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quent reference to the names of the leading political or literary men of the age. We shall enable our readers to form an opinion for themselves by making several extracts relative to characters of prominency; exhibiting them in successive classes or groupes; and beginning with a description of men now in the shade, but whose exploits have closely fixed the attention of all who have taken an interest in the extraordinary events of the times.

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The French Generals. We quote the following notice of a warrior who is now no more, but whose name will continue to be remembered among those of the more violent adherents of the revolutionary cause.

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Augereau, Duke of Castiglione, born in one of the suburbs of Paris in 1757, was the son of a fruiterer. After having served in France as a carabineer, he enlisted in the Neapolitan army, and acted as a common soldier till the year 1787: when he established himself as a fencing master in Naples, gave lessons to the Prince Royal, and was, in common with all his countrymen, sent out of the kingdom in 1792. He then entered as a volunteer into the French service, where his intelligence and boldness of character procured for him rapid promotion, and after the year 1796 rendered the events of his life familiar to the readers of news-papers. When Bonaparte, on his progress to the isle of Elba, was traversing the department of the Drôme, he happened to meet Augereau near Valence. The Ex-Emperor and the Marshal both stepped out of their carriages. Napoleon took off his hat, and opened his arms to him, but Augereau returned his embrace with coldness. "Where are you going?" said Bonaparte, taking him by the "are you going to court ?" Augereau replied that for the present he was going to Lyons. They continued walking together for nearly a quarter of an hour, following the road to Valence. The Ex-Emperor pretended to reproach the Marshal for his conduct, and added, Your proclamation is a very foolish affair; why should you abuse me? It was only necessary for you to say that, the desire of the nation having been declared in favour of another sovereign, the duty of the army was to conform to it; concluding with Vive le Roi! Vive Louis XVIII." Augereau, in return, did not scruple to reproach Bonaparte with his insatiable ambition, to which he had sacrificed every thing, even the happiness of France. This sort of conversation soon tired Napoleon; who, turning hastily to the Marshal, embraced him, and, touching his hat, threw himself into his carriage. Augereau kept his hands behind his back, did not even move the helmet from his head, and, when his former master had entered the carriage, waved his hand and took his farewell with an air of indifference. Bonaparte, with his usual proneness to falsehood, said an hour afterward to Koller, the Austrian General, I have just heard of the infamous proclamation which Augereau has published; had I but known it when I met him, I should have chastised him severely."

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At the time of Bonaparte's return from Elba, Augereau was stationed at Caen in command of an extensive military division, and he continued to act as a servant of the King until the twenty-second of March (1815); when, finding that Paris and the rest of the kingdom had submitted quietly, he published a proclamation in favour of Bonaparte, proceeded to the metropolis, and, though not received into the presence of his former master, was assured of forgiveness, and desired to remain at his country-seat.

More pleasant ideas are suggested by the notice of one who, descended from a creditable family, passed a portion of his life with respectability in the military profession, and visited this country in the capacity of a diplomatist.

· François Andréossy was born at Castelnaudari, in 1761, of a family that came originally from Lucca in Italy; entered the service as lieutenant of artillery in 1781; and was successively promoted to the rank of General and Inspector General of Artillery. He followed Bonaparte into Egypt, and in the military reports of the army repeated notice was taken of his skill and talents. He was also of the small number of those whom Bonaparte brought back with him to France; where, among other appointments, he received in 1801 that of Director General of Military Stores. So many marks of confidence, earned by the information and talents of Andréossy, were finally crowned by the choice which the First Consul made of him to fill the delicate and honourable situation of ambassador in England after the piece of Amiens. He was appointed to this embassy in June 1802, and retained it till the rupture of the treaty in 1803. Having been sent as ambassador to Constantinople in 1812, he was there on the overthrow of Bonaparte's government in 1814; when he was recalled from this situation by the King, but without any censure, having been decorated with the cross of the order of St. Louis. In 1815 he was chosen by Bonaparte, then again restored to power, a member of the Chamber of Peers; and, though he never spoke in the public sittings, he constantly voted in the committees with those who shewed the greatest discretion and moderation. He did not take the field at Waterloo, but remained at Paris, and was appointed one of the commissioners who were charged with negotiating an armistice with the allied Generals. Blucher would not receive them, but the Duke of Wellington admitted them to an audience. In this conference, Andréossy is said to have advocated the immediate recall of Louis XVIII., and M. de la Besnardière was of the same opinion: but another member of the deputation declared that fifteen millions of his countrymen would consider his colleagues as traitors; and he affirmed that the two chambers, and the majority of the French nation, had irrevocably resolved against the return of the Bourbons. The Duke of Wellington replied, "If things are really so, force of arms must decide the question" and the allies advanced to Paris. -Andréossy

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Andréossy lives now in retirement, occupied with literary pursuits.'

French Statesmen and Diplomatists. This department of the subject naturally leads to an exposition of the political tenets of the principal contributors to the work; and we should have been much better pleased had they given fewer proofs of a disposition to court the ruling powers, and had maintained an impartiality which was perfectly practicable; since quite enough remained to allege against several of the characters in question, without deviating from historical fidelity. This fault is particularly conspicuous in the sketch of Carnot, who is said to have received, in the spring of 1814, a large pecuniary consideration for coming forwards in support of Bonaparte and accepting the government of Antwerp. It is true that this resolute adherent to the cause of liberty quitted his retirement at the time in question rather unexpectedly: but we shall find a complete solution of his conduct in his antipathy to the Bourbons, or in a desire to make a last effort for the sinking cause of the Revolution, without resorting to the influence of a passion always foreign to his bosom; for it is a fact that his small property has been rather impaired than increased since he first began to fill a public station.

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Champagny, who was so well known during four years (from 1807 to 1811) as Bonaparte's minister for foreign affairs, was born in 1756, was brought up in the French navy, and was one of the deputies of the noblesse to the États généraux in 1789, but soon forsook his party, his name occurring among the first of those who gave up the points in dispute with the Tiers Etat. - Barras, after having been in exile at Brussels during the fourteen years of Bonaparte's reign, returned to Paris in 1814, and was considered as deserving of a confidential mission by the Bourbons to Provence, the country of his ancestors, who were proverbially styled aussi anciens que les rochers. He had not, however, the good fortune to throw any impediment in the way of Bonaparte, or to render any service to the Bourbons: but, having stood aloof during the memorable three months, he continues to be regarded as faithful to their cause, and now resides at Paris.A very different character, the modest Barthélémy, declined from purer motives to have any connection with the intruder, and remains in possession of the confidence of the public as well as of the King. He has held the highest stations without acquiring property, and has always been noted in public discussion for a wish rather to convey sound opinions in plain language, than to acquire the reputation of cloquence. He

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has never sanctioned the printing of any of his speeches; and the book published in 1799 under the title of Mémoires Historiques et Diplomatiques de Barthélémy, depuis le 14 Juillet jusqu'au 30 Prairial, An VII., is unauthorized by him, and is in fact at variance with many of his opinions.

Decazes, the present minister of police, was born in 1780, educated for the law, and subsequently employed in a political capacity in Holland. He attached himself to the Bourbons at the restoration, and acted with great boldness after the entry of Bonaparte into Paris, 20th March 1815; in consequence of which he was removed from the capital, and passed the succeeding three months in the country. Returning to Paris a few days before the second entry of the King, he was appointed prefet de police, and in a few months succeeded Fouché in the important charge of minister in that department: a station in which he is not a little exposed to the attacks of the Ultra-Royalists, who form the present opposition in the French parliament. Of the latter, one of the most conspicuous is Chateaubriand; from whose biographical sketch we proceed to give an extract.

• Chateaubriand was born in 1769, at Comburg, near Fougères, of an antient family in Brittany. He entered the service in 1786, in the regiment of Navarre, and was soon afterward presented to the unfortunate Louis XVI. The army having revolted at the beginning of the Revolution, Chateaubriand went over to North America in 1790, and, animated with enthusiasm for the beauties of nature, wandered with infinite delight in the immense forests of the new world. It may be easily imagined what a powerful impression such scenes would make on so elevated an imagination; and it cannot be doubted that he owed to them much of his singular and romantic turn. He lived there two years, returned to Europe in 1792, and, resuming service, was wounded in that year by a shell before Thionville. This accident, added to severe illness, which for three years kept him at the point of death, prevented him from remaining in the army. He then went to England, where he experienced all the inconveniences of poverty, but became intimate with M. de Fontanes, whom he had slightly known in Paris; and it was this enlightened writer who first encouraged him to publish his Genie du Christianisme, which appeared in 1802. Anxious to add still farther to his stock of information, he departed for Egypt in July 1806, taking his route. through Italy, and travelling through antient Greece, a country teeming with recollections suited to his ardent imagination; he then visited Turkey, Egypt, and lastly Jerusalem, the principal object of his journey. He afterward landed on the coasts of Africa, surveyed the spot on which Carthage had once stood, and returned home through Spain in 1807. Soon afterward he published his Martyrs, and in 1811 l'Itinéraire de Paris à Jerusalem. At last came the time when he found himself enabled to express

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freely his hatred to Bonaparte, and his devotion to the cause of the legitimate monarch. It was so early as the beginning of April 1814 that these sentiments burst forth with equal beauty and eloquence, in his book intitled De Bonaparte et des Bourbons; of which a prodigious number of copies was printed by order of government, and which had an incalculable effect on the public mind. He produced, at the end of the same year, a work which was remarkable from the prevalent supposition that an august hand had influenced its composition: it was intitled Reflexions Politiques sur quelques Brochures du Jour. M. de Chateaubriand had been appointed several months by the King to fill the place of French ambassador at Stockholm: but he had not departed for that city when his Majesty was obliged to go to the Netherlands at the end of March 1815. He therefore accompanied the King, and held at Ghent the station of one of his Majesty's ministers. The report which he addressed to the King in the month of May, on the situation of France, was made public and printed even at that time in Paris without any impediment from Bonaparte's police. Immediately on his return, the King created M. de Chateaubriand a peer of France, and Minister of State: but he throughout shewed himself an Ultra-Royalist, and chose to dissent from the change adopted in September 1816 respecting the mode of treating the revolutionary party. His publication intitled De la Monarchie selon la Charte appeared a few days after the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies; it was seized by the police; and, three days after its publication, an order was inserted in the official journal, purporting that, M. de Chateaubriand was no longer to bear the title of Ministre d'État.

French Literati.-M. Benjamin Constant de Rebecque, whose name has been of late repeatedly brought before our readers, is a native of Geneva, and was born in 1767. He came to France early in the Revolution, and, having escaped the judicial assassinations of the Jacobins, took part in the less hazardous debates which occurred under the reign of Bonaparte: but in 1802 he received orders to quit France, and travelled in different parts of the Continent with Madame de Stael, whom he is said to have assisted in several of her literary compositions. The most singular event of his life, and that which marks him for a true Frenchman, is his political vacillation in the year 1815. On hearing at Paris that Bonaparte had landed from Elba, he published the most energetic appeals against him through the medium of the news-papers, and among other things asked, other things asked, "Ne sommes-nous pas mille fois plus libres que sous son empire ?" Yet no sooner was the invader installed, and the submission of France apparently general, than this political sage, who professed to in.struct every body around him, was persuaded to take a part in the new council, and to call on the nation to give its

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