His marriage with a princess of the house of Austria, who was supposed, by her influence in the cabinet, to favour her native country at the expence of France; the impolitic measure of espousing the cause of the Americans in their contest with great Britain; the conduct of the Finance being entrusted to an empiric minister, an alien to the land, and a republican by birth; but, above all, the centre and supplies 'the antireligious and antimonarchical party found at Paris, in the wealth, rank, profligacy, and turbulence of Orleans, tended to hasten the event, and blacken the crimes which marked its terrible career. Still, however, when, by a temporary exertion of firmness, La Fayette had compelled the Duke of Orleans to retire, tranquillity might have been restored, if Bailly, by proposing the solemn foppery of a confederation, had not revived the means and motives of insurrection, and furnished the leader of the principal faction with a pretext for revisiting his native country.

At this period Mr. Adolphus commences his history, with noticing the effects of the solemn oath taken by the French on the 14th of July, (1790); in which, (however it might have been hailed as the dawn of peace by the ignorant or the credulous) the more penetrating anticipated only one vast scene of unqualified perjury, and mutual distrust. The public tranquillity was first disturbed by the revolt at Nancy; and the rage for innovation was amply gratified by the free discussion of the political clubs, the origin of which are clearly detailed, and the characters of their respective orators drawn with vigour and discrimination. As first in rank, the monarch and his consort were honoured with the largest share of their abuse; and the rancour with which calumnies were propagated against him, and his ministers, could be equalled alone by the avidity with which the populace received them.

If virtue and real merit sunk under such attacks, how, says Mr. Adolphus, could factitious celebrity, and reputation founded merely on the basis of chicane and delusion, hope to survive; the popularity of M. Necker had long been declining, and the publication of the red book gave it the finishing blow. He announced his resignation to the national assembly on the 4th of September, and in a few days after was permitted to retire to Switzerland, loaded with insult and obloquy, though, but a short time before his exile, had driven the people to despair and revolt.

During these transactions, Orleans, whose conduct had at first been influenced by motives of personal animosity, his overtures at court having been coolly received, had grown desperate and deter mined to persevere; and the services of Mirabeau, by whose co-ope

ration the king had hoped to regain some portion of his lost authority, were suspended by the report of Chatelet on the transactions of the 5th and 6th of October, which he erroneously supposed were directed by the court against him. Orleans, through the medium of Biron, made a poor and unmeaning defence, and promised a full account of his conduct on the next day, which, however, was never produced; whilst Mirabeau defended himself with equal eloquence and audacity, treating their report as a mere intrigue, and threatening the framers of it with never-ceasing vengeance. Prosecutions were then commenced against some inferior agents, which at length were wholly superseded by a decree, depriving the Chatelet of its jurisdiction over criminal offences.

The legislature, in the mean time, not content with the plunder already acquired from the clergy, by the seizure of clerical property, framed an oath, which their fidelity to the pope, as head of the church, would not suffer the consciencious to take, with a view to render them contemptible; and to enforce this measure with greater certainty, a day was fixed (Jan. 4, 1791), on which every ecclesiastical member of their body must peremptorily take the oath, or resign his benefices. This, to their immortal honour be it spoken, was almost universally rejected. The purity of their principles could be no longer questioned, and the triumphant party gnashed their teeth with rage at the eloquent expression of M, de Montlosier, respecting the ejected bishops: "If they are driven from their episcopal palaces," he said, "they will retire to the huts of the cottagers who have been fed by their bounty. If deprived of their golden crosses, they will find wooden ones; and it was a cross of wood that saved the world."

Mirabeau, whose negociation with the court had been successfully renewed, saw with regret these attacks on the clergy; but as the difference between his former principles and his present practice would, in that case, have been too glaring, he did not dare openly to oppose them. He took, however, an active part in the debates on emigration; but, notwithstanding his exertions, had the mortification to see the motion adopted. But whilst faithful to his new engagements, employed in a plan to restore a constitutional monar chy, and compensate for his former attacks on royal authority, he was seized with spasms in his chest, and, after enduring excruciating tortures for two days, expired at Paris on the 2nd of April.

"Lament not me, my friends, but lament the monarchy which with me descends to the grave,” were among the last words of Mira

beau, and were unhappily too prophetic; the unfortunate monarch's situation was daily growing worse. His journey to St. Cloud having been prevented by the mob, he was compelled to do violence to his conscience in hearing mass performed by a constitutional priest, and the impolitic measure, adopted by the advice of the Lameths, of writing to his ministers at foreign courts, to announce his entire approbation of the revolution, with an avowal that he considered himself perfectly free and happy, put it out of the power of his friends to assist him.

The issue of the flight from Paris, on the 20th of June, is but too well known; his route was intercepted, and himself brought back to Paris, with every studied mark of disrespect; and the family, on their first day's journey, had the horror of seeing M. de Dampiere, murdered by the side of their coach, for merely endeavouring to shew them some trifling marks of respect.

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Commissioners were now appointed from the assembly, and from the section of the Thuilleries, to take the examinations of the king, queen, and persons arrested; and the exertions of the republican faction evidently aimed at the abolition of royalty. The public mind, however, was not yet sufficiently prepared for this new doctrine. The reporter from the committees replied to the question, whether the king should be brought to trial? in the negative; and after a fierce debate of two days, a decree was adopted, providing, “ that if, after having sworn to the constitution, he should retract, or put himself at the head of a military force, or direct his generals to act against the nation, or forbear opposing any such attempt by an authentic act, he should be judged to have abdicated the throne, and should be considered as a simple citizen, and subject to impeachment, in the ordinary forms, for crimes committed after his abdi cation.

The constitution (till the completion of which the king had been suspended from his functions) being at length decided upon, he first accepted it in writing, and then took an oath to maintain it, and on the 30th of September, after a final harangue, the president proclaimed the dissolution of the national assembly. The result of their labours is given by Poud 'Homme in the following terms: "The duration of this assembly was two years and four months, in which period three thousand five hundred and forty persons were put to death, one hundred and twenty-three chateaux burnt, fifty-six supposed conspiracies detected, seventy-one insurrections broke out, and two thousand five hundred and fifty-seven laws were enacted."

In his fourth chapter Mr. Adolphus takes a comprehensive sketch of the views of foreign powers towards France, and mentions the pretended treaty of Pavia with merited contempt. The temporary credit assigned to this weak invention, was strengthened, he observes, by the conference of the Emperor with the King of Prussia, at Upper Pilnitz, in Saxony; at which it was finally agreed, that each should furnish twelve thousand men, to support the army of the emigrants, demonstrate unequivocally their protection of the French Princes, and urge the concurrence of other powers.

Had a copy of this treaty reached Louis time enough to have prevented his free and unconditional acceptance of the revolution, it might have produced beneficial effects. As it was, however, it could have been wished the emigrant princes had been prevailed on to take advantage of the general amnesty to return to France, as their refusal furnished the legislative assembly (which had met on the first of October, and by a decree of the former body was entirely composed of new members) with a pretext for proceeding to still greater severities.

In November a decree was passed that all the French assembled in the Frontiers after the first of January, should be considered guilty; and the same month another severe decree against the nonjuring clergy, to both of which the king opposed his veto.

The jacobins in the mean time were eager for war, and the death of Leopold, on the first of March, and the assassination of the King of Sweden, on the sixteenth of the same month, rather accelerated than retarded hostilities. The ministry were compelled, by the exertions of the demagogues, who disliked their pacific measures, to resign; and were succeeded by what is usually denominated the jacobin administration, consisting of Dumouriez, Degraves, Lacoste, Claviere, and Roland. The new ministry employed all their talents in rendering an accommodation with the successors of Leopold impos sible, and on the twentieth of March war was declared against the King of Hungary and Bohemia, without mentioning Prussia, though Frederic William had already made known his determination of resisting an attack on the imperial dominions.

The principal events of the first campaign of the war are clearly narrated by Mr. Adolphus; our readers will remember they were attended with eminent disgrace and ill success to the republicans.

That however perpetually waged against their king and constitution was attended with more encouraging results. Pretended plots for the re-establishment of the old system were daily discovered, and the people were encouraged to insult their monarch and his

.

Consort with every species of licentious abuse. The popular party had succeeded in exasperating the people on the king's refusing to sanction the decrees against the nonjuring priests, and petitions were favourably received which complained of the absurdity of per mitting one man to paralize the will of twenty-six millions.

The breach between the ministers was daily widening. Dumou riez, Lacoste, and Durauthon still continued to treat the king with respect, and, had their powers been honestly exerted, might have afforded him effectual protection. Servan adhered to Roland and Claviere, till at length (on account of their insolent behaviour in consequence of the king's refusing, by the advice of Dumouriez, to sanction another severe decree against nonjuring priests, and a memorial for a camp of twenty thousand men round the capital) all three were dismissed.

Dumouriez, however, perceiving he had offended the popular faction by accepting the office of minister of war, made haste to regain their good opinion, by resigning on the very same grounds which had furnished him with a pretext for dismissing Roland and his friends. The king was deeply affected by his treachery; "only conceive," says he, in a letter to M, Bertrand de Moleville, “only conceive the strange inconsistency of this man, after having persuaded me to dismiss those three ministers, because they insisted on my sanctioning the decrees, he now abandons me for persisting in the measures he himself urged."

In consequence of the king's refusal to sanction the two decrees being made public, an immense mob, armed with pikes and bludgeons, collected on the site of the Bastile on the twentieth of June, and after marching through the hall of the assembly in procession, proceeded to the palace, where they soon surmounted the feeble opposition of the Swiss guards, who did not dare to resist without express orders. No doubt, Mr. Adolphus thinks, can be entertained of the intention of some of the insurgents to assassinate the king. The work of murder was however left incomplete, and the mob, after loading the unfortunate family with the grossest insult and abuse, in consequence of the approach of evening and the entreaties of Petion the mayor (who had sought to avoid responsibility during the early part of the day by going to Versailles) gradually dispersed. The fourteenth of July, the day of the confederation, passed over in tolerable tranquillity.

During these transactions, the King of Prussia, faithful to his engagements with the Emperor, prepared to co-operate with him in invading France, and the. Duke of Brunswick, who had been ap