to the commemoration of his recovery at Metz, and destined, from the majestic simplicity of its lines, to the doubtful honor of becoming the Pantheon of the revolution; Servandoni had died a short time since, leaving to the church of St.Sulpice the care of preserving his memory; everywhere were rising charming mansions imitated from the palaces of Rome.

The painters, the sculptors, and the architects of France were sufficient for her glory; only Gretry and Monsigny upheld the honor of that French music which was attacked by Grimm and by Jean Jacques Rousseau; but it was at Paris that the great quarrel went on between the Italians and the Germans; Piccini and Gluck divided society, wherein their rivalry excited violent passions.

Everywhere and on, all questions, intellectual movement was becoming animated with fresh ardor; France was marching towards the region of storms, in the blindness of her confidence and _joyante;_ the atmosphere seemed purer since Madame Dubarry had been sent to a convent by one of the first orders of young Louis XVI.
Already, however, far-seeing spirits were disquieted; scarcely had he mounted the throne, when the king summoned to his side, as his minister, M.de Maurepas, but lately banished by Louis XV., in 1749, on a charge of having tolerated, if not himself written, songs disrespectful towards Madame de Pompadour.

"The first day," said the disgraced minister, "I was nettled; the second, I was comforted." M.de Maurepas, grandson of Chancellor Pontchartrain, had been provided for, at fourteen years of age, by Louis XIV.

with the reversion of the ministry of marine, which had been held by his father, and had led a frivolous and pleasant life; through good fortune and evil fortune he clung to the court; when he was recalled thither, at the age of sixty- three, on the suggestion of Madame Adelaide, the queen's aunt, and of the dukes of Aiguillon and La Vrilliere, both of them ministers and relations of his, he made up his mind that he would never leave it again.