"

The machine of finance was never able to disencumber itself from these difficulties till the revolution, when the mass of embarrassments having so far accumulated as to clog its wheels, it ceased to revolve altogether.

In speaking of the state of private morals at the close of this reign, Montesquieu observes, that men were not at all disapproved of for suffering the infidelity of their wives-that husbands were in the habit of speaking very little of them, for fear of mentioning them to those who knew them better than themselves-and that there was but one character that all the world hated and laughed at-a jealous husband. He goes much farther on this subject than I choose to follow him, and after all due allowance for the exaggerations of satire, I think it must be admitted that France was not then the Eden of domestic bliss. Yet Ultra Royalists assert, that Louis XIV. was the most successful monarch in curbing the extravagancies of disorderly opinions-the most exemplary in the exercise of his religious duties the most splendid wearer of majesty and the most indefatigable in spreading civilization, that ever sat on the French throne! It might be asked in vain of them, was it the spirit of true religion that delivered up his conscience to the jesuitical doctrine of the end sanctifying the means, when, with fire and sword, he chased the Huguenots out of his kingdom? Was it a christian zeal to gov. ern France after the dictates of justice and sow the seeds of honour in his nation, that led him to impoverish it by guilty wars, and to throw the whole patronage of the crown into the hands of his mistresses? All this they contend proves nothing, since France acquired a pre-eminence in Europe under his direction. They will not admit, that one man may have had the gathering of the harvest, and another the ploughing and sowing of the glebe; or that the wisdom of every scheme of administration ought to be judged of from its general, and not from its partial results. For my part I cannot help thinking, that the ball of empire had already acquired its momentum when Louis XIV. mounted upon it, and that he deserves no more credit for the hand with which he steadied its course, than Phaeton for the presumptuous ignorance with which he misguided the chariot of the sun. If any doubt can remain on your mind of the correctness of this opinion, I would refer you, for confirmation of it, to the funeral discourse of Massillon

on this monarch. In speaking of the pompous monuments of this extravagant reign, that prelate asks, what will they recal to posterity but an entire age of horror and carnage, in which the flower of the French nobility were hurried to their tombs, to the despair of their parents and the extinction of their families"nos campagnes desertes; nos villes désolees; nos peuples épuisés, les arts à la fin sans emulation, le commerce languissant," and such a frightful dissolution of morality, as might be supposed to draw down the indignation of heaven on the French nation Yet even this eloquent divine, after admitting, that by the policy of Louis no vestige of the modesty of their fathers was left in France, save their old and respectable portraits, which from the walls of their palaces, looked with reproach on their descendants; after railing at the profane writers who sold their pens to iniquity, and celebrated him for "remuant l'univers du sein des voluptes,"* does not, in his turn, omit to applaud the pious zeal and wisdom of that king in destroying the Huguenots, and even to declare that their extinction will redound “a la gloire eternelle de Louis!"

* Henriade.

50667A

LETTER III.

Paris, Feb. 10th, 1820.

MY DEAR SIR,

We have now come, I think, to the beginning of a period, which may be, in some degree, considered as the prelude of the revolution. It is here necessary to look somewhat attentively into the domestic habits of the court, which have of necessity much influence on those of the nation, and to observe, as we go along, the origin of that spirit of liberty which, however feeble and fluctuating at first, slowly expanded itself, until by gaining a crowd of proselytes too corrupt to comprehend its nature, it degenerated into the spirit of anarchy and faction.

The splendid scene of government which had opened itself with such royal magnificence under Louis XIV. was followed by a reign of riot, debauchery and folly, under the regency of Orleans. The tone of moral sentiment which Louis had found tolerably vigorous and well braced, had been gradually relaxing its tension during the thirty years which preceded his death (1685 to 1715.) But his respect for appearances had so checked the sallies of intemperance, that although religion had imperceptibly dissolved her union with morality, it was not until after his death, that the pride of honesty was discovered to be entirely broken down and all pretension to principle to be as hypocritical as it was ridiculous. As soon, however, as this seeming respect for decency ceased to mask the vices of the court, they appeared in all their natural deformity. From the first days of the regency, libertinism not only ceased to seek concealment, but braved public opinion with such audacious grace as to render loose morals an indispensable accomplishment to a man of fashion. Blasphemy and oaths were introduced by the impu dent, and applauded by the base; there was no joy in festivity without drunkenness, and no other object in society but the in

dulgence of debauchery. We are told by a French historian, that as "no one now blushed for any excess, no one was offended by any reproach," and that all made a sport of the most violent excesses of iniquity and madness

The passion of love, which had long since lost the elevation of a sentiment, became so profaned that gallantry was a mere ceremony, less and less observed every day The ladies of the court made a sale and traffic even of that power of intercession in favour of the unfortunate, which when decently exercised, had been one of the loveliest of their privileges. Two young unmarried princesses, the daughters of Condè and Orleans, were at the same time the rival mistresses "of that gallant gay Lothario," the young Duc de Richelieu, and with the permission of their indulgent parents, continued their visits to him during his confinement in the Bastile. The masked balls of the opera, which are at this day the resort of scarcely a woman of delicacy or rank, were then introduced to heighten the mysteries of licentiousness, and to give the novices of either sex an easy initiation into the habits of the world. The suppers of the regent are said to have been mere midnight revels of debauchery. A company composed of nobles and harlequins, princesses and opera dancers, held, (over the most delicious dishes and exquisite wines) conversations so frightfully obscene, that a respect for our nature almost makes me disdain the recollection of them. The past and present gallantries of the court and city, scandalous stories, disputes, pleasantries and ridicule, in which no body was spared, nor any thing in heaven above nor on the earth beneath was respected, were the topics which delighted these polished pupils of Louis XIV. "On buvait beaucoup du meilleur vin, on s'echauffait, on disait des ordures a gorge deployée, et des impietés à qui mieux mieux, et quand on avait fait du bruit, et qu'on etait bien ivre on s'allait coucher."*

The many hideous suspicions which stain the history of France during that age are alone an evidence of its depravity. Not to mention the earlier disgusting obliquities of the young king, it is impossible to forget that the Regent could not sup with his own

* Such is the statement of an eye witness, the Duc de St. Simon. It was at one of these suppers that the Countess of Sabran said to the Regent, "Dieu apres avoir créé l'homme prit un reste de boue dont il fait l'amejdes Princes et des Laquais."

daughters, nor Cardinal Tencin with his own sisters without exciting suspicions at which the human heart recoils. Neither could any member of the royal family or distinguished person die without having their deaths attributed to poison. It may have been the malice of the multitude, or the vices of the great, whichever you please, that invented or executed these crimes, but the morality of that nation could not have been very pure in which such ideas could prevail.

The courts of justice "la chambre ardente" which under the Medicis had been disgraced by fanaticism, was now dishonoured by venality, and as the public had no other revenge for injustice and injury than witty epigrams on the meanness and cupidity of their governors, they could scarcely be expected to retain much respect for them. When the mother of Orleans died, a wit wrote on her tomb "ci-git l'oisiveté" and added below "la mere de tous les vices."

It is an historical fact likewise that the tutor of Louis XV. the Abbe Dubois was constantly in the habit of representing virtue to his pupil as a chimera of weak heads, or as a lie invented by cunning impostors to delude the credulity of fools. What reason then is there to be surprised that this king should have governed a state without vigour and a church without virtue-that under his administration a respect for religion should have parted with the last anchors that held it to the public mind of France-that it should have been since on shore by the storm of infidelity, and that every wave of royal intolerance should have only served to wash off some of the good people that clung to the wreck? When under the regency of Bourbon the reins of the French government were handed over to a titled courtezan (La Marquise de Prie) who united a hypocritical zeal for the forms of the established church, to an impious contempt of its tenets; when she was seen letting loose with even keener vengeance than Louis XIV. the blood hounds of religious persecution, can we wonder that the French people lost all respect for ceremonies which such a creature commanded them to reverence? When by the orders of this seemingly religious lady the memory of those who died out of the church was blasted without the hope of redemption-when pastors were condemned to death, and their flocks to confiscation of goods for any suspected relapse into the practice of their