XIII. shortly followed him to the grave. The new reign, which commenced with the minority of his infant son, immediately and naturally reunited, the broken elements of the parties which Richelieu had crushed. Anne of Austria, the queen mother and regent, who had herself long been the victim of Richelieu's oppression, and entered into many of the conspiracies of the nobles against him, was no sooner invested with the powers of government, than separating herself from her old adherents, she resolved to perpetuate and enjoy the despotism which he had consolidated. She chose for her minister, the cardinal Mazarin, who had been the creature of Richelieu, and perfectly understood his policy. The royal government was, therefore, still disposed to retain the aristocracy and the parliament alike in absolute subjection: but there were these differences in its position, that Mazarin wanted the uncompromising intrepidity, and the stern cruelty of his predecessor, and meditated only to preserve by intrigue, the power which Richelieu had won by force; that the queen was compelled in the outset to raise the parliament from its degradation, by employing it to cancel the restrictions which her husband's testament had imposed upon her own authority; and that the nobles, and the parliament, were equally emboldened to re-assert their lost privileges by the weakness of a new reign, a minority, and a female regency. The exiled and humiliated aristocracy re-appeared at the court, burning to recover their lost power and offices; the parliament resumed their courage and pretensions; and there were still, as before, the three same conflicting interests in the state-the absolute government, the noble aristocracy, and the hereditary and incorporated magistracy. The people, as they had ever done, passed for nothing in the scale, or were considered only as capable of being rendered the instruments of the contending factions.

It is well observed, by M. de Sainte-Aulaire, on the frivolous aspect of many events of the times before us, that very grave interests were concealed under the disguise of a reckless and trifling levity. By a singular chance, all the most considerable personages among the nobility were young, and the female court of the queen regent was a splendid galaxy of charms. Turenne, Condé, De Retz, and various other nobles, were under thirty years of age: the duchesses of Longueville, Montbazon, Bouillon, Châtillon, Chevreuse, Nemours, have all left a high renown for their beauty. The manners of a gay and youthful court gave the tone to political intrigue; and the first new struggle of the aristocracy for power, was disguised under a ridiculous quarrel, between the duchesses of Longueville and Montbazon, in which the parties of the government, and the discontented nobles, came to issue. The queen regent was firm, and the banishment or imprisonment of five or six dukes and duchesses, secured the triumph of the court.

But the regent and her minister were soon involved in a struggle with other enemies, who were less easily to be overcome. The

exigencies of the war against Spain and the empire, imposed the necessity of fresh taxes: the registry of a new money edict was necessary; and the disorder of the finances was immediately used by the parliament, as an occasion for its interference. The popular party in that body insisted upon an inquiry of reform; the adherents of the government resisted; and from that moment, an organized and resolute opposition in parliament against the court daily gained ground. For some reason, which never seems to have been satisfactorily explained, the opponents of the court acquired the absurd name of frondeurs, or slingers: in civil dissentions, some distinguishing epithets are indispensable to factions, and, whatever was the capricious origin of the term, the FRONDE thenceforth designated both the union of the party, and the troubles which it produced. Mazarin was utterly deficient in the inflexible, persevering firmness of Richelieu: he first temporised with the parliament, then arrested some of its members, then became intimidated, and finally released them. They gathered strength in the discovery of the irresolution of the court; and the pressing demand for new imposts and increased burthens upon the people, now enabled the magistracy to rouse the citizens of Paris, and induce them to make common cause with the parliament. The public mind throughout France became violently inflamed against the government, and against Mazarin in particular; and the parliament daily improved its advantages. Now ascending from the pretension of resisting isolated acts of tyranny, to that of controlling the royal prerogative by fixed principles, it proceeded of its own authority, in 1648, to pass resolutions forbidding the levying and collecting of taxes, unless sanctioned by its vote, on penalty of death: enacting, that no subject should be imprisoned without being delivered up within twenty-four hours, into the custody of the legitimate courts for judgment; and declaring void all appointments to financial and judicial offices, which should not have received its confirmation.

The queen, and her minister, had hitherto bent before the storm; but emboldened by the splendid victory of Lens, which the prince of Condé gained at this epoch over the Spaniards, they now determined upon more vigorous measures; and during the celebration of a Te Deum at Notre Dame, for the triumph of the French troops, several of the members of the parliament were arrested by the royal guards. This violence brought the disputes between the parliament and the crown to the crisis, which had long been impending. The citizens of Paris, who had for some time been taught to identify the cause of the parliament with their own interests, flew to arms; in an incredibly short space of time, barricades of casks of earth and iron chains were thrown across all the streets; the royal troops were expelled, with some bloodshed; and the court, after a temporary submission to the popular party, absconded from the capital. This was the signal of civil war.

It was now that the two most remarkable men of the age began to figure prominently on the stage of affairs. These were the prince of Condé and the archiepiscopal coadjutor of Paris, afterwards cardinal de Retz. The conqueror of Rocroi, Nordlingen and Lens, to whom the epithet of the great Condé' has been prostituted, was great only in the field. The most distinguished leader of the aristocratical party, his capricious pride, his vanity, and his rapacity, were employed to aggravate the miseries, and confirm the servitude of his country. Allied in turn with the court and the parliament; careless alike, whether he roused the populace to anarchy and slaughter, or introduced foreign enemies into the kingdom, he sullied the military glories of his youth, by the political crimes of his middle life, and obtained for his latter years, the degradation of following the chariot wheels of a victorious despot.

Condé may be taken for a fitting personification for the general character of the French nobility of the age; but the famous Cardinal de Retz, stands alone in the history of his country and times. Gifted with resistless powers of eloquence and persuasion, a brilliant and original genius, he was, at the same time, unprincipled, faithless, and the slave of a vulgar ambition. Of the seductive influence of his talents, there cannot be a greater proof than the illusion with which his memoirs have still invested his character. M. de Sainte-Aulaire, led away by the indescribable charms of his narrative, has not scrupled to admit his pretensions to some share of patriotism; and he has blinded himself to the stubborn evidence, that self-aggrandisement, and the restless spirit of faction, were the sole springs of conduct with the noble and priestly demagogue. By the confession of De Retz himself, he was willing, before the civil war, to have served the court; by his own admission, it was the contemptuous treatment of the queen, who appears to have seen through his dangerous character, and to have distrusted his professions, which alone drove him to make common cause with the parliament: and it is his own boast, that his vengeance produced the barricades. The climax to his political infamy is to be found in the fact, that he subsequently joined the court, and that a cardinal's hat was the price of his perfidy.

We have traced the conduct of the parliament up to the commencement of the civil war, because, as we set out with observing, this is the only part of the history of the Fronde, which M. de SainteAulaire has succeeded in exhibiting somewhat in a novel light. This portion of his work proves that the parliamentary leaders were actuated by principles, which would not have disgraced any period of the constitutional history of our own country. The impotent conclusion of their contest is too familiar to need illustration. The arts of De Retz procured to their cause the accession of a part of the aristocracy, who only entailed ruin upon their exertions, by seeking an alliance with foreign enemies, at which their better feelings revolted, and by thus compelling them to an insecure

peace with the court. On the renewal of hostilities, the parliament were betrayed again by their noble confederates, and deserted by the populace the war of principles degenerated into a mere cabal for the elevation of Condé, and for the expulsion of Mazarin; and to escape from an universal anarchy, all parties, of the most inconsistent nation in the world, united in soliciting the recall of the obnoxious minister.

The history of the composition, the struggle, and the ultimate fate of the parliament of Paris, in the troubles of the Fronde, is interesting, as affording one more historical lesson of the hopelessness of all resistance to absolute power; which does not emanate from a representation of the people. However courageous and praiseworthy were the efforts of the parliament of Paris, to curb the spirit of despotism, that body was obviously in itself-incapable of maintaining the contest without extraneous aid; and the general strength of the commons of the realm was never obtained for its support, because the bonds of a representative union were totally wanting. Hence the magistracy were reduced to depend upon the tumultuary voice of the capital, and to become the tools and the dupes of a portion of the profligate and self-interested nobility. That the fickleness of the national character was of itself incompatible with any permanent union, may perhaps be suggested; but it is the effect and the blessing of a well-organised and established system of popular representation, to produce consistency and patriotism in the public mind. It might with more reason be objected, that, with an aristocracy so constituted and influenced as that of France, during the seventeenth century, the secure foundation of a limited and monarchical government was scarcely attainable. Certainly, neither the spirit of honour, nor the love of freedom, had any place in the hearts of princes and nobles, who were true to no obligations, and swayed by no principles. But there assuredly did exist in the bourgeoisie of France, at that epoch, a strong detestation of arbitrary government; and the provincial parliaments often acted in sympathy with the metropolitan assembly. It is strange that no design seems to have entered into the minds of the Parisian parliament, to cement the confederacy by convoking a deputation of all the parliamentary bodies.

The resolutions promulgated by the parliament in 1648, contained all the elements of a free constitution: the power of arbitrary taxation was withdrawn from the royal prerogative; the financial and judicial administration was rendered independent of the crown; and the personal liberty of the subject was secured from violation. If these provisions had been ratified in good faith by the government, France, so far as restraints on the royal authority were requisite, might have wanted no better charter. But it cannot be denied, that the parliament had no title to arrogate to itself the power which it desired to withdraw from the crown. The control of taxation was the inherent right of the nation, not of an oligarchy.

whether noble or magisterial. It is singular how it should have escaped M. de Sainte-Aulaire's penetration, to observe that the establishment of the provisions demanded by the parliament would only have had the effect of transferring the whole power of the state into their hands. They possessed all the judicial authority of the kingdom; they insisted upon seizing the nomination to all new offices; and they claimed the exclusive management and appropriation of the revenue. Their intentions were, beyond question, in general meritorious: but the functions which they sought would have been a tremendous deposit, in the hands of a privileged and hereditary order of forty thousand families; and their interests, if their success had been possible, would soon have been as distinct from those of the people, as of the throne and nobility. Their failure was produced by the absence of any periodical representation of the people in their body; their triumph, unless it had been shared by such a representation, would have been any thing but desirable for the cause of freedom, and the welfare of their country.

ART. XIV.

Travels through the Interior Provinces of Columbia. By J. P. Hamilton, late Chief Commissioner from His Britannic Majesty to the Republic of Columbia. 2 vols. 8vo. 17. 1s. London: ray. 1827.

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Of all the new states of South America, Columbia is, perhaps, best known by name to the English reader. The provinces of which it is composed, were the first in their resistance to the authority of Spain; the first in shaking off her iron yoke; the first that derived assistance from our own country, and the first in receiving from her the recognition of their independence. Yet, perhaps, there are none of the Spanish American states, not even excepting Mexico, or Guatimala, with the interior of which we are so little acquainted, as that which forms the subject of these volumes. It occupies, indeed, a very considerable portion of the celebrated work of de Humboldt; but that learned and indefatigable traveller paid more attention to the mineralogical, botanical, and zoological productions of the country, than to its social and political aspect. Besides, when he travelled through those provinces, which are now merged in the general name of Columbia, he saw them drooping under the despotism of Spain, and found their inhabitants cautious and gloomy, if not indifferent, upon all those interests that raise men to moral dignity, and encourage their native characters to develope themselves in a manner calculated to excite the sympathies, and win the respect and affection, of the more favoured classes of their race.

It was Colonel Hamilton's happy fate, to be to Columbia the herald of that enlightened policy, which has of late years so

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