From The Spectator. MADAME DE MORNAY.* cultivation were equal to those of Mrs. Hutchinson; but, by what she has written, Madame de Mornay strongly excites our desire to know more. She was, at all events, a woman of great energy and decision, courageous and faithful in affection; truly religious, yet not inclined to give way to religious pretension: singularly simple and truthful in all her aims. In the memoir of her husband, drawn up for the use of her only son, there is a marked absence of egotism. His father's example; the manner in which De Mornay conducted himself in various emergencies-is all in all with her. THIS notice of a very remarkable French woman of the latter part of the fifteenth century, is a reprint of a "Discours by Adolphe Scheffer, brother of the two celebrated French artists, Ary and Henri Scheffer. It was drawn up for reading at a meeting of L'Assemblée Générale de la Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français, 1854. It is brief and very incomplete, having more the character of an eloge than of a memoir. Of course, what it tells of Madame de Mornay is, so far as it goes, indisputably The outlines of Madame de Mornay's life true; but it says nothing but what must be familiar to very cursory readers; it gives us may soon be given. She was the daughter few particulars of her varying life in her of a Catholic gentleman, Gui Arbaleste, dutiful attempts to make a home for her hus- Mons. de la Borde, who held honorable apband wherever his employments called him; pointments at Paris in 1550, the year of her it says nothing of her English friends; of birth. He afterwards became a Protestant, the birth of her children, one of whom, born but not so soon as his daughter, who in in London, was named after Queen Eliza- early youth embraced the Calvinistic faith. beth by her special desire, and had Sir She married very young, a M. Feuqueres, likewise a reformer, but was left a widow, Philip Sydney for godfather; it does not once mention her faithful friendship for the with one daughter, in 1569, when only nineexcellent Lauguet, and her nursing him in teen. Five years afterwards she became the his last illness at Antwerp: and it makes no wife of Duplessis Mornay, who was about two allusion to her characteristic difference with years older than herself. Both of them had the Consistoire at Montauban. There exist, narrowly escaped death on the day of St. Bartholomew, both being in Paris, though we feel persuaded, materials for a far more extended and interesting account of Madame each at that time unknown to each other. de Mornay than this, or, indeed, than any Through their connections with the noblest that has yet been written, either in her own of the Huguenot party and some of the best country or ours. of the Catholic, both were happily spared The De Mornay papers, still in the hands of one of the descendants for long, useful, and consistent service, of Duplessis Mornay (the Marquis Jules de never, for an hour of after life, as it appears, Mornay), form a very voluminous collection. shrinking from the toilsome duties before From these many extracts have been made. them through fear or through favor. It is The letters and many scattered papers have really worth remarking what an abundance been published in twelve octavo volumes, of practical talent is displayed in the records in a Paris edition of 1824; and several of which remain of the great men and women De Mornay's theological works are also well of France of that day. De Mornay's own writings, when they are not on the subject known. But among those which remain unedited, surely some valuable letters from the of abstruse theology, are clear, concise, and pen of his wife might be found which would to the point; and his wife, though few specirepay the trouble of collection: We cannot mens of her authorship remain, is memoraindeed quite agree with M. Guizot, who in ble among women for the closeness with one of his best "Etudes Biographiques sur which she adheres to the task she imposes on herself in no instance wasting unnecesla Revolution d'Angleterre" (that on Lucy Hutchinson), overrates Madame de Mornay, sary words, though there is abundant proof we think, intellectually if not morally. We of the strong and even passionate character do not suppose her mental powers or their of her feelings. Her sojourn in England during her husband's first embassy to the court of Elizabeth from that of Navarre extended from about May, 1577, to July, 1578. Madame Duplessis Mornay, née Charlotte Ar- baleste. liez. Some light is let upon character by an incident like this. Madame de Mornay, revered and beloved as she was by her family and intimate friends, had a decision and a talent for independent management which could not always make her agreeable in the less intimate intercourse of life. We cannot penetrate the mysteries of manner; we have not her own letters, as we have those of Lady Anne Bacon, the widow of Sir Nicolas, before us, or we might find some points of resemblance, in the midst of her occupation in much larger matters. "Uncompro There her eldest daughter by De Mornay before God," she says, "that I esteem this was born, soon after her arrival. Her sec- matter of the hair of no value, and that if ond, the Elizabeth of whom we have spoken, I believed there was any authoritative comwas also born in England just before her de- mand I would obey directly." She objects parture for the Low Countries. Of course to the imitation of the worst point in the the friendships formed in our country were Romish Church-that of setting up the aunumerous. The daughters of Anthony thority of the priest instead of God's comCooke, the Walsinghams, Philip Sydney, mands. The end of it was that, being unand many others, chiefly, if not entirely, able to obtain admission to the Sacrament chosen among the more serious Church at Montauban, and determided not to yield party, were her intimate friends. After the the point, she went to another church and first embassy to England, Madame de Mor- ministers at about three leagues distant, and nay chiefly lived in Antwerp for some years. was there received willingly. Here her beloved son, the source of so much joy, pride, and sorrow, was born. De Mornay had again to visit the English court, and was employed on business both for the State and the Huguenot cause incessantly. At last, wearied by continual absence from home he established her in Gascony, where, at Montauban, at Nerac, and at La Rochelle, they resided for more than four years. The reformed religion numbering many friends in this part of France, they gave and received sympathy; but it was at Montauban that Madame de Mornay, in the absence of her husband, became entangled in an annoy-mising" is the word we are inclined to use ing dispute with the narrowest section of the Consistoire, led on by the principal minister, M. Beraut. According to a contemporary account, this minister had already signalized himself, and troubled the Church at Montauban by an exaggerated application of one of the acts of the National Synod against extravagant dress; and Madame de Mornay, who had passed unscathed through at Montauban, he, of course, was commended the religious ordeals of England, the Low Countries, and other places, had the misfortune to displease this scrupulous man by the manner of dressing her hair. In his high in-joyed their society; but he fancied or bedignation, and abetted by others of his party, he refused, not to her only but to all the members of her family, servants included, tickets for the Holy Sacrament. He declined to examine their spiritual fitness, and put them practically under the ban of the Church. A paper drawn up, if not by Madame de Mornay, at least under her direction (which may be found in the second volume of the Œuvres, edition of 1824), details the particulars of this affair. A high-spirited and probably a tenacious woman, she did not choose to alter her style of dress in obedience to the commands of a minister or a small section of the Church. "I declare with reference to both these gifted women, while both, in things great and little, seem to have loved power. It would not be historically just if we were to suppress the fact of Madame de Mornay having offended, not her minister only, but a younger and probably much abler man, in Anthony Bacon, the brother of Francis. Residing for a time by Walsingham, and by his mother, Lady Bacon, to the good offices of De Mornay and his wife, and at first appears to have en lieved in a project for entangling him in a courtship with Mademoiselle Du Pas, the daughter by her first marriage of Madame de Mornay. It is our belief, derived from all we read of young Anthony, that he was much to be trusted in all matters of statecraft, and that he had no desire to falsify or misrepresent a case; but that he was irritable, unhealthy, intensely jealous of his independence, particularly disinclined to marriage, which was often pressed upon him by his mother in vain—that he was extravagant also, and would resent any attempt to curb him in the matter of expense; perhaps he was also by no means smitten with the rigid speedily and more happily closed-so well, indeed, that if I did not dread the grief of M. Duplessis, who, in proportion to the increase of my sorrow has given me more and more of his affection, it would weary me extremely to survive him.” life of the Huguenots. However it might to him our pilgrimage in this life, since it be, he certainly turned against Madame de has pleased God that his own has been more Mornay, and whether from his own pique, or more sensible reasons, took the part of her minister. It may be and probably was the old story of a clever managing matron failing in her attempt to fulfil the wishes of his own maternal friends, and giving rise to a bitter feeling in a young man's mind. It is just the case, in fact, in which we think Lucy Hutchinson, with her greater lightness of spirit, her brilliancy, and general aptitude for sympathy, would have succeeded where Madame de Mornay failed. But we always feel we have got into a higher court, and to a more severe standard of judgment, when we turn to the grave Frenchwoman. She received the fatal news on the 24th of November, 1605, and died on the 15th of May in the following year. The 7th of that month found her performing her religious duties in the Church of Saumur; and though looking the picture of woe, it was not deemed that her end was so near. De Mornay survived her for seventeen years. It is painful to think that the church built by his wife, and in which her body and that of her son were interred, was assailed long before his own death by the renewed hostility of the Catholic party, which obliged the aged man to frame a codicil to his will, directing that their remains and his own should be transferred to another burial-place near his own Chateau de la Forrest in Poictou, and "there,” he adds, "I desire to be placed with them, and with any of my family who may also wish it, all with the least possible parade, to wait there together for the blessed Resurrection." This brings us to the subject of her maternal relations. There seems to have been nothing injudicious in her domestic rule. The manner in which her daughters cling to her in affliction, and the constant confidence of her only son, prove this irresistibly. He was nobly endowed by nature and education. His mother's last words, in writing of him after his early, chivalrous end, are these, "It is almost beyond belief how everywhere where he has lived he is regretted; so completely was his ready, obliging temper, offensive to no one, recognized even in his short life-nearly indeed from infancy. How quickly after that period (1623) did It seems as if all this should soften our sor- the darkest clouds of religious persecution rows-yet they are as yet increased thereby almost that ever shrouded a country in . For a long time," she adds (after gloom gather over that sad land of France! hearing of the event which took place in a Who could have foreseen that a granddaughmost gallant enterprise of young De Mor-ter of De Mornay's old companion in arms, nay at Gueldres), "we scarcely knew what Agrippa d'Aubigny, was to be the bitterest to say to each other. Next to God he was of the foes of their faith! But was not even ever in our thoughts and words. Our daughters happily married and sent from us, not without grief, he alone remained, and in him all our lines met." This touching lamentation for a blow which soon after terminated her own enfeebled existence is a part of the conclusion of her memoir of his father. "And here," she says, "it is proper that this, my book, should end,-with him, as it was only undertaken for him; to describe a Condé among those who broke up their places of worship, forbade their ministers even to live as ministers, and hunted their women and children from rock to rock in the "desert," where alone they could attempt to meet? So the "lost leaders" of a great cause sometimes turn into its most implacable foes, and so does worldliness eat out the heart of what is noblest among men ! From The Spectator. THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES. THE fortunate heir to the English crown is, in one respect, the most unfortunate man of the age. His royal highness Prince Albert Edward of Great Britain is young, accomplished, well looking, thoroughly well educated, generally beloved, and in the prospective possession of one of the most glittering diadems in the world; and yet, in the plenitude of all these earthly and heavenly gifts, can only select his partner through life from among seven fair damsels. Tom Brown, the city clerk, who tries to be a gentleman upon sixty pounds a year, would not tolerate for a moment the idea of having his matrimonial horizon narrowed to such dimensions; nor would even John Styles, the plowman, who works for board wages six days in the week, and on the seventh courts all the girls of the parish, bear the restriction. Both Tom and John would certainly think themselves hardly used if, in this era of liberty, when locomotion is cheap and girls are plenty as blackberries, they should not be allowed to pick their spouses, at least, among a hundred fair ones, so as to be able to thoroughly investigate the comparative merits of black and blue eyes, plump and slender forms. They would feel aggrieved the more, as they are fully aware that the human flower-garden through which they are roving has far more than a hundred queens-of-hearts, being practically of almost unlimited dimensions, and expanding with every step downwards in the social scale. It is only on the pinnacle of the pyramid that the space is contracted until, as in the case of a live prince of the blood royal, the matrimonial field is circumscribed by the fatal number Seven. The land on this elevated ground is measured out and registered by a royal Doomsday-book more formidable than the one preserved at the Chapter-house of Westminster Abbey. The book is well known and deeply reverenced as the Almanach de Gotha. The great modern Doomsday-book, the Almanach de Gotha, divides all mankind— and womankind, of course-into the three classes of princes, nobles, and plebeians. The boundary between each of these classes, is laid down and most markedly and distinctly making trespass all but impossible. Sharpest in outline and best fenced off is the topmost division, comprising the various members of the royal families of Europe. It is laid down as a law, more stringent than any in the Codex Justinianus, that all these members are ebenbürtigs, or equal by right of birth, whatever may be their political or other position. Thus, the Czar of all the Russias, who rules a territory of nearly eight millions of square miles, being one-seventh of the land of the whole earth, stands, according to the Almanach de Gotha, exactly on the same level with the sovereign prince of Lichtenstein, whose realm extends over a few bogs in the Tyrolese mountains, and who furnishes seventeen men and a drummer to the army of the German Confederation. So well, however, is the Codex of Gotha acknowledged among the royal class, that the great Czar never for a moment hesitates to recognize the little prince, and all his little kith and kin, as ebenbürtig; and should the youngest son of Lichtenstein demand the hand of the autocrat's only daughter, the offer would not in the least be held presumptuous, but perfectly en règle. In epistolary intercourse, the Czar addresses the prince as "Monsieur mon frère," and in every other respect the brotherhood is carried into the smallest item of royal etiquette. But great as is the equality on the high tableland of royalty, immense also is the gulf which severs it from the terrace below, containing the second division of Gotha humanity. There are barons in Hungary and Bohemia a thousand times as rich and powerful as the sovereign prince of Lichtenstein, but woe to them if they should aspire to the hand of one of Lichtenstein's daughters! An ignominious refusal would be the least for them to expect in return for such impudent daring; and, even should they succeed in their matrimonial aspirations, the dreadful Almanach would brand the union as "morganatic." Equally detestable, from the Gotha standpoint, yet on the whole attended with lesser punishment, are breaches of the barrier separating the class of nobles from the vulgar herd, which are held up to public scorn under the name of mésalliances. But the law, in this point, has lost much of its rigor of late, and the execution of it is found to be attended with great difficulties. The more serious, therefore, has been the attention directed by the Almanach to the royal class, and in order that contamination Protestant faith. But it happens, curiously should become quite impossible the name of enough that though the majority of Euroevery member is carefully registered, to- pean sovereigns are Protestant-thanks to gether with all particulars, and published the mosaic constitution of the German annually forth to the world. It is in this empire-there are, nevertheless, consideralist, and nowhere else on the habitable globe, bly more young princes and princesses that his royal highness the Prince of Wales brought up in the Roman Catholic creed, must look for a wife. than after the tenets of the Reformed The catalogue of princes and princesses Church. The Catholic princes, it seems, is a tolerably long one, extending over near multiply more than their Protestant bretha hundred pages of the royal Doomsday- ren, although, as a rule, they do not arrive book; and it seems rather extraordinary at quite so old an age. The largest of all that there should be no more than seven the royal houses of Europe, are the families fair ones in the list eligible for the selection of Hapsburg and of Lichtenstein, ubi supra, of the heir-apparent to the crown of Eng- both Roman Catholic, and including within land. The fact is owing to some general their sacred circle more matrimonial eligiand some particular causes. There are bilities than a dozen ordinary Protestant about eight hundred members of royalty in households. The house of Hohenzollern is Europe, all ebenbürtig and legitimate; but itself far more productive in its two Cathothe vast majority of them are in the sere lic branches, of Hechingen and Sigmarinand yellow leaf, past marrying and being gen, than in the younger line which has married. Like English law lords and bish- given kings to Prussia. The handsomest ops, princes and princesses, as a rule, attain and, it is believed, most accomplished to a good old age, far above the average of princess of Europe at the present moment, vulgar humanity. The King of Wurtem- is Furstinn Maria of Hohenzollern-Sigmaburg, the Landgraf of Hesse-Homburg, and ringen, born November 17, 1845, and thereseveral other members of reigning families, fore exactly four years younger than the are past eighty; the Duke of Saxe-Meinin- Prince of Wales. But, owing to the difgen has sat on the throne for nigh sixty ference of creed, the radiant Furstinn is years; the Prince of Schwarzburg-Rudol- noli-me-tangere to his royal highness. stadt has ruled his happy subjects since Somebody in Russia, where people are 1807; and Fürst George of Schaumburg- more accommodating in matrimonial religLippe ever since 1787. The greater num-ion than in this country, is said already to ber of sovereigns of Europe and their fami- be looking out for this paragon of prinlies are above fifty years of age; and the case is not at all rare of four generations basking together in the sunny atmosphere of a throne. There are two emperors and three empresses in Austria, two kings in Bavaria, and two queens in Saxony, not to speak of a multitude of retired and reigning sovereigns in the minor realms of the world. Many a page of the Almanach de Gotha has to be turned over before the eye alights, in a maze of venerable sexa, septa, and octogenarians, on a name fit to match, in point of age, with that of the young heir-expectant of the British Isles. But Alexandrine of Prussia, born February 1, cesses. After sifting and distilling the contents of the royal Doomsday-book with the utmost care, the sad fact remains at the bottom, that, as already said, there are really no more than seven eligible ladies in the world to whom the eldest son of Queen Victoria may offer his hand. The list being so extremely circumscribed, it seems worth while to set forth the names of this galaxy of beauteous candidates for the throne of Great Britain and the Indies. First on the list, according to rank, stands Princess the search becomes still more difficult from 1842, the youngest daughter of Prince Althe fact that it is not only age, but religion bert, brother of the king by Princess Mariwhich has to be looked after. The consort anne of the Netherlands. It is unfortunate whom England wants for her future king, for this young princess that from an early must be not merely young and comely, age she had to be the involuntary spectator and scion of a sovereign princely family, of domestic dissensions, which ultimately but must be, above all, a believer in the led to a judicial divorce of her parents, pro |