that branch of service in the Republic, with considerable advantages. He accepted the proposal, and asked the permission of his minister. The Duke of Feltri summoned him to his presence, and tried to induce him to abandon this design, by offering to appoint him to any situation in France which he considered suitable. "You promise me," said Bernard, "what you are unable to perform; place me as you intend, and in a fortnight I shall be so denounced that you will have no power to support me, and so harassed that I should voluntarily resign. While the Government has no more strength than at present, it can neither employ nor protect me. In my corner, I am at the mercy of a sub-prefect and police magistrate, who can arrest and imprison me; who sends for me every day, and compels me to wait in his ante-chamber to be ill received at last. Suffer me to go to America. The United States are the natural allies of France. I have decided, and, unless imprisoned, I shall certainly take my departure." His passport was then given to him. The Duke de Berry complained to General Haxo of the course adopted by General Bernard. "After the manner in which he has been treated," replied Haxo, "I am only surprised that he has not gone before; it is by no means certain that I shall not some day follow his example." Nothing can explain, better than this simple fact, the situation of the King's ministers at that time, and the sincerity as well as the timidity of their wishes to be prudent and just. A great act, resolutely conceived and accomplished, on a great occasion, was necessary to raise the executive authority from the reputation as well as the actual mischief of this weakness, and to emancipate it from the party under which it succumbed while resisting. Today, so long removed as we are from that time, the more I reflect on it in the calm freedom of my judgment, the more I am convinced that the trial of Marshal Ney afforded a most propitious opportunity for such an act as that to which I now allude. There were undoubtedly weighty reasons for leaving justice to its unfettered course. Society and the royal power both required that respect for, and a salutary dread of, the law should repossess men's minds. It was important that generations formed during the vicissitudes of the Revolution and the triumphs of the Empire, should learn, by startling examples, that all does not depend on the strength and success of the moment; that there are certain inviolable duties; that we cannot safely sport with the fate of governments and the peace of nations; and that, in this momentous game, the most powerful and the most eminent risk their honour and their lives. In a political and moral sense these considerations were of the greatest importance. But another prominent truth, equally moral and political, ought to have weighed heavily in the balance against an extreme decision. The Emperor Napoleon had reigned long and brilliantly, acknowledged and admired by