sfied.

As to the upper classes, their terror and dismay were overwhelming.
Everything seemed sliding away under their feet. Many women of rank
and fashion, distrusting the stability of the king's government, had
for some time past been yearly adding diamonds to their necklaces,
because, as one of them exclaimed to us during this month of February:
"We knew not what might happen to stocks or to securities, but
diamonds we can put into our pockets. No other property in France
can be called secure!"

And yet Paris soon resumed its wonted appearance. Commerce and
shopping might be impossible in a city where nobody could make
change for two hundred dollars, yet the Champs Elysees were again
gay with pedestrians and carriages. All favorite amusements were
resumed, but almost all men being idle, their great resource was
to assemble round the Hotel-de-Ville and force Lamartine to make
a speech to them.

On Saturday, March 4, all Paris crowded to the Boulevards to witness
the funeral _cortege_ of the victims. There were neither military
nor police to keep order; yet the crowd was on its good behavior,
and strict decorum was maintained. There were about three hundred
thousand persons in the procession, and as many more on the sidewalks.
As they marched, mourners and spectators all sang the Chant of the
Girondins ("Mourir pour la Patrie") and the "Marseillaise."

Two things distinguished this revolution of February from all other
French revolutions before or after it,--the high character and
self-devotion of the men placed at the head of affairs, and the
absence of prejudice against religion. The revolution, so far from
putting itself in antagonism with religious feeling, everywhere
appealed to it. The men who invaded the Tuileries bowed before
the crucifix in the queen's chamber. Priests who were known to be
zealous workers among the poor were treated as fathers. _Cures_
blessed the trees of liberty planted in their parishes. Prayers for
the Republic were offered at the altars, and in country villages
priests headed the men of their congregations who marched up to
the polls.

[Illustration: _ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE._]

CHAPTER VII.

LAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC.[1]

[Footnote 1: For the subject-matter of this chapter I am largely
indebted to Mrs. Oliphant's article on Lamartine in "Blackwood's
Magazine."]

The Provisional Government hastily set up in France on Feb. 24, 1848,
consisted at first of five memb