has been to eliminate its conservative elements and make it Red
Republican. It is impossible for a people who change their government
so often to have much respect or love for any constitution.

The Marshal-Duke of Magenta had accepted the presidency without any
great desire to retain it; nevertheless, he established his household
on a semi-royal footing, as though he intended, as some thought, that
there should be at least a temporary court, to prepare the way for
what might be at hand. M. Thiers had been a _bourgeois_ president;
the marshal was a _grand seigneur_. M. Thiers' servants had been
clothed in black; the marshal's wore gay liveries of scarlet plush,
and gray and silver. When M. Thiers took part in any public ceremony
he drove in a handsome landau with a mounted escort of Republican
Guards, and his friends (he never called them his _suite_) followed
as they pleased in their own carriages. But the marshal's equipages
were painted in three shades of green, and lined with pearl-gray
satin. They were drawn by four gray horses, with postilions and
outriders. To see M. Thiers on business was as easy as it is to
see the President at the White House. Anybody could be admitted
on sending a letter to his secretary. To journalists he was always
accessible, believing himself still to belong to their profession.
But to approach the marshal was about as hard as to approach a
king, and he hated above all things newspaper writers.

In 1873 the Shah of Persia came to Paris, and the marshal entertained
him magnificently. He gave him a torch-light procession of soldiers,
a gala performance at the Grand Opera, and a banquet in the Galerie
des Glaces at Versailles. The Parisians regretted that the visit had
not been made in M. Thiers' time, when society might have been amused
by stories of how the omniscient little president had instructed the
shah, through an interpreter, as to Persian history and the etymology
of Oriental languages; but society had a good story connected with
the visit, after all. During the state banquet at Versailles the
shah turned to the Duchess of Magenta, and asked her, in a French
sentence some one had taught him for the occasion, why her husband
did not make himself emperor.

The marshal was content to hold his place as president, and the
Duc de Broglie governed for him, except in anything relating to
military affairs. On these the marshal always had his way.

The Duc de Broglie's government, which