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of her conjugating and declining grammar-boy. | of these changes authors might be led to The early Scotchman scratches himself in the think more closely, and to express their morning mists of the North, and has his por- thoughts in the shortest and the fewest ridge in Piccadilly before the setting sun. The Puseyite priest, after a rush of 100 miles, a modate the Waverley Novels in one of our words. By these means we might accompears with his little volume of nonsense at the breakfast-table of his bookseller. Everything pockets, with Shakspeare and the British is near-everything is immediate: time, dis-drama in the other; while the literature of tance, and delay are abolished."*

If the steam-boat and the railway have thus abridged space and time, and made a large addition to the available length of human existence, why may not our intellectual journey be also accelerated,—our knowledge more cheaply and quickly acquired, its records rendered more accessible and portable,-its cultivators increased in number, and its blessings more rapidly and widely diffused? We shall endeavour to state very briefly some means by which these objects may be effected, and the consequences to which they are likely to lead. We have now before us an Svo. volume, containing about 1150 pages of double columns, and printed on paper so thin that the thickness of the volume (though not beaten) is only two inches, and in so small a type that the quantity of matter which it contains is equal to above TWELVE NUMBERS of this Review, supposed to be all printed in its ordinary type. Now, if the type were diminished to one-half its present size, or to one-fourth, which is quite practicable, and if the margin were somewhat diminished, we should have an Svo. volume two inches thick equal to FIFTY NUMBERS of this Review, or TWENTY-FIVE Volumes. Such a work would require a reading-glass, but this would not affect its utility at all for the purposes of consultation, and indeed the young student would have no more difficulty in perusing it page after page than the Doctor of 50 already has in getting through the columns of his Times by help of spectacles.

A bookcase might thus contain a large library, and a moderate one might be packed in the traveller's portmanteau. Books now forwarded by tardy conveyances might be sent by post. A number of this Journal, upon which the postage is now half-acrown, might be sent for fourpence, and large pamphlets would have the privilege of half-ounce letters. These processes, too, might be aided by a stenographic representation of the terminations of many of our long words, and even by a contraction of the words themselves; and in the spirit

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our own sixty volumes occupying one pannier might be balanced with the science of the Philosophical Transactions in the other.

ART. III.-La Petite Chovaneric; ou, Histoire d'un College Breton sous L'Empire. Par A. F. Rio. Paris et Londres, 1812. 8vo.

AN eminent literary man was recently complaining to us that the rising generation seemed to know nothing of books published more than fifteen or twenty years ago. 'I was not understood yesterday,' said he, when I talked to a budding legislator about Sir Andrew Freeport; and here is a young lady who evidently supposes Seged Emperor of Ethiopia to be one of the tawny potentates discovered by Bruce.' In this state of things it would be idle to take for granted that everybody is familiar with the Memoirs of Madame de Larochejaquelein; and the utmost we can hope for M. Rio's sake is, that some half-buried associations will be resuscitated in the memories of our older readers, when we name his book as a not unworthy pendant to her noble and inspiring picture of the courage, piety, disinterestedness, and unshaken loyalty, of the most virtuous and truly patriotic portion of her countrymen. Well might Sir Walter Scott say that the country court in which Madame de Larochejaqueof which La Vendée forms a part, and the lein was educated, could not be so corrupt as we had been taught to believe; for history, ancient and modern, might be ransacked without finding parallels to numerous instances of high daring, patient suffering, and cheerful self-sacrifice recorded by her. Above all Greek, above all Roman praise-the finer spirit and purer motives of modern chivalry may be

seen blended with the stern resolve and stoical contempt of life which distinguish the heroes of antiquity: Cato and Brutus look like vulgar suicides; and the dying Bayard leaning against the tree with his cross-hilted sword held up before him as a crucifix, or even Sidney on the fatal field

of Zutphen, still wants the cause to raise him above the martyrs of La Vendée.

A few passages from their annals will form a fitting introduction to our notice of M. Rio's work.

When an expedition was meditated, a requisition in the following terms was forwarded to each parish: In the holy name of God, and of the King, this parish is invited to send as many men as possible to such a place, on such a day and hour, and to bring provisions with them.' Not merely was the requisition obeyed with cheerfulness, but the privilege of going was eagerly contended for. When the whole force was assembled, they were divided in an equally primitive manner. It was said :

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(a chief) goes such a way; who follows him?' Those who liked ranged themselves about him, until the column was complete. In manoeuvring they were not told, To the right,' 'To the left,' &c., but Go towards that house;' That great tree,' &c. In battle, like all Frenchmen, they expected their leaders to set the example. Thus at the assault of Thouars:

"Each weapon point is downward sent; Each warrior to the ground is bent. The rebels, Argentine, repent! For pardon they have kneel'd." "Ay, but they bend to other powers, And other pardon sue than ours: See where yon barefoot abbot stands, And blesses them with lifted hands! Upon the spot where they have kneel'd, These men will die or win the field." The Vendean peasants scarcely ever omitted saying their prayers before engag ing, and most of them made the sign of the cross each time they fired. The fervour of the religious sentiment was well exemplified at the battle of Fontenay:

The M. de

'Before the attack the soldiers received absofriends, we have no powder: we must take lution. The generals then said to them, "Now, these cannon with clubs. We must recover Marie-Jeanne! Let us try who runs the best!" The soldiers of M. de Lescure, who commanded the left wing, hesitated to follow him. He advanced alone thirty paces before them, and then stopping, called out "Vive le Roi!" A battery His clothes were pierced, his left spur carried of six pieces fired upon him with case-shot. away, and his right boot torn; but he was not 'About eleven o'clock the powder of the Ven-wounded. "You see, my friends," cried he indeans beginning to fail, M. de Larochejaquelein stantly, "the Blues do not aim well." went for a supply, leaving M. de Lescure alone peasants took courage, and rushed on. to command. A moment after, M. de L. per- Lescure, to keep up with them, was obliged to ceived the republicans less steady, and as if be- put his horse to the full trot. At that moment, ginning to give way: he instantly seized a mus- perceiving a large crucifix, they threw themket with a bayonet, and calling to the soldiers selves on their knees before it. M. de Baugé "Let them pray," to follow him, descended rapidly from the height, wanted to urge them on. and gained the middle of the bridge amidst said M. de Lescure calmly. They soon rose, showers of balls and case-shot. No peasant and again rushed on.' dared to follow him. He returned, called, exhorted, and again giving the example, returned beautiful workmanship, taken by the repubMarie-Jeanne was a twelve-pounder of upon the bridge, but remained alone. His clothes pierced with balls, he made a third ef- licans from the Château de Richelieu, fort. At that instant MM. de Larochejaquelein where it had been placed by the famous and Forêt arrived, and flew to his assistance: cardinal. It was captured in the first enhe had been followed by one only of the pea-gagement at Chollet by the Vendeans, who sants. All four crossed the bridge. M. de Leregarded it as endowed with miraculous scure leaped the entrenchment; the peasant was wounded; but Henri and Forêt got over it also; power, and were wont to adorn it with flowThe Highlanders of the men then rushed on to their assistance, and ers and ribbons. the passage was forced.' Prince Charles Edward's army attached a superstitious reverence to an old iron gun, which they insisted on dragging about with them. There are numerous other points of analogy, but there is one remarkable difference. In the Vendean ranks the pride of birth was kept in strict subservience to the sentiment of loyalty, and the peasants were urged on by their own genuine impulses, instead of being dragged to death or exilo by their hereditary chiefs. Their first commander-in-chief, Cathelineau, was a peasant, and he was put in nomination by the Marquis de Lescure. So far, however, was this from being one of the consequences of the growing fashion for inequality, that Madame de Larochejaquelein tells us

Napoleon, according to the most partial version of an apocryphal story, did no more at Lodi.

As Major Allan observed to Cornet Graham, a man may fight never the worse for honouring both his Bible and psalter;' nor need we refer to Cromwell's Ironsides, or any other fanatics, for illustration of the maxim. The nights before the battles of Agincourt and Poictiers were spent in prayer by the conquerors; and the striking incident which preceded the closing of the English and Scottish hosts at Bannockburn should be familiar to all lovers of romance or poetry:

VOL. LXX;

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from calculation than from character. During the greater part of the war his right arm was useless from a wound. In this condition he was attacked alone in a hollow way by a foot-soldier. Henri seized him by the collar with his left hand, and managed his horse so well with his legs, that the man could not hurt him. The peasants came up, and wanted to kill the soldier: he would not suffer it. Return to the Republicans,' said he to the man, tell them you were

the peasant officers often offered to with-, draw from the table of the staff when she appeared there, saying they were not entitled to sit at the table with a gentlewoman. This shows that the prejudices of birth remained, and were simply kept under by patriotic motives. The modesty of their expectations in case of success is another proof of the pure and disinterested character of their loyalty. They meant to ask that the name of La Vendée, given by chance, should be preserved, and a pro-alone with the chief of the Brigands who vince under a distinct administration be formed of the Bocage; that the king would honour their country with a visit; that a body of Vendeans should form part of his guard; and that the white flag might always be seen flying on the steeple of each parish.

has only one hand and no weapon, and that you could not kill him.' His pithy address to his followers is well known: 'Si j'avance, suivez-moi: si je recule, tuez-moi: si je tombe, vengez-moi.' He was killed towards the termination of the struggle (1794) by one of two grenadiers whom he had interposed to save. The words, 'You shall have your lives,' were hardly out of his lips, when one of them shot him through the head. He was then only twenty-one years and a few months old.

The author of the Memoirs was not married to Louis de Larochejaquelein, the brother of Henri, until 1802. During the most eventful period of her life she was the wife of the Marquis de Lescure, whose qualities, though less dazzling, are perhaps better entitled to the meed of sound, sober, reasoning admiration than his friend's. It was no love of excitement, no youthful enthusiasm, no high-wrought spirit of loyalty in the narrow meaning of the term, that animated and urged him on, but a stern, uncompromising sense of duty, to which every personal consideration was as nought. We have already given a specimen of his intrepidity, and it is one amongst a hundred; yet he detested fight

The chiefs were equally moderate. Henri de Larochejaquelein said, If we establish the king upon the throne he will grant me a regiment of hussars.' Another of this young nobleman's sayings is highly characteristic: when accused of inattention at the councils of war, he exclaimed, Why was I made a general? My only wish is to be a hussar, that I may have the pleasure of fighting.' Yet he made an excellent commander; and his dislike to councils of war appears to have been as well grounded as Lord Clive's, who says he never called but one, and gained the battle (Plassy) by acting contrary to their advice. His fondness for fighting was the only drawback, for he rushed to the fray as if he were summoned to a banquet, and gave his whole soul and spirit to the charge. In an attack on the Republican camp, seeing his men recoil, he flung his hat into the entrenchment, and calling out, Who will go and fetch it?' jumped in first, and was instantly followed by numbers. Red handkerchiefs, the ma-ing, and congratulated himself that, though nufacture of the country, formed a conspicuous part of his costume: he wore one round his head, one round his neck, and several round his waist as belts. At Fontenay the word amongst the Blues (the Republicans) was 'Aim at the red handkerchief;' and the other officers entreated him not to make himself a mark for their musketry; but obstinate as Nelson in this ticular, he refused; and, as the only means of diminishing his danger, they adopted the red handkerchief themselves. The picturesque costume and reckless daring of Murat are said to have produced such an impression on the Cossacks during the Russian campaign, that they opened their ranks to let him pass, and the bravest seldom ventured to cross swords with him. Henri de Larochejaquelein inspired much of the same feeling, and seized every fitting occasion to heighten it, though probably less

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constantly in action and often engaged hand to hand, he had never shed blood; and the battle was hardly over before he was seen exerting all his energies to save. The true force and genuine beauty of his character came out when he was dying of a wound from a musket-ball, which entered his face near the eye and came out behind the ear. He lingered for several weeks, compelled to follow the movements of his friends, sometimes in rude litters, but oftener in rough carts and carriages, whose every jolt was agony. Yet, with the finger of death upon him, fevered with pain, and only able to lift his head at intervals, he insisted upon attending the council to enforce a measure which he deemed essential to the cause, and was as ready as ever to set an example to the troops.

To justify their treatment of the women, the Republicans declared that they were to

be found in great numbers in the Vendean, which remains still to be written.' At the ranks-a bad excuse, if the fact had been same time we do not wonder that historians so; but Madame de Larochejaquelein as- have hitherto meddled but little with it; serts that there were not above ten or for the authorities are utterly irreconcilatwelve regularly enrolled female comba- ble; and it is no easy matter to arrive at a tants. Several boys of rank did duty as just or satisfactory estimate of a character aides-de-camp or officers. The Chevalier whom one party insists on ranking with de Mondyon, a lad of fourteen, was sta-heroes, and the other on stigmatizing as a tioned near a tall officer who complained of being wounded, and was about to retire 'I don't see that,' said de Mondyon: 'your retiring will discourage the men; and, if you stir a step, I will shoot you through the head.' The remonstrance proved effectual. The two young Maignaus de l'Ecorce used to go to every battle with their governor, M. Biré.

The seat of the Chouan war was Brittany, a province rich enough already in romantic associations of all sorts, as we very recently had occasion to point out.* The war is thus brought into immediate connection with that in La Vendée by the last and perhaps best of the general historians of the period :—

Meanwhile the severities of the Republicans in prosecuting the peasants of Brittany who sheltered the fugitive Vendeans, kindled a new and terrible warfare in that extensive province, which, under the name of the Chouan war, long consumed the vitals and paralyzed the forces of the Republic. The nobles of that district, Puisaye, Bourmont, George Cadoudal, and others, commenced a guerilla warfare with murderous effect; and soon, on a space of 1200 square leagues, 30,000 men were in arms in detached parties of two or three thousand each. Brittany, intersected by wooded ridges, abounding with hardy smugglers, ardently devoted to the royalist cause, and containing a population of 2,500,000 souls, afforded far greater resources for the royalist cause than the desolated La Vendée, which never contained a third of that number of inhabitants. Puisaye was the soul of the insurrection. Proscribed by the Convention, with a price set upon his head, wandering from château to château, from cottage to cottage, he became acquainted with the spirit of the Bretons, their inextinguishable hatred of the Convention, and conceived the bold design of hoisting the royal standard again amidst its secluded fastnesses. His indefatigable activity, energetic character, and commanding eloquence, eminently qualified this intrepid chief to become the leader of a party, and soon brought all the other Breton nobles to range themselves under his standard.'—Alison, vol. ii., p. 525.

coward or a brigand. For example, Puisaye, whom Mr. Alison terms the soul of the insurrection, is described by French writers of repute as a mere intriguer, wholly destitute of honour or couragea Breton Lovat at the best-encouraged by the English for the express purpose of defeating the grand object of the insurrection, and simply converting it into "a festering sore in the vitals of the country." George Cadoudal, erroneously enumerated by Mr. Alison among the nobles, is another hero of Chouannerie, well qualified to puzzle writers pretending to impartiality. He has been denounced as an assassin for his participation in the plot which immediately preceded the murder of the Duke d'Enghien; but he himself maintained to the last that his voice had been invariably for open war, and that his plan was to attack the First Consul's guard of thirty with an equal number of his followers, and decide the quarrel by a fair fight. The very name of Chouan is a mystery; and the etymologists have hitherto hit on nothing better than Chat-huant (owl,) which the insurgents were supposed to resemble, from their practice of moving principally by night.

Whether these difficulties will eventually appal M. Rio may be doubted; but we are quite sure that it will be no easy matter to find another equally qualified, by cast of mind, habits, education, and experience, for supplying a complete history of Chouannerie. His grandfather perished on the scaffold, a martyr to loyalty. His father died of sufferings and privations in the cause. He himself, as we shall presently see, was induced, whilst yet a boy, to engage in an armed insurrection, for the Purpose of re-seating the hereditary line

of monarchs on the throne. When the struggle was suspended by the restoration, he applied to the study of history with such effect, that within a few years he delivered General Hoche, who commanded on the a course of lectures which attracted the atrevolutionary side during a great part of tention of the leading politicians of the the struggle, called it a war of giants; and capital. The reputation thus acquired was M. Capefigue recommends it as a fit sub-not suffered to fall away; and during the ject for a noble and poetical history,

* See our article of last year on the Breton Minstrelsy.

Villèle ministry we find him refusing, by turns, a censorship and the place of tutor to the Duc de Bordeaux. His unwillingness to co-operate in any measure of hos

tility towards the press conciliated the esteem of Chateaubriand, who makes him the subject of a laudatory note in one of his pamphlets. The only species of advancement which he could be persuaded to accept was the post of private secretary to M. de la Ferrouaye, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and afterwards ambassador at Rome. When the Revolution of July took place, this statesman retired; and M. Rio devoted the next five years to the composition of a work, published in 1836, entitled' De l' Art Chrétien,' in which the poetry of painting is treated with the taste, feeling, and unaffected enthusiasm of a genuine connoisseur. The principal object is to distinguish the schools of art in which the spirit of Christianity forms the pervading sentiment, from those in which nothing more than simple force, grace, truth, or beauty, is attempted or expressed. The author's obvious preference for the former has brought upon him a host of adversaries, who protest plausibly enough against a theory which would assign a secondary rank to the finest productions of Paganism; whilst an influential party as confidently maintain that the highest effects are only to be produced by men, like Raphael or Michael Angelo, whose minds are refined and elevated by the sublime revelations of Christianity. Right or wrong, the book has produced a very remarkable effect on the Continent.

The predominance of the religious feeling is remarkable, not merely in M. Rio's writings, but in all the leading actions of his life. It was this which induced him, on his return from Rome, to form an intimate friendship with the celebrated Abbé Lamennais, in whom he saw, or thought he saw, a new and pure apostle of Catholicism. We need hardly say that he has found out his error, and no longer regards the Abbé as a fitting object of faith or a proper instrument for the propagation of any form of Christianity. It will not lessen the reader's interest to add that M. Rio has married into an old Welsh family, and has made considerable preparations for a comprehensive treatise on Welsh antiquities. We hope, however, that he will not give up the project of becoming the historian of the Chouans, for which, looking to his past life, he seems especially destined. It is not merely a new chapter of the romance of history that is wanted, but a just tribute to principles which are daily loosening their formerly all-powerful, and, in our opinion, beneficial hold upon mankind. Shades of Bayard, Sydney, Montrose, Lochiel, Larochejaquclein! when will the age of sophists,

economists, and calculators, produce such men as that of faith and loyalty?

In the work before us, which may be regarded as a sample of the forthcoming one, M. Rio confines himself almost exclusively to the spring of the year 1815; and we think it best to follow his example, after briefly referring to the circumstances under which the events he commemorates took place.

After a struggle of several years the revolutionary government was obliged to make terms with the Chouans, the essential condition being the toleration of their ancient priesthood. As soon as the amnesty was declared, these revered exiles returned in great numbers, but they were found unequal to the spiritual wants of the population, and steps were immediately taken to breed up a class of assistants and successors. The college of Vannes, re-opened in 1804, was one of the seminaries most ef fective for this purpose; and the favourite topics amongst the students were the oppressions and insults to which their pastors, including the fathers, brothers, and other near relations of most of them, had been exposed. Amongst the first who enrolled their names, after the re-opening of the college, were twelve Chouan chiefs, whose boyish studies had been suspended by the struggle, and who now returned to finish their education. Four of them were already known to fame, provincial fame at all events; and the admiration they inspired, with the warlike feats they related, excited feelings by no means congenial to the sedulous cultivation of theology.

Napoleon, whose great mistake through life was never to make allowances for what he called prejudices, and the best part of mankind, principles, kept the smothered flame alive by his intolerance. His illtreatment of the Pope and his famous catechism, in particular, went far to prepare the way for a revolt: and his Spanish war was regarded with the most uncompromising abhorrence throughout Brittany. When the recusant Breton clergy had been expelled from their parishes, they had been received with the warmest hospitality by their brethren in Spain, and it was consequently deemed little short of sacrilege to make war against a country so eminent for faith and charity. Who could answer to a Christian conscript that he would not be sent on some scandalous expedition like that of the ditch of Vincennes or the Quirinal hill? Would he have the courage to mount to the assault of a Spanish town, at

The scene of a night outrage on the Pope.

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