Salic law, and considered the claims of the English prince in the light of a foreign invasion. In the times of Charles the Bad, the bourgeoisie, influenced by the Provost Stephen Marcel and the turbulent Bishop of Laon, sided with the vassal, became hostile to the monarchy, and protected feudalism. Under the pretence of reform, as in our own days, the bourgeoisie was really paving the way for a revolution. For the first time in French history the nobility, the type of material power, was obliged to give way before the bourgeoisie, the type of intellectual power. The representatives of the last order soon not only dictated to the two others, but even to the king himself, who was for the first time obliged to sanction laws that were enacted without his consent and against his interests. Thus it came to pass that royalty, which had originated a representative government in the hopes of establishing a democratic bulwark against feudal power, found that it had also created a capricious exacting body, which, although specially destined to preserve public order, could as frequently play the part of factions, and become hostile to the monarchy itself. When the dauphin called the states together upon the reverse of Poitiers, the greater part of the nobility had perished either there or at Crecy; and although Robert le Coq, the ambitious prelate of Laon, imparted some political power to the faction of the clergy, still Marcel so far outnumbered the other orders by his followers, that he became at once master of the situation, and head of the revolutionary movement. In the fourteenth century Marcel placed his red and blue hood, emblem of revolt, on the head of the regent, as, in the eighteenth, the first mayor of Paris, successor to the last provost, placed, after the capture of the Bastille, the tri-colour cockade on the head of Louis XVI. The Duke of Normandy, however, withdrew from the capital and hastened to levy troops to oppose the arrogance of the provost; but that most atrocious revolt of the peasants, La Jacquerie, abetted for a time the principles of insurrection and revolt. Marcel called Charles the Bad into Paris at the head of a body of English troops, but the feudal knights had crushed the revolted peasantry; the Duke of Normandy was before the walls of the city; and within, famine, discontent, and distrust, had brought about a revolutionary reaction. The Queen Jeanne bought over the King of Navarre; the Urban guard, the first gendarmerie, set upon the small body of English allies, and the populace pillaged the houses of the bourgeois. Marcel attempted to give up the city to Charles, but, caught with the keys in his hands, he was slain on the spot as a traitor by one Jehan Maillart, and the revolution finished with the life of that most turbulent of provosts. The red and blue hood was cast off, and the regent restored to "his good city of Paris," Maillart rewarded, and the bourgeoisie somewhat sickened of its seditious and revolutionary practices, Charles V. had time, assisted by the gallant Duguesclin, to repair the misfortunes of France. But at his death civil and foreign wars were once more lit up. The cupidity of the Duke of Anjou brought about the popular insurrections known as the revolt of the Maillotins, and to which the States-General were strangers. Charles VI. had to act at once against his subjects in revolution in the capital, and the Flemings in insurrection under Philip of Artevelde. But the royal sword triumphed; the cause of the petits bourgeois and of the populace was for a time completely lost; and material force was brought to keep the public mind, so oft disturbed, in proper control. For a long time democracy, which had attained its zenith by the misfortunes of Crecy and Poitiers, and the turbulent ambition of Marcel, was subjugated and annihilated by the despotic rule which followed upon the revolt of the Maillotins. But this state of things was not destined to last long in that perpetual focus of revolutions-Paris. The Duke of Orleans collected around his person an army of ruined noblemen and knightly adventurers; Jean Sans Peur, his nephew, placed himself at the head of the popular party; the aristocracy and democracy were once more face to face; and a sanguinary drama ensued, which history has chronicled as the Burgundians and the Armagnacs in Paris-a drama the epopée of which presents us with M. Lacombe's concluding chapter, "The Bourgeoisie of Paris under English domination." The policy of the Duke of Bedford served unfortunately only to strengthen the alliance of the popular classes with the Burgundians; and Jacques Coeur and the Maid of Orleans became the expression, on the one hand, of civic astuteness, and, on the other, of popular fanaticism. Yet, once reseated on the throne, the very elements of success were discarded, and absolute royalty reappeared in the person of Charles VII. The middle ages were, however, about to set for ever, and "La Renaissance" had its Aurora. Political liberty had suffered, but public spirit was destined to develop itself with the progress of human intelligence; and the bourgeoisie was on the eve, even then, of declaring its moral independence. How changed are the times now to the position of parties as thus depicted to us at the conclusion of M. Lacombe's truly suggestive and instructive first volume! Mistress of all the moral and material positions that emanate from the state, or rather which constitute the state itself, the bourgeoisie, in olden times at war with the aristocracy and with royalty, is now at war with a proletariat egalitaire-a levelling working class!-a fourth estate!-a power inimical to all forms of society alike, and which conceals robbery and plunder under the mask of communism. The middle class, only a few days back, appeared to protect the higher classes and the lower classes alike, with a presumptuous pride, because the existing authorities, dreading its caprices as much as its anger, bowed to its opinions; but now it is humiliated, and placed in a position merely of defence; it has to seek for help on every side from the revolutionary spirit which threatens it with proximate annihilation, in honour of some unknown democratic and anti-social republic, the last term of which cannot fail to be the absolute decline and fall of France. The restoration of an hereditary monarchy, it is now evident to the bourgeoisie itself, easily led astray but sure to return to the same way of thinking and acting, can alone save the country from a predicament far more dangerous than the days of La Jacquerie and other peasant revolts, of English dominion, or the many hundred bourgeois insurrections in which the proletaire was often an instrument, but never yet threatened to become a master. TO THE KING OF WURTEMBERG. (FROM THE GERMAN OF JUSTINUS KERNER.) BY CAPTAIN MEDWIN. Dr. Theobald Kerner, a [The history of the following poem is this. young man of great talent, and a distinguished poet, inspired with that enthusiasm for liberty which was so electric in Germany in 1849, at a popular assembly at Heilbron made a brilliant speech, the tendency of which was to fan the flame of revolution, and for this offence he was tried and sentenced to ten months' solitary confinement. After four months of his incarceration had expired, his father, Justinus Kerner, the Burns of Suabia, addressed to the King of Wurtemberg the following lines, which in my version give a very inadequate idea of the simple beauty and pathos of the original. The blind old poet's pleading for mercy was not in vain. It was immediately responded to by the liberation of his only son. This reminds one of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, who having from His Ear heard some prisoners repeat a passage from Euripides, set them free. But here the comparison ends, for the King of Wurtemberg is no tyrant, but the father of his people, and it is owing to his firmness that the civil war which desolated the neighbouring land of Baden was not carried into his dominions. Finding that his army had been tampered with, the king ordered a review of the troops, and appealed to their loyalty by riding without his staff in front of the line, and baring his breast as a target for their balls. They, however, with one accord, struck up the national air, which strongly resembles our "God save the Queen," and during the whole of those trying times not a man swerved from his allegiance.-T. M.] BLAME not, that, in these holy days, I, to thy heart-the mercy-seat He played in them an erring part. Moved to the soul, he then will own Is Heaven's best attribute to man. THE PREMONITION. BY CORNELIUS COLVILLE. I BELIEVE there are few persons who have evinced any originality of character, or any peculiarity of temperament, in whom the germ of this characteristic has not been observed in a greater or less degree at a very early period of life. The lives of many men afford sufficient instances of the truth of this proposition. Individual character, indeed, appears to be inalienable. The characteristics of childhood are the same in youth and in manhood, save that in the latter stages they are more perfectly and more prominently developed. The character of man, therefore, is in-born -it is a part of his nature which, however much he may endeavour to check, he can never succeed in totally eradicating. There are persons who entertain a different opinion from this, and who hold that the character is formed altogether by external circumstances, and without reference to the original bent given to it by nature. This doctrine is obviously erroneous. Whatever influence external circumstances may exercise over the character and habits of an individual (and that they do exercise considerable influence I am perfectly disposed to admit), it is, nevertheless, sufficiently palpable from daily experience, and from the records of the lives of those men which we find both in ancient and modern biography, that the bias or tendency of their disposition is to be traced to their very earliest years. It is somewhat curious to examine into the different characteristics manifested by a family of children all sprung from the same father and mother, and still, perhaps, more curious, to find that the disposition of two or three of the children are quite at variance with those of their parents. Whoever has read the biographies of eminent men must have been astonished to find in numerous instances that those to whom they were indebted for their being, were utterly devoid of those excellences which in after-years rendered their offspring worldfamous. Worldly possessions, titles, honours, are hereditary; but intellect, imbecility, valour, cowardice, virtue, vice, are derived from no particular stock. They are common to all stations in life-all classes of individuals. These peculiar characteristics of individuals have often interested and amused me; and it is because they have done so that I have made these few observations. The following curious narrative, indeed, owes much of its interest to a certain peculiarity of temperament which I owe to neither father, nor mother, nor to any member of my family; not that many of the incidents about to be related are not of a strange and startling description, but several of them owe their interest to a particularly nervous and excitable disposition. There is a circumstance of a curious and mysterious character connected with our family which may have given an impetus to the original bias of my mind, and I think the nature of it was eminently qualified to foster those strange predilections which I manifested at a very early period of life. Whenever a death has occurred in the family, it has invariably been preceded by a singular omen, foreshadowing the event, but has only been visible to one member of the family-viz., myself. The first occasion of its appearance is impressed strongly upon my mind. It was during the illness of my mother, and whilst I was still in my boyhood. I entered her chamber one evening to inquire how she was, and to my great surprise discovered a large black dog laid at full length upon the hearth-rug before the fire; there was no animal of the kind belonging to the family, and thinking that it might have been left by the doctor, who had just taken his departure, I thought I would ask my mother if she knew aught concerning it before I ventured to remove it. Having made inquiry as to her health, I said, "To whom, mamma, does this large dog belong that is laid upon the hearth-rug?" "I was not aware, my dear, that any dog was in the room," my mother replied. 66 Yes, there is," I said. "It is a very large black animal, and probably belongs to Dr. Drummond, who has left it behind him in mistake." "Oh! my dear, you must be labouring under some very extraordinary hallucination. It is not likely that Mr. Drummond would bring a dog with him into the sick-room of any of his patients." "The thing speaks for itself, mamma. I cannot deny credit to my own eyesight. If you doubt the truth of what I say, convince yourself of the fact. My mother, whose curiosity regarding the matter was not less than my own, raised herself up in bed, and drew aside the curtains, to convince herself of the accuracy of my report. "I see nothing, child," she said, after fixing her eyes for some moments upon the rug where the animal lay. 66 Impossible, mamma; it is quite palpable to my view." "If there be anything, my dear," said my mother, "you had better drive it out. It belongs, probably, to some of the neighbours, and has wandered here by mistake." I approached where the animal lay. I attempted to kick it with my foot, but I had no sooner raised it for that purpose, than as quick as thought it vanished from my sight. I was amazed; I stared about me with the wildest incredulity; I looked into every corner of the room—under the bed, the chairs, the drawers, the tables, thinking that my eyes might have deceived me, and that it had crouched into some concealed place to be out of my reach. It was nowhere, however, to be seen. I turned excessively pale, though I endeavoured to conceal my alarm from my mother, and, I believe, effectually succeeded. I approached once more the side of her bed, and, having informed her that the intruder was gone, began to converse with her upon some other subjects. When I was turning away to leave the room, my eyes again unconsciously wandered to the spot where I had seen the dog, and my horror may be conceived when I state that this dreadful object was again visible, laid in precisely the same position as before. I walked quickly towards it, and again raising my foot with the view of driving it from the place, it vanished in an instant. I left the room to brood over this dreadful vision. I knew not what construction to place upon it. It was shrouded in impenetrable mystery, which did not ad any reasonable solution. I mentioned the circumstance subsequer to one or two members of the family, but they gave no credit to my atement, but affirmed that I had been labouring under some optical delusion. However that may be, my mother died a day or two after I had seen the vision, and whenever a death is about to occur in the family, I am |