"Under a just and pacific king, that picture causes us no fear. Encouraged by the generous proceedings of your majesty, by institutions the work of your wisdom, and by your impartial tenderness towards all your children-the French will zealously make every sacrifice that is necessary for the public good. Sire, there are no irremediable evils in France, when the monarch, the great public bodies, and the people, breathe only one common wish for the secu rity of the throne, and the welfare of the country.

"Hereafter, free and happy, your subjects will find, in the resources of their industry, the means of supplying the wants of the state. Their first care will be agriculture; but, to render their labours success ful, they expect from your majesty the aids which manufactures and commerce furnish. In bringing back peace to our colonies, we shall receive in return an increase of riches, which the new genius of France will apply to the amelioration of the interior.

"The neighbouring powers expect, Sire, to see the spirit of the nation directed to these great objects; and their confidence will revive when they see the hands of a warlike people employed in the arts of peace. They are well aware that your majesty aspires only to that share of those common advan tages, which Providence has allotted to our geogra phical situation.

"Thus industry will communicate new life to all the branches of public economy, and to all classes of the people comfort and the practice of virtue. This happiness will be the result of the meditations of your majesty, and the concurrence of the whole nation in seconding your paternal views.

"The chamber of deputies also will not disappoint the expectations of the throne, or the hopes of the people. They will unite their efforts to those of their king, to extinguish, if possible, every trace of

our misfortunes.

(Signed)

"LAINE, president, &c."

The king in his reply, says,-" I receive with pleasure the address of the chamber of deputies. The sentiments which have dictated it, are the same which animate me. I have developed with frankness the situation of the kingdom, because it is the only way of communication between a good father and his children. I contemplate with delight the union which exists between the chamber of deputies, the nation, and me. It is thus that we shall heal the wounds of the state, and in causing the great sources of public prosperity, agriculture, commerce, and the arts, to flourish, we shall give to France that happiness which is the dearest object of my prayers.'

WE

CHAP. XLI.

Character of Napoleon Bonaparte.

E may now pause before that splendid prodigy which towered amongst us like some ancient ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne, a sceptred hermit, wrapt in the solitude of his awful originality.-A mind bold, independent, and decisive; a will despotic in its dictates; an energy that distanced expedition; and a conscience pliable to every touch of interest, marked the outline of this extraordinary character-the most extraordinary, perhaps, that, in the annals of this world, ever rose, or reigned, or fell. Flung into life, in the midst of a revolution, that quickened every energy of a people who acknowledged no superior, he commenced his course, a stranger by birth, and a scholar by charity! With no friend but his sword, and no fortune but his talents, he rushed into the lists where rank, and wealth, and genius had arrayed themselves, and competition fled from him as from the chance of destiny. He knew no motive but interest-he acknowledged no criterion but success -he worshipped no god but ambition, and, with an eastern devotion, he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry. Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he did not profess-there was no opinion that he did not promulgate; in the hope of a dynasty, he upheld the crescent; for the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the cross; the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the republic; and, with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the throne and the tribune, he reared the tower of his