From The Athenæum.

ant of the great Venetian Doges of his name. Virginie de Leyva; ou, Intérieur d'un Cou- Possessed of a small estate in the Apenvent de Femmes en Italie, au Commence- nines, he retired from political agitations ment du Dix-septiè Siècle, d'après les Doc- into solitude in 1850, to meditate under the uments Originaux, par Philarète Chasles, shade of the fir and chestnut trees on the Professeur au Collège de France, Con- history of his country in past times. Here, servateur à la Bibliothèque Mazarine. the descendant of the Doges, following his Paris, Poulet-Malassis et De Broise. labor of love (as well capable of doing his MADEMOISELLE DE LEVE, as the French work in his own day and generation as were have called her, La Signora di Monza, as the Doges, his ancestors, to govern their rethe Italians style her, is a high person-public and conduct its foreign wars), reage in the world of drama and legend. Ex-stored and annotated the authentic docucept Beatrice Cenci, no woman of private ments of which M. Philarète Chasles has rank has entered so much into the poetry made use. and fable of modern Italy. She figures in Don Antonio de Leyva, born in the provan episode of Manzoni's great romance ince of Navarre, of an obscure but gentle "The Betrothed," and is the heroine of Ro- race, was a soldier by profession, a bandit sina's "Lady of Monza." But the true his- by nature. Pride and poverty had made him tory of this ardent and voluptuous woman a Free Lance, and at the bidding of Charles is more singular and dramatic than the wild- the Fifth he went into Italy, with hordes of est efforts of the Italian poets. Massinger his proud and impoverished countrymen, to should have told her story. A modern cut Italian throats and surprise Italian seignwriter is bound by the conventional laws of iories. Indeed, he was one of that race of probability even in his fictions; and what brigands which profited by the intestine fabulist could dream of presenting to his quarrels of Italy to establish in both north reader a young girl, pensive and charming, and south that Austro-Spanish influence vowed to a religious life, who would admit a which has just been swept away by the guns lover to her cell, who would corrupt her nuns of Solferino and Marsala. Don Antonio into becoming the accomplices in her crimes, was the man for his work. Danger was to and who would remove by violence every one him a delight, and exercised over him the who came across her guilty path? The line fascination of a personal vice. It is a trite of probability must be drawn. It may be at enough saying, that a man who cares noththe Château d'If, or in the Isle of Monte ing for his own life is the master of every Christo. It must be somewhere; and wher-man who does care; but this respectable old ever it is drawn, it would be outside the truth is the secret of Don Antonio's success walls of the Convent of St. Catherine of in the Milanese. Contempt of death made Monza. A heroine who stood by, and saw him a great man. Brave, instant, unscrupumurders committed for the gratification of lous, his passions were restrained by neither her lust and her revenge, would be rejected love nor fear. At once sensual and ambiby every sense. Dumas himself would not tious, he cared little for persons and nothing adventure on such a figure. Such, however, for principles in the exercise of his great was the real Lady of Monza, whose story M. bodily and mental powers--for nothing inPhilarète Chasles, following the documents deed beyond the riotous joy of carrying his collected by the zeal and industry of Signor point against a friend, a mistress, or an enDandolo, has told in "Virginie de Leyva," emy. No desperate wretch in the army of with deep philosophical insight and with sin- Bastard William or in the forlorn hope of gular literary power. Pizarro set his life more completely on the Signor Dandolo, who has brought to- throw of the dice than Don Antonio. But gether, as the workman brings brick and he won the game. In his own poor country, mortar to the architect, the materials on had there been no wars to draw him off, he which M. Chasles narrates and speculates, would have been a contrabandista or a matais not only an Italian author of many good dor. In the conquered province of the Mivolumes, an antiquarian and archæological lanese he became a powerful partisan warscholar, a searcher amongst the archives of rior and the Lord of Monza, that Richmond Milan, of Monza and Pavia, but a descend-of Milan, in which until lately was preserved

Osio went to thank her, and the young assassin fell in love with his beautiful benefactress. Virginia was twenty years of age; by nature ardent, and by habit self-indulgent. She returned his passion. The difficulty in the way of their meeting-not to speak of its enormous immorality—had been very great; and only that the convent of St. Catherine was cursed with a most depraved confessor in Arrighone—a man who seems to walk visibly out of one of Boccaccio's garden-gates,—the pollution that ensued upon their meeting would have been impossible. Osio had gained Arrighone to his interests; and the monk, who had been repulsed in some dishonorable proposals of his own to the beautiful and noble nun, had shown the impassioned boy how he might approach the woman of his heart. Under the pretence of thanking her for staying the process against him, he had counselled him to make known his love boldly. "I saw this young man," said Virginia, in one of her many depositions, "for the first time from the window of my Sister Candida's cell, at which I happened to be standing. This window looked upon the garden. He made a polite bow, and signed that he had a note to deliver to me. I was very much incensed against Molteno's murderer, and resolved to follow him without pity. He had a very humble, suppliant, yet well-bred air; his bearing was so noble and distinguished that I could not refuse to receive the note." When she had first seen the gay and youthful figure, she had said to Candida, "Oh, can any thing be more beautiful?" Candida confessed these words to Arrighone, and Arrighone repeated them over their wine to Osio.

the Lombardic crown. Charles took care ia's will on such a point was law to Pirivano. that his faithful servant should be well encouraged. So Antonio de Leyva, the poor Navarrese, was raised into the highest rank of Italian nobles, and when he went to his rest a sumptuous monument in the Church of San Dionigi of Milan recorded the virtues and exploits of the heroic and exemplary Antonio de Leyva, Prince of Ascoli! The family took root in their new home. Don Martino, son of Antonio, sent his daughter Virginia, a girl of such rare and noble beauty that her portrait (painted in after life by Daniel Crespi) might be mistaken for an artist's dream of St. Catherine, to be educated at the convent of Monza. In her own right, she was Lady of the district. The frugal family desired to retain this rather splendid part of their property, and Don Martino left his son the Principality of Ascoli, and placed his daughter Virginia, as the fashion in the highest families was, in the convent in which she had herself been trained. This convent, which was at Monza, and within her own magisterial jurisdiction, belonged to the order of St. Catherine. Its inmates gave their time to teaching, and among the pupils who came to them for instruction was a young lady of Monza, Isabella degli Ortensii. A handsome youth, Osio degli Osii, whose house looked down into the convent-yard, saw Isabella and made love to her by signs. The girl accepted his admiration. Sister Virginia, who caught Isabella making signs to Osio, not only reprimanded her for such levity, but sent for Signor Molteno, notary of Monza, and instructed him to inform the family of what she had seen. Isabella's father took her from the convent and married her to a man of her own age and rank. Osio, vexed with Molteno, struck a poniard to his heart, went home to his house, armed his servants, barricaded his doors, and stood on his defence. Carlo Pirivano was the magistrate of Monza, but Pirivano had a most unwholesome dread of Molteno's fate. Osio was a gentleman, and the offences of gentlemen were not to be searched too strictly. Justice was blind. Virginia felt a feminine compassion for a young lover who had lost through her act a mistress, and had revenged himself upon the more immediate instrument of his loss. As feudal Lady of Monza, exercising seigniorial rights, Virgin

Virginia struggled in the toils spread around her by the gay seducer who was following his pleasure, and the false confessor who was following his cupidity and revenge. The force of her own passions made their work but too easy. "It was a power," she said in her depositions, "altogether devilish. For all the treasures of Spain, and for all the thrones of its princes, I would not have loved Osio. I would have made a pilgrimage. I beat myself with rods until the blood ran down my body. But the passion increased in vigor. I saw him in every thing. I no longer slept; I no longer lived.

a well, and then stabbed Homati, the witness | Chasles is philosophically right in saying, of these new crimes. But the two nuns that in the monastic system "the best eduwere not killed. By a miracle, the woman was recovered from the well, and the one thrown into the Lambro escaped with her life, to become the chief witnesses against Osio and Virginia.

Osio had to fly into the forests which still cover the mountains at the foot of Lake Como. There he lived as an outlaw, with a band of followers desperate as himself. The Conde de Fuentes, the Spanish governor of Milan, ordered his house at Monza to be razed, a ruined wall alone being left to mark the site. Foiled in every attempt to arrest him by stratagem or force, Fuentes proclaimed a reward for any one who would bring him in, alive or dead. A companion of his youth betrayed and murdered him, in a manner the most singular. This companion asked him to his house as a change from his desolate life in the woods. Osio went. In the midst of their excesses Osio told his friend how he had killed Catherine de Meda. His host had an instrument made exactly like that with which Meda had been knocked down, and when all was ready for the act, he invited Osio to go down into the wine-cellar with him to drink a particular wine. A friar was below to receive his confessions; the servants of the house seized him, and the master struck him in the nape of the neck precisely as he had struck the girl in the convent of St. Catherine. Next day his handsome head was fixed on the ruined wall at Monza.

cation of man-that which teaches him to judge and then leaves him free to choose for himself, is absolutely prohibited." In the monastery the first of all virtues is obedience, and the habit of obedience, our philosophers urge, is relaxing and destructive to the individual mind. This may be also true. Clear, very clear, it is that the education of a monk or of a nun is not the best training for a man or woman entering on the rough duties of active life; but then it ought to be remembered, for the other side, that a monk is not meant for the life of a skipper, nor a nun for that of a vivandière. A woman who takes the veil, whatever may have been the cause, looks forward to a career of order, calmness, and devotion; one in which there should be no temptation to resist, no difficulties to be met. Dash, energy, and will may be required in the world, even from girls and women, and when softened and mellowed by gentler qualities, these robust and masculine virtues may become very attractive in the eyes of men, but the very theory of a religious life, which excludes all contest, rivalry, and passion, also excludes, and that logically and necessarily, the teaching which would make girls useful in a booth or successful at a bazaar-rivals to Mrs. Jarley or Rebecca Sharp. Surely, it is but fair to judge each system by its effect in producing what it is intended to produce. It is no impeachment of the value of geometry that it will not teach you to swim. It is The parties were tried and condemned to no fault of a musical education that it will various penalties. Arrighone, the vilest not make you a dead shot. Geometry makes sinner of the whole, received three years in geometricians, music musicians, monasteries the galleys. Virginia was immured in a monks. When M. Chasles complains that convent. Once or twice we get glimpses of the monastic system takes away the right of her in the letters of Cardinal Borromeo. judging and choosing for one's self, he She passed her life, he says, in prayers and makes, we submit, an unphilosophical comtears; and she died at last in the very odor plaint. He might as well object to the earth of sanctity-as Borromeo says, Come una being round or sugar being sweet. It would santa! be as proper to attack the Institute of France, because it has never produced a great general, as to impeach the convent of St. Catherine, because its system of training is not one that would strengthen a Mdlle. de Mars to walk through her slippery world without a fall. The habit of submission may have a virtue of its own humble kind, though such a virtue would be useless to Robinson Crusoe on his island, or to Gen

Signor Dandolo and M. Chasles appear to consider that the conventual system made Virginia what she afterwards became-the rival of Beatrice Cenci in shame and suffering, as she was in the fatal gifts of beauty, will, and individuality. We think, in snapping at general conclusions on the influences of religious seclusion, they underrate the force of personal character. Doubtless, M.

eral Bonaparte in his first Italian campaign. his literary life is such as to interest EngA more robust and active quality is re- lish readers in no common degree in his sucquired for success. But a nun does not wish cess. The son of a revolutionary general, to succeed. She aspires to no more than to who had been a professor of rhetoric before endure or to serve. Sworn from her youth he took up the profession of war, and of a to a career divided between charity and Huguenot mother, he was apprenticed in prayer, she puts away with the fascinations Paris to a printer. This printer, a disciple of womanhood, all need for the strength or of Rousseau, was arrested by the Governcunning which resists the tempter's arts. ment of the Restoration as a man of danThat in evil days temptation may intrude gerous opinions; and little Philarète, as his into the convent, as it intrudes into the apprentice, passed two months with him in home, there are too many facts in history to jail. Chateaubriand took pity on the child, prove. We know the stories of the Med-and procured his liberation. Philarète then ici. We have heard the scandals against came to London, where he remained for the regent. We have read Boccaccio and about seven years, completing his education, the imitators of Boccaccio in our own time. and acquiring our language and literature. But we are not aware that any body of facts From London he travelled into Germany. has ever been produced to show that, in On his return to Paris, a Saxon in culture, such evil days, the license has been greater a Gaul in spirit and style, he became secrein the convent than in the cottage,-each tary and assistant to M. de Jouy. Soon he measured, as is fair, by the opportunities won attention to himself; in 1827 he divided and immunities for vice which it presents. with M. Saint-Marc Girardin the prize of When the whole body of society is dissolved Eloquence proposed by the Academy for an in sensuality, it is impossible for even the best to escape some sort of contamination; yet no man in his senses will maintain that, even in the very worst periods of social disorder, the inmates of religious houses were not better, measured by their temptations, than the women of the surrounding hamlets.

Our analysts, in their pride of science, forget, we think, how much, in such a case as that of Virginia de Leyva, is due to individual character. In the world, as in the cloister, she would have fallen into lawless love. Had she not been Virginia, she would probably have been Lucretia. The Borgias were De Leyvas on a grander scale and in a more splendid scene. Virginia was the true complement of Don Antonio; with the same vigorous, daring, self-indulgent nature, carrying into the recesses of the convent the principles of a camp. The scene which M. Chasles quotes from the interview between the sinful lady and the cardinal destroys the theory that her vicious life had been in any way the result of the conventual system of education, as established in Italy and exemplified at Monza.

M. Victor Euphémion Philarète Chasles (who dedicates this volume to the author of "Pendennis" and "Vanity Fair ") is understood to be a candidate for the honors of the Academy; the "English candidate" he is called by his opponents: and the story of

Essay on the Sixteenth Century; and was immediately attached to the staff of the Journal des Débats, on which excellent paper he has continued down to the present day, very much to the profit of its readers, and, among other things, very greatly to the advantage of English and German writers. He also began to write for the Revue des Deux Mondes. Successively he became, as his power expanded and his fame enlarged, Doctor of Letters, Director of the Mazarine Library, Chevaliar of the Legion of Honor and Professor of Foreign Languages and Literature in the College of France. His literary works are of peculiar interest to an Englishman. More even than M. Guizot, M. Chasles represents English literature in France; and the election into the Academy of the "English candidate," when it eventually occurs, may be taken as a compliment by the whole English nation. Among his printed works we have a volume of "Studies of the English Civil Wars," two volumes "On the England of the Eighteenth Century," a volume "On English Manners and Literature in the Nineteenth Century," and a volume "On Shakspeare." These works are not merely popular summaries, like some other works which we could name, thrown off by a learned Frenchman for the use of Frenchmen less learned; but are profound studies of the several subjects, based