abnegation of self, as
this voluntary abdication would display.

Rich possessions are seldom if ever willingly resigned, and a crown is
one said to have such irresistible charms to the person who has once
worn it, that history furnishes but few examples like that of Charles
the Fifth, or Christina of Sweden. Time will prove whether
Louis-Philippe d'Orleans will offer a _pendant_!

I walked with Comte d'O---- this evening into the Champs-Elysees, and
great was the change effected there within the last few days. It looks
ruined and desolate, the ground cut up by the pieces of cannon, and
troops as well as the mobs that have made it a thoroughfare, and many
of the trees greatly injured, if not destroyed.

A crowd was assembled around a man who was reading aloud for their
edification a proclamation nailed to one of the trees. We paused for a
moment to hear it, when some of the persons recognising my companion,
shouted aloud, "_Vive le Comte d'Orsay! Vive le Comte d'Orsay!"_ and
the cry being taken up by the mass, the reader was deserted, the fickle
multitude directing ail their attention and enthusiasm to tho new
comer. We had some difficulty in escaping from these troublesome and
unexpected demonstrations of good will; and, while hurrying from the
scene of this impromptu ovation to the unsought popularity of my
companion, I made him smile by hinting at the danger in which he stood
of being raised to the vacant throne by those who seem not to know or
care who is to fill it.

Comte d'O---- was as much puzzled as I was how to account for this
burst of enthusiasm, for, taking no part in politics, and all his
family being attached to the legitimate cause, this demonstration of
regard appears more inexplicable. It seems, however, to establish one
fact, and that is, that though the monarch has fallen into disrepute
with the people, the aristocracy have not, and this alone proves how
totally different are the feelings of those who have effected the
present revolution with those of the persons who were engaged in the
former one, a difference, perhaps, not more to be attributed to the
change produced in the people by the extension of education, than in
the _noblesse_ by the same cause, aided by the habits and feelings it
engenders. Whatever may be the cause, the effect is salutary, for the
good understanding evident between the two classes tends greatly to the
amelioration and advantage of both. There is something very contagio