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counting Basle for two-fifteen and a half | decided step forward in the path of formagainst the seven and a half. The new ing Switzerland into a Federal Republic Constitution thus approved of is eminent- instead of the Federation of States the ly a compromise; but it is not the less a cantonalists desired to keep it.

of the new Parliament, and that steps will be taken to carry out the recommendations of Sir Bartle Frere. If this is not done, all our work will have to be commenced de nove, and the 105,000l. already spent by the late Government in preparing ships for this service become money lost. It should never be for gotten that the treaty is valueless unless we ourselves see that its provisions are carried out. It must still take years before the slave trade can be entirely abolished, and reckoned absolutely among the abuses of the past. In the meantime the trade of Zanzibar is rapidly increasing, and new sources of revenue being discovered. A concession in favour of a German mercantile house to work the guano on three islands south of Zanzibar has been signed, and this is only one of the first effects of the new stimulus given to trade.

FROM private advices received from Zanzi- | slaves. It may be anticipated that the subject bar, we learn that, as might have been ex- will receive immediate attention at the hands pected, the long delay, occasioned at home by the successive prorogations of Parliament, in taking any decisive or more extended measures for the enforcement of the Anti-Slavery Treaty lately signed by the Sultan, has encouraged a partial renewal of the slave trade, which, it cannot be too often repeated, has only been scotched, and not killed. It appears that the Arabs are now transporting slaves by the land route along the coast, and again fitting out caravans for the purpose of slave hunting in the interior, hoping, without doubt, that they may find means and opportunity for shipping them from one or other of the ports along the coast. A missionary who had met caravans of slaves on the mainland, and had stopped to question one of the slaves, had been shot in the head by the Arab slave dealer, and his life was in danger. Captain Elton, who had been despatched by Dr. Kirk, previously to the latter's departure from Zanzibar, on an overland journey of inspection from Dar-es-Salaam to Kilwa, had been menaced on two or three occasions by leaders of slave caravans, and had himself counted no less than 4,000 slaves proceeding in one month on their way northwards. And, lastly, a dhow had been captured with 100 slaves on board, but she did not surrender before she had fired upon the men-ofwar's boats attacking her, and had lost one or more of her own crew.

These incidents are very significant, for it is not difficult to discover the reasons of this renewed vitality in the trade, and of this active and daring hostility on the part of the Arabs. Immediately after the signing of the treaty, the measures taken by Dr. Kirk, coupled with the extraordinary activity and watchfulness of our small squadron on the coast, were so effectual that the Arab slave dealers were

fairly frightened into believing that the game was really at an end, and that these initiative measures could but be the forerunners of other and still more severe repressive proceedings. Last year there were but 1,000 slaves exported northwards, against 20,000 the preceding year, and of these 1,000 no fewer than 217 were captured by the Sultan, who has done, and is still doing, his duty most loyally. But the Arabs have begun to notice that we have in no way followed up our first vigorous policy: the constant boat service on the coast, than which nothing is more trying, has greatly exhausted the energies of the crews, who did such good service last year, and slaving Arabs have again plucked up courage, and commenced to run

Academy.

THE Weimar Gazette states on authority that

the Grand Duke is in receipt of a letter from
Dr. Rohlfs, dated February 5, in which the
able to secure a large number of admirably
finished photographs of the magnificent rocky
scenery of the Oasis of Dachel, in the Libyan
desert, and that he has, moreover, made an in-
teresting discovery of several ancient tombs.
In one of these, seven dead bodies were found
Dr. Rohlfs
covered over with a single mat.
has removed one of the mummies, together
with a mat, a wooden image, and some urns,
with the view of bringing them to Germany, if
and in the meanwhile they have been deposited,
the consent of the Khedive can be obtained;
with other objects of interest, in a house at
Gasr, the chief station of Dachel. The native
servants assert that the recent rains must have
destroyed the entire settlement, and as the
houses at Gasr are built of clay, hardened in
tinued wet may have had a destructive effect
the sun, it is not improbable that long con

learned traveller announces that he has been

upon

them.

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WINTER SUNSET.

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Where thought shall never be in vain, And doubt before the light shall fly. Macmillan's Magazine.

E. B.

Sunday Magazine.

CHARLES W. STUBBS.

From The Cornhill Magazine.

THE FRENCH PRESS.

IV. FOURTH PERIOD.

NEWSPAPERS DURING THE REVOLUTION.*

I.

THE Royal decree convoking the States General to meet at Versailles on the 5th May, 1789, was issued on the 15th July, 1788, which gave France almost ten months to prepare for the most eventful parliamentary election in her annals. There can be no doubt that this long time had much to do with the thoroughness of the revolution which followed the meeting of the Assembly. The King's decree had enjoined that the deputies of the three orders - nobility, clergy, people - should ascertain clearly what were the wishes of their constituents, in order to submit them to him in writing; and this invitation to all Frenchmen to set to

work constitution-making stirred up every man who could hold a pen or declaim a dozen phrases on politics. No impediments were placed in the way of free discussion. It appeared to be the sincere wish of the King to come at length to an understanding with his people; and as the nation believed in his sincerity, the tone of the press suddenly softened, and the controversies as to which was the best of political systems were carried on, not without warmth indeed, but with general loyalty towards the Crown. None of the countless elections held in France during the past eighty years have been conducted with such independence and dignity as those for the States General. The unintelligent expedient of the ballot had not yet been devised: so the electors in borough and canton voted like men who felt they were discharging a responsible trust. They were actuated by a sublime faith, for the States General had not been convoked since 1614, and it was heartily believed that the Assembly would remedy all wrongs and cause a new era to dawn for the country. Accordingly, the men who went to Versailles as representatives

of the people were truly the pick of the Nation.*

How the three orders assembled each in a separate room of the Royal Palace, and how the deputies of the Third Estate were impoliticly presented to Louis XVI. with ceremonies intended to humiliate them and make them feel their inferiority to the nobility and clergy; how after this the three orders walked processionally from the Church of Notre Dame de Versailles to that of St. Louis, and heard a dull inaugural sermon by the Bishop of Nancy; "who missed," as Mirabeau said, "the grandest opportunity ever afforded to man for saying something fine, or holding his tongue; and how M. Necker, the Controller of Finances, laid before the States his lamentable report on the monetary embarrassments of the kingdom, and hinted

The States of 1789 were the 17th in French history. The first were summoned in 1302, by Philip IV., on the occasion of his dispute with Pope Boniface VIII. The second met in 1308, and ratified the abolition of the order of the Templars; and the third were convoked by Philip IV. in 1313, to deliberate about taxes. In 1317 and in 1328, the States assembled again for the coronation of Philip V. and Philip VI., who inherited by virtue of the Salic law, and desired to have that law confirmed; and in 1356 and in 1380 the States met again to appoint regencies: on the former occasion, during the captivity of King Jean in England, and in 1380, during the minority of Charles VI. It will thus be seen that the States General met seven times in the to ratify the Treaty of Troyes; the ninth in 1468, to fourteenth century. The eighth meeting was in 1420, prevent the dismemberment of Normandy in favour of the King's brother; the tenth in 1484, to recognize the prove the marriage of Louis XII.'s daughter with the majority of Charles VIII.; the eleventh, in 1506, to apDuke of Angoulême (afterwards Francis I.); and the twelfth in 1560, when a code of commercial laws was drawn up, which continued in force till the Revolution. The thirteenth and fourteenth States General, known as the States of Blois, met in 1576 and 1588, and wasted much time in trying to reconcile the contendant factions of the League; and the fifteenth meeting was held in Paris in 1593 by the Leaguers, and voted to little purpose the perpetual exclusion of Henri IV. from the throne.

The sixteenth States, convoked by Henri IV.'s widow, Marie de Medici, were remarkable from

the fact that the representatives of the third estate made a resolute attempt to force a charter from the Queen Regent, and, had they been headed by a capable leader, they might then and there have established parliamentary government in France. As it was, they failed, but their attitude inspired so much terror to the Crown that Louis XIII. and his two next successors would listen to no proposals for re-summoning them. During 175 years taxes were levied, wars made, and "The French Press," First, Second, and Third treaties concluded without any national assent or ratifiPeriods, LIVING AGE, Nos. 1520, 1536, 1553.

cation.

that the deputies had been convoked | years at Vincennes. Here he studied a solely to dispel these embarrassments, good deal, wrote some immoral novels, and for nothing else - all these details and on his release was practised enough are well known to students of French in penmanship to apply to M. de Calonne history. Our purpose here is to show for a situation as Government clerk. The what part the Press played in the Revo- Minister judged him too intelligent, howlution; and it must be said at once that ever, for a subordinate office, and sent this part was a leading one. From the him on a political mission to Prussia; but day when the States met, journalism en- Mirabeau soon tired of diplomatic service. tered upon a new and fiercely combative He visited England, and in 1786, full of phase. The days of theorizing were past; ideas of liberty and constitutions, borthere was a national Parliament at Ver- rowed money sufficient to start a paper, sailles, whose debates had to be reported which, oddly enough, he called the Conon from day to day for the enlightenment servateur. It was not an ordinary jourof excited readers, and anxiously criti- nal, but a weekly compilation of political cised. The deputies of the third estate extracts from ancient and modern authors, had to be encouraged and stimulated, and Mirabeau avowedly launched it with those of the nobility and clergy to be re- the intention of earning an income, whilst monstrated with, appealed to, and threat- he wrote pamphlets of his own on the ened. Daily and hourly it was urged topics of the day. But the public were that the Parliament should be reminded not anxious to know what Cicero thought that it was no mere readjustment of taxes about universal suffrage, or Milton about that the nation demanded, but reforms a freedom of the Press; so the paper full and searching; and above all, a Con- failed, and, after an unsuccessful attempt stitution. Mirabeau, Maret, Barrère, to obtain the editorship of the Mercure, Brissot, Gorsas, Loustalot, Condorcet, Mirabeau joined with Brissot in foundGaret, Rabaud, St. Etienne, Louvet, ing L'Analyses de Papiers Anglais. It Carra, Mercier, Fontanes, Chenier, Fré- was characteristic of Mirabeau's thorron, Marat, Hébert, Robespierre, Siéyès, oughly French mind, that undertaking to and Babœuf these were but a hand-publish analyses of all that appeared in ful of the writers who plunged into the the London papers, he knew not a word lists pen in hand, with each his own pri- of English, and his partnership with Brisvate paper and code of opinions. As to sot, who did know English, was not an the ruck of lesser journalists, they were idea of his own. "I heard," says Brissot, innumerable, for not only every man who "what Mirabeau was going to do, and could write, but every man who had re- called on him to talk about his programme. ceived the faintest smattering of educa- He admitted that his English analyses tion, felt himself competent to give his were to be a mere mask under which he advice on the crisis. A period had come would discuss French affairs. 'That is,' when brains might hope to snatch away said he, 'I shall dress up English essays all the posts hiterto usurped by birth and so that they will seem to apply to our privilege. Every Frenchman thinks he case.' But do you know English?' I has brains, so every Frenchman saw in asked. 'Not a syllable,' answered he; the desired revolution-first, his own 'but no more do my readers. I daresay welfare, and next, that of his fellow-citi- I shall learn in time by spelling over the zens. From 1789 to 1791 the national eruptions of discontent, ambition, patriotism, folly, and fury, gave birth to more than 1,200 new journals in Paris alone.

Foremost among journalists, as among parliamentary debaters, was Mirabeau. He was born in 1749, and had passed his youth so disreputably that his father had been obliged to shut him up for several

papers regularly.' I then offered to assist him gratis, and he accepted, with his usual good nature. Prompt and bold in attack, he soon had some violent polemics with Mallet du Pan about the trial of Warren Hastings and the situation of the English in the East Indies, and in these my experience of England, and my knowledge of British history, stood him

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