to accumulate, and regular hours, and exercise, and sparing diet,
with water beverage, keep me always in condition for office work. I
often wish that you could have half the command of your hours, mode
of living, and movements, that I have. However, they will soon be
much more free than mine. I am very glad that you have the one year
more for a wind up; and hope that good fortune will attend you to the
last. You say nothing, however, about your foot. The papers and
letters from home have just come in. I hear that Lord John is very
unwell, and will not be able to stand the work many months more, and
that Sir R. Peel is obliged to be _cupped_ once a-week, and could not
possibly take office. Who is to take helm in the troubled ocean, no
one knows. I am glad that Metternich has been kicked out, for he and
Louis Philippe are the men that have put in peril the peace and
institutions of all Europe. I only wish that the middle class was as
strong in France as it is in England; it is no doubt infinitely
stronger than it was; while the lower order is better than that of
England, I believe, for such occasions. They have good men now in the
provisional Government--so they had in 1788; and, like them, the
present men will probably be swept away by the mob. They are not,
however, likely to be embarrassed by other nations, since the days of
Pitt and George III. are passed away, and so are the feudal times
when the barons could get up civil wars for their own selfish
purposes. There are no characters sufficiently prominent to get up a
civil war, but the enormous size of the army is enough to create
feelings of disquiet. It is, however, officered from the middle
classes, who have property at stake, and must be more or less
interested in the preservation of order.

The Government has no money to send to Algiers, and must reduce its
strength there, so that Egypt is in no danger at present; were it so,
we should be called upon to defend it from India, and could well do
so. It is evident that the whole French nation was alienated from
Louis Philippe, and prepared to cast off him and all his family,
though, as you say, I do not believe that there was anywhere any
design to oust him and put down monarchy. Had he thrown off Guizot a
little sooner, and left some able military leaders free to act, the
_emeute_ would have been put down; but those who could have acted did
not feel free to do so: they did not feel sure of the king, while
they were