SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

Bibliotheque des Memoires relatilk it l'Hietoire de France pendant le Dix-huitleme Steele, avec Avant-propos et Notices. Par M. Francois Derriere. Tomes III. et • IV FU771ill Didot Frera.

TOPOOSAPIIT,..

• An Antiquarian Ramble In the Streets of London, with Anecdotes of their more Cele- brated Residents. By John Th .mss Smith, late Keeper of the Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, Author of " Nollekens and his Times," and " A Book for

Rainy Day." Edited by Chaska Mackay, LL.D Benfiey. Misczu.stszorts,

. Mums de M. A. W. Schlegel, ecrites en Francais, et pubilecs par Edouard Bocking-

Two volumes Williams and Norgate. A Poet's Bazaar. From the Dauiah of Hans Christian Andersen, Author of " The Improvieatore." By Charles Beckwith, Esq. In three volumes Bentley.

FRENCH HISTORICAL MEMOIRS.

MEMoIRs form a very extensive, delightful, and important branch of the literature of France. They seem almost coeval with that literature itself; Injd.their'supply has been abundant and uninterrupted from the days of old Philip de Comines and of the Duo de Sully to those of the Revolu- ton the Empire, and the Restoration. A future day will probably bring to light, in similar forms, much of the private history of the present time. The peculiar propensity of the French to memoir-writing, and their ad- mirable skill in it, must be accounted for by something in the national Character and disposition ; in the same way as some difference in the men- tal constitution of the sexes makes a lady's letter so much more easy, fluent, gracefil, and lively, than a man's. In France, people of all ranks and conditions have been memoir-writers : grave statesmen, martial com- manders, philosophers, courtiers, litterateurs, and artists of every class, and Women of the highest fashion and the most brilliant accomplishments ; and their productions form a body of literature without a parallel in the world. In themselves, they furnish pleasant reading from their wit, vi- vacity, and endless variety ; while there is scarcely a topic connected With the history, the social condition, and the manners of France for several centuries, on which they do not throw floods of light. In this agreeable and valuable kind of literature, we have little to show ; hardly anything, indeed, of consequence, beyond the writings of Horace Walpole, who pos- sessed, among other Gallicisms of character, the gift of memoir-writing, and whose productions of the class make us regret that they stand almost alone in this branch of English composition: for we cannot rank as belonging to it those memoirs of eminent men which are now-a-days manufactured after their death by professional authors, and generally as bookselling speculations. The memoirs we want are those of men and women of the world, moving in the busy affairs of life, and actors as well as spectators in the scenes which they describe. We have before us the third and fourth volumes of M. Barriere'e " Biblio- theque des Memoires relatifs k l'Ilistoire de France pendant le Dix-huitieme Siecle" ' • a work still in progress of publication, which, when completed; must be of considerable magnitude. The first two volumes contain some memoirs relative to the close of Louis the Fourteenth's reign, and the Regency; the volumes before us embrace the period from the accession of Louis the Fifteenth to the breaking out of the Revolution in 1789; and those which have yet to appear will of course relate to the eventful time till the establiehment and consolidation of the Consular government under Bonaparte. The third volume commences with the memoirs of Madame du Hausset, She femme de chambre of Madame de Pompadour. She was a person of condition, and treated by the royal favourite more as a companion than a servant; being trusted with all her mistress's secrets, admitted to her ut- most privacy, and familiarly treated by all her associates, even the King himself. This soubrette seems to have been a shrewd, intelligent French- woman, well aware of the interest of what was missing round her. Like Boswell, she was in the habit of writing down, from day to day, what she saw and heard. Her style is naive and simple ; she shows much attach- ment to her mistress, and views without any severity the scenes she wit- nesses : but her miniature-painting has filled up the details of a picture of royal degradation and general corruption of morals paralleled only in the worst times of the Roman empire. Madame de Pompadour, a young married woman of the middle class, brought to the King's notice in fur- therance of a court intrigue, soon gained a complete ascendancy over the royal sybarite, sank him deeper and deeper in sloth and sensuality, and for nearly twenty years governed the kingdom in his name; ruining its finances, involving it in disastrous and disgraceful wars, and exciting not only against herself, but the monarchy, the deep and concentrated hatred of the people, which afterwards exploded so terribly. That she did all this is well known ; but how she did it can be learned only from such a source as these memoirs.

• Some of the distinguished literati of the time figure in them in an amusing manner. The famous Quesnay, the chief of the sect of the Economists, was the King's physician in ordinary, and on intimate terms with the Sultana ; though he appears to have been a simple-minded man, uncontaminated by the manners of the court, and wrapped up in his phi- losophical theories. The following trait of him is told by Madame de Pom- padour to her attendant.

"Do you know what Quesnay said to me one day? The King was talking to him in my apartment, and he looked so agitated and confused, that when the King left the room, I said to him, Yon look very much embarrassed before the King, and yet he is so good-natured ! " Madam,' be answered, 'I was forty when I left my native village, and have little experience in the world. When I am in a room with the King, I say to myself—Here's a man who can cut my bead off : and that idea troubles me." But the King's justice and goodness ought to re- assure you." 0, that is all very well to reason upon; but feeling is much more prompt, and it inspires me with fear before I can muster up reasons against it.' I Immediately (says Madame de Hausset) wrote this down that I might not for- get it."

The King's treatment of literary men.

"The King, who admired everything connected with the age of Louis XIV., remembering that the Boileans and Racine had been well-treated by him, and that a part of the glory of his reign was ascribed to them, was Uttered ;ha he himself in his own reign haira Voltaire; but lie feared hinvand did not like him. He said, ' At any rate, I have treated him: as well as Louis- XIV. treated Racine and Boileau; I have given him, as Louis XLV.gave Racine, the place of a. gentle- man in ordinary, and a pension; it is hot my fault if he commits felh,es, and thinks himself entitled to be chamberlaie, to wear a cross, and sup with the King. This is not the fashion in France; acid as there are rather more beaux' esprita and noblemen here than in PruSsia, I should need a very large table to hold them all.' And then he reckoned on his fingers, Maapertnis Fontanelle, La Mothe, Vol- taire, Piron Destouches Montesquieu, Cardinal Polignac." Your Majesty:. said somebody, 'forgets D'Alembert and Clair' suit." Yes,' said the King; and Cre- billon and La Chaussie."Aiid the younger Crebillon,' added some one; and the Abbe Prevost and D'Olivet.' Very well,' said the King; ' for these five-and- twenty years all that crew [tout eels, an expression of the utmost conteinpt] would have dined and sipped with me.' " • ■ • The next memoirs' are those of M. de Bachanmont, a member of the fashionable society of Paris in the latter part of the reign of Louis the Fif- teenth and the early part of that of his successor. He was in the habit, for many years, of keeping a diary for his own amusement and that of his friends. It was afterwards printed abroad under the title of "Memoires Historiques et Litteraires," in thirty-six volumes ; from which a selection has been made by the editor of the present publication. The original volumes, he says, contain a mass of rubbish, of no interest or value in our day ; which, when cleared away, leaves but a small residue behind.; but this residue, he' thinks, (and we agree with him,) is well worthy of preservation. It is a melange, like " that of Grimm, of all the. topics of the day, public, literary, and fashionable:. treated with a Frenchman's lightness and vivacity, and very entertaining; though, with all its gayety, it throws a melancholy light on the thoroughly corrupted state of French

society in the years immediately preceding the Revolution. • • From' some notices in this diary it appears that the death of Lotus the Fifteenth, (caused by small-pox in May ,1774,) was the subject of general and undisguised rejoicing. The following scene took place at his funeral. -

" The Royal remains were conveyed to their resting-place on the day appointed, with an indecent haste, and an absolute destitution of ceremonial. The taverns along the road were full of drunken people, singing and making merry. • One of them is talked of, who was so riotous that the people of the house wanted to turn him out, and refused to let him have any more wine; to get rid of him, they said that the King's funeral procession was going to pass. What!' he cried, he has made us die of hunger all his life, and now he is dead, is he going to make us die of thirst ? '" The most curious part of these memoirs is the account given, day by day, of Voltaire's final visit to Paris. He arrived in February 1778, and took up his abode with his relative the Marquis de Villette. He was eighty-four years old, and a living skeleton ; but as active, vain, and am- bitious as ever. The details of the homage paid him by the Parisian lite- rati and bas blew, and his way of receiving it—his sarcasms, wit, and gallantry—his anxiety about the production of his last tragedy, ii:ene, and his presence at its performance—the siege laid to him by the clergy during his -final illness in their zeal to extort from him a renunciation of his infidel opinions—his confessions under the influence of fear of death or physical weakness, and retraOtations of them when he rallied for a time his strength and spirits—and the closing scene of his life—are all full of character, and many of them are not mentioned by his biographers . From this part of the memoirs we shall translate a few passages.

FRANKLIN AND VOLTAIRE. •

When Dr. Franklin called on M. de Voltaire, he presented to him his grandson; and, with an indecent and puerile adulation, or, according to some devout people, with a derisive impiety, he asked him to give the child his blessing. The philo- sopher, as good an actor as the Doctor, rose, placed his hands on the little nano- cent's head, and pronounced with emphasis these three words—" God, Liberty; Toleration."

VOLTAIRE'S TEMPER.

M. de Villette, a few days ago, had a large party at dinner. In sitting down to table, M. de Voltaire missed his drinking-cup, which he had marked with his seal. " Where is my cup? " he said with flashing eyes, to a simple footman be- hind his chair, whose special duty it was to wait upon him. The poor devil, frightened out of his wits, stammered out a few words. "Enemy of your mas- ter ! " roared the old man in a fury, "find my goblet,—I will have my goblet—I won't dine without it!" Seeing that the goblet did not appear, he left the table in a rage, went up to his room, and shut himself in. Madame Denis, Maciame and lit de Villette, one after the other went to beg him to come down, but in vain. At length, it was determined to depute the Marquis de Villevieille, whom Voltaire is fond of from his pleasant and amiable manners. He knocked softly at the door. " Who is there? ""'Tis I—Villevieille." " Ah," said Voltaire, opening the door, " it is you, my dear Marquis; what do you want with me?" " I am come in the name of all your friends, in despair at your absence, to beseech you to come down." " They ask me to come down? " "They conjure you." • " But, my dear friend, I dare not." " Why so?" "They will laugh at me." "How can you think so? Have we not all our notions about things that belong. to us? Does not everybody fancy his own glass, his penknife, or his pen ?" " Well, I see you wish to find an excuse for me. Let us rather own frankly that everybody has his foibles: I blush for mine; but yet I remember having read somewhere that the sage Locke was passionate. Go down first—I shall follow you." A few minutes afterwards he appeared, and sat down to table, mimicking the timid awkwardness of a naughty child that expects a scolding. Some persons present, who told the story, assured us that they never saw him so amiable.

HIS CONFESSION.

M. de Voltaire's partisans, not being able to deny the fact of his confession, which is too publicly known, are now trying to efface the disagreeable impressions it may produce by representing it as an act of derision; in proof of which, they repeat his reply to the cure who was exhorting him to reenter the pale of the Church—" You are right, ill:le Cure; we should die in the religion of our fathers. Were I on the banks of the Ganges, I should wish to expire with a cow's tail in my band." The following is•his declaration of faith—" I, the undersigned, de- clare, that being attacked at eighty-four years of age with a vomiting of blood; and being unable to drag myself to church, M. le Cure of St. Salpiee has added to his good works that of sending to me the Abbe Gautier, to whom I have made my confession; and that, if Gad dispose of me, I die in the holy Catholic religion in which I was born, hoping that the Divine mercy will pardon all my sins; and that, if I have sesodalized the Church, I beg pardon of God and it. VOLTAIRE. 2d March 1778, in the house of M. the Marquis de Villette, in presence of M. fAbbe Miguot my nephew, and M. the Marquis de Villevieille my friend."

HIS LAST APPEARANCE IN PUBLIC.

Oa the 1st April, M. de Voltaire went to the Comedic Fransaise. The court of the building, large as it is, was fall of people waiting for him. As soon as his

carriage, sky-blue and spangled with stars, made its appearance, the assemblage of Savoyarda, apple-women, and all the canaille of the neighbourhood, burst into acclamations of Vim Voltaire!" The Marquis de Villette, who had previously arrived, and another friend, helped him to alight, and had some trouble to get him out of the crowd. When he entered the theatre, a crowd of a more elegant kind, and full of real enthusiasm for genies, surrounded him; the ladies especially threw themselves in his way, and stopped him that they might look at him the better; some of them eagerly touched his clothes, and others pulled hairs from the fur of his cloak.

The saint, or rather the divinity of the day, was to occupy the box of the noble- men of the bedchamber, opposite that of the Count d'Artois. Madame Denis and Madame de Villette were already seated, and the pit, in convulsions of joy, waited the poet's appearance. There was no rest till he was placed in the front row, beside the ladies. Then there was a cry, " The crown!" and Brizard, the actor, came to place it on his head. "Ab, Dieu, vans monies done me faire mounr?" cried Voltaire, weeping for joy, and refusing the honour. He took the crown in his hand and presented it to Belle et bonne, [his pet name for Madame de Villette]; she was declining it, when the Prince de Beauveau seizing the laurel wreath, placed it on the head of the Sophocles of the hour; Who refused it no longer.

His new tragedy was acted, and applauded more than usual; but not enough to correspond with an triumphal a reception. When it was over, the curtain fell; and, rising again, discovered the bust of Voltaire, surrounded by all the performers, with palms and garlands in their hands. The bust was already crowned; and after a flourish of drums and trumpets, Madame Vestris declaimed, with an em- phasis proportioned to the extravagant* of the scene, some verses composed for the occasion by the Marquis de St. Marc. Then they all, in succession, placed their garlands round the bust: Mademoiselle Father, in a transport of enthusiasm, kiss.d it, and all the rest followed her example.

Voltaire's little comedy Nanine, was than performed; when it was over there was a fresh hubbub, and fresh embarrassment for the philosopher's modesty: when he got into his carriage, it was not allowed to proceed; the crowd threw themselves before the horses, and held them; and some young poets began a cry, to take out the horses, and draw the modern Apollo home; unluckily these en- thusiasts were too few for the. purpose, and at length the carriage was allowed to move on, in the midst of " mats" which lie could hear all the way to his re- sidence. When he got home, he wept afresh, and modestly protested that if he had foreseen that the public would commit such follies he would not have gone to the theatre. Next day, his friends came in crowds to congratulate him on his triumph: he was unable to resist such ardour, kind feeling, and glory, and im- mediately resolved to buy a house and settle himself in Paris.

A CONTRAST.

May 31. M. de Voltaire died last night, at eleven o'clock. As the priests re- fuse to bury him, and his friends dare not send his body to Ferney, where his tomb is waiting him, they are seeking means to get over the difficulty. * • * A little before his death, the pastor, whose charity is indefatigable, again ap- proached his bed and asked him if he believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ ? The dying man hesitated a moment, and then answered—" Monsieur he Cure, leis- sez-moi monrir en pair." He turned himself and expired, repairing, in the eyes of his disciples, the pusillanimity he had previously shown. The Government, whose weakness appears in everything, has prohibited the actors from performing any piece of Voltaire's till further orders. It feared some fermentation in the public thus assembled. What a contrast with the coronation of the modern Sophocles three months ago!

The fourth volume contains the Memoirs of the Baron de Besenval ,Theyhave been long p‘blished, and are more generally known ,than those Which we have already noticed, having been frequently cited and referred to by Lacretelle and other historians of the Revolution. De Besenval, a native of Switzerland, began his career as an officer of the Swiss Guards 'of Louis the Fifteenth ; served with distinction in that corps in the Seven Tears' war ; rose to the rank of a general officer, and passed his life at the Court of France till the breaking out of. the Revolution. Being a loyalist, his fortunes were involved in those of his sovereign ; he was arrested, priaoned, and narrowly escaped with his life. Had he survived till the reign of terror' " his escape from the guillotine would have been but temporary ; but he died in June 1791, in his seventieth year. His memoirs are almost exclusively political, and contain ample details re- specting the character and transactions of the leading statesmen and other public personages—such as De Vergennes, the Duke d'Aiguillon, Calonne, Necker—who figured in the latter days of the Monarchy ; and likewise of the members of the Royal Family, especially the Queen and the Count d'Artois.- As to the unfortunate Louis the Sixteenth himself, he scarcely appears among the dramatis persona,—a striking mark of the nullity of his character. The reader of these memoirs will not find much novelty in the events which they relate ; but they fill up the picture drawn by every contemporary writer, of the utter imbecility of the Go- vernment, the corruption of every branch of its administration, the un- blushing profligacy of the higher orders, and their blindness to the impend- ing storm which they had drawn upon their own beads. There is no oc- casion to have recourse to the writings of " the philosophers " to account for the French Revolution : had no philosopher written a line, there was enough, in the wrongs of the people,

" To move The stones of France to rise and mutiny."