y reasonably refuse to vote
more money for them. Why should men be so mighty proud of having, on a
certain day, cut a certain number of their fellow-countrymen's throats?
The Guards and the Line employed this time nine years did no more than
those who cannonaded the starving Lyonnese, or bayoneted the luckless
inhabitants of the Rue Transnounain:--they did but fulfil the soldier's
honorable duty:--his superiors bid him kill and he killeth:--perhaps,
had he gone to his work with a little more heart, the result would have
been different, and then--would the conquering party have been justified
in annually rejoicing over the conquered? Would we have thought Charles
X. justified in causing fireworks to be blazed, and concerts to be sung,
and speeches to be spouted, in commemoration of his victory over his
slaughtered countrymen?--I wish for my part they would allow the people
to go about their business as on the other 362 days of the year,
and leave the Champs Elysees free for the omnibuses to run, and the
Tuileries' in quiet, so that the nurse-maids might come as usual, and
the newspapers be read for a halfpenny apiece.

Shall I trouble you with an account of the speculations of these latter,
and the state of the parties which they represent? The complication
is not a little curious, and may form, perhaps, a subject of graver
disquisition. The July fetes occupy, as you may imagine, a considerable
part of their columns just now, and it is amusing to follow them one by
one; to read Tweedledum's praise, and Tweedledee's indignation--to read,
in the Debats how the King was received with shouts and loyal vivats--in
the Nation, how not a tongue was wagged in his praise, but, on the
instant of his departure, how the people called for the "Marseillaise"
and applauded THAT.--But best say no more about the fete. The
Legitimists were always indignant at it. The high Philippist party
sneers at and despises it; the Republicans hate it: it seems a joke
against THEM. Why continue it?--If there be anything sacred in the name
and idea of loyalty, why renew this fete? It only shows how a rightful
monarch was hurled from his throne, and a dexterous usurper stole his
precious diadem. If there be anything noble in the memory of a day, when
citizens, unused to war, rose against practised veterans, and, armed
with the strength of their cause, overthrew them, why speak of it now?
or renew the bitter recollections of the bootless struggle and victo