power to make any such bequest) to the people the liberty of choosing their own ruler, after the death of the three immediate successors of Charlemagne, provided their choice should fall upon a prince of the blood royal. Charlemagne's will further indicated that, if any differences should arise between his sons, they should have recourse, not to the decision of war, or to single combat, but to the judgment of the Cross or, as it was sometimes called, the judgment of God. This process consisted in conducting the disputants to the church, where they were to hold up their arms in the form of a cross, their hands high in the air, above their heads, during the celebration of mass, and he who, or whose champion, possessed the necessary strength longest to maintain his arms in that trying position, was held to have established his claim, and to have rightfully gained his cause. Many articles personally used by the Emperor Napoleon are at the Louvre-his sword is the fittest pendant to that of the Emperor of the West. You may feast your eyes with his consular and imperial robes, with the coat he wore at the battle of Marengo, and with the famous "redingote grise." Amongst other articles, I was surprised to see a hat he wore at St. Helena, and, stranger still, the stirrups and bridle-bit which he used at Waterloo. It is not usual with any people to display in its museums the memorials of disaster and defeat, unless with the sinister intention to keep alive the smouldering embers of national hatred. Yet this we cannot believe to be the object of the present government-at least for the present-for there is no knowing what we may live to see. Bethis as it may, I cannot forget that I have also seen at the museum of the Hôtel Cluny, the stirrups used by Francis the First at the battle of Pavia, which was the Waterloo of that age, on whose bloody field, in the memorable words of the French Sovereign, " all was lost, but honour." To return to the Louvre: in the latter museum there is a fan and shoe of the beautiful and unfortunate Marie Antoinette, and some articles which belonged to her husband. There is also a very curious map drawn by the latter, on a round table, for the instruction of the Dauphin. Such might have been the object the King proposed to himself, but he certainly adopted means for an opposite end. I have seldom seen a map, or other instrument of education, more ingeniously devised for confusing the mind of the student. Both hemispheres are contained, in this tabular map executed by Louis the Sixteenth, in the same circle, and are coextensive with that circle. How can that be, you ask in amazement? well, you shall hear. The different continents are made to intersect each other, one hemisphere having been first delineated within the circle of the table, and the other drawn over that. The outlines of the land of the oriental hemisphere are in black, and the names of the places in black; the western hemisphere is drawn with red lines, the names of its places being in red, but Europe, Africa, and New Holland are represented grey, and the Ocean white. It will enable you to form some practical idea of this ingenious stupidity, if you will roughly sketch one hemisphere on a piece of transparent paper and place it directly over a map of the other hemisphere, taking care that your transparent paper exactly coincides in size and form with the circle of the hemisphere over which you may place it. But the confusion you will have realized by this proceeding will give you only a faint idea of the "confusion worse confounded" of this most extraordinary map of Louis the Sixteenth's devising, by which he effected a geographical revolution whose bizarreries form a sort of hieroglyphical reading of that revolution in France, and in all European society, of which he was, himself, the chief victim. It is time to lay aside my pen for a season. If you have borne with me this far, I cannot but express a hope that the interest of the subject may once again afford you occasion to excuse any deficiency of illustration with which your correspondent may be chargeable. Au revoir. Paris, November 12th, 1854. Dawes, Dean-see Reviews. Demetz, M., his Report on Met- tray, 727. English Songs and English Music, F. French Life in the Regency, 328. H. Hall, Mr. R., his account of Met- Hay, D. R.-see Reviews. I. Irish Land Question, 103. J. Joseph, Rev. H. S. - see Reviews. Κ. Dublin Hospitals and Blunders of Kavanagh, Mr. J. W., his Report the Census, 635. Dublin, Literary Life in, 241. Dumas, Alexander-see Reviews. on National Schools, and Work- Kay, Joseph-see Reviews. Literature and Poetry in Ireland, M. Maconchy, Captain-see Reviews. Plunket, Lord, birth and parent- appointed Attorney-General and his reply, 170-address of the bar to the Queen on Lord Banim, John, introduction, 270- R. ed in composing O'Hara Tales, and John Banim, 829-Marriage Mettray, accounts of, by Mr. Mettray, report on, by M. Demetz, Morrison, C., his relations Between Quarterly Record of Progress of 361. Reformatory Schools in France |