heroes in this country, there still remain a sprinkling, who infect their children and grandchildren with their own superstitious fancies regarding Napoleon. The lower classes of provincial Frenchmen are not remarkable for intelligence, and they receive the traditions of the vieux de l'Empire, collected under the summerporch, and in the winter-night's gossip, with a sort of semi-credence which a trifling corroborative circumstance ripens into implicit belief. The mutilated, red-ribboned relic of the Grande Armée, who tells, from beneath the shadow of the domestic vine, or from the bench at the auberge door, such thrilling tales of past campaigns, of Austerlitz' glory and Moscow's snows, shakes his gray head doubtingly when he hears it said that Napoleon has perished, a captive and in solitude, on a rock of the distant ocean. The gesture is not lost on the gaping bumpkins, who greedily devour the old man's reminiscences. They muse on the matter whilst tracing the next morning's furrow, or perhaps, taken next day by the greedy conscription, they meet, at the regiment, some ancient corporal who confirms the impression they have received. The traditions of the barrack-room are all imperial; how should they be otherwise? Were not those the days when every recruit went to battle with a marshal's baton in his havresack, when no rank, honours, or riches were beyond the grasp of the daring and fortunate soldier? The six years' service expires; the soldier returns to his plough- an election arrives, the name of Napoleon is every where placarded - interested persons tell the newly-fledged voter, as the gentleman in the cab told Comtois, that the Petit Tondu has returned to France. The soldat laboureur, whose prejudices are much strengthened, and his intelligence but little brightened, by his term of military service, doubts, hopes, is bewildered, and finally, in the uncertainty, votes for a stuffed bird instead of a genuine eagle.

We have dwelt so long upon Jérome Paturot that we can afford but a few lines to his brother in hosiery. Poor Monsieur Bonardin ! Never, since humanity first took to stocking

wearing, was a vender of that useful article more scurvily treated than he was by the French republic of 1848. The 25th of February beheld him a prosperous man and an ardent republican,-"a republican of the morrow," certainly, but no worse for that; four months of liberty and fraternity brought him to ruin and suicide.. At first, all his anticipations are rosecoloured. Increase of trade, an unlimited demand for hosiery, must be the consequences of the new order of things. He is fully persuaded great days are coming for the renowned establishment at the sign of the Spinning Monkey. The day after the revolution he opens his shop as usual, but only to be bullied by an ouvrier who steps in to buy a red cap, finds none but white, curses Bonardin for a Carlist, and carries off his national guardsman's musket. Uproar recommences in the street; the shop is shut, and continues so for some days. The end of the month arrives; there are payments to be made, and M. Bonardin sends Criquet to the bank with bills for discount-first-rate paper at short date. Criquet brings them back; the best signatures no longer find cash. M. Bonardin is in all the agonies of a punctual paymaster who sees a chance of his signature's dishonour, when suddenly he is summoned to his duty as national guard. On his return, after a sleepless night and a fagging day, he has scarcely got amongst the blankets, when he is roused by voices in the street calling out, in a measured chant, for lamps at his windows.

"M. Bonardin, awaking in alarm, and jumping out of bed

What is that? (Cries in the street, Des lampions! des lampions!) Good! here they are again with their infernal lamps! Impossible to sleep under this republic!

Voices of boys in the street.-Hallo! first floor! Spinning Monkey! Lamps! lamps!

M. Bonardin.-What a nuisance! (calling out)-Babet! Babet!

The boys shouting, -Lamps or candles! . break the ugly monkey's windows, if he does not light up directly!

M. Bonardin.-Lord bless me !... Babet! Babet! .

friend," replies another, "but I am an artist. In these times, that is as much as to tell you I have not a sou in the world." "Alas!" exclaims a fifth, "I would relieve you with pleasure, but I am a poor employé, and the revolution has struck off a quarter of my salary." "What ill luck!" cries Bonardin; "the revolution has ruined every body, it seems. But this is about the time when the representatives of the people repair to the National Assembly. They are generous, the worthy representatives. The millions they daily vote away sufficiently prove it. Courage! people who spend so many millions will perhaps give me a few coppers." He is mistaken; the deputies pass, but none give him any thing; whereupon he concludes they have not yet received their five-andtwenty francs. And as the republic will not give him bread, he resolves to seek water in the river, climbs the parapet, and throws himself into the Seine thus tragically terminating the volume, which, up to that point, is a farce, both broad and long, crammed with jokes and double-entendres of various merit, but all exhibiting, in a light as unfavourable as it is true, the disastrous effects of the revolution upon the trade and prosperity of Paris.

We hoped to have included in this review the fourth volume of Jérome Paturot, but it has not yet reached us, only a portion of it being publish

ed. The work comes out in parts, and it is said the fourth volume will be the last of the series. In that case, it will probably close with the June revolt. If M. Reybaud likes, and dares, he may find in subsequent events abundant food for his satirical chronicle. Perhaps he will think fit to wait Cavaignac's exit before criticising his performance. There are numerous points in the brief history of the republic upon which he has not yet touched. We hope yet to accompany Jérome to the cell of an imprisoned journalist, to the courtmartials upon the June insurgents, to debates in the Assembly, and to consultations in the cabinet. A retrospective flight to the days of the Convention, and an incidental inquiry into the antecedents of M. Cavaignac the father, of whose exploits the son has expressed himself so proud, were not without interest. But the subject we are especially curious to see M. Reybaud take up, is that of French journalism in 1848. He might fill a most amusing volume with an elucidation of its mysteries and rivalries; and we cannot believe, after reading the bold judgments and revelations contained in the three published volumes of Jérome, that he would be deterred from the task by apprehension of editorial wrath, whether expressed in the field or in the feuilleton, by a challenge or a criticism.

PROPHECIES and miracles, we are told, have long since ceased upon the earth, as permitted only, by Divine goodness, to those ages when faith was not firmly established, and revelation needed the active and visible interference of Divine influence to make its way into the heart of obstinate and denying man. This is a doctrine which, in these present times of reason, we are naturally inclined to accept. But yet there are circumstances, occurring even in our day, which sometimes surprise the imagination, and even startle that reason which is so ready to assert its supremacy. It is thus that we have regarded with much curiosity, more wonder, and an impression which it is difficult to drive away from our minds, certain strange documents relative to the most important events of modern history, which, if their authenticity be accepted, are among the most striking revelations emanating from a prophetic spirit. They appear before us avowed prophecies, coming from seemingly well-authenticated sources, and backed by such assurances in the genuineness of their antiquity, from credible mouths, as takes off from them that paulo-post-future sort of suspicion, that inevitably attaches itself to predictions, which make their appearance to the world after fulfilment. In laying them before our readers, we are able to offer some little proof, as far as it goes, in support of their authenticity; and we still call to them the attention of those who may nevertheless refuse their credence, as highly interesting documents of a strange character, relating to past, present, and even future political events. As they do, in truth, refer also to a future still to be accomplished, as well as to the present, our readers, it is to be hoped, may be able to judge for themselves how far the predictions as to the future will bear out those which now already relate to the past, and to what, if such an expression may be pardoned, might be called the present just gone by.

Two of these revelations bear the character of direct and avowed prophecies, given as such by holy men,

and are imbued throughout with that mystic spirit, which, however incomprehensible as regards the future, becomes clear to an extraordinary degree of distinctness when applied to the test of the past: they wear, in fact, the strange air of predictions never intended to be comprehended until after their fulfilment; as if, even although the inspired soul of certain individual men had been permitted to raise itself, in its ecstasy, from the earth into those unknown realms where past and future are confounded in eternity, and shake off for the time the mortal trammels of our limited understanding, but retain still afterwards the consciousness and the power to reveal what there it saw; yet, by some mysterious dispensation, the revelations should not be allowed to be expounded in the clearness of their truth, so as to be comprehensible to the intellects of the uninspired and undeserving herd. Why, then, should the future be revealed, it might be asked, if the revelation should serve nothing to mankind? With such deep and awful mysteries we have not to deal: we cannot answer: we are of the blind who cannot lead the blind. At all events, if these documents be forgeries-mere devices fabricated after facts-and that they cannot be so entirely, will be seen hereafter-certainly a degree of genius that is almost incomprehensible presided over their fabrication, with this strange stamp of vague oracular language, which is only comprehensible in its after-application.

Such are two of these prophetic writings. As they are supposed to proceed from the mouths of religious men, renowned for the sanctity of their lives, they naturally refer more to the condition of the Christian church, and to the fate of the "faithful," than immediately to political events; but yet so closely is the destiny of the faithful of the Christian world mixed up inevitably with the destiny of men and countries in general, that the political events of our day are there set down in prediction, with all the minuteness which the vague and mystic language of pro

phetic revelation, dimly depicting what even the inspired eye can only dimly trace in cloudy vision, "through a glass darkly," is able to bestow upon detail. The third revelation assumes to be no more than an interpretation of the prophetical book of the New Testament, and repudiates all supposition of aiming at any spirit of prophecy in itself; a portion, however, of this interpretation of a part of Scripture so obscure as the book of the Revelation, is so remarkable in its application to present events, as to wear the very air of prophecy that its interpreter repudiates.

The longer and more important of the two prophecies, which have both appeared in France, and refer chiefly to events immediately connected with French history, is one popularly designated as the "Prophecy of Orval:" it has been already translated into English, and published,* with a preface, an introduction, and explanatory notes, chiefly referring to the authenticity of the document, and to its possession in the hands of a variety of credible and respectable persons during the whole of the present century, and some of the later years of the last. The little pamphlet has been got up with much intelligence, and apparently with a strictly conscientious spirit. We cannot here follow the editor through all the details he lays before us, to prove that the prophecy has been copied from a book printed at Luxembourg in the year 1544, and recopied, by gentlemen of standing and respectability, from copies already made, as early as the year 1792-or through all the evidence adduced, some years ago, in such respectable religious French papers as the Invariable, and the Propagateur de la Foi, accompanied by notes from the editor himself, with regard to his own personal experience, and the testimony he has received from personages worthy of the highest credit, known to himself. It may be said, however, that he communicates extracts of letters and other authorities, which, could they be forgeries, would assuredly be some of the most ingenious of the kind, even if they had any great end or aim in their fabrication;

and it ought to be added, that a great part of this testimony is compiled from a brochure called The Oracle for 1840, and published by a certain Henry Dujardin in Paris, in the month of March 1840, consequently anterior, at all events, to the remarkable circumstances of the present day. On these matters we must refer our readers to the interesting little pamphlet itself. The authority upon which rests the fact that the prophecy, generally known under the title of "Les Prévisions d'Orval," and entitled "Certain Previsions revealed by God to a Solitary, for the Consolation of the Children of God," was actually printed at Luxembourg in the year 1544, seems every way as conclusive as possible in such matters of ancient lore; and the writer of this present paper has only to add that he himself has seen in Paris the whole prophecy, as far as it is still in existence, printed in a newspaper of the year 1839, (he believes, as far as his memory reaches, in the Journal des Villes et des Campagnes), and consequently, to his own knowledge, published to the world previously, at least, to the events of the present year; that an old English lady, upon whose faith he can implicitly rely, positively declared to him that she had it in her hands as early as the year 1802, and thus even before the crowning of Napoleon as Emperor; and that its reappearance, since the breaking out of the revolution of this year, excited so much sensation in the French capital, that measures were taken by the republican government of the day to establish a sort of surveillance over persons known to possess and propagate the prediction a fact also mentioned by the editor of the English pamphlet as conspirators against the stability of the republic. With these premises, we proceed to do no more than lay before our readers the prophecy in question, claiming for the notice that follows such credence as every man's conviction or scepticism, imagination or cooler reason, may choose to bestow.

The Abbey of Orval, from which the prediction has taken its title, was, it appears, a religious institution, situated in the diocese of Treves, on