It was sullenly whispered that the allies were going to take away some pictures of the Flemish school. A fearful apprehension, indeed, of something more dreadful, dwelt in every mind; but no one dared to express it. We were in the situation of Madame de Longueville, when she lamented the death of her brother, who had fallen in battle; but dared not inquire for her son. To be bereaved of the Greek chefsd'œuvre, and of the Italian school, was an idea too full of horror to be borne; a sacrilege from which the minds of the Parisians started back aghast. But when the direful truth was promulgated, what language can paint the variety and violence of passion which raged in every Frenchman's breast! Curses, louder and longer than those heaped on the head of Obadiah, were poured out on the allies by the enraged Parisians. They forgot all other miseries; the project of blowing up bridges, pillage, spoliations, massacres, war-taxes, the dismen berment of empire;all these they wiped away "from their tablets." No longer were their heads plotting on tyranny, on liberty; they thought no more of the cession of fortresses, and the fate of the Constitutional Chart; all principles, feelings, hopes, and fears, were absorbed in this one great and horrible humiliation. Whatever has been recorded in history of the depredations of the Goths and Vandals seemed light to the public of Paris when weighed in the balance with these outrages of the nineteenth century. They were in vain reminded that these precious objects were the spoils of the vanquished, who had now become the conquerors in their turn; despair seldom reasons. The artists tore their hair, and even the lower classes of the people partook the general indignation. In the liberal access which in this country is accorded to all objects of art and science, the poor had not been excluded. They too had visited these models of perfection, and felt that all had a right to lament the loss of what all had been permitted to enjoy. It may be observed by the way, that this violence of resentment, this desperate fury at the removal of those master-pieces of art, denote the feelings of a people arrived at a very high degree of civilization. The Parisians, while they had supported with equanimity the most signal calamities, and endured with cheerfulness the most cruel privations, deplored with sensibility, and goaded almost to madness, the loss of objects which, far from being necessary to the wants of ordinary life, are only fitted to charm and embellish its highest state of refinement. While restitution carried on its labours within the galleries, the four Corinthian horses, once destined to be harnessed to the Chariot Chariot of the Sun, placed almost since their birth on triumphal arches, by ancient and modern tyrants; those fiery animals who have pranced from east to west, and from west to east, as symbols of victory, were now to descend from their gilded car at the entry of the Palace of the Tuileries, in order to proceed on their travels towards St. Mark's church at Venice, where they had been till lately stationed. It must be observed, in honour of the Austrians, that, in their attempt on the Corinthian steeds, they had at first the moderation to spare the royal feelings at the Tuileries, by making their approaches under cover of the night; perhaps also to avoid wounding the public, as well as the royal eye. There was some delicacy in this proceeding; but the gardes du corps, on service at the palace, unsuspicious of such a mark of deference, mistook these Austrian dilettanti for robbers, and charged and drove them from their labours. The following night, an Austrian piquet summoned to its aid a body of the National Guard. This was a most unwelcome duty to those citizen-soldiers; but as the police of the capital always required their presence in any moment of contention between the foreign troops and the inhabitants of Paris, they were, in the present case, forced to become the unwilling spectators, at least, of this act of national humiliation. Peace was thus preserved; but no progress was made in these mighty operations towards the removal of the horses; and after three nights of ineffectual labour, those ani mals on the fourth morning still stood on their arch, pawing the air. But it was now deemed useless to consult feelings of any kind, except those of the claimants of the horses; and the operation of making them descend from their heights was continued in open day. The square was, however, disembarrassed of all French spectators, who were very noisy and troublesome in their disapproval of this spoliation. Piquets of Austrians were placed at every avenue leading to the Place of the Carrousel, to prevent the entrance of any French. The palace and the court of the Tuileries were thus put into a state of siege, of which it was not the king, but the bronze horses, who were the object. Foreigners alone were admitted; and the monarch might have seen from his windows an English engineer exercising his industry to unfetter the animals from their pedestal, the Austrians being clumsy artisans; while English ladies placed themselves triumphantly on the Car of Victory to which the steeds were yet harnessed. If, in these days of retributive justice, due respect were to be paid to property, those steeds belonged neither to his Austrian majesty nor to the municipality of Venice. In a conversation which passed between M. de Tolstoi, the ambassador from Russia, and Bonaparte, in his days of triumph, on a question respecting the right to the Byzantine dominions, towards which Alexander was suspected to turn his thoughts; it was hinted with some pleasantry by the ambassador, that if Napoleon poleon disputed the pretensions of the Emperor of Russia, it was perhaps in consideration of the claims of Marshal Junot, in right of his wife, who was a Comnene, and really descended from the Paleologues. But in the present circumstances the claims of the House of Comnene, in right of their ancestors, were laid aside, and those of the House of Hapsburg, in favour of the last occupant, the senate of Venice, were admitted. The horses at length descended from their airy station with safety: not such was the fate of the winged lion of St. Mark's Place at Venice, which surmounted the fountain before the Hotel of the Invalids. He was now destined to travel the same road with his antique neighbours, the horses of the sun. He had but a small height to descend: his wings outstretched, as if he would have flown to his old perch, or pillar of granite, served him here in no stead, and the operation of his descent was so clumsily performed, that he broke his legs, as well as the edges of the bason of his fountain; while the Parisians felt a vindictive joy at the accident which had befallen him, and which indeed is less to be regretted, as he is an animal of little worth, a whelp only of the middle only to the French. Foreigners had liberty to cross it as often as they pleased. I heard an officer call out to an Austrian guard who hesitated, "I am an Englishman, and have a right to pass." The claim was admitted. The gates the most vigilantly guarded during some days, against the intrusion of the French, were those of the gallery of the Louvre. It was said that this measure was taken from motives of tenderness to those feelings which the scene within must naturally have excited in the French; but it was rumoured also, that exasperation might produce violence, and that the pictures might be defaced, or statues mutilated. The troops of each nation took this post by turns. It was that of the Austrians at my last visit. There they stood, defiance in their eye against all Frenchmen, and fresh green branches stuck in their caps: this is the usual ornament of the Austrian soldiers' hat or cap, when in campaign; but these branches appear so much like symbols of victory, that they are highly offensive to the French. When foreigners required admittance, the doors were thrown open. The Frenchmen who were refused, glanced at the laurelledcap, bit their lips, muttered imprecations, and withdrew. Some few had, however. the address to procure entrance : they were but few; I found some artists pacing the Gallery of the Paintings; they had an air of distraction, and were muttering curses "not loud, but deep." "Que le tonnerre du Ciel !-Oh! c'en est trop!"-çen est trop ! and and other exclamations in the same style. A chill sensation came across my heart when I descended to the Halls of the Sculpture, and saw the vacant pedestal on which had stood "the statue that enchants the world." I gazed on the pedestal; one of the old liveried attendants of the hall, interpreting my looks, said to me, in a sorrowful tone, "Ah! Madam, she is gone, I shall never see her again!" "Gone !" said I. Yes, madam, she set out this very morning at three o'clock, et sous bonne escorte." The old man seemed to mourn over Venus as if she had been his daughter. The adjoining hall presented a few days after a most melancholy spectacle. There lay the Apollo on the floor, in his coffin. The * workmen were busied in preparing him for his journey, by wedging him in his shell: and an artist was tracing his celestial features, when the trowel with its white paste, passed across his divine visage. His arm was still majestically stretched out. The was French artists who were present wept over it-they pressed his hand to their lips, and bade him a last adieu! The scene now closed on that perfect image worthy of almost divine honours -He was going to add a new glory to Rome, and draw new pilgrims to his shrine--but to Paris he was lost for ever, and she might well deplore her calamity; she had indeed seized him as her captive, but she had gazed on him with unwearied admiration; she had hailed him as the most splendid trophy of victory; and she would have purchased his stay with her treasures, even with Vol. LVII. her blood, had not resistance been unavailing. In the package of these divinities much apprehension was felt of their sustaining some injury. The necessary aid and tools were wanting. No rewards, no menaces, however, could prevail on the French crocheteurs, porters, and labourers, plying in the streets for employment, to lend their aid. The French, of the lowest class, were too indignant and mutinous to be the abettors of such spoliation. The ladders, of the master of an exhibition of singes savans, learned monkeys, in the neighbourhood of the Louvre, were at length put in requisition to unhang the pictures. The Pythian divinity of Olympus lay in the streets all night, and might have suffered from any accidental tumult; and the Venus de Medicis was fated, like an abandoned female, to take up her abode for some hours in a common guard-house. In taking down the Transfiguration, this invaluable picture, the most perfect that exists, was suffered to fall to the ground. A general shudder from the artists around marked this disaster. The painting is on wood, and so worm-eaten, that in some parts it is not an eighth of an inch thick. The dust from the wormholes covered the floor round the picture, and excited the most terrible apprehensions. It required some courage to inspect it; happily it was found not damaged. The commissaries of the Duke of Tuscany, having sent off the Venus, laid their hands on the Madonna della Seggia. This beautiful production of Raphael 2 Q Raphael is one of the few pictures that have suffered from their re sidence at Paris; though it is difficult to decide whether this picture was injured, because in Italy it was covered with a glass, and the evaporation of the oil could not freely circulate, or if a glacis has been taken off at Paris in cleaning the picture. The seizure of the objects which made part of the price of the treaty of Tolentino, consummated the destruction of the Museum, so that there does not remain above a twentieth part of the pictures. The Spaniards claimed their share in this general distribution, and succeeded better than they had done in their purpose of invasion; of which it appears, that the principal motive was that of obtaining new clothes, since they had heard, with some envy, that almost all the troops of Europe had made their toilette at the expense of France. In the latter times of Bonaparte, in the year 1814, an exhibition had been made of the subjects of the Spanish school; of the Italian, before the time of Raphael; and of the German school. Some French marshals to please their master, had sent their Morellos to swell this exhibition; which pieces had, by chance, been left during the reign of the Bourbons, the short invasion of Bonaparte, and to the present period. The Spanish ambassador would not have demanded the Morellos, had they remained in the houses of those who had taken them; but as he found them collected in an exhibition, he took advantage of the negligence of their fresh owners, and sent them back into Spain. And lastly presented themselves the commissaries of the King of Sardinia. They came at an unlucky moment. The Austrian guard at the Museum had been called away to assist in the removal of the horses at the Tuileries. The guardians of the Museum, raised into indignation at the attack of these new commissaries, collected their forces, consisting of numerous workmen, and with brush and broom swept the Sardinians out of the gallery. Extract from a Report published by order of the House of Commons, on the subject of Mendicity in the Metropolis. Mr. William Hale, called in, and examined. Where do you reside?—I am a silk manufacturer in Wood-street, Spitalfields. Have the goodness to state to the Committee, whether the pursuit of those objects, in which you have taken a part, has led you to any information as to the state of mendicity?—I have always been led to consider, that the distressed poor I have felt it my duty to attend to and relieve in time of distress, were of a very different class from those who get their livelihood by begging. I do not believe there is one case in a hundred of mendicity, where the object applying for relief is at all deserving of the fostering hand of benevolence; generally speaking, they are worthless characters, too indolent and too depraved to work. A great many of them have work in hand, and they frequently leave |