Under the present system of government, the noblesse have little to do in political matters. With many bright exceptions, they do little that is utilitarian, disliking to live in the country, and passing their existence in provincial towns. It would be unjust to liken their state to "the idlesse all" of the poet; but after all, edel, i.e., noble, is the root of our word 'idle,' and noblesse and idlesse are almost synonymous. "He that hath little business shall become wise," saith the Preacher; yet deep experience of the business of life is so desirable in the national council, that its lack among the French nobility may be the reason why they are so sparsely admitted.

In reverse, again, of the policy laid down in the book of Ecclesiasticus, we see the lower classes, who must labour for their daily bread, and are they of whom it is declared "They shall not be sought for in the public counsel," possessing, by universal suffrage, the commanding voice in elections! One of the worst evils of universal suffrage consists in the absence of attention on the part of the aristocracy to electioneering influence. Wherever the possessors of large properties can exert a certain amount of interest in elections, they naturally endeavour to increase it by the best means in their power. Even our duchesses become unusually gracious and popular in their manners on the eve of county contests. Not to enter further into this point, it is enough to say that its loss to France is a considerable one.

Luckily, not a tithe of this mob of myriads of electors care to exercise their franchise; but, on the last occasion, the Imperial Government took care to point out, in placards which penetrated Auvergne forests, Brittany hills, and Pyrenean mountains, the name of each "government candidate," and provided secretly for bringing enough voters to the poll. Verily, the duties of a Dictator are infinite, like his powers! A parliamentary sovereign had not need be so careful, being proverbially held innocent of any faults of his reign. Responsibility rests with mastership, and so long back as two centuries and a-half, one of our old kings, James I., knew where the latter lay, when he warned his restive horse he would

send it to the 450 kings at Westminster.

Never, as in the United Kingdom, have the monarchic, aristocratic, middle class, and democratic interests of France compromised their differences, and mingled cordially for the general interest in civil matters of an associated, municipal, governmental kind. Rather they have lived antagonistically in wretched jealousy, and desirous of grasping at exclusive authority. Yet, where class interests do not separate them, they combine zealously for valuable purposes: witness the admirable manner in which provision is made throughout their vast country for support of the poor. In this matter they teach us a magnificent lesson! In England adverse political interests prudently compromise their disputes. Even the rankest demagogue is useful, since, even if not serving to expose real grievances, he is a safetyvalve for the explosion of imaginary

ones.

One of the first acts of the provisional government, after the Revolution of 1848, was to interdict the use of titles of nobility, on the ground that equality was a principle of the Republic. Whatever may be thought of the value of nobility, it was hardly within the attributes of such a government to abolish titles which are identified with the historic glories of the country, some dating from the Crusades, others derived from the recent triumphs of the Empire. Under the present regime, on a changé tout cela; society not only swarms with nominal dignities of great variety, but is infested by impostors, whose titles are vague and fanciful. The mode of ennobling oneself is reduced to regular practice, merely requiring patience. Monsieur Bobin, being rich, becomes ambitious; and, accordingly, curious metamorphoses occur in his visiting cards spread over several years. First, he is Monsr. S. Bobin, then M. St. Bobin, then M. C. de St. Bobin, then M. le Comte de St. Bobin. In our day, this manufacture is immense; as they say, "On fait de noblesse." When in a crowd of such small, spurious, and dubious titles, a microscope is really wanted to discriminate with, as a safeguard, one can se défier toujours des Saints; but this rule is only applicable to them. We can, however, without any adventitious aid, believe

that the precious globules of true nobility exist in many a French man and woman. The polished amiability, the graciousness, and exquisite tact and manners, peculiar to the highest ranks in France, spring not alone from birth, or the world they have mixed in, but from a pure and holy source; for the Christian character is the foundation of the rare graces ennobling the religious and refined among them. On this subject, our late ambassador, the Marquess of Normanby, has the following remarks, in his recent volume of reminiscences:

"There exists but a shadow of an aristocracy, with broken fortunes and without privileges; but some of the old French spirit is still to be found. Country retirement on their own estates has done more for them than exile in foreign parts formerly did. Many of them exercise a most beneficial influence in their own neighbourhood; and when they come to Paris, they are still the fraction of society the most distinguished for varied acquire

ments and cultivated tastes."

Kings were wont to style the nobility the garland of their crown, and, happily, the difficult and delicate problem of organising and maintaining hereditary titles, calculated to enhance the splendour of the French throne, has been mooted to the imperial resolve. The present anomalous state of the noblesse, and especially the scandalous abuses in assuming surnames and mock rank, have obtained considerable attention, and drawn forth a report to the Emperor, exhorting him to provide reform for this social disorder, and advising him "to give to the future of an institution inseparable from monarchial power all its due lustre and sincerity.'

If the education of the young male noblesse is tested by English notions, it must be considered lamentably deficient; not so much in matters of learning, for the necessity of passing certain examinations before entering the army or navy, or obtaining one of the million places in the public offices, forces all youths into a narrow hotbed of special departments of knowledge. The extraordinary comparative deficiency consists in the want of that home and public-school formation of character which fits our youth to enter life. Our meaning will, perhaps, be best expressed by giving an example or contrast of the two

systems. Let us take as the type of young French provincial nobles the physical and moral measure of the only son of Le Marquis (et la Marquise) de Mousselineville, whose property and position entitle him to rank with a British baronet, vegetating remotely on £2,500 a-year. If the laws permitted entail, the boy's inheritance would be a handsome one; but the property must gavel between him and his sisters. The lad is lowsized, with thick shoulders and thin legs. He has a stunted look, and his physiognomy, contracted features, and muddy complexion, partake of it. There is no freedom in either his make, gait, or manners. From childhood to manhood, if he can be said to enter this state, he has been brought up by women and clergymen. During the period when an English boy of rank would have fagged through the lower school of Eton, or been bullied into manliness at Rugby, the young noble Français has studied under the unworldly direction of an abbé, and recreated himself by pacing the straight gravel walks of the paternal garden, hand in hand with his preceptor. Not a bed in this formal place has been more carefully tended and sown with vegetable seeds, than his mind has been kept from ill influences. But when he becomes a man, he will still be an animal; and having never learnt to know evil, will he be able to cope with it? His physical qualities are also undeveloped. If his parents venture to risk their only son by letting him go to the town lycée or college, he plays at dumps in a walledin court, and parades the roads with his fellow-students in line, like a school-girl, at an age when our lads are at cricket or boxing, "foot and eye opposed in dubious strife," or kicking foot-balls and fools in their jolly play-grounds. His holidays little resemble our lads', in ranging the country freely, and in such merry intercourse with brothers, comrades, and the world at large as a boy may enjoy, and such as we old boys delight to recal to mind by reading "Tom Brown's Schooldays." If it may be said of young Monsieur

rather too much into his education, while it comparatively enters too little in England. The conqueror on the field of Waterloo used to say he learnt to gain that battle in the Eton playground; and, manifestly, a public school is the best school of the inevitable war, or battle of life. In France there are no universities equivalent to Oxford and Cambridge; so, at the period of youthful peril, when our "men," as they call themselves, with noble globules in their blood, enter into manly existence in the universities, and, as they say, "take it out of themselves" at rackets, or pulling an oar on Cam or Isis -le jeune Vicomte Mousselineville is playing bagatelle or the piano in his mother's drawing-room. At last, one morning, he is twenty-five years old. At this age a "fine young English gentleman, one of the modern school," had he condescended to be a vulgar "fast man," would have become utterly blaze. If with good impulses and purposes, he would have made the tour of Europe, to the benefit of his opinions on cosmopolitan things in general; killed salmon in Norway, lost some gold florins at Baden, ridden well to hounds on the Campagna, before Pius IX. gave them a check, and unless he had over-cultivated his mind by harrowing and guanoing it with French romances, would have voted life, as led by la jeunesse dorée in Paris, either insufferably dull and stupid or disgusting, according to its specialty.

On the other hand, the Vicomte launches, if his homely wits do not continue brooding and breeding at home, into life in his gay metropolis, with small knowledge of the whirlpools into which his little vessel may sink; or he takes to the seductive sports afforded by his native provincial town and maison de campagne. Whatever may be his mental and personal insignificance, he is great all around Chateau Mousselineville. He becomes a diligent reader of Le Sport, a journal tantamount to a foreign variety of Bell's Life; and takes to la chasse in all its French phases, perils, and glories; opening the campaign against small game, and closing it with the death of a roebuck and stag or two. His costume is the really gratifying part of the business. The galligaskins are long, bran-new,

and beautiful with braid, buttons, and buckles; the jacket yawns with pockets, and is very rich; and he carries a bag, which, by some fatuity, has for prettiness a side formed of netting, with a graceful fringe, sure to catch every bush and bramble in the way. When mounted for la chasse du cerf, he is surrounded by a circular cor which he sounds scientifically, and plays on in concert with other hunting convivialists after dinner. But he much prefers indoor to outdoor amusements. At billiards and cards, especially piquet and écarté, he is bien fort; playing for money, not like a thorough gambler, but for a moderate excitement, if he is a tame specimen of les jeunes gens-a domestic and dutiful son. If otherwise, having made a coup in the town club, he obtains leave to visit Paris all alone; and his appearance there is as a quiet "lion," either aping English "gentlemen sportsmen," or pretending to imitate les habitués des coulisses, and admiring nothing but "le chic," the slang term for swell, fashionable things. Is he a very mild young man, il admire de rien, from positive incapacity; and gazes at any thing, from a new novel to a political pamphlet, and the carte du jour at a restaurant's to a ballet-dancer's legs, with equal apathy. When witnessing a "stipple chase" and races on the flat at La Marche, he lounges in the weighinghouse, smoking pertinaciously, not to betray his flatness by technical remarks, and "cuts his steek to go to de betting," where he risks a hundred francs or so, with every probability of their being picked up by a knowing Anglais. Such being his prudence, whatever quality his globules may have, his racing pedigree is evidently not pur sang, like the genealogy Punch ascribes to many a British peer, viz., "Out of Pocket by Betting.' If rich enough to keep a running horse, he wisely leaves all arrangements to his jockey, and is quite right if he has engaged a disciple of a Yorkshire stable. Viewed in his sporting character, it certainly cannot be said of him, as of some on the turf,' that it were best he were under it.

A young Englishman of position and cultivated mind, after having sown any wild oats, and broken his collar-bone by a bad fall, becomes ambitious of showing his "nous;"

and, accordingly, enters himself for some race of usefulness. If he boasts a parliamentary pedigree, he is trained to politics, and runs for "the members' plate" or "county cup," or a peerage, or a rise in it, or a red or blue ribbond. His family traditions guide his course. His ancestor, when knight of the shire, was imprisoned by Charles I., for patriotically resisting illegal taxation; and aided the Restoration, when Cromwell's heirs proved as incompetent as those of the Bonaparte dynasty may be. His great grandfather declared with Walpole to save the country from the Jacobites; his grandfather joined Burke after the excesses of the French Revolution; and his father saw, with sorrow, the great Conservative party vote against the sense of the country on the corn-law question. If he has worked hard in committees, and earned the esteem of his party, he has done better than were he brilliantly eloquent, since rhetoric the most dazzling, whether from a Sheridan, a Shiel, or D'Israeli, does not insure near so much confidence in the argument advanced, when uttered in the House of Commons, as a few plain words from a man like the late Earl Spenser, or any large-acred wiseacre. In effect, the best point in the aristocratic element in our government consists in the satisfactory feeling that our country is in the hands of men who have a great deal to lose. Their characters, family renown, and princely properties are at stake. There is an obvious advantage in having a number of men in the legislature who, for their own interest, will not consent to bad laws. The prosperity of their families may, perhaps, influence them too much; yet Popes and their

clergy have never been free from gross nepotism, and many other celibate ministers, like Mazarin, Richelieu, and, in our own day, Antonelli, have shown extreme disposition to amass wealth-a disposition which, again, is likely to be stronger in administrators in power, but born to no property, than in men like the majority of our statesmen, who, since they already possess riches and rank, need covet but esteem and honour as their highest gain. Noblemen such as these England produced even during periods of her decadence; and they sustained the aristocracy in that national respect for their class which is their best heritage, the token of their real nobility. If we turn to the satires of the great poet of Queen Anne's day, we find, amid the indignant rush of his verse, some bright contrasts happily set in the general sarcasm, exhibiting his warm appreciation of men, who like Bathurst, stood out from the throng of ignominy, signalized for domestic and open virtues such as now grace the truly eminent among the nobility of France, men who have learnt"The sense to value riches, with the art To enjoy them, and the virtue to impart, Not meanly, nor ambitiously pursued, Not sunk by sloth, nor raised by servitude; To balance fortune by a just expense, Join with economy, magnificence; With splendour, charity; with plenty, health."

Respect for high birth-an instinct of humanity-is increasing in Great Britain, and growing in France, because of the leaven working in the aristocracy, many now endeavouring to make reverent by example that which they have inherited illustrious by descent.