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PAUL LOUIS COURIER. (Continued from 14-). p. compelled by the length of my former paper to I WASclose the firstdivision of Courier's career with his retire­ ment from the army. We have thus an interlude of six devoted almost entirely to literary pursuits, before we years,come to the Paul Louis best known in France, the keen s<ttirist, and bold defender of liberty of speech and writing a monarchy and oligarchy, scarcely less tyrannous thanuncleI' the empire which they succeeded.* The impressions which his experience of a soldier's life left upon his mind were, as I have before hinted, of no very pleasant character. And for the work which he had afterwards to do, it was perhaps as well that it should be so. Mos,t of this world's work of reform is done by extreme men, and there could be 110 fitter assailant of oppression and wickedness in high places than the man who had learnt thus "not to believe in great men." He had seen only the dark side of that which called history; had seen that the glory of the general Imp!s lied the misery of the people-that the soldier's laurels could only grow out of a soil fertilised by human blood-and so he writes: "Oui, monsieur, j'ai enfin quitte mon vilain metier, un tarcl, c' est mon regret. e n'y ai pas pourtant perdu peu J tout mon temps. J' ai vu des ehoses dont les livres parlent et travers. Phttarque present me fait crevet· de rire."a tm'tThese a views receive their afullest and clearest expression in " the Conversation chez la Comtesse d' Albany ," the nearest approach to a Platonic dialogue which I have seen out of # For some account of the character of the" Restoration" govern­ �l�n�, see an interesting paper on "Armand Carrel" in s Dissertations and Discussions, Mr. J. S. III V 01. I. V. F VOL. Paul Louis Couriet'. Louis C()u1'im'. 66 Paul 67 Plato,- Th e interlocutors are Comtesse, ral. Tak e th e case of Alex and�r. Th re were numbers la O'en e , , � Italian arti st of som e note, and Courier himself. It arti sts, poets, pamters, sc ulptors In hiS tIm e, bu t only one �f were a thousand with an in cid ental rem ark of Courier's, "que no tr e Alexander, yo u say. I reply th at there who very secretary who was not valait bi en celui de Louis XIV." to which Fa br e tak es very only wanted an ar my -why his but strong exc ep tio n, Comparing th e two as regards in particular even a so ld ier, who never carri ed anything in the field, th e encouragement given to art an d poetry, he contend s his pen and his writing stand , turned out a great general th e latter has in every way the ad vantage. Courier suggests as so on as Pro vid ence will ed it, and beat your Cassanders and eed s natu rally enough th at, granti ng this to be true, there sti ll rem ain th e more other men of the sword. He thus proc im portant departments of sci en ce, politics, and war. As to a comparison of the glory to which art and war resp ec ­ concerns the first , Fabr e points out very fa irly that to tively lead, vi nd icating the fir st place fo r the fo rmer, But I Th e establish th e superiority of the presen t age, it is not en ough can not fo llow him into th is part of his argum ent. to prove ad ditio ns to th e stores ofknowlec1ge, but th at we must fallacy into which he has fa llen abo ve consi sts, it seem s to me, be ab le to show th at these additions are grea ter and mo re in icrl10ring th e detai led work of the subo rdinates in an ar my, important th an were made by th e prec ed ing ag e to th e stock all �f \Vhi �h must be regulated by so me technic rules. The with which it beg an it s work. And then we com e to th e real very postulate "g iven an army" implies a traini ng accordi ng su bject of the dialogue, vi z.-Ts there an art of war ? and to an art of war. And even if we limit the di�cussion to th e which is the great er glory, that of the artist or th at of th e art of generalship, th e exi st enc e of an art by which an warrior? " We are less warriors," Fa br e says, "than th ey ordina ry man may become a resp ec table general, is no more th e ag e of Louis XIV." But what is it to be more or less a dispro ved by such meteor-like ap paritions as an Alexander warrior ? Surely it is not to be measur ed by th e scale 011 or a Co nrle, th an tha t of an art at' music is im pugned by th e which the operations of war ar e exec ut ed , by the num bers fa ct that a Moz art could write a concerto at si x or a sy mphony left dead on a si ng le field , else this age would undoubt edly at twelve years of ag e. bear the palm . Of two players play ing against differen t But it is time that we followed Couri er in to Italy. After ad versari es one shall ga in ten pence, the other as many the battl e of Wagram he went off into Switzerland and pounds-the one sh al l play three hours on en d fo r his pence, sp ent th e autumn on the bo rd ers of the lake of Lucern e, th e other as many minutes. You would not say at once th at at work apparently upon a revi sion of the text of Plutarch. th e lat ter was the bett er play er, bec ause his adversary may be Then he went , as winter set in, to Milan and Florence. a mere ignoramus. So th e warrior char ac ter is not measured In the Laurentian li brary at the latter plac e he had by succ ess. Is it th en to be measured by th e proficiency of previo usly noticed a manu sc ript of the Pastoral of th e age in an art of war? But is there an art of war? If Lo ng us, "D aphnis and Chloe"-and had observed that it �he:e is, th e�, as in other ar ts, a man must at tain to proficiency Contained a passage which was missing in the ed ition s and in It by patient st udy �nd hard work, al ways Progressi ng th e other MSS. He set himself to copy this under the III . , towards but never reachmg th e Id eal of perfectIOn. But is su pervi sio n and with th e assist anc e of Signor Furia th e this so ? A young prince of ei ghteen comes post haste from librarian, but unfo rtu nat ely in doing so inser ted as a mark a c.our �, fights a bat tle, wins it, !ln�th er e he is"gr eat captain" fo r piece of paper which had so me ink underneath it, and so hfe, m fact th e greatest captam I the world.t blotted the MS . It was not lo ng before a , ? A great geni us, out so me words of you may say, bu t no pnnc e In th e world, with whatever storm was rai sed abo ut his ears. He was denounced as a gen! us heaven may � ave endowe� him, could have painted base thief, whose object had been to destroy the MS. of a straight off Raphael s Holy FamIly, or written Pergolesi 's pas sag e of which he himself possessed th e only copy. The Stabat .J.l1.ate1·. Yo u only want an army to make a good blo t it was said covered the whole of th e newly-found fr ag­ m ent , and the ink with which it was made, was of a peculiar d '* It would seem that Courier had at one time intended to write escription which defied all the arts of ch emists" Co urier,. 1\ series of these Conversations, at the request of the Countess. This is numbered 5th Conversation. ---------------------------------------------------e ou detached the inked paper from the MS. CO!lrier � M, R n ard 15tlO t The CondjJ. d' otly insinuates that the spot was made larger after this. great F2 Paul Louis Courier. paul Louis 69 68 Courier. to prove his disinterestedness, broke off a compact which he The most biting passage in the whole letter is perhaps ha :l made with a Parisian bookseller, named elloual'd following: � R son salSlsse­ p:'lI1�ed the fragment and a translation at his own cost, and the"Le s expressions de M, Furia pour peindre dlstnbuted it gratis among Greek scholars. He went to ment la vue de cette tache, qui couvrait, comme je vous ai Rome-but the storm followed him thither: his Greek was dit it vingtaine de mats, sont au plus haut style et d' un une avez ete frap e, seized and himself summoned before the prefect to give Some pa(hetique rare, meme en I�alie.

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