General Foy, rue de la Chausée d'Antin, No. 62, and that among those who assemble are, Messrs. Mechu, Trouchon, Manuel, Voyer, D'Argenson, General Piré, M. Linguay, the Editor of the Journal de Paris, a certain colonel named Courbaky, General Thiard, M. Gerardin, and, lastly, an old general named Delauloy. "We have almost certain information that General Foy, accompanied by a servant named Pietron, will set out on Saturday or Sunday next from Paris, and will proceed to the Department de l'Aisne, whence he will privately travel by a different route to Saint Severs, in the department of Londes, near the General Lamarque: that in this journey he will be accompanied by a mysterious individual, who is now awaiting him at Laon, and who is said to be some great personage, an Englishman recently arrived from London: finally, that this meeting and journey to Saint Severs are relative to political intrigues of the highest consequence. It may be, probably, deemed advisable to keep an eye upon General Foy, and even to buy over, if possible, the servant Pietron, as it is likely that by means of the latter, written and conclusive proofs might be obtained. May 13th, 1823. "In conformity with private information of the 11th of this month, I direct M. Henaux to charge the peace officer N- that he prosecute this business with all care, and acquaint me with the day of General Foy's departure, and with the direction which he shall have taken." (The Prefect of Police.) Profiting by every weakness of human nature, these agents of police are found encouraging the seduction of a young girl, in the hope that the unbounded confidence of such an intimacy may afford the seducer in their pay the means of eliciting from his miserable victim some confessions favourable to their inquiries. These worthy props of religion and morality coldly organize a plan of politic corruption, every way worthy of that infamous police whose principal revenue was drawn from the proceeds of patent prostitution for by their exquisite contrivance their information is derived from the unhappy creature who afterwards, thanks to the seductive charms of the official Lovelace, contributes to swell the coffers of their abominable gain. Let us not be suspected of exaggeration-nothing can be more clear and explicit than the passage which we are about to transcribe; and after having perused it, we think the reader will be undecided whether to admire more the consummate impudence of the underling who proposes the expedient, or the infamy of the superior who did not instantly dismiss the author of so odious a machination. The affair of General Berton had been for some time known, and an eager search was made after his pretended accomplices. The ferrets of the Parisian police were pursuing the steps of all who had had any intercourse with the General, when an especial watch was set on the movements of a young Spanish lady, named Novaro, whose brother had been aid-de-camp to Berton; but she was on her guard, and no information could be gained. Under these circumstances, it was that the honest delegate of the devout Monsieur Delaveau concluded his report in the following terms: "In order to obtain more ample intelligence, it is expedient that the maid of Mademoiselle Novaro should be tried-and for this purpose we require that there be immediately added to our corps a young man, adroit, and of a good carriage, to whom we will give the necessary instructions for establishing an immediate and intimate connection between himself and the girl." We can proceed no fur ther, but throw down the pen in utter abomination of such unblushing and diabolical baseness. Poésies Poésies de Mademoiselle Elise Mercœur. Paris, 1829. 1 vol. 8vc.`. WHO can deny the march of intellect in this unrivalled age? - Literature, as well as politics, begins to walk in the paths of improvement; and the fair, so long excluded in France from all participation in the toils or glory of works of genius, have now full permission to appear as moralists, philosophers, and poets, without being exposed to the raillery of a second Molière. Now a reputation, carefully nurtured in the provinces, may be transplanted to the capital, and thus the idea is dispelled that a literary existence in France must spring from the Parisian soil alone. 'Fair Eliza, thanks-for we Owe the wondrous change to thee.' This young lady, hardly having completed her sixteenth year, became famous at Nantes, her native place, by some graceful preludes to those melodies, with which she has since surprised the literary world. The critics, learned and unlearned, blue and otherwise, of her own sex, unequivocally condemned the innovation, while the men, naturally more merciful towards the youthful aspirant, (whether from gallantry, or a sense of superiority, has not been ascertained,) encouraged her to proceed in her vocation. Thus cheered and flattered, the youthful muse made most rapid progress: to the simple and tender beauty of the elegy succeeded the masculine and heroic accents of the ode--and these various poems, having accumulated considerably, a provincial bookseller ventured to put forth a collection, which went through its first edition in a very few months. Meanwhile, the supreme chief of literature, "the grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme," the author of Atala, accepted with paternal kindness the dedication offered to him by his youthful countrywoman; and the poet of the "Meditations," Lamartine, prognosticated for her a long and fruitful future. It would have been well had she, who at this early age was the object of so much praise and attention, continued in her retreat and compelled fame to seek her there; but such a triumph was hardly to be achieved by mortal resolution,-the very limited circle of halftaught connoisseurs, the notice of journals possessed of little or no influence, the visits of a few travellers, was all that the country could afford; and this was by no means sufficient for the lively and ardent spirit of our authoress. Miss Mercœur was a woman-Paris presented itself to her imagination with all its brilliant prospects, its noble patrons, its fifty thousand readers, its thirty journals-sovereign judges, who spread renown through eighty-four departments-and dazzled by "this excess of light," the lady preferred the pursuit of fame to its tranquil expectation. Nor has fortune frowned on her adventurous resolve. The poetic genius which had first appeared in the country has not been neglected in the capital. The supreme arbiters of glory have placed the provincial muse upon the summit of the Parisian Parnassus-the journals have hailed her by the title of the Female Bard-an illustrious patron has liberally provided for the wants of la vie positive,—wants that have so often withered up the noblest hearts, and checked the proud, impulsive tide, which else had streamed in song-and the young muse has been left to the unrestrained exertion of her powers. The collection of poems, the second edition of which Miss Mercœur has just put forth, furnishes abundant proof of true poetic spirit. Six of the pieces are deserving of particular notice-La Gloire; La France Littéraire; Demain; Rêverie; Le Dôme des Invalides; and Une Imitation du Poéme de Childe Harold: a few stanzas from this last will probably interest our readers: Bondis, o mon vaisseau, noble coursier des mers! Le natal horizon dans le lointain s'efface: Je Je n'ai plus, voyageur des mobiles déserts, Honte à cet insensé qui dans l'exil succombe, Soit pour un temps-soit pour jamais! These stanzas are unquestionably those of no ordinary writer; and as Miss Mercœur has in this instance looked to Britain for her inspiration, we have the less scruple in offering her some critical advice from the same country : it may not be so perfectly poli as that of Paris, but we vouch for its sincerity, as we doubt not the fair authoress will do for its soundness, should she be so unpoetically tractable as to follow it. We advise her, then, to bestow more care on her performances, and to reject the senseless notion that occasional beauties are a full compensation for that heedless inequality of style which, in the greatest poets, is but tolerated, and in those of lesser grade cannot meet with a too decided reprehension. Miss Mercœur is now dwelling in a lively and luxurious capital-a region at all times unfavourable to the correction of defects such as we have just mentioned. She will indeed find there the most experienced and best intentioned guides, but also the most senseless and perfidious. Every coterie will strive to allure her within its slavish circle, and to guide her by its sectarian spirit. Let her listen alone to the impulse in her own heart, and to the guiding voice of reason: and, undazzled by early—we will not say premature-success, let her Like those, who unripe veins in mines explore, On the rich bed again the warm turf lay, La Conspiration de 1821; ou, les Jumeaux de Chevreuse. Paris, 1829.] 2 vols. 8vo. HERE we have an entirely new romance of history, and sentiment, politics and melancholy, from the pen of no less a personage than the Duc de Levis, a peer of France, a member of the academy, and, according to his eulogists, a direct descendant from the famous Jewish tribe of Levi. What hidden motive has prompted this publication? Is the author a citizen of the world, whose heart and head, overflowing with feelings and observations, required disburthenment by painting manners and sketching portraits? or is he a disappointed statesman, who, by means of a few amorous intrigues, seeks to allure the public to the perusal of his groundless fears and political prepossessions? The grave character of the noble peer would discountenance the former of these conjectures, while the latter is greatly strengthened by a careful consideration of his work. Notwithstanding the plentiful protestations of impartiality which are to be found in the preface, the reader will discover in the characters of the work itself abundant proof of the spirit in which this political romance has been written. Let us enumerate these characters: A young A young officer of gendarmerie. A justice of the peace, a declared partisan of the ancient régime.' A young foreign count, of a fiery character, who, from a desire to recover his confiscated property, and to please "the lady of his love," is prepared to renounce his liberalism and to attach himself to the wily policy of Austria, which he had bravely combated while in the ranks of Napoleon. A young Polish princess, who, to many rare and pleasing qualities, adds that of a philosophic turn of mind. Her aristocratic notions, and the serfs who swarm on her domain, are advocates of sufficient influence with the noble author to induce his pardon of her highness's heinous hatred of kings and crowns. To darken the picture we meet with a young advocate, a conspirator from ambition, who regards all monarchical government with implacable detestation, and who, in order to disguise himself before the king, adopts the expedient, happy enough, though not remarkably novel, of stooping to fumble about his shoestring. Next we have a young magistrate, who, possessing the plainest proofs of a conspiracy, betrays his duty, and instead of delivering the delinquents up to justice, seeks to secure the support of the famous directoral committee of Paris The Duc de Levis, with his usual impartiality, composes this committee exclusively of deputies belonging to the opposition, without deigning to show the slightest ground for such malevolent insinuation. Herein the duke fully agrees with the Livre Noir-but surely he must fear something like degradation in thus becoming the docile echo of the Tranchets and Delaveaus. However, here we have the bench and the bar subject to suspicion in the persons of a judge and a Parisian advocate. The ancient army of France is next attacked by the duke in the person of three officers, one of whom has served at Waterloo; the second, under the disguise of a commission traveller, is the most active agent of the conspirators; and the third, a retired colonel, and a decided Buonapartist, unceasingly invokes the reign of the king of the Romans. Vainly would you urge that the chamber of the veteran soldier has all the outward marks of loyalty: he still must be suspected. The inscription Vive le roi cannot secure him from suspicion, for the duke tells you that the wainscot conceals an eagle and the word de Rome behind the inscription, and that these detestable additions can be produced at will. In the magic lantern of the noble peer we find also a physician, well skilled in his profession, but at the same time a restless intriguer, a revolutionist, and a materialist. And here we may remark that the duke seems to believe that impartiality consists in vouchsafing the acknowledgment of some talent and courage in the members of the several professions, on condition that he shall have full liberty to represent them as disaffected towards the reigning dynasty. In order to disguise in some measure this singular partiality, the author brings before us a few dark intrigues of the foreign police; but the public will not be thankful for any such discoveries at present, when it has been sated by the disgusting details drawn from the memoirs of a galley-slave, and from those of Vidocq, who even defends himself from the accusation of having belonged to the political police, as from a stain more withering than any that could be left by chains and galleys. Under the title of "The Conspiracy of 1821," the author, confounding time and place, doles out his drivelling descants relative to the troubles of Spain, Naples, Piedmont, Germany, Poland, Russia, France, and England, -so that he might very fairly have called his Conspiracy an universal one. As a recommendation of his romance of real life, we are informed by the author, in the preface, that Walter Scott's novels are truer than history. This wonderful assertion may have some plausibility, as regards the delineation of manners, customs, and costumes; but when an historical fact, such as the conspiracies of our author, is to be related, then the slightest exercise of the imagination varying the narrative renders it a lying fiction, which nothing but the most wilful blindness or perverted judgment would seek to palliate. To us this mention of the name of the first of the romancists seems but an ill-advised mode of provoking comparisons, which we suspect would be found as "odorous" in the case of the noble peer, as in every other. However, setting aside his political prejudices, this work is not without interest and literary merit; the style is often elegant,-the shades of character skilfully distinguished, and the action at times rapid and romantic. These two volumes form only the first part of the work; when the whole is before us, we shall attempt an analysis of the events which the duke has undertaken to relate. Nouveaux Fragmens Philosophiques. Par Victor Cousin, Professeur Paris, 1829. Pichou and Co. 1 vol. in 8vo. NOTHING which proceeds from the pen of M. Cousin can be uninteresting to the public; and if the New Philosophic Fragments which he has just put forth be not destined as a pleasing pastime for the superficial scholar, they will yet be found to form a suitable subject for the meditative studies of the truly scientific man. M. Cousin opens his work by introducing Xenophon to us. It is yet the first stage of Greek philosophy, and the human mind, incapable of retrogression, and too feeble to take itself as the object of its contemplations, seeks in physical science for a revealing of the principle of existence, endeavouring to explain nature by natural causes. M. Cousin is, however, careful to distinguish two elements of the Xenophontic philosophy,-the simply empiric and material, and the Pythagorean. Then comes Zeno, the soldier, the hero, the martyr of his school, and the father of the dialectic art, who first substituted prose as the instrument of reflection and reasoning in place of poetry-the native and inspired language of philosophy. An old prejudice represents this philosopher as the inventor of sophistry and scholastic cavilling. M. Cousin, by the weightiest authorities, has undertaken to restore him to his true place in history. It is true that, often in his works, the philosopher has supported both sides of the question; and this has hitherto subjected him to misconception. If he seem to adopt, if he develop his adversary's opinions, it is in order the better to refute them by the conclusions to which he drives them. Historians and posterity have considered that gravely which he meant merely as a fiction, a dialectic "ruse de guerre." The author next enters on a learned and highly interesting dissertation concerning the causes which led to the death of Socrates:-" Three chief reasons induced his condemnation; 1st. The resentment of the wits of his time, whose ignorance he had exposed;-2d. The hatred of the democracy, who were exasperated by the infallible equity of Socrates;-3d. The wrath of the clergy on hearing him proclaim, in the face of the sacred divinities, a Providence manifesting itself in nature to the eye of faith by the first causes to which all external phenomena were to be referred, and in man by conscience, the immediate and incorruptible organ of the divinity." After a fragment concerning the origin of the Platonic philosophy, and some delightful dialogues on the same subject, M. Cousin brings us to the third epoch of the Grecian philosophy, in the Alexandrian school, which neutralized its useful labours by its visionary rhapsodies. The inquiries of the |