And the

works almost forces on the mind, future, promote the happiness of all with whom he opportunities of considering the way in was in any way connected-there are none which the words in which thought is ex- more entirely satisfied than we. pressed re-act on the mind itself, will no evidence-which we have been the first to doubt arise. As far as the speculations on produce-given by his Pamphlet on Iresociety are concerned, and on the awful land, of the young reformer calling on those subjects which, in his earliest youth, Shelley whom he addresses to begin by reforming ventured to discuss, we think that we should themselves, may prove that ardent as was be guilty of actual irreverence in introduc- the passion for reforming society with ing any rash discussion on them in a paper which he was reproached, it was tempered devoted to a subject purely literary. In with discretion. Mrs. Shelley has led us to the course of our paper, it was impossible hope that at some future time a detailed that we should not have expressed strongly account of Shelley's life may be published our feelings that Shelley was throughout by herself, or with her sanction. We trust wrong in all his speculations on religion and that such purpose, if still entertained, may morals. But of himself-of his own purity not be interrupted or interfered with by of views generosity of conduct-gentle- Captain Medwin's unreadable and preness of disposition, and unwearied efforts to sumptuous book.

From the Dublin University Magazine.

MADEMOISELLE LENORMAND.

MANY of our readers, no doubt, are familiar | about her, even then, unlike other children, with the name of the extraordinary person who, since the year 1789, has practised the arts of chiromancy and astrology in the French capital, and who, in the most sceptical epoch, and among the most sceptical people of modern times, has been able to maintain, for more than half a century, the reputation of an almost infallible interpreter of the decrees of fate. Some anecdotes of this Pythoness of our own days, derived from sources which we have reason to believe authentic, are offered in the following pages to those who take interest in such things. Of what may seem to verge on the marvellous, in the circumstances we have to relate, it is not our task to supply the rationale; we leave that as a problem for our psychological friends, to whose ken there is no mist impenetrable, no millstone opaque. He that can fathom animal magnetism may try his plummet in the mysteries of the palm and of the stars: we go not into matters that would take us out of our depth.

and calculated to give the impression that the little king's charity-scholar was not altogether "canny." "She remembers," writes one who was much in communication with her between the years 1811 and 1813, "having a singular power of observation and imagination since she was seven years old, and an expression she often uses, in reference to that period of her life, is-I was a waking somnambulist." At an early age, Paris became her abode, and here we find her, in her seventeenth year, already embarked in the profession of a fortuneteller, and applying herself with ardor to the study of astronomy and algebra, the knowledge of which she believed indispensable to the perfection she aimed at in the divinatory art. She rose rapidly into note The persons who came, led perhaps more by curiosity than by credulity, to test her prophetic powers, were confounded by the acquaintance she displayed with the most secret details of their past history, and learned to place a reluctant confidence, at Mademoiselle Lenormand was born in variance with all their habits of thought, in 1772, at Alençon, in Normandy, and re- her predictions of the future. Meanwhile, ceived her education in the Benedictine the revolution proceeded, and it was the convent of that place, at the royal expense. lot of our Pythoness to become involved in The good nuns were far from dreaming one of the countless plots which the diswhat an embryo sorceress their cloister tracted times were hourly bringing forth. nursed in its bosom; though by her own It was a project for the liberation of the account, there must have been something queen, then in the Temple prison, which

proved fruitless, from the impossibility of inducing Marie Antoinette to embrace any opportunity of escape, which was to involve a separation from her children. Lenormand's connexion with this enterprise led to her own arrest, and she found herself an inmate of the prison of the Petite Force, from which she afterwards removed to that of the Luxembourg. Although at this time the "reign of terror" had already begun its course of blood, and the citizen once breathed on by suspicion-especially of royalist plotting--had little to do but prepare for the guillotine, Lenormand was no way frightened by this turn in her affairs, her astrological calculations assuring her, as she said, that her life was safe, and that her imprisonment would not be of long duration. The result showed that, unlike the augurtribe in general, she had read the book of fate as truly for herself as she did for others. Robespierre's fall found her happily still among the unguillotined, and placed her at liberty, with the remnant that were in the same case.

were more superstitious at heart than he to
whom these conjugal revelations were made:
he saw Lenormand, and it is said (though
we fear on doubtful authority) that she
foretold him the successive stages of the
career he was destined to run-his eleva-
tion to the summit of power, his fall, and
his death in exile. What measure of faith
may have been yielded by Napoleon to
these vaticinations (supposing they were
ever uttered), we have of course no means
of knowing; but from the time of his at-
taining the imperial dignity, it is certain
that Lenormand became an object of sus-
picion to him, the effects of which she often
found troublesome enough. Perhaps the
emperor thought that she who had predict-
ed his overthrow would not scruple to use
means to compass it. Be that as it may,
a jealous watchfulness was now exercised,
not only towards the prophetess herself,
but towards those who came to consult her;
more than once she was arrested, and had
to undergo a rigorous interrogatory at the
palais de justice. On one of these occa-
sions, a remarkable expression fell from
her: it was on the 11th of December,
1809, when, being pressed to explain an
obscure answer she had just given to some
question which had been addressed to her,
she said, "My answer is a problem, the
solution of which I reserve till the 31st of
March, 1814." What the question was, to
which this reply was given, does not ap-
pear, but we hardly need to remind the
reader that, eight days before, the fifth an-
niversary of Napoleon's coronation had
been celebrated with a splendor enhanced
by the presence of five of his royal vassals,
the kings of Saxony, Westphalia, Wirtem-
berg, Holland, and Naples; and that on
the day named by Lenormand for the solu-
tion of her "problem"-the allies entered
Paris.

Her sojourn in the Luxembourg, however, had brought her into contact, among others, with Josephine Beauharnois. Josephine had once had her fortune told, by an Obi woman in the West Indies; she now got it done a second time by Lenormand, and had the satisfaction to find that the black and the white sybils spelled her destinies alike. We say the satisfaction, because it really was satisfactory, to one for whose neck the guillotine's tooth, so to speak, was on edge, to hear from two different fortune-tellers, so widely apart both in geography and complexion, that years of life and greatness were before her. The agreement could not but dispose to belief, and it is not rash to surmise that Josephine's mind was all the easier, for her conference with the Norman prophetess, during the term that yet intervened, before And now to our promised anecdotes, the the auspicious event that restored both to first of which we find in a communication freedom. This event itself was no slight addressed to our friend Doctor Justinus confirmation of Lenormand's credit; and Kerner, by a lady who subscribes herself when Josephine, about two years after," Countess N. N.," and who is the same married Napoleon Bonaparte, and perhaps we referred to a while ago, as having had a discovered in him the aspirings of that am- great deal to do with the Pythoness, bebition which boded her the fulfilment of tween the years 1811 and 1813. those more dazzling promises of her horo- premise that the countess's real name is scope, that stood yet unredeemed, she did known to the doctor, though she chooses to not fail to talk to him of the gifted mor- be only N. N. to the public:-tal who had shared her captivity, and by whom such great things had been prognosticated for her, and, by the plainest implication, for him as her husband. Few men

Let us

"On the 5th May, 1811, the Duchess of Couland and I, having disguised ourselves as citizens' wives of Paris, drove to the entrance of the Fau

"Incredible as the existence of such an art might seem, it was not more so in relation to the future than to the past. If the sibyl could see all I had left behind me in the journey of life, why should that which was yet before me be hid from her? She had shown me what was gone: why should I doubt her ability to bring to my view that which was to come?

dicted. The poet in Venice proved to be Lord Byron, and I keep the promise I made him, and will keep it as long as I live. The journey to Italy was undertaken in consequence of an invitation of Pope Leo XII. His death prevented the establishment of an institution for sick persons at Varenna, which he wished me to preside over, and for which the arrangements were already in a state of forwardness. With a view to my holding this position, the Maltese cross was promised me; but I made no application to the pontifical

"With such thoughts as these, I answered her question in the affirmative. On this she took my left hand, gazed on its lines, wrote down some numbers on a sheet of paper, reckoned, contem-government for the performance of this promise, plated the celestial chart, again pored over my hand, again wrote and reckoned, and so on for not less than two hours. The duchess got tired, and went away, and I at last began to be faint with hunger. Mlle. L. had a cup of soup brought to me, and said, Have patience, for I have something to learn here.' At last her calculations appeared to be brought to a satisfactory result, and she dictated to me what follows;

"A singular destiny! You will see more high mountains than you think-will ascend more than you will wish to do. One day, and that in 1813, during the war, you will have to fly; your people will be ill-used and made prisoners; you yourself also will be carried away one morning, at 1 o'clock, by men with long beards, and by men wearing chains and coats of mail, who will require of you a breach of fidelity towards him who will die on the rock. Three state prisoners will owe their lives to your intercession. In Venice, a poet, whom you have never seen, and never will see, will feel himself impelled to make it a request to you, that after his death you will pray for him, as often as you enjoy the view of anything pre-eminently beautiful in nature. Your life will be spent in courts, because the choice of your heart is solitude; this is the contradiction that presides over your earthly existence. Your first long journey will be from Germany to Italy, whither you will go at the instance of a sovereign; and you will be invested with an order, the decoration of which you will either never wear, or wear for the first time at a very advanced age. Satiated with honors, and weary of the great world, you will die of years, in a fair château, standing in the midst of gardens. Many will be around you at your death, and form, as it were, a little court. Your life, and all that awaits you, is wonderful. Your wishes point to tranquillity and retirement, but these will evade your search: they are denied you, just because you seek them.

"One thing more—a great thing-will happen you, but I cannot tell you what it is; it is nothing bad, but it must remain a secret. Before 1867 all will have been fulfilled.'

wishing neither to wear the order, nor to pay the fees for it, when the object for which it was to have been conferred on me, was given up. From that time the prophecy awaits its further accomplishment.

"This was but the first of many visits which I paid, in that and the next two years, to Mlle. Lenormand. Friends living at a distance commissioned me to consult her, and, as long as I remained at Paris, a month seldom passed without some communication between us. To calculate the nativity of absent persons, she required the day and hour of their birth in their own handwriting; she asked neither the name of the applicant, his birth-place, nor the country in which he lived. I brought her the leaf on which the necessary particulars were written, settled the price to be paid (six francs, one, two, or four louis d'or), and in eight days I had the answer. It turned out that the prophecies which went most into details (that is, those which were the highest paid for), were least borne out by the result.

"Since 1813, when I left Paris, I have had no further intelligence of Mlle. Lenormand."

So far Countess N. N., of whose unsatisfactory way of telling her story we must here again complain. After giving us the prophecy word for word, she ought to have given the fulfilment, event for event, told us all about the "high mountains" (which we have to guess were the Alps and Appenines), the men with long beards" (Cossacks, of course), the others wearing "chains and coats of mail," and explained what "breach of fidelity" they required of her, towards "him who was to die upon the rock"-in whom there is no very great difficulty in recognising Napoleon. She might have done worse, too, than let us know who were the "three prisoners of

state that owed their lives to her intercession."

"After this followed much that related to family matters, and which, except in some few points, Our next contribution is from a personhas since been verified. But as a great part of age every way more authentic and responsithese communications were of a painful nature, ble than the Countess N. N., namely, the turning on the death of friends, and other sorrows President Von Malchus, who, about forty which were in store for me, I can say that I learned from my horoscope at least one lesson years ago, played a somewhat considerable He was born in never to wish again to pry into the secrets of futu- part in European affairs. rity. As to the fulfilment of the above, I have to 1770, at Mannheim, where his father held say, that the year 1813 brought all that was pre-some subordinate appointment in the house

hold of the Duke of Deux-Ponts. The the King of Wirtemberg, who placed him duke, discovering indications of talent in at the head of his old department of the boy, took care that he should enjoy finance. From what causes we are not inevery advantage of education; he was formed, he held his appointment little more placed in the Gymnasium of Mannheim in than a year. A pension of four thousand his fifteenth year, and, after two years of florins was conferred upon him at his repreparatory study, proceeded to the Uni-tirement; and, taking up his abode once versity of Heidelberg, from which he after-more in Heidelberg, he devoted the rest of wards removed to that of Göttingen. In his days to the "cultivation of the sci1790, he exchanged an academic life for ences." In this occupation-a consideraone devoted to diplomacy, being made pri- bly pleasanter one, we reckon, than liquivate secretary to the Count of Westpha- dating the national debt-he was engaged lia, minister of state to the Elector of up to the year 1838, and may, for anything Mayence. After this he occupied various we know, be engaged at the present writing. posts of gradually increasing importance, So much to advise the reader who Presitill 1803, when he was intrusted with a dent Malchus properly is or was, and now high" cameral" appointment by the King to his account of what passed between himof Prussia. When the kingdom of West- self and Mlle. Lenormand. phalia was erected, in 1807, he was called He had heard, he tells us, of the farto give King Jerome (the most brainless of famed divineress long before he saw, or the Bonaparte family), the aid of his finan- supposed that he ever would see her, and cial abilities, first as a member of the coun- the way in which her name came to his ears cil of state, and afterwards as director- was this. There was a certain Count Mogeneral of imposts, and liquidator-ge- rio in the Westphalian service, a Frenchneral of the national debt; the last-man by birth, whom King Jerome had apmentioned office, however, after a short pointed marshal of the palace, and in contenure, he gave up, and we rather think the cert with whom the finance-minister had office itself was abolished, as calculated to received orders to remodel the royal housecreate a popular delusion-to say nothing hold, with a view to its being placed on a of its being a sinecure. During the next more economical footing. This business three years he was employed in various necessitated frequent and prolonged intermissions (to Berlin, Hanover, Paris, &c.), views between the two officials, which took the object of which, it is our impression, place at the house of Malchus; and at was generally something connected with money matters, as the bent of his genius was decidedly that way. From this period the rise of his fortunes was rapid. In 1811, he was named Minister of Finance; in 1812, of War; and in 1813, of the Interior simultaneously with this last charge, "The reason is," replied Morio, "that he received the title of Count Merienrode, my wife is in an agony of dread if I remain Jerome probably thinking that such an ac-out of her sight a moment after the time cumulation of employments (leaving no one domestic or foreign affair of the kingdom that Malchus was not to manage) would be too much for the head of a simple common

er.

After the dissolution of the Westphalian monarchy, Malchus took up his residence at Heidelberg, where for some time his position was by no means an enviable one, in consequence of the violent attacks, both in reference to his administration and his personal character, of which he found himself the object. However, he showed his assailants a bold front, and published a memoir, in which the charges against him were ably combated. He lived some years in privacy, and with straitened means; at length, in 1817, he entered the service of

these, Morio, after the lapse of about an hour, generally became uneasy, and showed a marked anxiety to terminate the sitting and to get home. This impatience was quite inexplicable to his colleague, who one day asked him the reason of it.

she has reckoned to see me."

"And why?" inquired Malchus. Morio then related that his wife, before he met with her, had had her nativity cast by Mlle. Lenormand, who, among other things, had told her that she would be married three times. Her first husband would be a man between whom and herself no acquaintance at that time existed the marriage would be a very advantageous one, and put her in possession of all she could reasonably wish for, but when blest with the fulfilment of her highest wish-to be in the way of becoming a mother-she would, soon after a great fire, receive in her house a visitor of great distinction, and, not long after, lose her husband by a violent death.