vernment of his views, and without any strong party in the state formed to favour him, should escape severe animadversion, or avoid personal degradation, if not punishment. But, at this period, so abject was the domestic situation of France, that the government, possessing neither power, virtue, nor popularity, appeared to await, with stupid resignation, the new revolution which should terminate its too protracted existence; while individuals were endeavouring, with clumsy exertions, only to avert the weight of ruin from themselves, and establish such a character of comparative innocence as would enable them to retreat in safety from the approaching storm.

move

“Laws of barbarous severity, intended for the repression of seditious mo ments, failed in their effect. Motions in both the councils, for the crimination of individuals, occasioned general dissatisfaction, without promising relief of the general misery. The tyrannical enforcement of decrees for a forced loan, and Jevy of conscripts, occasioned only a more steady and uniform resistance. The torch of civil war was again lighted in the departments of the Upper Garonne and Thoulouse, and many departments of the West and South were strongly agitated. A sense of the inability of government to surmount tkese disasters was universally prevalent; and General Jourdan had actually proposed a decree for declaring the country in danger.

"Syeyes was labouring, with endeavours which could scarcely be termed covert, for the overthrow of the government. The exact views of this crafty intriguer cannot be developed; but it is clear, that a hatred to the right heir to the Crown, on the one hand, and a fear of the Jacobins, whom he had mortally offended, and by whom his life had been attempted, on the other, would impel him to avoid the re-establishment of royalty, or the alteration of the existing system, to a form favourable to the ferocious band of republicans. Strength was evidently wanting to the executive power, and that could only be given by a dictatorship, residing in one or more individuals, not embarrassed by councils, who knew not how to use or to restrain authority, with whom faction was every thing, and virtue nothing.

"While the abbé was known to be toiling to achieve this point, and doubtful only what general he should call to his aid, Fortune landed Buonaparte in France. The people, far from permitting themselves to enquire into the causes of his conduct, were happy to suppose that he brought the means of terminating their misfortunes and disgraces; they flattered themselves that their destinies were in his hands, and that the success which had attended his banner would again be extended over the whole country. His arrival in Paris was therefore hailed as a great national deliverance, and he became the centre of those intrigues, which seemed to receive their final sanction and guarantry from the addition of his name. The two coun❤ cils prostrated themselves at his feet, and gave a solemn banquet in honour of his return, in the church of St. Sulpice, called, since the revolution, the Temple of Victory. At this fête the directory and members of both councils attended ; but although the efforts of art and taste were exhausted in rendering the scene splendid, and the banquet sumptuous and animating, the general aspect of the guests was replete with constraint and embarrassment. Suspicion prevailed on all sides: the machinations for the overthrow of government were ready to be put in operation: Buonaparte appeared only for a moment in the hall, and retired, impressed, perhaps for the first time, with the fear, which was never

afterwards to be absent from his mind, that, in some morsel or some goblet, to be presented by the hand of treachery, he might swallow his death.

"Three days after this celebration, the council of ancients met at seven o'clock in the morning, on an extraordinary summons. One of the inspectors of the hall, after declaring the causes of the convocation, and detailing the misfortunes of the country, obtained a decree, founded on these articles of the constitution, ordering the council to meet the next day at St. Cloud, and forbidding all continuation of deliberative functions elsewhere, charging Buonaparte with the execution of the decree, and entrusting to him the command of all the troops in Paris, for protection of the national representation. Buonaparte, accompanied by Generals Moreau, Berthier, Lefebvre, Macdonald, and others, appeared at the bar, congratulating the council on the wisdom of the measure. "We will have," he said, "a republic, founded on true liberty, on civil liberty, on national representation: this I swear, in my own name, and in that of my companions in arms." The sitting immediately rose, amid shouts of " Vive la république, vive la constitution!

"At nine in the morning, the directors, whose power these transactions were designed to overthrow, first heard an account of them. Barras, Gohier, and Moulins, sent for General Lefebvre, to call in the military to their aid: but that general declared he would receive orders from Buonaparte alone; and Syeyes, and Roger Ducos, the two other directors, had already prepared a formidable body of troops in the gardens of the Luxembourg, which passed in review before Buonaparte. While he was thus engaged, Barras's secretary arrived, whom, after a short private conference, the general thus addressed What have you done with that France, which I left you in such a brilliant situation? I left you peace, I find you in war: I left you victory, I find you defeated: I left you the millions of Italy, I find laws of plunder and misery. What have you done with a hundred thousand Frenchmen, whom I knew as my companions in glory? they are dead!' This apostrophe, faithfully conveyed to the directory, produced an humble message in answer, and all notions of forcible resistance vanished.

"The council of five hundred received, at the commencement of their sitting, the decree of removal; and, full of indignation and dissatisfaction, broke up amid shouts of Vive la république ! Vive la constitution!' to hold their next meeting at St. Cloud.

In a wing of the palace, surrounded with military, the Council of Ancients commenced their deliberations. When the presence of a majority of the whole number was ascertained, some reflections were made on the decree of removal, and some members complained that they had not been summoned to the extraordinary sitting; but, as such debates would have led to explanations on a constitution which was no longer to exist, the majority of the council terminated them by suspending the sitting till notice should arrive of the assembling of the other legislative body. This interruption did not prevent the reading of a letter from the secretary-general of the Executive Directory, announcing that the message on which the council declared its meeting, could not be received, four of the directors having given in their resignation, and the fifth having been placed under a guard by superior orders.

"Soon afterwards Buonaparte appeared, followed by his aids-de-camp; and, after declaring his attachment to the country, exhorted the council to exert their great powers in saving two things, for which such ample sacrifices.

had been made, "Liberty and Equality."-" And the Constitution!" exelaimed one of the members. "The constitution?" he replied; 66 you have violated it on the 18th Fructidor, the 22d Floréal, and the 30th Prairial. The constitution!it is invoked by all factions, violated by all, despised by all. It cannot be to us the means of welfare, because it obtains the respect of none." He then stated invitations he had received from Barras and Moulins, to join them, and overthrow all men who professed liberal ideas, but he had refused them. He placed no dependance on the council of five hundred, because it contained men who were desirous of restoring the convention, revolutionary committees, and scaffolds, and had deputed emissaries to excite commotions in Paris. He declared his resolution to support his proceedings by means of the grenadiers, whose caps and bayonets he perceived at the entrance of the hall; and if any orator, paid by the foreign powers, should move to put him out of the law, he admonished that orator that he was pronouncing his own outlawry. Finally, he recommended the council to form themselves into a committee, to take salutary measures according to the urgency of circumstances, while he would repair to the council of five hundred.

"That body was holding its sitting in the hall of the Orangerie, and displayed dispositions hostile to the conspiracy. Lucien Buonaparte was president; and Gaudin, attempting to make observations favourable to the proceedings of the general, was silenced by cries of No dictatorship! No dictator!' The members then took oaths of fidelity to the constitution; and, as soon as the appel-nominal was finished, a letter from Barras was read, announcing his resignation of the office of director, and his happiness in leaving the guidance of public affairs to a general whom he had been the first to promote. This act of Barras was, in the highest degree, propitious to Buonaparte, who gave him an escort to his country seat at Gros-bois, while Gohier was put under arrest, and Moulins made his escape.-The council, determined to adhere to the forms of the expiring constitution, were proceeding to take measures for the election of a new director, when Buonaparte, attended by a few of his guard of grenadiers, advanced into the midst of the hall. His reception was widely different from that he had experienced in the senior council: furious outcries of Out of the Law! No Dictator! resounded in his ears; violent exclamations against the introduction of armed men, a general rush of the members towards him, and an attempt to stab him with a dagger, which was parried by a grenadier, completely bereft him of his presence of mind. Incapable of utterance, he was lost, and would have been borne down by the torrent, but for Lefebvre, who exclaiming, Let us save our general,' pressed forward with a strong body of grenadiers, and dragged him out

of the hall.

"Lucien Buonaparte then endeavoured to tranquillise the members, but in vain; he quitted, or probably was driven from, the chair. Having been some hours absent from the hall, which time he employed in haranguing the troops, and urging them to support his brother, he returned, and again attempted to restare order. Finding his efforts unavailing, a picquet of grenadiers entered, and carried him away to the place whither his brother had been conveyed; the drums beat the pas de charge, and a general of brigade exclaimed, Citizens representatives, I answer no longer for the safety of the council; I invite you to re

tire. This proclamation producing no effect, an officer of the guard, getting on the president's desk, cried, Representatives, withdraw! the general has given his orders.' Still they remained motionless; and a third officer uttered the word of command Grenadiers, forward!' He was obeyed, and the hall was speedily cleared; the voices of the members being drowned by the beating of drums. In the evening, a select number of the council met by special permission, and voted that the grenadiers, who had made a rampart of their bodies around the commander in chief had deserved well of the country.

"A committee of five was formed to consider of measures of public safety. At eleven, Boulay de la Meurthe, appearing as their reporter, declared the vices and radical defects of the existing constitution; and the council having first decreed the abolition of the executive directory, the powers of the state were vested in Buonaparte, Syeyes, and Roger Ducos, under the title of consuls. A constitution afterwards gave to these consuls, or rather to Buonaparte, as first consul, the whole and absolute government of the state, although a pretence of deliberation was preserved by the establishment of a conservative senate and a tribunate. Syeyes, the manufacturer of the new revolution, and the constitution, soon found that he had been toiling for another man's elevation, and retired from the semblance of power, to the tranquil possession of an estate voted to him by the legislature; and the authority of the first consul, for the others were but nominal auxiliaries, was implicitly acknowledged by the whole nation."*

Comprising so many and so great events within so narrow a compass, our readers will, naturally, conclude that it has been Mr. Adolphus's plan, rather to relate than comment on them. Where, however, reflections do occur, it may, perhaps, be considered as superfluous to add, that they are ingenious and apposite.

Mr. Adolphus's style, generally speaking, is simple and correct; the passages, however, where it occasionally deviates from the historical into the declamatory, proceed from the warmth of a mind, ardent in the cause of virtue, and glowing in its detestation of vice, and if to be considered as blemishes, are blemishes the candid will ever be readier to praise, than to censure; to pardon, than to condemn.

Village Anecdotes; or the Journal of a Year, from Sophia to Ed ward, with original Poems. By Mrs. Le Noir. 3 vols. 12mo. Vernor and Hood.

A tale of much sweetness and simplicity; the attractions of which are proportioned to the taste and feeling of its reader. Mrs. Le Noir is, we understand, a daughter of the late ingenious and unfortunate Christopher Smart.

* Histoire du directoire executif, Desadoards; State Papers, &c.

*An Invocation to Edward Quin, Esq. as delivered at a Society, called the Eccentrics. With Notes. By John Gale Jones.2s. 6d. Bagshaw. 1804.

Ir is possible that these rhymes, delivered by their author before an audience composed of men who "meet above three hundred times a year," to

Sup well pleased on toasted cheese and ale," P. 3.

might occasion a degree of ungenerous laughter, exercised alter-nately at the expence of each other; but to the public they cannot fail to prove wholly uninteresting, unentertaining, and, in fact, unintelligible. Except such portions of humour and pleasantry as they derived from locality, they possess none. If these spirits attended them during their appearance in the club-room of the excentrics, they no sooner smelt the air, than they vanished.

If the writer of these lines be the same Mr. Gale Jones as we formerly recollect to have seen exhibiting himself at a debating so'ciety in the city, and labouring harder than any coal-heaver for a just, perhaps, but far less reward, we cannot compliment him on the improvement of his talents, his taste, or manners. We have before now paid our sixpence to hear him declaim, and we have more than once thought his speech worth almost the whole of the ́money; but he should not write verses; indeed he should not (since he cannot) write at all. Non omnia-But the English will probably suit Mr. Jones much better than the Latin-All men are not able to do all things. Some people betray themselves the moment they (open their mouths; others, the instant they meddle with a pen.

Mr. Jones is, we are told, by profession a surgeon; but, from the style in which he handles the knife in cutting up his companions, we should have taken him for a butcher, and no little bungler neither. For the absence of elegance and decency in his composition, Mr. J. has given a sufficient reason, by informing us, that he and the publican, at whose house the eccentrics meet, were ❝ educated at the same seminary." We hope, for the sake of the rising generation, that this "same seminary," if it still exists, will not long continue to do so, unnoticed by the Society for the Suppression of Vice.

After boasting of such an alma mater, Mr. Jones must e'en give us a taste of his profound erudition; and for this purpose indulges us with some of his Greek; but where he found it so written and so spelt, or why Mr. Spragg, his printer, did not teach him better,