (mises en accusation); another is for the trial of offences (police correctionnelle); and a third, with perhaps a fourth, is for civil suits. These courts are often called Cours d'Appel, as all the cases that come before them must previously have been tried by an inferior court. The collective number of judges in these higher courts is not short of 900; an aggregate hardly credible to an English reader, and which would prove a very serious charge on the public purse, were not their salaries very moderate, viz. from L. 100 to L. 300 a-year, according to the population of the towns where the court is held. In the financial pressure of 1816 and 1817, a reduction of this numerous body was much called for; but no diminution was made in the number of the courts, whatever gradual decrease may be allowed to take place in the members from decease or retirement.

Paris does not, like London and Edinburgh, absorb almost all the civil business of the country. It has, it is true, a Cour Royale on a large scale (five chambers and 50 judges), but confined in its jurisdiction to the metropolis, and the seven adjacent departments. There is a procureur du roi for every tribunal de première instance, and a procureur général for every Cour d'Appel.

The Assize Courts take cognizance exclusively of Assize criminal cases; that is, of the crimes or serious offences referred to them by the cours royales. They consist of three, four, or five judges, members of the cours royales, but never belonging to the section that finds the indictments. The grand accompaniment of a French Assize Court is a Jury, which, as in England, consists of twelve members, and decides on the facts of the case, leaving the application of the law to the judges. Complete unanimity was at no time necessary in a French jury. At first a majority of ten to two was required; but this was subsequently altered to a simple majority, with the qualification, that, in case of condemnation by only two voices (seven to five), the verdict should be re-considered by the judges and the party acquitted, if, on taking judges and jurymen collectively, there was a majority in his favour. The assizes are the only courts in France that are not stationary. They are, however, generally held in the chief town of a department once in three months. The costs of suit are very exactly defined by a printed tarif; and it is a rule in criminal as in civil cases, that the party condemned is liable for all.

The Special Courts were constituted out of the usual course for the trial of state offences. The Cours Spéciales were appointed by Bonaparte, the Prévotales by the present government, during the period of political effervescence (fortunately short lived) which succeeded the second entry of the king, and the misfortunes brought on the nation by Bonaparte's return from Elba. In both cases, the courts were considered as under the influence of government, and were, of course, obnoxious to the enlightened part of the public.

The name of Tribunal, or Court, is given in France to a committee of five merchants, or leading tradesmen, appointed by the mercantile body in every town of considerable business or population. Their competency extends to all disputes occurring in mercantile business, and falling within the provisions of the Code de Commerce. Their decisions are founded on that code, and on the customs of merchants. They are final in all cases below L.40. The presence of three members is necessary to form a court: The duty is performed gratuitously, and the number of these courts in France is about 160.

The Court of Cassation, the highest in the kingdom, is held at Paris, and is composed of three chambers, each of sixteen members and a president, making, with the premier president, a total of 52. Its province is to decide definitively in all appeals from the decrees of the Cours Royales; investigating not the facts of a case, but the forms of law, and ordering, wherever these have been infringed or deviated from, a new trial before another Cour Royale. This revision takes place in criminal as well as in civil cases. The royal court chosen for the new trial is generally, for the convenience of the parties, the nearest in situation to the other. The Cour de Cassation has farther powers, and of the highest kind. It determines all differences as to jurisdiction between one court and another; and exercises a control over every court in the kingdom. It has power to call the judges to account before the minister of justice, and even to suspend them from their functions; acting thus as a high tribunal for the maintenance of the established order of judicature.

The minister bearing the title of "Keeper of the Seals and Minister of Justice," may be compared to the Chancellor of England, though his patronage is much less extensive, and his functions much more suitable to the station of minister. He rarely acts as a judge, but exercises a general superintendence over the judicial body. He is the medium between the king and the courts of justice, in the same way as the minister of the home department is in regard to the civil authorities. The expenses of the judicial body fall under his cognizance. The procureurs généraux and procureurs du roi throughout the kingdom address their correspondence to him, and it is his province to report to the king on the alleviation of punishment; on pardons; in short, on all disputed points, whether of legislation or administration.

Juries were introduced into France in 1791, and confined from the beginning to criminal trials; nor does there seem any wish to extend their jurisdiction to civil suits. During several years, there were in France grand juries constituted as in England; but under Bonaparte their functions were transferred to the Cours Royales, on the plea that none but judges could be made to understand the difference between bringing to trial and bringing to punishment; and that the consequence frequently was a discharge, when a true bill ought to have been found. It has, in fact, been questioned, whether the institution of juries is advisable in a nation, of which the mass is still strongly tinctured with the credulity engendered by blind submission to an absolute government. That the French can supply special jury-men of judgment and discrimination, must be admitted by all who know how eminent are many of their men of business; but by their common juries, the nature of evidence is as yet little understood; and considerable experience will be necessary to form to the habit of deliberate reflection individuals so much more open to impressions of feeling than of reasoning. Adroit pleaders have been known to obtain very unexpected acquittals; and it is remarkable, that all the charges against French juries turn on their bias to clemency; none on a leaning towards the prosecutor, whatever may be his wealth or rank. The very numerous party, called Liberaux, maintain, that practice only is wanting to qualify their countrymen to act on juries. They demand, therefore, the restoration of grand juries, and the exclusion of the executive power, from interference with the election of common juries, or with the appointment of juges de paix, mayors, or other local magistrates. These encroachments on popular rights all owe their origin to Bonaparte; but they are too convenient for the executive power to be readily relinquished by his successors.

One of the chief improvements made by the French National Assembly was of the nature which now engages the deliberation of our own Parliament—a general mitigation of the penal code, or rather the substitution of punishments likely to be enforced for others of such severity, as in general to put their application out of the question. Stealing privately in a dwelling-house was formerly punishable in France by the rack and death—an extreme which prevented respectable persons from bringing delinquents before a court, and tended, of course, to give frequency to the offence. Of the state of crime in France, and of the nature of the punishments, an idea may be formed from the following return made to the king by the minister of justice:

<table> <tr> <th></th> <th>In 1817.</th> <th>In 1818.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Individuals tried,</td> <td>14,146</td> <td>9,722</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Condemned,</td> <td>9,431</td> <td>6,712</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Acquitted,</td> <td>4,715</td> <td>3,010</td> </tr> <tr> <th colspan="3">Of these the Crimes or Offences were,</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Against the state,</td> <td>438</td> <td>166</td> </tr> <tr> <td>——— the person,</td> <td>1,638</td> <td>1,262</td> </tr> <tr> <td>——— the property,</td> <td>7,086</td> <td>5,547</td> </tr> <tr> <th colspan="3">Sentences.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Death,</td> <td>558</td> <td>324</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Compulsory labour for life,</td> <td>511</td> <td>393</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Transportation,</td> <td>52</td> <td>6</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Compulsory labour for a term of months or years,</td> <td>2,645</td> <td>1,992</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Compulsory labour, and to be branded,</td> <td>172</td> <td>184</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Solitary confinement,</td> <td>2,774</td> <td>2,116</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Pillory,</td> <td>4</td> <td>1</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Banishment,</td> <td>12</td> <td>2</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Degradation from the rank of citizen,</td> <td>2</td> <td>5</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Imprisonment and fine,</td> <td>*2,629</td> <td>1,619</td> </tr> </table>

Has the new French code, it may be asked, fulfilled the public expectation; and has it enabled the courts of justice to dispense with a reference to the old unwieldy body of law? In general, it has; the

* The year 1817 was one of great distress among the lower orders, as well from want of work, as from the high price of provisions. exceptions arising from obscurity or deficiency in the provisions of the code, being as yet neither frequent nor important. But the old laws regulate all questions arising out of transactions passed, or out of rights acquired, prior to 1803 and 1804, the date of promulgating the code, as the latter has no retroactive operation. The law students in France thus regard the code as the sole authority. They, however, still read the more celebrated writers on law prior to the Revolution; but they do so for the sake of collateral illustration, in the same way as they study the Roman law.

There still exists in France the singular practice of parties engaged in a law-suit visiting the judges in private; a practice originating in an age when suitors thought a personal interview the only effectual mode of explaining their case, and continued in more enlightened times from that over complaisance which is the ground-work of several of the defects of the national character. Such interviews are little else than an exchange of compliments, nor have the judges, either before or since the Revolution, been charged with acting under the influence of such ex parte statements.

The salaries of French judges must appear insignificant to an English reader, but there are in that country a number of men of small patrimony but good education, who have no idea of trade or of active pursuits in private life, while they attach much importance to government employment; moreover, the functions of judges, and in general of public officers in France, engross much less time than in England.

The law style of the French is much more brief than ours; their deeds, such as leases, mortgages, sales, being generally contained in very few pages, and free from obscure or antiquated phraseology.

XV. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF LATE EVENTS.

It remains to conclude this article by a rapid sketch of the most remarkable events that have occurred in France since the peace of Presburg in 1805, till which period the history is brought down in the Encyclopædia.

The peace of Presburg, concluded after the victory of Austerlitz, bore an appearance of moderation on the part of Bonaparte, which was soon contradicted by the proceedings of the ensuing year,—the conferring the title of King, with augmented territories, on the Elector of Bavaria and Duke of Wirtemberg; the change of government in Holland from the republican to the royal form, and giving the crown to Louis Bonaparte; but more from the forced abdication of the imperial dignity by Austria, and the establishment of the French power in Germany by the Confederation of the Rhine. Bonaparte having taken occasion, in an address to the senate, to profess a disposition for peace with England, and a communication to that effect having been made by Talleyrand to Mr Fox, the result was a negotiation at Paris; conducted at first by Lord Yarmouth, and in its more advanced stage by Lord Lauderdale. At one time the French government evinced a considerable disposition to concede, offering to sanction our keeping both Malta and the Cape of Good Hope; but such offers were probably suggested by the hope of adding Sicily to their Italian acquisitions; and that they were not made in the spirit of peace was apparent from the conduct pursued at the time by Bonaparte towards Prussia. The treaty between that power and Russia, concluded shortly before the battle of Austerlitz, furnished him with grounds of complaint, and the negotiation that ensued was conducted on his part with the artful view of engaging Prussia in a war apparently by its own act. The Prussians, inflated by recollections of a past age, and emboldened by an affected dread on the part of Bonaparte, took the field, occupied an advanced position in Saxony, and allowed their calculating adversary to gain the flank and even the rear of their army; after which the loss of a battle could not fail to cut them off from Berlin, and lead to the surrender, one by one, of almost every corps in their army. Such was the result of the disastrous day of Jena; the capital was occupied, and fortresses, like Magdeburg and Custrin, which, if prepared, would have made a long resistance, were surrendered in a few weeks. The French now advanced into Poland, where, in the depth of winter, the first conflicts took place between Bonaparte and the Russians,—and where, Dec. 26, at Pultusk, Golymin, and still more at Eylau, 1806, these rude antagonists taught him that audacity and celerity are not always crowned with success. At last, on the arrival of reinforcements, and on the season becoming more favourable for military movements, Bonaparte acquired a superiority, defeated the Russians at Friedland, and following June 14,—them with a great force, found means, partly by intrigue, partly by intimidation, to dispose the Emperor Alexander to a peace, concluded at Tilsit on 7th July. This treaty, while it restored to Prussia somewhat more than half of her territories, left her in the dependence of Bonaparte, who seeing himself master not only of France, the Netherlands, and Italy, but of the half of Germany, determined to carry into execution a long meditated project on Spain. With this view he repaired to Bayonne, in April 1808, veigled the royal family into that town, extorted from them a surrender of their rights, and conferred on his brother Joseph a crown which he destined at no distant period for himself. This was a remarkable epoch in the career of Bonaparte,—the first in which he openly cast aside the veil, and allowed the world at large to obtain an undisguised view of his character and projects.

The Spaniards acted with unexpected courage; and taking up arms, succeeded in compelling the surrender of a considerable corps of French July 20,—under Dupont, and the evacuation of Madrid by the intruded monarch. All Europe, and no country more than France, exclaimed against this flagitious aggression. Of redeeming his character, by a return to equity, he seems never to have dreamt; but he discovered infinite activity and skill in amusing his subjects, deceiving foreign courts, and enforcing the execution of his projects by military combinations. He occupied the Parisians by fêtes, professed anew a disposition to peace, arranged with the Emperor of Russia an interview at Erfurth, drew closer the bonds of alliance with that monarch, and was thus enabled to remove a large portion of his armed force from Germany into Spain. When collected there, and in readiness to act, he left Paris, travelled rapidly to his army, scattered his ill-disciplined opponents, entered Madrid, and even tried to overtake our army under Sir John Moore; but found it expedient to return to Paris, and prepare the forces of France and her German allies to meet a threatened attack from Austria. This new war, begun in April 1809, took, from the date of the battle of Eckmuhl a favourable turn to the French, who marched forward to Vienna, and, though foiled with great loss in the dreadful battle of Aspern, reasserted their superiority at Wagram, and compelled Austria to a peace, accompanied by considerable cessions; but still deemed indicative of moderation on the part of Bonaparte, until subsequent events discovered, that the promised hand of a young princess had effected the preservation of some valuable provinces. The same summer witnessed the failure of our expedition to the Scheldt, and an unsuccessful attempt to drive the French from Madrid; so that the power of Bonaparte seemed to become more and more consolidated, and the annexation of Holland to France took place without opposition.

It remained now only to expel our troops from Portugal, a task committed to Massena, at the head of a veteran army, which crossed the frontier in September, and penetrated into the heart of the kingdom, but soon received a proof of the firmness of our battalions at Busaco. Superiority of force enabled the French to march forward, but the lesson they had received deterred their general from an attack on our lines at Torres Vedras; and Europe saw with surprise month after month passed in inaction by bands hitherto only accustomed to advance and conquer. At last, in the beginning of March (1811), the want of provisions compelled them to retreat to the Spanish frontier; and though the subsequent events of the campaign on the side of Badajoz, Albuera, Cadiz, and Ciudad Rodrigo, were of varied success, our troops maintained a high reputation, and the French made little progress in the subjugation of the peninsula.

The attention of the public was now attracted to a growing rupture between France and Russia; and Bonaparte appears to have been deterred only by the lapse of the summer months, from attempting, in 1811, that plan which was put into execution, with so preponderating a force, and such probabilities of success, in 1812. Secure of Austria by alliance, and master of Italy, Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, and Wurttemberg, he directed against Russia a host which appeared irresistible, and which, in fact, could be opposed only by one course,—that of evacuating province after province, removing or destroying the magazines, and obliging the enemy to contend with all the physical disadvantages of a thinly peopled country. Such, accordingly, was the policy of the Russians. The battle of Borodino, hazarded without much advantage of position, seemed a momentary departure from their cautious course; but it was soon resumed, their army retiring to the south of Moscow, avoiding farther fighting, and annoying their opponents chiefly by the destruction of supplies. Bonaparte, always sanguine, delayed commencing his retreat until the 20th October, and had not proceeded above a fortnight on his march, when the inclemency of the season, and deficiency of provisions, began to prove fatal, first to his horses and soon after to his soldiers. Such was the situation of the French, with a march of more than 400 miles before them. The Russians and Cossacks, without venturing on close action, found means to annoy them exceedingly; and, by a rare coincidence, a Russian army advancing northward from Turkey, was enabled to reach the line of retreat of the French. The latter, reinforced by fresh troops, were still able to force their way, but the intensity of the cold, and the continued deficiency of provisions, led to an increasing and rapid reduction of their numbers. Their total loss, from the beginning to the end of this campaign, amounted to 300,000 men; a calamity which encouraged Prussia at once to throw off the yoke, and Austria to prepare the means of taking a less eager but more decisive part in the contest.

In France the extent of the catastrophe was concealed; but even had it been known, the power of Bonaparte was too firmly fixed to be shaken by popular murmurs. The whole frame of administration, from the senate to the municipal councils, was devoted to him, and a levy of 350,000 men was forthwith ordered. With part of these, Jan. 11, and with a part also of his remaining veterans, 1813, he again took the field in Germany, met the advancing Russians and Prussians, and gained, at Lutzen on the 2d, and at Bautzen on 21st May, successes, which, without equalling the victories of his better days, taught his opponents the necessity of caution, and disposed them to a more cordial co-operation. After an armistice from June to August, passed, however, in the most active preparations, operations recommenced, and the French were evidently overmatched in force. On one occasion they foiled at Dresden, by a prompt concentration, a bold attempt of the allies; but in every other direction, whether in Silesia, in Lusatia, or, subsequently, in the heart of Saxony, they felt their inferiority to their more numerous opponents. Finally, the battle of Leipsic decided the independence of Germany, and Oct. 18, the retreat of the French to the Rhine. On the side of Spain similar disasters had been experienced; the force hostile to France was then under the direction of a single leader, and triumphed in repeated actions, first at Vittoria, on 21st June, and afterwards near Pamplona, in the end of July; advancing, in the end of the campaign, to the frontier of France.

Such was the situation of affairs in the beginning of 1814. Bonaparte seemed at last to lower his tone, sending back Ferdinand to Spain, making a pacific overture to the allies, and attempting to awaken the sympathy of his French subjects. New taxes and new levies were ordered by his subservient senate; but the time to discipline the latter was not given him by his opponents. The campaign opened with the invasion of France, in the southwest, by the British, and a far more extensive inva- sion on the north-east by the Russians, Austrians, and Prussians. Our troops, acting in concert, and on a matured plan, met with no reverse of fortune. Our allies, less cautious, obtained, at first, some successes, but were taught at Montmiril and Montereau that Bonaparte, if reduced in means, was still formidable in the resources of his genius. At last, his too adventurous project of throwing himself in their rear, enabled them to march to Paris, to enter that capital with little resistance, and to accomplish a complete change in the government of France.

The capture of Paris, the recall of the Bourbons, and the cession of Flanders, were events little expected by the French nation, who had been kept in the dark in regard to the overwhelming force of the allies, and the weakness of their own army. These humiliations, and a dread of the revival of the influence of the noblesse and clergy, with all the ancient abuses, created a great degree of discontent and dissatisfaction. In so divided a country, Bonaparte was aware that he could not encounter much opposition, and the attachment of the military, still expressed with all the frankness natural to their profession, justified him in anticipating a welcome from every detachment that should be sent to oppose him. Such, and not a recall by any party, were the motives of his most unexpected return, and the causes of his success. No one can form a judgment of the sudden defection that took place, unless he knows the enthusiastic attachment of French soldiers to a successful chief, and the art with which Bonaparte had concentrated their affections on himself to the exclusion even of his marshals. A general dread of a civil war pervaded the revolutionists themselves till he reached Paris, and placed himself, unopposed, at the helm of affairs. The provinces followed the example of the capital. The country at large was tranquil, but the note of war was soon sounded, first on the side of La Vendée, and ere long on that of the Netherlands. The force with which Bonaparte advanced (about 100,000 men) was at first successful by its rapidity and concentration; but it was found wholly unequal to the execution of his daring plans when divided, and opposed with firmness and judgment. It was beaten, routed, dispersed; and, on Bonaparte's return to Paris, the assembled representatives, who had acted from the outset with a degree of independence, wholly opposite to the conduct of the senate of former years, required his immediate abdication.

Louis now re-entered his capital for the second time. His language was firm but moderate. The highest place in his ministry entrusted first to Talleyrand, was soon after conferred on the Duke of Richelieu. Instructions being given for a new parliament, the elections took place under an impression of general animosity towards the revolutionists as instrumental to the late disasters, and produced the return of a chamber impatient for vindictive measures. Party spirit run extremely high, and the majority of the chamber pressed many measures at variance with the moderate views of the King, who at last, on 5th September 1816, took the decisive step of dissolving this parliament, and of enabling his people to make a second election under calmer feelings. From this time forward the King was highly popular with the liberaux, and the ultra-royalists postponed their hopes of ascendancy to the accession of a new sovereign.

The years 1817 and 1818 were occupied chiefly with financial discussions, with new-modelling the army, and with obtaining, at first a reduction, and eventually a removal, of the allied army from the November French territory. The Duke of Richelieu now thought he might urge a modification of the election law. The majority of the peers were known to favour this course, but Louis thought differently, and, parting with his minister, continued to act under the counsels of Decazes, until the threatened ascendency of the liberaux induced him to accede to the proposed change; to recal the Duke of Richelieu to his councils; to sanction certain restrictions on the language of newspapers; and, by a law sur la liberté individuelle, to give his ministers a power similar to that which the government acquires in England by the suspension of the act of Habeas Corpus.

(D. D.)