The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-28 00:00:00

EUROPE IN THE 18Th CLeNTURY.

As one views Europe through contemporary
books of travel in the early part of the last century
the landscape is awful,—wretched wastes, beggarly
and plundered; half-burnt cottages and trembling
peasants gathering piteous harvests ; gangs of such
tramping along with bayonets behind them, and
corporals with canes and cats-of-nine-tails to flog
them to barracks. By these passes my lord's gilt
carriage floundering through the ruts, as he swears
at the postillions, and toils on to the Residenz.
Hard by, but away from the noise and brawling of
the citizens and buyers, is Wilhemslust or Lud-
wigsruhe, or Monbijou, or Versailles—it scarcely
matters which,—rear to the city, shut out by woods
from the beggared country, the enormous, hideous,
gilded, monstrous marble Palace, where the Prince
is, and the Court, and the trim gardens, and huge
fountains, and thel forest where the ragged pea-
sants are beating the game in (it is deatl to them
to touch a feather) ; and the jolly hunt sweeps by
with its uniform of crimson and gold ; and the
Prince gallops ahead puffing 11'.. Royal horn ; and
his lords and mistresses ride after him ; and the
stag is pulled down ; and the grand huntsman gives
the knife in the midst of a chorus of bugles ; and
'tis time the Court go home to dinner; and our
noble traveller, it may be the Baron of Pollnitz, or
the Count de £onigsmarck, or the excellent Che-
valier de Seingalt, sees the procession gleaming
through the trim avenues of the wood, and hastens
to the inn, and sends his noble name to the
marshal of the Court. Then our nobleman arrays
himself in green and gold or pink and silver, in
the richest Paris mode, and is introduced by the
chamberlain, and makes his bow to the jolly-
Prince, and the gracious Princess ; and is pre-
sented to the chief lords and ladies, and then
comes supper and a bank at Faro, where he
loses or wins a thousand pieces by daylight. If it
is a German Court, you may add not a little drun-
kenness to this picture of high life; but German,
or French, or Spanish, if you can see out of your
Palace windows beyond the trim-cut forest vistas,
misery is lying outside : hunger is stalking about
the bare villages, listlessly following precarious
husbandry; ploughing stony fields with starved
cattle, or fearfully taking in scanty harvests. Au•
glistus is fat and jolly on his throne ; he can knock
down an ox, and eat one almost; his mistress,
Aurora von Konigsmark, is the loveliest, the wittiest
creature ; his diamonds are the biggest and most
brilliant in the world, and his feasts as splendid as
those of Versailles. As for Louis the Great, he is
more than mortal. Lift up your glances respect-
fully, and mark him eyeing Madame de Fontanges
or Madame de Montespan from under his sublime
perriwig, as he passes through the great gallery
where Viilars and Vendome, and Berwick, and
Bossuet, and Massillon are waiting. Can Court be
more splendid ; nobles and knight more gallant and
superb ; ladies more lovely ? A grander monarch,
or a more miserable starved wretch than the pea-
sant his subject, you cannot look on. Let us bear
both these types in mind, if we wish to estimate
the old society properly. Remember the glory
end the chivalry ? Yes ! Remember the grace
and beauty, the splendour and lofty politeness;
the gallant courtesy of Fontenoy, where the French
line bids the gentlemen of the English Guard to
fire first ; the noble constancy of the old King and
Villars, his General, who fits out the last army
with the last crownpiece from the Treasury, and
goes to meet the enemy and die or conquer for
France at Denain. But round all that Royal
splendour lies a nation enslaved and ruined ; there
are people robbed of their rights, communities
laid waste, faith, justice, commerce trampled
upon and well-nigh destroyed,—nay, in the
very centre of Royalty itself, what horrible
stains and meanness, crime and shame ! It
is but to a silly harlot that some of the
noblest gentlemen and some of the proudest women
in the world are bowing down ; it is the price of a
miserable province that the King ties in diamonds
round his mistress's white neck. In the first half
of the last century, I say, this is going on all Eu-
rope over. Saxony is a waste as well as Picardy
or Artois; and Versailles is only larger and not
Magazine,
worse than Herrenhausen.—Cornhill

THE SUNDAY BANDS.—On Sunday the band per-
formed in the Regent's-park for the first time this season,
at the same spot where it was located the previous year,
and, as on the former occasion, upon a raised platform. The
greatest order was maintained, and the only officers on
duty to preserve regularity were the park-keepers.