M. Mignet has nearly completed his Life and Times of Mary, Queen of Scots, the third work on the subject produced in France within a year and a half. Mignet, however, is the most eminent person who has ever essayed this service, and he has had some peculiar and important advantages. He has made use of the collection of letters published by Prince Labanoff; of researches made in the State Paper Office of England by Mr. Tytler, and of other unpublished documents which he has himself collected, in order to form more correct opinions with regard to some of the darkest and most controverted events in the queen's life. These documents, chiefly from the archives of Spain, (to which M. Mignet was enabled to obtain access only at the express request of the French Government,) are of much importance, for they bring to light the negotiations carried on with Philip II. for the deliverance of Mary from her imprisonment—a part of her history to which previous biographers have paid little attention.
In the political literature of France a new pamphlet by Cormenin is remarkable. It is entitled Revision, and its substance is this: Having recounted the history of the Republican Charter, elaborated during many months by men especially delegated to the work, and by a suffrage really universal, debated long and earnestly in the committee, amended by the eighteen delegates of the assembly, reviewed by the commission, deliberated by the chamber, discussed by the press,—M. Cormenin establishes that this constitution, so elaborately matured, if it has nothing which promises eternal duration, yet satisfies all the conditions essential to present permanence, and will well lead the nation to that moment, when, personal passion being somewhat allayed, it may be wisely and conscientiously reviewed. This is the pith of the pamphlet. It appeals to no passions, and justifies no excess, and is a notable and intelligent effort at the resolution of the question.
M. de Marcellus, an old French ambassador, has published two volumes entitled Literary Episodes in the East. His oriental travel dates back as far as 1818, but the beautiful vision has pursued him ever since, and he knew no better way to lay it than by painting it, and making it real. The volume opens with a confession that all travel and all scenery have only reminded him most strongly of his eastern experiences, and that now, chilled with age, and hoping nothing of the future, he has especial pleasure in recurring to the past. It is a series of colloquial, familiar sketches and anecdotes, and will doubtless be a pleasant companion for the eastern tour. M. de Marcellus will follow this work with A Collection of Popular Songs in Greece.
Victor Hugo, who has always been opposed to the punishment of death, and whose Last Days of Condemned, one of his most powerful fictions, had a large influence every where against the death penalty, was lately before the Court of Assizes in Paris as an advocate in behalf of his son, who was on trial for publishing an article calculated to bring into disrespect the administrators of the law. The veteran poet was allowed to deliver an elaborate and characteristic harangue in defence of the article. He tasked himself for his most brilliant antithetical rhetoric, denouncing the scaffold, and the legislation of death. The son, however, was convicted, and sentenced to a fine of five hundred francs and imprisonment for six months.
Victor Hugo has published a volume containing twelve speeches delivered on various occasions while he has been a representant du peuple. They are on the Bonaparte family, the punishment of death, universal suffrage, the liberty of the press, the affairs of Rome, &c., and are all written with the author's customary fine rhetoric; indeed in thought and style they are among his best performances.
Madame Bocarme, who probably was a party to the late murder of her brother, for which her husband the Count de Bocarme is to be executed, was an intimate friend of Balzac. The great novelist dedicated one of his works to her, and another of them was written in the Château de Bitremont. Balzac, while on a visit to the château, was taken to see a farmer, and, as usual, interested himself so much in the cattle, that after an hour's conversation he was amused to find that, the farmer had taken him, H. de Balzac, the brilliant Parisian, for a cattle dealer! The forthcoming memoirs of Balzac will perhaps contain something about this woman, who seems to have won for herself the execration of all France.