MILITARY INFLUENCE.

France under Richelieu-Under Bonaparte-Now-Military spirit of each epoch-The camp has entered into the city-The duel of the Duc de Beaufort and of the Editor of the National'-The union between the sword and the tribune impossible in England, may be possible in France-The people who mourned Foy, Lamarque, Lafayette, mourned a type of themselves.

ON a height which overlooked the plains of Roussillon,* and which commanded the dark ramparts of the city he was besieging-a cuirass on his breast-his bald head, the scene and centre of so many plans, great and terrible, covered with the red cap of the church-stood the Cardinal-profound minister, astute favourite, great captain. All eyes were fixed on him, and he could be seen everywhere; and near him were the generals and the grand seigneurs of the monarchy, grand seigneurs whom he had made courtiers, and around him the chivalry and nobility of France. Never did a more loyal troop follow their sovereign,

* See the eloquent romance of Cinq-Mars.

than that which galloped after King Louis, when, the eye bright, and the hand firm, he forgot the reveries of Chambord on the plains of Perpignan. Many and brave cavaliers were there. When was the oriflamme unfurled in olden times, and that a brilliant army was not ready to follow the white pennon? Yet, the army of France under Richelieu was not France. The priest who humbled the aristocracy had not ventured to open its honours to the nation.

Twenty-one years ago, in that palace which has since known more than one master, you might have seen a man, at once a prey to his ambitious follies and his reasonable fears-with the brow bent and the lip curled-now pacing his chamber for hours-now stretched for a day together, in still and mute concentration of thought, over immense maps, to which his conquests had given a new surface-nervous, restless, agitated, as he said, by a destiny not yet accomplished—you might have seen that mysterious man, whose sword had already decided the fate of empires, meditating, almost in spite of himself, the scheme of a new conquest of a conquest cast in the gigantic mould of his own genius, and which was to submit the oldest dynasties of Europe to the

sway of an empire hardly yet seen rising from its foundations. Lo! he wakes from his stupor. • Vive la France! vive la grande armée !" sounds. in his ear. And hark to the tramp of soldiers, and the beating of drums! and already along the road to Germany, behold the triumphal arches-which should have been reserved for his return! And now may you see those stern and martial men, accustomed to the reception of conquerors-the head high, the step firm, the eye determined, the lip compressed. Now may you see those men -men of executionmen who only live in the hazards of adventurous action, brandishing their arms with a ferocious gaiety, and waiting in fixed devotion the commands of a chief, whose star has never yet paled on the field of battle.

Such was the army of France under Napoléon; but the army of France under Napoléon was not the nation of France. Bonaparte reigned in an immense camp, which was guarded from the approach of the people.

"La France n'est qu'un soldat," said M. de Chateaubriand, in the first of those eloquent pamphlets, which showed that his genius was not on the decline. Yes, the army of France is now the nation of France; but the nation of France is more than an army. France is

not only a soldier France is more than a soldier. But do not expect that you can at once sweep away the effects of centuries! Do not expect that you can make a nation of warriors, by the scratch of a pen, a nation of legislators-rather expect that you will give to legislation the manners of war; that, instead of transporting the city into the camp, you will transport the camp into the city.* The ideas of the one will blend themselves with the institutions of the other. The

* There is a little book published in France, called 'Almanach du Peuple,' and intended to make the government popular with the people, and a parallel in two columns is drawn between the Government of the Restoration and the Government of July. Here I find—

feelings which Francis carried to Pavia, and which made Bonaparte refuse the peace of Chatillon-the feelings which the grand seigneur carried to Fontenoy, and the Republican soldier to Marengo-these feelings you may expect to find in the cabinet of the poet, the deputy, and the journalist of the present day. The poet will fight for his verses, the grave constitutional senator for his opinions; and the time was when we might have seen B. Constant himself—his long white hair flowing loosely over his benevolent countenance, seated calmly on a chair-a crutch in one hand, a pistol in the other, and—an enemy at twelve paces.

Do not laugh at this, reader, because it would be ridiculous in England.

not England, and never can be.

France is

Besides,

the threads and cords of society are so mixed and intermingled, that it is almost impossible to trace the mysterious force which each exercises over the play of the other; and perchance it is this very military spirit, which now

Notre armée était réduite

à 250,000 hommes.

L'armée est aujourd'hui portée à 400,000 hommes !!!

I should like to see the government in England, that by way of making itself popular, boasted that it had doubled the army.