but the fault was not hers. The emperor, though he loved her, did not surround her with the consideration which was due to the mother of Napoleon. She felt this; but, too proud to hint it to her son, she preferred remain. ing in solitude, to putting herself in contact either with the empress, or with any of the persons who surrounded the emperor. How frequently have I been shocked by the conduct of many of these persons! The ministers sometimes paid their respects to her on New-Year's Day; sometimes at distant intervals, but never with the forms of ceremony and etiquette which were suited to her station, except the Duke de Gaëta. But she possessed no influence; and the frequenters of a court possess a marvellous acuteness in deciphering the actual position of individuals within that magic circle. It appears that any coldness which could be said to exist between Napoleon and his mother arose from her partiality for Lucien, whose abilities and intractable spirit afforded the emperor constant uneasiness.

When we cast our thoughts over the history of this extraordinary woman, we are impressed in much the same manner as by one of those plays which, in different acts, represent the fortunes of an individual at different periods of his life. In 1793, we see her a houseless and proscribed exile, wandering with her children in her arms through a wild country, and indebted to friends for the means of subsistence. Six years after, we find her conspicuous as the mother of the head of a mighty state. In fifteen years from the period of her greatest depression, the civilised world has become an appanage to her children; one of her sons is emperor of France and king of Italy, another is king of Spain and the Indies, a third king of Holland, and a fourth king of Westphalia; one of her daughters is queen of the Two Sicilies, another grand- duchess of Tuscany, a third the wife of a Roman noble. Her brother is at the same time a cardinal. In five years more, all has passed away, like a painted scene in some fictitious spectacle; herself and her children are proscribed in the country where they reared all

their greatness, and become once more fugitives-almost

outcasts.

On the dispersion of the Bonapartes in 1814, Madame Mère retired with her brother Fesch to Rome, where her fortune enabled her to live in a style not unworthy of the more brilliant past, and to afford succour to such of her family as were in distressed circumstances. She occupied a handsome palace on the Corso, where she saw few besides her brother and her daughter, the Princess Borghese, the exceptions being chiefly distinguished strangers who desired the honour of being introduced to her. One of her most intimate friends, not of her own family, was the Duke of Hamilton, for whom she enter tained a considerable partiality. The miseries which befell her most distinguished son in his latter years, and his death, gave her the most poignant affliction; and she is said to have expressed the deepest concern respecting the restoration of his remains to France. Soon after the revolution of 1830, she became so dangerously ill, that extreme unction was administered to her. 'She was in that state,' says the Duchess of Abrantes,' which immediately precedes dissolution. Her family stood around her bed. Her brother, her children, and her daughters-in-law, looked upon her, and wept as they perceived her praying; for they were but too well acquainted with the particular feeling, which, in her dying bosom, absorbed every other. The Prince of Montford [Jerome], having been detained by the arrival of a courier from France, had not yet joined this solemn family meeting. Scarcely had he read in the Paris papers an account of the decree which would have done honour to the French nation had it been executed, when he ran to his mother's palace, entered her bedchamber, and gently approaching the bed: "Mother," said he, in a whisper, "do you hear me?" She made a sign in the affirmative.

"Well, the Chamber has just issued a decree for the replacing of the emperor's statue on the top of the column."

'Madame Mère made no reply, but something extraordi

nary seemed passing within her. She clasped her hands -her eyes continued closed-she was evidently praying -and big tears rolled down her cheeks! They were tears of joy! An hour after she received this intelligence, she asked for some broth, and in two days quitted her bed. The effect produced upon her by this circumstance,' concludes the duchess, writing in 1833, may give some idea of her feelings at finding no end to the anathema cast upon the cold and senseless clay of her son. Ought not the tears of this venerable mother, now eighty-three years of age, to soften the hearts of those who have no longer any cause to tremble before the hero's bones, and might display their generosity at so very little cost?'

In her latter days, Madame Bonaparte became extremely infirm, chiefly in consequence of a fall at the villa of her daughter Paulette, and the most of her time, both by night and day, was spent upon a couch. She also lost the use of her eyes. To quote the not unworthy account of her last moments, which was given in a newspaper obituary: A lady constantly watched by her side, and M. Robaglia, her secretary, once an officer in the Old Guard, used to read the journals to the august invalid, speak to her of France, and make her live again in the times gone by. Her appearance gave a painful impression to the few visitors who were admitted to her palace: her frame had become so attenuated that life seemed extinct; and yet, at the name of France, of the emperor, of her children, the octogenarian lady revived; there seemed to be thrones still around her, there was still a powerful voice on her lips, and the lightning of Napoleon's look in her eyes. Ever since the fall of the emperor, the mother, whose children had mounted so many thrones, had received no other news from her family than those of mourning. The last blow that struck her was the death of the Princess de Montford, to whom she was particularly attached. Few women have had so many favours of fortune heaped upon them, and few have had to drink more deeply the dregs of the cup of misfortune. On the 27th of January, she fell into a cold stupor that alarmed

her devoted friends. Cardinal Fesch, her brother, was summoned; a slight amelioration took place after two or three days; the sacraments were, however, administered; her malady returned with redoubled violence on the 1st of February [1836], and on the 2d she expired, retaining her faculties to the last, and sinking to rest calmly and peaceably. She, the woman who had produced Napoleon, died in solitude and in exile, but at the foot of the Capitol.

THE SEA! THE SEA!

THE habits of the West Indian land-crab are well known. It is content for the greater part of the year to dwell amongst the mountains of the interior, but at a particular season finds an instinctive and irresistible impulse to visit the sea. Off, therefore, go large hordes in dense column along the country, surmounting all obstacles in their way, and never stopping till they have got into their native element. A similar instinct seems to be implanted by nature in the wives of the human race-that is to say, such of them as ordinarily dwell in the interior-who, though content in autumn, winter, and spring, with their usual habitats, no sooner feel the summer air fanning their cheeks, than straight they become animated with a most determined propension towards the coast, from which it were as vain to attempt to withhold them, as it were to endeavour to turn back the march of the land-crabs, or to essay any other impossibility. If wives were in every respect like land-crabs, could pack as easily, and travel as lightly, and dispense as well with money, we should witness a splendid phenomenon indeed. The whole body would be seen about the beginning of June moving down the country in troops, with their children, taking as little note of milestones, staying as little for rivers or mountains, climbing over houses and villages rather than be put out of their way, and at last plunging into the sea, and there

disporting and enjoying themselves like so many Nereids. But the plague is, that human beings, however disposed to travel, cannot go off without a number of curious preliminary ceremonies, neither move along—at least through considerable distances-without some external aid. Here the analogy of our ladies of the interior to the animals in question ceases.

The most important of all the preliminary ceremonies, is the obtaining of the requisite funds. The expense not only of travelling to the coast, but of the necessary accommodations there, must be cared for. This naturally raises a considerable difficulty, and tends to make the migration appear less like the result of a great and wide-spread impulse of instinct, than it would otherwise do. Proper means must be taken with husbands in order to realise the said funds, and sometimes this is a business not to be very easily or very quickly effected. Husbands, strange to say, are never prepared by the expense of one year for the expense of another. Though their wives have gone to marine quarters every year for six or ten in succession, they are never in the least less surprised at the next proposal to do the same thing. Thus the difficulty of getting them to produce the money, is every year as great as ever it was. It is the only thing upon which custom or habit has no effect. Ladies look upon this as a very unfortunate point in the gentleman character, and with good cause; but, as it seems constitutional, or at least quite inveterate, they must just make the best of it. A prudent wife knows that much may be done by judicious preparation. If she begin about the month of March to talk of sea-bathing quarters, the husband will be much less astonished when she makes the serious demand in June or July. His mind must be trained and indurated to the occasion. She must also be very sensible that it will not do to begin all of a sudden to speak of infirmities in her own health or in the health of the children, as reasons for going into marine quarters. That would raise objective suspicions at once. But if from time to time during the two months before the proper season, she should