from all points of
the earth, fix their eyes upon some mysterious spot whence it seems
that universal destiny is about to issue. There have been hours when
the world has looked towards the Vatican: Gregory VII and Leo X
occupied the pontifical throne; other hours, when it has contemplated
the Louvre; Philip Augustus, Louis IX, Francois I, and Henri IV were
there; the Escorial, Saint-Just: Charles V dreamed there; Windsor:
Elizabeth the Great reigned there; Versailles: Louis XIV shone there
surrounded by stars; the Kremlin: one caught a glimpse there of Peter
the Great; Potsdam: Frederick II was closeted there with Voltaire. At
present, history, bow thy head, the whole universe is looking at the
Elysee!

That species of bastard door, guarded by two sentry-boxes painted on
canvas, at the extremity of Faubourg Saint-Honore, that is the spot
towards which the eyes of the civilized world are now turned with a
sort of profound anxiety! Ah! what sort of place is that, whence no
idea has issued that has not been a plot, no action that has not been a
crime? What sort of place is that wherein reside all kinds of cynicism
and all kinds of hypocrisy? What sort of place is that where bishops
elbow Jeanne Poisson on the staircase, and, as a hundred years ago, bow
to the ground before her; where Samuel Bernard laughs in a corner with
Laubardemont; which Escobar enters, arm-in-arm with Guzman d'Alfarache;
where (frightful rumour), in a thicket in the garden, they despatch, it
is said, with the bayonet men whom they dare not bring to trial; where
one hears a man say to a woman who is weeping and interceding: "I
overlook your love-affairs, you must overlook my hatreds!" What sort of
place is that where the orgies of 1852 intrude upon and dishonour the
mourning of 1815! where Caesarion, with his arms crossed, or his hands
behind his back, walks under those very trees, and in those very
avenues still haunted by the indignant phantom of Caesar?

That place is the blot upon Paris; that place is the pollution of the
age; that door, whence issue all sorts of joyous sounds, flourishes of
trumpets, music, laughter, and the jingling of glasses; that door,
saluted during the day by the passing battalions; illuminated at night;
thrown wide open with insolent confidence,--is a sort of public insult
always present. There is the centre of the world's shame.

Alas! of what is France thinking? Of a surety, we must awake this
slumbering nation, we mu