Gazette and sentinel., 1860-04-14

Inc ucNll take MONSIEUR fOlldlTe .
1t is Confucius among the Chinese,
and Jean Jacques Rousseau, or Vol
taire among the French-Voltaire, l
thlnk-who were enemies to all lovers,
and who, like the stern parents of We
roma, had tlinty hearts, which no tears
could move. Confucius established
caste ir China, and Voltaire framed lie
Social Contract" of the French The
latter law-to speak briefly-proviGes
regulations i'll regard to marriage among
the French nobility, and is worthy Of
note as being one of the first of those
laws, which, dividing the nobility from
the people, render the latter, more than
ever, their slaves, and eventually
brought about the terrible revolutiono Of
the reign of Sixteenth Louis.
This law prohibited the performance
of the marriage ceremony between no
bles of either sex and persons who were
subject to the consumption. The penal
ty was the forfeiture of the estates and
titles belonging TO the parties thus
| guilty Of meSaLiaRcc, and they were sep
arated and exiled from the country
Thus. if a young nObleman should nat
urally obey the instinct which taught
him to love a pretty woman, and hat
pretty woman should happen to provea
grisette, he is forbidden to marry on
the penalty above explained. Or if q
charming young countess or handsome
duchess dowager should choose to ad-
mire a man who had the misfortune to
be born with talents instead of titles,
she was forbidden to wed him on pain of
loosing her estates, and being requested
to settle in that beautiful district Of
Cayenne, in whose pestiferous swamps
Death in a hundred shapes is working
to seize the unacclimated. Common
sense, then, as well as human nature,
exclaims, with the Viscount Lallemand
The devil take Monsieur Voltaire T.
Why NJ. Lallemand, viscount and fills,
used this language to NJ. Lallemand,
count and perc, | will inform you.
NJ. lie Count de Lallemand was loyal
to the laws of his country, and particu-
larly so to that of Voltaire's framing.
He would have been the last mani in the
world, even if unintrusted and uncom-
manded by the law, to permit his only
son, Ernest, to make that most ridica-
lous mistake-a m~esaHiance.
He determined to choose a wife for
his son himself, and meeting with his
old friend, the Marquis of Rocheambeau,
who had lately had to him born q
daughter, who was, of course, the most
beautiful child that had eve been born
into this wicked world, he, the count,
entered into the following agreement
with the Marquis, namely, thaton the ar
rival of the young count and miniature
marchioness at the respective ages Of
twenty and seventeen, they should be
welded in the holy bonds of matrimony.
But deeming that there might prove
some fatal truth in the old adage which
had come across the Channel from En-
gland, that Familiarity breeds con-
tempt" they determined to separate the
infants until the time when they were
to be welded.
In pursuance of this plan, when she
had arrived at a suitable age, Mademoi-
selle de Rocheambeau was placed in tho
durance of a teacher and governess, and
in the busy solitude of Paris, where
no one is recognizable, she grew up
with some fifty other young ladies, there
being fitted out for their voyage on the
River of Life. But as private schools
in Paris land elsewhere, too) are not
what patrons generally suppose, we will
not be answcrable for what Mademoi-
selle R~ocheambeau there learned.
The Viscount dc Lallemand was al
lowed to choose his own course, but as
a young, rich, and handsome man in
Paris, in the days Of Louis XIV. and the
woman Pompadour, had but one road to
go, young Lallemand took it on compul-
sion. 1t led to cGfe, wine shops, mas
querados, Madame P~ompadour's private
rehcarsels, RousSeau's retreat, Camar-
COS suppers-and in short, in the foot
steps of the Duke dc Richelieu, whose
course, in truth, no one knew, but which
every husband suspected. But what is
more important TO us, it led him, during
the carnival, TO the grand mask-balls at
the Theatre Francois. To be sure, in
that there existed no harm. Had not
Louis XIV. been seen there with his own
butler, and did not Madame ~Pompadour
dance there with her own confessor p
But though the excitement Of the carni-
val had carried the viscount to the
grand mask, the same cause did not con-
tinue his sole reason for returning there
on future occasions. Of course this
new motive power was a,woman. In
this case, Of course, she.vaS a beautiful
woman. Lallemand.: as "a coSorteur,
ro, bor ,e n Aouer orJ THE Saer,ls cf