Young Tone was between his twentieth and twenty-fifth year, but had a negligent care-worn air, beyond his age, the natural effect of his disappointments. He had had before him a career of ambition, which might be termed brilliant, and for which he was well qualified by an education at the immediate charge of the government-first at the Imperial Lyceum, where he acquired a knowledge of general literature and languages-next at the military school of St. Germain, where he was instructed in the theory and discipline of the art of war. In the latter, all studies other than military were strictly forbidden. The duties and exercises of the school were indeed so severe as scarcely to admit of any. It was a school of cavalry, and besides the exercises in science and military duty, every pupil groomed his own horse. Tone, however, often stole some precious minutes to pass in secret with a concealed volume of Tacitus, Plutarch, or Homer. He was destined ultimately for employment in one of the many gorgeous legations which Bonaparte entertained throughout Europe but his first "serving" was indispensable to entering with credit upon this or any career under the Imperial regime. Accordingly, after two years passed at St. Germain, he joined the army as a simple eléve of the school; passed through the ranks of sub-lieutenant and lieutenant-was several times wounded in the course of two campaigns, until the memorable battle of Leipsic, where he was wounded severely, and received the cross of the legion of honour. I may mention here as a matter of history, that he assured me the premature blowing up of the bridge at Leipsic, through the mistake of a French colonel, was strictly true as related in the bulletin. It will be recollected that this was treated at the time as a clumsy fabrication, to cover what was considered an unfeeling sacrifice of his rear-guard by Bonaparte. The retreat after this battle was of a peculiar character.A great portion of the army, composed of young soldiers, exhibited unaccountable alternations of heroic gallantry and panic fear. The old soldiers, on the contrary, when no longer under the command of their officers, and all subordination was abandoned, observed every form and expedient of the art of war in discipline and manoeuvringdispersing and rallying as the occasion required. The Polish cavalry, again, which was very numerous, displayed a singular melange of rapacity, reckless gaiety, and disregard of danger. One of these, flying before the enemy for his life, would stop to despoil a straggling foe, or a peasant, or even a comrade wounded at his side, with the risk, almost the certainty, of being himself shot and despoiled in his turn. Tone was shut up for some time at Erfurth, where he recovered from his wounds. The garrison, he said, was very well off-subsisting upon horseflesh, a little black, and not the best of its kind, being that of artillery and baggage horses, badly fed. Otherwise, it would, he ob served, be found more delicate than beef; the actual preference of which was entirely a matter of political economy, horses being more valuable for other purposes, and each animal affording less subsistence. He again soon joined the fighting army as aid-de-camp; served with distinction; was sent with despatches to Paris; named captain of cavalry; and was on the eve of higher and surer fortune, when all his hopes were blighted by the fall of Napoleon. A young mind, full of ardour, ambition, courage, and conscious talent, was grievously shocked by this reverse. He now appeared dressed carelessly en bourgeois, with no relic of his former self, but the red ribbon of the legion of honour, without the cross, on which a Henry IV. had been substituted for the Napoleon head; his manner gloomy, and, at times, something of fierceness in his looks. His natural disposition was, however, of the mildest-and I soon found that the sombre frown was a fashion caught by the French officers, especially the younger, from Napoleon-whilst the negligent, non-military air was affected by those who received, or would receive, nothing from the Bourbons. The account of Mrs. Tone's meeting with Napoleon at St. Germain, given in the New Monthly Magazine, is not quite exact. Young Tone still loved the scene of his military education; and we made a party to pass the day there. The school had disappeared. Nothing remained but the empty courtyard, and the silent chamber where James II. once held the mockery of royal state. Tone's heart rose, and his eye brightened, as we walked over the park of St. Germain. Here the pupils of the school, his friends and comrades, used to perform evolutions for several hours every Sunday, under the eyes of an admiring multitude, including their respective families and friends. It was, he said, a day of pride and gladness, which no pupil could recall without emotion, to the last hour of his life. We passed on to the forest. As we approached the gate, Mrs. Tone suddenly stopped-" Ah," said she, "here it is that the Emperor was so amiable to me." The circumstances of the interview as she repeated them to us at the moment, were exactly these-Young Tone had found leisure to write an essay for the prize of history and literature, proposed by the Institute. The subject was the following, resolved into three questions-"What, under the government of the Goths, was the civil and political condition of the people of the different states (des peuples) of Italy? What were the fundamental principles of legislation of Theodoric and his successors? And more particularly, what were the distinctions which it established between the victors and the vanquished? Tone's essay fell short of the prize, but received the honourable mention of the Institute. It was printed, and regarded as a work of extraordinary research and talent for one so young. He was absent at the time with the army, and his mother, in the natural pride of her heart, determined to present, with her own hands, a copy of it to Napoleon. She chose for this purpose the occasion of his hunting in the forest of St. Germain, and waited, outside the gate, the approach of the imperial cortège when the chace was over. Napoleon appeared, and Caulincourt duke of Vicenza, ho attended him as equerry, asked her what she wanted. She replied, merely to present what she held (the Essay) in her hand. He took and looked at it, allowed her to approach, and Napoleon instantly ordered his carriage to stop. She declared who she was, and presented the book to him. "Ah! Madame Tone," said he, receiving it, "I do not forget you. Are you in want of any thing-of extraordinary succour ?" The Gallicism of this term is obvions. your "No, Sire, my pension is sufficient if the arrears were paid." They shall be-Let me know when you want any thing.-Does son?"" He is in your Majesty's service, and can want nothing," was her reply. "'Tis well, 'tis well-I'll think of him;" and with these words he drove off reading her son's essay and leaving her delighted. It should not be omitted, that he scrupulously kept his word. I have now a copy of this little work before me. The motto is indicative of the condition and character of the author. "In me ipso sola spes." He, however, had three friends who took an interest in his fortune,-Talleyrand, Carnot, and Napoleon himself. It is dedicated to his mother. "If (he says) an eager thirst for knowledge, and a resolution not to loiter in the beaten paths of life, have, from my childhood upwards, filled my heart and mind, it is to you to that soul so noble and courageous in adversity-it is to the desire of one day consoling you for what you have lost, that I am indebted for it."—"Some copies (he concludes) have been printed, not for the public, but to offer a slight tribute to the best, the noblest, the dearest of mothers." On our return in the evening to Paris, a murmuring undervoice of rumour, spread, like wildfire, "the apparition of Napoleon" on the shores of France. It was curious to observe the affected disbelief and bridled transport of those who told and those who heard. All doubt soon vanished-Bonaparte approached, the Bourbons fled, and Napoleon entered the capital in triumph. The sensation of that hour is one of those which can be shared but once in many centuries. Even the indifference of a foreign bosom could not be proof against its electric power. The military were for several days and nights literally frantic with joy. Paris resounded, during their evening orgies, with Bonapartean songs -among others the following uncourteous parody of "Vive Henri Quatre!" PATRIE ingrate! Tu préfère quel roi Un vieux cul de jatte, Vaillante armée! Ah, pour toi quel affront! L'on t'a privée Du grand Napoléon ; Tu te vois menée Par un chef en jupon. I have often shared these revels, and I owe it to truth and friendship to declare, that even when the cup kindled to delirium as it went round, all was mutual gratulation, and visions of glory, without one pulse of national animosity or mere revenge. I marked the prevalent enthusiasm, and thought it invincible. But the spirit of the French is too like their champagne-generous, and genuine, and-effervescent. Tone did not feel the crisis with the national temperament of a Frenchman; but his prospects brightened-his ambition revived-and he threw aside his books to rub off the rust from his little armoury--an equipment which a French officer of the better sort values himself on possessing, and which he sets out with care, beside, or mingled with his books. I no longer recognized him for the same man—in his gay uniform of a captain of cavalry. But the memorable hundred days passed, Napoleon fell more rapidly even than he rose, and Tone was, like many others, once more a broken man." The army being broken up, nothing remained to him but his trifling allowance of the legion of honour, whilst his mother's pension was reduced for the present, and rendered precarious for the future. He bore this, his second reverse, with fortitude,--she with her usual cheerfulness. Shortly after this I was introduced by them to a Scottish gentleman just arrived, as to an estimable man and their best friend. The purpose of his visit soon proved to me that he was both the one and the other. He had met Mrs. Tone, many years before, I think on board ship, on her way to France from the United States, after the death of her husband. He felt interested at first sight for a beautiful woman with an infant family, enduring the hardships of a voyage; became still more so upon learning who she was; and at last offered her his fortune and his hand. This excellent woman, helpless and unprotected as she was, still thought it due to the memory of Tone that she should bear no other name, and continued to resist solicitation and advice from the period of her first meeting Mr. W to that of which I speak. At the instance of all her own and her husband's friends, and of her son, she now consented. I called on her the day before that fixed for her marriage. She happened to be alone, was unusually sad, and for the first time that I had seen her, dressed in white. I felt slightly shocked at the instant by the transition, and my eye passed involuntarily to the portrait of Tone, which hung immediately before her. She rose and retired, in silence, and in tears. Next day the marriage took place in the chapel of the British Embassy. Young Tone now determined to return to his native country. Having served in the French army, he thought it advisable to obtain the leave of the British government. Sir Charles Stuart was applied to, and declared, with the liberality that has always distinguished his character, that he had no doubt leave would be readily granted. In some little time, however, difficulties were raised, by Lord Castlereagh, who was then at Paris.* Mrs. Tone was advised to solicit an audience of his Lordship, and did so; but after frequent inquiries at the Embassy, where he resided, no answer was given. At length means were taken to remind "his Excellency" of the application; and upon the next inquiry a French clerk in the office said the answer was, "Point de reponse à faire." She was deeply stung by the laconic rudeness of this reply, chiefly from an apprehension that This conduct was truly that of his lordship, whose character is getting better appreciated every day. He never possessed one expanded political view, but was bred and matured to the mere superintendence of an office-he never could see or feel beyond its daily routine and common usages. it might be supposed she meant to solicit from Lord Castlereagh any favour, her object being to offer an undertaking, if deemed necessary, that her son should reside in Great Britain, and never set foot in Ireland. The letter which she addressed to Lord Castlereagh on his refusal was full of indignant eloquence. I verily believe the minister quailed under it-for his secretary replied to it in a style of shuffling civility. Mr. W― pressed young Tone to draw upon his fortune as his son. But Tone would be dependant on no man; and soon after the mother and son parted. He sought his fortune in America. The last day I saw them together was signalized by that act of bad faith which astounded Europe, and of which there are but few examples. I have said that Mrs. Tone resided in the Fauxbourg St. Germain. It was near the upper gate of the Luxembourg Garden. Intending to leave Paris in the course of the morning, I went to call on her at rather an early hour. The posts, as I approached, were much more strongly guarded than usual; and on coming to the door, I found the house occupied by military, who refused admittance. I asked several soldiers and gensdarmes for some explanation:--they were silent, and made signs for me to pass on. I did so, along the garden-wall, until I found soldiers drawn up around a particular spot, where lay a dead body upon a small heap of stones-the body of Marshal Ney. He lay where he fell, exposed for a fixed time, pursuant to French martial-law. I was able to catch but a few glimpses, of his blue frock, his ghastly countenance, his head uncovered and hanging down a little, and one of his hands, bloody, upon his breast. He had himself, as is well known, given the word for the platoon to fire-droit au cœur— -placing his hand upon his breast; and I have no doubt the hand was shattered by the same bullet which pierced the heart. When the body was removed, and the military escort withdrawn, I visited the place. The stones were still wet with the blood of "the bravest of the brave." * I am, &c. SHE rose before him in the loveliness A. S. |