ouement_. Indeed, all classes of the French, except the most
intelligent, especially in Paris, regarded a revolution in England as
inevitable. They were under the delusion that Fergus O'Connor and his
colleagues and followers were, politically speaking, the English people.
The following account of this impression was given by a gentleman then
resident in Paris:--"Never, during the many years I have resided in
Paris, did any event in England excite such universal interest among all
classes of the French as the great chartist demonstration has done. For
days and days it was a leading topic in the newspapers, and for days the
general subject of conversation. Both newspapers and talkers, relying
on the big swagger of the Chartists, and the undisguised alarm of the
government, confidently expected a stern and terrible straggle, with
barricades, and bayonets, and pikes, and deluges of blood, and awful
slaughter. To this expectation many added the hope of seeing a complete
revolution effected--a revolution which would overthrow throne,
aristocracy, and middle class, leaving the people and the republic
triumphant. So deeply had this hope taken possession of the more
sanguine, that they could not bear to hear the slightest doubt of its
realisation expressed."

Strange as it may seem to English readers, the chartist proceedings in
England, and those of the Irish repeal party, had considerable influence
not only in sustaining unreasonable expectation among the French
workmen, but even on their modes of procedure. It was not until the
speeches of O'Connor and other Chartists claiming "the land for the
people," and the articles of Mitchell and others in Ireland demanding
for the farmers a right in the soil, were circulated in Paris, that
the workmen there began an agitation against rent. This they maintained
until the restoration of order restored to the house-owners the means
of asserting the rights of property. The following graphic and
lively description of the agitation, incited and fostered under such
circumstances, is no exaggeration:--"The past week has been the
calmest which we have had since the revolution. We have had no forced
illuminations, no planting of trees of liberty, no physical-force
demonstrations, no great display of any kind; in fact, we have been
decidedly dull. But in some parts of the city, our sovereign lord and
master, the Mob, has been graciously pleased to afford us a little
interesting excitement by bul