eived, incombustible. '_Santissima Madre!_' exclaimed the
frightened superior, who stood wringing his hands and calling on all the
saints in his breviary; 'you do not know of what stone it is built. All
is lava; and at the first touch of the red-hot rocks now rolling down
upon us, every stone in the walls will melt like wax in the furnace.'
The old monk was right. We lost no time in making our escape to a
neighbouring pinnacle, and from it saw the stream of molten stone roll
round the walls, inflame them, scorch, swell, and finally melt them
down. Before daylight, the site of the convent was a gulf of flame. This
comes of sympathy in stones--what will it be in men? Wait a twelvemonth;
and you will see the flash and flame of French republicanism melting
down every barrier of the Continent. The mob has the mob on its side for
ever. The offer of liberty to men who have spent a thousand years under
despotism, is irresistible. Light may blind, but who loves utter
darkness? The soldier may melt down like the rest; he is a man, and may
be a madman like the rest; he, too, is one of the multitude.

"Their language may be folly or wisdom, it may be stolen from the
ramblings of romance writers, or be the simple utterance of
irrepressible instincts within; but it is the language which I hear
every where around me. Men eat and drink to it, work and play to it,
awake and sleep to it. It is in the rocks and the streams, in the
cradle, and almost on the deathbed. It rings in the very atmosphere; and
what must be the consequence? If the French ever cross the Rhine, they
will sweep every thing before them, as easily as a cloud sweeps across
the sky, and with as little power in man to prevent them. A cluster of
church steeples or palace spires could do no more to stop the rush of a
hurricane.

"You will call me a panegyrist of Republicanism, or of France. I have no
love for either. But I may admire the spring of the tiger, or even give
him credit for the strength of his tusks, and the grasp of his talons,
without desiring to see him take the place of my spaniel on the
hearth-rug, or choosing him as the companion of my travels. _I_ dread
the power of the multitude, _I_ despair of its discipline, and _I_
shrink from the fury of its passions. A republic in France can be
nothing but a funeral pile, in which the whole fabric is made, not for
use, but for destruction; which man cannot inhabit, but which the first
torch will set in a blaze from