will try to convey it
to our readers. We image to ourselves a well-dressed person, with a
soft voice and affable manners. His opinions are those of the society
in which he finds himself, but a little stronger. He often complains,
in the language of honest indignation, that what passes in private
conversation finds its way strangely to the government, and cautions his
associates to take care what they say when they are not sure of their
company. As for himself, he owns that he is indiscreet. He can never
refrain from speaking his mind; and that is the reason that he is not
prefect of a department.

In a gallery of the Palais Royal he overhears two friends talking
earnestly about the King and the Count of Artois. He follows them into
a coffee-house, sits at the table next to them, calls for his half-dish
and his small glass of cognac, takes up a journal, and seems occupied
with the news. His neighbours go on talking without restraint, and in
the style of persons warmly attached to the exiled family. They depart;
and he follows them half round the boulevards till he fairly tracks them
to their apartments, and learns their names from the porters. From
that day every letter addressed to either of them is sent from the
post-office to the police, and opened. Their correspondents become
known to the government, and are carefully watched. Six or eight honest
families, in different parts of France, find themselves at once under
the frown of power without being able to guess what offence they have
given. One person is dismissed from a public office; another learns with
dismay that his promising son has been turned out of the Polytechnic
school.

Next, the indefatigable servant of the state falls in with an old
republican, who has not changed with the times, who regrets the red cap
and the tree of liberty, who has not unlearned the Thee and Thou, and
who still subscribes his letters with "Health and Fraternity." Into the
ears of this sturdy politician our friend pours forth a long series
of complaints. What evil times! What a change since the days when the
Mountain governed France! What is the First Consul but a king under a
new name? What is this Legion of Honour but a new aristocracy? The old
superstition is reviving with the old tyranny. There is a treaty with
the Pope, and a provision for the clergy. Emigrant nobles are returning
in crowds, and are better received at the Tuileries than the men of the
10th of August. This can