the patent of office in the grasp of Dubois. | The Archbishop of Rouen having applied for and received the usual dispensations from venal Rome, Dubois, within one hour, was admitted into the three orders of Sub-Deacon, Deacon, and Priest. He repaired immediately afterwards to the Council of State, where his radiant humor was felt as an insult by the aristocratic members, who hated him with an unparalleled intensity of bitterness. The Prince of Conti was especially eloquent and angry against the triple ordination of the day; but Dubois answered him with the almost blasphemous remark, that, if the case had been irregular, there was precedent for it in the similar proceeding with respect to St. Ambrose.

And then came the ceremony of the consecration of this remarkably unclean priest. It was celebrated with a splendor which had long been unknown in such matters. Cardinals, prelates, and priests, vied with each other in their ostentatious assistance at the solemn rite of recognizing a link of the apostolic succession in this son of a country apothecary and among them, most strange of all, was that Massillon, Bishop of Clermont, who so often dared to be honest, but who disgraced himself on this occasion, by preaching the consecration sermon.

Having become Archbishop, Dubois could not rest content therewith. The Cardinalate would place him above all the secular nobility in France; and to that he now aspired. The Regent lent his influence; but the Regent alone was of no avail. Dubois, accordingly, commenced by a promise to Rome, that he would suppress Jansenism, and bring the Gallican Church under Papal subjection. He then dexterously contrived to enlist on his side George I., of England, who influenced the Emperor of Germany, who, in his turn, interceded with the Pope, who was also warmly pressed by the Pretender. Clement was dying at the time, but he was fond of a joke; and he actually signed a document, in which he stated that he had named Dubois, Archbishop of Cambray, to the dignity of Cardinal, on the special application of James III., King of Great Britain. Dubois was furious, but the Pontiff died, and Dubois set himself vigorously to work, and bought up the entire Conclave of electing Cardinals by bribes. The purchased Conclave accordingly elected Cardinal Conti, (Benedict XIII.,) who had previously bound himself, by a written promise, to create Dubois a Cardinal. The Conclave declared that they had been moved to the election solely by the Holy Spirit. The

Pope they had been paid to elect, endeavored to escape from his promise; but at length the scarlet hat was given to Dubois in 1721. The Regent took him by the hand, and introduced the new Cardinal to the King, solemnly asserting the while, with a broad smile upon his face, that the Holy Father-having observed how zealously the Archbishop of Cambray had worked to secure tranquillity for the State, and peace for the Church in France, when threatened with schism-had been divinely moved, in consequence, to create him a Cardinal. The young King hid his face behind his plumed hat, in order that no one might see that he was laughing, as he expressed his gratification that the Pontiff had selected a Prelate who had rendered such eminent services. The whole affair ended with a grand commemorative PalaisRoyal supper the last of the orgies at which Dubois was present; for it is due to him to say, that from that day, he became a methodical man of business, "forswore sack, and lived cleanly." As the Regent was exhausted by dissipation, the statesmanlike qualities of Dubois were the more important to France; but it must be understood, that in the exercise of them, he was never disturbed by any idea as to virtue and principle. As long as he gained his end, he was not at all particular as to the means.

We have always thought the election of Benedict XIII., who raised Dubois to the Cardinalate, one of the most iniquitously conducted of all the Papal elections. Recently-published State-Papers have, however, revealed a worse. When Wolsey was intriguing for the tiara, he not only bought the majority of Cardinals, but he bound them by an oath to vote for him, and no other. Having received his money, the pious men repaired together to the Sistine chapel, released each other from their oaths, made assurance doubly sure, by administering mutual absolution for the sin of perjury, and then went and voted for Wolsey's rival.

There is something awful in the bold wickedness of some of the members of this Church. As a modern instance, we need but to cite the case of that Dr. Cahill, whose name is indissoluble from the memory of his "glorious idea" of slaughtering English Protestants by a coalition of Continental "Catholic" armies. This champion of his Church, only a month ago, deliberately declared in the “Tablet,' that Roman priests would infinitely prefer that their flocks should read obscene works, rather than the English Bible. To read that, he argued, was heresy, for

offensively and ignorantly proud. He became devout upon principle; but he so far yielded to fashion, that he took under his protection a young opera nymph, with whom he conversed on religious and metaphysical subjects and if his weakness in bowing to the wicked mode of the time condemn him, his simplicity and good principle may win for him but a slight degree of censure. Indeed, there was ever in him a singular mixture of gallantry and devotion. He had once been attached to the pious Marie Leczincska, who afterwards became the consort of Louis XV. The attachment was mutual; but policy, stronger than love, gave the Duke to a princess of Baden, and the daughter of the ex-King of Poland to the sovereign of France. The separated lovers, wedded to objects not of their especial love, had little subsequent familiar intercourse.

On one occasion, however, the Duke had an audience of the Queen, and he was enraptured with the transitory delight of being in her society. In the very midst of their happy conversation, he astonished poor Marie by falling on his knees, and in a loud voice beseeching God to pardon him for the guilty thoughts touching the Queen, with which the Devil had just inspired him! The lady herself laughed, but the Duke did not merit to be laughed at. Marie often said that they would have been admirably matched; for that, while she was at prayers in some convent, her husband would have been with his favorite Fathers of St. Geneviève; and that their hearth would have been an altar of domestic propriety.

Quiet and unobtrusive as this duke was, be claimed the prime ministership; and on its being refused him, he withdrew into private life. His pride was still more hurt when, by the birth of a son to Louis XV., he ceased to be next heir to the crown. He

thenceforward devoted himself to the study of theology, of ancient oriental languages, and of controversial divinity. He thought that Heaven had confided to him the mission of converting all the heretics on earth to Christianity. He addressed himself, accordingly, to the composition of argumentative treatises. They were very full of words, but altogether deficient in reasoning; and, as they could not have convinced the author, neither did they carry conviction to the bosom of the few patient readers who waded through them. He passed whole days and nights in disputes with priests and pedants upon Hebrew points and perplexing passages; and his Sunday afternoons were

His

much more profitably employed in catechising the children on his estate, in the village church. His last days were altogether spent among priests, in whose company he died in 1752. As he was a Jansenist, these orthodox gentlemen would not administer the sacrament to him, though Massillon had disgraced himself by preaching the consecration sermon of the atheistical Dubois! private almoner had no such scruple. The sacrament was administered by him; and this Duke of Orleans died, the only really respectable man of his race, after bequeathing funds to found a biblical professorship of Hebrew at the Sorbonne, "in order," as he said, "that heretics might not be the only Christians who studied the Holy Scriptures in the original languages;"-a satire upon the Church, in whose bosom, however, he

was content to die.

Another Louis Philippe succeeded to the title of Orleans. He was the son of the late duke, and was twenty-seven years of age at his father's death. His childhood had been spent among frivolous women, or coarse grooms. At thirteen he was a full colonel; and, young as he was, he bore himself, on the many stricken fields which France contested with her foes, with the gallantry of Bayard, the coolness of Duguesclin, and the invincibility of Dunois. His great martial reputation excited the fierce jealousy of Louis XV., who removed him from all active military employment. His domestic life was one of variety, if not of happiness. At eighteen he was married to Henrietta, Princess of Bourbon Conti. At first, the conjugal love of this pair was so ostentatiously displayed, without respect to place or person, that the individuals who were made witnesses of it, were at once amused and embarrassed. But, as our poet says,

Like fire and powder, which, as they kiss, consume These violent delights have violent ends; Like fire and powder, which, as they kiss, consume. So it was in the present instance; but the Duke was not to blame. The youthful Duchess became an unblushing monster of impurity. Compared with her, Messalina was at least a decent, if not a virtuous, woman; and strove to save her imperial dignity from stain by committing foul deeds under a feigned name,-Lycisca, "the Daughter of Joy." Henrietta of Orleans observed no such poor respect for appearances; and the mother of Philippe Egalité was worthy of her child.

The Duke of Orleans was, with all this, no He was the bosom friend of anchorite.

The Château of St. Cloud was the birthplace of Louis Philippe Joseph of Orleans, better known as Philippe Egalité. He was thirty-eight years of age when he succeeded his father in 1785. As Duke of Chartres, he had run a most profligate career; and, throughout its wretched course, he was weaker of principle and purpose than any of the dukes who have borne the fatal title of Orleans. He was employed both in the navy and army; but, though he was not illdisposed to fulfil the duties of both professions, he never distinguished himself in either. He was more at home in a race than in a battle; and the morals of the times may be judged of, when we state, that he once rode a match against time, from St. Cloud to Paris, naked! He pierced the clouds in a balloon, descended into the bowels of the earth to inspect mines, shook the powder from his hair, abolished breeches to introduce pantaloons; and had his children christened, not in palaces, as became young Christians born in the purple, but in the parish church, like common citizens; in short, he was looked upon as a man who treated both fashion and royalty with seditiousness of spirit. The only points in which he behaved as was common with French princes, was in treating his wife with such faithlessness, that she ultimately parted from him in disgust; and in delivering his children to be educated by his mistress, the notorious Countess de Genlis; whose nonsensical books used to be so extensively read by multitudes of young ladies, who, now that they are grandmothers, blush to think of that misapplication of their time. To our thinking, the plays of Aphra Behn are not much worse than the nouvelettes of Sillery de Genlis.

While the Court at Versailles was merry with an annual deficit of £6,000,000 sterling, added to an established arrear of above ten times that sum, and while the people were enduring the utmost of misery and oppression, the Duke took the popular side. He was banished to his estate; and this increased his popularity. His recall, at the bidding of the people, who framed a "humble" petition with that end in view, was a defeat for the Court and a triumph for democracy. Of the latter the Duke became the recognized champion; and, being elected a member of the Tiers Etat at the States-General, he chose rather to take his place among the Commons, to which he had been elected, than by the side of the King, where he could seat himself when he would, by right of birth. It is not

necessary to enter into the history of the French Revolution,-that great catastrophe which he aided to establish, and through which he perished. By the Revolutionists he was employed as a tool, until he was no longer needed; and then he was destroyed. The Republicans accepted the help of a Prince to overthrow royalty; but, when that was achieved, they slew the Prince, as a portion of what was necessarily devoted to destruction. Against the prayers of his family, and to the disgust of his own confederates, he voted for the death of his cousin, the King, into whose place he hoped to leap. But, when the place no longer existed, a candidate for its honors, or for any sovereignty over the people,-the only sovereign of the hour, -was a traitor to the state; and Philippe Egalité miserably perished under the knife of the executioner, leaving behind him a trebly accursed memory. His regicide vote against Louis XVI. has long been considered as the most damning spot upon his fame. It is, perhaps, not the worst. Among the blackest, we are disposed to consider his unfilial treachery before the Commune, when he declared his belief that he was not the son of the last Duke, but of some plebeian paramour of his mother's. He gained nothing by striving to prove that he was sprung from a democratic paternity; for he was still the son of a Bourbon Princess. Evil, indeed, was her reputation; but, evil as it was, no duty called upon her son to heap fresh infamy upon it, still less to do so by the utterance of a lie.

He was succeeded in his title by Louis Philippe, the late ex-King of the French. Louis Philippe-first, Duke of Valois, then of Chartres, and then of Orleans-had seen Voltaire in his early youth, and had learned a motley sort of wisdom at the knees of Madame de Genlis. This lady taught her pupils sentiment, made them comedians, filled them to the brim with "gallons of facts," had them taught various professions, as well as languages, and made them as conceited as little Cyrus himself. They accompanied her on instructive tours. On one of these occasions, they visited the prison at Mont St. Michel, where stood that famous wooden cage, not unlike the iron one in which Anne of Beaujeu had once imprisoned a former Duke of Orleans. Louis Philippe, then a boy, had the honor of destroying this relic of the despotism of the ancient monarchy; and he used to allude to the circumstance, with much emotion, after he had realized the dreams of so many Princes of his house, and was a King, albeit an uncrowned one. From the residence of Beaumarchais,