were formed on the furface, which, on examination, appeared to confift of particles of filver revivified.

AGRICULTURE.

Obfervations on the Damage done by the Larve of the Beetle, in the Year 1784. By M. BERTHOUT VAN BERCHEM, Junior.

On the Kind of Water most favourable to Vegetation. By the Abbé BERTHOLON.

After a number of tedious and minute details and quotations, which take up no fewer than twenty-five pages, the Abbé informs his readers, that the best water for plants, is that which abounds moft with animal and vegetable fubftances; and that, confequently, ftagnant or pond water is, in this refpect, preferable to that of fprings or rivers.

On the Smut in Wheat, and on the Means of preventing it. By M. CADET DE VAUX.

This memoir contains nothing but the defcription of a wellknown difeafe of wheat; and an account of the operation of brining it with lime- water.

ORTHOPEDIA.

Defcription of feveral Machines for preventing and removing the Curvature and Distortion of the Spine. By Dr. VENEL.

If deformity can be cured or prevented, by forcibly confining the growth of the body to one particular direction, these machines may answer the purpose, provided they are applied by perfons of great fkill and attention, who are careful to watch every circumftance of variation in the growth of the wearer. Without fuch unremitting attention, they may produce very dangerous confequences; and when worn as a preventative, we have often known fuch coats of mail produce a worse deformity than that which would have taken place, had Nature been left to herself.

HYDRAULICS.

An Account of a Machine for raifing Water. By the Same, 'This machine is lefs remarkable for its novelty, than for its fimplicity; being nothing more than a chain of small leathern buckets, which revolve round two rollers; fo that one half of them afcend, filled with water, while the reft defcend empty; the direction in which the water is raifed, forms an angle of about fifty-seven degrees with the horizon, and the whole is moved by an undershot wheel, on the fame axis with the lower oller. We are told that, by this contrivance, above an hun

dred

dred gallons of water are raised, in an hour, to the height of eighty feet.

GEOMETRY.

On the Inaccuracy of the Inftruments used in surveying Mines. By M. WILD.

Who does not know that the compafs is liable to variation; and that, if the furveyor is not careful to afcertain this difference, but depends on a fingle obfervation, he may be led into error? Yet the neceffity of attending to this, and of illuminating, with a double lamp and paper reflector, the object to which the fights of the graphometer are directed, is all the information that we can collect from this memoir; the writer of which feems to entertain a very mean opinion of the abilities of most other surveyors, and a very high notion of his own.

Memoir on the Method of conftructing Plans and Maps of a mountainous Country. By the Same.

In a mountainous country, where the vallies are narrow and irregular, M. WILD advises the furveyor to take the height of the mountains for the bafes of his triangles, inftead of a horizontal distance, which, in fuch places, it is not eafy to meafure with accuracy. For measuring this vertical bafe, as the author calls it, his directions are not the moft clear and diftinct; for, after telling us that a careful observation of the barometer often comes nearer the truth than an inaccurate geometrical operation, but that they who are expert in the latter ought to have recourfe to it,-he fuppofes this bafe to be known, and proceeds to lay down rules for the folution of his triangles, which may be found in every introduction to trigonometry.

From the account which we have now given of the contente of this volume, the reader will fee tha:, among many useful and interefting papers, there are fome which might have been configned to oblivion, without any detriment to the interefts of fcience, or to the reputation of the fociety. This, however, is a reflection which we have often had occafion to make, in reviewing the publications of much larger, and older academies: it is a circumftance, therefore, which ought to be excufed during the infancy of thefe inftitutions, when the members are few in number, and might be too much discouraged by a fuppreffion of any of their memoirs. We hope that the fociety of Laufanne may not long have this excuse to plead; and we fhall be happy to communicate to our countrymen the refult of their further useful labours.

Sow.

ART.

ART. XVII. Memoires du Marechal Duc DE RICHELIEU: 1. c. Memoirs of the Marshal Duke of RICHELIEU, containing the Hiftory of the Court of Lewis XIV.; of the Regency of the Duke of Orleans; of the Reign of Lewis XV.; and of the first fourteen Years of that of Lewis XVI. KING OF THE FRENCH, AND RESTORER OF LIBERTY. Four Volumes Octavo; about 320 Pages in each. Paris. 1790.

HISTORY may be a useful, but it is not always a pleafing study; nor is any fubject more difagreeable to the reflecting and benevolent reader, than the annals of absolute monarchies; which, amid a few inftances of virtue, honour, and humanity, exhibit a multitude of fcenes that, by proving the very great depravity of which the heart of man is fufceptible, muft give pain and difguft to every humane and generous difpofition. We felt thefe fenfations in a very high degree, in the perufal of the Memoirs now before us; concerning the authenticity of which we can form no opinion, excepting what refults from their coincidence with other hiftorical pieces of the fame kind. We are indeed told, that they were compiled in the library, and under the infpection, of the Duke DE RICHELIEU, who permitted the compiler to write in his name, and gave him accefs to his papers: but, as this confidant of the Duke does not think fit to favour the public with his own name, we cannot determine what credit may be due to his affertions.

The four volumes now publifhed, contain the fecret, and, we may in the fulleft fenfe add, the fcandalous chronicle of the French court, from the year 1710, down to Cardinal Fleury's adminiftration; and furely never was a country fo vilely governed as France, during the greatest part of this period; in which, with little interruption, a feries of worthlefs and contemptible wretches plundered, corrupted, and difgraced the nation.

The Marfhal was born in 1696; and (which may appear extraordinary, when we confider the great age that, notwithftanding his debaucheries, he attained,) his mother was delivered of him in the fixth month of her pregnancy, when he was fo very fmall and tender, that, inftead of being clothed, he was for fome months wrapped in loofe cotton. In 1710 he was prefented at court, where he foon became the favourite of the ladies; and, in the following year, he was, contrary to his inclinations, married to the daughter of the Marquis De Noailles: but he was foon after confined in the Battile for fourteen months, on account of an amour with the young Duchefs of Burgundy; and, on his release from prifon, was

fent

fent into the army, where he made his firft campaign under Marfhal Villars. Befide thefe and other anecdotes of the Duke, which are not very interefting, the first volume contains an account of the court and government of Lewis XIV.; the former excites the most fovereign contempt, the latter the moft lively indignation and abhorrence. The hiftory of the King's miftreffes, and of the juvenile licentioufnefs of the Duke of Orleans, is a fubject with which we will not fully our pages.

The reign of Lewis XIV. is not here painted with thofe false colours with which the fervile pencil of Voltaire, and other courtly hiftorians, have difguifed the government of this fplendid and plaufible tyrant, but in thofe which every impartial obferver of his actions will perceive to be conformable to truth; and, when thus reprefented, it is impoffible for a generous minded reader to perufe its history without the utmost indignation. A great number of circumftances here related, which correfpond with what other writers of credit have afferted, ftamp his name with indelible infamy: among thefe, his obfervation on the extortions of Fouquet, and his correfpondence with Colbert, manifeft the most avowed contempt for his fubjects, and the moft odious want of feeling for the diftreffes in which his vanity, his ambition, and his extravagance, involved them. It affords, however, fome fatisfaction to observe, that not even the fplendors of royalty can fhield the worthlefs from the contempt and mifery which they fo richly deserve. We confider the glorious caufe of humanity as in fome measure avenged, when we furvey this rapacious oppreffive tyrant finking into a truly defpicable old age; when we behold the licentious debauchee metamorphofed into the fuperftitious apprehenfive bigot, the mere dupe of an artful woman. and an intriguing confeffor, and tormented by the fpurious. brood, that owed their birth to his vices, and their legitimacy to his folly. It is faid, that when he felt death approaching, he exprefled to Madame De Maintenon fome remorfe for the pitiless manner in which he had pillaged his unhappy fubjects; yet even then he was guilty of a mean falfehood, in faying to the Duke of Orleans, I have preferved to you all the rights to which your birth entitles you; when he knew that he had excluded him from the regency, in favour of the Duke De Maine.

The death of this monarch difplays a ftriking inftance of the vanity of every external circumftance of human greatness; for, in the laft fcenes of his life, he was abandoned by thofe who had been preferred by his partiality, and enriched by his prodigality. The Jefuit Tellier, who had ufurped the fole direction of the King's confcience, left his royal penitent to ne

gociate

gociate his own peace with heaven, while he was engaged in intriguing for fresh preferment under the approaching regency. The Duke De Maine was fo much occupied in preparing for the exercise of the authority which he impatiently expected, that he had no leisure to render to a dying father thofe tender attentions, which filial affection and gratitude might have infpired. Poor Madame De Maintenon was fo deeply afflicted on feeing the King in this hopeless fituation, that the also abandoned him four days before his death, and repaired to St. Cyr, in order to pray for his foul. Inftead of appearing to mourn the decease of Lewis, the oppreffed people publicly expreffed their fatisfaction on being delivered from fubjection to him. So notorious were the popular demonstrations of joy on this occafion, that the court dared not permit the funeral proceffion to pass through the city, left infults fhould be offered to the corpfe; and in one of the bye-roads, along which it was conducted to the grave, a number of people affembled, diftributing onions, which they recommended as abfolutely neceffary to draw forth tears on the death of fuch a king, whom they furnamed the bad, and loaded with execrations.

The fecond and third volumes comprehend the regency of the Duke of Orleans. This prince had been entirely corrupted by the precepts and example of the infamous Cardinal Dubois, than whom a more worthlefs wretch never exifted. Under the government of Lewis XIV. even in his younger years, the licentious manners of the court were moderated by fome refpect for the opinions of mankind, fome attention to external decency of conduct: but the Regent and his favourites threw off every restraint. If we may believe this writer, even the princeffes of the blood, and the daughters of the Duke of Orleans, indulged every wanton caprice of licentious paffion, with an effrontery exceeding that of a common street-walker. In their nocturnal orgies, the Duke and his friends feemed to emulate the enormities of Heliogabalus ; and they are stained with so many fhocking inftances of grofs and unnatural vice, that we cannot help blaming both the Duke DE RICHELIEU and his amanuenfis for dwelling on them. The Duke of Orleans's political character was not much better than his private conduct: he was a weak man: but his difpofition was not naturally cruel; and, had he not fallen into bad hands, who endeavoured to diveft him of every principle of virtue and humanity, he might have been a tolerable regent. He either had, or affected to have, fome regard for the rights of the people but he fuffered them to be most shamefully oppreffed by his minifters. It is faid that he wished to convoke the ftates of France, in order to reform the abuses of government;