BOOKS.

SISMONDI AND NAPOLEON.*

WE have always thought that the world has not taken in half the merits of Sismondi. A long time is needed to get justice done to that form of character. Its thorough conscientiousness—when the part it has to play is encumbered with difficulties—those difficulties, too, shifting perpetually, all of them calling out the most potent spirits of a time rich in all the elements of power—its great free- dom from low motive, and yet its anxiety to be in harmony with the best minds surrounding it, give it now and then an appearance of indistinctness. Much light has, however, been thrown upon it of late. The recent publication of the Lettres Inidites has done some- thing ; also the clever article prefixed to that work by M. St. de Reno Taillandier (first written for the Revue des Deux Diondes) ; then these articles have referred us back to the charming private memoir by Mademoiselle Montgolfier, and to the best of all, Sismondi's known correspondence which follows it, that with Madame Mojon, with Dr. Channing, and with Mademoiselle Enlalie de St. Aulaire. So furnished, we find ourselves in a condition to be very thankful for what we have of Sismondi, but also we cannot but wish for more. Nowhere was there a more affectionate, persever- ing friend, in absence as well as present, than he was. When one looks at the quantity he wrote for the public, how rapidly his thoughts were moving and his pen writing on almost every interest- ing topic of the day, from the welfare of the poorest peasant to the gratification of the tastes of men of letters, how minutely he went into the smallest practical matters belonging to the lower forms of agricultural employment, and diversified these labours with high musings on religion and politics, we wonder how he found time to be the thorough man of society he was, how he could keep up those long prolific correspondences with his mother when absent from him, with Madame d'Albany, also with his sister, Madame Forti, to whom he says in his journal he had addressed 715 letters in the space of about thirteen years, after the death of his mother—" 715 letters, all long ones, all full." " I am glad I never wearied of writing to her," he says, after she, too, was no more ; "perhaps they were the greatest pleasure of her sad life." She was about fifty-eight when she died ; she had lost three of her children, and had herself be- come blind.

There must surely be many of these letters still in being, and we attach real value to them. Throughout all Sismondi's letters, indeed, there is perfect clearness and sincerity.

"His liberalism was, as it has been well and truly said, a profound belief, a wise because a patient creed. He had suffered in his person and in his family from the excesses of an angry democracy, and had seen the effects of its ignorant and brutal frenzy, but neither democratic virtues nor democratic excesses ever assumed to his philosophical eyes the proportions which they did to many spectators of the Revolution. He felt this world to be one of trial and experiment ; he rose above the intolerance of scepticism and the blank infldelitty of the eighteenth cen- tury to a philosophical, though not an orthodox, belief in the truth of Christianity."—Edinburgh Review, April, 1864.

• Ultra Inidites de J. C. L. Sismondi. N1611662 area une IntrAnettou per M. St.Rend Taillaudter. Paris, 1563.4.

While Bonstetten and others of his early friends jeered at and disbelieved him, or said he would end in Methodism, Sismondi went steadily on, avowing his altered but distinct convictions, and writing his beautiful articles on" Religious Progress." Then also he was in private joining heart and hand with Channing, hailing a Christianity in which he could sympathize, pouring out the full flood of his indignation alike against priestly intolerance among Catholics and Protestants, and eagerly fighting against slavery.

Sismondi's part in the volume of Lettres InIdites is much the moat considerable, though there are a few letters from Bonstetten, also

from Madame de Steel and from Madame de Souza. All are taken from the collection of the Countess of Albany's letters in the library of the Fabre Museum at Montpellier. Sismondi's letters to the Countess occupy 257 pages. They begin in 1807, and end just before her death, in 1823, and they are to our minds very interest- ing, though in a different way to those he addressed at a later period to the three correspondents we have already named. Yet Madame d'Albany had his thoughts in very eventful times, and it must be owned he never spared the expression of his dissent from her political views. All these letters have a graceful, manly independ- ence about them—a self-respect which we honour all the more because it is mingled with a tenderness towards the prejudices of the friend of Alfieri. He delighted in the society and sympathy

of superior women, and it is curious to observe the attractions of those either very much older or very much younger than himself. Thus, on his first visit to Paris, he tells Madame d'Albany, "The

charm of Paris seems to grow upon me in proportion as I pene-

trate to its oldest society. I am astonished at the number of men and women approaching to eighty years, whose agreeableness is

infinitely greater than that of their juniors. Madame de Bouffiers (mother of M. de Sabran) is indeed far from that age; her vivacity, mobility, and judgment, however, are of the old times, and have no resemblance to the manners now in vogue. She introduced me to Madame de Coialon. There I saw Madame de St. Julien, who at eighty-six has the vivacity of youth, and who is the centre of the Chateaubriand circle. Then I am in pleasant relations with Madam de Tease, the most amiable and enlightened of old ladies, with M. Morellet, who is over eighty-six, with M. Dupont, who is seventy- five." The date of this letter is 1813. He complains of unmistakable signs of social deterioration—he thinks the men of that period selfish and time-serving. As time went on, however, full as he was of what charmed him in aristocratic society, when he returned to Geneva, and pursued his train of reflection, he was just towards the gains of the Revolution. He felt its vivifying breath, he knew that great souls had been stirred, great ideas awakened, and he became every year more deeply interested in the future of France, and when victory crowned the Allied arms, and he saw cause to dread

that the suppression of one form of tyranny would be the subver-

sion of the principles themselves which were most dear to his heart, he made no secret of his anxieties. So, too, felt and feared Madame de Steel. "The people," said Sismondi, "can never be reconciled

to the abuse of weakness in the same places where, a few months ago, they beheld the &buss of power." " The brother and nephews

of Louis the XVIII. are so detested," he adds, " that we may with certainty predict they will never reign. When the King dies they will be driven from France."

With these views it is not to be wondered at if Sismondi, like Benjamin Constant, was inclined to regard the return of Buona-

parte from Elba, under strong guarantees, as affording better hope for the French nation than a Bourbon ruler, and this brings us to the passage of his life which we have marked as both singular and honourable.

He published at this crisis an Examen de is Constitution Fran- vise in the Moniteur, attempting to demonstrate that the guar-

antees required by the nation and promised by Napoleon would be much more likely to ensure liberty to the French than a mon- archical government guarded by foreign bayonets. He believed that "the additional act " would ensure the liberties of the citizen, that the concessions of the liberty of the press, the independence of the magistracy, and trial by jury, 'might now, if ever, be obtained, and he had no faith in their being safe under Bour-

bon rule. To infer from this that he and several other enlightened friends of France trusted Buonaparte would be a wrong inference.

They only regarded the crisis, which they had, however, no hand in bringing about, as one in which he might be made to do the work of freedom better than others,—he might be a " liberal =lyre lei."

Napoleon no doubt was somewhat surprised at his newly found champion. He requested to see Sismondi, and so it came to pass that the historian and philosopher of Breneva and the Emperor walked up and down together the shaded alleys of the garden of the Elysee Bourbon for well nigh an hour. The interview was very characteristic, and every particular was noted down by Sismondi for his mother as soon as it was ended.

Buonaparte, as usual, began by compliments. He had read all the historian's works—he had read them again and again, always with the greatest interest. Sismondi simply replied by a reference to his last paper in the Moniteur on the " Constitution of France," insisting on his own convictions, and expressing his concern that they were not more general, but that, on the contrary, the imperial rule was violently repudiated.

" 'It will all pass over,' said Buonaparte, and then he used expres- sions which led Sismondi to feel that he by no means saw the necessity of a complete change of measures. Seeing clearly that be was in no position to rule in defiance of opinion, the historian strove to show him the only possible course.—' What grieves me,' said he, 'is that they (the people) cannot be brought to see that your Majesty's system is necessarily changed. Representing the Revolution, you ought to be regarded as associated with all liberal ideas, for the liberal party here, as everywhere in Europe, can alone be your allies.' — Certainly, the peoples and myself; we know what follows ; this it is which makes the people favour me. Never did my Government deviate from the system of the Revolution.' " The vulpine nature of Buonaparte never was more clearly manifested than in the conversation which followed. First, the Emperor praised the English, fancying Sismondi would be pleased with this. Finding that the well -being of the French, however, was predominant in the historian's mind, he veered round, and lauded his own people. As to his return from Elba,— " 'They talk of intrigues,' said Buonaparte, 'bah ! not a word of truth in it ! I was not a man to compromise my secret by communicating it. I simply waited to see all was ready for the explosion. The peasants preceded me, they followed me with their wives and children, all singing songs improvized for the occasion,' " &c.

So lauding himself and forestalling favour, the Emperor walked up and down, haranguing the philosopher. He tired himself, how- ever, before he had done, and left Sismondi probably much less hopeful of his protege. Next day came a brevet naming him "Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur," and a flattering letter dictated by the Emperor accompanied it. Sismondi declined the honour as a citizen of Geneva, and the brevet was never enregis- tered.

" I think with you about Sismondi,' observed Madame de Steel, writing in that same year to the Countess d'Albany. ' He is a man of the best faith possible ; we have had terrible quarrels by letter about Buonaparte ; he sees liberty where liberty is impossible, but one must allow that anything would be better for France than the state she is in now.' I said at once, when Bnonaparte returned, if he conquers there is an end of liberty in France. If he is beaten, there is an end of all independence.' " This anxious episode ended, how much is left to the reader of Sismondi's works and life ! It is greatly to be wished that the interesting memoir of his and his wife's cherished friend, Bianca Milesi Mojon, were more accessible. It was written—and we are sure eloquently written—by a common friend, Emile Souvestre, but we owe all our knowledge of it in England to a well-com- piled abridgment and translation bearing the well-known initials "B. R. P.," in the Englishwoman's Journal, Vol. VII., for separate publication has never been permitted. The character is charming, and the friendship and correspondence of Sismondi add no little to its interest. Singularly enough Madame Mojon owed to him, the some time sceptic, both her interest in and her know- ledge of true Christianity. Nurtured first in a corrupt faith, then passing into scepticism, he led her by degrees to sounder views, and she became steadily attached to the ministry of M. Coqaerel. She married a worthy Genoese, a physician high for a time in imperial favour in France—physician in fact to Buonaparte him- self, but he afterwards returned to Genoa. There his wife became a mother, but not the less a patriot, the friend of Pellico, of Manzoni, &c. She translated Mrs. Barbauld's prose hymns into Italian, and several of Mies Edgeworth's Early Lessons. It is an affecting circumstance that this excellent couple, the Mojons, were nearly the first victims of cholera at Paris in 1849. She was seized,, we are told, on the 4th of June. On the morning of the 5th there was no hope. Her dearest friends were summoned, Emile Souvestre among the num- ber. On seeing him her mind reverted to their common political interests, and extending her hand to Souvestre, and turning her eye to M. Coquerel, she said, " Let us pray for the Republic." Her youngest son came in, and she murmured with her failing voice, " Tell him—always to love—his duty." Dr. Mojon was by this time stricken himself, but he was engaged for her, and said nothing till seven o'clock, then gave his eldest son the necessary orders, went to his bed, and died almost at the same moment with his wife. It is scarcely possible to think of many of the best years of Sismondi's life without connecting him with. the Mojons, with Dr. Channing, and with his youngest corres- pondent, Mademoiselle Saint Aulaire. His letters to the latter, published in the volume entitled J. C. L. de Sismondi, Fragments de son Journal et Correspondance, are really among the most affectionate, engaging effusions we ever read. Well has Souvestre called him " Soldat de la seule Write." Goodness, tenderness, the warmest desire to explain and enforce upon her the consistency of Christian principle, are beautifully manifested in these letters. The dying old man (for his disease, cancer in the stomach, was making awful progress) held to his work to the last. His views of the then state of society are perhaps the most painful part of what is left of him then. He was gloomy no doubt. Every- where he thought the spirit of money-getting was increasing, especially so in England, and Sismondi was almost fanatical in his love of the poor. In public, in private, it was the same ; he was ever a pleader for the small landed proprietors, for the claims of labour; in private he would strip himself of his own cloak to give to an aged, poorly-clothed villager ; he would give work to the oldest and most weakly, paying them as the able-bodied, and if there was a poor wretch of a mechanic whom nobody else would employ, the tender heart of Sismondi melted within him, and he preferred having his locks spoiled to taking away the man's lase chance.

The cloud over his first admiration for England, which gathered considerably in his latter days, was somewhat painful as to his sympathies with his excellent English wife, with whom in almost every other respect the union was perfect—nay, there was another difference. Madame admitted the Thirty-Nine Articles—Monsieur could not do so. Every Sunday he worshipped in the "Temple," but, as he said, occasionally he constituted a minority, and was not with the preacher. Once, when in England, he records in his journal, "That execrable history of Deborah was read ;" and again, his having avoided speech with any one after hearing a ser- mon on eternal punishment ; and he records his vow "never again to enter an English church, lest he should be exposed to hear such blasphemies, never to contribute to spread what the English call their Reformation, for by its side Romanism is a religion of mercy and grace," &c. Strong words, but Sismondi never trifled, and where his feelings were stirred he dealt his blows right and left with all his strength. Take him for all in all, he was, if not a man of genius, if not capable, through a deficiency in imagina- tion, of rising to the great heights of eloquence, more perfectly true to his ideal, more just, earnest, and consistent at most points than almost any of his contemporaries. He appreciated excellence in its most varied forms. He cared little for perfection of style, and so long as he found room to say what he thought truth de- manded, he did not mind its being a little out of order. Few authors, perhaps few men, have from youth to age set before them- selves the well-being of their fellow-creatures with such tenacity of purpose. His whole career is a noble lesson, full of instruction and interest.