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their boundaries.

Indeed, in the earlier part of the last century, there may be traced among the educated men of the Continent something of a feeling in favor of English law; a feeling proceeding, it is to be feared, rather from the general enthusiasm for English political institutions which was then prevalent, than founded on any very accurate acquaintance with the rules of our jurisprudence. Certainly, as respects France in particular, there were no visible symptoms of any general preference for the institutions of the pays de droit écrit as opposed to the provinces in which customary law was observed. But then came the French Revolution, and brought with it the necessity of preparing a general code for France one and indivisible. Little is known of the special training through which the true authors of this work had passed; but in the form which it ultimately assumed, when published as the Code Napoléon, it may be described without great inaccuracy as a compendium of the rules of Roman law then practiced in France, cleared of all feudal admixture; such rules, however, being in all cases taken with the extensions given to them and the interpretations put upon them by one or two eminent French jurists, and particularly by Pothier. The French conquests planted this body of laws over the whole extent of the French empire, and the kingdoms immediately dependent upon it; and it is incontestable that it took root with extraordinary quickness and tenacity. The highest tribute to the French codes is their great and lasting popularity with the people, the lay public, of the countries into which they have been introduced. How much weight ought to be attached to this symptom, our own experience should teach us; which surely shows us how thoroughly indifferent in general is the mass of the public to the particular rules of civil life by which it may be governed, and how extremely superficial are even the most energetic movements in favor of the amendment of the law. At the fall of the Bonapartist empire in 1815, most of the restored governments had the strongest desire to expel the intrusive jurisprudence which had substituted itself for the ancient customs of the land. It was found, however, that the people prized it as the most precious of possessions: the attempt to subvert it was persevered in in very few instances, and in most of them the French codes were restored after a brief abeyance. And not only has the observance of these laws been confirmed in almost all the countries which ever enjoyed them, but they have made their way into numerous

other communities, and occasionally in the teeth of the most formidable political obstacles. So steady, indeed, and so resistless has been the diffusion of this Romanized jurisprudence, either in its original or in a slightly modified form, that the civil law of the whole Continent is clearly destined to be absorbed and lost in it. It is, too, we should add, a very vulgar error to suppose that the civil part of the codes has only been found suited to a society so peculiarly constituted as that of France. With alterations and additions, mostly directed to the enlargement of the testamentary power on one side and to the conservation of entails and primogeniture on the other, they have been admitted into countries whose social condition is as unlike that of France as is possible to conceive.

XAVIER DE MAISTRE

(1764-1852)

o STUDENTS of French literature the name De Maistre suggests first, Joseph Marie de Maistre,- brilliant philosopher, stern

and eloquent critic, vain opponent of revolutionary ideas: but the general reader is far better acquainted with his younger brother Xavier. He was a somewhat dashing military personage,

a striking contrast to his austere senior, loving the aesthetic side of life: an amateur artist, a reader of many books, who on occasion could write charmingly.

Born in Chambéry in 1764, of French descent, he entered the Sardinian army, where he remained until the annexation of Savoy to France; when, finding himself an exile, he joined his brother, then envoy to St. Petersburg. Later he entered the Russian army; married in Russia, and lived there to the good old age of eighty-eight.

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XAVIER DE MAISTRE

Perhaps the idea of authorship would never have occurred to the active soldier but for a little mishap. A love affair led to a duel; and he was arrested and imprisoned at Turin for forty-two days. A result of this leisure was the 'Voyage autour de ma Chambre' (Journey round my Room); a series of half playful, half philosophic sketches, whose delicate humor and sentiment suggest the influence of Laurence Sterne. Later on, he submitted the manuscript to his much-admired elder brother, who liked it so well that he had it published by way of pleasant surprise. He was less complimentary to a second and somewhat similar work, 'L'Expédition Nocturne' (The Nocturnal Expedition), and his advice delayed its publication for several years.

Xavier de Maistre was not a prolific writer, and all his work is included in one small volume. Literature was merely his occasional pastime, indulged in as a result of some chance stimulus. A conversation with fellow-officers suggests an old experience, and he goes home and writes 'Le Lepreux de la Cité d'Aoste' (The Leper of Aoste), a pathetic story, strong in its unstudied sincerity of expression.

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Four years later he tells another little tale, 'Les Prisonniers du Caucase (The Prisoners of the Caucasus), a stirring bit of adventure.

His last story, 'La Jeune Sibérienne' (The Siberian Girl), best known as retold and weakened by Madame Cottin, is a striking premonition of later realism. There is no forcing the pathetic effect in the history of the heroic young daughter who braves a long and terrible journey to petition the Czar for her father's release from Siberian exile.

The charm of De Maistre's style is always in the ease and simplicity of the telling. In his own time he was very popular; and his work survives with little loss of interest to-day.

THE TRAVELING-COAT

From the Journey round My Room.' Copyright 1871, by Hurd & Houghton

I

PUT on my traveling-coat, after having examined it with a complacent eye; and forthwith resolved to write a chapter ad hoc, that I might make it known to the reader.

The form and usefulness of these garments being pretty generally known, I will treat specially of their influence upon the minds of travelers.

My winter traveling-coat is made of the warmest and softest stuff I could meet with. It envelops me entirely from head to foot; and when I am in my arm-chair, with my hands in my pockets, I am very like the statue of Vishnu one sees in the pagodas of India.

You may, if you will, tax me with prejudice when I assert the influence a traveler's costume exercises upon its wearer. At any rate, I can confidently affirm with regard to this matter that it would appear to me as ridiculous to take a single step of my journey round my room in uniform, with my sword at my side, as it would to go forth into the world in my dressing-gown. Were I to find myself in full military dress, not only should I be unable to proceed with my journey, but I really believe I should not be able to read what I have written about my travels, still less to understand it.

Does this surprise you? Do we not every day meet with people who fancy they are ill because they are unshaven, or because some one has thought they have looked poorly and told them so? Dress has such influence upon men's minds that there are valetudinarians who think themselves in better health than usual

when they have on a new coat and well-powdered wig. They deceive the public and themselves by their nicety about dress, until one finds some fine morning they have died in full fig, and their death startles everybody.

And in the class of men among whom I live, how many there are who, finding themselves clothed in uniform, firmly believe they are officers, until the unexpected appearance of the enemy shows them their mistake. And more than this, if it be the king's good pleasure to allow one of them to add to his coat a certain trimming, he straightway believes himself to be a general; and the whole army gives him the title without any notion of making fun of him! So great an influence has a coat upon the human imagination!

The following illustration will show still further the truth of my assertion:—

It sometimes happened that they forgot to inform the Count de some days beforehand of the approach of his turn to mount guard. Early one morning, on the very day on which this duty fell to the Count, a corporal awoke him and announced the disagreeable news. But the idea of getting up there and then, putting on his gaiters, and turning out without having thought about it the evening before, so disturbed him that he preferred reporting himself sick and staying at home all day. So he put on his dressing-gown and sent away his barber. This made him look pale and ill, and frightened his wife and family. He really did feel a little poorly.

He told every one he was not very well,- partly for the sake of appearances, and partly because he positively believed himself to be indisposed. Gradually the influence of the dressing-gown began to work. The slops he was obliged to take upset his

stomach. His relations and friends sent to ask after him. He was soon quite ill enough to take to his bed.

In the evening Dr. Ranson found his pulse hard and feverish, and ordered him to be bled next day.

If the campaign had lasted a month longer, the sick man's case would have been past cure.

Now, who can doubt about the influence of traveling-coats upon travelers, if he reflect that poor Count de thought more than once that he was about to perform a journey to the other world for having inopportunely donned his dressing-gown in this?

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