They resided together; and instead of making a dis-diately recalled her servant. "I paid you handplay of their wealth, gave away large sums in cha somely on dismissing you," said she," that it might rity to the poor. When her son injured his health not be said that I picked a quarrel with one of my by the strictness of his devotional practices, Madame household as a pretext for a shabby action. I now Pilau exclaimed, “What can you mean, my dear give you a pension for life of two hundred livres, in Robert, by all these efforts? Do you intend to go a atonement of an unjust suspicion; and if you choose step beyond paradise?" to return to my service, I will double your wages." In all respects, her son was a source of annoyance When she was on a visit to the Princesse de Gueto her. Her house and establishment were models menee, at the Chateau of Muedon, Servieu, the surinof neatness and elegance, and visited by the first fendant des finances (a man enormously rich and society of the court; but the dirty habits of Robert equally influential), gave a magnificent entertainPilau often put matters into confusion. "Don't worry yourself, mother; 1 shall improve as I grow older," said the sloven; and he was then in the fifty-third year of his age. ment, to which Madame Pilau accompanied her friends, the Rohans. Servieu, enchanted to receive a person so universally known, made her unlimited offers of service. 66 His mother once made him a present of a hand- Keep your good intentions for those who are in some winter mantle, which accorded so ill with the need of them," she replied. "Robert Pilau and I rest of his dress, that he was taken for a thief who are too well off to stand in need of you. All I rehad made away with a rich cloak, and so severely quest is, that whenever we meet, you will be as grabeaten in the street that his life was despaired of. cious as you are at Meudon, for you have nothing to Robert Pilau made it his last request that those by fear from me. I am one of the few persons who whom he had been injured might not be prosecuted. never have anything to ask of you; and am probably Being nearly as eccentric as his mother, he had made the only one in France who dare say so in such plain an enormous collection of invitations to funerals- terms." the billets d'enterrement still in use among the French. One day, when visiting at the Hotel de Chaulnes, Madame Pilau was occasionally diverted in pub- the duchess did something to offend her. "Because lic, by overhearing exclamations of horror at her ex-you are a duchess and I the wife of an attorney, you treme ugliness. fancy yourself privileged to be impertinent," cried "Ah! my pretty lady," she would reply, "I have she; but either you must treat me with the respect worn better than you will. Such as I am now, I due to your guest, or I will never set foot in your was at fifteen. Which of you, at seventy years of house again. I am independent in mind and circumage will be able to say as much?" stances, and care very little to reckon a duchess more In the "Clelie" of Mademoiselle de Scuddery, she or less of my acquaintance." She had scarcely left figures under the name of Arricidie, as a person of the hotel when the Duchess de Chaulnes wrote her singular philosophy, but the highest merit. On via letter of apology couched in the handsomest terms. siting the authoress a short time after the publication Madame Pilau had a similar explanation with of the work, she observed, "You must be indeed a woman of genius, for you have converted an old rag into cloth of gold." Chavigny, then one of the most influential men in the kingdom; who ever afterwards treated her with the utmost deference, and forestalled all her requests. The Cardinal de la Valette, however, whom she offended by her plain speaking, threatened to have her tied upon the bronze horse placed in the centre of the Pont Neuf. 66 Madame Pilau was frequently applied to by families of distinction to undertake explanations requiring more than usual firmness and presence of mind. The Duchess d'Aumont used to say, "When Ma dame Pilau is no more, how will people ever obtain During her widowhood, three different suitors justice from their relations?" Nothing, however, pretended to the hand of Madame Pilau. "But I would ever induce her to recommend a servant or a must do them the justice to add," she used to say in "offices," she said, "in which people telling the story, that all three have since died in tradesperson; were sure to disoblige all parties." Her functions, the Petites Maisons" (a lunatic asylum). One day indeed, were of a far higher order. When the Duc the Abbe de Lenoncourt attacked her with ill-timed de Tresmes, at eighty years of age, was on the point pleasantries in a large party. May I enquire, sir, of death, no one could induce him to perform the whether you have been condemned to be witty by a customary offices of religion. His son, the Marquis decree of parliament ?" said she. "Nothing short of de Gesvres, consequently addressed himself to Ma- that can excuse your attempt." On another occasion dame Pilau, who visited the sick man, and, though the cure of a parish announced a series of sermons insulted by his physicians, who bade her "hold her from the pulpit against dancing. Madame Pilau preaching," persevered till she succeeded. paid him a visit and advised him to desist. "You 66 She was also frequently selected to undertake the are talking of what you know nothing about," said charge of large sums of money for her friends. On she." You have never been to a ball, I have; and one occasion she missed five hundred livres from a can assure you that there is no sin in the matter sum thus deposited, and thought proper to discharge worth mentioning." a favourite servant, the only person besides herself Whenever any droll occurrence took place in who had access to it, and who chose to resent her Paris, Anne of Austria used to observe, "Madame inquiries. It afterwards appeared that the owner of Pilau would be worth hearing on that subject." On the money had returned furtively, and carried off the a certain occasion, the Cardinal de Richelieu, aware missing sum, which he had placed in a small bag that Madame Pilau was acquainted with a thousand expressly for the purpose of theft, as remorse even-curious particulars of the life of the President de tually urged him to confess. Madame Pilau imme-Chevry, one of the most irregular men of those irre From the Spectator. gular times, entreated her to favour him with a few anecdotes; but not a syllable could be extorted from The Adamus Exul of Grotius; or the Prototype of her, as she was apprehensive of doing an injury to the son of the president who still survived. Paradise Lost. Now first translated from the Latin, by FRANCIS BARHAM, Esq. Second edition. A woman of fashion, who was confessing to her that she had a lover, a This translation is made from a rare copy, prosecretary of legation, seemed inclined to boast that this was a solitary cured from the late Mr. HEBER's library. Part or all error. "Ma mie!" replied the shrewd old lady, "I of it was originally published in the Monthly Magasee nothing to be proud of. There is more distance zine, and Mr. BARHAM has reprinted this "astonishbetween none and one, than between one and a ing drama," to show us the true "prototype of Parathousand." dise Lost." If any admirer of MILTON is disquieted 66 At eighty-six years of age, Madame Pilau was upon the suspected plagiarism of the great poet, let near coming to an untimely end, from lighting a ta- him spend half a crown upon the Adamus Exul, and per at a poisoned candle, composed by some lackeys be at rest. For the same sum any reader, critically for the purpose of stupefying one of their comrades. given, will learn very easily the difference between The old lady was recovered with some difficulty by a poet and a professor of jurisprudence. The scene the prompt administration of an antidote. Louis of the Adamus is Paradise; the only subject, the XIV. sent his first physician, Monsieur Valot, toat- eating of the Tree of Knowledge; besides a chorus, tend her during her illness. the interlocutions are five-Satan, an Angel, Adam, Madame Pilau was known by sight by half the Eve and Jehovah. The first act consists of a long population of Paris. When the remains of the Car- speech of Satan; but how unlike the soliloquy dinal de Richelieu were lying in state, there was a "Oh thou that with surpassing glory crown'd !" great confusion among the carriages at the gates of the Palais Royal, which caused much consternation Instead of the remorse, and obduracy and anguish of among the ladies. Madame Pilau, who was old and MILTON'S Satan, "thrice changed with pale ire, envy infirm, found herself suddenly lifted off her legs, and and despair," GROTIUS gives us the metaphysics and carried in the arms of a well-dressed man through scheming revenge of a schoolman. The second act the whole suite of apartments. She was the only exhibits Adam and an angel discoursing, also some one of her party who saw anything. On turning to what scholastically; but the angel's description of thank her assistant, "You don't know me," said he, the rebellion in heaven and his account of the crea"but you once took an occasion of obliging me, as tion contain the germ of the episodical narrative of you have thousands; and I am happy in an opportu-Raphael in Paradise Lost, as they probably suggested nity of being useful in return." it. The third act is occupied in a dialogue with Once, as she was hurrying to a grand church so- Adam and Satan; the Devil tempting the First Man lemnity at the Minimes of the Place Royale, her in vain, and going off in a huff an incident not only foot slipped, and she fell into the mud. Her servants contrary to Scriptural authority, but foolish on the wished her to return and change her dress. "No, part of Satan, as unmasking his presence and purno!" said she, "There will scarcely be a vacant seat pose. The fourth and fifth acts embrace the tempat church, and, in my present pickle, every one will tation of Eve, the compliance of Adam, their subsebe glad to get out of my way.' By this means she quent remorse and differences, and the final judgment of God. obtained a seat. The critic eye, that microscope of wit, When the Prince de Conde was attacking Paris, in 1652, "Your only object," said she to the prince, "is to effect the ruin of Cardinal de Richelieu; and a pretty piece of work you are likely to make of it! All your efforts will only establish him more firmly Are things which Kuster, Burman, Wasse, shall see in power. You put the queen in fear of you; who fancies that, but for the assistance of the cardinal, it would be all over with her." When man's whole frame is obvious to a flea." And read in this fashion, some such general resemMadame Pilau survived to an extreine old age: blance may be traced between the same scenes in and as she had no capacity for reading or amusing Paradise Lost and the Adamus, as must inevitably herself at home, she became eventually a nuisance to occur where two persons handle a subject permitting her acquaintance. The above particulars concerning in its nature little deviation, and whose treatment is her are attested by the MSS. of her contemporary partly chalked out by Scriptural authority. But in and friend, Des Reaux, extant in the Royal library variety, nature and every thing which denotes poetical genius, the Adamus is entirely wanting. of Paris. MUSEUM OF Foreign Literature, cture, Science FEBRUARY, 1840. From the Quarterly Review. FRENCH ORATORS AND ORATORY. Etudes sur les Orateurs Parlementaires. Par Timon. Huitieme edition. 2 tomes, 12mo. Paris, 1839. hesitate to denounce him as a Carlist in disguise. Very probably he was not at that time in the best possible humour with the movement party; and, after being at the pains to procure a new title and a majorat, he might reasonably have preferred a state of things in which he could make the most of such advantages; but at all events his supposed penchant TIMON is the well-known nom de guerre of M. le for royalty has not prevented him from exerting Vicomte de Cormenin, a remarkable man in many himself to the utmost to annoy and disappoint its ways-of whose career and character it is absolutely present and (perhaps) last representative in France. necessary to say something, if only to enable our Louis Phillipe loves money so does M. de Correaders to judge how far his estimates of individuals menin. Of all his majesty's projects, perhaps that may be warped by his own personal predilections touching the establishment of an appanage for the and antipathies. heir-apparent at the expense of the nation, was the M. de Cormenin is old enough to have played a one which he had most thoroughly at heart; and the part, more or less prominent, under each of the three discussion regarding it was the precise description of last grand systems or regimes,-the Empire, the controversy in which our "Timon" was peculiarly Restoration, and the Revolution of July. Under qualified to shine. His Letters on the Civil List the Empire he filled the post of auditor to the council proved the death-blow of the scheme. His arguof state, and was made a baron by Napoleon, whose ments, indeed, were answered and his figures of victories he had celebrated in early youth by odes. arithmetic upset by M. Linguaiy, in a pamphlet enDuring the hundred days he left Paris for the pur- titled "La Liste Civile Devoilee," distributed at pose of forming part of the garrison of a frontier town five sous a copy by the court; but his figures of lying directly in the line of march by which the al- speech told better, and he might fairly be said to lied armies were expected to advance; but, finding have gained the victory by style, valour unavailing, and this somewhat superfluous M. de Cormenin has been many years a member show of it having fortunately escaped the notice of of the Chamber of Deputies, but he hardly ever adhis contemporaries, he made up his mind to drop dresses it—a circumstance to be kept steadily in politics awhile, and fall back upon the study of ad- mind when we come to examine his sketches of more ministrative law (droit administratif), which he has venturesome co-temporaries. Once, however, when cultivated with eminent success. His acquirements challenged by M. Montalivet on a question regarding in this branch of knowledge were not withheld from the civil list, and all but dragged to the tribune by the service of the public in consequence of the want his friends, he extricated himself by a juxtaposition of concord between the government and himself: of figures expressed in a sentence, which effectually on more than one occasion he appeared before the checked the laughter of the ministerialists. But he chambers as an advocate of the crown, and, in plead-generally replies to the attacks made in the chamber ing for a grant of a milliard of livres, by way of in- through the press; and it is said that under Carrel's demnity to the emigrants, he went so far as to term editorship he contributed an immense number of artithe measure" un acte populaire." Neither did he cles, of unequal merit, to "The National." He may disdain to accept a favour from a source tainted with be what Johnson called Bathurst, "a good hater;" legitimacy; for under the Villele ministry he solicit- but physiognomy is all a lie, if, with his low brow ed and obtained, through the keeper of the seals and sharp nose, he can hate with magnanimity. On (Peyronnet) letters-patent for the erection of a ma- one occasion, M. de Montalivet formally retracted jorat, with the title of Vicomte. When, therefore, the title of Honourable, which, he said, he had only on the morrow of the Revolution of July, he was given M. Cormenin by mistake in the hurry of deheard demanding a constituent assembly and univer-bate. A parallel instance has occurred in our House sal suffrage, many plain-speaking persons did not of Lords, where Lord Brougham once drew an inVOL. XXXVIII.-FEBRUARY, 1840. 17 vidious distinction between illustrious by deeds and discreditable to be eternally thinking about what illustrious by courtesy. So much for the author: your constituents might think; and we well rememnow turn we to the book. ber the ironical cheers and laughter called forth by The first section or Study (the preliminary matter Lord Melbourne (then Mr. Lanib), in the parliamenbeing somewhat affectedly divided into etudes), is tary reform debate of 1826, when, in the course of a entitled Of the Causes which constitute the peculiar bitter and personal reply to Sir John (then Mr.) Hobkind of Deliberative Eloquence in each Country."house, he twitted his (now) right honourable colA few sentences will show that none but a French-league with speaking more for the hustings than the man could have written it:house. But since the measure to which Lord Mel"There are four things to be considered in parlia-bourne during the first half century of his existence mentary eloquence: the character of the nation, the was so vehemently and (he then said) unalterably genius of the language, the political and social opposed was carried by a cabinet of which he formed wants of the epoch, and the physiognomy of the au- a part, the practice has been introduced, and bids ditory. fair to become inveterate, of speaking almost exclu"If the character of the nation is cold and taci- sively for constituents through the press. Veniam turn, like that of the English and Americans, they petimusque damusque vicissim—“Let me prose away will be excited with difficulty. Gifted with patience, long enough to occupy a column or two in the newsthey will be as little wearied with speaking as with papers, and I will let you;" and, so long as his listening. They will set themselves at table to hear an drafts on the patience of the house do not exceed in orator during whole hours, as they would to drink or amount or frequency what is strictly necessary for smoke. this recognised object, almost any member may com"If, on the contrary, the national character he ir-mand an occasional hearing, though we should hardly ritable and mobile, like that of the French, it wants venture to pledge ourselves, with M. Timon, that his but a touch to make them believe themselves fellow-members will set themselves at table to listen wounded, or a tap on the shoulder to make them turn to him as complacently as they would to "drink or round. Long speeches tire us, and when a French-smoke." This senatorial virtue is only to be exman is tired, he goes away. If he cannot go away, pected of representatives in the strict literal acceptahe stays and talks: if he cannot talk, he yawns and tion of the term; i. e., delegates bound hand and goes to sleep."-vol. i., p. 8. foot, by pledges or instructions, to be as regular as When M. Lerminier was in England-we mean schoolboys at a call, and liable to be taken to account the French professor, who nearly caused a revolution at a moment's warning for saying anything that they a few months ago by his perseverance in lecturing ought not to say, or leaving unsaid anything that they his class after forfeiting their favour by accepting ought. Accordingly we find it in the highest degree one from the ministry-he spent almost all his even- of perfection in the Congress of the United States, ings in the stranger's gallery of the House of Com- where (as may be read in Captain Hall) each memmons, and avowed an intention of repairing to Ame- ber has a little table to himself, on which he leans rica for the express purpose of studying the proceed- his elbows, or writes his letters, and where (as a ings of Congress, so soon as he had thoroughly recent traveller remarks) one-half of a speech is adfamiliarized himself with the proceedings of the Bri- dressed to electors a thousand miles off, another half tish parliament; but whenever, emboldened by this to the ladies in the galleries, and the remainder to the avowal, an interlocutor ventured to speak English, Congress itself. With regard to the French Chamit was found that the learned professor was incapable bers, we can well believe the difficulty of getting of following a single sentence of the language in them to listen to anything but what tickles their which the proceedings in question were carried on. vanity or excites their passions: yet, so long as M. Cormenin has evidently undertaken to draw pa- written orations continue to be read from the tribune, rallels between three great deliberative assemblies surely the praise or dispraise of superior restlessness with qualifications even inferior to M. Lermenier's: must be withheld. In a word, M. Cormenin's disfor an hour's study of the bare pantomime of debate tinctions are altogether fanciful, and he might have would have induced him to doubt the justice of his spared us his philosophy until he had verified his remarks. Whatever may be the case with the facts: for to account for the assumed patience of the American Congress, the English House of Commons English by the coldness of the national character, is is still one of the most critical and impatient au- much the same as accounting for our assumed tendiences in the world, and the slightest recurrence to dency to suicide by the same causes ;-statistical its recent history would have shown that its increased writers having clearly established that three or four and increasing capacity for endurance has no con- nations beat us hollow in this propensity, and that nexion whatever with national character-in the sense the Prussians undoubtedly stand first. in which it is understood by M. Cormenin. In the days of Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, Tierney, Grey, In the second place we must pay attention to the Plunkett, Canning, Copley and Brougham, every genius of the language. If the language be hissing, man who, from character or position, was entitled to hard, and un peu dedaigneuse like the English, more address the house, or had any useful information to importance will be attached to things than style. communicate, was sure of a fair hearing; but no We shall not be offended by inversions or juxtaposibores or prosers of any sort were tolerated. The tions of words. If the particular genius of the lanreason was, that the members, besides being as a guage permits the sense to be suspended, and the gov body of a more cultivated and fastidious cast, were erning verb to be placed at the end of the phrase, it comparatively unfettered by any direct pressing ap- will be easier to keep up the attention of the audience. prehension of responsibility, and free to pursue the Common figures, proverbial maxims, low and vulgar real objects of debate. It was then reckoned rather expressions, may be allowed, provided they be ex His next distinction is no better founded:— pressive. That which the discourse will lose in the student is particularly recommended to keep sobriety and conventional tase, it will gain in energy flights of imagination and bold apostrophes for situaand truth. If the language be pompous and soft, like tions which justify them and moments when the the Spanish or Italian, the speaker will aim at sono- audience is warmed for their reception. Ibid., p. 10.) rousness of expression and the harmony of periods. Plain and obvious as this precept may be thought, Amongst the nations whose organization is musical, it is frequently neglected by first rate orators. Mr. the ear requires to be flattered as much as the soul to Grattan's burst of invocation: Spirit of Swift! be filled. But if the language be noble, elegant, polished, spirit of Molyneux! your genius has prevailed! Irecorrect, philosophical, like the French, great preparation land is now a nation forms the fourth sentence of and long practice will be needed for public speaking. the speech, and must have been uttered before the If the diction were too lagging, the speaker would members were well settled in their seats. sink into monotony; if too rapid, into hesitation. The fourth topic, the necessity of considering beHe will avoid redundant words and heavy epithets, fore whom you speak, gives occasion to M. Corwhich check the effusion of thought and embarrass menin to declare that the first class orators are mobthe march of the discourse. He will bear in mind orators, and that amongst these Mr. Daniel O'Conthat the spirit of French assembly is so prompt that nell is facile princeps :it seizes the sense of a phrase before it is finished, 66 Eloquence has not all its influence, its strong, and divines the intention before it is well conceived, sympathetic, stirring influence, except on the people. -so delicate that it revolts against repetitions, by Look at O'Connell, the greatest, perhaps the only the address of the synonymies what it may,-and crator of modern times! What a colossus! How he so pure that it is wounded by the slightest neologism, draws himself up to his full height! How his thununless it be brilliantly set, or springs, by an irresist- dering voice sways and governs the waves of the ible compulsion, from the force of the situation itself." multitude! I am not an Irishman-I have never seen -Ibid., p. 9. O'Connell I do not know his language, I should When some one was expatiating on the merits of not understand were I to listen to him. Why, then, French to Mr. Canning he exclaimed-Why what am I more moved by his discourses, badly transon earth, Sir, can be expected of a language which lated, discoloured, maimed, stripped of the allurehas but one word for liking and loving, and puts a ments of style, gesture, and voice, than by all those fine woman and a leg of mutton on a par-J'aime heard in my own country? It is because they bear Julie-J'aime un gigot?" This was hardly fair, since no resemblance to our rhetoric, tormented by parano language is happier in expressing the various phrase; because passion, true passion, inspires him shades of social sentiment, or affords an apter medium-the passion which can and does say all. It is beof communication between people of the world; but cause he tears me from the ground, rolls with me and of all the languages, ancient or modern, in which the drags me into his torrent-that he trembles and I productions of human genius have been embodied, it tremble-that he kindles, and I feel myself burning is certainly the least fitted for any of the highest-that he weeps, and tears fill my eyes-that his purposes of poetry and eloquence; nor are we aware, soul utters cries which ravish mine-that he carries at the present moment, of a single imaginative poet me off upon his wings, and sustains me in the halor first-rate orator, who does not in his own person lowed transports of liberty. Under the impression form a striking illustration of the difficulty of rising of his mighty eloquence, I abhor and detest with a unimpeded, or keeping long upon the wing, in such furious hatred the tyrants of that unfortunate counan atmosphere. try, as if I were the countryman of O'Connell, and I As to the test proposed in the above paragraph-if take to loving la verte Islande almost as much as my a language were favourable or unfavourable to rhe-own country."—Ibid., 15. toric in proportion as it permitted the sense to be It was by no means superfluous in the writer of suspended by throwing the verb to the end of the this paragraph to assure us he is not an 'Irishman; phrase, the Germans ought to excel all modern and it will be necessary for him to assure us that nations and we must do them the justice to say he is not, and has never been, a great many other that wherever (as in the Baden Chamber of Repre- things, before we give him full credit for his enthusentatives) a fair opportunity has been afforded them siasm. Yet let us be just to the member for all Irethey have shown no lack of proficiency in the art; land, the master-spirit of the Melbourne ministry, the but we doubt the alledged advantage, and whoever influence behind the cabinet, greater (which is not has been at the pains of examining the construction saying much for it) than the cabinet itself. When of Lord Brougham's periods, will agree with us, that, Mr. O'Connell first appeared upon the stage, it was even in English, the sense may be suspended too as the representative of a cause which, just or unjust, long. We may instance a well-known occasion was well fitted to enlist the sympathies of the warmwhen he contrived to interpose so much matter be- hearted and unreflecting of all countries on his side, tween the nominative and the verb, that all percept- and there was then an earnestness, an emphasis, an ible connexion was at an end; and (the verb being energy, in his effusions, which looked and felt like unluckily idem sonans with another word) the sense truth. At that period he was sometimes compared probably remains suspended to the majority of the to Mirabeau, with whom, in fact, he had little or noaudience to this hour: My honourable friends-who thing in common beyond a reckless abandonment of did so and so-who saw so and so- -who heard so principle. But since he became a member of the and so who said so and so, &c. &c. (each succes- British Parliament, he has done little more than resive parenthesis forming a long sentence) know." peat the old worn-out cuckoo song of "justice;" and Whether the concluding word was know or no was on all great occasions he is uniformly outshone, in the doubt. point of elocution, by a rival (Mr. Shiel) who had no The epoch is the third topic of consideration, and chance at all with him on their original field of action, |