that a similar flame shall first consume all the established governments in Europe; and then end, as it must inevitably end, in a similar manner to what it has done in France. Europe has had quite sufficient of this French flame; it can scorch her borders no more; and must, in its dying embers, be confined to the distracted country which first gave it birth. That there was danger of some of the allies learning lessons which would not be forgot, there is no doubt. As long as man follows and seeks after what is evil, such could easily be believed would take place. Let those who have visited, or do visit France, state, how much useful knowledge they would learn from her people, either in morality, religion, or political justice. The events we have related, have not at all tended to make us forget that the foundation of what France termed her political freedom, was the grossest irreligion and immorality; and that the flame which enlightened her, and is recommended yet to enlighten Europe, was kindled by Atheism, and fed by the goddess of Reason. The flame, no doubt, yet remains amongst them; but its strength is decaying; its heat is only felt in a corner; it can no more pass the Rhine; no, nor make that its boundary. Their knowledge of intrigue may not forsake them. But its effects will be useless. Their professions have deceived often, but are too well understood to do so any longer. Their efforts in this way, in place of gaining attention, will only meet contempt. The sword of Wellington, on the plains of Waterloo, cut asunder this Gordian knot; and no French ingenuity nor intrigue can unite it again.

While Bonaparte was thus holding on his journey through the billows of the Atlantic, safe from all personal danger, protected by that flag, whose firmness alone had curbed his ambition and broken his power, France continued in the most unsettled state, and exhibited a picture, scarcely ever before known, in any age or country. Nor could it be otherwise among a people where all the elements of evil, discord, and confusion, were set in motion, without any fixed object on which to lean for support, or bond that could control and direct them to any given pursuit. All the evil passions which infest the human breast, were let loose to scourge that devoted country. Her time was now come, when she was to feel the consequences of

that demoralizing system she had reared in her own, and seattered over every other country. She had taught mankind to regard no tie, but convenience or interest; so that the better feelings which unite man to man, and nation to nation, were either treated with contempt, or were unknown. Their constant followers now appeared amongst a distracted and disunited people. All the horrors of war, anarchy, and confusion, seemed to hold equal sway throughout the French borders. A discontented soldiery, humbled, yet thirsting for revenge; when they no longer dared to face the enemies, which their arrogance, had provoked, next wished to impose shackles upon their sovereign. While they trembled to reflect on their crimes; they lamented because their days of aggression and triumph were gone. They were without employment, without the means of obtaining any, and without the wish to follow habits of industry. A turbulent and giddy population, divided into factions, each without confidence amongst themselves, because they were without any fixed principles; and hating, at the same time, with the most perfect hatred, all those who differed from them in opinion, or opposed them. Their golden dreams, in which alone they were unanimous, of lording it over Europe, were vanished; and each party blamed the other, as having brought round the catastrophe. Upwards of one million of foreign soldiers, whom their ambition had driven to betake themselves to the trade of arms, now lived at will upon the produce of their labours; and taught them, by ocular demonstration, and actual deeds, the nature and evil of the system which France had established, and followed throughout Europe. The expense thus heaped upon them was enormous. Yet, however great, still it was only as a grain in the balance, when compared to what her exactions had been over Europe. Contributions, requisitions, military quarterings, and the expense of military movements, she now supported, and most justly had them all. She might complain, but without justice. It was only her own system returning upon her guilty head, with a severe retribution. Her fate, at this moment, was an awful warning to every nation, to shun the paths of immorality and injustice; and to avoid the pursuit of the gay bauble of military glory, and the delirious system, of making a whole nation, for

no other object but wars of aggression and ambition, a military people. It has its limits: broken once, it returns upon itself the evils it scattered amongst others; while its very spirit impels it on to that point, where it must produce the re-action that occasions its destruction. But this is the smallest part of the evil. It corrupts and misleads the heart, and hardens it against all the softer feelings of our nature, which can only render life supportable; and leads the mind astray from all those pursuits which alone can exalt, and which ought to distinguish the human character. It leaves behind it a sting which cannot be extracted; a poison which no medicine can cure. Inured to violence, blood, and carnage; and without any other class with which to intermix to soften the asperity of his nature, or meliorate his feelings, man becomes like the savage, who delights only in ruin and blood. He is a scourge to himself, and a terror to his neighbours. Do not, however, let it be supposed that it is here meant to stigmatize, indiscriminately, the military profession. In it are found the brightest ornaments of their country, and guardians of justice and honour. It is the abuse, not the use of it, that is condemned. It is that evil spirit which makes a nation become soldiers, purely for the love of war; not that spirit which induces a nation, from. honourable motives, to take up arms to defend their independence, and to banish war from their land. This is a different spirit; and exalts, as much as the other debases, the human character. The history of every nation that has made war their only study, proves the important fact, that war, followed for the sake of war, brutalizes the feelings, and corrupts the heart. A career of success is succeeded by a course of national debauchery and wickedness; which, while it hardens, the heart, enervates the mind, and takes from human nature all that manliness and generosity which forms its distinguishing attribute; and ultimately renders it. the slave of every guilty impulse, and savage propensity.

France, at this moment, was a striking example in point. Dissensions and massacres amongst themselves; and secret assassinations of the allied troops, wherever these were found in small bodies, or by isolated individuals, took place. Subse quent to the armistice, day after day, many of the allied soldiers

were cut off in this manner; either while performing their duty, or at a time that their behaviour gave no offence. A striking instance of this occurred ́in the case of a detachment of 30 Bavarians; who, near Bar-sur-Aube, were secretly and cruelly set upon, without any reason, by the peasants of the neighbourhood; and with hatchets, pitchforks, and other weapons of a similar description, were maimed and wounded in the most shocking manner. Such proceedings were numerous and frequent, and occasioned numerous and severe orders for disarming and punishing the districts wherein those atrocities took place. Foremost in this salutary work were the Austrian generals. Severe fines were laid upon the communes where these assassinations took place, and the perpetrators delivered over to military tribunals to be punished with death.* That individuals in the allied armies acted improperly, there is no doubt; but such conduct was instantly punished whenever a just complaint was made. Nevertheless, this odious conduct, on the part of the Bonapartists, could not be checked. But it was amongst themselves, that this ferocious disposition was attended with the most disastrous consequences. Furious from defeat, the Revolutionists or friends of Bonaparte, every where threatened and carried into effect, measures of vengeance similar to those of 1792 and 1793. Numerous assassinations and massacres were the consequence. On the other hand, the party who had so long and so severely suffered from the power and insolence of their foes, perceiving that the power was broken which had formerly treated them so barbarously; and seeing no measures taken to bring them to justice, as quickly as they anticipated, commenced, of their own accord, a similar system of violence and personal vengeance, as had been exercised against them. This occasioned numerous bloody quarrels, and cruel massacres; where the evil disposed had only to assume the colours of a party, to which, in his heart, he was a foe, in order to commit the most horrid crimes. In the south of France, these things assumed the most serious appearance. But of the real extent we are considerably in the dark, as neither party were willing to publish details, which threw odium upon each; while the designing and more malevolent, who did, Archduke Ferdinand's proclamation, Dijon, August 11th.

so exaggerated or palliated these, according to the party to which he belonged. The evil was certainly of great extent; and prevailed, not in one place, but less or more over all the south of France. Throughout the Cevennes, the department of the Garde, along the Rhone, and in the mountains of Auvergne, these deadly feuds took place. These were also encouraged and augmented by the refractory chiefs; and soldiers of Suchet's army, and the army of the Loire, who took refuge in those places. At Thoulouse, General Ramel, formerly a Bonapartist, but turned Royalist, was murdered by the populace, because he killed a centinel who refused to fire upon the mob collected to punish some persons for crying Vive l' Empereur. It was at Nismes, a town containing about 50,000 inhabitants, and in the surrounding country, however, that those commotions were attended with the bloodiest and most alarming consequences. The partizans of Bonaparte recovering from their surprise, which his abdication had occasioned; and encouraged and supported by the rebel chiefs of the armies, became more insolent and daring. They acknowledged and proclaimed Napoleon II. and defied the authority of the Royal government.* Its friends armed in its defence. This quickly brought the hostile parties into collision, and the consequences were most distressing. The system of the Revolution was renewed. Those who had no property, or who in their own persons, or that of their friends, had been deprived of it, during that odious period of terror and blood, now attacked, murdered, and plundered, those who had. Private hatred and deadly political opposition, assumed the garb of religious animosity; and all of which combined, disclosed the corruption and barbarity of the French character, in all its native deformity. From the 5th July, to the 3d August, it was almost one continued scene of terror and death. The people professing the Protestant faith were the general sufferers; though with these, there were others of a different persuasion, who had been on the same political side. On the 5th July, several domains belonging to the Protestants were burnt; and a still greater number on the 6th. On the 5th, a pretended national guard, headed by a fellow of the name of Toislajon, previously a

⚫ Bulletin of events at Nismes, August 26th.