On the 8th of April, 1794, three days after the bloody victory of Robespierre over Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and the members of the Comité de Clemence, the scaffold was raised at Nîmes for a distinguished lawyer, suspected of opposition to the will of the terrible triumvirate; and the home of one of the most respectable families in the country was made desolate. A wife, in despair, implored heaven for strength to bear the stroke which made her a widow and her two children orphans. The eldest, hardly seven years old, wore already the serious and meditative expression of matured reason. Misfortune is like a hot-bed: those who are reared in it grow old before their time; this child, who knew no childhood, was François Pierre Guillaume Guizot.

Born a Protestant, on the the 4th of October, 1787, under the rule of an iniquitous legislation, which refused to his parents a legal union, to himself a name and a place in society, Guizot saw the revolution at one blow restore him to his position as a Frenchman, and make him pay for this benefit with the blood of his father. These circumstances may have given rise to the equal antipathy of the statesman for democratic governments and absolute monarchies.

After this fatal catastrophe Madame Guizot quitted the town which contained such cruel associations, and retired to Geneva to seek consolation among her family, and a solid education for her children. Young Guizot threw himself into his studies with

avidity. Books were his only enjoyment, and at the end of four years the scholar had read, in the originals, Thucydides and Demosthenes, Cicero and Tacitus, Dante and Alfieri, Schiller and Goethe, Gibbon and Shakespeare. His two last years in college were specially devoted to historical and philosophical studies, the latter of which offered to him the most powerful attractions. His mind, gifted by nature with a particular character of logical force exaggerated almost to sternness, had full opportunity of being developed in the bosom of this little Genevese republic, which has preserved to this day some of the learned and inflexible physiognomy of its patron, John Calvin.

In 1805, after seeing his studies crowned with the most brilliant success, Guizot came to Paris to attend his terms; the school of law had disappeared in the midst of the revolutionary confusion, and there were some private establishments formed then to supply the want; but he was not satisfied with what he considered an incomplete course of instruction, and resolved on seeking knowledge from books in solitude. Both proud and poor, austere and ambitious, the young man found himself thrown into a world of intrigue, licentiousness, and frivolity. period from the directory to the empire, like all epochs of transition, is of no one character. The social current violently driven back by the revolution, had not yet entirely regained its course, and old ideas were only beginning to rise again from the terrible

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the journal, to make himself known, the generous stranger came at length to receive the thanks he so well deserved, and five years afterwards Mademoiselle de Meulan became Madame Guizot.

The rigid and serious nature of the Genevese scholar saved him from contagion. The first year of his sojourn in Paris was for Guizot a year of sorrow and isolation. He retired within himself, like every man who feels himself possessed of powers without having an object on which to exercise them. The following year he was attached as preceptor to the house of Mr. Stapfer, ex-minister from Switzerland, where he met with a reception almost paternal, and sources of philosophic knowledge to direct and stimulate his intellectual developement. These new connexions admitted him to the salon of M. Suard, where all the beaux esprits of the day used to assemble, and it was there that he saw, for the first time, the woman who was to exercise over his destiny so noble and so happy an influence.

The circumstance which brought on the marriage of Guizot was romantic enough, and is very generally known. Mlle. Pauline de Meulan, born of a distinguished family, but ruined by the revolution, was obliged to find resources in the excellent education which she had acquired in better times, and to support her family she entered into the hard and laborious work of writing for the public journals. At one time, when engaged in editing the Publiciste, she was attacked with a serious illness, brought on by too much work, and was at once deprived of her only means of obtaining a livelihood. When reduced almost to extremities, she received an anonymous letter, entreating her to tranquillize her mind, and offering to fill her place until she recovered her health again. This letter was accompanied by an article, the style of which, by a refinement of delicacy and tact, was exactly similar to her own. Mademoiselle de Meulan accepted the article, signed it, and received others regularly until the end of her convalescence. Profoundly touched by this proceeding, she did not hesitate to speak of the adventure openly at the soirées of M. Suard, thinking little of the pale, serious young man, who listened to her gravely while she was expressing all sorts of con

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During these five years Guizot occupied himself with various literary labours. 1809 he published his first work, the "Dic tionnaire des Synonymes," the introduction of which, a philosophical essay on the peculiar character of the French language, reveals already the spirit of method and precision which distinguishes him to this day. Then came the "Vies des Poètes Français;" the translation of Gibbon, enriched with historical notes of the highest interest; and, lastly, the translation of a work by Rehfus, "L'Espagne en 1808," published also about this time.

Whatever may be the intrinsic merits of these first productions, all of which were written before the age of twenty-five, others more important have since made them be forgotten.

In 1812, Guizot became connected with the University by M. de Fontane's naming him as assistant professor of history for the faculty of literature; and a little after he obtained sole possession of the chair of modern history, where he has left such glorious recollections. Here, too, was the commencement of his intimacy with another mind of the same stamp, M. Royer Collard, professor of the history of philosophy.

This first part of the life of Guizot was purely literary. Attempts have been made to represent him as engaged in secret plots and cabals for the return of the Bourbons; but there is no fact to justify these assertions. Through his wife, and through his literary tastes, Guizot was connected with a certain class, who, throughout the rudeness of the empire, had preserved much of the elegance. and good taste of the past aristocracy; a sort of philosophical polish was the order of the day among the literati of this class, whom Napoleon designated generally as ideologues. They certainly effected a good deal in ideology,* but very little in politics; and we know besides, that the admired pen of Chateaubriand, entirely devoted to the subject, was not able to revive the recollection of the Bourbons in the hearts of a generation which had not witnessed their fall.

The events of 1814 found Guizot in his native town, Nîmes, where he had gone to

* Which we may translate abstract principles.

nister; the left wing, composed of an important part of the liberal opposition to the restoration brought over to the new monarchy, was commanded by Thiers, the brilliant deserter from the Lafitte party; the right wing, composed of the former constitutional royalists, was under the orders of Guizot; as to the centre, an aggregation of the undecided and irresolute of every regime, it found, for the first time, in M. Dupin, the most eccentric and most obstinate of men, a chief obedient to order and ardent for the fight.

Aided by this triple phalanx, the ministry of the 13th March, was able to move onwards-to resist the opposition in the interior of the Chambers, conquer the insurrection in the streets, force the gates of Ancona, and consolidate the system of July, in saving it from the exaggeration of its principle.

After the death of Casimir Perier, his generals disputed the command for some time; at length the right and left wings coalesced: MM. Guizot and Thiers joined hands, and the ministry of October, 1832, was formed. If we only consider Guizot as the Minister of Public Instruction, amongst all the labours of his department, there is one glorious act that the parties most hostile to the statesman have received with unanimous approbation. The grand law of June, 1833, on primary education, conceived, prepared, defended and executed by Guizot, shall remain to the future one of the most noble creations of our time. The principle of popular education adopted and proclaimed by the revolution of '89, but stopped in its progress by the social changes of the last fifty years, received its entire accomplishment under the ministry of M. Guizot. Twelve hundred communes, that is to say, the quarter of France, until then deprived of that early education which makes honest men and good citizens, now saw erected beside the clergyman's house, the modest school, where the child of the poor man receives the knowledge which is to support him through the rude trials of after life. The detailed instructions addressed by Guizot to the prefects, the rectors, the mayors, the commissioners of examination, would fill volumes. The finest of these is the circular which he sent to all the teachers of the communes of France. In these few pages there is, perhaps, as much true eloquence, as much poetry of style and thought, as in the most beautiful works of the age. With what touching familiarity the minister stretches out his hand to the obscure village schoolmaster;

how he raises him in the eyes of all, but especially in his own; how he impresses him with the importance of his mission; he is his colleague, his equal, for each in his own sphere concurs in promoting the glory and the tranquillity of the country. And then with what paternal solicitude, from the interior of his cabinet, the statesman enters into the most minute details respecting the relations of the teacher to the children, their parents, the mayor, and the pastor. "No sectarianism or party in school," he writes, "the teacher ought to rise above the passing quarrels that disturb society. Faith in Providence, the sanctity of his duties, submission to paternal authority, the respect due to the laws-to the prince-to the common rights; such are the sentiments which he must endeavour to develope."

Is there a page of romance more touching than the following simple sketch of the teacher's painful duties, and the consolations which he must find in himself? "There is no fortune to make, no fame to acquire in the painful obligations which the teacher has to accomplish. Destined to see his life pass away in a monotonous labour, sometimes even to meet with injustice or ignorant ingratitude, he must often be cast down if he did not derive his strength and his courage from a higher source than the prospect of an immediate and purely personal interest. profound conviction of the moral importance of his labours must support and cheer him ; the pleasure of having served man, and secretly contributed to the public good, is the noble reward which his conscience alone can give. It is his glory to pretend to nothing beyond his obscure and laborious condition, to make daily sacrifices hardly noticed by those who profit by them; to labour, in fine, for man, and wait his recompence from God."

Compare these lines, of almost patriarchal meekness, with the pitiless words of M. Guizot before the insurgents; hear him thundering from the tribune against the corrupt tail of the revolution; see him reading Bossuet at the death-bed of his wife, or stoically throwing the first handful of clay on the coffin of his son, and say is there not something strange and powerful in this individual, in whom we find united the fire of Luther, the mildness of Melancthon, the impassibility of Epictetus, the simplicity of Fenelon, and the inflexible severity of Richelieu.

After an existence of four years, the cabinet of October was dissolved from two causes, one exterior, the other interior. The