phrases light and irreprehensible in themselves, that such a woman has loved him, but that he no longer cares about her. My self-love tells me, let her die of chagrin," said a friend of the Baron de Bezenval; and this very friend appeared to him an object of deep regret, when a premature death prevented him from the accomplishment of this laudable design. One grows tired of every thing, my angel, writes M. de la Clos, in a novel which makes one shudder at the refinements of immorality which it displays. In short, at this very period, when they pretended that love reigned in France, it seems to me that gallantry, if I may use the expression, really placed women out of the protection of the law. When their momentary reign was over, there was for them neither generosity nor gratitude-not even pity. They counterfcited the accents of love to make them fall into the snare, like the crocodile, which imitates the voices of children to entrap their mothers.

Louis XIV, so vaunted for his chivalrous gallantry, did he not show himself the most hard-hearted of men in his conduct towards the very woman by whom he was most beloved of all, Madame de la Vallière? The details which are given of that transaction in the Mémoires de Madame are frightful. He pierced with grief the unfortunate heart which breathed only for him, and twenty years of tears, at the foot of the cross, could hardly cicatrize the wounds which the cruel disdain of the monarch had inflicted. Nothing is so barbarous as vanity; and as society, bon-ton, fashion, success, all put this vanity singularly in play, there is no country where the happiness of women is in greater danger than that in which every thing depends upon what is called opinion, and in which everybody learns of others what it is good taste to feel.

It must be confessed, that women have ended by taking part in the immorality which destroyed their own true empire; they have learned to lessen their sufferings by becoming worthless. Nevertheless, with some few exceptions, the virtue of women always depends on the conduct of men. The pretended lightness of women is the consequence of the fear they

▸ntertain of being abandoned; they rush into shame from the fear of outrage.

Love is a much more serious quality in Germany than in France. Poetry, the fine arts, even philosophy and religion, have made this sentiment an object of earthly adoration, which sheds a noble charm over life. Germany was not infested, like France, with licentious writings, which circulated among all classes of people, and effected the destruction of sentiment among the high, and of morality among the low. It must be allowed, nevertheless, that the Germans have more imagination than sensibility; and their uprightness is the only pledge for their constancy. The French, in general, respect positive duties; the Germans think themselves less bound by duty than affection. What we have said respecting the facility of divorce. affords a proof of this; love is, with them, more sacred than marriage. It is the effect of an honorable delicacy, no doubt, that they are above all things faithful to promises which the law does not warrant; but those which are warranted by law are nevertheless of greater importance to the interests of society.

The spirit of chivalry still reigns among the Germans, thus to speak, in a passive sense; they are incapable of deceit, and their integrity discovers itself in all the intimate relations of life; but that severe energy, which imposed so many sacrifices on men, so many virtues on women, and rendered the whole of life one holy exercise, governed by the same prevailing sentiment, that chivalrous energy of the times of old, has left in Germany only an impression long since passed away. Henceforward nothing great will ever be accomplished there, except by the liberal impulse which, throughout Europe, has succeeded to chivalry.

CHAPTER V.

OF SOUTHERN GERMANY.

Ir was pretty generally understood, that literature existed In the north of Germany alone, and that the inhabitants of the south abandoned themselves to the enjoyments of sense, while those of the north tasted more exclusively those of the soul. Many men of genius have been born in the South, but they have been formed in the North. Near the coasts of the Baltic we find the noblest establishments, the most distinguished men of science and letters; and from Weimar to Königsberg, from Königsberg to Copenhagen, fogs and frosts appear to be the natural element of men of a vigorous and profound imagination.

No country stands so much as Germany in need of the occupations of literature; for society there affording little charms, and individuals, for the most part, wanting that grace and vivacity which are inspired by nature in warm climates, it follows that the Germans are agreeable only when they are superior in mind, and that they want genius to be witty.

Franconia, Swabia, and Bavaria, before the illustrious establishment of the present academy at Munich, were countries singularly dull and monotonous: no arts, with the exception of music; no literature; a rude accent, which lent itself with lifficulty to the pronunciation of the languages of Latin origin; noociety; large reunions, which looked more like ceremonies than parties of pleasure; obsequious politeness to an inelegant aristocracy; goodness and integrity in every class; but a sort of simpering stiffness, which is the reverse at once both of ease and dignity. One should not therefore be surprised at the criticisms and pleasantries which have been passed on German tediousness. The literary cities are the only objects of real nterest, in a country where society is nothing, and nature very ittle.

Letters might perhaps have been cultivated in the south of Germany with as much success as in the north, if the sovereigns had ever properly interested themselves in the advancement of them; nevertheless, it must be acknowledged, that temperate climates are more favorable to society than to poetry. When the climate is neither inclement nor beautiful, when people live with nothing either to fear or to hope from the heavens, the positive interests of existence become almost the only occupation of the mind; both the delights of the South, and the rigors of the North, have stronger hold over the imagination. Whether we struggle against nature, or intoxicate ourselves with her gifts, the power of the creation is in both cases equally strong, and awakens in us the sentiment of the fine arts, or the instinct of the soul's mysteries.

Southern Germany, temperate in every sense, maintains itself in a monotonous state of well-being, singularly prejudicial to the activity of affairs as well as of thought. The most lively desire of the inhabitants of this peaceful and fertile country is, that they may continue to exist as they exist at present; and what can this only desire produce? It is not even sufficient for the preservation of that with which they are satisfied.

CHAPTER VI.

OF AUSTRIA.'

THE literati of Northern Germany have accused Austria of eglecting letters and sciences; they have even greatly exaggerated the degree of restraint imposed there by the censure of the press. If Austria has produced no great men in the literary career, it is to be attributed not so much to constraint as to the want of emulation.

This chapter was writte.1 in the year 1808.

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It is a country so calm, a country in which competence is so easily secured to all classes of its inhabitants, that they think but little of intellectual enjoyments. They do more for the sake of duty than of fame; the rewards of public opinion are so poor, and its punishments so slight, that, without the motive of conscience, there would be no incitement to vigorous action in any sense.

Military exploits must be the chief interest of the inhabitants of a monarchy, which has rendered itself illustrious by continual wars; and yet the Austrian nation had so abandoned itself to the repose and the pleasures of life, that even public events made no great noise till the moment arrived of their calling forth the sentiment of patriotism; and even this sentiment is of a tranquil nature in a country where there is nothing but happiness. Many excellent things are to be found in Austria, but few men really of a superior order; for it is there of no great service to be reckoned more able than another; one is not envied for it, but forgotten, which is yet more discouraging. Ambition perseveres in the desire of acquiring power; genius flags of itself; genius, in the midst of society, is a pain, an internal fever, which would require to be treated as real disease, if the rewards of glory did not soften the sufferings it produces.

In Austria, and all other parts of Germany, the lawyers plead in writing, never viva voce. The preachers are followed because men observe the practical duties of religion; but they do not attract by their eloquence. The theatres are much neglected; above all, the tragic theatre. Administration is conducted with great wisdom and justice; but there is so much method in all things, that the influence of individuals is scarcely perceptible. Business is conducted in a certain numerical order, which nothing can derange; it is decided by invariable rules, and transacted in profound silence; this silence is not the effect of terror; for what is there to be feared in a country, where the virtues of the sovereign and the principles of equity govern all things? but the profound repose of intellects, as of souls, deprives human speech of all its interests. Neither by