Natural Theology-and in that discourse to assert, if not to attempt a proof, that Paley's argument can have no sound foundation-and notwithstanding to write, or cause to be written, 'copious and scientific illustrations' of an argument, by the editor's own confession, neither rational' nor intelligible?' It will not do for Lord Brougham to remind us, that he acknowledges Paley's argument to be put in a close and logical manner,' until he has first explained to us how an argument, neither rational' nor intelligible,' can be put in a close and logical manner.' This would be only to escape from one difficulty to run into another. To conclude. If we were to form an estimate of the author's philosophical acquirements, and his talent for abstract discussion from the work before us, we should briefly state that his knowledge appears to us to be more various than correct; his views enlarged, rather than clear; his penetration more quick than profound; that his opinions are the result of hasty thought, rather than of deliberate inquiry; that his reading and reflection on several subjects which he has attempted to discuss have been extremely superficial, and that his mind is too excursive to fit him for becoming a sound metaphysician. His style occasionally exhibits an easy masculine energy rarely found in the authors of the present time; but it is in general too lax and diffuse to be employed with advantage on subjects of this severe character-and it is deformed, more frequently than we could have anticipated, with pedantic affectations on the one hand, with colloquial vulgarisms on the other. ART. V.-Mémorial de l'Hôtel de Ville de Paris, 1830. Par pretty well understood. It is assuredly-to use a vulgar, but in this case most suitable phrase-the greatest humbug that ever insulted the common sense of mankind:-a revolution made in the name of a charter, which charter it forthwith tossed to the wind-a revolution made in the name of the people, in which the people had really no share, and from which they have derived no advantage-a revolution made by a faction, which faction became its earliest sacrifice-a revolution made in the name of liberty, which has produced a despotism-a revolution planned, prepared, and executed by journalists, of which the same journalists are now the most bitter enemies, and the most signal victims-a revolution, which from the moment that it had strength to walk alone, alone, and in exact proportion to its growing powers, has em ployed all its vigour in proscribing, prosecuting, persecuting, and punishing, even unto the death, the pretences, the principles, and the persons to which it owes its existence. Such, indeed, is the march of all revolutions; but in other cases it has been somewhat slower, and the events-spread over a greater length of time, and separated by extraneous incidents-did not afford that singular approximation and violent contrast which the July Revolution exhibits. Cromwell, Robespierre, and Napoleon attained their ruthless supremacy by degrees, and the eyes and ears of men were diverted and deceived by the interludes of wars, massacres, and victories, which veiled, if they did not conceal, the strides of the usurper; but in this case we see the progress of the tyranny in its naked truth-there are no softenings or shadings no gradation in the transformation of the demagogue into the despot-all appears in the strong, bold, unmingled colours of the most impudent contrast-and black has become white, and white black, with a degree of suddenness and shamelessness which strikes even the dullest eye with mingled astonishment and disgust. The men who made the Revolution of July speedily divided themselves into two classes: those who personally profited by it, and those who did not. The former have forgotten their principles in their places; the latter find their principles sharpened by disappointment; and the apostate possessors of office are now persecuting, with all the furious zeal of new and interested converts, those unhappy men by whose efforts alone they were advanced to power. We do not regret-quite the reverse-that France has a government strong enough to protect the lives and properties of the great mass of the nation who took no share in this flagitious revolution; and still less do we blame King Louis Philippe for dealing with the perverse, lawless and godless factions which surround him, in the only way in which such monsters can be managed; but we cannot see without wonder and some degree of pity, the intrigners and instigators of the original crime exercising their ill-gotten power in vengeance on their own tools and dupes. Committunt eadem diverso crimina fato:— Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit—hic diadema ! This broad and general view of the causes and consequences of the July revolt is so clear and undeniable, that it needs no illustration from us; but there are several incidental and auxiliary circumstances connected with the leading event which are worthy of our attention as matter of history, of instruction, and we will 2 E 2 even even venture, on so grave a subject, to add, of amusement. Mr. Burke says, that even in the most solemn events there are ludicrous episodes. The Souvenirs Historiques' of that foolish and forgotten booby Bérard have already amused our readers* with some such instances. The revelations of a livelier coxcomb, M. Hippolyte Bonnellier, now afford a still fuller exposure. In both cases the cause of historical truth has been served by the loquacious veracity of disappointed men in both cases, but especially in that now before us, we find an authentic delineation of the contemptible persons, the paltry motives, the miserable means, and the unimaginable accidents which accomplished a revolution more important we believe-at least in its principle-to European society, than any of the dozen revolutions, all equally 'glorious' in their day, which succeeded one another at about the average of one in every two years, from August, 1792, to April, 1814. Who or what M. Hippolyte Bonnellier was before the Three Great Days, we know not. We suspect him to have been one of that bold and busy class of indigent littérateurs which, created by an almost gratuitous system of public instruction, has overstocked the literary market as well as the learned professions, and which therefore hangs loose on society-always ready to join in popular commotions, which can do no great harm to those whose poverty assures them that they have nothing to lose, and whose vanity whispers that they have everything to gain. Be that as it may, this much is certain, that M. H. Bonnellier -from a position so obscure, that he himself does not choose to tell us what it was-found himself in a few hours the selfappointed secretary, and self-elected adviser and agent of the Provisional Government which occupied the interregnum between the imbecile integrity of Charles X., and the cunning boldness of Louis Philippe. M. Bonnellier's first appearance was on the evening of the 27th, at the meeting held at the office of the National, (a newspaper whose presses had been just seized,) where about one hundred and fifty persons, chiefly journalists, decided on an insurrection against the Ordonnances, and sent a deputation, consisting of M. Thiers, (then employed on that, we believe, is the technical phrase-the National,) one Chevalier, and Bonnellier himself, to anounce this decision to a meeting of members of the Chamber of Deputies, which had assembled at M. Casimir Périer's. The meeting had just broken up, and M. Périer was conducting MM. Guizot, De Broglie, and Puyraveau to the door-when the deputation met and stopped them. Thiers and Chevalier announced the * See Quarterly Review, vol, LII. p. 262. object object of their mission. MM. Guizot and Périer with one voice exclaimed, 'Why such precipitation? Wait for the 3rd of August-[the day for which the Chambers were summoned.] Bonnellier interrupted-' With you, gentlemen, if you will-if not, without you! Unhappy young man,' replied M. Guizot in alarm, whither would you drive us? To INSURRECTION!' exclaimed Chevalier. This awful word terminated the conference between parties who had, at this time, no community of feeling. The conflict began soon after, in which we do not find that M. Bonnellier was personally engaged-on this evening, he certainly was not, for he informs us that from M. Périer's he went to a meeting at M. Cadet Gassicourt's-(another literary man)-before the firing began, and staid there till it was over for that night,-employed in choosing district-agents to organize the insurrection. He tells us nothing of himself during the whole of the 28th, the fighting day, and we may be sure that it is because his vanity has nothing to tell. During that day and the next morning, the people were anxiously inquiring for a leader, but none appeared till about eleven o'clock on the 29th, when Bonnellier heard a cry, We have a General.' 'His name?' 'I don't know.' "Where is he?' "In front of the Exchange'-[La Bourse.] Thither Bonnellier ran and found the Place covered with a dense crowd, shouting Vive le Général Dubourg! Who is this general?' I don't know.' Is he a distinguished officer?' I fancy not.'- Who appointed him?'-'I can't tell.'- Where is he? At that window.' Bonnellier pressed forward-and met the General coming out of the Exchange. He had never seen him before. He was a man of above forty, of middle stature; his features, which were not disagreeable, and seemed to indicate an adventurous character, were not without a certain dignity; but his countenance was disturbed. One could see that he was a man hoisted suddenly from a very low condition into eminence, and stunned by such an explosive elevation, but endeavouring to collect himself and to recover his balance.'-p. 20. Here we must observe a most remarkable fact, after all we have heard of the series of glorious victories won by the people in the Three Great Days, that there should not, as far as our-not narrow-inquiries have gone, have been one single person cited in any document or work of authority as having distinguished himself or even taken a part in these illustrious transactions,* till noon on We are aware that the names of a dozen of heroes are to be found in the rodomontade catchpennies alluded to in our review of M. Bermond de Vachère's' Military Account of the Insurrection' (Quarterly Review, vol. xliv. p. 226); but M. Bermond, in his second edition, took the trouble of examining and utterly disproving every one of these cases. There is no doubt that there was some sharp fighting on the on the 29th, when, just as the fighting was over, we find coming out of the Exchange, a General Dubourg, of whom no one ever heard before or since. If King Charles's ministers and generals had conducted themselves with ordinary common sense, not to say spirit, they would have suppressed this factitious tumult, as Louis Philippe has suppressed two much more formidable émeutes, and the affair would probably have passed away, for what it really was, a riot instigated by two dozen disaffected journalists, and paid for by Lafitte. As it was, however-just about or very little before the time that the Louvre was evacuated, and the troops were already retreating, the people found a leader,-and such a leader. M. Bonnellier informs us that Dubourg had attained the rank of adjutant-general before the fall of Buonaparte, and that he was disgraced by the Bourbons. We do not find the name in Buonaparte's last état mujor de l'armée, and we do find M. le Comte Dubourg among the adjudans commandans of the Restoration. Whether this be the man, we know not; it seems, however, certain that the leader of the 29th July was not a general officer, but was fraudulently invested with that title to serve the seditious purpose of the moment. However this may be, M. Bonnellier proceeds to describe him as being, at this crisis, dissatisfied and soured, as a stirring mind might be expected to be, by the low state of his affairs and the failure of his speculations. M. Dubourg would naturally seize the first opportunity of trying his fortune: political dissatisfaction offered a plausible pretext (beau prétexte). As soon as the ordonnances appeared, he had several interviews with other officers like himself, unemployed and dissatisfied. M. Evariste Dumoulin, one of the editors of the "Constitutionnel,”a man without talents but not without personal courage,was also a stirring man. Being the creditor of Dubourg, he could exercise over him the double authority of one who has a right to ask and who has much to promise. To dare was the order of the day, and M. Evariste Dumoulin dared to create Dubourg our general.'-p, 22. While a newspaper editor of no talents' was thus making a General of a broken speculator, where were the Lafayettes, the Gérards, the Pujols, the De Broglies, the Guizots, the Sebastianis, and all the other civil and military heroes whose brows are adorned with the laurels, and whose purses are lined with the profits of the Three Great Days? The fact is, the victory was not yet absolutely certain, and they were, as MM. Bérard and Sarrans have told us, the 28th, that many persons were killed, and that there must have been many instances of individual bravery on the part of the people; but we repeat, we have not found the authentic distinction of any name: we think we may venture to assert, that no one of any note, or even notoriety, was heard of in the affair till all the fighting was over, waiting |