versally understood to depend, in practice, altogether on his nomination. The princes of the blood, and the great dignitaries of the state, are officially members of the Senate; and to this body, the generals of division, detached from the foreign service, are regularly associated, so as to give them almost a numerical preponderance.* The civil functionaries of every class, have not only dishonoured the republican character by a shameless apostasy, but prostitute the dignity of human nature itself, by assuming the trade of spies and informers. In all their discourses and writings, they inculcate the speculative doctrine of oppression, with as much zeal as their oppressors propagate by conquest its practical horrors. The mere wantonness of despotism could never exact, nor could the most inordinate vanity relish, a strain of adulation which would disgrace the worst periods of Roman degeneracy. We may fairly conclude, that the tyrant, who is known to require this tribute on all occasions, has it in view, not only to complete his savage triumph over the patriotism of France, but to bring the cause of freedom itself into general contempt, by exhibiting the base servility of those who so lately undertook to vindicate the liberties of mankind. + There are, no doubt, as we have before affirmed, numbers who still cherish a preference for republican institutions; many who officiously promote the measures, in order to heighten the odium of the government; and a few who submit, with evident repugnance, to lend their personal weight to the consolidation of the new system. The first, however, will make no sacrifices of interest to principle; and the last can have little influence, when opposed to a majority, who have fortified their native dispositions by the habit of obsequiousness. The meetings of the Senate are always private. Strangers may be admitted to those of the Legislative Body. The latter was not once assembled during the whole of the last campaign in the North, the members not being perfectly sure. By the constitution, the judges were chosen for life; but, by a senatus consultum of 12th October, -1807, it was enacted, that they should thereafter undergo a probation of five years, and be then continued or dismissed at the option of the Emperor. A commission was also created for the purpose of instituting an inquiry into the conduct of the judges in being, in or der that the Emperor might remove such as were pronounced unfit for their stations. In all political cases, and all cases of alleged fraud and evasion, the trial by jury has been superseded by special tribunals; one of which is now established in each department, consisting of three judges appointed by the Emperor. This feeling has been displayed strikingly in the bulletins from Spain, on the subject of the leading patriots of that country. quiousness. The fabric of a free state can never be reared by such hands, nor framed from such materials, as the populace of Paris, or the soldiery of the frontiers. Should the imperial seat be vacated within a short period of time, the Legislative Assemblies might, like the Roman Senate, in their contest with Maximin, maintain a struggle with some firmness and vigour, but with no permanent means, and scarcely with the benefit of obtaining a choice of masters. When we meditate upon the probable career of an army of 700,000 men, greater than any which Rome ever maintained in the meridian of her power, and imbued with such moral and physical energies, our apprehensions for France vanish before the melancholy forebodings we are compelled to entertain for the nations of the Continent. A nation of soldiers must be occupied. Plunder is their food, and will be sought wherever it is to be found. A people at war from principle, says Montesquieu, must necessarily triumph, or be ruined. They will labour in their vocation, and never make peace but as conquerors. Such a temperament, as we have ascribed to the chiefs and instruments of this conspiracy against mankind, is essentially at war with all the moral virtues and generous principles of our nature, with the gentle charities, as well as with the hoarded treasures of peace. The Infantry of the line, 341,412; light infantry, 100,130; cavalry, 77,488; artillery, 46,489; engineers, 5,445; a total of five hundred and fifty thousand nine hundred and sixty-four. This is the official statement of 1805. Since that period, there has been an augmentation of at least one hundred thousand, exclusive of the foreign troops, Italian, Bavarian, &c. taken into the service. Gibbon remarks, that, in his time, France still felt the efforts which she had made in the reign of Louis the Fourteenth! According to Neckar's estimate, the expenses of the war-department, before the Revolution, were 124,650,000 francs. In 1805, they were stated at 271,500,000 francs. M. de Pommeller estimated the population of France at 25,065,883, in 1789. Peuchet now rates it at 34,976,313, exclusive of Tuscany. The ratio of this population to the territory, is 1.093, individuals to the square league;-a condensation inferior to none but that of Holland. The annual levies before the Revolution, were stated at one seventeenth of the bachelors capable of bearing arms-estimated by M. de Pommeller at 600,000; but the actual proportion of the yearly levies, at a very low calculation, may be one seventieth of the whole male population between 20 and 40. Peuchet estimates this body at 7,612,690, for 1805; and allows that sixty thousand have been annually recruited since the commencement of the Revolution; but the real number must be more than double. The Directory called forth 200,000 at once, in the year 1799. * The time, perhaps, is fast approaching, when these new pacificators will embrace the whole Continent in what they term their system of federation and alliance.' The powers already comprehended in it will, like the allies of Rome, soon seek, in avowed subordination, an alleviation of the miseries studiously attached to their nominal independence. Their incorporation will, however, have another character, and other effects; -not of a submission, assuaged by the hope of repose and of protection, but of a real deditio, an unconditional surrender of all that ennobles and sweetens existence-to a power, with all the rapacity which stimulated, without the moderation that tempered, the conquests of Rome,-with the vices of her decline and the fierceness of her infancy, with her insolent carriage without her healing arts. The genius of this dominion will be as different from that of the Antonines, as the character of the new Emperor is opposite to that of Trajan, to whom, it is now, among his subjects, the fashion to compare him. In this individual, although we may admire the qualities of a consummate general and of a profound politician, we can never discover the majestic form of a mighty monarch,' but rather trace the mixed image of a Tiberius and an Attila;-the gloomy, suspicious temper,the impetuous rage,-the jealous alarms of the domestic tyrant,and the immeasurable ambition, the savage manners, the stern cruelty of the barbarian, who ostentatiously proclaimed himself the Scourge of God.'+ Secure of impunity and careless of censure, he has at last discarded the common prevarications of tyranny, and now rests his pretensions on the avowed power of the sword. He has already burst asunder the ties that bound Europe up in one social commonwealth, and stifled even the last sighs of freedom wherever his influence has been extended. There is not, at this moment, throughout the whole Continent, a press exempt from the supervision of his police, nor an asylum in which an obnoxious individual could find safety. When Cicero complains to Marcellus of the unbounded sway of Cæsar, he consoles himself that there is still security in silence, although the privilege of complaint may be denied. Those who are immediately sub ject *The most splendid of the exhibitions of the grand opera, is entitled The Triumphs of Trajan;' in allusion to the late victories. Arnault, one of the oldest, and formerly one of the most respectable members of the Institute, has recently produced a comedy, entitled The Return of Trajan,' in compliment to the Emperor. + Compare one of the last proclamations in Spain issued by the invader, with the list of titles claimed by Attila, and the bulletins of the Gothic conqueror to the Roman Senate, as recorded by Gibbon. ject to the French power, have not even this consolation, and are marked out for vengeance, unless they find matter for applause in every deed of their rulers. In the French capital, even literary criticism is under political controul, and either frowned into silence or forced to commend, when its objects proceed from the favourites, or minister to the views of the government. The effects which this species of violence, and the ascendancy of the military spirit, have uniformly exerted on the productions of the mind, are now strikingly visible in the rapid decline of general literature; in the meetings and exhibitions of the second and third classes of the Institute, which are to the last degree contemptible; and in the degeneracy of the Bar and the Pulpit, of which the dignity and the eloquence have wholly disappeared. The manifest tendency of these restraints on the press, is not simply to enervate the vigour and debase the faculties of the mind, but to stifle the censure, and pervert the evidence of history, no longer the light of truth, and the witness of ages.'* Compared to this state of things, the former condition of Europe, with all its lumber and frippery, and its manifold and fatal abuses, appears not only tolerable, but happy. We would rather see the balance of Europe, that nucleus of fraud and intrigue, bandied through the hands of the plenipotentiaries of the Hague or of Ratisbon, than in the custody of the Protector of the Rhenish Confederation. From the scene before us, we turn, with an eye of regret, to the progressive though imperfect arrangements of the last century, when the two extremes of Europe were connected by ties, not merely of general humanity, but of domestic feeling,-when the improvements, the lights and the pleasures of each member of this great family were common and accessible to all,-when the excesses of political tyranny were restrained by the dread of reproach, and the weaker states protected from the strong by mutual vigilance, or rather by imaginary fears. It is not, however, and this should be remembered,-it is not primarily to France, that we owe the dissolution of a charm so salutary to all the parties. The dismemberment of Poland first broke the spell of G g VOL. XIII. NO. 26. mutual * We have in our hands a History of the Roman Republic, written the last year, at the command of the French government, by L'Evesque, a member of the Institute, and professor of history in the College of France. Its purpose is to decry the republican virtue of Rome; and it is announced, in the title-page, as a work destined to root out the inveterate prejudices which the world has enter✦tained on that subject. The preface concludes with the following phrase. Est-ce donc à des Français de flechir le genou devant la grandeur Romaine? Toute grandeur s'affaise devant celle de notre nation,-devant celle de notre Héros!" 4 mutual trust and apprehension, and roused the slumbering genius of conquest, by showing to every ambitious state, that there was no insuperable impediment in the jealousy or justice of their potent rivals. After this, there remained but one serious obstacle to the subjugation of the Continent. We allude to the Germanic constitution-that huge body without strength or gracewhich possessed neither ability nor inclination for conquest; and stood in the centre of Europe, maintaining an uneasy, fluctuating equilibrium, counteracting the intrigues, and repressing the prurient ambition of the South. As long as this power, with all its weaknesses and vices of construction, stood erect, the equipoise could not have been entirely lost, nor the Continent cantonized into dependent principalities. It was therefore assailed with something of an indiscreet precipitation, which but too clearly indicated the object for which it was sacrificed. A finishing stroke was put to the liberties of the North by the system introduced in its stead; and the languid indifference with which this substitution was viewed or resisted, afforded a melancholy presage of the universal wreck that was to ensue. It is not to mere ignorance of their danger that we ascribe the supineness of the Northern powers. They are not only bewildered in the stupor of fear, but overwhelmed by a sense of weakness. The corruptions and abuses of their internal government have shaken all trust in the allegiance of the subjects; and the experience of mutual treachery has extinguished all confidence in their external relations. Having wrestled with their enemy, they know their unfitness for another rencounter; and, seeing no hope but in his forbearance, suffer themselves to be lulled into inaction, by professions and promises which can deceive those only who have no resource if they are violated. In the mean time, well assured of the adequacy of his means, both of fraud and force, he makes war at the time and in the manner most suitable to their development. He grants a truce to Austria; and, when the work of destruction is accomplished in another quarter, will return to satisfy, at one blow, all the old animosities and new antipathies of France against her hereditary rival. Russia, without resources or courage to face this athletic antagonist,-. disheartened and broken by her late heavy fall, and debauched by the profligate expectation of sharing the spoil,-will probably exult over the disasters of her neighbour, and, if we may so express ourselves, obstetricate at the birth of those affiliated kingdoms that are to be extracted from the bowels of the Austrian monarchy. Her turn will inevitably come, when the intermediate powers are rent into fragments, or, as the French term it, unravelled (effilés)--a circumstance which lays her completely open, and renders |