which most likely would not have occurred in a wild state, where the intriguers would have easily got away, and have joined others of their own kind: though the cross-breed was successfully continued for three successive years, yet it depended on Lord Derby's pleasure that they should be permitted to do so; and the end was that he, finding them to be troublesome by interfering with the breeding of the more regular and legitimate stocks upon the water, got rid of them without waiting to ascertain how long it would be before they run themselves out, as he is inclined to think would usually be the case-either by failure of fertility--or by going back to one or other of the original true breeds, with which they always readily mingled and associated, even whilst some continued to breed inter se as a separate race. The hybrid pheasants will probably not be thus cut short in their course of propagation. Some were to be granted to the Zoological Society, if care were taken that they should be kept distinct and separate, so as to run no risk of spoiling the experiment by the intermixture of other blood: others were to go to noblemen and gentlemen from whom we may expect all due attention, because they are known to take considerable interest in the long-vexed question whether the crossing of species can ever produce a fertile progeny that will continue their breed and possibly give rise to a future new sort. A curious fact relative to the chicks must not be omitted. Mr. Thompson, the superintendent at Knowsley, professes himself able to distinguish to which of the first two lots any of the young hybrids belong-and this we quite believe-though Lord Derby himself cannot do so till they are at a considerable age. Mr. Thompson also notices that the females generally have the brilliant markings at the end of the back feathers, which are the characteristic of the true versicolor hen-albeit no hen ever reached Lord Derby's Aviary; for, though one was originally sent with the cock, she unluckily died in London en route and could only be stuffed for the Knowsley Museum. This looks as if the hybrid breed were about to recur to the versicolor type, and gradually purge off the colchicus blood. It will be wonderful if a single bird, brought from the east, should be able to perpetuate his race here by making it temporarily parasitical on another species. It is as if a scion kept alive by being grafted on some nearly allied tree, afterwards sent down roots into the earth, and then assumed an independent existence.

ART. II.-1. Histoire de Madame de Maintenon et des principaux Evénements du Règne de Louis XIV. Par le Duc de Noailles. Tom. i. et ii. 8vo. Paris. 1848.

2. Woman in France during the Eighteenth Century. By Julia Kavanagh. In two volumes. In two volumes. 12mo. 1850.

THE

HE work of Miss Kavanagh may be read as a continuation of that of the Duke de Noailles. The one exhibits French society at the most triumphant period of the monarchy, the other at its decline and disastrous fall. The picture that the Duke presents is spirited and splendid, particularly the portrait of the principal personage; and though we may not quite agree with his estimate of the great sovereign to whom his ancestors were so deeply indebted, we are very ready to admit that Louis XIV. gains by a comparison with most of his predecessors on the French throne, or with any of the princes his contemporaries. 'Qui ne connaît,' he says, l'histoire de Louis XIV. et de sa cour? Mais celle que je publie a son excuse dans le sujet même; elle est en effet destinée à rappeler un siècle où tout surprend et attache; où les noms propres ont une valeur qu'ils n'ont eue en aucun autre temps;' and the elaboration of his personal details corresponds with this language of his preface. Miss Kavanagh has undertaken a delicate task, and she has performed it on the whole with discretion and judgment. Her volumes, notwithstanding their alarming title, may lie on any drawing-room table without scandal, and may be read by all but her youngest countrywomen without risk. If she has not quite fulfilled the expectations her Introduction raised-if she has failed to give us an analysis of the power of woman in France in the eighteenth century'-she has at any rate produced an agreeable compilation, diversified with lively sketches of many extraordinary individuals.

This lady is evidently unwilling to make herself the apologist of error; but her biographical partialities mislead her, and her desire to establish the supremacy of her sex has induced her to invest her heroines, their age, and their country, with a brilliancy for which facts afford no warrant, and by which the cause of morality suffers. In the annals of well-governed states the influence of women will be little traced; and it might be presumed that its direct bearing on public affairs must be in exact proportion to the corruption and disorganization of society. Although, however, Miss Kavanagh could hardly exaggerate the profligacy of French manners in the eighteenth century, we believe she has greatly overrated the extent of female influence-or, in other words, that she has frequently mistaken the effect for the cause.

Women

6

Women did not, in fact, mould the spirit of the eighteenth century so as to bring about the great revolution with which it closed ;''many of them' certainly shared in the fullest extent the errors and crimes' of that movement, but it was because society, radically debased, was hastening to its ruin that women attained or even aspired to political importance.

France has ever boasted herself (and our authoress seems very ready to admit the claim) to be the guide and pioneer of social progress. Her many contributions to the material and intellectual enjoyments of civilized life we gratefully admit, but, if it be seriously contended that she has led the way to moral and political improvement, the page of history will disprove the assertion. While the struggle between liberty and despotism was yet pending in the mixed constitutions of feudal Europe, it was France that by her example and influence decided the victory in favour of absolute power. Madame de Staël boldly pronounced despotism in Christendom to be the growth of modern days. If this be true, however, it must follow that neither the reformation in religion nor the invention of printing had the favourable effect on the development of civil liberty which has so often been attributed to them. It is certain that in the first instance printing, by its rapid dissemination of the Roman law, contributed materially to counteract ideas of constitutional freedom, and that for a long while authority succeeded in securing for itself the chief use of this new and formidable engine. It is also certain that during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Spain, France, and the Principalities of Germany possessed constitutions of which they were afterwards deprived, and that in those times the sovereigns could neither command the blind obedience of their subjects nor dip their hands in their purses at pleasure. Machiavelli, in one of his political discourses, cites France, Spain, and England as alike limited monarchies. Cardinal Richelieu, bent on humbling the pride of Austria and raising the power of France abroad, found it necessary to crush the feudal aristocracy at home. He was eminently successful; but the means he used laid the foundation for all those calamities which afterwards overwhelmed the monarchy. It has been the fashion to trace the revolution of 1789 to the profligacy and mismanagement of the regency. But Richelieu it was who effected a more important revolution than the Regent could ever have accomplished: he it was who, by removing the owners of land from the sphere of their legitimate influence, and, by exposing them to the temptations of the capital, converted a high-spirited gentry into a mob of hungry courtiers. Mazarin continued the same policy. The feudal power of the nobles, which had been impaired by the defeat of the League, was annihilated during the struggles

of

of the Fronde; and the entertaining memoirs of that periodso skilfully used by Lord Mahon in his Life of Condé-show the progress that corruption had already made. The organised despotism and imposing centralization of Louis XIV. completed the project of Richelieu and Mazarin, and with it the humiliation, not of the aristocracy alone, but of the nation. The Duke de St. Simon (the minute and faithful chronicler of that brilliant time) deplores the degeneracy of the ancient nobility-while he dates from the anterooms of Versailles, and, in spite of his usual penetration, is utterly unsuspicious how he himself and all others who haunted them were contributing to the degradation he laments. When the territorial lords were brought to regard court favours as the chief object of ambition, the ministers who dispensed those favours became more important than the most illustrious of their own order, and henceforth the highest distinction consisted in a pre-eminence of servility.

The influence of France on surrounding nations, from its geographical position, extent, and wealth, must at all times be great, and would at any rate have been felt even if the character of Louis XIV. had been less imposing and his example less seductive. In Spain the succession of a Bourbon to the contested throne introduced French maxims of government into a country hitherto punctiliously tenacious of its own customs and jealous of innovation, and another fabric of autocracy was completed. Had an Austrian archduke been the successful candidate, it is probable that his own weakness and the enmity of Louis would have compelled him to propitiate his subjects by restoring their liberties, curtailed but not abolished, by Charles V. and his successors; and thus the neighbourhood of France would have been a protection to constitutional freedom rather than a snare.

The magnificence of Louis XIV. (for which even his resources were insufficient) attracted general imitation. Like him, the Kings of Spain, of Poland, of Prussia, of Sardinia and Naples, the ecclesiastical princes of Germany, with a host of inferior potentates, raised colossal fabrics, enclosed forests, turned fields into pleasure-grounds, and drained lakes to supply their fountains. Like him, too, many paraded their vices in the eyes of the public, raised their mistresses to posts of honour, and even contaminated the blood of the royal family by forcing alliances between its legitimate members and their own spurious offspring. Few, however, of his mimics possessed his art of throwing a veil of dignity around such irregularities-still fewer, we fear, had any feeling for the virtues which their model occasionally exhibited. His natural disposition was good, and religion had never entirely lost its hold on his conscience. His powers of self-command

were

were considerable; and if there be any truth in the influence of 'the ruling passion,' it seems probable that one so insatiable of praise would have amended his conduct, had it been rigorously disapproved by his contemporaries. Unfortunately, he found that while indulging his tastes and pampering his appetites, he was securing the admiration of his rivals and the approbation of his people.

M. de Noailles rather surprises us by claiming for Louis the merits of a reformer; he represents the manners of the court and capital as becoming more grave and decent under his example (vol. i. p. 83); and though he does not deny any of his 'foibles' (for that is the Duke's gentle term), he speaks with undisguised admiration of the délicieux vers' of contemporary poets, in which his licentiousness was held up not as a weakness to be pardoned, but as a virtue to be commended. Racine with delicacy, and La Fontaine less reservedly, offer their homage to the royal propensities; and Molière, in a graceful interlude, like Timotheus of old, fans the passion of his master with all the incitements of music and poetry.* It was the poets and great men of that golden age who encouraged the monarch's vice and extravagance; but he, a wiser and a better man than those who surrounded him, should have scorned their flattery, or only been led by it to consider the magnitude of his responsibility. His influence was indeed vast. No man ever possessed the art of kingcraft, as our King James called it, in a higher degree, for few had a deeper knowledge of the human heart. Courteous, affable, graceful, he lived in the public gaze from the moment he rose till the moment he lay down. He was dressed in public: a prince of the blood handed him his shirt; a noble duke held the mirror while he shaved; nor did he ever commit his dignity by a single hasty or imprudent word. Silencieux et mesuré,' as St. Simon describes him-his minutest actions endured the scrutinising gaze of his courtiers, from whose presence he was never relieved. To the eyes of his contemporaries, though by no means a tall man, his stature seemed majestic. So complete was his empire, that it extended over the minds of his subjects; the course of business, the voice of nature, and the violence even of the passions were stilled at his command; young mourners dried their tears to appear at his levee, and the happy lover left the object of his affections to hurry to Versailles to watch the movements of the great King.

It is to the eighteenth century that Miss Kavanagh confines her

The Princess d'Elide. The allusion is to the King's passion for his heroine, Mlle. La Vallière. The piece was written no less to amuse the public than the Court, before which it was originally played.

observations ;