who still resided on the estate, could give the information if he liked, though he, Jean Lalouette, had asked for it in vain, and, indeed, he had nearly quarrelled with him on that account.

"However," said Jean Lalouette, gaily, "you know the French proverb, Monsieur: 'In the end everything is known;' and I dare say I shall get at the way, sooner or later, of finding Monsieur de Gournay. Will Monsieur permit me to ask him if he has any intention of going to see the château ?"

"I confess," replied Hubert, "that, after what you have said, combined with certain fancies of my own, I did entertain the notion of asking your son to drive me over, for, as he knows the place, his services would be more useful than those of a stranger. I want to see him also, to acquit my debt towards him. Will you send him to me ?"

"At present," said Jean Lalouette, with a sly expression, "I am afraid that is not possible. Louis is gone on an affair of great importance, and perhaps he be detained some time."

may "Is it a serious matter?"

"Why, look you, Monsieur. That great lady is the cause. Louis has been engaged for some time to a pretty girl here, in Amiens, Phrosyne Santerre, who lives hard by. Not knowing who the lady was, and seeing Louis alone with her, she took it into her head to be jealous, and that in part led to the search for, and discovery of, the Duchess. He went out to make his peace with Phrosyne soon after you came in, and she must be a harder hearted girl than I imagine if she sends him away unsatisfied."

Later in the day Hubert learnt from the young man himself that his explanation had proved satisfactory: he had, in fact, gained something by the contretemps: Phrosyne, in her relenting mood, having at last consented to fix a day for their marriage. Having congratulated Louis on his prospects, Hubert-in whom the desire to visit the Château de Gournay had increased the more he recurred to his conversation with Jean Lalouette-made an arrangement for the excursion next day, and then retired for the night.

Tired as he was he did not rest well, for which there were several reasons. In the first place, the events of the day occupied his thoughts; then, the outline sketched by the innkeeper of the De Gournay family kept him awake; and, finally, sleep was for some time prevented by a series of dismal groans, which seemed to come from the chamber adjoining the room in which he slept. It was a voice of lamentation, but there was no articulate sound, and had Hubert been superstitious he might have fancied that the Coq d'Or was haunted. As French ghosts, however, are scarce objects, he came to the more natural conclusion that the owner of the voice was suffering, probably, from having assisted with too much patriotic devotion at some republican banquet. Lulled by this idea he at last fell asleep, and dreamt-how arbitrary dreams are-of the unknown Bianca de Gournay.

A GLANCE AT PASSING EVENTS.

If he who now sits on the throne of France and rules the destinies of Italy be not one of whom it may absolutely be said that he "keeps the word of promise to our ear and breaks it to our hope," it cannot be denied that he has always in store a series of the most startling surprises. To attempt, on any principle of ordinary calculation, to anticipate his acts, or to derive an obvious meaning from his words, is, in French parlance, to occupy oneself à battre l'eau, an employment in which you have only your trouble for your pains. When Louis Napoleon declared (must we again repeat his words?) that Italy was to be free to the shores of the Adriatic, who could have supposed that he meant to pause in the midcareer of victory and shake hands with his defeated antagonist? When he proclaimed at Villafranca that the expelled rulers of Tuscany, of Parma, and of Modena were to be restored, bon gré, mal gré, to their respective duchies, how were we to infer that the only means of restoring them the opposition of their former subjects being avowed-were not to be employed? Day by day this opposition has grown stronger; every hour since the cessation of the war has been devoted by the people of Central Italy to consolidate their union with Piedmont; the Oracle at the Tuileries has uttered the most hopeful words, and yet the settlement of the question appears to those unskilled in the solution of political conundrums to be as remote as ever! The dead-lock at Zurich-may we not extend it to Biarritz ?—is comparable only to the situation in "The Rehearsal," where Whiskerandos lies at the mercy of the two uncles, and the uncles themselves are at the mercy of their respective nieces; but only so far comparable that the comparison fails when we attempt to conjecture in whose name all the hostile parties are to be commanded to "let fall their swords and daggers." In the case of Italythe Whiskerandos of the occasion-the statu quo cannot unfortunately be established. You went to set Italy free; you encouraged, if you did not foment, the insurrection; you paralysed the arm that held her in subjection; you spoke-you still speak-words of comfort to her people; and yet you are labouring hard to satisfy your former foe and present friend by placing the protégés of that amicable foe in precisely the same situation that they were in before all this vast amount of blood and treasure was expended! The simile is homely, but the partisans of Humpty-dumpty had no more arduous task imposed upon them! Is it true, however, that "restoration" is the end and object of the summons to Biarritz ?-or is the idea well-founded which appears to be gaining ground (ideas are the order of the day), that all these pourparlers, all these promises of impossible performance, are only so many steps towards the imposition of a Bonaparte dynasty on Central Italy? There is, however, it seems, a new alternative, the result of the interview at Biarritz: that Tuscany is to be delivered over to the Comte de Flandres, King Leopold's second son, and Parma and Modena to be united under the Archduke Maximilian! Qui vivra, verra-but let nobody say he sees

till his term of existence be ended: then he may behold with eyes that have in them something more than mortal speculation, and place reliance on their testimony.

Of expectations raised, to be annihilated almost as soon as formed, was the amnesty-so called-which whitewashed the peccant Parisian press, and led the public writers of France to believe that henceforth they were free to speak their minds. Cautiously-even as a timid bather ventures into the flood-the political journals approached the subject; but scarcely had they wet their feet, the water was barely disturbed, when they learnt from the Moniteur the meaning of the phrases to which they had been disposed to give a free, if not the most liberal, interpretation. Thus spoke the official organ: "Several journals have announced the approaching publication of a decree modifying the legislation of 1852 on the press. This news is entirely unfounded. The press in France is free to discuss all the acts of the government, and thus to enlighten public opinion. Certain journals, making themselves, unwittingly, the organs of hostile parties, demand a greater liberty, which would have no other end but to facilitate in them attacks against the constitution and against the fundamental laws of social order. The government of the emperor will not depart from a system which, leaving a sufficiently vast field to the spirit of discussion, of controversy, and of analysis, prevents the disastrous effects of falsehood, calumny, and error."

Close upon this announcement followed the amplification of the Minister of the Interior. "The right of displaying and publishing their opinions, which belong to all Frenchmen, is," he says, "a conquest of 1789, which cannot be taken away from a people so enlightened as that of France; but this right must not be confounded with the exercise of the liberty of the press by means of periodical journals." And why not? "Journals," continues the same authority, "are collective agencies organised within the State, and they have under every régime been subjected to special regulations. The State has then its rights and its duties as to exceptional measures of precaution and surveillance for journals, and when it reserves to itself the power of directly repressing their excesses by administrative interposition, it does not restrict liberty of thought, (!) but only employs a method of protecting the interests of society. The employment of this method of protection, which incontestably belongs to it, implies a spirit of great justice, moderation, and firmness." The divine Astræa, if haply she returned again to earth, might herself take example by this ideal of a perfect government; only, unluckily, the French press are unable to console themselves with an abstract "idea," Imperial though it be. Very admirably has the Presse remarked on the first notice in the Moniteur: "We believe that we have read all that has been written on the subject during that short period of hope to which the Moniteur's note has just put an end, and we have detected no wishes at all incompatible with the constitution and with the fundamental laws of social order. Was there danger to the constitution, was there danger to social order, that newspapers should recover the common right of labour and industry by the suppression of the previous authority, the common right of judicial repression by the suppression of warnings? We do not think it, and we take advantage of the latitude left us by the Moniteur to say so. It would not be difficult to prove it, but it is useless to combat with hosts of argu

ments against a fact, and the fact here is that the Moniteur is not of our opinion. That cuts the question short. The situation will remain, then, what it is, and the journals will be obliged to make up their minds to it. The gêne is for them; the responsibility, and, we venture to say it, the principal inconveniences, are for others."

Home politics offer little this month for us to remark upon. There have been cabinet meetings, at which the Chinese outrage has been the principal topic, and the state of Italy has necessarily had a share in the ministerial deliberations, though the Foreign Secretary has not, in person, been present; but as parliament is not sitting there have been no intrusive questions to elicit vague replies, and we have only to wait, and, in either case, hope for the best.

Of domestic events, the most prominent have been those strange "Revivals," in which zeal for religion has awakened so much misdirected energy; and the sad accident which befel the Great Eastern steamship-an accident looked upon, at the moment of its occurrence, almost in the light of a national calamity, though calmer reflection now sees in it only a reason the more for possessing faith in the extraordinary capacities of the wondrous vessel. The inquiry into the cause of the unfortunate explosion has turned entirely upon a question of responsi bility, which, after all, the Weymouth jury have left undecided. It is however, as well, perhaps, that this should be the issue, for a verdict of manslaughter against one or other of the scientific men whose unremitting labour has been given to the perfection of this great enterprise would, unquestionably, have been a shock to public feeling. This is subject which cannot be dismissed without our taking occasion to regret the untimely death of the distinguished projector of the scheme, Mr. Mark Isambard Brunel, whose death by paralysis, with which he had been seized early in the month, took place a few days after the lamentable accident. Of Mr. Brunel it has been well remarked: "In almost all Brunel's enterprises he has explored untrodden ground, has mined in an unknown soil. The thing to be done was first conceived by him; the means of carrying it out were invented by him, and obstacles which no human foresight could have predicted were overcome as they arose by the unfailing resources of his mind. After him came hundreds of other men who availed themselves of the new experience which he had thus gained for the world, of the inventions which he had made, and dozens of prosperous commercial undertakings are thus the result of his labour. To point this out now, however, must be needless. Brunel's countrymen will not do him the injustice to think of him as the man whose work was sometimes productive of little beyond renown, but as him to whom in no small degree is owing that high reputation for scientific ability which we enjoy among the other nations, and who has, by enabling us to triumph over the forces of the material world, conferred benefits upon the human race which will endure and fructify even after the great monuments he himself has erected to his genius shall have crumbled into dust." Mr. Brunel was lost to the world at the comparatively early age of fifty

four.

Though ripe in years, and with a destiny accomplished, the death of Leigh Hunt cannot but be felt as a heavy loss to literature. He had passed the age allotted to human life, but his intellect was as clear, his judg

ment as sound, his imagination as free, as it had ever been; and the light which is now extinguished burnt brightly to the last. The decease of a man whose accomplishments were so various, and whose nature was so kind, has been the cause of heartfelt sorrow to a host of friends. The public, too, have warmly sympathised with that strong expression of feeling which, with one or two exceptions, has been manifested by the periodical press; and if-in offering our own tribute of respect to the memory of the departed-we advert to those exceptions, it is for the purpose of clearing away an imputation which we really believe had its origin in misinformation, and not in malice. It is generally thought that the character of Skimpole, in "Bleak House," was intended for the portrait of Leigh Hunt, and the world drew its inference accordingly-to the disadvantage of the supposed original; but it is only an act of justice to Mr. Dickens to state that, when the calumny reached his ears, he immediately called upon his old friend to say how grieved he was that such an unfounded report should have got abroad, and expressed his anxiety to do anything that might be suggested to contradict and, if possible, to neutralise it. There is something truly shocking in the cruel injustice of representing this brave old man not only as a mere selfish Sybarite, but as one devoid altogether of honour and integrity. Look at the right side of the tapestry! Self-denying and hard-working-generous, though with scanty means-ever ready to sacrifice himself for the advantage of others, and with personal wants that were satisfied with the simplest expenditure, for sixty years his pen was never idle, he continued to write till within a few days of his death, and we have it from one who stood at his bedside when he died, that, not many weeks before the sad event, feeble and ill as he was, he actually wrote on one occasion for twenty hours out of the twentyfour. We know also how his latest hours were employed. As the last verses that Shelley ever wrote were a Welcome of his friend to Italy, so the last writings of Leigh Hunt, a few days before his death, were a defence of Shelley against the calumnious attack in a Life of the Poet by a pretended friend. It is a consolatory reflection to those who mourn the death of Leigh Hunt that he not only outlived most of the early enmities which his courage and love of truth provoked, but that those who had been his foes were, in many instances, converted into his warmest admirers.

Let us close our retrospect of the past month by expressing our satisfaction at the safe return of the gallant M'Clintock from his successful search in the Arctic regions for the remains of Sir John Franklin. The details of his adventurous expedition are sad enough, but it is a comfort -though a melancholy one-to reflect that nothing was left undone to afford succour to the brave men who have so miserably perished, and that if they are now beyond the reach of human aid, at least the worst is

known.