1830.] Affairs in General. 453 



long years the most dexterous of statesmen, senators, and Frenchmen ; 

 the man who could keep his head under Robespierre, his money under 

 Barras, his place under Buonaparte, his pension under the Bourbons, and 

 his conscience, his smile, his hotel, and his wife, under them all, is no 

 common man for the episcopal bench ; setting apart his wit, of which 

 he has kept live specimens under every change of dynasty in France since 

 the days of Danton ! 



But why has he come ? Is it that the citizen king is afraid that 

 Talleyrand might imbibe ambition in his old days, and sigh to change 

 the mitre for the crown ? Or that he dreads to have the courtier of 

 Charles X. turned into the partizan ? Or that he wishes to have a 

 watch upon Wellington ? Or that he is simply tired of him, and prefers 

 the society of the very crack-brained Due de Broglie, or of that not less 

 crack-brained lecturer on metaphysics, now metamorphosed into a 

 minister, M. Guizot ? a pair of statesmen, who, before three months are 

 over, will give the citizen king a sufficient lesson of the wisdom of 

 expecting visionaries to be fit for anything under heaven, but to write 

 essays in reviews, and set their readers asleep. Or is he come, to quiz. 

 Charles X. into giving up the Duke of Bourdeaux ? Or is it that old 

 Talleyrand, wise in his generation, already sees the signs of the times, 

 and wishes to get out of the way till the next overthrow is quiet ? One 

 thing we hope ; that some of our stirring publishers will lay hold on 

 him, tempt his avarice with a handsome sum, and make him write his 

 memoirs. They would be the most curious things in Europe. They 

 would tell more state secrets, turn more high characters into ridicule, 

 cover more hypocrites with shame, strip more kings, queens, princesses, 

 and prime ministers of their public honours, account for more pensions 

 and places, give the history of more coronets and orders, more country- 

 houses, curricles, and cavalry colonelcies, than any developments of 

 human knavery that ever came from the pen of Frenchman. This he 

 might do, if he would but tell the truth, and that we suppose he might 

 be induced to tell for the due value. 



His countrymen have a pleasant idea of him. " For fifty years," says 

 Le Voleur, " whilst so many systems have succeeded each other, take 

 the Moniteur from the commencement of these governments, and you 

 will find this phrase, which seems a fundamental one for the Moniteur 

 of the time : ' To-day M. de Talleyrand had the honour to pay his 

 respects to the king or to the emperor or to the consul or to the 

 director' in fact, to power" We remember reading the reply of the 

 English Ambassador at tke Hague, during the protectorate and after the 

 restoration, to one who remarked how easily he changed his politics, 

 " Jesuis letres-humble serviteur des evenemens!" There are pupils of the 

 same school in England. 



The horrid accident which put an end to Mr. Huskisson's life, has been 

 too much before the public to allow of any recapitulation of ours ; even if 

 the subject were not so painful to ourselves. But we must observe, as 

 to the coroner's inquest, that we should have preferred a much less 

 railway-jury. Not a syllable is said in the coroner's charge, of the mis- 

 management of the machines, of the want of preparation in the carriages, 

 nor of the extraordinary fact that the machines were allowed to run upon 

 each other without notice of any kind. According to the details of the 

 accident, scarcely had half a dozen gentlemen got out of one of the 



