The Sun.
London, England, 1839-12-03 00:00:00

(From Timon's Etudes sur les Orateurs.)
M. Mauguin is one of the three wits of the
Chamber ' • the two others are MM. Thiers and
Dupla. M. Dupin dazzles with the prismatic co-
lours which sparkle as it were from cut diamonds,
M. Thiers with his smart points, and M. IVlauguin
with the sudden brilliancy of his repartees.
M. Mauguin has an open figure, fine intelligent
eyes, a firm and neat organ, and a somewhat em-
phatical declamation. He gossips as well as he
speaks, and loves to tilt with the first comer. He
makes the centre of the Deputies who buz about the
Hall of Conferences, and has an eye to success in
the passages as well as to success in the Tribune.
His person is agreeable, and his _ manners are
gay and prepossessing. He captivates ; he se-
duces ;he is amiable. I love M. Mauguin. I love
him enough to tell him aloud what,l think of him,
both good and evil ; and, indeed, less evil than good.
At the beginning of the revolution of July,
Europe did not decidedly share the frank admira-
tion of M. Talleyrand for the Napoleon of
Peace. The chateau was wavering between the
alliance with kings and the alliance with the
people. M. Mauguin did not hesitate. He
was at once seized with the same warlike fever
as General Lamarque, and it was a fine sight to
see them both, like the late M. de Malbrouck, going
off to war. Behold them started 1 They lead after
them and display the battalions of the grand army.
At their order, Toulon vomits forth her fleets to
blockade Ancona and stir up the Adriatic, while
an expedition of our best troops, proceeding along
the coast of Algiers, is to renew Bonaparte's marvels
in the regions of the Nile. The Rhine is passed,
Belgium is in insurrection, Vienna capitulates,
Cracow throws open her gates, and, enlarged by
the phalanxes of Courland and Bessarabia, the
victorious propaganda opens a wide road, even to
the Tanais. Even when he had arrived there, M.
Mauguin rested not, and as I am not so good a geo-
grapher nor so export a proficient in the military art
as he, I cannot enumerate, and am afraid to mangle,
the names of the Prussian, Russian, Moldavian,
and Wallachian provinces, the conquest of which
he achieved. I verily believe that, if he had been
allowed, he would have led us, by the beat of the
drum, across country to the Indies themselves. On
their way, he and Lamarque organized revolutions
and the downfall of empires. They founded States,
made treaties of trade and alliance. They bore the
tricoloured flag along in their triumphs. They in-
vited to liberty the Calmucks, the Kirghesis, and
the Kurds, and I am not sure that they did not make
a lot of little charters for all these brave barbarians,
who were to be delighted at being conquered.
The Ladies, frequenters of the Tribune, who
are always, as is well known, sensible to glory,
cried out, " Bravo, Lamarque ! bravo Mauguin I"
and dexterously allowed verses, laurels, and flowers,
to slip out of their perfumed handkerchiefs. I my-
self, who am not easily dazzled, was surprised, and
wondered greatly, that in so short a time, and with
such feeble means, such prodigious and rapid con-
quests could be made. In truth, I was not without
my fears for Russia, Prussia, and Austria, and I ex-
pected every morning to read in the official part of
the Moniteur that MM. Lamarque and Mauguin
had designed to admit to their little levee the Depu-
ties of the nations which had been freed by the suc-
cess of their arms, and had said, according to the
custom of conquerors, " We always receive with
new pleasure the expression of your devotion ;"
when all of a sudden the cholera came and inter-
-1 rupted the course of these triumphant orations, and
1 ingloriously took off one of our Alexanders, who,
if fortune had been just, would have died at the tri-
bune, in the explosion of his victory.
By losing General Lamarque, M. Mauguin lost
his post of chief officer of the staff, and it is but
just that I record to his praise that he was modest
and disinterested enough not to ask for his half-pay,
in spite of his brilliant achievements.
Save that he might continue his geographical
expeditions, M. Mauguin passed from the war to
the service of the colonies, and he who seven years
ago wished to emancipate the Moldavians now
will not emancipate the Negroes, who are just as
good as the Moldavians.
M. Mauguin also claims to be a very skilful di-
plomatist, indeed the cleverest of them all. Do
not fancy that on this head you can teach him any-
, thing which he does not know already. He has Gro.
Itius and Fuffendorff by heart, has grown pale on the
j manuscript archives of Versailles, and is familiar
1 with patent treaties and addl'ional clauses. No
I march or countermarch of the army is concealed
ifrom him ; he foresees the destination of fleets, and
I will tell you to what paint of the globe they will
Iveer, even before the Admiral is at sea, er has un-
I sealed his despatches. Toe tel,:!raoli in vain mul-
ltiplies and crosses its long arins in a hundred
fashions, for it will not deceive him. You may take
it for granted that he has his communication from
(a good source. He has his spies ranged along the
frontiers, his journals, his private correspondence,
his intelligences, his letters in cipher, and, I was
' going to add, his ambassadors. He only wants
1
secret funds to be complete Minister of Foreign
Affairs. It is to this post he aspires. Do not
talk to him, a jurist,:about his being keeper of the
seals—that is no place for him I
1 I have already said that the maggot of advocates
and kings now-a-days is to conduct foreign affairs.
All of them, advocates and kings, kings and advo-
cates, pretend to have a perfect knowledge of what
others are about. We, poor devils, would rather
they would trouble themselves a little about what is
11 going on among ourselves.
l May not the fact be, that in the very nature of
us French, there is a slight dash of aristocracy,
which always peeps out somewhere ? Our un-
hooded advocates are not a little proud of treating
with crowned heads as equals. They bravely imagine
that Europe is looking at them, that Europe has the
most distinguished consideration for them, that they
either terrify Europe or give her the greatest plea-
sure, and that there is something infinitely more
noble and elevated—ay, beyond comparison—in
touching the hand of a Bohemian Ambassador than
than that of a Judge of Meaux or Melon.
Besides the mania for conquest, diplomacy, and
slavery, M. Mauguin has another. He wishes
to pars—pardon the neologism—for a " Govern-
mental" man. He believes, with the best faith in
the world, that the generality of his colleagues of
the Opposition understand nothing, or next to no-
thing, of State affairs ; that they do not cherish
nor respect sufficiently centralization ; that they
deal too much in little controversies ; that they
dive too much into details, and cannot, like him,
organize a plan of Administration, and carry out
vast designs. He has a weakness in favour of
power, and is more touched by the necessities of
the order than by those of liberty.
Our little demon, M. Thiers, kept up M. Mau-
guin in these notions, and, like the serpent-tempter,
approached him rampant, entwined around him,
and, gliding up to his ear, said these words :
" How can you, M. Mauguin, live with the sort of
People that we are fighting with—people of narrow
and obstinate brains ? Do you not see that you
are the only one amongst them who understands
what government is, and that when you are seated
in our place, on this bench of grief and anguish,
you will do as we do, e, M. Mauguin ? Assist us,
then, since, in working for us, who are only making
your paths, you will work for yourself."
Too readily did M. Mauguin yield to the in-
sinuation of these praises, and he did not perceive
that to gain the graces of M. Thiers and his fel-
lows he alienated the friendship of the Opposition.
I, for my own part, believe that M. Mauguin has
more vanity than ambition. Being member of a
Provisory Government, that made Ministers, he
been
might have made himself a Minister, but he
would not. He hadproscribed by
' Charles X. when victorious, and showed at the
Hotel de Greve that he was capable of civil
courage. His political life has been entirely Par-
liamentary ; it is pure, and cannot reproachs
littleitself
with a single bad action. Whether he loves
equality from disinterestedness or pride is
matter; he does love it. If he defends centraliza-
tion, we only blame him up to a certain point. All
statesmen perceive the necessity of a strong power
in a country where imagination is the ruling faculty,
and transports the minds of all with oblivious
facility from one system to another. M. Mauguin
loves, to a patriotic excess, the independence of
our nation, preferring it to liberty itself. He thinks
the nation requires to be occupied, to be dazzled by
the sight of great things, and to feel itself governed.
For no sort of dynasty has he any sort of personal
tenderness or prejudice. Even at the bottom of
his monarchical concessions there are revolutionary
,Lstincts, and I believe that he would accommodate