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ART. VII.-France, its King, Court, and Government. By an American. Wiley and Putnam.

Ir appears that this thin volume consists of the collected contributions to a periodical, a style of book-making which has become no uncommon occurrence, either when writers find that their lucubrations in an ephemeral form have been attractive, or when their vanity prompts them, and they are ambitious to figure as the author of a book, were it but that their posterity may have it in their power to quote the printed words of one of the family. In the present instance, however, be the merits of these pages what they may, there are circumstances that claim some peculiar attention. The first is, that the writer is an ambassador to a European state, he being no other than Mr. Lewis Cass, the representative of the American Union accredited to the court of France; a minister of a grade that seldom compromises its diplomatic etiquette and mysticism by publishing opinions to the world, so long as there is any expectation to remain in office; for the inconvenience afterwards might be very considerable that was thereby so gratuitously created, not only to the party himself, but to the government which he represents. For example, there is in the publication before us not only a slightly concealed jealousy and dislike of England, but perhaps an equally injudicious flattery of Louis Philippe ; while the self-importance of the ambassador himself is offensive. He must be an intolerable egotist, we suspect, in conversation, and an inquisitive bore. If he sometimes obtains a free-and-easy audience of the King of the French, it must be when that wily and deep-sighted monarch can for a relaxing half-hour endure the infliction for the sake of mystifying the diplomatist, or of spinning a yarn. Our next remark is, that whether true or false, coloured or uncoloured, the notices which the book contains of the King, of his personal history and chequered life when young, especially of his travels in America, command a hearing, one perusal. One likes to learn all that can be told of the private life and remarkable vicissitudes of one of the most remarkable men living. We shall therefore extract pretty freely from the pages that treat of the period and the incidents to which we have particularly referred, leaving it to our readers to judge how much the narrative is worth.

It was in 1793-4, that the future King of the French, when little more than twenty years of age, fled into Switzerland, under an assumed name, and glad to obtain any asylum, whatever might be the privations attending it, so long as his proscribed life was safe. Had he been able and possessed pecuninary means, he would, we are informed, have hastened to America. As it was, however, he earned reputation as professor in an educational institution. Afterwards he made a tour to the north of Europe, visiting some of the

most important cities and remarkable places in a route comprehending Hamburg, Copenhagen, &c., till he reached Hamersfeldt and the Ultima Thule of our quarter of the globe. And here our first extract will come aptly in. Says the ambassador,

"I was gratified to see an incident recently recorded in the public journals, which proved that this hyperborean city had not escaped his recollection; but that he had sent, by a French frigate engaged in scientific researches in that quarter, a present of a clock to be placed in the tower of the church, and thence to sound the warning hours over the Frozen Ocean. He continued on to the North Cape, the Ultima Thule of Europe, where he arrived the 24th of August, 1795. This great buttress of the continent, advancing into the icy seas, is impressively described by the few travellers who have visited it, and is remarkable from its features, its situation, and its associations. It is one of the spots on the face of the globe where the conviction of human weakness and of Almighty power is the most overwhelming. Its sad aspect is well described in these lines of Ovid :—

'Est locus extremis Scythiæ glacialis in oris,

Triste solum, sterilis, sine fruge, sine arbore, tellus.' Here he found himself among a new race of men; and accompanied by the Laplanders and their reindeer, and on foot, he traversed the country extending to the Gulf of Bothnia, and arrived at Torea, a little port situated at its northern extremity. He advanced into Finland, as far as the Russian frontier, but the Gallophobia of the Northern Semiramis was too well known to allow him to run the risk of Siberia and the knout, and he crossed the Gulf of Finland to Stockholm. If the political events in France had overturned the throne of Capet, and sent forth his descendants to wander in foreign lands, it must be confessed that this young member of the exiled family had turned his misfortunes to the most profitable account. He was studying human nature in the best of all schools, the school of experience and adversity; and by bringing himself into contact with every variety of life, and by adding the treasures of personal observation to the stores of learning with which his mind was fraught, he was preparing himself for that course of events which has given him such a powerful influence over the destinies of his own country and of Europe."

The wanderer gave tokens of his sagacity in choosing such an out-of-the-way tour as that of his northern route, for there were no doubt in search of him informers and spies, and a price set upon his head. At length, however, he made his way to America, in no very princely plight, where he was some time after his arrival joined by his two younger brothers. This was in 1795, Philadelphia being the place of his first residence. He had some intercourse with Washington, and witnessed certain interesting proceedings signalized in the history of the American Union, such as when the great transatlantic patriot delivered his farewell address. The princes had even the honour of paying a visit to Mount Vernon, and reminiscences of Washington are related by Cass. Here are small specimens :

"The arrangement of his household was that of a wealthy Virginia gentleman of the old school; unostentatious, comfortable, and leaving his guests to fill up their hours as they thought fit, and at the same time providing whatever was necessary for pleasant employment. One morning, after the usual salutations, the king asked his distinguished host how he had slept the preceding night. It is probable, from the answer, that some peculiar circumstances had turned his thoughts towards the evils too often produced in society by reprehensible publications. However this may be, that answer deserves to be engraved upon the hearts of his countrymen: 'I always sleep well, for I never wrote a word in my life which I had afterwards cause to regret.' While at Mount Vernon, General Washington prepared for the exiled princes an itinerary of a journey to the Western Country, and furnished them with some letters of introduction for persons upon the route. They made the necessary preparations for a long tour, which they performed on horseback, each of them carrying in a pair of saddle-bags, after the fashion of that period, whatever he might require in clothes and other articles for his personal comfort."

We next present some account of how the exiles roughed it during their American travels :

"When traversing the Barrens in Kentucky, they stopped at a cabin, where was to be found 'entertainment for man and horse,' and where the landlord was very solicitous to ascertain the business of the travellers,-not, apparently, out of any idle or interested curiosity, but because he seemed to feel a true solicitude for them. It was in vain, however, the king protested they were travelling to look at the country, and without any views of purchase or settlement. Such a motive for encountering the trouble and expense of a long journey was without the circle of the settler's observation or experience; and he could only believe it by placing these young men quite low in his scale of human intelligence, and then with a feeling of pity or contempt. In the night all the travellers were stowed away upon the floor of the cabin, with their feet to a prodigious fire (they did not sell wood by the pound, as they do at Paris); and I can vouch for the fact, whatever may be thought of it in these degenerate days of steamboats, railroads, splendid taverns, and feather-beds, that no man need desire a more comfortable sleep than a long day's ride, a hearty supper, and what was called the soft side of a plank, with the appliance of a good fire, formerly gave to the traveller in the infancy of our settlements in the transAlleghany regions. This Green River cabin, like all its congeners, had but one room; and while the guests were stretched upon the floor, the landlord and his wife occupied their puncheon bedstead (I won't insult your readers by presuming they need an explanation of this term,) which was pinned to the logs forming the side of the mansion. In the night, the king overheard the good man expressing to his wife his regret that three such promising young men were running uselessly over the country, and wondering they did not purchase land there, and establish themselves creditably. At Bairdstown the king was indisposed, and stopped to rest and recover. Unfortunately, the place was in commotion, and the whole family at the inn, father, mother, children, and servants, left their sick guest without attention,

When the landlady made her appearance, the latter, a little impatient, asked why she had not left a servant to wait upon him. She answered, with great animation, that there was a show there, the first that had ever been seen in Bairdstown, and she could not think of staying away herself, nor of withholding any of her family. I have understood, that since the king has been upon the throne, he has presented to the venerable Bishop Flaget a clock for his cathedral in this very Bairdstown. 'Who knows what to-morrow

shall bring forth?' At Chilocothe, the king found a public-house kept by a Mr. M'Donald, a name well known to the early settlers of that place; and he was a witness of a scene which the progress of morals and manners has since rendered a rare one, in that place, or, indeed, throughout the wellregulated State of Ohio. He saw a fight between the landlord and some one who frequented his house; in which the former would have suffered, if the king had not interfered to separate the combatants. The second in command, who distinguished himself at the battles of Fleurus and Jemappes, performed in the ancient capitol of the north-western territory the office of mediator between two rival powers!"

The ambassador with affected modesty tells us that he knows "a fellow-countryman who has been favoured by the king," (aware that his American brethren will set himself down as the veritable fellowcountryman) with a sight of Bradley's Maps of the United States, which the traveller carried with him during his several tours in the country; and that it furnishes ample proof of having been much in requisition. It is added, " For the sake of your younger readers, I will mention what I understand the king hinted at the time he shewed this map to our countrymen, and which proves his love of order, and his attention to the details of life; without which there can be no true independence or lasting usefulness. He mentioned that he possessed an accurate account shewing the expenditure of any dollar he disbursed in the United States."

How far the king's parsimony and love of money may be constitutional attributes cannot be known; still his rough beginning in early manhood would naturally confirm, if it did not create, these dispositions. But it would be unfair, even when writing like a king's parasite, not to allow the egotist to give us a sample of his own American adventures, together with some elegant anecdotes and witty philosophy. This is the flourish :—

"Your Solons and Justianians now upon the stage must look back with forbearance upon some traits of levity of their predecessors in jurisprudence who cut the first legal bush in the West. A solemn demeanour and official gravity may become the profession in these comfortable days of its existence; but in those by-gone times, when the judge and the lawyer mounted their horses, and rode one and two hundred miles to a court, and then to another and another yet, and through woods, following merely a bridle path, crossing the swollen streams upon their horses while swimming, and thrown together at night into a small cabin, the school of Democritus had far more disciples among them than that of Heraclitus. I have certainly been in much greater

peril since; but with respect to a real nonplush, my Western friends will understand me-the crowning incident of my life was upon the bank of the Scioto Salt Creek, suddenly raised by a heavy rain, in which I had been unhorsed by the breaking of the saddle girths. My steed was a bad swimmer, who instead of advancing after losing his footing, amused himself by sinking to the bottom, and then leaping with his utmost force; and this new equestrian feat he continued, till rider, saddle, saddle-bags, and blankets, were thrown into the water, and the recusant animal emerged upon one side of the creek, and the luckless traveller crawled out upon the other, as he best could; while the luggage commenced its journey for New Orleans. It appears to me now that a more dripping spectacle of despair was never exhibited than I presented, while surveying, many miles from a house, this shipwreck of my travelling fortunes. These, however, were the troubles of the day; but, oh! they were recompensed by the comforts of the evening, when the hospitable cabin and the warm fire greeted the traveller!-when a glorious supper was spread before him-turkey, venison, bear's meat, fresh butter, hot corn bread, sweet potatoes, apple sauce, and pumpkin butter! The sturdy English moralist may talk of a Scotch supper as he pleases, but he who never sat down to that meal in the West forty years ago has never seen the perfection of gastronomy. And then the animated conversation succeeded by a floor and a blanket, and a refreshing sleep! The primitive court-house, built of logs, and neither chinked nor daubed, but with respectable interstices big enough to allow the passage of a man, is another permanent object in this group of recollections. And in this sanctuary, as well as in the public houses, the court and bar, and suitors and witnesses, were mingled in indescribable confusion. Strange scenes sometimes occurred under these circumstances; and a characteristic anecdote is told of General Jackson, in a situation where he displayed his usual firmness by compelling the submission of a noisy braggadocio who had interrupted the court, and successfully resisted the efforts of the officers to apprehend him. I recollect a similar incident which took place in a small village upon the banks of the Ohio. The court was in session, and the presiding officer was a Colonel P*****, a man of great resolution and of a herculean frame. A person entered the court cabin, and by his noise put a stop to the proceedings. He was ordered out, and the sheriff attempted to remove him; but he put himself upon his reserved rights, and made such a vigorous resistance, that the officer retired from the contest. Colonel P***** thereupon descended from the bench, coolly took off his coat, gave the brawler a severe beating, and after putting him out of the house, resumed his garment and his seat, and continued his judicial function. As I may never have so favourable an opportunity of relating another anecdote characteristic of these times, and which I have long preserved in my memory, I will inflict it upon you now. The principal actor in the scene was my early and has been my constant, friend, and is yet pursuing his profession in the northern part of Ohio, respected by all who know him. Should these sketches meet his eye, while they recall one of the laughable scenes of his youth, they will recall, I hope, the memory of the writer. This gentleman was engaged in a cause which came on for trial, but in which I have always suspected he was not prepared, He rose from his seat, and gravely observed that his client was ready, but that really the members of the court were too