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of fanciful proposals were suggested and discussed. Some argued for lotteries, others for a tontine, others still for a great land bank; while many urged the adoption of a certain article, of real value (such as gold or corn), as a standard, and letting the assignat be treated as any other common article of merchandise. Nothing effectual, however, was really done, and the evil went on increasing. By the winter of 1795-1796, the issue of assignats had extended to the enormous sum of forty-five thousand millions; but twenty thousand millions furnished, in actual value, scarcely one hundred millions, for the assignats were not worth more than the two hundredth part of their nominal value. The public now therefore refused to take them. They could pay for, and purchase nothing; and the radical step required to be taken of sweeping them entirely out of the way. This was done by creating a new species of paper-money, to which was given a different name. It does not appear very clearly how this was to mend matters satisfactorily; but here is the account of the revolution as it appears on the page of history:

"A paper was devised, which, by the name of mandats, was to represent a fixed value in land. Every domain was to be delivered, without sale by auction, and upon a mere procès-verbal, for a price in mandats equal to that of 1790. Mandats to the amount of two thousand four hundred millions were to be created; and domains to the like amount, according to the estimate of 1790, were to be immediately appropriated to them. Thus these mandats could not undergo any other variation than that of the domains themselves, since they represented a fixed quantity of them. It would not thence absolutely result that they should be on a par with money, for the domains were not worth so much as in 1790, but at any rate they must have the same value as the domains. It was resolved to employ part of these mandats to withdraw the assignats. The plate of the assignats was broken upon the 30th of Pluviose; forty-five thousand five hundred millions had been issued. By the different returns, either by means of loans or of arrears, the circulating quantity had been reduced to thirty-six thousand millions, and was soon to be further reduced to

These

twenty-four thousand millions. twenty-four thousand millions, reduced to one thirtieth, represented eight hundred millions; it was decreed that they should be exchanged for eight hundred millions in mandats, which was a liquidation of the assignat at one twentieth of its nominal value."

Such is a short history of the first French greenback. It was based on what appeared to be excellent security, but within a very few years it had deteriorated in value so fearfully that in the end it was able to pay only eightpence in the pound; and yet, with all that, it served an important purpose. The monarchy was overturned, the Revolution was accomplished, all Europe was defied, on such means as it furnished. And one can fancy a loyal American saying, while he sadly studies this story, so full of sig nificance for him: "Well, if in the meantime the sinews of war are but furnished in quantities sufficient to restore the Union, I care not although, in the end, a paper dollar should be reckoned dear when offered in exchange for a copper cent."

London Society.

OUR WIDOWED QUEEN.

IN MEMORIAM, DECEMBER XIV., M.DCCC.LXI.

THEY ask me why I weep
And sorrow as I do;
They say my grief should sleep
And memory slumber too.

Who says they sleep not now?
Doth sleep so death-like seem
That people marvel how

A sleeping grief may dream?
My sorrow long ago

In chastened sadness slept;
And mem'ry's flow'rets grow
Where thorns and brambles crept.
And still the fragrant breath
Of roses dead and gone,
Reveals that after death

Their spirit yet lives on.
In dreams they flower at night,
In thoughts they bloom by day;
They have no dread of blight,
They're proof against decay.

I cannot, if I would,

Those thoughts and dreams destroy; I would not, if I could,

Forego their phantom joy

That makes my tears to flow,

And sadly to recall
The spot where here below

I've laid dead flowers and all.

I plead with those who've known
The bitter hour of grief;
That finds in every groan

Some earnest of relief;
Who've lived on year by year,
And learnt the bitter truth
That sorrow sometimes here
Lives on in endless youth.

Oh ye who ask me why

I wear so sad a mien, And say that I should try To be in grief a queen,

Alas! there is a power

To which e'en mine must bend; It rules in that dark hour

When earth-born life must end

For crowns and sceptres yet
Have never held a sway
Could bid the heart forget,
Or make true love decay.

And thou, beloved child,

Oh! never may thy breast
Be racked by anguish wild,

That finds no ark of rest:
A written life of years-
Where, marked on every leaf,
Are spots where scalding tears
Write chronicles of grief.
And you, dear people mine,

Bear with me still, I pray,
And let your hearts incline

To mourn with me this day. Upon your loyal love

I fain would trusting lean,

And pray that God above

Will guide your widowed queen.

St. James's Magazine.

F. W. B. B.

THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY.

WE doubt very much whether the history of the Countess of Albany, or even her name, is generally known to the great mass of the reading public, though she was so closely connected with the last scion of the royal House of the Stuarts. She was the wife of the Pretender, who, after his well-known adventures and failure in 1745, in the attempted recovery of the British crown, took up his residence in Paris, where he was received with great distinction, both by the court

party as well as by the population in general. But he was not allowed to remain for any considerable time undisturbed in his place of retirement. His expulsion from the French territory was made one of the conditions of the treaty of peace in 1748, concluded at Aix-laChapelle. Charles Edward positively refused to leave the country, and much interest in his behalf was made with the government, both by the dauphin and other members of the royal family, to allow him to remain. But the interference was of no avail; the administration proved inexorable. The Pretender was seized in the opera-house on the 11th of December, 1748, conveyed in the first instance to Vincennes, and from thence was sent out of the country. He wandered about the Continent for some time, and it is supposed that he secretly visited London in the year 1750. When subsequently allowed to return again to France, Charles Edward was so dispirited and depressed by his wanderings and misfortunes, that he fell into the habit of intemperance, of which mention is made in one of the dispatches of the British ambassador Stanley, who, writing from Paris in 1761, states that the Pretender was given to drinking to such an excess as to be often drunk in the morning, and carried senseless to his chamber by his attendants.

By the death of his father in 1766 he became titular King of England, but the elevation to the fictitious dignity did in no wise cure him of his inveterate propensity to intoxication; and the French government, seemingly ashamed of their royal guest, drove him in 1770 once more from their soil. In the following year, however, it suited the policy of the French ministry-as a kind of demonstration or menace against Englandto recall the Pretender to the capital of France, and he was informed by the Duke of Fitzjames, on behalf of the French court, that if he would consent to be married to a wife chosen for him, a pension of 240,000 francs would be settled upon him. Charles Edward made no objection to the proposal, and the lady thus chosen was Louise, the daughter of the Prince of Stolberg-Gedern, a member of one of the most ancient and distinguished German families, raised to the princely rank in the person of his

father. Her mother, too, was of a most noble family, of the illustrious House of Horn, maternally allied to the Bruces of Scotland and to other distinguished families, both in France and in the Low Countries.

The Princess Louise, born September 20th, 1752, lost her father, a general in the Austrian service, when she was in her sixth year. Her widowed mother received a pension from the Empress Maria Theresa, and she was placed in the educational establishment for young ladies of the highest rank of nobility, at Mons, in the Austrian Netherlands. Here she remained until her twentieth year, when she was married to Charles Edward, who was then fifty-two years of age.

The marriage was celebrated at Macerata, in the private chapel of Cardinal Marefoschi's palace, on the 17th of April, 1772, that day being Good Fridaya circumstance which elicited, some years after, the remark from Louise, the Countess of Albany, that her marriage proved what a marriage on such a day-"a day of Christendom's lamentation"-might have been expected to turn out. The newly-married couple arrived, five days after their marriage, at Rome, where they were received with something like royal honors, though, on the part of the Papal Court, no formal notice was taken of the Pretender's announcement to Cardinal Pallavicini, the Secretary of State, of the arrival of the King and Queen of England. The title, however, under which the royal pair were better known was that of the Count and Countess of Albany. The countess is described as a woman of most dazzling beauty, of great powers of conversation, and as turning everybody's head. Their residence in Rome proving disagreeable, owing to their equivocal position, they retired early in the year 1773 to Sienna, and in October of the following year they took up their abode in Florence. Soon after his arrival in that city, Charles Edward's health gave way, he was seized with symptoms of dropsy, his old habits of intemperance had gained a greater ascendancy, and he was almost confined to his apartment. He required the countess, whether from helplessness or from jealousy, to be in constant atNEW SERIES-VOL. I., No. 4.

tendance upon him, an office which she fulfilled with every mark of propriety and attention.

It was at this period, in the autumn of 1777, that the poet Alfieri arrived in Florence. It were beside our present purpose to draw a biographical sketch of this renowned tragic writer, beyond observing that he was a Piedmontese by birth, of a noble family, of independent fortune, and of a most impressionable temperament. He set out on his travels when he was but seventeen years of age, and found himself very soon engaged in amatory adventures. In Holland he fell in love with a young married woman, who appeared not altogether insensible to the advances of the youthful Italian; but the suspicions of the husband being awakened, and all further intercourse broken off, the poet became so very much affected, that it was necessary to bleed him; and he was with difficulty restrained from tearing off the bandages and wilfully bleeding to death. In England a somewhat similar adventure was attended with graver circumstances. Alfieri had fallen in love with the wife of a peer, who returned his passion and admitted him into her house. The intrigue was discovered to the husband, who challenged the poet; they fought in the Green Park; Alfieri, being ignorant of the use of arms, was speedily wounded in the arm. His antagonist, declaring himself satisfied, assured the poet that he would no longer stand in his way of free access to the lady, as he intended to be speedily divorced from her. The, ardent lover, as may be supposed, made no delay in offering his hand to the object of his passion. But on the third day after the duel, the lady frankly told him that, previously to their acquaintance, she had bestowed her favor on a groom still in her husband's service, and that this man, in a fit of jealousy, had betrayed both intrigues to her lord. Alfieri, though at first greatly staggered, mortified, and full of resentment-and the more so as the whole affair, the duel, the intrigues, appeared in the newspapers-was nevertheless so full of infatuation that he clung to his paramour, and travelled about with her for some time. He was made the defendant in the subsequent proceedings for a divorce; and we may here mention

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-considering the lapse of time-the | Peace of Utrecht, remarks: "The names of the parties. The peer was Count and Countess of Albany lived Lord Ligonier, and his frail partner together during several years at FlorPenelope, daughter of George Lord Rivers.

We know not the precise period at which Alfieri parted from his paramour, but we know that not very long after his arrival in Florence he became acquainted, through the agency of a friend, with the young and fair Countess of Albany. He states, that he had not gone many times to see her before he felt himself, as it were, unconsciously caught, and agitated by a passion of the mind to which he had heretofore been a stranger, and the more profound and lasting in proportion as it was less impetuous and fervent. "Such was the flame," he says, "which little by little got the upper hand of my every thought and feeling, and will never be extinguished in me but with my life."

ence, a harsh husband and a faithless wife; until at length in 1780, weary of restraint, she eloped with her lover Alfieri." We doubt whether this allegation is borne out by facts; for her removal to the convent, under the immediate protection of the Grand Duchess, can hardly be designated an elopement; and her subsequent retirement to Rome was in accordance with the advice of her brother-in-law the cardinal, and under the sanction of the papal Nuncio. Her removal to Rome took place at the end of December, 1780; and we are told by an historian of the period, that she was treated with the greatest respect by Cardinal York, who frequently invited her to his residence at Frascati.

Alfieri did not immediately follow the object of his passion to Rome; he tarried for a while-perhaps to save appearances at Florence, but after a short interval he set out for Naples, passing through the Eternal City on his way. He remained but a few days in Rome, during which he contrived to have a brief interview with the countess, and of which he speaks in these terms: "I saw her a prisoner behind a grating: less vexed, however, than I had seen her at Florence, but for other reasons I did not find her less unhappy. We were completely separated, and who could say for how long we were so ?"

It can hardly be questioned that the countess reciprocated Alfieri's passionate feelings, and allowed him to take an active part in her separation from her husband. This occurred in the month of December, 1780. It was the custom of the Pretender, on St. Andrew's Day, to indulge to the greatest excess in drinking; and in a fit of intoxication he committed a most brutal assault on his wife, beating her at night and in bed, and attempting to strangle her. Making her case known to the Grand Duke, she was advised by the Tuscan court, in concurrence with the opinion of the Pretender's own brother, Cardinal York, Alfieri's restless spirit did not allow that she should throw off her worthless him to remain for any length of time at husband for ever, and retire into a con- Naples; he speedily found his way back vent. Alfieri assisted in her removal; to Rome, and passed most of his evenand Charles Edward declared that he ings with the countess, and with whom would give a thousand zechins to any- he was occasionally seen in public. This body who would kill the gentleman who extreme intimacy of the two parties, assisted his wife on that occasion. Al-"although," as Alfieri assures us, "it fieri, in referring to the countess's removal, observes: "Suffice it to say that I saved my lady from the tyranny of an irrational and constantly drunken master, without her honor being in any way whatever compromised, nor the proprieties in the least transgressed." There are; however, some historical writers who cast considerable doubt on the purity of their intercourse from the beginning. The present Lord Stanhope, in his History of England from the

did not exceed the bounds of honor," created the greatest scandal in Roman society-otherwise not very fastidious in regard to such matters; and the Pretender, aroused from his fits of drunkenness to a sense of his supposed dishonor, with the assistance of his brother the cardinal, laid his grievance before the Pope, by whose order Alfieri was commanded to leave Rome within fifteen days. In pursuance of such order the poet left the city for Sienna, on the 4th

of March, 1783, declaring that he was at | helpless imbecility to the beginning of his departure "like one stupid and de- the year 1788, when, on the 29th of Janprived of sense; leaving his only love, uary, he was seized with a paralytic books, town, peace, and his very self in stroke which deprived him of one half Rome." During his separation, how- the use of his body. Two days after, ever, he carried on a steady and regular January the 31st, Lord Hervey, the correspondence with the countess, who British envoy at the Florentine court, reciprocated all his tender effusions. writes: "This morning, between the His banishment from Rome terminated hours of nine and ten, the Pretender dein the summer of 1784, when, through parted this life." His remains were inthe mediation of the King of Sweden, it terred at Frascati, and little or no regret was arranged that a formal separation was expressed by his kindred or friends, should take place between the countess as his latter years were so much darkand her besotted husband. Accord- ened by his vices and extravagances. ingly, a legal instrument was executed, After his death, his brother the cardinal signed by herself, Charles Edward, the assumed the title of Henry the Ninth : cardinal, and attested by the Pope; in he seemed distinguished for no other conformity to which she relinquished quality but that of his extreme superstiher pin-money as a return for an amica- tion and bigotry, which rendered him ble divorce à mensa et thoro, and to be generally odious and unpopular. It is at perfect liberty to select her own place recorded of Pope Pius VI., that after a of residence for the future. lengthened interview with the cardinal, he observed that he was not surprised at the eagerness of the English to rid themselves of so tiresome a race.

Nor was it long before the countess made the fullest use of her newly acquired freedom; she met Alfieri at Colmar, in Alsace, where they passed two months together. At the end of this period, and as winter was approaching, she returned to Italy, taking up her abode at Bologna; while Alfieri remained for a time at Pisa, not being allowed to enter the papal territory. In the ensuing summer they met again at Colmar, from which place, after a brief sojourn, she removed to Paris, whence in the autumn of 1786 she returned to Colmar, accompanied by Alfieri.

Shortly after his separation from his wife in July, 1784, Charles Edward, whether to annoy the countess or from a feeling of remorse, publicly acknowledged his natural daughter by Miss Walkingshaw, sending for her from the convent in which she was brought up, installing her as mistress of his family, and conferring upon her the title of Duchess of Albany. Her society, however, tended in no degree to soften or to mitigate the brutal and intemperate habits of her father; on the contrary, as he grew older he became more confirmed in his drunken propensities. "He exhibited," as Wraxall observes, "to the world a very humiliating spectacle;" and another writer remarks that "his daughter was employed in checking him when he drank too much and when he talked too much." He thus continued to linger in a state of

The daughter of Charles Edward, the Duchess of Albany, did not long survive her father; she died at Bologna in 1789, from the effects of a painful operation to which she had to submit. She appears to have been a person of pleasing looks and animated expression, with regular features, though without pretensions to striking beauty. Her miniature, once in the possession of her uncle the cardinal, has now passed into the hands of the Countess of Seafield: her face is said to resemble too much that of her father to be considered handsome.

It was not long after the death of her husband that the news reached the countess, who was then residing at Paris. Alfieri reports that she was seriously affected on receiving the intelligence. "Her grief," he says, was neither factitious nor forced; for every untruth was alien to this upright, incomparable soul; and, notwithstanding the disparity of years, her husband would have found in her an excellent companion and a friend, if not a loving wife, had he not thrust her from him by his constantly unfriendly, rough, and unaccountable behavior. I owe to pure truth this testimony." A French writer, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, ascribes her grief to a feeling of remorse at having deserted her husband in his helplessness and bodily in

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