OF the wars between Napoleon and the Holy Alliance, Madame de Staël once said with most admirable and prophetic sense:—“It is a contest between a _man_ who is the enemy of liberty, and a _system_ which is equally its enemy.” But it is easier to get rid of a man than of a system: witness the Russians, who assassinate their czars one after another, but cannot get rid of their _system_. [Illustration] 99. The Empress Elizabeth of Russia during the war with Sweden commanded the old Hetman of the Cossacks to come to court on his way to Finland. “If the Emperor, your father,” said the Hetman, “had taken my advice, your Majesty would not now have been annoyed by the Swedes.” “What was your advice?” asked the Empress. “To put all the nobility to death, and transplant the people into Russia.” “But that,” said the Empress, “would have been cruel!” “I do not see that,” he replied quietly; “they are all dead now, and they would only have been dead if my advice had been taken.” Something strangely comprehensive and unanswerable in this barbarian logic! [Illustration] 100. IT was the Abbé Boileau who said of the Jesuits, that they had lengthened the Creed and shortened the Decalogue. The same witty ecclesiastic being asked why he always wrote in Latin, took a pinch of snuff, and answered gravely, “Why, for fear the bishops should read me!” 101. When Talleyrand once visited a certain reprobate friend of his, who was ill of cholera, the patient exclaimed in his agony, “Je sens les tourmens de l’enfer!” “Déjà?” said Talleyrand. Much in a word! I remember seeing a pretty French vaudeville wherein a lady is by some accident or contrivance shut up perforce with a lover she has rejected. She frets at the _contretemps_. He makes use of the occasion to plead his cause. The cruel fair one will not relent. Still he pleads—still she turns away. At length they are interrupted. “Déjà!” exclaims the lady, in an accent we may suppose to be very different from that of Talleyrand; and on the intonation of this one word, pronounced as only an accomplished French actress could pronounce it, depends the _dénouement_ of the piece. [Illustration] 102. Louis XVI. sent a distinguished physician over to England to inquire into the management of our hospitals. He praised them much, but added, “Il y manque deux choses; nos curés et nos hospitalières;” that is, he felt the want of the religious element in the official and medical treatment of the sick. A want which, I think, is felt at present and will be supplied. [Illustration] 103.