Biographical Sketches

he sword. Tronson du Coudray was born at Eheims, on the 18th of November, 1750. His family belonged to the noblesse of the town; a class which the facilities of locomotion, the preponderance of Paris, and a growing contempt for provincial illustration, and indeed for provincial life, have now nearly extinguished in France, as they have in England ; but which, a century ago, constituted in every city a respected aristocracy, with a public spirit and a public opinion of its own. He was one of ten children, and the means of his family would not have enabled him to receive more than a very narrow education ; but the talents which he displayed as a boy attracted general notice, and the city of Eheims supplied the funds necessary to carry him through the University. His favourite study was the law, then a necessary part of a liberal education ; not, indeed, the municipal law of France (for among the heterogeneous ill-assimilated provinces into which France was then divided, there was no general law of France, any more than in England there is a general law of copyholds), but the great magazine of jurisprudential experience, skill, and philosophy ? the Eoman Civil Law. His exertions injured his health, and ho was advised to try a total change of scenes and pursuits. He connected himself with acommercial firm in Eheims, and travelled on the business of the House through Germany, Poland, and Eussia. His health was restored, but on his return he found himself engaged in a laws... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.