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after the retirement of his brother, but withdrew in November 1780, and was succeeded by the Count de Puységur.-We are now approaching to the era of the Revolution; and Puységur continued in office only eight months. Such was at this juncture the pressure of political affairs, that scarcely any time remained for army-regulations; and accordingly the ministry of Puységur is marked by little else than directions for the supply of forage and provisions: a fact, however, which implies no derogation from his knowlege of the service, which was very extensive, though unfortunately of little avail under the peculiar circumstances of his ministry. These details, and the memorable events of the 14th July, occupy the chief part of M. AUDOUIN'S fourth volume; to a length, indeed, which greatly exceeds the proper limits of a military work. Yet this part of the book will be found possessed of interest, arising, no doubt, more from the nature of the events than from the mode of narration. The style continues as bad as before, though here and there we meet with an exception from the general deficiency. We particularly remarked the occasion on which Louis XVI., finding, after the defection of his troops and the capture of the Bastille, that resistance was useless, adopted the resolution most congenial to his personal feelings, and repaired to the National Assembly to announce the dismission of his obnoxious counsellors. He communicated the orders given for the removal of the troops to a distance from the capital, and his intention of repairing in person to Paris on the 17th; a step which he invited the assembly to announce. A deputation was immediately sent to the Hotel de Ville, headed by the eloquent Lally Tolendal; who, on his return, expressed himself thus: "I found the hall filled by citizens of all classes, and the neighbouring square thronged with the people. I said, " Citizens, the honour of the French name is now at stake—would you not rather suffer a thousand deaths than be the cause of tarnishing it?" They answered me by declaring their unanimous assent. When I added that they should indeed be free, that the King had promised it, that he had come to throw himself into our arms, that he put his trust in the citizens, and had sent away the soldiers, they interrupted me with reiterated cries of " long live the King!" We come, said I, to offer you peace on the part of the King and of the National Assembly. All repeated with transport, "Peace, Peace!" When I added, "You love your wives, your children, your King, your country," a thousand voices shouted "Yes, Yes!" I then ventured to go farther, and asked, "Shall there not be now an end to civil discord? to proscriptions? shall not the law alone be left to act ?" and I was answered by an universal shout of Peace, Peace, and no more proscriptions!"

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In a political work of such length, the affairs of England are necessarily introduced on various occasions: but the author knows just as much about them as the majority of his countrymen, and falls into a number of odd mistakes. Like M. de Montgaillard and other Frenchmen, he has a magnificent idea. of the wealth of our India-Company. Lord North, he observes, (Vol. III. p. 407.) was in their pay, and even "le roi Georges had long been tributary to them. Very little was wanting,' says the author, to complete the triumph of these sovereignmerchants, and make them as absolute in America as in India. This was to be accomplished through the medium of bills demanded by the King, and obtained by the minister: - but the energy of the colonies deranged the project; they unanimously refused the payment of the tax on tea.' The errors in English orthography are not less amusing than the misconceptions of our constitution. We are told of the party of the Wigts, of the nautical talents of Lord Sandwick, of the oratory of Edmond Burcke, and of the patriotism of Lord Chatam, better known as the illustrious commoner, Williams Pitt. It was a favourite plan of Abbé Terrai, says M. AUDOUIN, to remove the pictures from the gallery of the Louvre, and to make it into a winter Wauxhall. We have been entertained, likewise, with the author's partiality to the profession with which he is himself connected: There can be no doubt,' he says, that of all classes in society, the military is the most respectable.' Like many other Frenchmen, also, he complains of our endless wars with his country, and of our eagerness to stir up the Continent against it. Though politics are often introduced into this work, the author's views appear to be very superficial. Among other strange notions, he is never an advocate for a sovereign employing a prime minister, but thinks that the general direction of affairs should remain exclusively with the head of the state; as if it were a matter of course that all sovereigns were competent to such a task. A wish to depreciate the Bourbons is apparent throughout the book, and derives but too much support from their history; particularly from the domineering habits of Louis XIV., to whose prodigal waste of blood and treasure the writer ascribes the distress of France for so many years after that monarch's death

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M. AUDOUIN is already known as the au hor of some publications, particularly one on "Maritime Commerce" He seems to be infected with the cacoëthes scribendi, and is by no means slow in promising farther contributions to the world. One of his proposed works is intended to treat " on Military Recom

*See Rev. Vol. xxxiv. N. S. p. 538.

pences,"

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pences," and another on the "Writers of French History." Publish when he may, we hope that he will shew more attention to the rules of composition in his future. than he has manifested in the present work. In the volumes before us, he appears to have gone on without any previous method, and to write on the topic that occurs, whatever it may be, till he has exhausted it, without considering how many other things have a claim to a share of his attention. Hence his longwinded details about Louvois, about Ségur, about the armyuniforms, &c. Sometimes, indeed, an anecdote is introduced, and affords a pleasant contrast to the rest of the book. The history of Fischer, (Vol. III. p. 200.) a noted partisan on the side of the French in the German war of 1756, is remarkable; as well as the exploits of Mardrin, the celebrated robber in the eastern frontier of France. We have already taken occasion to mention the efforts made by the Abbé Terrai, and other unworthy ministers of Louis XV., to remain in office after that king's death. Their fall, however, was unavoidable, and it took place accordingly on St. Bartholomew's day, an epoch unhappily too notorious in French history. When some person remarked to the Spanish Ambassador, Aranda, that this was a cruel St. Bartholomew's for the ministers :— "At all events," replied his excellency, "you cannot call it the massacre of the innocents." - Few books stand more in need of such enlivening passages than this production of M. AUDOUIN. importance of its subject has induced us to bestow considerable attention on it, but the view exhibited of it in our pages is probably all that an English reader will be desirous to take. It possesses little interest as a general treatise on military matand as a technical book on the French service, it is chiefly useful to persons on the other side of the Channel.

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ART. IX. Histoire abrégée de la Republique de Venise, &c. ; i.e. An Abridged History of the Republic of Venice; by EUGENE LABAUME. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris. 1811. Imported by Deconchy. Price 11. 48.

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ENETIAN history has been less studied in this country than we might have expected from the natural sympathies of mercantile opulence. In modern Europe, the earliest seat of eminent commercial prosperity, Venice preserved the remains of antient luxury and civilization, and revived them for the use of another world. Its foundation was due to the warehouse-keepers of Padua. The feluccas of the Adriatic can ascend the Brenta only after having deposited half their loading: stowage-rooms were therefore constructed on the Rialto, an

island

island near the mouth of the Brenta, for the reception of such superfluous cargoes; and thus began the establishments which were destined to become the imperial Venice.

When Attila besieged and took Aquileia, many merchants fled, with such property as they could secure, to these maga zines; of which the insular situation was inaccessible to the barbarian soldiery. This Aquileian colony occupied the hitherto unbuilt Lido di Malamocco, and, by carrying new habits of commerce and connection into the place, rapidly and visibly increased its importance. Arian refugees from Constantinople settled there under Theodoric.

Until the year 709, a parochial form of government had sufficed for the purposes of a very tolerant police; and each island elected its own overseers, who were called tribunes. In 709, however, it was judged necessary to combine the isles under one municipal constitution; and a charter of incorporation was obtained from the Emperor Leo, and approved by Pope John V. This charter instituted an elective doge, and the first individual elevated to that office was Paul Luke Anafesto, who resided in the Heraclean island.

From Pepin, the father of Charlemagne, some enlarged grant of jurisdiction was obtained for these doges, at the expence of the King of Lombardy; and, as this additional jurisdiction comprized a part of the shore or continent of Lombardy already called Venetiæ, from vinna, a name of the fishingnets which were spred there to dry, the republic henceforth obtained the name of the Venetian, and its metropolis was called Venice.

With Ravenna and Thessalonica, with Constantinople and especially with Alexandria, the Venetians carried on a perpetual and profitable intercourse. Availing themselves of the anarchy produced by the Mohammedan conquests, they took under their protection many islands of the Archipelago, which the Greek Emperors had not maritime power enough to defend. During the crusade against Saladin, they were especially successful; they obtained 85,000 marks of silver for transporting the European armies; and they employed a portion of the soldiery in annexing the coast of Dalmatia to their own territory. Not only with the Mohammedan pirates they waged maritime wars, but also with the republic of Genoa; which, about the close of the fourteenth century, had conceded to the Venetians the empire of the Mediterranean sea. At length, the continental acquisitions of the Venetians began to excite the jealousy both of the Emperor of Germany and of the King of France; and the league of Cambray was formed, which terminated the progress of Venetian prosperity.

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The advancement of navigation among the Portuguese opened a new route to the East Indies, and greatly diminished the traffic of Venice with Alexandria for oriental productions. In 1618, the conspiracy of Bedmar shook the interior constitution of the state, and introduced a mysterious system of espial, which abolished the liberal spirit of the preceding age. A Turkish war, which the senators prolonged without object or purpose, from 1641 to 1669, but merely for the patronage and perquisites to which the siege of Candia gave a pretext, com-' pleted the exhaustion of the country. During the last century, Venice was always the admiration of the traveller, but the pity of the statesman ;-the glittering shell of a decayed prosperity. Its weakness was revealed, and its doom of desolation fixed, by the French conquest of the city in 1805.

"Thy baseless wealth dissolves in air away,
Like mists that melt before the morning ray:
No more on crowded mart, or busy street,
Friends meeting friends with cheerful hurry greet.
Sad on the ground thy princely merchants bend
Their altered looks, and evil days portend,
And fold their arms, and watch with anxious breast
The tempest blackening in the distant west.
Yes, thou must droop; thy Midas dream is o'er ;
The golden tide of commerce leaves thy shore."

[See Mrs. Barbauld's poem, Rev. for April last.]

The history of Venice has been amply, if not happily, illustrated. About the year 1400, the doge Andreas Dandolo drew up the earliest extant chronicle of the republic; and Justiniani, who died in 1489, left a manuscript-treatise, De Origine Urbis Venetiarum, which was printed in 1492, and again in 1534. It was translated into Italian by Domenichi, and consists of fifteen books. Sabellicus, in 1486, attempted a Latin abbreviation of preceding notices, which were progressively brought down to his own times, and obtained for him the situation of historiographer. Scaliger taxes him with partiality, and says that the money of the Venetians was the source of any historic knowlege that he possessed. — Suazzasini, Bembo, Paruta, Morosini, Foscarini, and Nani, continued these official annals; which have been collected in twelve quarto volumes, forming the ground-work of all subsequent narrations. These twelve quartos the Abbé Laugier turned into French, abridging them into twelve octavos, which appeared in 1758. His work is now deemed too prolix; and M. LABAUME undertakes to reduce it to a sixth part of its antient dimension. He dedicates the result of his toil to the Viceroy of Italy, Eugene Napoleon, and has provided an agreeable and sufficient account of this once celebrated commonwealth, with much neatness of compilation.

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