the permanent one should be matured for operation.

These proposals one party of the House treated without ceremony, as so many indications of imbecility and absurd jealousy on the part of the ministry. The mere ebullitions of vulgar folly, said they, should be overlooked and despised; while, for the more seri. ous evils complained of, remedies have already been abundantly provided in the general laws against treason and sedition. The erection of other tribunals than those of Assize, was, according to these gentlemen, a sin against the spirit, if not against the letter of the charter.

The ultra-royalists, on the other hand, were equally hostile to the proposals of the ministry, as being, in their opinion, not too much, but too little for the necessities of the occasion. Instead of the punishments of labour and confinement, banishment, or loss of political privileges merely, this party were loud in declaring their anxiety to see every indication of disloyalty and sedition treated with the same rigour which might be due to actual rebellion; and they did not disguise their belief, that death was the proper punishment for all such offenders. This sanguinary proposal was treated, how. ever, with no great respect by the Chamber, and, after some little discussion, the bill was carried through both Houses. The consequence of this was, the immediate erection of Prevotal and Departmental Courts, with powers of summarily trying all persons guilty of the offences above described; and the energy of the proceedings of these courts produced, almost instantaneously, a total cessation of the crimes which had called for their establish ment. Among the offenders whom they were instructed to visit with the greatest rigour, were persons who had been guilty of insinuating any sus. picions of design on the part of the king to restore the property of emi

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grants, feudal rights, and tythes ;" and the broad declaration, which was thus, in effect, repeated by the government, of its intention to hold sacred the provisions of the charter respecting these points, was not without its effect upon the public mind. In the mean time, the government, armed with the new authority conveyed in these two enactments of the legislature, began to feel itself more confirmed and secure ; and ministers, being again pressed by an address of the Lower Chambers to proceed in their judicial investigation of the conduct of the persons exempted in the ordinances published after the return of the king, gave orders for the immediate trial of the only other great criminal, whose rank and offences seemed to render it likely that he would share the fate of Ney. This was the Count Lavalette, whose subsequent story excited so great an interest both in his own country and in ours, that we shall preface it with a few words concerning his early fortunes.

Marie Chamans de Lavalette was originally destined for the bar, but, like many others of the same profession, became a soldier in the opening period of the Revolution. After serving with honour in the first campaigns of the Republic, he was so fortunate as to attract the peculiar notice of Buonaparte at the battle of Arcolo, and, on the morning after, was appointed one of his aides-de-camp. În this situation his early education enabled him to render himself extremely useful to his employer, insomuch that he was by degrees entrusted with the whole management of his cabinet; and shortly after, when the purposes of the young adventurer required that he should have a confidential agent resi ding in Paris to transact his business with the Directory, Lavalette was chosen by him for this important species of embassy. The zeal with which he discharged the duties of his trust,

confirmed and advanced him in the good opinion of Napoleon. He married the niece of Josephine; and, upon the elevation of her husband (thus be come his own near relative) to the Consulate, he was nominated to a place, which is, in France, one of very high importance and emolument.-that of Director-General of the Post-office. Subsequently he was raised to the dignity of Councillor of State, and invested with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, and the title of Commander of the order of the Re-union.

These things were sufficient to bind Lavalette for ever to the fortunes of Buonaparte; and the known intimacy of their connection was such, that he lost his place of the post-office as an immediate consequence on the first abdication at Fontainbleau. Although the king was thus spared the task of removing him, he did not think fit to undo the arrangement of the provisional government which had preceded his accession, and Lavalette remained out of office down to the day when his majesty had resolved on making his es cape to Ghent; during the whole of which time, however, the royal munificence allowed the ex-director-gene ral to retain the fourth part of the salary of his office, by way of pension. The share which he took in the events of the usurper's return was supposed to have been so conspicuous, as to justify his being made one of the few exceptions to the rule of mercy followed by the king after his second restoration. Nor, in the sequel, did it appear that this resolution with regard to Lavalette had been unjustly, or even rashly adopted.

His trial came on, on the 22d of November, before the Court of Assize for the department of the Seine. It was proved against him, that, at six o'clock on the morning of the 20th of March, he came to the post-office, and beating with his cane upon the floor of

the hall, exclaimed hastily, "I take possession in the name of the empe ror." The Count de Ferrand, who filled, under the king's authority, the place anciently held by Lavalette, found but too much reason to suspect that it was now too late for him to make any resistance; he therefore secured his own private papers, and left the hotel, where Lavalette immediately resumed all the functions of office. He countermanded the departure of the mails containing letters from the ministry and the prefect of the department of the Seine, and prevented, by the same means, the circulation in the provinces of the Moniteur for the day, which contained the parting declaration of Louis. He refused to Count Ferrand, and even to his countess, the means of following the king to the frontier, and granted them passports to leave Paris, only on condition that they should take the road to Orleans. Having summoned a meeting of all the functionaries of the post-office, he formally gave them notice of his having resumed the direction, and changed immediately, in their presence, some of the arrangements of his predecessor in regard to their own body. He distributed by couriers, in various directions, a billet, intimating the near approach of Napoleon, the tranquillity of the metropolis, and, rather inconsistently, in the same breath, its enthusiasm. This paper is concluded with the usual formula of Vive l'Empereur, and signed, "Le Conseiller d'Etat, Directeur-General des Postes, Comte Lavalette." Lastly, he dispatched, early in the day, a courier to Buonaparte himself, who met the adventurer at Fontainbleau, and delivered into his hand a letter from Lavalette. What the contents of this letter might be is not known, but its substance may be guessed from the reception which Napoleon gave to it. "It is well," said he to the messenger; and then turning

with a smile to his attendants" So they are expecting me at Paris." The courier received no written reply, but a verbal message, commanding Lavalette to be in waiting at the Thuilleries at night, and to conduct thither the Duke of Bassano.

In addition to these things, it was proved, that for several days previous to the memorable 20th of March, Lavalette had lodged not in his own house, but in that of the sister-in-law of Napoleon, formerly queen of Holland, who had been permitted by the king to remain in Paris, under the name of Duchess of St Leu, and who, as it was afterwards suspected, with much appearance of reason, had formed in that capital the centre of many dark intrigues, inimical to the prince to whose clemency she owed this indulgence. Of what nature those intrigues had been, has never been precisely ascertained by the French government, or has at least never been made known to the public; but in them, whatever they were, there can be no doubt that Lavalette had a principal part. The prisoner was indeed formally accused of having kept up a clandestine correspondence with Buonaparte during his residence at Elba; but of this proof fail ed on the day of trial, excepting only in regard to one letter, which had been entrusted to a private traveller at the end of November 1814, but which, as Lavalette asserted, had contained nothing more than the expressions of goodwill customary to be exchanged among relatives at the commencement of a new year. The date of the letter somewhat contradicted this statement; but however that might have been, there could be little difficulty in the maintenance of a correspondence, by way of confidential couriers, between the ex-emperor and his favourite ; nor was it to be supposed that those who had rendered themselves instrumental to the purposes of such an intercourse,

VOL. IX. PART I.

should be ready or willing witnesses for the betrayal of its history. As it was, these points were little discussed on the trial; and after some deliberation, the jury found him guilty, on the more satisfactory evidence which we have already narrated. He appealed from their sentence to the Court of Cassa tion, but there his petition was at once rejected, and he was finally ordered for execution on the 21st of December.

The strictest orders had been given by the police that no one should be admitted to see the prisoner, with the exception of a very few individuals, and that each one of these should make the visit alone. Notwithstanding this order, however, on the 20th of December, the wife, the daughter, and an aged female domestic of Lavalette, were permitted by the gaoler to enter together the apartment in which he was confined. Here dinner and coffee were served up to the prisoner and his visitors by Eberle, a turnkey, who had but a few weeks before been employed in similar offices about the person of Ney. There is no doubt that this man had wanted fortitude to resist the temptations to which he had been exposed, and that he was now entirely at the devotion of Lavalette. A confidential valet of the count remained in the hall of the prison while his mistress was in her husband's apartment; and by the joint management of this person and Eberle, every thing was arranged so as most to favour the execution of the scheme devised within. After dinner, the party were left for a time by themselves, as if to allow leisure for a last farewell. At last the bell was rung, and the chair of Madame Lavalette was ordered. Immediately afterwards, the company passed sobbing through the hall, while, from delicacy or from design, neither gaoler nor attendant thought of strictly examining their persons. Had they done so, they would have

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discovered, under the dress of the countess, Lavalette the prisoner himself, who had exchanged clothes with his wife, after the example of Lord Nithsdale, in the year 1715, and who, like that nobleman, found eventual safety in the disguise. Stepping hastily into the chair prepared for the countess, he proceeded in it for a few hundred yards, and then quitting it, disappeared among the busy streets of Paris, while his place was taken by his daughter. In the course of a few minutes the alarm was given in the prison, Madam de Lavalette having, by accident, been discovered by one of the attendants not engaged in the plot, and the chair was pursued and overtaken, but the prisoner had already deserted it. To discover him, the utmost diligence of the police was exerted in vain for seventeen days, while the heroic exertion of his wife was the theme of universal admiration ; and while, partly from his own previous character, but more perhaps from sympathy with her feelings, it became almost an universal wish that the fugitive, who had so happily effected his escape from prison, might, in the end, traverse with equal safety the frontiers of the country whose laws he had offended.

Wherever Lavalette was concealed, (for that secret had not yet been discovered,) the intelligence of the interest commonly expressed for his fortunes must soon have been conveyed to him. Among those who were most loud and incautious in their method of speaking concerning him, were certain Englishmen then resident in Paris, who had already excited some little notice by the part they took in somewhat similar discussions at the time of the trial and execution of Mareschal Ney. To these, as more likely than any of his own countrymen to lend effectual assistance to his plan of ulterior escape, Lavalette determined to reveal himself. Mr Bruce, a young gentle

man of fortune, (of the same family with the illustrious traveller of that name,) was the first to whom he applied. This was done by means of an unsigned letter, the writer of which, after extolling the generosity of Mr Bruce's dispositions, stated, that it was now in his power to gratify them in a manner of all others the most delightful, and concluded with explaining the situation of Lavalette. Bruce returned no immediate reply, but after ha ving consulted with his friends, and arranged every thing in the manner which appeared most advisable, he appointed the evening of the 7th of Ja nuary for Lavalette to meet him at the apartment of Captain Hutchison, a nephew of the general of that name, and long connected with Bruce by community of opinions, and intimacy of companionship. Lavalette came to Hutchison's lodgings at the hour appointed, where, besides his host and Bruce, he was met by Sir Robert Wilson, the well-known historian of the British expedition to Egypt; for the opinions of this officer, earliest and chiefly celebrated for the zeal with which he charged on Buonaparte the accusations of having poisoned his own wounded soldiers, and massacred in cold blood his prisoners of war in Syria,

these opinions, once so fiercely hostile to the whole character and history of revolutionary France, had of late undergone so remarkable a change, that his younger countrymen, Bruce and Hutchinson, scrupled not, in spite of his high rank in the British army, to request his personal assistance in the adventure wherein they had become engaged; nor did they find in Sir Robert either an unwilling or an ineffectual ally. On the contrary, he made use of his acquaintance with the English ambassador to procure a passport for Lavalette, under the assumed name and character of an English general, and had prepared himself to perfect the