is country.
The Revolution had livingly affected her, and therefore her discourse
regarding it was living. It even seemed to the old preacher as though
the Revolution were an event which he had witnessed. The Revolution and
Napoleon had often fed his thoughts and his discourse toward this land.
Otto had thus, without troubling himself the least about politics, grown
up with a kind of interest about France. The mere intelligence of this
struggle of the July days was therefore not indifferent to him. He
still only knew what the horse-dealer had related; nothing of the
congregation, or of Polignac's ministry: but France was to him the
mighty world-crater, which glowed with its splendid eruptions, and which
he admired from a distance.

The old preacher shook his head when Otto imparted this political
intelligence to him. A king, so long as he lived, was in his eyes holy,
let him be whatever sort of a man he might. The actions of a king,
according to his opinion, resembled the words of the Bible, which man
ought not to weigh; they should be taken as they were. "All authority is
from God!" said he. "The anointed one is holy; God gives to him wisdom;
he is a light to whom we must all look up!"

"He is a man like ourselves!" answered Otto. "He is the first magistrate
of the land, and as such we owe him the highest reverence and obedience.
Birth, and not worth, gives him the high post which he fills. He ought
only to will that which is good; to exercise justice. His duties are
equally great with those of his subjects."

"But more difficult, my son!" said the old man. "It is nothing, as a
flower, to adorn the garland; more difficult is it to be the hand which
weaves the garland. The ribbon must be tight as well as gently tied; it
must not cut into the stems, and yet it must not be too loose. Yes, you
young men talk according to your wisdom! Yes, you are wise! quite as
wise as the woman who kept a roasted chicken for supper. She placed it
upon a pewter plate upon the glowing coals, and went out to attend to
her affairs. When she returned the plate was melted, and the chicken lay
among the ashes. 'What a wise cat I have!' said she; 'she has eaten
I the plate and left the chicken!' See, you talk just so, and regard
things from the same foolish point of view. Do not speak like the rest
of them in the city! 'Fear God, and honor the king!' We have nothing
to argue with these two; they transact their business between them! The
French