so terribly respectable; I am afraid there is a mistake either about
his nationality or his respectability, for they are badly matched,"
reflected the opinion of the majority of Frenchmen with regard to the
eminent statesman. The historian who was supposed to know Cromwell and
Washington as well as if he had lived with them, was credited at last
with being a stern rigid Puritan in private life like the first,
impatient of contradiction like the second--in short, a kind of walking
copy-book moral, who never unbent, whose slightest actions were intended
by him to convey a lesson to the rest of mankind. Unable to devote much
time to her during the week, Guizot was in the habit of taking his
mother for a stroll in the Park of St. Cloud on Sundays. The French, who
are never tired of shouting, "Oh, ma mere! oh, ma mere!" resented such
small attentions on the part of the son, because, they maintained, they
were meant as exhibitions. Even such a philosopher as Ernest Renan
failed to see that there were two dissimilar men in Guizot, the Guizot
of public life and the Guizot of home life; that, behind the imperious,
haughty, battlesome orator of the Chamber, with his almost marble mask,
there was a tender and loving heart, capable of the most deep-seated
devotion; that the cares of State once thrown off, the supercilious
stare melted like ice beneath the sun of spring into a prepossessing
smile, captivating every one with whom he came in contact.

Guizot regretted this erroneous conception the world had formed of his
character. "But what can I do?" he asked. "In reality, I haven't the
courage to be unpopular any more than other people; but neither have I
the courage to prance about in my own drawing-room as if I were on
wires"--this was a slight slap at M. Thiers,--"nor can I write on
subjects with which I have no sympathy"--that was a second,--"and I
should cut but a sorry figure on horseback"--that was a
third;--"consequently people who, I am sure, wish me well, but who will
not come and see me at home, hold me up as a misanthrope, while I know
that I am nothing of the kind."

With this he took from his table an article by M. Renan on the first
volume of his "Memoires," an article couched in the most flattering
terms, but giving the most conventional portrait of the author himself.
"Why doesn't he come and see me? He would soon find that I am not the
solitary, tragic, buckram figure that has already become legendary, and
which,