order of her imperial majefty; fomewhat like that by which Paul has fince ordered a yacht to be promoted to the rank of a frigate *. Several of thefe towns are even nothing more than flakes driven into the ground, containing their name, and delineating their scite; yet, without waiting till they fhall be finished, and particularly till they fhall be peopled, they figure in the map as if they were the capitals of fo many provinces +. "Prince Potemkin did actually build fome towns, and conftru&t fome ports in the Krimea: which are very fine cages, but contain no birds; and fuch as might be allured thither would fhortly mope and pine to death, if they had not the power of flying away. The Ruf "This is a well-known fact." fian government is fubjugating and oppreffive; the Ruffian character, warlike and defolating. Taurida, fince it was conquered, has become a defert ‡. "This mania of Catharine, of planning every thing and completing nothing, drew from Jofeph II. a very fhrewd and fatirical remark. During his travels in Taurida, he was invited by her to place the fecond stone of the town of Ekatarinoslaf, of which the had herself, with great parade, laid the firft. On his return, he said, 'I have finished in a fingle day a very important bufinefs with the empress of Ruffia: fhe has laid the firft ftone of a city, and I have laid 'the last.'" 6 "Catharine built, at an enormous expence, near Tzarkofelo, the town of Sophia, the circumference of which is immenfe; but the houfes are already tumbling down, and have never been inhabited. If fuch be the lot of a town immediately under her eyes, what must be the fate of thofe cities founded by her in remote deferts? But the most ridiculous town in being is unquestionably that of Gathina, of which Paul has the honour to be founder. Thefe perfonages look upon mankind as ftorks, who are caught by placing a wheel on the top of a houfe, or on a steeple. But all thefe forced erections, from the fuperb Potsdam to the contemptible Gathina, prove that the real founders of cities are cultivation, commerce, and freedom; defpots are only the deftroyers of them: they know nothing of building and peopling any thing except prifons and barracks." "A friend of mine, a man of learning, was travelling in Taurida under the protection of government, for the purpose of investigating the country. One day com ng to the habitation of a Tartar, who led a patriarchal life, and treated him with becoming hofpitality, my friend, perceiving that his hoft was dejected, asked him the cause of his fadnef: Alas! I have great reason,' faid he. May I not be permitted to know it? The Ruffian foldiers, who are in the neighbourhood, come every day and cut down my fruit trees, that ferve me both for fhade and nourishment, to burn them; fhortly my bald head will be expofed to the parching heat of the fun.'- Why do you not complain of this treatment to their commander - I have done fo.'- Well!• He told me that I fhould be paid two rubles a foot for fuch as they had already cut down, and the fame for as many as they may cut down bereafter. But I am not in want of their money. Only let me die in peace under the fhadow of the trees which my fathers have planted! or 1 muft follow my unhappy brethren, and flee my country, as they have been forced to do,' As he fpoke the tears trickled down the beard of this venerable patriarch." VIEW VIEW of the CHARACTER and CONDUCT of LOUIS XVI. KING of FRANCE, fubfequent to the REVOLUTION, A.D. 1789. [From Two HISTORIC DISSERTATIONS, &c. by WILLIAM BELSHAM.] "TH fee.' But M. Bertrand de Moleville, who filled for fome months, during the years 1791 and 1792, the office of minister of marine, and was known to be in the highest confidence of the king, fpeaks in his Memoirs a language widely different. Becaufe,' fays he, the HE fincerity of the late king of France, and the reality of his attachment to the conftitution, established A.D. 1791, have been frequent and ferious topics of difcuffion in this country; and there are many perfons fo immoderately indulgent, or fo imperfectly informed, as to imagine that this un-States General produced the most fortunate monarch was chargeable with no violation of good faith and integrity during the laft eventful years of his life. But if it appear on a difpaffionate and impartial in execrable revolution that ever exifted, is it Louis we ought to accufe? No one is ignorant that it was not in his power to refufe affembling the States General. He veftigation of facts, that the diffi-was forced to it, not only by the mulation of the king was uniform and fyftematic, from the period of his affembling the Eftates General to the day of his dethronement, the French nation will be refcued from a part, at least, of that intolerable load of reproach, under which, from a variety of caufes, but chiefly from the practical abandonment of their fpeculative principles, they at prefent unavoidably fuffer. Truth is facred, and we have no right to be unjust, even to thofe who are charged or chargeable with acts of the most atrocious injuftice to others. There is furely no neceffity to heighten the deep and fombre tints of the picture. "Although every art and every effort had been tried on the part of the court to prevent the meeting of the Eftates General, the king of France, in his opening fpeech (May 5, 1789) affumed the merit of convening that affembly from the pureft motives of patriotifm and good-will; and he congratulated them on the arrival of the • day which he had long panted to univerfal cry of the kingdom, but by the deplorable imprudence of the parliaments in declaring, that they did not reprefent the nation, and that they would no longer ufurp a right which confcience and honour compelled them to relinquif. The rafh and violent proceedings of the archbishop of Touloufe had been attended with confequences which ftruck the court with confternation; and in adopting the conciliatory line of conduct recommended by M. Necker, the monarch was influenced by no other motive than fear. But his understanding was too circumfcribed to allow him long to follow any confiftent and uniform fyftem of action. After the actual convention of the Eftates, he evidently wavered between oppofite counfels. "The famous Royal Declaration of the 23d June, (1789) was originally drawn by M. Necker; but alterations fo material were fubfequently engrafted upon it by the fecret advifers of the crown, that he no longer acknowledged it as his; refufing even to attend the king on this occafion to the affem. bly. I. The declaration, in its original state, did not pretend to annul the refolution by which the Tiers Etat announced itself to be the National Affembly, but on the contrary it authorifed the affembly during the prefent feflion to vote individually. II. The plan of M. Necker contained an article which declared that the citizens of every clafs fhould be admitted equally to all offices, without any other diftinction than that of abilities and virtues; a conceffion which at once overthrew all the ancient and odious ariftocratic privileges. III. By an article of M. Necker's plan, the affembly, voting individually, was empowered to regulate the organization of all future affemblies of the Eftates General; the fpirit of the declaration therefore in its original state was entirely in favour of the Tiers Etat, who would have been highly gratified at this critical moment by fuch gracious and open manifeftations of the royal countenance and protection. And the fpecific propofitions of the king, confifting of thirty-five articles, as they came from the hands of M. Necker, might easily have been modified and reduced to a regular fyftem. But the haughty and peremptory manner in which the Tiers Etat were recommended to refcind the decifive step they had juft taken totally counteracted every good effect the declaration was otherwife calculated to produce. "The king even ventured to throw out an indirect menace of diffolving the Affembly in cafe of disobedience. Vous venez, Meffieurs,' faid he, d'entendre le refultat de mes difpofitions, et de 'mes vues. Elles font conformes au vif defir que j'ai d'operer le 6 6 bien public; et fi par une fatalité loin de ma pensée vous m'abandonniez dans une fi belle enter prize, Seul je ferai le bien ce mes peuples: Seul, je me confidérai comme leur véritable répréfentant; et connoiffant vos cahiers, connoiffant l'accord parfait qui exifte entre le vœu le plus général de la nation, et mes intentions bienfaifantes, j'aurai toute la confiance qui doit infpirer une fi rare 'harmonie, et je marcherai vers le but auquel, je veux attendre avec tout le courage, et la fermeté, qu'il doit m'inspirer.' "Such language as this was calculated to produce the highest degree of irritation, and the authority of the crown at this period was utterly unequal to the execution of thefe lofty ideas. Arrogant and boaftful words, unaccompanied by the reality of power, will inevitably excite at the fame time refentment and contempt. M. Necker was certainly by no means a man of first-rate talents; but it is no more than juftice to fay, that the failure of his projects arose not from any inherent abfurdity in their nature, but from the fecret and powerful oppofition made to them by perfons poffefling the subftance of that confidence of which he had only the name and the shadow. But when he found himself unable to carry those measures, of which he difcerned the wisdom and the rectitude, into effect, he ought doubtlefs inftantly to have refigned his office. To remain for a moment in a place, lending his fanction to measures which he was no longer allowed to guide, muft ever be regarded as demonftrative evidence of a mind devoid of that refolution and energy which his fituation demanded. "The character of that unfortunate tunate but well-intentioned mini- trand fpeaks in terms of high-flown fter is thus drawn by M. Bertrand panegyric, appears, nevertheless, de Moleville, with a pen dipped in throughout thefe memoirs, in a gall. I knew him well enough light by no means advantageous. to be firmly perfuaded that he Weak, diftruitful, fuperftitious, never dened the ill he has done, inconftant, ftrongly affected by mior that he had the leaft notion nute circumftances inceffantly, and that his measures would produce idly bufy in the purfuit of petty, it. I only blame his vanity, and and at the fame time ofter perhis extravagant prefumption. He nicious, objects. Mild, humane, fo completely in his confcience and indulgent by nature, but jeabelieved himfelf to be the ableft lous to the laft degree of any dimiminifter that ever exifted, that nution of power; and when occa'he would have been mortified to fionally forced to conceffions, arthave only been compared with fully and oftentatiously reprefent'Sully and Colbert. He did not ing them as the effect of his own hefitate to believe, that he com- royal and fpontaneous beneficence; bined in a fuperior degree all the perpetually hearkening to, and in 'great qualities of the greatest mi- part following, the counfels of fome nifters, without any of their faults. rash and defperate men, falfely Pofterity will fee in him a man, calling themfelves the king's • selfish, ambitious, and vain: fool-friends,' whom, in defiance of ishly intoxicated with the merit the public opinion, and of the comwhich he fancied himself to pof- mon dictates of prudence, he refefs, and jealous of that of others; tained near his perfon, and of defirous of excess of honour and whom M. Bertrand was the chief. of power; virtuous in words, and through oftentation, more than in reality. In a word, he was a prefumptuous empiric in politics and morals.' The colleague of M. Necker, M. de Montmorin, is declared by M. Bertrand,teuil,' fays M. Bertrand, left Verto have been neither conftitu$ tionalift, nor democrat, but a real royalift. I muft,' fays he, at the fame time acknowledge, that the • extreme weakness of his charac• ter prevented him from being ufefalto his majesty in circumftances that required much energy.' This is equivalent to an affertion, unfortunately too well fupported by collateral and independentevidence of the political hypocrify of M. de Montmorin, during the whole term of his adminiftration, even when he feemed most friendly to the eftapiithment of a free conftitution. "Louis XVI. of whom M. Ber "On the capture of the Baftile, on the memorable 14th July, 1789, the king profeffed, and, moft unfortunately for himself, only profeffed, to change the whole courfe of his policy. When the baron de Bre 6 failles at the period of M. Nec'ker's recal, he was invefted with the power of treating with foreign courts, and of propofing any 'measure in the king's name which, in his opinion, tended to promote the re-establishment of the royal authority.' "For two years this nobleman appears to have poffeffed the higheft place in the royal confidence; and during this period political in trigues were inceffantly carried on by the French court, and a clandeftine and dangerous correfpondence maintained with that of Vienna. This was well known by thofe those who were the most intereft- a counter-revolution, concerted ed in counteracting them. The plaineft truths were fpoken in the plaineft language; but to thofe who had ears, and would hear not, fpoken, alas! in vain. between the courts of Vienna, Madrid, Turin, and Naples; conformably to which, France was to be invaded by the combined forces of thefe confederate powers, amounting to 100,000 men, at the end of July; and their Moft Christian majefties are earnestly exhorted to employ every poffible means to increase their popularity, in "While the infidious project for the vifit to St. Cloud was in contemplation, the following fpirited expoftulatory addrefs to the king appeared in the periodical publication ftyled L'Orateur du Peu-order to take advantage of it, ple. Louis XVI. aujourd'hui encore roi des Français arrête! • Ou cours-tu monarque, abufé par des confeils perfides? As-tu bien pefé les fuites de ce départ, l'ouvrage de ta femme? Le peuple when the time fhould come; and fo that the people, alarmed at the approach of the foreign armies, fhould find their fafety only in the king's mediation, and their fubmiffion to his majesty's autho ignore-t-il que de St. Cloud tu terity. His Imperial majefty indifpofes à partir pour Compeigne, et de-là pour la frontière? Ne favons-nous pas que la bouche des rois fut toujours l'antre du menfonge? Une furie te pouffe dans le precipice! Eh bien, fi tu pars, nous ne voyons plus en toi que Tarquin chaffé de Rome.' "Had the king of France been a man capable of philofophic reflexion, the axiom of the Roman hiftorian might probably have occurred with fufficient force to have reftrained his fubfequent acts of delirium. Regum majeftatem difficilius ab fummo faftigio, • ad medium detrahi, quam a me♦ diis ad ima præcipitari.' "The most direct and decifive evidence of the deceitful conduct of the king is, however, furnished by M. Bertrand himfelf, who acknowledges, that, in May 1791, M. le Compte Alphonfe D'Urfort, was difpatched on a fecret commiffion from their Moft Chriftian majefties to the emperor, then at Mantua and in a fhort time he returned with a declaration, figned by his Imperial majefty, containing the outlines of a plan for effecting treats their Moft Chriftian majefties to drop every idea of procuring their liberty; and adds, that their fureft dependence is on the movement of the armies of the allied powers, preceded by menacing manifeftoes.' "Unfortunately the king and queen, deaf to every fuggeftion of policy and prudence, from whatever quarter originating, adopted meafures equally fatal to themselves and to the kingdom. "By the advice of the baron de Breteuil, an attempt was made by their majefties, notwithstanding the diffuatives of the emperor, to effect their escape to Montmedi; a proje& no lefs abfurd in the defign, than unfuccefsful in the execution, and mifchievous in the confequences. Senfible, by dear-bought experience, of the falfe ftep he had taken, the king withdrew his confidence from the baron, but unhappily without transferring his fa vour to those who were more deferving of it. From this fatal æra the republican party became every day more daring and formidable. The king having declared, in the paper |