FRENCH NOVELISTS. 523 



of the duties resulting from these constitutional forms of liberty 

 which seems to have been wholly overlooked by the popular French 

 writers, is the encouragement of the domestic virtues : the affections 

 that cluster round the family fireside, the purer and more exalted 

 sympathies of our nature, that bind man to man in the bonds of social 

 benevolence, should be fostered and promoted with the greatest care. 

 Around this point every thing else must rally ; it is the nucleus of 

 the social system. To demonstrate the importance of these truths, 

 and to promote a general belief in the necessity of their adoption, has 

 been the laudable endeavour of Gustave Drouineau, in a series of 

 novels, of more or less merit, which he has given to the public. They 

 all embody some philosophical principle, which is uniformly made to 

 bear upon a moral object. 



In that which forms the subject of the present article, he has 

 laboured to point out and to combat the desolating influence of the 

 spirit of irony that spirit which humiliates in order that it may 

 afterwards deny morality, which laughs at principles that it may 

 efface the recollection of that from which it emanates, which sports 

 with all creeds, whether political, moral, or religious, and from whose 

 attacks the natural affections are not safe, 



In his attempt to reduce it to a system, to trace it in its various dis- 

 guises in the political and social world, M. Drouineau, it must be 

 owned, has given ample latitude to the meaning of the simple word 

 irony. In fact, he not unfrequently makes it the characteristic fea- 

 ture of a combination of events, of a course of policy, of the events 

 of an epoch ; he is strange, but there is method in his strangeness 

 but our readers shall judge for themselves. 



The story commences at the period when the events of the 18th 

 Brumaire had placed the genius of Buonaparte in the ascendant. 

 The feeble and contemptible Directory had disappeared in the all- 

 absorbing glory of the hero, and France, tired of the experiments o f 

 empyric statesmen, transferred her destinies to the victor of Lodi. 

 He talked to the people of liberty and equality, while he rivetted 

 their fetters ; and but a few short days after a funeral procession in 

 honour of Washington, he proceeded, in state to instal himself in the 

 Tuilleries, and to reconstruct monarchical etiquette, after a new 

 fashion. His genius was not content with governing the deliberations 

 of the assemblies, but descended to direct the private concerns of 

 families, as an elephant picks up pins. He disposed of the hands of 

 rich heiresses in favour of his chosen followers, because his system of 

 fusion demanded it. 



Among those whom Buonaparte thus made it a part of his policy 

 to reward with a wife, was the Count de Juviessy. He was a man 

 of considerable talents, and had acquitted himself of his diplomatic 

 functions with distinction. Though eminently gifted with that happy 

 elasticity of a true courtier which can bend itself to every thing, even 

 to virtue itself, he possessed a dignity of demeanour which served to 

 cover the baseness of the mind. His conduct was the invariable re- 

 sult of previous calculation ; but as he jested upon all subjects, he 

 was thought to want depth. His habits of raillery made it hard to 

 distinguish his real from his assumed opinions. His conversation wa 



