have been informed by Cardinal de Bernis | that it was only by threatening to remit his bull that this Pope was induced to promise the abolition of the Order, a promise which he drew up in his own handwriting in order to obtain the tiara, thus publishing his own disgraceful simony. I do not believe that Benedict XIV. was poisoned by the Jesuits. They were not the men to commit useless crimes, and this poisoning would have been superfluous, like moutarde apres diner. Pombal, Charles III., and the Duke of Choiseul, all died a natural death. Clement died from the fear of death. The idea of poison was always present to his mind, and the speedy decomposition of his body was the effect of the terrible anxiety that had killed him. If the Jesuits had been as bad as was supposed, they would still exist."* exclaiming against Louis XV., and that it would have been unnecessary to call together the States-General, if the government of Louis XVI. had taken the pains to apply a portion of those resources to the exigencies of the State." It would have been better for Choiseul if he had shown as much attachment and regard to his wife as he did to his sister. He would have had fewer, less cheerful, and less flattering, but wiser, more virtuous, and more disinterested friends, than those with whom the Duchess of Grammont, through his reliance on her, had surrounded him. He would not have had the numerous enemies occasioned by her insolence, her prejudices, and her misguided influence; and his noble nature would have escaped the crust that commonly forms about a minister's heart. Madame de Choiseul was morally the most perfect being that I have ever known. She was an incomparable wife, a true and wise friend, and a spotless woman. She was a saint, though she had no other faith than that which virtue teaches. But her delicate health, the weak state of her nerves, the melancholy of her temperament, and the meditative cast of her mind, made her earnest, firm; precise, eloquent, metaphysical, and almost a prude. At all events, her sister-in-law, and the giddy circle that surrounded her, represented her in this light to her husband. Yet he was penetrated with gratitude and esteem for a woman who worshipped him, who disarmed the enemies of his sister, and whom he was just enough to acknowledge as a being purer, firmer, and more meritorious than himself. The Duchess of Grammont was more like a man than a woman. She had a coarse voice, a bold and forward appearance, free and brutal manners. She exhibited the qualities of her brother in an exaggerated light, which gave her, as a woman, a rough and repulsive exterior. Her resemblance to Choiseul, together with the art that she employed to amuse him, had given her great influence over him, of which she used to boast so in "Choiseul was accused of bringing the finances into disorder. I can testify to the pains that he took after the death of Madame de Pompadour to sift this matter and find remedies. He solicited the advice of Forbonnet and M. de Mirabeau,† who both expressed their astonishment at his penetration in such a difficult business. When, however, he came to see how impossible it was to remedy this disorder, which resulted from the weakness of the King, from ancient abuses, and from the insatiable rapacity of the cour tiers, he despaired of reconciling his plans of economy with the maintenance of his influence and authority. His integrity and his business-like habits appeared in a favorable light in the account that he gave of the savings in his department. As he always wished to be independent and fixed in his position, he would have liked to fill the situation of Chief Intendant of Finance. The great responsibility attaching to the office would have given him the right to refuse all impertinent pretensions, even those of the King; and he would have been legally justified in using the words, "Sire, my head will answer for it." But this had been foreseen by Louis XV., who had, moreover, an invincible aversion to the revival of any of the old offices of the crown. When we come to compare, how-solently, that she did great injury to the ever, the debt of Louis XV.'s reign with that of Louis XVI., and the deficit during the latter reign, with the resources that were brought to light by the Revolution, it will be found that there is no such great reason for *They do still exist. Yet Gleichen may be right; their revival is only an artificial and unnatural effort, and their power is, if not destroyed, greatly decayed. The father of the orator. reputation and even the happiness of her brother: for this ambitious woman greatly hastened the fall of the minister, although it was considerably delayed by the great sympathy that was felt for the Duchess of Choiseul by the King, the whole court, and even by the enemies of her husband. All the world knew that Louis XV. had said, when he banished this minister to Chanteloup, that he would have treated him much more se verely had he not respected the feelings of Madame de Choiseul, and that he was not at all offended with her haughty letter, in which she rejected the pension of fifty thousand francs that the King had offered her. After she had sacrificed the whole of her transferable property to her husband, even including her diamonds, she devoted also to his memory all the rents of which she was the usufructuary, confined herself to a tenth of her income in order to pay his debts, and actually paid off more than three hundred thousand dollars before the Revolution. She was also spared by the monsters of the Reign of Terror, whereas her sister-in-law was sent by them to the scaffold, where she did not belie her proud and high-spirited character, treating her executioners as her servants." Gleichen came from Calais to Compiegne in 1768, in the suite of the King of Denmark, who visited London in that year. He happened to be playing chess with the Duchess of Choiseul. The company had left the room, and Madame de Choiseul thinking that they were alone, said to him, "On dit que votre roi est une tête." At this moment Gleichen perceived that some person was standing behind her, and added, casting down his eyes, "couronnée." The Duchess saw immediately that she had been overheard, and continued," Pardon, vous ne m'avez pas laissée achever; je voulais dire que votre roi est une tête, qui annonce les plus belles espérances." Gleichen adds some particulars respecting the fall of Choiseul, from which, we shall glean what appears to us most interesting. At the period of his disgrace the Duke was no longer attached to his office, and his health was ailing. Like a spoiled child of fortune, he could no longer bear any opposition. Having used up the pleasures of the court, he sought for recreation elsewhere, and built villas at Chanteloup. His fall was effected by Madame Dubarri,* with whom he might * Marie Johanne, Vicomtesse Dubarri, was born in 1744, and was the daughter of a commissioner of taxes named Gomart de Vaubernier. Subsequently to her father's death she became a milliner, a fillede joie, a pimp of the gambler Vicomte Dubarri, afterwards an attendant of Madame de Pompadour in the household of Louis XV., and was finally married to a brother of Dubarri. After the death of Louis she lived, first, in a convent near Meaux, then at her château at Marly, but was at length guillotined, on the 5th of December, 1793, on account of her supporting the emigrants and of her connection with the Brissotists. When she was desired to lay her head on the block she called out piteously to the executioner: "Monsieur le bourreau, encore un moment !" easily have been reconciled. This lady only wished to escape from his sister-in-law, her protectors, and all the roues who made her their tool; she was in other respects a good creature, who disliked to be an instrument of evil, and who would have been enchanted with Choiseul's merry mood. The King would have done the utmost to effect a junction between his favorite and his minister. One of the last times that Louis ever wrote to Choiseul he said, “ Vous ne connoissez pas Madame Dubarri, toute la France serait à ses pieds si-" The King confessed in this passage that the voice of the minister alone was of more avail than all the power of the sovereign. Still it is astonishing that Chojseul did not either yield or resign of his own accord; he evidently did not imagine that he would be treated so harshly, deprived of his appointment as Colonel-General of the Swiss, or blackened so maliciously in the eyes of the King as to expose him to personal violence. On the occasion of a difference between the parliament and the court, some time previously, Choiseul had written notes without any date, containing advice, encouragement, and promises of support to the parliamentary opposition. These notes were shown to the King, referred to the existing president, and construed into an evidence of guilt. Choiseul was represented as detected in criminal correspondence with a subservient parliament against the crown. Notwithstanding all this, his life at Chanteloup was more brilliant than it had been in the days of his brightest fortune. Half the court left Versailles to go to Chanteloup, and the roads from his hotel to the Barrière d'Enfer were crowded with the Parisian populace, which received him with loud cheers, a circumstance that made such an impression on this minister, who had never been popular, that he exclaimed with tears in his eyes: "Voilà ce que je n'ai pas mérité.” With regard to the report that the Dauphin and the Dauphiness were poisoned by Choiseul, Gleichen maintains that it was without any foundation whatever, and that it was probably occasioned by a thoughtless expression of the Duke's during the last illness of the Dauphiness. The celebrated Tronchin had been called in, had quarrelled with the court-physicians, and had even written a note to the King, in which he said that the state of the Dauphiness presented such unusual symptoms, that he did not venture to trust them to paper, and that he deferred describing particulars till he could inform his majesty verbally respecting them. 66 When Choiseul related this, with a rather It has been said, that no man is a hero to excited countenance, in Gleichen's presence, his valet-de-chambre. We have now presenthe added: Que veut dire ce coquin de char-ed the character and habits of these two latan? Prétend-il insinuer que j'ai empoi- contemporary statesmen, without a veil; sonne Madame la Dauphine? Si ce n'était and though some defects may be detected in le respect que j'ai pour M. le Duc d'Orléans, them, as in all members of the great human je le ferais mourir sous le bâton." Gleichen family, we apprehend that they will be detects the first trace of that unfounded re- found as free from deformity as other pubport in this expression, which Choiseul would lic men of equal distinction, subject to similar scarcely have employed had he been guilty. disclosures. From the Quarterly Review. THE ABOLITION OF WIDOW-BURNING IN INDIA.* On the 30th of August, 1838, the princely city of Oodypore was the scene of a terrible solemnity. About mid-day a prolonged discharge of artillery from the fort announced the unexpected decease of Maharána Juwán Singh; and, as is usual in tropical climates, preparations for his obsequies immediately commenced. The palace-gate was thronged with the expectant populace. Something, however, in the excitement of their voices and gestures, boded the approach of a spectacle more thrilling than mere pomp could render even a royal funeral. It was not the dead alone whom the eager crowd were waiting to see pass from among them. Sculptured in startling abundance on the tombs of their rulers, the well-known effigies of women's feet gave ghastly assurance that a prince of Oodypore would not that day be gathered to his fathers without a wife or a concubine sharing his pyre. The only question washow many? It was known that the youngest of the two queens came of a family in which the rite was rarely practised; while the suddenness of the Maharána's death had given but scanty time for any of his inferior women to mature so tremendous a resolution. Great, therefore, was the admiration of the multitude when they learnt that immediately on the fatal tidings reaching the Zenána, both the queens and six out of seven concubines had determined to burn. The seventh, a favorite, had excused herself on the pleawhich, characteristically enough, was at once admitted-that "she felt none of the inspiration deemed necessary to the sanctity of the sacrifice." It next became the duty of the chief nobles to address the ladies with the forms of dissuasion. But to these they quickly put an end by an act that rendered retreat impossible: loosening their hair, and unveiling their faces, they went to the gate of the Zenána, and presented themselves before the assembled populace. All opposition to their wishes now ceased. They were regarded as sacred to the departed monarch. Devout ejaculations poured incessantly from their lips. Their movements became invested with a mysterious significance; and their words. were treasured up as prophetic. Meantime the pile had been prepared. The eight victims, dressed in their richest attire, and mounted on horseback, moved with the procession to the cemetery. There they stripped off their ornaments and jewels, distributed gifts to the bystanders, and lastly, mounting the pile, took their places beside the corpse. As the Maharana had left no son, his nephew, the present sovereign, applied the torch. The crash of music, the chanting of the priests, and the cries of the multitude arose simultaneously, and the tragedy was consummated. "The father of So extraordinary an exception to the inveterate tyranny of tradition would demand investigation, were it only as a psychological problem; but how much more is this the case when the wonder is known to be the work of a single British officer! We owe to the late lamented Chairman of the Court of Directors the means of presenting our readers with the first authentie account of this triumph of skill and energy. Strange to say, the movement originated in the very stronghold of the rite. Among the states who gloried in the readiness of their women to brave this supreme test of conjugal devotion, none exercise a wider in Perhaps at this point some of our readers may feel puzzled by the recollection that Lord William Bentinck is celebrated in numberless works as having put down all atrocities of this kind some twenty years ago. And true it is that he did so far as his authority extended; but within that limit, as Mr. Wilson's clear narrative shows, the operation was necessarily confined. In other words, out of about 77 millions of souls, this prohibition reached directly only the 37 mil-fluence over Hindoo opinion than the small lions who were British subjects; indirectly, perhaps about nineteen millions more, consisting of the subjects of native princes in whose internal management we had some voice; while there remained not less than 21 millions, the subjects of states which, though our allies, could be in no degree reached by the legislation of 1829. The kingdom of Oodypore, or Meywar, was of the last class. The only notice, therefore, that the Governor-General of 1838 (Lord Auckland) could take of the horrors above detailed was by way of private communication. The Resident at Oodypore was instructed to explain unofficially the horror with which the British Government had heard of the tragedy, and of the prominent part in it played by the new sovereign himself. The Resident's opinion was at the same time asked, as to the most suitable compliment to be paid to those nobles who had sought to dissuade the ladies from their resolution, and the answer was noteworthy. Lord Auckland was informed that the personages in question would simply feel "disgraced" by any tribute which should imply that their dissuasions had been meant for aught but decorous forms! Such was the veneration in which up to a date so recent the sacrifice of Suttee was held by a vast proportion of our allies, and such the acquiescence with which the British. Government perforce regarded its celebration. Within the last seven years, however, the rite has occasioned one of the most remarkable movements recorded in Eastern annals. Never before, within historical memory, had the Hindoos exhibited the phenomenon of religious change. During that brief period an agitation has sprung up which has led more than half the great independent states to repudiate a sacrifice regarded by their forefathers, not only as sacred, but as a standing miracle in attestation of their faith. knot of powers on the north-west frontier, who occupy the provinces known collectively as Rajpootána. The respect paid throughout India to the blood of the Rajpoots (literally the progeny of princes) is well known. Matrimonial alliances with their chiefs are eagerly sought by princes of thrice their territorial importance. A race of soldiers and hunters, their figures and faces are eminently handsome and martial; their voices loud; and when they laugh, it is with a hearty burst like Europeans-in broad contrast to the stealthy chuckle of the Bengálee, or the silent smile of the reserved Mussulman. Unlike those, too, they scorn the pursuits of the desk; and even agriculture has only become common among them since the tranquillization of the frontier has diminished their opportunities of obtaining military service among their feudal lords. Whatever a Hindoo knows of chivalry or nationality, he deems to be exemplified in this model race. Since, therefore, Rajpoots were renowned for the frequency of their suttees, the great independent states thought it beneath their orthodoxy to return any other answer to the remonstrances of the British Government against the rite, than that "it would be time enough for them to prohibit it, when Rajpootana led the way.' This they doubtless thought was to postpone a change indefinitely. Many, in truth, and pitiful were the instances which seemed to forbid the hope that Rajpoots would ever consent to take the lead in such a course. One of these has already been given. A second-the last with which we shall pain our readers-must be added, because it illustrates the chief difficulty with which the friends of abolition had to contend. It was the belief of those officers who had acquired the longest experience in Rajpoot affairs, that every attempt on the part of the British Government to remonstrate against Suttee had been followed by an increase in the number of the sacrifices. This opinion -which, whether right or wrong, naturally carried weight with the Government, and had caused the discouragement of any active interference in the matter-was supposed to receive a further corroboration in the occurrence we are about to narrate. The chief declined to use his authority. Early in 1840 the Political Agent, or chargé d'affaires, at the Rajpoot court of Kotah had ventured on his own responsibility to break through the cautious reserve thus prescribed, by apprising the chief of that state, that the British Government would be greatly gratified to hear that his Highness" It has been usual"-naïvely wrote the had abolished Suttee throughout his dominions. My friend," replied the prince, "the customs alluded to have been handed down from the first fathers of mankind. They have obtained in every nation of India, and more especially in Rajpootána; for whenever a sovereign of these states has bidden farewell to life, the queens, through the yearnings of the inward spirit, have become Suttees, notwithstanding that the relatives. were averse to the sacrifice, and would have prevented it altogether. It is not in the power of a mortal to nullify a divine, though mysterious, ordinance." With true Oriental complaisance, however, his Highness proceeded to promise his best efforts to undertake the impossibility. "Since," he concludes, "it will afford the English Government peculiar pleasure, I shall take such measures as lie in my power to prohibit the practice." It appears that nobody except the officer to whom it was addressed attached any value to this plausible assurance. The veteran diplomatist who at that time superintended our relations with the Rajpoot states was even led to augur from it some fresh outbreak of religious zeal in favor of the rite. About 3 P. M. on the 29th October, 1840, a Brahmin, by name Luchmun, died at Kotah, and his widow declared her intention of burning with the corpse. The permission of the reigning prince had in the first instance to be obtained. Now, therefore, was the time for testing the value of the pledge which he had given to the chargé d'affaires. His Highness absolutely "The term Suttee, or Sati, is strictly applicable to the person, not the rite; meaning a pure and virtuous woman; and designates the wife who completes a life of uninterrupted conjugal happiness by the act of Saha-gamana, accompanying her husband's corpse. It has come in common usage to denote the act."-Wilson, iii. 265. p. Kotah minister in his exculpatory account of |