1827.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



639 



throne ; but was still employed, and shared 

 in the victories of the short but brilliant 

 campaign of Germany in 1804. In 1806 he 

 commanded the artillery of the army sta- 

 tioned in Friuli, for the purpose of occupy- 

 ing the Venetian territory incorporated by 

 the treaty of Presburg with the kingdom of 

 Italy. In 1807 he was sent to Constanti- 

 nople to introduce European tactics in the 

 Turkish service -but the object was de- 

 feated by the death of Selim, and the oppo- 

 sition of the Janissaries. On Foy's return, 

 the expedition against Portugal was pre- 

 paring, and he received a command in the 

 artillery under Junot, during the occupation 

 of Portugal, and filled the post of inspector 

 of forts and fortresses. He was severely 

 wounded at the battle of Vimiera. On the 

 capitulation he returned to France, and 

 with the same army proceeded to Spain ; 

 and, subsequently, under the command of 

 Soult, again went into Portugal. When 

 commanded to summon the Bishop of 

 Oporto to open its gates, he was seized and 

 Stript by the populace, and thrown into 

 prison, and escaped with difficulty. The 

 same year he was made general of brigade. 

 In 1810 he made a skilful retreat at the 

 head of 600 men, in the face of 6,000 Spa- 

 niards, across the Sierra de Caceres ; and 

 at the head of his brigade was wounded in 

 the battle of Busaco. Early in 1811 he 

 was selected by Massena to convey to the 

 emperor the critical state of the French 

 army before the lines of Torres Vedras. 

 This commission, though one of great peril 

 the country being in a complete state of 

 insurrection he successfully accomplished, 

 and brought back the emperor's instructions, 

 for which service he was made general of 

 division. In July 1812, Foy was in the 

 battle of Salamanca, and was one of those 

 who, Avhen Lord Wellington raised the 

 siege of Burgos and retreated to the Douro, 

 hung upon his rear, and took some prisoners 

 and artillery. 



On the news of the disasters in Russia, 

 and Lord Wellington's consequent resump- 

 tion of offensive movements, Foy was sent 

 with his division beyond Vittoria to keep 

 the different parties in check ; and after the 

 battle of Vittoria, at which he was not pre- 

 sent, he collected at Bergana 20,000 troops, 

 of different divisions, and had some success 

 in skirmishes with the Spanish corps form- 

 ing the left wing of the allied army. He 

 arrived at Tolosa about the same time with 

 Lord Lynedoch, and after a sanguinary con- 

 test in that town, retreated upon Irun 

 from which he was quickly dislodged, and 

 finally recrossed the Bidassao. In the affair 

 of the passage of the Nive, on the 9th of 

 December 1813, and the battle of St. Pierre 

 d'Irrube on the 13th, Foy distinguished him- 

 self, and in the hard fought battle of Or- 

 thez, on the 27th February 1814, he was 

 left apparently dead on the field. Before 

 this period he had been made count of the 

 empire, and commander of the legion Of 



honour. In March 1815, he was appointed 

 inspector general of the fourteenth military 

 division ; but on the return of Napoleon, 

 during the 100 days, he embraced the cause 

 of the emperor, and commanded a division 

 of infantry in the battles of Ligny and 

 Waterloo, at the last of which he received 

 his fifteenth wound. This terminated his 

 military career. In 1819, he was elected a 

 member of the Chamber of Deputies, the 

 duties of which he discharged till his death 

 in November 1825 ; and from his first en- 

 trance into the chamber, was distinguished 

 for his eloquence, and quickly became the 

 acknowledged leader of the opposition. 



Emir Malek, Prince of the dssassins, 

 an Historical Novel of the 13th Century. 

 3 vols. 12mo.; 1827. With not a par- 

 ticularly catching title; no puffery no 

 name and, for any thing that appears on 

 the face of it, a first production ; the book 

 stands little chance of being read but 

 through the notices of the reviews. The 

 writer confidingly presumes his work will 

 make its own way. This is a mistake, in 

 days, when so many manoeuvres are worked 

 for catching the public eye, and nothing 

 does catch it without these manoeuvres- 

 a little paragraph-puffing is indispen- 

 sable. Whatever the judgment, however, 

 shewn in bringing it out, the book de- 

 serves to class respectably. The writer 

 has considerable capabilities - a competent 

 acquaintance with the times and scene of 

 his story is no novice in composition 

 apt at contriving critical positions and 

 describing them with vigour and effect, 

 with some felicity and occasional pathos. 

 The story is essentially a romance mean- 

 ing by romance an exhibition of over- 

 mastering passions, with few or no modi- 

 fications, with little or nothing of every 

 day life and every day events requiring 1 

 slight knowledge of mankind, as men ap- 

 pear in society, and in our own times, but 

 much as they shew in books where the 

 reins are given to the imagination and 

 where actions flow not from complicated 

 but single motives if such be the character 

 such is the conduct- and where of course 

 men's actions seern regulated more by the 

 rules of geometry than the laws of hu- 

 manity. 



The hero of the piece is a prince of the 

 Assassins of a set of people, with whom a 

 writer may take great liberties, for little or 

 nothing is known of them, on which any 

 reliance can be placed. To suppose a so- 

 ciety of 70,000 persons, as wild and as fero- 

 cious as tigers, spread over immense dis- 

 tricts from the Caspian to the mountains of 

 Lebanon, wholly and solely devoted to the 

 will of one man, even to death at command 

 because that man has given each indi- 

 viduala foretaste of a Mahommedan paradise 

 in an earthly heaven of- his own creation 

 and all this for the purpose of employing 

 them perpetually in the office of assassins- 



