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him. He thought of the universal respect in which he lived in his ow{} Isle, where his family was known and honoured, where he was as tich as most of the other lairds, and the few who were more affluent, lived not more happily, or received more marked attention. But here in b this small provincial town, they were slighted and looked down upon, byq many whose families were obscure compared to his own. Then thed more substantial comforts too, which had always been their portionsi they were now deprived of: the substantial and well-spread table ther joyous circle the songs of the highlands the inspiring whiskey, infes rior only, when old and mellow, to champaigne itself: how different then had many an evening glided away, to the cold, ceremonious, mea.m gre parties of this uninteresting place! The contrast was tboogreate and after a long and painful struggle, it was resolved they should bendr their steps, after a time, to their own country once more, with defeated s expectation, but with a certainty of future and lasting comfort.58229th Another inducement for many a prudent and anxious mother cofnam family to travel, and even to reside abroad, is the view of marrying her! daughters; and this end is not seldom answered. How many hunsof dreds of English women have found French and Swiss husbands, and have settled for good amidst vineyards and at the foot of the Alps! But in the aforesaid town there did not appear much prospect of such a consummation; the men were not rich; in general quite the reverse gu and at the balls there was always a large proportion of women, five tou one. About this time there came a stranger to the town, that shapeon pened to be one of the very few places habitable in France which her steps had not visited: a maiden lady, who owned to thirty-two, but cer tainly drew nearer to the calm and unlovely age of forty-oqYetdid she carry her years well and spiritedly, as if resolved to war with the fierce i strides of time;-a clear dark eye and fresh complexion, and hair partly but not all her own, so admirably adjusted by a skilful coiffeur, that w men saw nothing to warn them away, but much that invited to pauseof and look again. An income much more than sufficient for her own b wants or pleasures, it was soon known that she possessed; and more... than one half-pay officer, who had made the place his last and cheapesten retreat from more attractive scenes, and more than one or two rather w young Frenchmen of good condition, but small fortune, thought they could not do better than pay their homage to the fair spinster,bTheyon soon found it was neither the absence of youth or poverty ut that had conduced to make the wanderer pass on her way in single blessedness 380 she was still a finer woman than most of the French dames of the place, w who were ten years younger; had read much, and had as well cultivo vated mind. But from morning to night her career was one of con= [] stant and little singularities: it was strange her long travelling had notos cured them, but they grew by daily and hourly indulgence. In the w middle of a brilliant and sultry noon she chose to have the shutters m closed, and candles lighted; and the Frenchmen, who called to payi their homage, in the idea of finding Madame in her most tastefuleq costume and gracious airs, perceived her seated in a dishabille at a smallw table, a dog sleeping on each side of her, and a book of massive [size,29 and from its aspect neither of light nor luxurious contents, open before! her, and the head bent intently over it. Their compliments wereqe listened to with evident indifference or impatience and the same eyesys

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that sparkled with their best lustre at similar things the day preceding, were now scarcely lifted from their occupation. The visitors stared and swore in their hearts; they had known many singular and strange things done by the English, they said, but this surpassed all. Then her femme de chambre dined with, as well as read to her; and followed closely her mistress's footsteps as she sallied forth at times in the night without the gates, (for the town was walled,) and ruminating on high themes, or taken with the aspect of nature, though it was as dreary and bare as could well be conceived, returned not for hours to her residence. Tastes such as these, with some few others of a similar kind, seemed to repel the soft passion; the intelligent conversation of the lady, and at times the animated manner, with a good income, and no incumbrance, were scarcely deemed sufficient to banish such formidable peculiarities. But the fierce rivalry that soon sprang up between the new visitor and the family that had so long ruled the roast, banished from her thoughts, for the time, the dear prospects and dreams of love and marriage. It was with bitterness of heart that the lady and her daughters saw their ascendency, by degrees, decline before the vicinity of so formidable a neighbour, who was a cleverer and more accomplished, though far more eccentric woman than themselves. There was no compromising matters either civilities and compliments passed on each side, and visits were interchanged; but ere a few weeks had elapsed; the tongue, that source of all mischief, had committed deeds that no time could wash away. Ridicule, biting, unsparing ridicule, had been cast on the tastes and habits of the stranger; all this, of course, had been quickly and faithfully carried to her ears by the dear friends of both, War, secret, and on that account the more deadly, was declared; and the sides of the otwo parties were espoused by all the travelled people in the place. The curé too, the maire, and several of the Frenchmen, could not preserve their neutrality; the two former being elderly and steady men, adhered to their first acquaintance, the widow and her family; the manners and little attentions and compliments of the former being more suitable to their taste than the independent, and sometimes derisive spirit of the maiden lady. But the many, and the young, and the gallant Messieurs, went over to the new side; they admired her wit and talents, they knew she was rich, and they laughed at her sallies against priesthood and the Bourbons, and also at the keen satire she cast on the rival family. Keen and fast fell the shafts of her wit and scorn; and their ostentation, their many pretensions, and ignorance in many things, afforded a richer and more copious subject than her own eccentricity did to their. malice. They felt it deeply, and writhed beneath it; they saw their influence on the wane; the morning levees were little less numerous, but the obsequious and devoted tone of manners of many were changed. into carelessness or coldness. Their rides into the country, their shopping, their soirées no longer possessed universal éclat, or were watched, besieged, and lauded from the pavement to the attic. It was vain to strive with the torrent that had thus taken a new direction.; There are spirits, that, having been habituated to take the lead, disdain to play second, or be less than the first: of such texture was the haughty widow's heart. The rides they took almost every fine day, for no other purpose than to display a handsome carriage, did not bring the same feeling of delight. There was little charm of scenery in the

dreary roads and bare hills that stretched on every side around the town; the latter were covered with Vines, but scarcely a tree grew on them; the soil had a yellow, unsightly hue; and a canal moved slowly onward, as far as the eye could reach, for the purpose of conveying in boats the immense quantities of wine made in the province. Admiring eyes had attended and followed the equipage, filled with the widow and her daughters, in all the extreme and variety of French taste; and amidst the many bows and compliments that often impeded the progress of the wheels along the narrow and dirty streets, their hearts owned the luxury of reigning supreme objects of notice and attention in a remote and poor French town. But the reins of empire now hung loosely in their hand; for their rival appeared sometimes at the same hour, mounted on a handsome pony, which she sat and managed with much grace: and the looks of pleasure and surprise that were cast by the loungers in the streets on the air and equipment of the spinster, were of a more earnest and flattering kind, it was evident, than the slow rolling of the carriage, or the ostentation of its owners, drew. This could not be long endured: important intelligence from home was pretended, by which their presence there was immediately required, and the decline of August saw the family, that had been paramount in the place for nearly a year, long ere winter's frost commanded a retreat, quit the field to their younger and triumphant rival, and depart for the capital.

MEMOIRS OF SAVARY, DUKE OF ROVIGO.* /

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Or all the agents of Napoleon's tyranny, Savary has been supposed the most sanguinary, reckless, and thorough-going to have shrunk from no infamy, and stuck at no crime-the ready and willing instrument of any deed of darkness or treachery-taking the foulest by preference, and ambitious of the most degrading eminence. Give a dog a bad name and hang him, coarsely but closely expresses Savary's fate. The Royalists denounced him as the murderer of D'Enghien, while the real authors of the tragedy made him the scape-goat; and all, who had aught to dread from the world's censures, joined in the cry to hunt the unhappy man down. Stung into indignation and book-making, he at length turned upon his detractors and vituperators, and unveiling all concealments without scruple or reserve, has assigned to every man his share in the agency and crimes of Napoleon's power. Of Napoleon himself he is the constant apologist, or rather the steady eulogist, for he scarcely ever supposes him to require defence. The main objects of his very extended memoirs are to exhibit his master's career, to establish his own faithfulness and devotedness, to clear up his own reputation, according to his measure of purity, and to lay open the blunders and treacheries of his fellow-soldiers and ministers, and especially those of Bernadotte, Talleyrand, Fouché, and Murat. The actions and motives of hundreds besides are freely exposed; and he has accordingly brought down upon himself the fiery attacks of many of the survivors, all of whom, however, affect to treat him with contempt as a man utterly unworthy of credit. Of these the most distinguished at present are Talleyrand, Hullin, Trouton, Kellerman. The Duke, indeed, knows too much for one man; he assumes an almost exclusive fidelity to his master, and an extent of information, which nothing but the powers of ubiquity and omniscience could well warrant; and too often leaves it doubtful whether he is delivering the testimony * Memoirs of the Duke of Rovigo, (M. Savary,) written by Himself: il illustrative of the History of the Emperor Napoleon: Four Volumes. 8vo, omse ads

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course often deluded-defeated-put upon wrong scents baffled by his own agents-dreaded by the timid and ignorant, and laughed at by the bold and crafty. The merit of the man is, that, in such a position, he did comparatively little mischief, and committed few enormities comparatively, we mean, with reference to the unlimited range of his ac tion, the extensive command of men and money, the objects aimed at, and ther means employed. He was, in fact, we take it, not from defect of ac tivity, but inevitably, inefficient; and if his master had not lost all as he did, would himself have been dismissed for incompetency, though no other-not Satan or Fouché could ever have realized the perfect inquisition apparently aimed at The attempt, indeed, was absurd; agents and sub-agents were indispensable and with those who are employed in under-hand schemes, roguery is catching, and the temptation to cheat the employer quite irresistiblebad od 191 ogge

our impressions from the book itself; and to us it appears evident, words, that Savary meant honestly, according to his concep-O tions of honesty that he was devoted to the Emperor as the maker of his fortunes, and free from any desire of deceiving him-that others, while looking to the same quarter for the same purpose, were ready to grasp at any means to push him from his stool, and seize it for themselves, or support any one under whom they might gain greater authority-that he detected these sinister views, indiscreetly exposed them, and raised up a nest of hornets about his ears, which will never cease to harass him to the day of his death. Devoted, as he undoubtedly was, to the Emperor, that Emperor was Stil taught to distrust him, though all the while sacrificing character and credit to his interests. The measure of his conduct was plainly the Emperor's will; nw and his object, the accomplishment of what he conceived to be his duty. He was often plain-speaking, but he had clearly not impressed his master with to any extraordinary talents for advising, and was only regarded by him as an unscrupulous, indefatigable, and resolute minister of his purposes. To con sider him severely, and by the s standard of enlightened reason, he was a worthless tool-to judge more liberally, by the common standard of common judgments, he was a faithful servant, who executed orders, and trusted to his master for reward.

Savary was born in 1776, and was, of course, quite a boy outbreak of the Revolution. He was not, as the Anti-Jacobins used to report, the son of a pot-house porter; his father had retired from the service with the rank of major and the cross of St. Louis; and his elder brother was serving in the artillery, when himself, at fifteen, obtained a commission in a regiment of cavalry. Joining the troops assembled under the command of Bouillé to subdue the revolted garrison of Nancy, he stood fire the first day. In the war commenced on the part of the Allies, he was successively under the or

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ders of Custing. Fichepen me in abject of preference, with his superiordes and Morean and quickly distinguished by some display of temerity, he the execution of any hazardous enterprise; and was early appointed aide-decamp, first by Ferine, and afterwards by Desaix. With Desaix he lived on terms of great intimacy, and accompanied him as one of his aides-de-camp in the expedition to Egypt; of which, and of the country, these memoirs present the best and clearest statements we have anywhere seen. Returning with him from Egypt, he still accompanied him to the battle of Marengo, where his activity and intrepidity first fell under the cognizance of Bona parte; and after the battle, he was, along with Rapp, appointed aide-decamp to the Consul. This important office brought him in continual contact with Bonaparte, and Bonaparte was not a man to let any body about him sleep ep. For the next three or four years we find him actively and incessantly employed in different directions, on special commissions in inspecting and reporting upon the state of the Italian towns the condition of the forces under Massena and Brune-superintending the execution of particular or ders the sailing of Ganthaume-the preparations along the coast, and espe cially at Boulogne for the invasion of England,-till, in 1804, when, as Colonel of gensdarmerie, he was employed in the destruction of the Duke d'Enghien q Of this wicked act the author professes to give the minutest particulars driven to the detail as well by the infamy attached to his chief, the stain which has always stuck close to himself, and the contradictions more recently flung on him by Hullin. With respect to himself, he had, he seems to think, only to tell certain facts relative to the matter, to clear himself of any cent surable share in the business. Though very much employed by the Consul it had been as yet wholly in a military capacity; he was not admitted to his counsels; he was comparatively insignificant; he was but twenty-eight and in the particular case, actually knew nothing of the matter, but by pubs lic report, till the 20th of March, the very day on which the Duke hwass brought to Paris and conducted to Vincennes. On this day, according to hish account, and he has not been contradicted on this point, Savary had only been two or three days returned from his mission to Dieppe, where he had been two months engaged in detecting Georges' confederates, on this day, about five in the afternoon, when on duty at Malmaison, he was summoned to the Cabinet of the Consul, who gave him a sealed letter, and commanded him to deliver it forthwith to Murat, then Governor of Paris. Of the contents of this letter Savary declares himself perfectly ignorant. Murat took the letsol ter, and told him he would presently send him orders. These orders werem simply to take a brigade of infantry to Vincennes. A detachment of gens darmerie, of which Savary was himself colonel, had been ordered to pro-isceed to the same place. When he arrived at Vincennes, it was dark, and the troops coming in from different quarters of Paris, and at different hours, and b little or no accommodation provided for them, he was engaged through the night, till about three in the morning, in disposing of them. In the mean of while the Commission, consisting of Hullin, the President, and the colonels of regiments belonging to the garrison of Paris, had assembled, and the trialof the Duke proceeded. bha aigrybs 10t stoolst vaibox yas The room where the Commission was held was open to all within the walls; and when Savary was at liberty 7 to go in, after seeing the troopsie settled, had great difficulty in getting behind the chair of the Pre-ow sident, where he wished to get to enable him to see the better, but where he remained but a very few minutes, because, being chilled with passing so to go and Iwarm himself at the fire, which was in front of the President's to chair. At this period the trial (if such it can be called) was already over, to and the Commission were in warm discussion. Savary was just in time to to hear the last words of the prisoner's defence. The room was now ordered to d be cleared, while the Commission deliberated, and Savary went out with the to rest, and withdrew with other officers to the troops that were stationed one the esplanade of the Castle. In about two hours after he quitted the room,sw

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