tutionel,' whose circulation was increased, it is said, by nine or ten thousand copies a day. Thus it is that the Wandering Jew' was introduced to the Grand Maître, who, as well as all the other ministers, subscribed to all the newspapers; sometimes condescending to look at them. After the quasi-official announcement that Villemain used to read, with deep interest, all the numbers of the Constitutionel which contained a portion of the new novel, we know French ministerial veracity too well to express a doubt with regard to the truth of the statement, and, therefore, our readers will, if they please, take for granted that the minister studiously perused the work, and that the work upset the understanding of the minister. We should think that many other brains have been similarly affected, by the same. cause, and perhaps all the cases will soon be publicly reported, to add to the triumph of the author, and to the circulation of the Constitutionel. Eugene Sue is one of the most prolific of French novel writers. "The Female Bluebeard,' the Godolphin Arab,' 'Mathilde,' 'the Mysteries of Paris,' and, we believe, three or four other works of the same sort, in three, four, or five volumes each, had prepared the public for the present performance, which reproduces, in their worst features, the extravagance, the licentiousness, the ignorance, the absurdity, and the horrors of the thirty or forty preceding volumes, from the same pen, and of twenty times as many volumes from other purveyors for the depraved appetites of French readers, who, we regret to say, are principally women of the upper classes, and milliners, known as grisettes. We cannot describe the plan of the author, for now-a-days, particularly in France, authors dispense with plans. Plans have lasted their time.' (Les plans ont fait leur temps), as the high priest of the Doctrine says of all the moral, political and religious principles, which are incompatible with doctrinarian science. Plans are obsolete, ridiculous, rococo. Without plan, one is free to write what he pleases, and as he pleases. Imagina tion may run wild, instead of being shut up in the narrow limits of order and taste, of the methodus ordo. For the same reason there is not merely a plot, there are as many plots as may be suggested to the author, in the course of his performance, by any new object, fact, or impression which may affect his mind. Thus every thing can be made available for the purpose of diversity. The whole world, and every part of it successively, may be made the theatre of one scene, and all without connection or dependence. Coherence would be a damning defect in modern works of fiction. Modern genius, in one word, con sists in making, if we can use the expression, literary kaleidoscopes, in which epochs, events, countries, institutions, manners, personages are so congregated, confused, distorted and wheeled round, that nobody can say of what he sees, either what it is, or what it is not. Such is preeminently the character of the 'Wandering Jew.' The real beginning of the work takes place in the third volume, chap. lxviii. and lxxvii. In 1682, a certain Marius de Rennepont, a French nobleman, one of the most active and determined leaders of the reformed religion, pretended to abjure protestantism, in order to preserve his immense property, and so leave it to his only son, then a young man of eighteen years of age, who however remained faithful to his creed, and 'died a victim to a mysterious crime.' The father could no longer submit to a deception repugnant to his religious feelings; he was watched, accused, and condemned as a relapsed heretic; he was sentenced to the galleys. Rather than submit to this degradation, slavery and wretchedness, he resolved to put an end to his own existence, and, before accomplishing his design, made his will. A sum of fifty thousand crowns, which he had entrusted to a friend, was all that remained of his fortune. These fifty thousand crowns, divided amongst his relatives, then exiled and dispersed throughout Europe, in consequence of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, would have been very little for each, he therefore determined to dispose of his property in a different way. The man to whom the money had been entrusted, Isaac Samuel, and after him his descendants, were requested to undertake the management of this sum, and of the capitalised interest, until the expiration of the one hundred and fiftieth year, commencing from the day of the nobleman's death. At that period, that is to say, on the 13th of February, 1832, before noon, the existing members of his family were to appear in person at a certain house, Rue St. Francis, to witness the opening of the will; and those who should be present were to share equally in the accumulated treasure. The object of M. de Rennepont, whose family had been so cruelly persecuted by the Jesuits, is explained in the will in the following terms: 'If an evil association, based on human degradation, fear, and despotism, and followed by the curses of mankind, has survived for ages, and frequently governed the world by fraud and terror, what might not be expected from one proceeding on brotherly affection, or evangelical love, and having no other end than to free both man and woman from every degrading bondage; administering here below to happiness of those who have never known aught but grief and misery ennobling and enriching wholesome labour; enlightening those who are in the darkness of ignorance; promoting the free expansion of all those feelings which God, in his infinite wisdom, in his inexhaustible bounty has bestowed on man, as so many powerful levers, to sanctify all that emanates from the Almighty,-love as well as maternal solicitude,-power as well as knowledge,-beauty as well as wisdom;-rendering, in short, all men truly pious and profoundly grateful to their Creator, for giving them a knowledge of the splendours of nature, and their merited share of the treasures which he has showered down upon us? Oh! that it would please heaven, in a century and a half, that the descendants of my family, faithful to the last wishes of one who is a friend to humanity, may thus be gathered together in one holy community! If Heaven grants that among those who may then meet, there be charitable spirits overflowing with pity for those who are suffering-generous souls who are friendly to freedom-warm and eloquent hearts-firm characters-women uniting wisdom and freedom with beautyhow fruitful and powerful would be the harmonious junction of all these ideas, of all these influences, of all these powers, of all these attractions, grouped around this regal fortune, which, concentrated by union and wisely governed, might render practicable the most utopian schemes! What a wonderful concentration of generous and fertile thoughts; what salutary and vivifying rays would constantly go forth from such a centre of charity, of freedom, and of love! What grand things might be attempted; what magnificent ;' but we must stop, though we have hardly arrived at the middle of the paragraph, which is followed by many others equally magniloquent. In this literal translation our object is to give, as much as is in our power, an accurate idea of the mind of Eugène Sue, and of his style; we confess that we are much beneath our original; perhaps the British language does not lend itself to the reproduction of the beauties of French romantism. In 1832, the capital and accumulated interests of the fifty thousand crowns, according to the accounts regularly kept, balanced and given by M. Sue, in the seventy-second chapter, entitled, Debit and Credit, amounted to two hundred and twelve millions one hundred and seventy-five thousand francs. The grandson of the first depositor, now an old man of eighty-two, had for above fifty years continued and extended the operations begun by his father and grandfather, while at the same time he fulfilled the humble functions of concièrge of the old house in St. Francis-street, where all the documents and the will were deposited. Samuel, the good old man, and his wife Bathsheba, anxiously awaited the coming of the 13th of February, and of the legitimate claimants to the property, who were dispersed all over the world. But the Jesuits, who are everywhere, and know everything, not only had discovered that an enormous amount of property was on the point of being divided among the descendants of the relatives of their victims, but also had resolved to become possessors of it. They were acquainted with all the particulars of the will of M. Marius de Rennepont; nay, even more, they had traced out all the parties having a claim to the property, notwithstanding the long time that had elapsed, and the perigrinations and vicissitudes they had been subjected to. Thus we find (chap. xvi) the superior agent of the Jesuits in Paris, receiving the following communication:— 'A hundred and fifty years ago, a French protestant family, foreseeing the speedy revocation of the edict of Nantes, went into voluntary exile, in order to avoid the rigorous and just decrees already issued against the members of the reformed church, those indomitable foes of our holy religion. 'Some members of this family sought refuge in Holland, and afterwards in the Dutch colonies; others in Poland and Germany; some in England, and some in America. It is supposed that only seven descendants remain of this family, who have undergone strange vicissitudes. Its present representatives are found in all ranks of society, from the sovereign to the mechanic. These descendants, direct or indirect, are: on the mother's side: 'Rose and Blanch Simon; under age. (General Simon married at Warsaw a descendant of the said family.) 'M. Francis Hardy, manufacturer at Plessis, near Paris. 'Prince Djalma, son of Kadja Sing, King of Mondi. (Kadja Sing married, in 1802, a descendant of the aforesaid family, then settled at Batavia, in the island of Java, a Dutch colony. 'On the father's side: 'James Rennepont, mechanic. Adrienne de Cardoville, daughter of Count Rennepont, Duke of Cardoville. 'Gabriel Rennepont, priest of the foreign missions. All the members of the family possess, or should possess, a bronze medal, bearing the following inscriptions: 'On one side: • Victim L. C. D. I. Paris, 13th February, 1682.' 'On the other side: At Paris, No. 3, Francis street, The 13th February, 1832. These words and dates show that all of them have a great interest to be in Paris on the 13th of February, 1832, and not by proxy, but in person, whether they be of age or minors, married or single; but other persons have an equal interest that none of the descendants of the family be at Paris on that day, except Gabriel Rennepont, priest of the foreign missions. At all hazards, therefore, Gabriel must be the only person present at the rendezvous appointed to the descendants of the family, a century and a half ago. To prevent the six other persons from reaching Paris on that day, or to render their presence of no effect, much has been already done; but much more remains to be done to ensure the success of the affair, which is considered as the most vital and most important of the age, on account of its probable results.' Our readers will conceive the importance of Gabriel being the only one of the claimants present at the appointed place, on the 13th of February, when they are apprised that the young priest has been admitted into the society of Jesuits; and that, according to the rules of the Order, no member of the society can possess any private fortune; and that any property which may, by succession or otherwise, accrue to him, immediately becomes the property of the Order. Much had been done, as we see in the novel, to prevent all the other claimants from being in Paris, to dispute with the reverend fathers their respective shares in the accumulated capital. At the time when the communication above quoted was received by the director-general (at the beginning of October), Rose and Blanche Simon were with their mother, captives in Siberia. Prince Djalma was either fighting against the 'cruel' English, to defend the kingdom of his father, with the assistance of General Simon; or, defeated, a fugitive, or prisoner. Gabriel himself was in America, and had been ordered home. James Rennepont, the mechanic, was ignorant of his claims; and Mr. Hardy, the manufacturer, as well as Mademoiselle Adrienne de Cardoville, were supposed to know no more of theirs. So that, in all probability, the treasures would soon pass into the Jesuits' coffers. The covetous fathers, however, were doomed to disappointment. Some days before the 13th of February two ships-one |