than ever the rottenness of the foundation it was
retting on. The feeling which broke forth on the
first announcement of the putting away of Josephine
was one of general consternation, but the Duke was
not dismayed. "The Austrian marriage is a terrible
event," he writes; "still, I do not despair of seeing a
check to the Bonaparte system. It is all hollow
within. It is so inconsistent with the wishes, the
interests, and even the existence of civilised society,
that he cannot trust even his brother to carry it into
execution."

Never does the Duke rest his opposition to Bonaparte
on less high grounds than these. The fact is worthy of
greater notice than it appears to have received from
those who, in no spirit of detraction, have not hesitated
to describe our English captain as the illustrious
defender of an effete system. Nothing in his life supports
or justifies this charge. In no contemptible family
quarrel had he drawn the sword, but in the universal
cause of nations. Even when he went with the Bourbons
to Paris in 1814, he was not blinded by the splendour
of the triumphal scene which surrounded him on all
sides, to the real and terrible dangers which awaited
the new administration. His letter to Dumouriez is
perhaps, of all his despatches, that which might be
singled out as containing the most memorable
evidence of his political wisdom and prescience. It is
in French, and in style is one of the happiest specimens
of that straightforward English idiom which he
had the habit of clothing in the plainest French
words. It is particularly worth reading at present,
for all the years that have passed since it was written
have, as yet, failed to produce the remedy for the
danger it describes!

"Ce qu'il y a de pis,' he writes to Dumouriez, "c'est
le mécontentement général, et la pauvreté universelle.
Cette malheureuse révolution et ses suites ont ruiné
le pays de fond en comble. Tout le nionde est pauvre,
et ce qui est pis,leursinstitutious empéchent qu'aucune
famille devienne riche et puissante. Tous doivent
done nécessairement viser à remplir des emplois
publics, non comme autrefois pour l'honneur de les
remplir, mais pour avoir de quoi vivre. Tout le
monde done cherche de l'emploi public. Bonaparte
laissa une armée d'un million d'hommes en France,
outre les officiers prisonniers en Angleterre et en
Russie. Le Roi ne peut pas en maintenir le quart.
Tous ceux non employés son mécontens. Bonaparte
gouvernait directement la moitié de l'Europe, et
indirectement presque l'autre moitié. Pour des causes
à présent bien developpées et connues, il employait
une quantité infinie de personnes dans ses administrations;
et tous ceux employés ou dans les administrations
extérieures civiles, ou dans les administrations
militaires des armées, sont renvoyés, et beaucoup de
ceux employés dans les administrations intérieures;
a cette classe nombreuse ajoutez la quantité d'émigrés
et de personnes rentrés, tous mourant de faim, et tous
convoitant de l'emploi public afin de pouvoir vivre,
et vous trouverez que plus de trois quarts de la
classe de la société, non employée à la maind'œuvre
ou là labourer la terre sont en état d'indigence, et, par
conséquence, mécontens. Si vous considerez bien ce
tableau, qui est la stricte vérité, vous y verrez la cause
et la nature du danger du jour. L'armée, les officiers
surtout, sont mécontens. Ils le sont pour plusieurs
raisons inutiles à détailler ici, mais ce mécontentement
pourra se vaincre en adoptant des mesures sages pour
améliorer l'esprit."*

* What is worst is the general discontent and universal
poverty. This wretched revolution and its consequences have
ruined the country from top to bottom. All the world is poor,
and, what is worse, their institutions prevent any family from
becoming rich or powerful. All must, therefore, necessarily
aspire to public employments, not, as formerly, for the honour
of tilling them, but simply to have means to live by. All the
world, therefore, seeks the public service. Bonaparte left in
France an army of a million of men, besides the officers who
were prisoners in England and in Russia. The King cannot
maintain a fourth part of them. All those who are not employed
are discontented. Bonaparte governed half Europe directly,
and indirectly the other half. For reasons which are now well
developed and known, he employed an infinite number of
persons in his administrations; and all those who were
employed either in foreign civil administration, or in that of
the armies, are turned adrift, as well as many of those who
were employed in the home and internal administration. Add
to this numerous class the number of emigrants and persons
returning to France, all dying of hunger, and all coveting
public employment for mere subsistence, and you will find that
mere than three-fourths of those classes of society who are not
employed in cultivation of the soil, or in artisan labour, are in
a state of indigence, and are therefore discontented. If you
consider well this picture, which is the strict truth, you will see the
source and nature of the danger of the day. The army,
particularly the officers, are discontented. They are so for many
reasons unnecessary to detail here, but this discontent may be
overcome by adopting wise measures to improve their spirit.

The "mesures sages" have not, alas! been forthcoming;
and the "danger da jour" has extended far
beyond the day. The great Duke here detected the
strength of the dangerous classes of France, at the
very hour when all men were offering homage to
himself for having fatally weakened, if not wholly
destroyed them. And now, at the instant of his
death, those dangerous classes find themselves
uppermost again, eager to divide the public spoils
of another empire, and whirling up their caps in the
air for a Napoleon the Second. Forewarned is
forearmed. Let us lay to our hearts in time what
Wellington wrote to Lord Liverpool in rebuke of
our ignorant impatience forty years ago, which
would not see that the struggle against tyranny on
the Continent was a struggle for freedom at home.
"Were the French Government relieved from the
pressure of military operations on the continent, they
would incur all risks to land an army in his Majesty's
dominions. Then, indeed, would commence an
expensive contest; then would his Majesty's subjects
discover what are the miseries of war, of which, by
the blessing of God, they have hitherto had no
knowledge; and the cultivation, the beauty, and
prosperity of the country, and the virtue and happiness
of its inhabitants, would be destroyed. Whatever
might be the result of the military operations,
God forbid that I should be a witness, much less an
actor, in the scene!"

It is impossible not to connect these striking
expressions with the fact, that on the day which closed
the mortal life of the illustrious man who uttered
them, one of the journals permitted to express the
opinions of the existing French government published
an argument on the perfect feasibility, not to say the
probability, of a successful invasion of England. In
the same week, too, the minister of French marine
toasted the chief of the state as one who loved, and
meant to restore, the French navy, because he knew that
the future destiny of nations will have to be "decided
in the great game of sea-fights." Mindful, then, of
what has been said by him to whose genius, while he
lived, we may attribute under God's blessing our
ignorance of the worst "miseries of war," let us not
too lightly despise or disregard the signs and portents
around us. The Duke fights for us in his grave, as
he fought in the field, if we profit by his experience
and are guided by his example.

NARRATIVE OF POLITICS.

The Tenant-Right Movement goes on in Ireland. On
the 30th of August Mr. Sharman Crawford was
entertained at a banquet by his Tenant-right supporters
at Newtownards. Besides the chief guest, there were
present Mr. Frederick Lucas, Dr. Coulter, Dr. M 'Knight,
and several other gentlemen of native notoriety. The
speaking was nearly all of a local character, relating to