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small troop, with which he maintained a desultory, but ceaseless warfare against the Blues; he was at first successful, and success increased his numbers. On returning from a skirmish, which had terminated to his advantage, two republican grenadiers fell in his way his party were for shooting them instantly, but he refused permission, and advancing to parley, ordered them to surrender on promise of quarter. One of the men turning round fired at him, and he fell dead in an instant the life of the marksman answered for the act, and both the victim and the murderer were buried in haste on the spot on which they fell, to avoid the notice of a column which was advancing against the party. Thus fell, at the age of twenty-one, Henri de la Rochejaquelein; even at this day (says the Marchioness) when the peasants recall the ardour and brilliancy of his courage, his modesty, his affability, and that union in his character, of the intrepid warrior, and simple amiable man, (de bon enfant); they speak of him with pride and with love. There is not a Vendean, whose eye does not lighten up, and countenance become animated, when he tells you how he served under M. Henri*. We have no power to pronounce upon him a more appropriate or a nobler epitaph.

The adventures of Madame Lescure might well demand a longer recital than we shall be able to give of them, for our limits oblige us to dispatch them also in a very few words. It was just before the fatal and concluding battle of Savenay, that she had lain down to rest in her clothes, when she was suddenly summoned, and placed she knew not why on her horse. Marigny was by her, and mindful to the last of the friendship which he had vowed to her husband, he led Ifer horse silently to a place where no one would hear him, and softly said to her, " It is

The war was continued in an irregular manner for some time after Rochejaquelein's death, but the events of it do not possess much interest. Stoffet took the command of Rochejaquelein's party; he was a man of a narrow and a jealous mind, and he had so little decency as not to conceal his satisfaction at the death of that most beloved and most gallant leader. Charette headed a second, and Marigny a third party: the brilliant successes of the latter excited the jealousy of the two former so powerfully, that for some alleged misconduct, they tried him in his absence by a court-martial; and when he put himself in their power, in full confidence that they would never venture to execute the sentence, they shot him. Nothing can efface this blot from their memory; his troops refused to serve under either of them; and without leader or plan, they contented themselves with lurking in the woods, and shooting at the republican patroles who were sent to hunt them

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over with us, we are lost; we cannot resist the attack of to-morrow, and in twelve hours the army will be exterminated. I hope to die defending your standard, (a standard which in hopeful days she had embroidered for the army) fly, and save yourself to-night-farewell, farewell." He left her rapidly, as if he did not dare to trust himself with her answer; and she heard him soon in another tone of voice attempting to cheer the soldiers. She repaired to her mother, and found her with her father and the Abbé Tagault. Donnissan rested his head on his hands, and for some time could not speak; at length he made them consent to fly, and solemnly committed them to the care of Tagault. "For me," said he, "my duty is to remain with the army as long as it exists." They disguised themselves as country-women of Brittany, and silently embraced him for the last time. The only words he uttered, and the last which his daughter ever heard him speak, were addressed to her-" Never quit thy unhappy mother."

The parting injunction was faithfully obeyed; but obedience to it depended more on the mother than the daughter, for the Marchioness Donnissan was a woman of greater strength of body, and more presence of mind, than her daughter; and during all the incredible hardships, the imminent dangers, and the narrow escapes, which they ran in various concealments, and under different disguises, for more than a year, it was the mother who on every occasion acted and thought for the daughter, who devised and executed all their plans, who cherished, sustained, and nursed her, when disease and misery had made her as helpless and weak as an infant. During this time they were wholly in the power, and dependent on the generosity of poor peasants; to conceal them was a capital crime, the cottages were exposed to continual searches, and many had suffered and were suffering daily for the same offence; yet the fidelity of the Bretons was above all temptation, and their hospitality never tired. Sometimes in one dress, and sometimes in another, now as servants in the farm-house; at another time employed to keep sheep, they were handed from one house to another, and from one village to another, as a sacred deposit; they never met with repulse or treachery. One anecdote alone will give our readers some idea of what their sufferings sometimes were; and it should always be remembered from what a nursery and in what habits they had been educated. It was in the middle of April, that news arrived that a search was about to be made by the Blues at Bois Divet, where they then lay concealed. Their host conducted them to his father-in-law in the neighbouring parish of Prinquiaux. Victorine was then very near her time, and could scarcely walk. On their arrival, they learned that a search was there to be made Rr also

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also the same night, and they were advised to go to the house of a peasant at a league's distance. Victorine could not accomplish this, and it was determined to remain for the night in one of the adjoining fields. They lay down in a furrow in a field of corn, and though it rained they slept. About one in the morning, the Marchioness Donnissan was awakened by the tread of the patrole, at about fifty paces from them, going to search the house. At two the peasant came to them, and brought them home: the pains of labour almost immediately fell upon Victorine, yet they feared to send for the midwife, who was garrulous, and might betray them. For once the constancy of her mother failed; she ran out for help, and fainted; while the poor sufferer, left alone with two girls, who cried beside her, but were unable to render her any assistance, brought into the world two female infants, without any one preparation for their care or sustenance, without any support for herself. These two little ones were to be concealed in different places; it was some time before nurses could be found; the eldest child had been placed in the care of a peasant's family in the neighbourhood of Ancenis, when the army last quitted that place; so that she was now the mother of three children, and was blessed with the care of neither: scarcely was she permitted to see them, and all of them died during the concealment, or immediately after.

At length the death of Robespierre brought some relief to the suffering Vendeans. An amnesty was soon after proclaimed, and though the widow of Lescure was likely to find more diffic culty than other persons in procuring admission to all the benefits of it, she was at length enabled to emerge from her retreat, and re-appear in the world with safety. A good part of her maternal inheritance was unconfiscated, and the high character of Lescure had preserved untouched, even by his enemies, his pos sessions in La Vendée. By the death of all her children, and the failure of heirs nale, the law had made her his sole inheritress. Thus she was restored to competent wealth. In 1802, at the intreaties of her mother, she married Louis RochejaqueJein, the brother of Heuri: this could not be said to be an inproper match for the widow of a chief of La Vendée. Inheritor of his brother's spirit and feelings, he formed part in all the designs which were agitated at different times for the restoration. of the Bourbons; he was among the first to hail the Duc d'Angoulême at Bordeaux, and he perished in the Vendean insurrection of 1815. Thus in the cause of that family, Victorine Donnissan has sacrificed her father and aunt, who died by the hands of the executioner; her three children, who perished from circumstances to which otherwise they would in all probability not have been exposed; and her two husbands, remaining a

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second time a widow when little more than forty-two years of age. The families of Donnissan and Lescure are extinct; but it would be a melancholy reflection for human nature, if Louis the Eighteenth should fail in bestowing on that of La Rochejaquelein such a payment of honour, or personal attention, as may best suit with the high feeling of the one, or the royalty of the other, to receive and to impart.

We have protracted our article to a great length, and yet we feel, that we have given but a hurried and imperfect account of the contents of this most interesting book. Our task, indeed, was more difficult than we had anticipated; where there was so much to arrest our attention, it was painful to omit, it was very difficult to select, and to compress or abbreviate, was to do away with a principal charm of the memoir. Reflections too crowded upon us, but we have seldom permitted them to interrupt the current of our narrative; neither will we obtrude them now upon our readers beyond the limits of a few lines. Amidst all the horrors of the Revolution, and the lamentable immorality of motive which is evident in it, it is both a proud and consoling sight for humanity and for France, to see a whole province, with no vain ostentation of philosophy, or of superior knowledge, yet in truth and in fact, throw down at the altar of their country all their prejudices and private interests, the Lord and the tenant, the Noble and the peasant, the rich and the poor, one with another; and then enlisted in the same ranks, exposed to the same hardships and dangers, with no inequalities but such as nature and education had made among them, to sacrifice farms and possessions, friends, parents, children, and wives, all the luxuries, the comforts, the endearments of life, and life itself, in defence of a high and pure principle. If ever there were martyrs in the cause of old laws and observances, of the throne, and of the altar, such were the patriot peasants of La Vendée. Lastly, it is a pleasant thought, that great and good deeds, sooner or later, will receive their honour due even in this world; it is fit they should, for our encouragement, and for our instruction. For many years in France the names of Cathelineau, Lescure, La Rochejaquelein, and Donnissan, were little known, or known only as chiefs of brigands or banditti; in Europe they were utterly unknown; and secretly cherished as they were in La Vendée, the justification or praise of them were dangerous sounds for him that uttered them. The veil that covered them is now torn away, and though they fought for a higher reward even than fame, a reward of which no ill success could deprive them, yet it is consoling that justice is at last rendered. Whoever estimates human merit upon right grounds, will not fail to place in the highest rank men, whom a pure sense of duty, and neither levity nor

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pride, induced to take up arms; who conducted the war on the same high principle, regretting its necessity, and moderating, as much as in them lay, its unnatural rigours; who, starting at once from low stations, or from peaceful habits, displayed in a moment promptitude in counsel, vigour in act, power to command, and ability to conciliate; in whom, finally, no successes (and their's were at times most brilliant) ever inspired any thoughts of personal ambition; and no privations, distresses, or disasters, bitter as their's were, the bitterest on record, ever caused the slightest repentance of the good part they had chosen. Such undoubtedly were the four whom we have named above; and France will do them no more than justice, when she writes them down in the same register with her brave Du Gueselin, her spotless Bayard, and her unfortunate, but honourable John.

ART. III. Letters written on Board his Majesty's Ship the Northumberland, and at Saint Helena; in which the Conduct and Conversations of Napoleon Buonaparte, and his Suite, during the Voyage, and the First Months of his Residence in that Island, are faithfully described and related. By William Warden, Surgeon on Board the Northumberland. Svo. 224 pp. 10s. 6d. Ackermann. 1816.

THAT a certain anxiety should prevail in the British nation, to be made acquainted with the conduct and conversations of Buonaparte since his exile to St. Helena, is a circumstance neither extraordinary in itself nor discreditable to the national character. That there should be found those among us whose admiration accompanies the tyrant even to his prison, and whose wishes. would waft him again to the shores of France, and lay Europe prostrate at his feet, is indeed a stain upon the name of an Engfishman. There are but few among us, we trust, who are tainted with this unnatural devotion to the cause of Buonaparte, and those the silliest and the worst of our kind. It might have been considered as remarkable, that the advocates of the er Emperor, should be the advocates also of liberty and liberality, of freedom and reform, had not the history of every age, especially of that in which we live, shewn the intimate connection which exists between licentiousness and tyranny. They who are gifted with too indignant a spirit to brook the restraint of just and equal laws, are fit subjects for arbitrary command; and it is astonishing with how much readiness they will submit themselves to the yoke. The most boisterous rebels against legitimate authority, will

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