2- "1 S. VIII. Aug. 20. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



159 



ster Hall in 1788, on the occasion of the trial of 

 Warren Hastings. Mill was born in 1773, and was 

 a tutor in Sir J. Stuart's family ; and afterwards, in 

 1793 and 1794, at the college in Edinburgh. In 

 1798, he was a preacher, and first came to London 

 in 1800. It is impossible he could have been in the 

 gallery of the House of Commons in 1787 when 

 Sheridan made his great speech, for he was not in 

 London until many years afterwards ; and if he 

 had been, the judgment of a boy of fourteen 

 would have signified nothing. 



The opinion of all the good judges was clear 

 and decided that Sheridan's speech in Westmin- 

 ster Hall was almost a failure from being over- 

 done, and too ambitious ; and they used to cite 

 Burke's praise of it as an evidence that, on things 

 relating to the impeachment, his mind was be- 

 wildered. E. C. B. 



MiittXlKntaui, 



MONTHLT FEtJlLLETON ON FRENCH BOOKS. 



The Bihliotheque Cliarpentier is a collection of works 

 quite as well known now as the Aldine Classics, or as 

 Bohn's Standard Library. Since it was first established 

 it has been gradually made to Include the best produc- 

 tions both of modern and ancient literature ; and amongst 

 the various items of which it is composed we would 

 number especially a series of memoirs on the history of 

 France. Critics have already remarked frequently the 

 importance of French memoir literature. Beginning with 

 the chronicle of Gregoire de Tours, down to the volumi- 

 nous narrative of Saint Simon, it embraces an inexhaust- 

 ible fund of interesting reading : it brings before us 

 characters and facts with which we are more or less 

 intimately connected, and it throws upon the mysteries 

 of politics a light which we fruitlessly seek from the of- 

 ficial wording of state papers. 



In some former communications we have already no- 

 ticed various reprints of French memoirs ; our object 

 to-day is to take up this review where we left it, and to 

 ofl'er a few observations on the additions lately made by 

 M. Charpentier to his Btbliotkeque. 



I. Mimoires du Cardinal de Retz, adressis a Madame 

 de Caumartin, sutvis des Instructions inedites de Mazarin 

 relatives aux Frondeurs, nouvelle edition, revue et colla- 

 tionne sur le Manuscrit original, avec une Introduction, des 

 Notes, des E'claircissements tires des Mazarinades et un 

 Index, par Aim€ Champollion-Figeac. 12o, 4 vols. 



The beginning of the reign of Louis XIV. is one of the 

 most curious periods in French history. It appears to us 

 full of confusion, of turmoil, of corruption both political 

 and social. The attempts of the nobility to destroy Riche- 

 lieu's work, and to reconstitute the feudal system ; the 

 endeavour on the part of the magistracy represented by 

 the parliament to arrest the encroachments of the exe- 

 cutive power, and to obtain on behalf of the nation some 

 kind of guarantee ; the intrigues of Cardinal Mazarin and 

 the turbulence of the Frondeurs; such are the several 

 causes which give to that epoch a character full of ori- 

 ginality. The dramatis personm who figured during its 

 course stand out in bold relief; they are energetic, enter- 

 prising, violent both in their affections and in their 

 hatred ; and their individuality, strongly marked, forms a 

 perfect contrast to the insignificant, tedious, monotonous 



puppets which we see crowding the saloons of Versailles 

 after the majority of the king. Amongst the striking 

 personages of the Fronde period. Cardinal de Retz is un- 

 doubtedly the most prominent : unprincipled, loving in- 

 trigue for intrigue's sake, rather than for the results that 

 might accrue to him from it, gifted with abilities of the 

 highest order, he is as it were the hero of the civil war, ^ 

 the star of the barricades ; and his ecclesiastical costume, 

 either in the galleries of the Palais Royal or the streets 

 of Paris, is a kind of rallying-point around which gather 

 together all Mazarine's enemies, whether they belong to 

 the aristocracy or to the more patriotic parliamentarians. 

 The memoirs of Cardinal de Retz are remarkable for a 

 variety of qualities which are seldom found combined 

 together, and which have secured to them a conspicuous 

 position amongst the masterpieces of French literature. 

 In the first place the Cardinal is generally verj' impar- 

 tial. Mazarine is the only person whom he uniformly 

 depreciates ; Conde, MoM, the men who were most op- 

 posed to him, are judged with great fairness in the me- 

 moirs, and their undoubted qualities put in their true 

 light. This sense of justice forms so striking an excep- 

 tion to the common tone of memoir writers that it should 

 be specially noticed here. It resulted, we believe, from 

 another merit to which Cardinal de Retz might justly 

 lay claim, namely, the consummate skill with which he 

 unravelled and explained the most difficult affairs, the 

 thorough acquaintance he possessed of the various co- 

 teries, their origin and their motives, the clear insight 

 he had into the defects of the government at the time 

 when he was called upon to plaj'^ so brilliant a part as a 

 political leader. We have already alluded to De Retz's 

 merits as a writer ; they are of no common order. His 

 stj'le is not that harmonious, limpid, but too polished one 

 which we find in Racine, Massillon, and F^nelon; it is the 

 picturesque idiom handled bj' La Rochefoucauld, Molifere, 

 and Pascal, full of originality and of real strength. 



The memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz begin with the 

 year 1628 and end in 1655 ; that is to say twenty-four 

 years before the prelate's death. Of this epoch the pre- 

 sent editor truly remarks: "C'est I'^poque la moins 

 connue de I'existence du Cardinal, et elle n'est point pour 

 lui privee d'interet ni d'honneur. II eut toute la confi- 

 ance de Louis XIV., et, dans trois missions successives h 

 Rome, il fit, dans trois conclaves, trois Papes selon les 

 voeux du grand Roi." To supply the blank thus left by 

 the Cardinal himself, M. Champollion-Figeac has com- 

 piled from various official sources a kind of supplemental 

 notice, which completes the biography of the great Fron- 

 deur. The other important features of this new and 

 excellent edition are the following : 1°. Critical opinions 

 borrowed from the writings of Saint Evremond, La Roche- 

 foucauld, Tallemant des Re'aux, and other authors. 2'>. A 

 bibliographical list of various editions. 3". Copious notes ; 

 and 4°. An alphabetical index. The printing, paper, and 

 other material arrangements are unexceptionable. 



II. Memoires du C/ievalier de Grammont, d'apres les 

 meilleures E'ditions Anglaises, accompagnSs d'uti Appendice 

 contenant des Extraits du Journal de Samuel Pepys et de 

 celui de John Evelyn sur les Faits et Personnages des Mi- 

 moires de Grammont, des Depeches du Comte de Comminges, 

 Ambassadeur Frangais a Londres, d^une Inti-oduction, de 

 Commmtaires, de Notes et d'un Index, par M. G. Brunet. 

 12". 



The memoirs of Grammont are not, like those of the 

 Cardinal de Retz, important in a political point of view ; 

 but as a description of society during the seventeenth 

 centurv thev are full of very curious, though not always 

 very edifying, details. At the time when Hamilton 

 wrote this amusing book, the connexion between France 

 and England was almost closer than it is now. The re- 



