The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-15 00:00:00

15, 1558.

LITERATURE.

Memoirs to Illustrate the history of illy Time. By
F. Gulz)t. Vo:ume 1. Bentley.

The memoirs of one who has filled a conspicuous
position, both in the warfare of political parties
and in the republic of letters, must always com-
mand the attention of the thoughtful and studious
reader. If such a record is remarkable when it is
written by another, at some subsequent epoch, it is
doubly interesting when the politician and litttpa-
teur is himself the biographer ; when at the tics©
of a long eventful life he looks back from the still-
ness and retirement of age and exile, on the tur-
moils and manoeuvres of courts and cabinets, on
the agitation produced by those great political
questions which seemed then as thomeh they would
influence the fate of nations, hut which are now
scarcely remembered save by the historian or the
biographer. The early yeats of M. Guizet's career
were full of startling events and eocial disturbances.
They form a fitting subject for consideration and
recollection, and the politicians of a less stormy
time, and happier social circumst inces, may find
much to suggest and to teach in the strugeles of a
great people for that freedom of consti utiunal
government which, like childhood's glittering
. .
bubbles, seems always to vanish in their grasp.
Whatever may be the rank among statesmen
accorded to M. Guizot, there is no qu stion that he
filled an eminent post for a long series of years ;
that be mingled in the busy strife of European
politics for the greatest portion of a loeg life. He
saw the rise and fall of successive dynasties ;
he watched the signs that indicated the fall of the
great conqueror ; he shared in the premature
triumph of the Restoration ; he wiieessed the
sudden revulsion of popular feeling that welcomed
the hero of the Hundred Days ; he anticipated the
sudden extinci ieu of the perial power ; j. peed
with hear amt wail the governwent oft-•e sliecee.i-
ing dynasty ; he mingled in the disetissi•ms and
dissensions that :4,gitat,i the Chamber ef Deputies;
under a change of•G.-veriarni-nt he took a vieorees
tart in the Oppo;iti,n, and he was one of tie cflicial
depetation welch pres?ritei to Coarlts th, Tent.li
"Andress of the Two Handed and Twerey.
one." At this epocli he closes this first ' tcYltrine
of his memoirs, lealeng for the opening of the
second, the fall of C:iarles the Tenth, and the acces-
sion of Louis Philippe. All these events, tt ese
discussions--chronicled by one who mingled in
them, and who, cona.quenily, it prejudiced by
party feeling, is impressed with their viti:ity, and
imbued with their prevailing spirit—are full of in-
terest, and not without historic importance to the
reader of the present day. The work is rightly
named—it is more an illustration of the history of
the time than a history itself. It presupposes a
knowledge of the plot of the drains, and an ac-
quaintance with the parts played by the great
actors, but it takes us behind the curtain and shows
us the pet'y details, the animating feelings, the
rivalries and animosities which are not allowed to
display themselves on the public stage. M.
Guizot himself will be more prominent in
the subsequent portion, whets his career is better
known to the Euglish public. On the accession of
Louis Philippe he assumed the office of Minister of
the Interior, which he held fora very brief period.
Subsequently, under Marshal Soult, he was Minister
of Public Instruction, and at a later period he filled
the London Embassy. His name is more familiar
among us, though less favourably known, in his
more responsible position when holding the port-
folio of Foreign Affairs, All these busy years
and important offices will give ample opportunity
to M. Guizot to display his literary abilities. Ho
may point the moral with the revolution of
February and the record of his own and his master's
downfall. But whatever the vicissitudes of his
career, or the want of elevation in his principles,
he has filled a remarkable place in the political
arena. He has combined the arduous duties of an
author and a statesman; he has attained iu both
spheres of distinction an eminent rank. As such
he is entitled to the attentioa of a succeeding gene-
ration, and his work assumes an important place
among the biographiei of the thy. As a literary
work it is full of interest and talent, and shows
the practised ability of one whose pen has tor so
many years been the exponent and defender of
his opinions. The following passage contains much
truth :

"But in thoso social shocks there are deeper ques-
tions involved than the actors are aware of. The
Hundred IY,ys inflicted on France a much heavier evil
than the waste of blood and treasure it had cost her ;
tPiey lit up again the old quarrel which the Empire had
st:fled and the Charter was intended to extinguish,
the quarrel between old and new France, between the
emigrants and the revolutionists. It was not alone
between two political pa-ties, but betw -en two rival
classes, that the strugg4, recommenced in 1815, as it
originally .xplotled in 1789 -
"An unfavonrable position for founding a Govern-
ment, and, above all, a free Government. A certain
degree of txeitement and emulation iuvariably exists
between the people and the political parties, which
constitutes the very life of the social body, and en-
courages its energetic and wholesome development. But
if this agitation is not confined to questions of leviels•
tion and the conduct of public aflairrn—ef it attacks
socitty in its very ba•is,—if instead of emulation be-
tween parties, there arises hostility amongst classes, the
movement ceases to be healthy, and changes to a de-
stroying malady, which leads on to the most !amenable
disorders, and may end in the dissolution of the Stste.
The undue ascendancy of one class over another, whether
of the aristocracy or the people, becomes tyranny. The
biter and continued struggle of either to obtain the
upper hand, is in fact revolution, imminently impending,
or absolutely declared. The world has witnessed, in
two great examples, the diametrically opposite results
to which this formidable fact may lead. The contest
between the Patricians and Plebeians held Rome
for ages between the cruel alternations of despotism
and anarchy, which had no variety but war. As long as
either party retained public virtue, the repuilic found
grandeur, if not social peace, iu their quarrel; but w ken
Patricians and Plebeians became corrupted by dissen-
sion, without agreeing on any fixes principle of liberty,
Rome could only escape from ruin by falling under the
despotism and lingering decline of the Empire. England
presents to modern Europe a different spectacle. In Eng-
land, also, the opposing parties of nobles and democrats
long contended for the supremacy ; but, by a happy
combination of fortune and wisdom, they came to a
mutual compromise, and united in the common exercise
of power : and England has found, in this amicable
understanding between the different classes, in this com-
munion of their righ-s and Mutual influence, internal
peace with greatness, and stability with freedom."

The following extract gives a portrait of tl:e author
of " Las Martyrs" :

" TAnne: ed oti ti.a w,rld ainio:l from infancy, M. de
Ctialeaubriand had traversed the whole range of ideas,
attempted every career, aqiied to every renown, ex-
hausted some, and approached others ; nothing sall,fied
him. My capital deice',' said he himself, has been
ennui, disgust with everything, perpetual doubt.' A
sti cogs temperament in a man devoted to the restoration
of religion and monarchy I Thus the life of M. de Cha-
teaubriand had been a constant and a perpetual combat
between his enterprises and his inclinations, his situa-
tion and his nature. He was ambitious, as the leader of
a party, and independent, as a volunteer of the forlorn
hope ; captivated by everything great, and sensitive oven
to suffering in the most trifling matters, careless beyond
measure of the common interests of life, but passionately
absorbed, nn the stage of the world, in his own person
and reputation, and more annoyed by the slightest check
than gratified by the most brilliant triumph ; in public
life, wore jealous of succees than power, capable in a
particular emergency, ache bad just proved, of conceiv-
ing and carrying out a great design-, but unable to pur-
sue in government, with energy and patienc,, a well-
cemented and strongly.organised Hoe of policy. He
possessed a sympathetic understanding of the moral Ma-
presiders of his age and coun,ry; more able, however,
and more inclined, to win their fevour by compliance
than, to direct them toinsportar t and lasting advantages ;
a noble and expanded mind, which, whetter in literature
or politics, touched all the exalted chords of the human
soul, but were ealenla,ed to strike timid charm the imagi-
nation than to g,)vern men ; greedy, to an ex,-,,ass, of
praise,
• • and fame, to satisfy his pride, and of emotion and
novelty a, reiources from constitutional weariness."
There are few iu this country who.will Le prepared
to dispute the truth of the following remarks on
the punishment of political offeucei

. - •
/ have lived in au age of political plots and out-
rages, directed alternately against the authorities
to
whom I was in opposition and tho.e 1 supported with
ardour. I have seen coespiracies occasionally un-
punished, and at other times visited by the utmost
rigour of the law. I feel thoroughly convinced that in
the existing state of feelings, minds, and mannere, the
punishment of death in such cases is an injurious weapon
welch heavily wounds the power that uses it f safety.
It is not that this penalty is without denunciatory and
preventive efficacy ; it terrifies and holds back from con-
spirecies many who would otherwise be tempt, d to en-
gage in them. But by the ride of this salutary conse-
quence, it engenders others which are most injerious.
Drawing no line of distinction between the motives and
dispositicus which have incited men to the acts it
pueishes, it stifles in the same manner the reprobate
and the dreamer, the criminal and the enthusiast, the
wildly ambitious and the ,'evce.edly fanatical. By this
gross indifference it offends more than it sari-fits
moral feeling, irritate more than it restrains,
moves indifferent specta!ors to pity, and appears
to those who are interested an act of war falsely invested
with the forms cf a decree of justice. The intimidation
which it couveys at first, eiminishes from day to day;
while the hatred and thirst of vengeance it inspires be.
come hourly more intense and expansive; and at last.
the time arrives when the power which fancies itself
saved is expcsed to the iitacks of enemies infinitely
more nunierouo and formidable tlian these who have
been previously disposed of.
"A day will also ootne, I confidently feel, when, for
offences exclusively political, the penalties of banishment
and transportation, carefully graduated arid applied, will
be substituted in justice as well as in fact for the puniAt.
relent of death. Meanwhile I reckon, amongst the most
agreeable reminiscences of my life, the fact of my
Lato ving
strenuously directed true justice and good policy
subject, at a moment when both were -seriously cont.