on, shall a man front the world.

But how wise, in all cases, to 'husband your fire;' to keep it deep
down, rather, as genial radical-heat! Explosions, the forciblest, and
never so well directed, are questionable; far oftenest futile, always
frightfully wasteful: but think of a man, of a Nation of men, spending
its whole stock of fire in one artificial Firework! So have we seen
fond weddings (for individuals, like Nations, have their Hightides)
celebrated with an outburst of triumph and deray, at which the elderly
shook their heads. Better had a serious cheerfulness been; for the
enterprise was great. Fond pair! the more triumphant ye feel, and
victorious over terrestrial evil, which seems all abolished, the
wider-eyed will your disappointment be to find terrestrial evil still
extant. "And why extant?" will each of you cry: "Because my false mate
has played the traitor: evil was abolished; I meant faithfully, and did,
or would have done." Whereby the oversweet moon of honey changes itself
into long years of vinegar; perhaps divulsive vinegar, like Hannibal's.

Shall we say then, the French Nation has led Royalty, or wooed and
teased poor Royalty to lead her, to the hymeneal Fatherland's Altar,
in such oversweet manner; and has, most thoughtlessly, to celebrate the
nuptials with due shine and demonstration,--burnt her bed?

BOOK 2.II.

NANCI

Chapter 2.2.I.

Bouille.

Dimly visible, at Metz on the North-Eastern frontier, a certain brave
Bouille, last refuge of Royalty in all straits and meditations of
flight, has for many months hovered occasionally in our eye; some name
or shadow of a brave Bouille: let us now, for a little, look fixedly at
him, till he become a substance and person for us. The man himself is
worth a glance; his position and procedure there, in these days, will
throw light on many things.

For it is with Bouille as with all French Commanding Officers; only in
a more emphatic degree. The grand National Federation, we already guess,
was but empty sound, or worse: a last loudest universal
Hep-hep-hurrah, with full bumpers, in that National Lapithae-feast of
Constitution-making; as in loud denial of the palpably existing; as if,
with hurrahings, you would shut out notice of the inevitable already
knocking at the gates! Which new National bumper, one may say, can but
deepen the drunkenness; and so, the louder it swears Brotherhood, will
the sooner and the more surely lead to Cannibalism. Ah,