1853.]

esteem for the Beauharnois family, for the Empress Josephine and for her son Eugene, the latter of whom he had known long previous to this date. With Josephine, Hortense, and Eugene, we learn from Mdlle. Cochelet, that he spent many happy days and evenings, not only at Malmaison, but at the Chateau of Navarre, where the ex-Empress habitually resided after her divorce. Hortense and Alexander visited the waters of Marly together, and it was on this occasion that the young Emperor of all the Russias narrowly escaped a fatal accident, from the skirt of his coat having caught in the machinery of the celebrated machine hydraulique which caused the waters to play, that had so often amused the sated, worn out, and inamusable (to use the word of Madame de Maintenon) old age of Louis XIV. Josephine was sensible of the kindness and civility of Alexander, and gave him the original music, in Hortense's handwriting, of all the airs which the ex-Queen had composed, and among the rest the air of Partant pour la Syrie, the words of which were composed by Alexandre de Laborde. The demeanour of Hortense towards Alexander was perfectly dignified and proper, and at the same time respectful. She gave the Emperor, who was solicitous to serve her at the Congress of Allied Sovereigns, fully to understand that she would not be a party to any compliances unworthy of the name which she bore, or of the nation which had so elevated the family to which she belonged.

We

In his secret soul Alexander must have respected this proof of independence and self-respect. learn from the Emperor's letters to Mdlle. Cochelet a fact which has since transpired through many other sources of the sovereign contempt which the Autocrat entertained for the elder branch of the Bourbons. During the years 1816 and 1817 the Minister of Police, Decazes, who had been an early protégé of the mother of Napoleon (he was her reader), knowing, through his myr midoms, that Mdlle. Cochelet possessed several letters from the Czar, in which the Bourbons were contemptuously spoken of, caused them to be seized in the possession of the lady to whose safe custody Mdlle.

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Cochelet had intrusted them. This unworthy proceeding failed of the effect contemplated, for Mdlle. Cochelet had safely carried out of France more letters of the Czar than she had left within the kingdom, and some of these she publishes in her memoirs.

We have stated that in the palmy days of the empire many royalists owed not merely their par don but their lives to the intercession of Hortense, among the rest Polignac; yet at the hands of this royalist party she met with harsh and unkindly treatment. There is a good deal in the volumes as to Hortense's children, for whom the mother entertained a devoted affection. Mention is made of Louis Charles (now the Emperor Louis Napoleon) as a person of a soft, timid, and reserved character, as one shy and silent. Yet, says Mdlle. Cochelet, his mind is penetrating and full of finesse, and he is of such sensibility that he fell ill of the jaundice when his elder brother left. Bating the finesse, this dear and interesting boy must have greatly changed since October, 1815, when he was seven and a half years old. That he had, even at an early age, an admiration for autocracy, or the great professor of autocracy, appears from this-that he gave to the Emperor Alexander a ring which was presented to him by his own mother.

It is impossible for any who has observed the career of Leopold of Belguim as a king to have any other idea than that this prince is a man of consummate address, tact, and wisdom. But, from the memoirs of Mdlle. Cochelet, it appears that, as a good-natured young prince, he exhibited, in 1815, the sense, tact, and feeling which have since distinguished him in so eminent a degree. That he was thoroughly bon enfant, as well as a sensible man, appears from this: that when he was about to marry our Princess Charlotte, Mdlle. Cochelet wrote him a congratulatory letter, reminding him, en badinant, that though he was a prince, about to become the son-in-law of a mighty monarch, he had yet, as a soldier of the Coalition, made war on the sweetmeats of Madame Harville, in Champagne, and eaten, when quartered in her

house, a pot of comfitures, which he found in his bed or sitting-room.

Prince Leopold himself had told the story to Mdlle. Cochelet, as an innocent truth, en badinant. It speaks much for his character, and for Mdlle. Cochelet's appreciation of it, that he took her rallying in good part at a time that he was about to become the son-in-law of the Prince Regent of England.

Mdlle. Cochelet continued to reside with Hortense during her sejour at Constance, and, indeed, till she retired to Arnenberg; and it was at this period she occupied herself in preparing her memoirs for the press. When the ex-Queen purchased the château at Arnenberg, Mdlle. Cochelet, who had become Madame Charles Pasquin, also purchased a pied à terre near to it, called the Château of Sandegy. There, or at Wolferg, she continued to reside till 1835, when she expired, after a long and lingering illness, leaving her memoirs unfinished at the end of the fourth volume. Hor. tense did not long survive her. She died at Virey, on the 5th October, 1837, at the house of the Duchess of Ragusa, in the 54th year of her age. Mdlle. Cochelet knew the exQueen well, for she had lived the greater portion of her life in Hortense's society. They had been brought up together at the famous establishment of Madame Campan, at St. Germain, a lady who had educated some of the first women in France, and who commenced life as lectrice de Mesdames filles du Roi. At this establishment Bonaparte, when First Consul, placed his younger sister, Caroline, afterwards Queen of Naples, and his adopted daughter, Stephanie, afterwards Grand Duchess of Baden. We learn from Mdlle. Cochelet's memoirs that Hortense left memoirs of herself; but these have not as yet seen the light; and in their absence we have no such authentic details as are given us in the volumes of which we have been speaking at some length.

It would be impossible for any one thoroughly to understand military, political, commercial, or financial life in France during the last sixty years, without running through the memoirs of the celebrated specu

lator, contractor, and financier, G. J. Ouvrard. This work was first published, if we remember rightly, at Brussels, by Le Charlier, somewhere about 1825, and immediately after reproduced at Paris by Moutardier. It contains the history of the author, his rise, his progress, and his speculations at full length; and this is in some considerable manner the history of the time in which he lived. Ouvrard was born at Clisson, in 1770. At the age of seventeen he was placed by his father in a commercial house at Nantes. While yet in his teens, he netted for his sire, by a happy speculation in paper, 300,000 francs, and was quite as fortunate in operating for himself in colonial produce. Denounced as a forestaller and accapareur by the Revolutionary Committee, he might have been one of the victims of the noyades at Nantes had he not found refuge on the staff of the army of Vendée. Sent to Paris by General Canclaux with the colours taken from the insurgents, he made friends with some officials in high authority. Soon after, he married the daughter of a rich merchant at Nantes. His own capital and the fortune of the lady enabled him to enter into financial speculations, and to move in society which could forward his projects. In 1797, he became intimate with Barras, and through his instrumentality, was a contractor for the navy. In this contract, which lasted for three years, he is said to have made fifteen millions of francs. Ouvrard gives a lively account of Barras of his luxurious and lordly mode of life, and nonchalant manner. He tells us, that in one of his first prosperous speculations Cambacérès filled in his counting-house the modest function, chef du contentieux-a position we can scarcely define to an English commercial man, either by a literal or a liberal translation. He also mentions, and we dare say truly enough, that Bernadotte, subsequently Marshal of France, Prince of Ponte Cervo, and ultimately King of Sweden, was enabled, by borrowing the sum of 50,000 francs from him, to marry Mdlle. Clary, the sister of Madame Joseph Bonaparte. About this period Ouvrard first became acquainted

with Napoleon Bonaparte, and had the opportunity of rendering the general a signal service in advancing ten millions of francs for the Egyptian expedition. After the 18 Brumaire, it would appear, however, that Ouvrard looked more coldly on the general. Be this, however, as it may, we find from his memoirs, that he or his partners, Desprez de Seguin and De Vanderberg, were mixed up in almost all the army and navy contracts, from 1798 to 1814. The most circumstantial details are given of the negotiations for these contracts, and of the squabbles often subsequently arising touching the conditions and pay

ment.

Nor was it only with France and the Emperor that Ouvrard had transactions, squabbles, and suits. He had large transactions with the Government of Spain, and other foreign Governments, which were not always fortunate, profitable, or uncontested. In the latter portion of the Empire, Napoleon openly broke with his munitionnaire général, and cast him into the dungeon of Vincennes, whence he was subsequently removed to St. Pélagie. The events of 1814 restored him to liberty.

During the hundred days Ouvrard had thoughts of quitting Paris; but the Emperor bade him remain; and a few days afterwards, Ouvrard procured the man of destiny fifty millions of francs, the produce of a five per cent. loan, negotiated at different Exchanges. When he was starting for Waterloo, feeling that money is the sinew of war, the Emperor commanded the attendance of Ouvrard; and the financier had an opportunity of witnessing the great battle in the midst of the staff.

After his defeat, Napoleon, determined on retiring to America, was desirous of negotiating a loan of fourteen millions of francs for that purpose; but with all his skill, Ouvrard was unable to accomplish this financial feat.

In 1823, when the Restoration resolved to flesh its maiden sword' in Spain, Ouvrard undertook the victualling of the army. But he was no better treated by the Restora

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tion than by Bonaparte; and, as misfortunes never come alone, he was arrested, soon after the affair of the Trocadero, by his ex-partner, Seguin, for the sum of five millions of francs. After remaining five years in the Conciergerie, Ouvrard left it at the period of the Revolution of 1830, without having paid Seguin a sou of capital or interest. Subsequently to 1830, he became the financier of Don Carlos and Don Miguel. But the most fortunate of money-lenders could render little service to princes who wished to govern, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, after the fashion of the fourteenth or fifteenth.

In 1832, 1833, and a portion of 1834, Ouvrard lived in Langhamplace, London. But he returned to Paris, if we remember rightly, in the early portion of 1834, and died in that city shortly before the Revolution of 1848.

At one time, he was a man of immense wealth in money, and of considerable landed property, possessing the estates of Raincy, of Marly, of Lucienne, and the celebrated vineyard of Clos Vougeot, in Burgundy. In the days of his prosperity his daughter was affianced to a Montmorency, who died unexpectedly. The young lady subsequently married the Count de Rochechouart, a nephew of the Duke of Richelieu, and who was named by a royal crdinance in succession to the name and title of his uncle.

Ouvrard had immense losses, and possibly died comparatively poor. But this circumstance does not detract from the interest of his memoirs, or render them a less faithful portraiture of the ups and downs of French financial and commercial life from 1797 to the period of their publication. The volumes have gone through many editions, both in Brussels and Paris, and should be read by all who wish to know French society under the Consulate and the Empire, and even during the Restoration.

Having already exceeded the space allotted to us we must postpone a notice of other Bonapartean memoirs to some future Number.

VOL. XLVIII. NO. CCLXXXVI.

FF

'I

WAS saying, sir, that I had passed the day at Elsmore.'

Yes, I heard you, and if anything could add to the pain which your continual visits there give me, Charles, it would be the necessity that we should talk about them together.'

A long silence succeeded; Mr. Peter Merton looked into the fire with contracted brows, his nephew's cheek flushed for a moment; he moved nervously and uneasily upon his chair; and eventually subsided into the same occupation which engrossed his uncle.

It was a small room in a very large house in which they sat; the evening was chilly and damp though it was yet but August, and the blazing fire upon the hearth, and the bright decanters upon the table, were the only genial-looking objects in the apartment; the chairs (there were but three of them) looked uneasy enough; the walls, covered with a faded paper, were bare and unadorned; there was scarcely any carpet, and very little furniture in the room. A large old-fashioned clock ticked with a loud and monotonous sound in the corner, filling up but not relieving the pause in the

conversation.

I saw you speaking to Thompson at the lodge to-day; what does he say about the birds this season?' said the elder of the two gentlemen at length, with a kindly voice, as if he wished the discourse to flow easily into its ordinary channels.

Now, there is nothing more troublesome and disconcerting when you have something on your mind which must be spoken, and have determined to speak it, and brought round the conversation to the point at which it might naturally be spoken, than for your companion to decline all communication upon the one to you absorbing subject, and to diverge into the commonplace interests of daily life.

Captain Merton was precisely in this uncomfortable and perplexing position; his task was made the more difficult undoubtedly from the way in which his last observation had been received, but it must be

performed notwithstanding, and no amount of delay would make it much easier than it was that moment.

'I don't know anything about the game,' he replied therefore, it was about something else, dear uncle, I wished to speak to you.' He paused, and his voice faltered slightly, and his colour came, though his brow grew fixed and determined as he went on,-'It was about Elsmore.'

His uncle's face darkened visibly again, but he did not speak.

It was about Elsmore, sir,' the young man proceeded, 'that I wished to speak to you, and about one of its inhabitants; had I seen one shadow of reason for the unaccountable prejudice which you entertain against the family, I could never have continued an intimacy with it, which, as you know, was commenced involuntarily; on the contrary, however, each succeeding day has shown me in it some fresh trait of simplicity and goodness, and such true nobility as had you, dear uncle, accepted Lord Elsmore's overtures to your acquaintance, you would long since yourself have been the first to acknowledge.'

To what is all this long preamble leading, Charles; has your young friend, Lord Bertrand, condescended to borrow a cool hundred or two, and cannot you transact the business without your rich uncle's intervention,' said the old man, with a bitter smile, for this,' he added, is the common end and object of such intimacies as yours and his, the son of a London merchant with the son of an English earl.'

'My mother's family was as noble as his own,' exclaimed the young

man.

Uncle Peter trembled and turned pale, and grasped rigidly the arms of his cushionless chair. Captain Merton saw at once the impropriety of such exclamation addressed to his paternal uncle; but it was no moment for apologies, his tale must be told, and it was not even, as he had hoped it would have been, guessed in part ere he told it.

'It was not about Lord Bertrand