To give any thing like an analysis of this speech would carry us into too great length, for it embraces a large field, and is remarkable for the closeness of its style. As on other occasions, we must confine ourselves to a few remarks and extracts; but we shall endeavour, in the latter, to select such as are likely to do most honour to the memory of Mirabeau, and draw the attention of the reader to a speech which cannot be too assiduously studied. In quoting such a writer, we shall religiously abstain from all attempts at translation; eloquence, as well as poetry, appearing in a foreign language much more awkward and clumsy than a Turk or a Hindoo would look in the costume of Paris or London. Much must, of course, be passed over in silence. Indeed, as a great part of the speech turns on free gifts and testaments, a branch of the subject which we avoid touching upon at present, this might very well be done, without breaking the connection of his arguments against the right of primogeniture; but we can cite but a small number even of these. The Arabs, we know, are accustomed to speak of the times before Mohammed, as their "days of ignorance ;" and the French of 1791 judged in a like manner of the period preceding the Revolution: Dans les siècles de tenebres (says Mirabeau), ces lois (romaines) ont été notre seule lumiere; mais dans un siècle de lumières, les ancien flambeaux pâlissent; ils ne servent qu'à embarrasser la vue, ou même à retarder nos pas dans la route de la vérité. Of all the laws of antiquity relating to succession, those of Rome, which appeared to Mirabeau so exceptionable, approached most nearly the equality of nature: all the children inherited equal portions, without distinction of sex or age; but as the law ordained that property should not pass by marriage from one family to an other, the children of a daughter could not succeed to her property, which returned at her death to the family from which she sprung. Experience afterwards taught the Romans that the allowing women to inherit introduced pernicious luxury and disorder into the state; and a law proposed by Quintus Voconius, the tribune, and thence called the Voconian Law, made it illegal to constitute a woman heir, whether married or unmarried. This law was advocated with great vehemence by Cato the Censor, at the age of seventy-five. It is important not to mistake the spirit of the Voconian law it was really intended to repress luxury, and not wantonly to deprive women of their rights; for, while they were excluded by it from the succession to large estates, they might inherit possessions not inIcluded in the first census. To encourage marriage, Augustus partly removed the prohibitions of this law, making it legal for women to succeed in virtue of their husbands' will, and, in case they had three children, they might inherit the estate of a stranger who should name them as his heir. By the time of Adrian, the Voconian Law was nearly a dead letter; and Justinian abrogated it altogether. The orator then advises to abandon entirely all deference for former laws, and in regulating the possessions and determining the rights of a great people, to look solely to reason and nature. Or, Messieurs (he continues), que nous dit cette nature, dans la matière que nous discutons ? Si elle a établi l'égalité d'homme à homme, à plus forte raison de frère à frère; et cette égalité entre les enfans d'une m me famille ne doit elle pas être mieux reconnue encore, et plus respectée par ceux qui leur out donné la naissance? Society acknowledges fully the right of children to succeed to their fathers, but it has hitherto neglected in most cases to decree that all shall succeed to equal portions. But, Cette loi sociale, qui fait succéder les enfans aux pères dans la propriété des biens domestiques, doit se montrer dans toute sa pureté, quand le chef de famille meurt ab intestat. Alors les enfans qui succédent partagent selon les lois de la nature, à moins que la société ne joue ici le rôle de marâtre, en rompant à leur égard la loi inviolable de l'egalite. Mais il Le suffit pas d'avoir fait disparaître de notre co 'e ce reste impur des leis feodales, qui, dans les enfans d'un mˆme père, créaient quelquefois, en dépit de lui, un riche et de pauvres, un protecteur hautain et d'obscurs subordonnés; leis corruptrices, qui semaient des haines, là où la nature avoit crée la fraternité, et qui devenoient complices de mille désordres, si pourtant il n'est plus vr i de dite qu' elles les faisaient naître. Il ne suffit pas d'avoir détruit jusqu'au dernier vestige de ces lois funestes; il faut prevenir par de sages statuts les passions aveugles, qui n'auraient pas des effets moins pernicieux que ces leis mêmes; il faut empêcher l'alteration qu'elles apportent insensiblement dans l'ordre civil. The entire disregard of justice oftentimes manifested by testators, is but too well known. Services of the most infamous kind, as well as the smaller delinquencies of cringing and flattery, too frequently purchase the succession to property, to the injury of the natural heirs. Even where the secret obligations of guilt exist not, old men are subject to be capricious in their preferences, and sometimes bequeath immense wealth to individuals on the strength of impressions made upon them instantaneously by a fortunate physiognomy, or by engaging manners. It is clear that such testaments ought not to be respected by the laws, which being the nearest approach to pure reason should by no means be made subservient to the most irrational vagaries of individuals. Combien de ces actes, signifies aux vivans par les morts, où la folie semble disputer à la passion; où le testateur fait de telles dispositions de sa fortune, qu'il n'eût osé de son vivant en faire confiance à personne des dispositions telles, en un mot, qu'il a en besoin pour se les permettre de se détacher entierement de sa memorie, et de penser que le tombeau serait son abri contre le ridicule et les reproches ! The right of primogeniture, as it now exists in Europe, arose out of feudal manners, with which it was perfectly congruous. Nevertheless it did not come into vogue simultaneously with the possession of fiefs, for under the first two races of French kings both sons and daughters succeeded equally even to feudal possessions, as may be clearly inferred from a law of Edward the Confessor: "Si quis intestatus obierit, liberi ejus succedunt in capita." It was after the Capet family ascended the throne of France that the great feudal proprietors, having united together to cast off the yoke of royal authority, established the right of primogeniture, that all the power of the father might remain united in the hands of one man, the better to resist the encroachments of regal power.* The eldest son being the most early adapted to undergo the fatigues of war, and to feel the spur of ambition, was therefore chosen to be the representative of the father; and the whole domain of the family devolved to him, with an injunction to provide for his younger brothers so far as to enable them to live respectably. This we find recorded as a law enacted by Geoffry, Count of Britanny, in 1185: "Majores natu integrum dominium obtineant, et junioribus, pro posse suo provideunt de necessariis, ut honeste viverent." When the right of primogeniture was once established among the nobles, who are generally allowed to coin ideas and fashions for those below them, it was not to be expected that the commoners would long remain behind them in the career of absurdity and injustice. Accordingly, the eldest son of a clown very quickly acquired the right to rob his brothers and sisters as completely as the son of a lord, and believed that, by the exercise of this piece of unnatural plunder, he was approaching the condition of his betters. As to daughters, they were accounted for next to nothing by the feudal institutions, which, on their account, ran riot in every possible absurdity, ordaining one thing in this province, another in that; now securing them a small portion, now granting them nothing. So that during the glorious times of chivalry, when a princely beauty had perhaps a hundred knights ready to break a lance in her honour, she might not possess sufficient property to furnish the palfrey that carried her to the tournament, or to provide herself with a veil to shade her cheek from the sun. All she could demand was no more than a simple chapeau de rose, having which she was portioned for life. "Tis true there were nunneries, and to these the toasts and beauties of chivalrous periods betook themselves, so soon as time had begun to make havoc with their features; for the honest knights of those days were no less given to look to the main chance than the knights of our times; and if they broke each other's skulls to prove the virtue and loveliness of their mistresses, they likewise took good care to leave those lovely creatures very little besides their beauty that they could call their own. Such having been the wisdom of our ancestors, and the gallantry of chivalric days, it must be owned that we have degenerated sadly now, when, at all events, a lady receives a portion suited to her rank, and is not left quite dependent on the caprice of her brother. Those glorious dawnings of the revolution which dispersed the darkness that had so long obscured the laws of France, must, undoubtedly, have been viewed by a man like Mirabeau with the most enthusiastic delight. The barbarous curtain of chivalry was withdrawn from the national character, men stood up in a proud equality, *Discours de M. Chabot de l'Allier. claimed and won the honours and distinctions to which their virtues and their talents entitled them, and trampled under their feet the hateful distinction of noble and commoner, originating in ignorance and barbarism, and fitted only to degrade and enslave the great majority of mankind. In the speech before us, the great orator of the revolution exults over the ruins of the feudal system, a monstrous edifice, which his own eloquence had greatly contributed to destroy. Le concours de la loi et de l'opinion a détruit chez nous cette prépondérance générale que les noms et les titres se sont arrogée trop long-temps. Il a fait disparaître ce pouvoir magique qu'un certain arrangement de lettres alphabetiques exerçait jadis parmi nous. Ce respect, cette admiration pour des chimères a fui devant la dignite de l'homme et du citoyen. Or, je ne sais rien de mieux, pour faire repousser des rejetons à cette vanité ensevelie, que de laisser subsister des usages testamentaires que la favorisent, de cultiver en quelque sorte par les lois cette fond trop fertile d'inégalitié dans les fortunes. Il n'y a plus d'aînés, plus de privilégiés dans la grande famille nationale; il n'en faut plus dans les petites familles qui la composent. The blessings which the Revolution conferred upon France have always appeared to the Bourbons as so many conquests achieved over their family greatness; and, whatever concessions they may have thought it necessary to make since their restoration to the spirit of the times, it is evident, from many symptoms, that their secret intention is to replunge the French into all the superstition and national slavery, from which they emerged by their courage and capacity. On the 10th of February last, one of the Ministers of Charles X. (the dock-master of Mohammed Ali) presented to the Chamber of Peers the project of a law for restoring the right of primogeniture; and in a speech, which, together with the law itself, is now before us, attempted to stultify the understandings of the peers by various ingenious sophisms, calculated to lead into the belief that the equal partition of estates would in the end annihilate all the advantages of landed property, and reduce the whole body of the people to a miserable rabble. That these sophisms have already thrown their roots across the Channel, and taken ground in this country, we must conclude from the words of the distinguished Baronet, previously quoted, for, in this instance, the popular English senator has undeniably imported his notions from France. However, the right of primogeniture, although it does happen to appear so just and admirable to this great Reformer, is likely to have fewer advocates in future. Even the speech of the " Gardedes-Sceaux," which convinced the member for Westminster, and many other elder brothers, of the excellence of this law, will, we suspect, have a contrary effect upon the generality of readers. The French orator, imagining perhaps that he was wielding an Achilles of an argument, insisted chiefly, in support of his motion, upon the tendency of primogeniture to uphold the "monarchical principle"! Could he have quite hidden that idea from the minds of his hearers, perhaps the law might have passed; but in making it the basis of his appeal, it was really like saying, "Keep your doors open all night, as it affords the greatest possible facility for the entrance of those who will ease you of the wealth your industry might accumulate." So successful, indeed, is this gentleman in proving the reverse of what he intended, that we recommend his speech to the perusal of our readers, as a more striking document in favour of the equal partition of estates than even the splendid discourse of Mirabeau himself; for it is an example of the utter inefficacy of the best reasonings which the whole French Government could marshal in the course of years against the rights of man. THE LAMENT FOR THE CID. El Campeador! El Campeador! If on proud Cordova's high walls Came but a distant hum, Each held his breath, and fear'd to hear And then throughout the paynym land, When the watchers took their anxious stand They stood by the beacons day and night With torches ever burning bright ; Alas! they may quench them now! The Moslem maid who turn'd her eyes For the youth who fought afar, They may fling the Moorish banners wide- They hid, as if each silken fold, El Campeador! El Campeador! There's a voice of woe in the land- So strong of heart and hand? Yet even in death, brave Cavalier, Fix for the charge the lance in rest, One hope, one wish, shall fire each breast BERNARD WYCLIFFE, |