me, took down an old musket, and joined the insurgents,
leading an attack upon some barracks where the fighting was severe.
The Revolution having ended in a constitutional monarchy, he went
into a lawyer's office, and plodded on in obscurity for eighteen
years.

In 1848 he rendered services to the Provisional Government, and
the farmers of his district in the Jura elected him their deputy.
He went into the Chamber as an Advanced Republican, and voted for
the banishment of the Orleans family, for a republic without a
president, and for other extreme measures. Before long he was elected
vice-president of the Chamber.

Then came the Empire, and M. Grevy went back to his law-books.
He and his brother must have prospered at the Bar, for in 1851
they had houses in Paris, in which after the _coup d'etat_ Victor
Hugo and his friends lay concealed.

When the emperor attempted constitutional reforms, in 1869, Grevy
was again elected deputy from the Jura. He acted with dignity and
moderation, though he voted always with the advanced party. Gambetta
he personally disliked, having an antipathy to his dictatorial
ways. When the National Assembly met at Bordeaux to decide the
fate of France, Grevy was made its Speaker, or president; but when
the _coup d'etat_ in favor of Henri V. was meditated, he was got
rid of beforehand, after he had presided for two turbulent years
over an Assembly distracted and excited. Everyone respected M.
Grevy. There was very little of the typical Frenchman in his
composition. He was of middle height, rather stout, with a large
bald, well-shaped head. He was no lover of society, but was a diligent
worker, and his favorite amusements were billiards and the humble
game of dominoes. His wife was the good woman suited to such a
husband; but his daughter, his only child, was considered by Parisian
society pretentious and a blue-stocking. She married, after her
father's elevation to the presidency, M. Daniel Wilson, a Frenchman,
in spite of his English name. M. Grevy's Eli-like toleration of
the sins of his daughter's husband caused his overthrow.

In Marshal MacMahon's time there were two points on which he as
president insisted on having his own way; that is, anything relating
to army affairs, or to the granting civilians the cross of the Legion
of Honor. He did not object to the decoration of civilians, but he
insisted upon knowing the antecedents of the gentlemen recommended
for the distinction. Well wou