FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE.

THE CHANCELLOR PASQUIER'S RECEPTION AT THE

FRENCH ACADEMY.

Paris, 10th December, 1842.

It is now ten months since the Chancellor Pasquier succeeded to the academical chair left vacant by the death of the Abbé Frayssinous, titulary bishop of Hermopolis. We heard yesterday the discourse brought forth after this lengthened preparation, as well as Monsieur Mignet's reply; and if in the empty phrase and wearisome diction of the first, we failed to discover one excuse for the election which excited such general wonder and indignation at the time, we may admit that we admired in the last the elegance of style, the adroitness of praise, the delicacy of touch, with which, while presenting to the assembly's notice the claims acknowledged in this new brother, he leaned too heavily on none, lest he should find them, though less brilliant, fragile as the down on the butterfly's wing, and inadvertently wipe them away.

Our readers probably recollect the echo of French surprise (for it was loud and continued) when the choice of this grave body, instituted by Richelieu "to cleanse the French tongue of any soil it may contract in the mouth of the people, or the crowd of the palace, or the impurities of chicanery, or the bad customs of ignorant courtiers," fell on the Chancellor Pasquier, who is neither statesman nor scholar, to the exclusion of Alfred de Vigny, who stood with his books by his side, with acknowledged merit, with dignity uncompromised, without intrigue, and without success. Pasquier, who has produced nothing, though he promises memoirs, of whose matter and manner we have every right to augur ill, taking his reception speech for specimen, concealed his nullity beneath his chancellor's robe; and the Academy, while it flung its doors so wide to pay this injudicious homage to the powers that be, has perhaps permitted the public to cast too close and scrutinizing a glance on some of the occupants of those seats which others fill so worthily. Faintly applauded only when he himself did homage to the venerable and accomplished author of the Genius of Christianity, Monsieur Pasquier's speech aroused few sympathies, though itself expressing many, more or less warm, with the governments he has served in turn, and to which he has sworn the oath grown common to him as a bow through his cameleon life. Notwithstanding the encouraging looks of Monsieur de Barante, who sat by his side, receiving from his hand each heavy page as its tale was told, and classing it for its long sleep, the chancellor seemed to feel his position irksome, as he must have known it to be strange. He