itical
occupation is gone.

But there is always food for satire; and the French caricaturists, being
no longer allowed to hold up to ridicule and reprobation the King and
the deputies, have found no lack of subjects for the pencil in the
ridicules and rascalities of common life. We have said that public
decency is greater amongst the French than amongst us, which, to some of
our readers, may appear paradoxical; but we shall not attempt to argue
that, in private roguery, our neighbors are not our equals. The proces
of Gisquet, which has appeared lately in the papers, shows how deep the
demoralization must be, and how a Government, based itself on dishonesty
(a tyranny, that is, under the title and fiction of a democracy,) must
practise and admit corruption in its own and in its agents' dealings
with the nation. Accordingly, of cheating contracts, of ministers
dabbling with the funds, or extracting underhand profits for the
granting of unjust privileges and monopolies,--of grasping, envious
police restrictions, which destroy the freedom, and, with it, the
integrity of commerce,--those who like to examine such details may find
plenty in French history: the whole French finance system has been a
swindle from the days of Luvois, or Law, down to the present time. The
Government swindles the public, and the small traders swindle their
customers, on the authority and example of the superior powers. Hence
the art of roguery, under such high patronage, maintains in France a
noble front of impudence, and a fine audacious openness, which it does
not wear in our country.

Among the various characters of roguery which the French satirists have
amused themselves by depicting, there is one of which the GREATNESS
(using the word in the sense which Mr. Jonathan Wild gave to it) so far
exceeds that of all others, embracing, as it does, all in turn, that it
has come to be considered the type of roguery in general; and now, just
as all the political squibs were made to come of old from the lips of
Pasquin, all the reflections on the prevailing cant, knavery, quackery,
humbug, are put into the mouth of Monsieur Robert Macaire.

A play was written, some twenty years since, called the "Auberge des
Adrets," in which the characters of two robbers escaped from the galleys
were introduced--Robert Macaire, the clever rogue above mentioned, and
Bertrand, the stupid rogue, his friend, accomplice, butt, and scapegoat,
on all occasions of danger. It