Since the time of Joseph II. the Protestants, both Lutherans and Calvinists, have enjoyed the free exercise of their religion in the imperial dominions. The number of the former is estimated at about one million and a half, and that of the latter at two millions and a half. Bohemia, Hungary, and Moravia are the countries in which they are most numerous, Almost all of them are remarkable for their industry.

There are many other religious sects in Austria. The province of Transylvania alone is computed to contain upwards of forty-five thousand Socinians or Unitarians, who enjoy the same rights and privileges as the Catholics and Protestants. Most of these Socinians are Hungarians or Szeklers, and their number throughout Hungary is so considerable that they have founded one hundred and sixty churches. Hungary has also afforded an asylum to the Mennonites and Anabaptists: but, though they are tolerably numerous there as well as in Transylvania, still they form but a small part of the population of those two countries.

The Jews in the Austrian states are not, as we have seen, so numerous as it might be imagined. They amount to about three hundred thousand. In order to make real citizens of them, the sovereigns conferred on them the same prerogatives with the rest of their subjects. This wise measure, however, has not excited in them any genuine love for their country, or inspired them with the least zeal for the welfare of the state. The Jews, as in the other countries of Europe, live insulated amidst the nation to which they belong; and continue to form a separate people, who never will mingle with any other race. Self is their ruling principle, and private interest their sole study. Without love to their sovereign, without concern for their country, they are indifferent to every thing excepting money, which is the god of their idolatry. Leading, wherever they are found, a wandering life, they consider themselves rather as travellers than as citizens whose fortunes are:> dependent on the prosperity of their native land.

The Austrian sovereigns, after conferring upon them the rights of citizens, deemed it but fair that the Jews should, like all the other classes of society, furnish soldiers for the public defence. This just requisition they resisted, and it was recessary to employ. force to compel submission to this general measure. It was not without great difficulty that fifteen hundred were levied in Galicia: some of them served in the ranks, and others in the artillery and waggon-train.'

We are glad to see a work so elegant, so well adapted for the instruction of young persons, and by its form so fit to be made a present to them, proceeding with a regularity which indicates a merited patronage. It is a miniature likeness of geography, executed by a skilful hand.

The next divisions of this World in Miniature,' including China and Japan, are advertized.

THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

For DECEMBER, 1823.

ART. I. Memoirs of the History of France during the Reign of Napoleon, dictated by the Emperor at St. Helena to the Generals who shared his Captivity; and published from the original Manuscripts, corrected by Himself. Vols. I. and II. Dictated to General Gourgaud, his Aide-de-Camp. 8vo. 11.8s. Boards. Colburn and Co. 1823.

Boards.

&c. &c. Historical Miscellanies. Dictated to the Count de Montholon. 8vo. Vols. I. and II. 17. 8s. Colburn and Co.

SOME

OME time having passed since we made our report of a portion of the work of M. las Cases respecting the extraordinary "Exile of St. Helena," and the volumes now before us, so much more immediately his own production, not having yet been noticed by us, our readers may perhaps attribute the delay to negligence: but we have been far from inattentive to their powerful claims on us, and have not only been carefully perusing their contents but have also been sedulously considering the works of contemporaneous writers which are connected with them. The Baron Gourgaud's portion of the Napoleon Commentaries consists almost entirely of a regular examination of those prominent features of Bonaparte's extraordinary career, which fill up the space from the year 1791 to nearly 1802: but the volumes published by the Count de Montholon extend somewhat farther, as they are unconnected, and, under the general head of Historical Miscellanies, embrace different periods. They give Napoleon's opinions of the publications by Rogniat, Dumas, and Chaboulon; of the surreptitious Manuscript from St. Helena; of the Four Concordats; of the Historical Memoirs of the Revolution in St. Domingo; of the Memoirs of Charles XIV. King of Sweden; and also of the extensive military work of Baron Jomini.

It is not in our power to enter into a minute examination of these voluminous Memoirs; and indeed it is only in the well-known leading traits of their dictator's singular career that they are of general interest. To these circumstances, therefore, in connection with the corresponding details of VOL. CII.

Jomini,

Jomini, Dumas, Jourdan, the Archduke Charles, De Koch, &c., and the English writers on his wars, we shall principally direct our attention. We do not mean to advert to the political vituperations which are occasionally launched forth against the English ministry: they may or they may not be the opinions really held by the Ex-Emperor: but we are glad to find that they occur very rarely. Of the four volumes on our table, we shall take those which were dictated to General Gourgaud* as the main ground-work of our report: uniting the remarks on M. de Montholon's' portion as far as events run parallel.

Napoleon is said to have dictated the whole of these notices; and a characteristic statement of the rapidity with which he did this, as well as of the amazing command of language and of perception which he certainly possessed, is given in an introduction of two or three pages. The situation of historical secretary to him must have been a post of great labor, and have required considerable talent as well as patience, for it appears that he very often cancelled whole posed them himself; and, as the specimens of his hand-writpages, and recoming are nearly illegible, it must have been a task of great trouble to prepare these manuscripts for publication.

M. de Gourgaud's two volumes relate to Memoirs of the Siege of Toulon; the 18th of Brumaire; the Provisional Consuls; Ulm; Moreau; Genoa; Massena; Marengo; the Negotiations and Campaigns of 1800 and 1801; Neutral Powers; Naval and Land Battle of Aboukir; Egypt; Battle of the Pyramids; Religion, Customs, Arts, and Sciences of the Egyptians: with a copious appendix of documents, consisting principally of Bonaparte's Correspondence with the Generals and the Directory. This division of the Memoirs, therefore, forms a sort of justificatory biographical narrative; and it is highly interesting to observe that it does not betray any considerable evidences of passionate discussion or of tiresome exculpatory zeal: the text consisting mostly of a kind of desultory conversation, in which the restless, ardent, and capacious mind of the Ex-Emperor is developed with great verisimilitude. It is quite evident throughout these productions, that in answering the numerous attacks on his conduct, (for he rarely answers those on his character,) he is extremely anxious that unfavorable notions of his capacity should not go down uncontradicted to posterity: his mode of replying

* An account of M. Gourgaud's former publication, the Narrative of the Battle of Waterloo, was given in our Review for December, 1818.

to

to them is not, therefore, so much deprecatory as it is decisive; he speaks as one who of right possessed the first sources of information; and he endeavors sometimes laboriously to afford explanations, by citing proofs which, generally speaking, are very strong and often irrefragable. Of the sacrifice at Jaffa, the murder of Kleber, and of his own retreat from Egypt, Napoleon says but little in this division of the work; and his avowal of the order for the Duc d'Enghien's death, under the plea of state-necessity, is rather equivocal. (Vide page 332., second volume, Miscellanies.) Savary, Duke of Rovigo, has just published a work in which he absolves Bonaparte from this crime, and with apparent justice seems to prove that he knew nothing of the scene at Vincennes; the whole of which is attributed to M. Talleyrand. We shall take farther notice of this statement. We understand, also, that much is said on this subject in the new livraison of the Napoleon Memoirs now publishing,

Of M. de Montholon's volumes we must now state more precisely the contents. They consist of Seven Notes on Jomini's History of the Campaigns in Italy in 1796 and 1797, including the Battles of Montenotte, Lodi, Castiglione, Bassano, Arcola, Rivoli, and the War in Germany in 1797; Notes on the first eight Volumes of Dumas's Summary of Military Occurrences from 1799 to 1814, including Pitt's Polity, Moreau, Naval Armistice, and Egypt; Six Notes on the Work intitled the Four Concordats, including Remarks on the Pamphlets printed in London, the Abduction of the Pope, State Prisons, &c.; Four Notes on the Historical Memoirs of the Revolution of Saint Domingo; Notes on the Memoirs of Charles XIV. of Sweden; Seventeen Notes on Baron Rogniat's Considerations on the Art of War, involving his Ideas of a new Mode of forming Troops, the Battles of Eylau, Jena, Moscow, Essling, the Retreat from Russia, the Campaign of 1814, and the Battle of Mont St. Jean; Forty-four Notes on the Manuscript from St. Helena, refuting Statements in them concerning Napoleon's Life and Public Acts; and lastly, Notes on Baron Chaboulon's Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815. A very copious appendix follows, containing much interesting matter. It includes chiefly the Pope's Bulls and Letters on the Subject of his forcible Removal, with the Correspondence between Prince Metternich and the Duke of Vicenza in 1813 and 1814. Our readers will probably conceive that the most interesting part of M. de Montholon's book is that in which Bonaparte replies to the assertions of the celebrated Manuscript from St. Helena, and to the Memoirs of his

Z 2

Private

Private Life and Return to France in 1815 by his Secretary De Chaboulon. We shall therefore view both these with considerable attention.

It has been already stated that the Ex-Emperor was anxious to have the principal events of his public life discussed, and the fictitious Manuscript from St. Helena' gave him a good opportunity. His observations on its errors commence by remarking that it is the production of a counsellor of state who was in the ordinary service from 1800 to 1803, but who was not in France in 1806 or 1807;-that he is well acquainted with the political affairs of Spain, but was never present at a battle, and has the most erroneous ideas of war and military

manœuvres.

Napoleon's early life has never been very well detailed; nor in the present volumes has he taken much pains to elucidate the doubtful passages of it. In describing the siege of Toulon, however, and in refuting the counsellor of state, he assures us that he joined as a second lieutenant of artillery from La Fere, at Valence in Dauphiny, in October, 1785, four years before the commencement of the Revolution; and thus he had actually served for some time that family, whom he was so soon afterward one of the principal agents in overwhelming. He states also that he was promoted as a captain in the artillery-regiment No. 4., of Grenoble, in 1789; that he was chef de bataillon before the siege of Toulon, at the early age of twenty-four; and that he was then selected by the Committee of Public Safety to take charge of the siege-train: but, from being simply the leader of the artillery, by opposing D'Arcon's plan of the operations against Toulon, and persuading the engineers, Dugommier, and the representatives, to adopt his ideas, the place fell into the power of the French, and he became a general officer. *

From this period, the date of Bonaparte's rapid and brilliant course may be taken; and if we may credit his own narrative, as well as those of others who witnessed his career, the knowlege of his profession and the strength of his genius were so eminently displayed at his first entry on public life, that even the most ignorant could not but foresee that he was destined to act a conspicuous character in the affairs of the Revolution. His conduct at Toulon, and the remarks which he has made in these Memoirs on the savage barbarity of the

* The vaporing letter of Freron and Barras to the Directory, on the taking of Toulon, seems but little deserving of credit: for Napoleon states that they made their appearance about three hours after the taking of Little Gibraltar, with their swords drawn!

miscreants