like to know? Never, at least since I have
been acquainted with them; and it will require a sovereign such as
France has not yet known to satisfy a people so versatile and
excitable. Charles the Tenth is not popular. His religious turn, far
from conciliating the respect or confidence of his subjects, tends only
to awaken their suspicions of his being influenced by the Jesuits--a
suspicion fraught with evil, if not danger, to him.

Strange to say, all admit that France has not been so prosperous for
years as at present. Its people are rapidly acquiring a love of
commerce, and the wealth that springs from it, which induces me to
imagine that they would not be disposed to risk the advantages they
possess by any measure likely to subvert the present state of things.
Nevertheless, more than one alarmist like ---- shake their heads and
look solemn, foretelling that affairs cannot long go on as they are.

Of one thing I am convinced, and that is, that no sovereign, whatever
may be his merits, can long remain popular in France; and that no
prosperity, however brilliant, can prevent the people from those
_emeutes_ into which their excitable temperaments, rather than any real
cause for discontent, hurry them. These _emeutes_, too, are less
dangerous than we are led to think. They are safety-valves by which the
exuberant spirits of the French people escape; and their national
vanity, being satisfied with the display of their force, soon subside
into tranquillity, if not aroused into protracted violence by unwise
demonstrations of coercion.

The two eldest sons of the Duc and Duchesse de Guiche have entered the
College of Ste.-Barbe. This is a great trial to their mother, from whom
they had never previously been separated a single day. Well might she
be proud of them, on hearing the just eulogiums pronounced on the
progress in their studies while under the paternal roof; for never did
parents devote themselves more to the improvement of their children
than the Duc and Duchesse de Guiche have done, and never did children
offer a fairer prospect of rewarding their parents than do theirs.

It would have furnished a fine subject for a painter to see this
beautiful woman, still in the zenith of her youth and charms, walking
between these two noble boys, whose personal beauty is as remarkable as
that of their parents, as she accompanied them to the college. The
group reminded me of Cornelia and her sons, for there was the same
classi