king as well as his fellow-magistrates, as a public calamity. He had ten children, five girls and five boys, the eldest of whom was the subject of this biography. While three of his sons followed the profession of arms, and one entered holy orders, the eldest, Count Joseph, was brought up to the law. The latter, educated by the Jesuits, for whom through life he entertained the warmest affection and gratitude, early evinced a marked predilection for study.

One of the principal traits in his childhood, and which we love to find in one who was destined to be so powerful an advocate of authority in Church and State, was his affectionate obedience to his parents. It is recorded of him, that when the hour of recreation was near its term, his father had but to appear on the steps of the garden gate, and immediately would young Joseph discontinue his sport, let the ball or the kite drop from his hand, and hasten to his parent. During all the time the young Count passed at Turin, to follow his legal studies at the university of that capital, he would never read a book, without first writing to his father or mother to obtain their leave. His mother, who was a very superior woman, exerted the most salutary influence over the mind and dispositions of her son. Nothing could exceed the love and veneration which the Count de Maistre entertained for his mother. He used to say, "My mother was an angel, to whom the Almighty had lent a body; my happiness was to divine her wishes, and I was in her hands quite like the youngest of my sisters." He was nine years. old when in 1763 the Parliament of Paris issued its fatal edict against the Jesuits; and as he was playing rather too boisterously in his mother's room, she said to him: Joseph, be not so merry, a great calamity has happened. The solemn tone in which she uttered these words, produced such an impression on her son, that he remembered them to the close of his life.

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Thus did this illustrious man, whose life we are sketching, enjoy from infancy every advantage that could best promote his moral training and intellectual culture. He was born in a country, which then, and even to this day, has preserved the purity and simplicity of ancient manners, and a remarkable attachment to the Catholic faith. Like many other men of virtue and genius, he was formedto piety and knowledge by the watchful care of a most exem

plary mother. He was then intrusted to the hands of a body of teachers, who have never been surpassed for their skill in imbuing youth with sentiments of piety, exciting in them a love for study, filling, but not overloading their minds with liberal acquirements, and thus qualifying them for the graver studies of the university, and the laborious occupations of professional life. On leaving the college of the Jesuits, our young Count, as we have seen, took to the study of jurisprudence, which, though incapable like philosophy and history, of enlarging and liberalizing the mind, imparts to it, nevertheless, a singular clearness and precision. The more liberal studies and pursuits, however, he had full opportunity of following, not only at the university, but later, in the leisure hours, which the exercise of his judicial functions left him.

Count de Maistre went through the successive grades of the magistracy. The first occasion on which he displayed his great abilities, and laid the foundations of his literary fame, was a speech which he delivered, while substitute of the Attorney General, on the External Character of the Magistrate. In 1786 he married Mlle. de Morand, by whom he had a son, Count Rodolf, (who followed the profession of arms, and succeeded to his title,) as well as two daughters, Adèle, who married M. Terray, and Constance, who married the Duke Laval de Montmorency.

He was living at Chambéry, quietly engaged in his professional labours, and seeking relaxation only in literary puruits, when the great Revolution of 1789 broke out.

M. de Maistre was ever the advocate for those just and necessary liberties, which, as his son truly observes, prevent nations from coveting a false and guilty freedom. From the outset to the close of his long career, he was, as we shall have later occasion to show, distinguished for a noble liberality of political sentiment the very converse of that odious liberalism, which is the sure precursor of Revolution, and the insidious foe of all liberty, as well as all order. Yet in this period of revolutionary ferment, when all parties, even the defenders of order, were prone to push their principles to extremes, the enlightened moderation of Count de Maistre was misconstrued; and he was denounced at Court as inclined to dangerous political innovations. He was member of the Reformed Lodge of Chambéry-a lodge perfectly insignificant.

Yet, as the revolution began to unfold its destructive energy in France, and to disturb the peace of neighbouring countries, the members of the club met together, and judging that any associations at that period might become dangerous, and disquiet the government, they deputed M. de Maistre to give to the king their solemn assurance that their meetings should be discontinued, and the lodge was accordingly dissolved.

The French Republicans now invaded Savoy; M. de Maistre's brothers repaired to their regiments, and he himself with wife and children, departed for the city of Aoste, in the winter of 1793. Then appeared the socalled Law of the Allobroges, which without distinction of age and sex, and under the usual penalty of confiscation of all goods, enjoined the emigrants to return to Savoy, before the 25th of January. Madame de Maistre was then in the ninth month of her pregnancy. She well knew her husband's political views and sentiments, and that he would incur any risk, rather than expose her to danger in that country and in that season of the year. Urged by the hope of saving some remnants of her fortune by putting in her claims, she seized the opportunity of her husband's absence on a visit to Turin, and leaving Aoste without giving him any notice, traversed the route of the Great St. Bernard on a mule, accompanied by her two little children, who were carried wrapped up in blankets. Count de Maistre on his return to the city of Aoste, two or three days afterwards, hastened without delay to overtake his courageous wife, fearing he would find her either dead or dying in some miserable Alpine hut. He found her, happily, safely arrived at Chambéry. He was obliged to present himself at the Municipality, but he refused to take any oath to the new Order of things, or even make a promise to that effect. On the Syndic of the city presenting him the great book, wherein the names of all the active citizens were inscribed, he refused to write his name; and when the voluntary contribution paid for the war expenses was demanded of him, he frankly replied, "I will not give money for slaying my brothers, who serve the King of Sardinia." Soon did the revolutionary authorities order a domiciliary visit at his house; fifteen armed soldiers entered his apartment, uttering violent menaces accompanied with oaths and imprecations. Madame de Maistre, much alarmed, rushed into the room, and her terror brought on

omissions become more unaccountable because the author has prosily recorded the ephemeral fame of a few favourite

actors.

ART. VIII-Lettres et Opuscules inédits du Comte Joseph de Maistre, Précédés d'une Notice Biographique. Par son Fils, LE COMTE RODOLPHE DE MAISTRE. 2 vols. Paris, 1851.

A HEAVY debt did the French nobility of the eight

eenth century incur to God and to man. The orgies of the Regency, the frivolity, the licentiousness, the cynical impiety which characterized the long reign of Lewis XV., were in a great degree the work of the nobility, or of that portion, at least, which inhabited the capital, and was influential at court. They set the example of that libertinism which was to corrupt the middle classes; they fostered by their writings or their patronage that irreligion, which, together with all order, was to undermine their own political and social existence. The grievous penalty for this treason to God, to society, and to their own order, was in the bloody and anarchic revolution of 1789, paid by their sons, and, for the most part, by the untainted members of their class. When by exile, by confiscation, by imprisonment, and by death, in the battle-field or on the scaffold, amid the massacres of Lyons, and the drownings of Nantes, this aristocracy had made atonement for the sins of its fathers, it was then called to take part in the work of reparation. In the bosom of this emigrant nobility, which, as a body, edified Europe by its virtues and its Christian patience and resignation under the severest misfortunes, Divine Providence was pleased to raise up three eminent men to defend the cause of persecuted religion and outraged order. One, the illustrious individual whose now published correspondence stands at the head of our article, was a native of Savoy, a country closely connected with France by the bonds of language, manners, and religion, and which during the whole course of the revolution, shared the same political destinies: the second, the

Viscount de Bonald, was born in the province of Auvergne; and the third, the Viscount de Chateaubriand, in that of Brittany.

In force of reasoning and in depth of thought, Chateaubriand cannot for a moment sustain a comparison with the other two illustrious philosophers we have named; yet still he was great in his own sphere, and has rendered imperishable services to religion and letters. When, in his glowing language, he describes the touching and august ceremonies of our Church; when he leads us to the royal cemetery of St. Dénis, or in the chapel of Versailles, brings before us the majestic figure of Bossuet; when he traverses the vast savannahs of America, and bids us listen to the wild mysterious rustling of her primeval forests; when he conducts us through the silent lugubrious streets of the deicide city, and mourns over the eternal desolation of her temple; when he takes us to the Dead Sea's shore, and amid the cloudless lustre and thrilling magnificence of an eastern night, makes us list

"To the wand'ring Arab's tale;"

when he chants the funeral song over heroic but fallen La Vendée, or intones the triumphal hymn over the guillotined martyrs of the Church of France, he is ever the brilliant, the fascinating, the instructive writer. Religion, royalty, and freedom, were the noble themes to which he consecrated his genius; and if at times led astray by pleasure or ambition, yet the light of faith and the instinct of honour never deserted him in his long career, while his closing years were cheered and sanctified by the most fervent piety. Taking an active part in some of the most memorable scenes which history records, and passing through the most trying vicissitudes of fortune, he showed himself as generous in prosperity as he had been firm and courageous in adversity; and as he had been "cradled in sorrow, and nurtured in convulsion," so he was destined to perish amid the horror of civil broils.*

* In his latter days he had a domestic chapel, which he frequently repaired to, and was a generous contributor to the hospital of St. Therese, which his excellent consort had founded. He used latterly to say, "Christ is my King." He who had toiled, and fought, and spoken and written so long and so well for human royalty, found in old age a refuge in that Divine Ryalty, which is