ng caricature, which makes the _Moi, je suis
Francais_, a demand for universal adoration, the concentrated essence of
absurdity, the poison-drop of scorn.

"When will this great consummation arrive?"

"When the tyranny can be endured no longer; when the people find that
they must depend upon themselves for its redress; when a just Providence
finds the vindication of its laws required by the necessities of man."

"From what quarter will the grand effort first come?"

"From the nation most aggrieved."

"What will be its result?"

To this moment I remember the sudden light which flashed into his cold
grey eye, the gasping lip, and the elevation which even his stooped form
assumed; as he answered with a tone and gesture which might have been
imagined for one of the prophets of the Sistine Chapel--

"The result," said he, "will be the fall of the French empire, for it is
a house built on the sand;--the extinction of Napoleon, for it is his
creation, and the one cannot survive the other;--the liberation of
Europe, for its united strength can be chained no longer;--perhaps the
liberty of man, for the next step for nations which have crushed foreign
dominion is to extinguish domestic despotism. Europe once free, what is
to come? A new era, a new shape of society, a new discovery of the
mighty faculties of nations, of the wonders of mind, of matter, and of
man; a vast shaking of the earth and its institutions; and out of this
chaos, a new moral creation, _fiat lux et fugient tenebrae_."

The prediction has been partly realized. Much is yet to be fulfilled.
But, like Gentz, I live in hope, and think that I see an approach to the
consummation.

But the party to whom I was now introduced were of a different order
from the generality of their country. Originally of the first education
and first society of France, the strictness of the military service had
produced on the the most valuable effect of years. The natural vividness
of their temperament was smoothed down, their experience of English
kindness had diminished their prejudices; and adversity--and no men bear
the frowns of fortune better than their nation--gave them almost the
manly calmness of the English gentleman. I found the old general all
courtesy, and his friends all good-humour. My conduct in the affair of
the morning was after their own hearts; I had, by common consent, earned
their good graces; and they gave me on the spot half a dozen invitations
to the re