army, as a place of security against the daggers of regicides and agitators. To this measure of safety, however, the imbecility of Louis, and the prejudices of the queen, opposed an insuperable bar. A motion for his impeachment was then made in the Legislative Assembly, which was rejected by two-thirds of the votes; but even the discussion on this subject was the signal for the revolution of the 10th of August. When that convulsion broke out, he seemed still willing to face the storm; he ordered the arrest of the commissioners who were coming to deprive him of his command; and addressed a proclamation to the troops, in which he desired them to choose between Petion and the king. The army declared in his favor; but the soldiers, on the following morning, were surprised at hearing that, placing little reliance on their declarations of fidelity, he had fled in company with a few officers. his flight was known, the republican Chabot set a price upon his head; he was declared an emigrant, and the commune of Paris ordered the golden medal, struck in honour of him, to be broken by the hands of the common hangman. Scarcely had he passed the

When

frontiers, when he was arrested at Luxemburg, where the emigrants, who considered. him as the principal author of the revolution, were not sparing of their insults. The Duke of Saxe-Teschen announced to him that he was intended for the scaffold. He was then delivered over to the King of Prussia, who ordered him to be conducted to Wesel, and afterwards to Magdeburg, where he remained a year in a dungeon. When this mon

arch made peace with France in 1795, he transferred his prisoner to the Austrians, who removed him to Olmutz, where he was treated with still more severity, and was attacked by a lingering malady. His physicians demanded some mitigation of his rigorous confinement: and it was on that occasion that Doctor Bollman, and a youth of the name of Huger, whose father had been well treated by La Fayette in America, formed a plan for his escape while he was taking exercise in the air; but he was retaken at a distance of eight leagues from Olmutz, and more strictly confined than before. His complaint grew worse; he was left without relief, without linen, and without light. At the close of 1796, his amiable

consort and his daughter obtained permission to share his confinement, and by their affectionate conduct they paid the highest compliment to his domestic virtues, as a husband and a father. At last, the events of the war procured his enlargement; Bonaparte, pursuing his successes against Austria in 1797, compelled the emperor to release him. La Fayette did not immediately return to France upon his deliverance, but took up his abode at Hamburg, till the overthrow of the Directory, and the establishment of the consular government. Napoleon offered him a seat in the Senate, but he declined it, and retired to a small estate which had escaped confiscation, where he abstained entirely from politics. He did not re-appear on the political theatre till March the 20th, 1815, when he was elected to the Chamber of Representatives by the department of the Seine and Marne; obtained fifty votes for the presidentship of that Assembly, and was nominated vice president. After the battle of Waterloo, when it was believed that Napoleon was disposed to assume the dictatorship, La Fayette prevailed on the Chamber to declare its sittings

permanent, and he insisted strongly on the abdication of the emperor. The latter measure was undoubtedly an impolitic act. Under the circumstances of the case, Napoleon alone was capable of making head against the invaders. To dethrone him, was to neutralize the military force of the French empire, and thus leave France at the mercy of foreigners. On the second restoration of the Bourbons, the marquis retired again into private life. In 1818, however, he came forward as candidate for the department of the Seine and Marne. The royalists and the ministry exerted all their arts and strength against him, and he failed; but he was elected by the department of La Sarthe. Since that period he has held a seat in the Chamber, and, as might be expected, has been an ardent defender of the liberty of his country.

H

WALTER SCOTT.

SIR WALTER SCOTT was born on the 15th of August, 1771; and was the eldest son of Walter Scott, Esq. writer to the Signet in Edinburgh. His mother was the daughter of David Rutherford, Esq. who was a very able and popular practitioner of the same profession. His mother was author of several poems, possessing some merit, and was intimate with Burns, Blacklock, and Allan Ramsay. Her poetry, if it did not gain a wreath for herself, certainly had a considerable share in procuring one for her son, by eliciting and cherishing the germ of poetry which existed in his bosom. This lady died in 1789, equally esteemed and respected for her talents, her accomplishments, and her virtues.

There are some verses extant (certainly none of the very best that ever were penned) written by a Walter Scott, Esq. an ancestor of the subject of this memoir, eulogizing the ancestry of the family. It is no wonder, then, that with these examples before him, young