during the eight years of the regency. The firm principles of the government, under Louis XIV. were too well grounded, and had continued too long to be done away in so short a time. The vigorous activity which had been given to all the springs of power, had preserved their force of action, thus far, beyond the existence of the first projector; besides, among all classes of people, whether possessing much or little property, that absurd scheme, the System, as it was called, engaged the thoughts of every one, filling the public mind with as ardent a thirst for gain, as it has since felt for freedom, to the total exclusion of every other idea. When this business was brought to a final issue, those whom it had enriched kept within bounds the discontent of those whom it had ruined; and the general mind, thus compressed by one sordid pursuit, lost all that elastic principle which gives it those sudden impulses of the most impetuous passions. But, in fact, the great affabtlity of the Duke of Orleans, which in justice we must not pass over, not only supported him to the last in the people's favour, but caused him to be esteemed, by persons of the first rank and character, as well for the generous complacency with which he listened to the severest animadversions on his conduct, as for those returning evidences of his naturally good

disposition, when, after having lavished his generous attentions upon the vicious, he would unexpectedly be seen paying the due tribute of honourable regard to the more deserving, or outwardly acquitting himself of those solemn duties of a religion, that but the night before he had made the scoff of his revelry. Every body felt disposed to think well of him, for the tender and noble-minded interest which he never failed to take in the welfare of the young Prince, who stood between him and the throne. The tears that fell from his eyes, when, reading the Philippics of La Grange, he came to that abominable passage in which he was accused of a crime his heart abhorred the thought of, sufficiently shewed his sensibility, although he so capriciously strove to hide it. Those tears, however, did not escape the respectful notice, and affectionate witness, of the people at large. And again, the dexterity with which he completely frustrated the conspiracy of Cellamare, the instant he had intimation of it; the clemency he displayed on an occasion, that Richelieu would have made a pretext for shedding torrents of blood; the readiness with which he forgot the injury done to himself, fully satisfied as he was with having preserved France from total overthrow. In short, at all times, and amid his most disorderly practices, his

amiable manners, his brilliant wit, and his engaging condescension, endeared him more or less to all who came into his presence. It was, however, impossible to feel any sentiment for him, that was not mixed with some other of a contrary nature; no person could love or blame him without regret; and whenever a complaint was heard, it was generally more for than against his interest; whence it was, that the general indignation, produced by the confidence which he put in so desperate a minister, was considerably lessened by the satisfaction every body experienced, in having that opportunity afforded them of imputing all his vices to the suggestions of another, and ascribing all his virtues to the natural bias of his own mind: an impression, this, which we do not at all wonder at finding deeply fixed in the hearts of all who had once seen him; for we, ourselves, are at this moment sensible of the same, after having investigated all the separate traits of his mental character, and all the various contradictions of his personal conduct.

But we shall, nevertheless, attend strictly to that line of conduct which the duty of an historian dictates, and proceed to trace the general consequences of such an influence. We shall

not less openly declare, however reluctantly we may do it, that the Regency, and the Society of Roués, libertines, as they called themselves, left behind them a leaven of corruption, which spread its infection throughout one whole class of society, and in its consequences threatened to involve every other part of it.

This dissoluteness of demeanour had nothing to do with that principle of gallantry, which, in the early part of the preceding reign, studiously shunned publicity, by its delicacy doing away much of its shame, and which the people, from their attachment to the throne, alternately lamented and overlooked, as a frailty the most excusable of all those to which human nature was liable, and the most easily expiated by consequent regret. No; it was, on the contrary, a cynical pursuit of shameless pleasures, blended with an audacious contempt for all those restraints which had hitherto commanded respect from all minds. It was a combination of sensual appetite and perverted understanding, without the least qualifying sentiment, or illusion of the heart, which gives to gratification all its zest. It was a co-operation of every debauched and impious principle of action, by which the voice

of conscience was stifled, the public opinion insulted, and the seeds of contagious anarchy sown in the most exalted ranks of society.

While we are thus tracing the progress of political principles, we must not omit to note the admiration with which the Duke of Orleans, from his youth, regarded the English constitution; his passionate fondness for freedom, public or individual*; his rooted hatred of letters de cachet, which, notwithstanding they were had recourse to during his administration, and he himself signed them, he never approved of; neither must we pass over, unobserved, the advantage England knew so well how to take of such a disposition; the address with which she brought over the Abbé Dubois to persuade his master, that he stood in need of her assistance to defend himself from the intrigues of the Spanish cabinet; from the same influence, also, proceeded that indifference, or, as others have called it, that insensibility, with which France beheld the grandsons of Henry IV. nearly deprived of their throne; those treaties which the Regent made with George I.; those alliances of pleasure, as well as of policy,

* S. Simon says, he used to talk of it in a voluptuous strain of panegyric.