in that direction; the Emperor had repeatedly and grossly insulted him, added to which he knew that both France and Europe were surfeited with war, and that, irresistible as was the storm for the time, it could not last. So he retired to Carlsbad on pretence that his health required the waters. its society, with the royal palaces - being a second and almost greater court. Here, paying homage to the great diplomatist, assembled all the beauty, all the wit, all the riches, and all the intellect of the Restoration. But he was no longer the gay abbé, the petit-maître of Du Barry's boudoir, with whom every woman was in love. The picture of him drawn by Lady Morgan in 1816 is not an attractive one. The Hundred Days passed away; but Louis had determined upon the minister's disgrace. Talleyrand knew this, and, pre- "Cold, immovable," she writes, "neither ferring to take the initiative, waited upon absent nor reflective, but impassable; no the King at Ghent, the day after Waterloo, colour varying the livid pallor of his face, to request permission to remain at Carls- no expression betraying his impenetrable bad. Certainly M. de Talleyrand, I hear character. For the moment one could not the waters are excellent," was the reply. tell whether he were dead or living; But His Majesty could not so easily rid whether the heart beat or the brain himself of the obnoxious diplomatist. throbbed no mortal observer could verify; The Duke of Wellington informed him from the soul of that man the world is that if he wished for the influence of Eng-disdainfully excluded; if one might hazard land he must have a man at the head of a conjecture after what we have seen, it is the government in whom England could to recognize in him the enigmatical sphinx confide. The party of the Constitutional who said Speech was given to conceal Legitimists, through Guizot, demanded our thoughts.' Neither the most tender that a cabinet should be formed with M. love, the most devoted friendship, nor any Guizot at the head; so on the day after community of interests would make that the polite dismissal at Ghent, M. de Tal- face, which can only be compared to a book leyrand received a mandate to join the in a dead language, speak." King at Cambrai. But he had his revenge in refusing to form a ministry until the King signed a proclamation, the pith of which was an acknowledgment of the errors of the late reign. To the fallen party Talleyrand behaved with the utmost clemency, providing numbers of those who wished to quit France with money and passports, and reducing the proscription list to half the original number. 6 Another writer, pursuing the same theme, says, "To baffle his penetrating sagacity. you must not only not speak, but not think. It was not only by his language that he concealed his thoughts, but by his silence." On account of the numerous bons mots, and epigrams that claim him for parent Talleyrand is commonly thought to have been a brilliant conversationalist and a flippant wit. Lamartine, however, has given us quite a different picture in the following passage: "A taste for lively sallies and epigrams has been attributed to him which he d d not possess. He was, on the contrary, slow, careless, natural, somewhat idle in expression, always infallible in precision. His sentences were not flashies of light, but condensed reflections in a few words." He retained the premiership of France until the 24th of September, 1815. But his government was weak, the King hostile. The Emperor Alexander had declared that the Tuileries could expect nothing from St. Petersburg while M. Talleyrand remained at the head of affairs, added to which the minister foresaw the mischievous efforts that would accrue from the violent Royalist reaction that was at hand, and On the first day of the revolution of preferred tendering his resignation to en-July he made no sign. On the third he countering the coming storm. From 1815 to 1830 he took no active part in politics, unless it was to protest against the Spanish war, and to utter a defence of the liberty of the press. Much of his time was spent at Valency upon his estate. In Paris his drawing-roon vied in magnificence, and in the brilliancy of The Emperor Alexander conceived an inveterate dislike to Talleyrand for the neg.ect that Russian interests received at his hands during the congress at Vienna. sent his secretary to St. Cloud to see if ant-General of the Kingdom, which has.... Ambitious and indolent, flattering been already accorded to him; the rest and disdainful, he was a consummate courwill come." tier in the art of pleasing and serving withUpon the accession of Louis Philippe our servility; supple and amenable to the he undertook the embassy to St. James', highest degree when it was useful to his and obtained the recognition of England fortunes; always preserving the air of for the new Sovereign. Thus he did for independence; an unscrupulous politician, fourth time change the dynasty of France! indifferent to the means and almost to the His last diplomatic labours were to tide end, provided that it secured his personal over the Belgian difficulties and to assist success; more bold than profound in his in the formation of the quadruple alliance. views, coldly courageous in peril, adapted The end was coming fast. To gratify for the grand affairs of an absolute governhis family, but not from personal con-ment; but in the great air and the great viction, he consented to make his peace day of liberty he was out of his element, with the church. During his last hours and was incapable of action." his rooms were filled with the flower of Talleyrand could neither love nor hate; Parisian society. Louis Philippe himself he was a passionless man; he never comvisited his deathbed. Those last hours are mitted a cruel or vindictive action, and well described in the following quotation: never a purely motiveless generous one. "M. de Talleyrand was seated upon the side Every thought, feeling, plan of his nature of his bed, supported in the arms of his revolved round one great centre secretary. It was evident that death had He could not, as a great statesman, have set his seal upon that marble brow; yet I created a broad, comprehensive scheme of was struck with the still existing vigour government; his own petty interests ever of the countenance. It seemed as if all the dwarfed his ideas. In him the reasoning life which had once sufficed to furnish the faculty was largely developed, the imaginwhole being was now contained in the ative not at all; he trusted to no deducbrain. From time to time he raised up tions, to no speculations that were not his head, throwing back with a sudden rigidly derived from his own personal exmovement the long grey locks which im- periences: hence his views, although wonpeded his sight, and gazed around; and, derfully correct, were never all-comprehenthen, as if satisfied with the result of his sive. He understood mankind sectionally; examination, a smile would pass across his he could almost infallibly foresee how each features and his head would again fall section would act singly; but of that upon his bosom. He saw death approach-"touch of nature that makes the whole ing neither with shrinking nor fear, nor yet with any affectation of scorn or defiance." He died May 17, 1838, aged 84. "He possessed a mixture of the firmness of Richelieu, knowing how to select a party, the finesse of Mazarin, knowing how to elude it; the restlessness and factious readiness of the Cardinal de Retz, with a little of the magnificent gallantry of the Cardinal de Rohan," says a French writer; thus connecting him, by comparison, with all his great predecessors in statecraft. Guizot thus sums up his character: "Out of a crisis or a congress he is neither skilful nor powerful. A man of court and of diplomacy, not of government, and less of a free government than any other; he excelled in treating by conversation, by an agreeableness of manner, by the skilful employment of his social relations with isolated people; but authority of character, fecundity of talent, promptitude of resolution, power of eloquence, sympathetic intelligence with general ideas and public passions, all these great means of acting upon mankind at large he entirely wanted. SELF. world kin" of those subtle links that can mass mankind as a whole, and by which all great rulers have swayed their worlds, he knew nothing. Because no process of mathematical reasoning, no experience, however extended, can deduce them; their existence can only be revealed by the inspiration of those creative faculties of the mind that revealed to Shakespeare a Macbeth and a Hamlet. He worked for the greatness of France, because upon the greatness of France depended the greatness of Talleyrand. He was purely a cynic-the well-being of mankind never for a moment entered into his calculations. To him the world was a chess-board-mankind the pieces; he ranged his kings and his queens, his bishops and his generals, and played them one against the other; when the game was exhausted and the sovereign was encompassed by enemies beyond all hope of escape, he cried "Checkmate," and began the game afresh. It was said of him, "Like a cat, he always falls upon his feet; cats do not follow their masters, they are faithful to -the house." will try, and if she succeeds ail the conditions of the balance of power will be changed; it will be necessary to seek for Europe new bases and a new organization." His vices were those of the age in which | being composed of pieces that have no he was educated; his licentiousness, his unity among themselves. It is then cynicism, his scepticism, his selfish con- Prussia who ought to be watchel; she te:npt for mankind, were learned in the boudoir of Du Barry. In reason and in action, he was of the nineteenth century; in thought and feeling, he was of the ancien régime. His liberalism had been learned in the school of Voltaire; he accepted the advance of political ideas as a necessity, but with no sympathy. "The thoughts," he said, "of the greatest number of intelligent persons in any age or country are sure, with few more or less fluctuations, to becorne in the end the public opinion of their age or community." And he always yielded to public opinion. From London Society. THE KING LEAR OF THE TRANSLATED FROM IVAN TOURGUENEF. BY MRS. BURY PALLISER. While attached to any government, he ONE winter's evening, a party of college served it faithfully and zealously; and in friends had assembled together, and the all his tergiversations he scrupulously conversation turned upon Shakspeare, and retained the outward forms of decency, upon the different characters in his plays, reserving to himself a respectable excuse which were all drawn with such astonishfor his defection: “I have never kept fealtying truthfulness that each one could name to any one longer than he has himself been obedient to common-sense," he said. 66 an Othello, a Hamlet, or a Falstaff, as among the persons they had chanced to meet." And I, gentlemen," said our host, "have known a King Lear." And he be The most brilliant of his talents was a marvellous and almost prophetic foresight, in proof of which I extract the two follow-gan his narrative. ing quotations from his writings. The "I passed my early youth in the country, prophecy contained in the first is rapidly in the domain of my mother, a rich Ruscoming to pass; that contained in the sian landed proprietor in the government second has just been wonderfully fulfilled: of X- -The most striking impresUpon the side of America, Europe sion that has remained upon my memory, should always keep her eyes open, and is the person of Martin Petrovitch Kharfurnish no pretence for recrimination or lof, our nearest neighbour. In my life I reprisals. America grows each day. She never saw any one like him. Imagine a will become a colossal power, and the man of gigantic stature, with an enormous time may arrive when, brought into closer body, upon which was set. without any apcommunion with Europe by means of new pearance of neck, a monstrous head, surdiscoveries, she will desire to have her say mounted by a tangled mass of greyish, in our affairs, and put in her hand as well. yellow hair, almost joining his shaggy eyePolitical prudence then imposes upon the brows. On his sunburnt face was a broad, government of the Old World to scrupu- flat nose, little blue eyes, and a small lously watch that no pretext is given her mouth. His voice was hoarse but sonofor such an interference. The day that rous. The expression of his face was not America sets her foot in Europe, peace and disagreeable; there was a certain grandsecurity will be banished for many years." eur in it, but so strange, so extraordinary. "Do not let us deceive ourselves; the And then, what arms, what legs, what European balance that was established by shoulders! Summer and winter Kharlof the congress of Vienna will not last for wore a kind of tunic of greenish cloth, conever. It will be overturned some day; fined at the waist by a Circassian belt. I but it promises us some years of peace. never saw him wear a cravat. He breathed The greatest danger that threatens it in slowly and heavily like a bullock, and the future are the aspirations that are walked noiselessly. His Herculean strength growing universal in central Germany. inspired the respect of all the country The necessities of self-defence and a com- round, and various legends were circulamon peril have prepared all minds for ted relating to it. It was affirmed that one Germanic unity. That idea will continue day, on meeting a bear, he felled it to the to develop until some day one of the great earth with his fist; and that, on another powers who make part of the Confedera- occasion, having surprised a peasant in tion will desire to realize that unity for its his orchard, in the act of stealing his beeewn profit. Austria is not to be feared, hives, he flaug him over the hedge, to 66 gether with the horse and cart he had are our shepherd dogs,' said Kharlof, 'of brought to carry away his plunder. But the true Crimean race. Be quiet, you Kharlof did not pride himself on his physi- rascals, or I will hang you all.' cal strength so much as upon his birth, A young man in a long nankeen coat his position, and the mental superiority appeared at the doorstep of the new house, for which he gave himself credit. My and reverentially assisted his father-in-law mother received him with special kind- to alight. Anna,' called Kharlof, 'the ness, for he had saved her life, twenty son of Natalia Nicolavna condescends to years ago, by stopping her carriage on visit us. We must entertain him. Arthe edge of a deep ravine into which the range the table immediately. Where is horses had fallen. The shafts and harness little Evlampia?' were broken, but Kharlof never left his hold of the wheel, though the blood was starting from his finger-nails. It was my mother who had given him his wife, an orphan reared in her own house. She died young, leaving two daughters, the eldest of whom was married. "Kharlof, was a good landed proprietor. Of the obedience of his peasantry it were idle to speak. Large and heavy as he was, he never went on foot, but drove a low droski, drawn by an old, decrepid horse, bearing the scar of a wound it had received in battle. Behind the droski sat always his little Cossack boy, Maximka. "I have already said that my mother treated Kharlof with respect. She saw in him a kind of devoted giant who, if needs be, would not hesitate to fight a whole army of revolted serfs. Besides, he was loyal, never borrowed money, never drank, and, if he was deficient in education, was not wanting in intelligence. Who would have thought this giant, so confident in his own powers, was subject to fits of melancholy? They would come on without any apparent cause, and he would then shut himself up in his room, and call his Cossack boy to read or sing to him - the colossus Kharlof feared death. "Men of great physical power are generally phlegmatic, but this was not his case. His wrath was easily aroused, and no one had the power of more readily irritating him than the brother of his deceased wife, a contemptible little being, half buffoon, half parasite, who lived with us. His name was Bitschkof, but he always bore the sobriquet of Souvenir. I was anxious to see Kharlof's house, and one day proposed to return with him; it was situated on the top of a hill. We entered the courtyard. On one side was an old habitation with thatched roof, on the other a newly built house. See,' said Kharlof, in what a hovel my father lived, and look at the palace I have built for myself.' It was so slightly built, it looked like a castle of cards. Five or six dogs, each one uglier than the other, salated us with furious barkings. 'These 1306 LIVING AGE. VOL. XXVIII. 666 She is not at home; she is gone to the fields to gather corn-flowers.' Evlampia was the younger daughter, and her father's favourite. In a few minutes all was ready. Surprised at the rapidity with which Kharlof's orders were executed, I followed him into the dining-room, where, on a table covered with a white-patterned red cloth, was laid out the repast, consisting of curds, cream, wheaten bread, and powdered sugar, mixed with cinnamon. While I was eating, Kharlof fell asleep. Anna stood before me perfectly motionless, her eyes fixed upon the ground, and through the window, I could see her husband leading my horse up and down the courtyard, polishing with his hands the curb chain which he had detached from the bridle. her was "My mother did not like Kharlof's eldest daughter. She thought proud. Towards my mother, she cold and reserved, though she had placed her at school, found her a husband, and presented her on the day of her marriage with a thousand roubles and an Indian shawl. Anna was the terror of the wives and daughters of the peasants. "Kharlof woke up. 'Anna,' he said, 'play something on the piano, that pleases these young gentlemen.' I turned my head, and saw the pitiable semblance of a harpsichord in the corner of the room. "I obey, father, but I can play nothing which would interest the gentleman; and, besides, the strings are all broken.' 666 Then,' said Kharlof, Volodka* shall show you the granary,' calling to his sonin-law, who was still walking my horse up and down. Vladimir Slotkine was an orphan whom my mother had sent to the village school, and afterwards married to Anna. She called him her little Jew, and his hooked nose, black eyes, and red lips were quite of the Oriental type. A thirst for gain was the leading feature in his character. "In one of the turns of the road, I met the second daughter of Kharlof. A wreath • The diminutive of Vladimir. all my property between my two daugh- of corn-flowers encircled her head. We saluted each other in silence. Evlampia was less beautiful than her sister, but of a different stamp. Tall and strongly made, everything in her was on a large scale And as I desire in this same affair,' head, limbs, hands, teeth, and, above all, continued Kharlof, 'to observe the necesher eyes of a dull blue with heavy eyelids. sary legal forms, I beg of your son Dmtri, This monumental being was a true daugh- and to my relation, Bitschkof, I prescribe ter of Kharlof. Her plait of fair hair was it as a duty, to witness the accomplishment so long she was obliged to twist it three of the formal act, and the giving over postimes round her head. There was some- session to my daughters Anna and Evlamthing wild, almost ferocious, in the ex- pia; which act is to be accomplished the pression of her eyes. 'She is untameable, day after to-morrow, at noon, in my own of Cossack blood,' said Kharlof. In my domain of Jeskovo, with the participation heart, she intimidated me; this colossal of the authorities who have been invited being too closely resembled her father. to attend.' Kharlof had great difficulty "One day, towards evening, in the in delivering this formal speech, which he month of June, Kharlof was announced. had evidently learned by heart. My mother was astonished, as he never "Is it yourself,' asked my mother,' who paid such late visits. When he entered has prepared this act of division?' the room, he threw himself upon a chair, Yes, and I have sent it in; and the near the door, and looked so pale, the ex- tribunal of the district has received the pression of his face so disturbed, that my necessary order to attend.' He rose slowmother exclaimed, 'Speak, speak; some-ly to go. But wait,' cried my mother, thing has happened. Has your fit of mel-Do you really make over everything to ancholy returned?' your daughters, without any reservation?' "Certainly, without reserve.' "And where will you live?' "Where will I live? why, in my own house, as I have done till now. What change would you have?' 6 "Kharlof knit his brow. No, it is not my melancholy; that comes on at the full of the moon. Allow me to ask you one question, madam, What do you think of death? 666 Of what?' said my mothe somewhat startled. ་ 666 666 But, are you sure of your daughters, and of your son-in-law?' 666 -- "I have just had a nocturnal hailucina- "Is it of Volodka you speak? of that tion,' he said, in a low tone, a nocturnal beggar? I will make him do as I will. hallucination,' he repeated, 'I am a great What power has he? And my daughters! seer of visions.' Kharlof gave a deep sigh, they will feed, clothe, and house me till my and continued, 'About a week back it death. Is it not their most sacred duty? was exactly on the eve of St. Peter - [ Assuredly; only excuse me for saylaid down to rest myself, and fell asleep. ing so, Martin Petrovitch your eldest Suddenly, I saw enter my room a black daughter is full of pride, and the second colt, which began to gambol and grin at has the look of a wolf.' me with his teeth. And then, this same "Natalie Nicolavna!' exclaimed Kharcolt turned round and gave me a kick on lof, what are saying? Good heavens! the left elbow, in the most sensitive part, They, my daughters, wanting in obedience! and I awoke. My left arm was powerless, an idea not to be dreamt of. What! reand so was my left leg. It is paralysis, I sist a father! and incur the curse that said to myself. By degrees circulation re- would await them. They who have passed turned, but a creeping sensation ran their lives in trembling submission, and of through all my joints, and as soon as Ia sudden to -"a suffocating cough here open the palm of my hand, it begins seized Kharlof, and my mother hastened again.' to compose him. "But, Martin Petrovitch, you have been only lying upon your arm when asleep.' 66.6 666 6 Only, I cannot understand,' she urged, 'why this immediate division. After you, the property will go to them. 1 suppose your melancholy is the cause of all this.' No, madam, it is not what you are pleased to say. It is a warning I have received; it is the announcement of my "Ah,' returned Kharlof, with some irrideath. Consequently, I come to tell you tation, 'you always throw my melancholy my intentions without loss of time. Not in my teeth. It is perhaps a force from wishing that death should take me una- above that now acts upon me. I make wares, I, the humble slave of the Almighty, this immediate division because I will it. have determined to divide, in my lifetime, I, of my own person, by my own power, |