r, how much better were it than armed
Emigrants, Turin-intrigues, and the help of Austria! Nay, are the two
hopes inconsistent? Rides in the suburbs, we have found, cost little;
yet they always brought vivats. (See Bertrand-Moleville, i. 241, &c.)
Still cheaper is a soft word; such as has many times turned away
wrath. In these rapid days, while France is all getting divided into
Departments, Clergy about to be remodelled, Popular Societies
rising, and Feudalism and so much ever is ready to be hurled into the
melting-pot,--might one not try?

On the 4th of February, accordingly, M. le President reads to his
National Assembly a short autograph, announcing that his Majesty will
step over, quite in an unceremonious way, probably about noon. Think,
therefore, Messieurs, what it may mean; especially, how ye will get the
Hall decorated a little. The Secretaries' Bureau can be shifted down
from the platform; on the President's chair be slipped this cover of
velvet, 'of a violet colour sprigged with gold fleur-de-lys;'--for
indeed M. le President has had previous notice underhand, and taken
counsel with Doctor Guillotin. Then some fraction of 'velvet carpet,'
of like texture and colour, cannot that be spread in front of the chair,
where the Secretaries usually sit? So has judicious Guillotin advised:
and the effect is found satisfactory. Moreover, as it is probable that
his Majesty, in spite of the fleur-de-lys-velvet, will stand and not sit
at all, the President himself, in the interim, presides standing. And
so, while some honourable Member is discussing, say, the division of a
Department, Ushers announce: "His Majesty!" In person, with small suite,
enter Majesty: the honourable Member stops short; the Assembly starts
to its feet; the Twelve Hundred Kings 'almost all,' and the Galleries no
less, do welcome the Restorer of French Liberty with loyal shouts. His
Majesty's Speech, in diluted conventional phraseology, expresses this
mainly: That he, most of all Frenchmen, rejoices to see France getting
regenerated; is sure, at the same time, that they will deal gently
with her in the process, and not regenerate her roughly. Such was his
Majesty's Speech: the feat he performed was coming to speak it, and
going back again.

Surely, except to a very hoping People, there was not much here to build
upon. Yet what did they not build! The fact that the King has spoken,
that he has voluntarily come to speak, how inexpressibly encouraging!