The AbbÉ de Lamennais.—Cobbett.—O'Connell.—Napoleon.—Robespierre.

I had last night the satisfaction of meeting the AbbÉ de Lamennais at a soirÉe. It was at the house of Madame Benjamin Constant; whose salon is as celebrated for the talent of every kind to be met there, as for the delightful talents and amiable qualities of its mistress.

In general appearance, this celebrated man recalls an original drawing that I remember to have seen of Rousseau. He is greatly below the ordinary height, and extremely small in his proportions. His countenance is very striking, and singularly indicative of habitual meditation; but the deep-set eye has something very nearly approaching to wildness in its rapid glance. His dress was black, but had certainly more of republican negligence than priestly dignity in it; and the little, tight, chequered cravat which encircled his slender throat, gave him decidedly the appearance of a person who heeded not either the fashion of the day, or the ordinary costume of the salon.

He, in company with four or five other distinguished men, had dined with Madame Constant; and we found him deep sunk in a bergÈre that almost concealed his diminutive person, surrounded by a knot of gentlemen, with whom he was conversing with great eagerness and animation. On one side of him was M. Jouy, the well-known "Hermite" of the ChaussÉe d'Antin; and on the other, a deputy well known on the benches of the cÔtÉ gauche.

I was placed immediately opposite to him, and have seldom watched the play of a more animated countenance. In the course of the evening, he was brought up and introduced to me. His manners are extremely gentlemanlike; no stiffness or reserve, either rustic or priestly, interfering with their easy vivacity. He immediately drew a chair vis-À-vis to the sofa on which I was placed, and continued thus, with his back turned to the rest of the company, conversing very agreeably, till so many persons collected round him, many of whom were ladies, that not feeling pleased, I suppose, to sit while they stood, he bowed off, and retreated again to his bergÈre.

He told me that he must not remain long in Paris, where he was too much in society to do anything; that he should speedily retreat to the profound seclusion of his native Brittany, and there finish the work upon which he was engaged. Whether this work be the defence of the prÉvenus d'Avril, which he has threatened to fulminate in a printed form at the head of those who refused to let him plead for them in court, I know not; but this document, whenever it appears, is expected to be violent, powerful, and eloquent.

The writings of the AbbÉ de Lamennais remind me strongly of those of Cobbett,—not, certainly, from their matter, nor even from the manner of treating it, but from the sort of effect which they produce upon the mind. Had the pen of either of them been wholly devoted to the support of a good cause, their writings would have been invaluable to society; for they both have shown a singular power of carrying the attention, and almost the judgment, of the reader along with them, even when writing on subjects on which he and they were perfectly at issue.

Were there not circumstances in the literary history of both which contradict the notion, I should say that this species of power or charm in their writings arose from their being themselves very much in earnest in the opinions they were advocating: but as the AbbÉ de Lamennais and the late Mr. Cobbett have both shown that their faith in their own opinions was not strong enough to prevent them from changing them, the peculiar force of their eloquence can hardly be referred to the sincerity of it.

I remember hearing a lively young barrister declare that he would rather argue against his own judgment than according to it; and I am sure he spoke in all sincerity,—much as he would have done had he said that he preferred shooting wild game to slaughtering tame chickens: the difficulty made the pleasure. But we cannot presume to suppose that either of the two persons whose names I have so incongruously brought together have written and argued on the same principle; and even if it were so, they have not the less changed their minds,—unless we suppose that they have amused themselves and the public, by sometimes arguing for what they believed to be truth, and sometimes only to show their skill.

As to what Mr. Cobbett's principles might really have been, I think it is a question that must ever remain in uncertainty,—unless we adopt that easiest and most intelligible conclusion, that he had none at all. But it is far otherwise with M. de Lamennais: it is impossible to doubt that in his early writings he was perfectly sincere; there is a warmth of faith in them that could proceed from no fictitious fire. Nor is it easily to be imagined that he would have thrown himself from the height at which he stood in the opinion of all whom he most esteemed, had he not fancied that he saw truth at the bottom of that abyss of heresy and schism into which all good Catholics think that he has thrown himself.

The wild republicanism which M. de Lamennais has picked up in his descent is, however, what has probably injured him most in the general estimation. Some few years ago, liberal principles were advocated by many of the most able as well as the most honest men in Europe; but the unreasonable excesses into which the ultras of the party have fallen seem to have made the respectable portion of mankind draw back from it, and, whatever their speculative opinions may be, they now show themselves anxious to rally round all that bears the stamp of order and lawful authority.

It would be difficult to imagine a worse time for a man to commence republican and free-thinker than the present;—unless, indeed, he did so in the hope that the loaves and fishes were, or would be, at the disposition of that party. Putting, however, all hope of being paid for it aside, the period is singularly unpropitious for such a conversion. As long as their doctrine remained a theory only, it might easily delude many who had more imagination than judgment, or more ignorance than either: but so much deplorable mischief has arisen before our eyes every time the theory has been brought to the test of practice, that I believe the sound-minded in every land consider their speculations at present with as little respect as they would those of a joint-stock company proposing to colonize the moon.

That the AbbÉ de Lamennais is no longer considered in France as the pre-eminent man he has been, is most certain; and as it is easy to trace in his works a regular progression downwards, from the dignified and enthusiastic Catholic priest to the puzzled sceptic and factious demagogue, I should not be greatly surprised to hear that he, who has been spoken of at Rome as likely to become a cardinal, was carrying a scarlet flag through the streets of Paris, with a conical hat and a Robespierre waistcoat, singing "Ça ira" louder than he ever chanted a mass.

M. de Lamennais, in common with several other persons of republican principles with whom I have conversed since I have been in Paris, has conceived the idea that England is at this moment actually and bon fide under the rule, dictation, and government of Mr. Daniel O'Connell. He named him in an accent of the most profound admiration and respect, and referred to the English newspapers as evidence of the enthusiastic love and veneration in which he was held throughout Great Britain!

I waxed wroth, I confess; but I took wisdom and patience, and said very meekly, that he had probably seen only that portion of the English papers which were of Mr. Daniel's faction, and that I believed Great Britain was still under the dominion of King William the Fourth, his Lords and Commons. It is not many days since I met another politician of the same school who went farther still; for he gravely wished me joy of the prospect of emancipation which the virtue of the great O'Connell held out to my country. On this occasion, being in a gay mood, I laughed heartily, and did so with a safe conscience, having no need to set the enlightened propagandist right; this being done for me, much better than I could have done it myself, by a hard-headed doctrinaire who was with me.

"O'Connell is the Napoleon of England," said the republican.

"Not of England, at any rate," replied the doctrinaire. "And if he must have a name borrowed from France, let it be Robespierre's: let him be called magnificently the Robespierre of Ireland."

"He has already been the redeemer of Ireland," rejoined the republican gravely; "and now he has taken England under his protection."

"And I suspect that ere long England will take him under hers," said my friend, laughing. "Hitherto it appears as if the country had not thought him worth whipping; ... mais si un chien est mÉchant, si mÊme ce ne serait qu'un vilain petit hargneux, il devrait Être liÉ, ou bien pendu."

Having finished this oracular sentence, the doctrinaire took a long pinch of snuff, and began discoursing of other matters: and I too withdrew from the discussion, persuaded that I could not bring it to a better conclusion.