cause of the revolution. Under a general only twenty-three years old, and with colonels and brigadiers of twenty, the highest posts were open to his ambition. And surely never was soldier more unfit to join such an army than Courier. Captain of artillery at twenty-three, he might have soon worked his way up the ladder of promotion, had he not preferred to spend every hour that could be spared from actual duty, mooning about the ruined abbeys and castles that skirt the Rhine. We shall see the same spirit animating the whole of his military career. Nothing must interfere with his artistic tastes.

In 1795, being in general quarters at Mayence, he heard of the death of his father, and at once posted off to visit his mother, whose life was despaired of, without waiting to ask for leave or even informing any one of his intention. Through the intervention of his friends no notice was taken of this escapade, except that he was withdrawn from active service for a time, and while his old comrades were making up for the miseries of the Rhenish campaign by sharing the victories of Bonaparte in Italy, he had the pleasant duty of counting cannon-balls and inspecting gun-carriages at Toulouse. The first years of the Directory were to France what the Restoration was to England. There was a strong reaction against the austerities of the Convention. Men and women, to use the words of a French writer, rejoiced to meet again as friends, as kinsmen, as members of the same circle, and not as citizens and citizenesses. So that on the whole Courier had not a bad time of it in Toulouse, though he did miss his promotion. He seems to have been a general favourite, and was a man capable of strong likings as well as dislikes. One friendship formed at Toulouse, that of a Polish antiquary named Chlewaski, has given us some of his most interesting letters.

In 1798 he was sent in command of a company of artillery to join the army of occupation at Rome. Traversing the whole of Northern Italy on his way, he could not but be saddened by the misery and desolation which everywhere met his eye. It was not the poetic side of war that he saw in any part of his career. No wonder that after witnessing such sights he should write "Je ne crois plus aux grands hommes." But saddened as his eyes had been by these sights of wretchedness, what a shock must it have been to his artistic tastes to witness the spoliation of Rome. His description of it is quite plaintive:

"Je ne sais pas d'expressions assez tristes pour vous

peindre l'état de délabrement, de misère et d'opprobre où est tombée cette pauvre Rome que vous avez vue si pompeuse, et de laquelle à présent on détruit jusqu'aux ruines. On s'y rendait autrefois, comme vous savez, de tous les pays du monde. Maintenant il n'y reste que ceux qui n'ont pu fuir, ou qui, le poignard à la main, cherchent encore dans les haillons d'un peuple mourant de faim, quelque pièce échappée à tant d' extorsions et de rapines. . .

"Les monuments de Rome ne sont guère mieux traités que le peuple. La colonne Trajane est cependant à peu prés telle que vous l'avez vue; et nos curieux, qui n'estiment que ce qu'on peut emporter et vendre, n'y font heureusement aucune attention. D'ailleurs les bas-reliefs dont elle est ornée sont hors de la portée du sabre, et pourront par conséquent être conservés."

That in the holy city, the artillery officer was subordinate to the antiquarian and scholar, is a matter of course. Besides the attractions of what remained of the museum and library of the Vatican, he was fortunate in making several valuable acquaintances, amongst others that of the Abbé Marini, the author of some works on ancient inscriptions. His cabinet and library seem to have occupied great part of Courier's time. These literary tastes, indeed, nearly cost him his life. The division to which he was attached was left in Rome, when Macdonald began his march upon the Trebia. It finally capitulated, and was to evacuate Rome at a fixed time. The man of letters, anxious to pay a farewell visit to the Vatican library, forgot the hour at which the captain of artillery was to leave Rome. When he came out of the Vatican it was already evening, and he was the only Frenchman left in the city. He was recognised, and a cry of Jacobin! at once raised. A shot was fired at him which missed him and killed a woman in the crowd; and under cover of the confusion, he stole away to the palace of a Roman noble who was his friend, and by his help made good his escape. The state of France does not seem to have been at this time much better than that of Italy. On his way from Marseilles to Paris, Courier was stopped and robbed of all that he had.

Of the next three years we have little account. He seems to have been engaged at Paris on literary labours which have been long forgotten: an Eloge d'Hélène, in imitation of Isocrates, and a Voyage de Ménelas a Troie which was to cut out Telemachus. In 1804 he is again with the army in Italy as chef d'escadron of artillery. And here we have the first

of a series of letters which is tolerably continuous for the next nine years. It marks a distinct advance in the writer's style and habits of thought. The last few years' experience has added an element of bitterness to his humour. Before it was harmless-now it has a sting. And the subject of this first letter is worthy of its fire. He is at Piacenza in the division under D'Anthouard.

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The officers are assembled one fine morning, and the question is put to them by their chief without any introduction, without any pleading-" Which do you fancy mostan emperor or the republic?"-comme on dit, Rôti ou bouilli, potage ou soupe, que voulez-vous? The officers sit round, staring at each other." Well, gentlemen, what is your opinion?" Not a tongue stirs. This lasts for a quarter of an hour, and is becoming somewhat embarrassing for D'Anthouard and for every one else, when a lieutenant who is present, rises and says, "If he wants to be emperor, let him be; but if I am to give my opinion, I don't think it at all a good thing." Explain yourself," says the colonel.-"Do you like it, or do you not?" "I don't," replies the lieutenant. A la bonne heure. Then follows a fresh interval of silencethey begin again to look at one another, as if they had never seen each other before in their lives. Courier cuts the knot— "Gentlemen," he says, "it seems to me, with your leave, that this does not concern us. The nation wishes an emperor, is it for us to discuss the matter?" The cogency of this reasoning was seen by all, the requisition for the empire signed, and the officers dispersed to their billiards. "Maire me disait, ma foi, commandant, vous parlez comme Cicéron; mais pourquoi voulez-vous donc tant qu'il soit empereur, je vous prie? Pour en finir, et faire notre partie de billard. Fallaitil rester là tout le jour ?...En effet que signifie, dis-moi...... un homme comme lui Bonaparte, soldat, chef d'armée, le premier Capitaine du monde, vouloir qu'on l'appelle majesté? Etre Bonaparte, et se faire sire! Il aspire à descendre: mais non, il croit monter en s'égalant aux rois. Il aime mieux un titre qu'un nom......César l'entendait bien mieux, et aussi c'était un autre homme. Il ne prit pas de titres usés, mais il fit de son nom même un titre supérieur à celui de roi." Demanelle, je crois, ne fera pas d'assemblée. Il envoie les signatures avec l'enthousiasme le dévouement à la personne, &c.: What a comment is this on the historian's account of this voting:-" le premier Consul avait reçu de l'armée les témoignages d'adhésion les plus empressés. L'élan était général, l'eclat aussi public qu'il pouvait l'être." (Thiers, Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire, tom. v., p. 84.)

We cannot accompany our author through the following campaigns in Italy and Calabria, though many interesting details of his adventures may be gathered from his letters. Again the antiquarian is paramount. It is worth while to be a conqueror, for only in this character can he penetrate to all the nooks and corners of this beautiful land, mid the remains of Greek and Roman splendour. If he hears of any such near his encampment, he is off at once, recking nought of the dangers of brigands, or of the guerilla troops of the enemy. More than once his life is in danger in this most villanous of wars, as he calls it. At one time he assists at a consultation to settle the point whether he shall be hung, burnt, or shot, and is even permitted to express his own opinion on the subject-a permission which he uses to such effect, as to make good his escape altogether. Over and over again he loses not only his own effects, but those which his friends have lent him to supply their place, but it is only when his Homer is gone that he expresses any real regret. As an artillery officer he finds nothing to do, but, having joined the staff of General Regnier, and volunteered for Calabria, undertakes some missions connected with the commissariat department, in which he is not very successful. In consequence he is put under arrest by General Dedon, and in reply gives vent to his anger in words which no superior officer could forgive. Everything concurred to confirm his strong feeling of the superiority of the ancient to the modern. He is ever contrasting the former grandeur of the scenes in which he is thrown, with the misery of the present. The petty struggles of the guerilla war, the meannesses which he sees on all sides, the paltry ambitions, the ceaseless intrigues, all grate upon his mind. No wonder that, having seen the history of the time thus enacting under his eyes, he should look upon all history as a tissue of falsehoods and exaggerations. Historically these letters are highly valuable as showing what this Italian war actually was, when stripped of its tinsel covering of glory. A couple of extracts will be interesting:-" Would you like a sketch of what goes on here now? Picture to yourself a detachment of, say, a hundred of our soldiers marching in no order along the slope of one of these hills, whose rocky sides are richly covered with oranges and palms, with aloes and myrtles. They are marching at ease and in perfect security. What use in taking precautions, or being on the qui vive? For more than a week past there has been no massacre of troops in this district. At the foot of the eminence which they wish to

reach, flows a rapid torrent which they must cross to get into the path by which they ascend, some are already over, some are crossing, others are still on this side, when suddenly there spring up from different sides a thousand peasants, outlaws, escaped galley-slaves, and deserters, well armed, and good shots, with a subdeacon at their head; they fire upon our men before they see them, the officers fall first and those who are in luck are killed on the spot, the rest for some days serve for the sport of their captors. Then the officer in command, who has sent off this detachment without any idea of any such mischief, without even inquiring whether the passes were clear, comes down upon the neighbouring villages and sends off an aide-de-camp with 500 men to punish them. Then follows a scene of pillage, rape, and massacre; and all that escape go to swell the subdeacon's band."

"The affair at Marcellinara is of the same kind. We were taken for English, and as such received into the town. When we had reached the market place, the people were crowding round us, when one of them, in whose house Regnier had lodged, recognised him and tried to escape. At a sign from Regnier he was stopped and slain. The troop fired all at once, and in two minutes the square was covered with dead. We found, in a dungeon, six canonniers of our regiment, half dead with hunger. They were being kept for an auto-da-fe which was to have taken place the next day."

"C'est là l'histoire, depouillée de ses ornements. Voilà les canevas qu'ont brodés les Herodote et les Thucydide. Pour moi, m'est avis que cet enchainement de sottises et d'atrocités qu'on appelle histoire ne mérite guère l'attention d'un homme sensé."

It must not be supposed that Courier was idle all this while. Not only was he gradually forming that style which was to do such good service afterwards when the empire was a thing of the past; but he was actually at work on what he intended to be a classic edition and French Translation of Xenophon de re Equestri. At Naples he made the acquaintance of one Marquis Tacconi, who placed his library at his disposal. There he spent many happy hours, consoling himself among his favourite Greeks for the neglect and injustice of his superiors.

In one of his letters, written during this stay at Naples, he relates an amusing adventure which befel him during his travels in Calabria; it is now a well-known story, but I cannot resist the temptation of telling it once more in his own words, and it will give some idea of