managed matters rightly, either in great things or small; but that the only remedy was patience.

These shortcomings put the Poles on their mettle. In the following winter, the Palatine of Posen and the Bishop of Wermia, despatched by the King of Poland to execute the marriage by proxy, with a gorgeous gathering of Sarmatian nobles, all in their national costume, entered Paris, and by the grandeur of their equipments and carriages quite extinguished the complimentary deputation sent to receive them.

Madame de Motteville, in her Memoirs, speaks of this entry into Paris with the ecstacy of a lady fond of grand sights. The ambassadorial procession entered, she tells us,

by the gate of St. Antoine, with abundance of solemnity, and the best decorum in the world. First and foremost came a company of foot-guards, dressed in red and yellow, with great gold loops upon their clothes. They were commanded by two or three officers richly apparelled and very well mounted. Their habits were very fine vests, after the Turkish manner,

over which they wore a great cloak with long sleeves, which they let fall loosely by

their horses' sides. The buttons of both their vests and cloaks were rubies, diamonds, and pearls; and their cloaks were lined with the same as their vests. After this company there came another in the same order, commanded by officers whose habits were richer than the former. Their vests and mantles were of the colour of their heydukes, of green and gold. We saw two other companies on horseback,

with the same liveries as those which were on foot, one of which was red and yellow, and the other gold and green; only those wore richer stuffs, the harness of their horses was finer, and they had more pre

cious stones.

Madame de Motteville proceeds to say that the French Academicians followed this fine and foreign array. The lady is very severe upon the savants, who, she says, went out to do honour to the strangers, but dishonour to themselves. They must, indeed, have looked very like mountebanks, for they wore shabbily-gay dresses, covered with ribbons, had feathers in their hats, and were mounted on sorry hackneys, which they hardly knew how to manage. They contrasted with the body of Polish noblemen who followed:

these were attired in dresses of stiff brocade and silver, were splendidly mounted, and each was attended by a man in uniform. "Their stuffs were so rich, so fine," writes the lady already quoted, "and their colours so lively, that nothing in the world was so agreeable. Their vests glittered, too, with diamonds; yet," adds the true French lady, "for all their richness, it must be confessed there is something in their magnificence which looks very savage." It was not in the magnificence, however, in which, to our thinking, the "savageness" consisted. We rather detect the "barbarian" in a subsequent passage, which says of these splendidly attired Poles that "they wear no linen, and do not lie in sheets like other Europeans, but themselves up in furs. wrap Their caps," she adds, "are furred, their heads shaved, except a lock upon their crown, which hangs down behind. They are for the most part so fat and slovenly that they are loathsome." Some of them appear, nevertheless, to have been extraordinarily attractive in the eyes of this lady, who particularly admired the Polish officers of a superior grade, who wore three cock's feathers in their caps, and the heads of whose horses were made gay with the same distinctive adornment. Some of their horses, like Mr. Martin Van Butchel's pony that was a Sunday spectacle in the park some half-century ago, were painted, chiefly red. The lady very justly calls this an odd fashion, but yet "not a disagreeable sight."

The Palatine of Posen and the Bishop of Wermia came last, surrounded by Polish and French nobles, all on horseback, brilliant as finery could make them, and followed by the carriages of the palatine and bishophandsome equipages, having silver wherever iron was employed in French carriages, and looking, with the fine plump steeds which drew them, not in the least as if they had made the long journey from Poland.

All Paris was a-foot early to see the entry, and even the young king and queen-mother placed themselves at a window of their palace to see them pass. But before the procession reached that point darkness had set in, and the sight-seers, royal and noble, gentle

and simple, were disappointed, and blamed the blameless; just as many did at the late entry of Queen Victoria into the French capital. The ambassadorial party was fodged and boarded at the king's expense, in the palace of the exiled Duke de Vendôme.

If there was discontent at the entry, there was still more at the marriage. There was an intention to perform this ceremony with every possible splendour, but there arose such acrid dissensions resting on points of precedency, every prince and noble claiming to be better than all others, and these dissensions were accompanied by such intemperance of speech and action, that the queen finally determined that there should be no public marriage at all. The renewed disappointment was universal; but it was not heeded, and the ceremony took place privately, with scarcely any one present but the bride, the representative of the "groom," and court officials.

It was well that this was the case, for there was something indecorous in the appearance of the black-eyed, black-haired, and still handsome bride. She originally designed to wear the royal Polish mantle-white-covered with "flames of gold," over a robe corresponding therewith. The cercmony being, however, a private one, the queen insisted that the mantle should not be worn. Thereupon Marie de Gonzague also laid aside the robe, and appeared at the altar in her "corset" and petticoat, "which being made," says Madame de Motteville, "to wear under another, was too short, and not grave enough for the occasion."

Singular as she must have looked, the Poles who saw her cross a terrace to proceed to the queen's apartment, previous to the marriage, shouted for joy at the sight of their own future queen. She did not want for brilliancy of adornment; for Anne of Austria had covered her with crown jewels, lent for the occasion. The service would probably have been all the more gratefully acknowledged if Anne had not forbidden Marie to wear the closed crown until after the ceremony was concluded. The "forbidding" should, perhaps, be rather called GENT. MAG. VOL. XLIV.

a "counselling," but, "defense" or "avis," it was obeyed, and the marriage was at length concluded in due form. Although Madame de Motteville says there was nobody at it, she enumerates such a number of the royal family and attendants as must have constituted a very numerous company. She especially notices the presence of the Duke of Orleans, the old lover of Marie; and she evidently thinks that the form which made a queen of the latter in presence of an old admirer, must have been wormwood to the duke, and something sweeter than all Hybla to the lady; indeed, the latter had more triumphs than this on the eventful day in question. She took, or rather was allowed, precedence of the Queen of France during a brief portion of the day; and Madame de Motteville, to whom such privileges seemed an antepast of paradise, thought that the bride must have been raised thereby to a condition of exstatic delight which it would be impossible to describe.

The banquet which followed the ceremony was a stately, lengthy, and tedious affair, and, as it appears to me, very dull when compared with the smart things that were said, not at, but after it. There was no lack of aids to wit, in the form of "creature comforts," and sparkling wines, but there was little mirth although much magnificence, and perhaps because of much magnificence. In the evening the bride was conducted, as became a queen, to her residence in Paris, where her escort of princes and nobles took leave of her, each with a separate compliment. The lady's exlover, the Duke of Orleans, was not there, but he was represented by the Abbé de Rivière. When this gentleman approached to take leave, he maliciously whispered that he thought she had done better if she had remained in France with the simple title of "Madame;" meaning "Duchess" of Orleans. "God," said the Queen of Poland, "has given me that of Majesty,' and therewith I am very well content."

The brilliancy of the court balls on this occasion made compensation for the disappointment caused by the late entry of the Poles into Paris, and the privately-celebrated marriage of

4 G

Marie with the proxy of the royal husband, who was quietly expecting her arrival at Warsaw. The new queen was the "Cynthia of the minute." Crowds followed her in the streets, as if she were a great stranger, and not one whose face was familiarly known to most, at least, of those who hurried to gaze upon her. She was unchanged by her fortune; and the fact of her being Queen of Poland, or of her having danced with the then young King of France, caused no difference in her towards her friends. This is spoken of as something highly meritorious on her part.

The journey, through Flanders and Germany, into Poland was a glorious ovation, and the last which she enjoyed. When she reached Warsaw there was scarcely any one in waiting to greet her; there was no state reception, no private happy welcome: and when she was led into the presence of the old king, fretful at the time from a sharper than ordinary attack of the gout, both parties were disappointed. The king did not think her so handsome as he had found her pictures represent her to be; and poor Marie, looking upon a man as old and twice as ill-looking as the "König in Thule," shuddered at her lot.

The scene was altogether an extraordinary one. The meeting took place in the cathedral. The old king was seated in a chair, and when Marie approached and knelt, and kissed his hand, he neither rose to receive her nor stooped to raise her, but, turning to one of the French gentlemen, he said, roughly and aloud, "Is this the great wonder of which you have made so much to me ?" Never was there a more melancholy marriage. Each party seemed to wish to avoid the other. Not a word was said by either but what the ceremony required; and, when the sorry ceremony itself was concluded, the poor queen sank into a chair quite unable to thank the king, as was expected, for the great honour he had done her.

The banquet which followed disgusted the gastronomic French. There was nothing there, they said, but what was disagreeable; and the indifferent banquet was construed almost into an

insult to France. Later in the evening, the unhappy queen whispered to Madame de Guebriant that she wished to heaven she could return with her to France. At length, weary and vexed, she was conducted to her solitary chamber; and the king, when he had seen the banquet fairly to a close, was carried to his own apartment, in another part of the palace.

What the French ladies thought of the ungallantry of the king may be seen in Madame de Motteville. Suffice it here to say, that they talked high and loudly, for days, of the honour of France; and they succeeded so well that everybody at last was satisfied that the honour of France had been properly regarded.

It was but a three years' splendid misery, and all was over: not for Marie, but her harsh old husband, who died in 1648. He left a wealthy widow, however, who was, in her very weeds, courted most assiduously by a younger brother of the late king. Marie had little interest now in France, and the prospect of helping her lover, by her wealth, to be elected King of Poland, and sharing the throne with him, was one which affected her most agreeably. There were many difficulties in the way; but these were all surmounted. Even the obstacle presented by the parties being within the forbidden degrees was easily got rid of, and money purchased from Rome a licence to break the ecclesiastical law. All ends were thus accomplished. The lover was elected king, and the widow of the old king became the bride of the new. He was not so ungracious a consort as the defunct monarch, but he did not scruple to speak of the wife whose money had bought his election to the crown, as a very estimable person indeed, yet one by marrying whom he had sacrificed a good deal, and materially injured his prospects. He was an ungrateful fellow; but probably did not mean all that he said. Be this as it may, Marie was as happy as a queen" could be; though no one who reads her history. will recognise in this clever woman the simple little piece of prettiness who is the heroine of De Vigny's "Cinq Mars." J. DORAN.

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character with a peculiar ease, and in all probability with a nearer approach to certainty than, cæteris paribus, any other student.

Although a great deal has been written on the study of History, there is one point which we are inclined to think has never been fully examined. It is a point which this civil service examination at once suggests. It is not the value of history to the statesman. It is not its practical utility to those who mix with the world. It is not its peculiar interest to the student; nor is it its relative or absolute dignity. It is simply the question, What value should we attach to historical scholarship as a test of common-sense and talent?

To give a satisfactory answer to this question, it is only necessary to define as clearly as the subject permits what we mean by historical scholarship. All historical facts may be divided into what for convenience sake we would call external and internal facts. They have equal claims to be called actual occurrences. But though both take place with equal certainty, the certainty of our knowledge of each is by no means equal. For instance, in the assassination of Cæsar there was both the act and a motive. Although we are equally sure that both of them existed, yet our knowledge of the motive cannot by possibility be as clear as our knowledge of the act. Now a knowledge of the motives or internal facts of history is dependent on two things: 1. On a knowledge of the external facts; and 2. On our own reasoning powers. We may therefore define historical scholarship to be an acquaintance with a certain class of facts which consists of circumstances and of motives.

Any one who agrees with us so far, and who clearly understands the sort of mental operation necessary for the deduction of motives, will scarcely differ with us when we say that historical scholarship must be a good test of the quantity and quality of those various powers included under the term talent. Not only is it a good test, but we believe there is no better. The fact that we cannot arrive at ab

solute certainty about historical motives has nothing whatsoever to do with the question. If that, as some people who take a superficial view of the case appear to think, had anything at all to do with it, then, indeed history might have to yield its place to mathematics, and to the more exact sciences. But it is not the character of the conclusion, it is simply the sort of mental process by which the conclusion is obtained which we have to consider.

In preparing an examination paper on History there are certain points which the examiner should always bear in mind. The questions should, as far as possible, be original, or, in university phraseology, deduced. A question should never be of such a nature as to admit of several answers; that is, it should not be on a very doubtful point, or about any subject on which the best authorities are not to some extent agreed. The reason of this is obvious. Where a number of answers to a single question have to be compared with each other, which is always the best method of examining them, the difficulty of determining their relative value will be much increased by a dissimilarity consequent on a want of exactness in the subject. The use of ambiguous terms should as a matter of course be avoided. The examiner should remember that it is his duty to place the questions before the candidates as clearly and as fully as he can. Though brevity is a great ornament in style, it has sometimes spoiled an examination paper. The papers at present before us* have a remarkable difference in this respect. A single question, No. 14, on English history, is almost as long as all the questions on the history of Greece, Rome, France, Germany, and Italy put together. Indeed Sir James Stephen appears to have spared no pains to make his questions clear and full. For example, we do not remember to have seen at any examination a better question than the following. It is a perfect model of what a historical question should be:

12. The Treaty of Dover, of the 22d May, 1670, and the Treaty of London, of the 31st December, 1670, were both con