Whatever may be the historic value of those notes, it is impossible to read them without the interest belonging to transactions which shook Europe, and without remembering that they were the language of a man by far the most remarkable of his time, if not the most remarkable for the result of his acts, since the fall of the Roman empire. In speaking of the return from Elba--"I took," said he, "that resolution as soon as it was proved to me that the Bourbons considered themselves as the continuance of the Third Dynasty, and denied the legal existence of the Republic, and the Empire, which were thenceforth to be regarded only as usurping governments. The consequences of this system were flagrant. It became the business of the bishops to reclaim their sees; the property of the clergy, and the emigrants must be restored. All the services rendered in the army of Conde and in La Vendee, all the acts of treachery committed in opening the gates of France to the armies which brought back the king, merited reward. All those rendered under the standard of the Republic and the Empire were acts of felony." He then gave his special view of the overthrow of the French monarchy. "The Revolution of 1789 was a general attack of the masses upon the privileged classes. The nobles had occupied, either directly or indirectly, all the posts of justice, high and low. They were exempt from the charges of the state, and yet enjoyed all the advantages accruing from them, by the exclusive possession of all honourable and lucrative employments. The principal aim of the Revolution was to abolish those privileges." He then declared the advantages of the Revolution. "It had established the right of every citizen, according to his merit, to attain to every employment; it had broken down the arbitrary divisions of the provinces, and out of many little nations formed a great one. It made the civil and criminal laws the same every where--the regulations and taxes the same every where. The half of the country changed its proprietors." This statement is true, and yet the mask is easily taken off the Revolution. The whole question is, whether the means by which it was purchased were not wholly unnecessary. It cost seven years of the most cruel and comprehensive wickedness that the world ever saw; and, when at last its violence overflowed the frontiers, it cost nearly a quarter of a century of slaughter, of ruthless plunder and savage devastation, concluding with the capture of the French capital itself, twice within two years, and the restoration of the royal family by the bayonets of the conquerors. Yet every beneficial change which was produced by the Revolution, at this enormous waste of national strength and human happiness, had been offered by the French throne before a drop of blood was shed; and was disdained by the leaders of the populace, in their palpable preference for the havoc of their species.