OF FRENCH SOCIETY. 49 power, he was encouraged and impelled by a woman who had herself been edu- cated in the faith she now endeavoured to exterminate. What a contrast does the life and cha- racter of our late beloved sovereign .pre- sent ! Who does not remember how his piety sustained his own mind, and his virtues preserved the hearts of his sub- jects, under dangers the most menacing, difficulties the most trying, the loss of territory the most extensive ? Who has forgotten how, under all these alarms, his private character exhibited an edifying °example of purity and rectitude ; his public conduct, of unshaken firmness, and inviolable integrity ? The hand of God has smitten him ; but to borrow from a distinguished orator, the late beautiful allusion to the reverence of the ancients for an oak shivered by lightning, - the stroke which blasted consecrated him. But to return We pass over the in- termediate government of " the godless
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