We will now proceed to the publication from the London press. M. Fouché limits to four distinct particulars the explanations expected of him-1st. As to the return of the King to Paris. 2d. As to his acceptance of the ministry of police. 3d. As to the ordonnance of the 24th July, and his administration; and 4th. As to his mission to Dresden, and the causes which prevented his becoming a member of the Chamber of Deputies.

With regard to the first, he answers the objections to his conduct in a manner that to us appears satisfactory. He in the preamble states his situation as presiding in the government when the allied armies approached Paris, and his solicitations to Napoleon to retire from France. "No one," says he," appreciated better than I the power of his genius, but no one was more convinced that his presence could only precipitate France into the last abyss of calamity. I therefore conjured him to quit the continent." He next adverts to the disquietude of the military on the return of the Bourbons, and notices the different projects prior to the admission of Louis XVIII. to power, such as a regency in the name of the consort and son of Bonaparte, and the accession of the Duke of Orleans. After discussing the question of legitimacy, much in the spirit of his friend Carnott, he proceeds thus:

"My correspondence with the Ministers of the great powers and with the generals of their armies, will be printed as the sequel of my Memoirs. It will make known in what manner I have sustained the dignity of the nation. There have been, of necessity, and of design, various shades in the negociation: I hoped that my arguments would give more of force to each of my demands. However desperate affairs may be, there are subsidiary points to which we may attach ourselves; for there are different degrees of misfortune in the loss of independence. Those form a very false idea of the position in which I was, who reproach me with not having defended the rights of the nation to choose its prince, and to fix the conditions of his power. These two points were decided by the force of circumstances. The present was no longer in my power. All would have become easy, if, as I proposed, Napoleon had abdicated at the Champ de Mai: his tardy abdication has subjected us to the yoke of events. I hold myself absolved from all reproach, by necessity."

"It is pretended that I paralized the enthusiasm of the army. Those who are of this opinion do not know the disposition of our troops. New prodigies of courage could have served only to compromise the chosen of our legions, and we exposed the capital to all the horrors of an invasion by force of arms. It was my duty to pause before the safety of the state. The greatest danger to any country

is the dissolution of all social ties: this swallows up the public and private fortune, and no longer leaves behind it either hope or futurity.

"Amidst the shocks of opinion, Louis XVIII. approached to Paris. He was proclaimed wherever the allied armies were. It might from that moment be presumed that the same spirit would re-produce the same phenomenon in the capital. The King was at St. Denis, my Lord, when I had a first conference at Neuilly with you. I did not endeavour to extenuate the faults of those who had betrayed the throne; at but the instant when that throne was re-established, I maintained, that it was the interest of the King to confound all in one system, perfectly followed up, of clemency and oblivion. That which is crime in a well regulated state, may be only delirium in a state of disorder. Several individuals who were suspected of treason, had been only misled in the path in which the crisis had engaged them." (p. 10-12.)

The second explanation, we have said, refers to his acceptance of the ministry of the police; and we confess that, in this respect, we cannot wholly concur with his statement. We cannot believe that, regardless of all personal interest and safety, from pure magnanimity, he resumed his public functions under Louis; that having long enjoyed power, he was anxious only to resign it; and that his ambition had, by a miracle, wholly changed its character, and he was now ambitious only of the obscurity of private life. To credit such a tale, we must banish from our breasts all our notions of the predominance of the ruling passion, and all our opinions of the consistency of the human heart, both in its virtuous sensibilities and its aberrations. He seems to have been aware that the world would form more just conclusions than he was disposed to represent. "Let the words and the acts of my life," he desires, "be judged, not by the comparison of one period with another." This comparison is the basis on which to erect our opinions of character, and without it they must be destitute of all solid foundation. The principal question he discusses, in this portion of his letter, is the propriety of amnesty and oblivion, which advice, he says, he uniformly gave to his Majesty; and, in this place, we have no doubt of the truth of his allegation, or of the sincerity by which it was dictated; for it was impossible not to discover that, under any scheme of severity, he who had voted for the death of the predecessor would have been among the first victims of fraternal vengeance. But, whatever might be his motives, the counsel was salu

tary; and the ex-minister has supplied an apposite illustration from our own history.

"The Stuarts would still reign, if they had known how to banish disquietude, to gain confidence, and to give faction time to extinguish itself. Whither has their obstinacy to speak and act as absolute masters, and to punish all resistance, conducted them? They have paved the way to the throne for the Prince of Orange; who, to maintain bimself there, needed only to use his power with moderation, to dissipate alarm, and to diffuse security.'

"

"At what moment was it more necessary that the whole world should be convinced, that the word of the King was sacred and irrevocable? The slightest appearance of retraction of engagements wounded every sentiment; the terrible suspicion of having been deceived, re-entered anew into every heart; and confidence retired on all sides, and for ever." (p. 22.)

With the third explanation, on the ordonnance of the 24th July, he couples his administration generally; and here again we read with some incredulity, where he writes "If I could have effaced several of the names inscribed in that ordonnance, by placing there my own, I should not have hesitated." It certainly is a matter of considerable difficulty with M. Fouché, in the same breath, or in the same letter, to defend his advice of total oblivion, and his signature of the terrific ordonnance. His defence sufficiently shows his embarrassment. It is in these words :

"The idea of a conspiracy had been propagated by those who wished for proscriptions. My resignation before having demonstrated the imposture, might have caused thousands of victims. I determined to sign the ordonnance of the 24th of July. It was natural to think that, the passions gradually becoming calm, justice would resume her course, and would impose silence on all revenge. If I had withdrawn myself, I should have been reproached with all the evils which I prevented by remaining in the administration." (p. 25.)

The twenty-eight subsequent pages are devoted to the more enlarged justification of his measures as a minister; and, in the course of it, he seems to intimate that he is possessed of a secret, that perhaps may induce some of his enemies to be a little chary of their expressions of indignation. "I have not," says he, "revealed to the King the names of the royalists who have abandoned him to offer their services to Napoleon; I have not wished to draw aside any veil; those of whom the honour is saved, may

return to virtue." Was this silence perfectly consistent with the oath of office, taken on one of the most sacred occasions?—and if this solemn obligation be avowedly disregarded by M. Fouché, what belief can we repose in his assertions, unaccompanied by that awful confirmation-or what with it? Of the circumstances and purposes of the French cabinet, he observes:

"I must acknowledge, that the ministry in which I had a share, had intelligence, love of good, great skill in affairs; but the late misfortunes of the past, caused it too much to forget the dangers of the future. Some of our acts were divested of foresight: we failed in a union of power against the enemies of our country, and of one common spirit in our labours.

"It was against the most violent passions that we were forced to act; and it was the passions which judged us. Men scrutinized with attention the object at which we aimed; but they were silent as to the obstacles which we met with. They took no account of the ills which we prevented, and the disorders which we obviated; blame of our operations was the common mould in which every intrigue was cast.

"They complained of the little energy of the police, because it was not solely directed against men whom they wished to destroy. Yet every kind of malevolence was repressed; nothing remained unpunished. The army was agitated, but it obeyed. We sought to bring all parties into subordination-to the sacrifice of exaggerated ideas-to good order. It was not sufficient to moderate the passions; in the South, it was necessary to enchain them.

"We repeated to the magistrates of these provinces, that which the conscience of man so often tells him, that, for the strong as for the weak, there is only one benefit which is not very subject to regret, that is justice. We said to the King, that with re-actions there was neither public repose, nor throne, nor nation." (p. 34.)

M. Fouché is remarkably unfortunate when he examines into the metaphysical distinctions of the science of politics. In his attempts to refine, he ever confounds; and under a multiplicity of words, buries all meaning. Of this kind we might quote successive pages; but the reader will be pleased if we restrict ourselves to a paragraph.

"The means of obtaining influence over the people, the greatest result which government can attain, are not less changed. Religion and morality are no longer any thing more than feeble auxiliaries of the laws. Õpinion, a new element in social order, has acquired so much energy and power, that it has become the rival of authority. Obedience, which now possesses rights, makes all its efforts to defend them. Resistance may be punished, but it would be more skilful to conquer it. When the public spirit extends itself, government

ought to elevate its conceptions. Force may cause orders to be executed; but the language of power has no longer any thing more than a feeble authority, if it be not aided by persuasion, and supported by reason. To be listened to by different parties, it is necessary to enter into their passions-to speak to each its own language; there is no longer any general eloquence." (p. 38.)

We recommend the following reflections to the attentive regard of all statesmen; and they should recollect that they are from the highest authority in the department to which they refer.

"We have often been reproached with not having informed the King of what was done every day by his courtiers, his ministers, the ministers of foreign powers, of what passed in the interior of families, &c. &c. &c. This is the policy of a courtier who is desirous of pleasing, or of a subaltern who is in need of such means of making his merit be seen: it is not ours. A minister must calculate well on the indulgence, or on the weakness, of his master, in order to make to him every morning a recital of anecdotes, which tend, more or less, to degrade the objects of his choice. How dangerous are superficial men by the side of princes!-they have always something to say, and nothing to think.

"The tranquillity of states does not depend on the circumstances which affect only the higher ranks of society, or on the disposition of mind which we there observe: the ambition which agitates the great has no political influence when it allies itself not to some popular interest; intrigues, conspiracies, revolts, are impotent and vain, when they are not favoured by opinion, and supported by the effective co-operation of the multitude.

"There is no opposition to be feared in the public councils, no secret factions to be dreaded, when the monarch has in his behalf the affections and the power of the people.

"The tranquillity of the state is intimately connected with the moral dispositions of the laborious classes, of which the people is composed, and which form the basis of the social edifice. A good police judges not of these dispositions by the applauses which men the most vile and the most wicked ever obtain, during the period they are in power.

The multitude will be perpetually calm, if we frankly attend to its interests; if we remove whatever may alter its confidencemay wound uselessly its prejudices-may corrupt its modes of thinking and of acting-may mislead its ignorance and its credulity." (p. 45.)

M. Fouché vindicates his ultimate retirement from public life in these terms:

"My political life was accomplished: it only remained for me to choose the place of my retreat. When a man has the misfortune