, does the result prove that
every movement in our cause has been as premature as it has been
unsuccessful."

"May we not gather wisdom, which shall conduct us to success in the
future, from the very errors and disasters of the past?" remarked
Flocon.

"Alas!" despondingly replied Marrast, "what is there in our present to
promise a bright future more than was in our past to promise us a bright
present? Our great leaders of another generation have all left us, one
after another--all have dropped into their graves. The cold marble has
closed over their venerable brows, and they rest well. Yet they died
and made no sign of hope. On us, young, inexperienced and rash, has
devolved their task; but the mantle of their power and virtue has not,
alas! descended with that task to aid in its momentous accomplishment.
General Lamarque's sun went down in clouds. Midnight, deeper than
Egyptian darkness, brooded over the delirious deathbed of Lafayette.
Armand Carrel fell without hope; and are we wiser than they? How often,
oh! how often have I listened to the words of wisdom that fell from
those eloquent lips, even as a boy reverently listens to a parent--for
such was Armand Carrel to me. Upon this very spot have I stood, in that
very chair has he sat, that chair, which, with mingled shame and pride,
I reflect is now filled by me--shame, that it is filled in a manner so
unworthy of him--pride, that I should have been deemed fit, after him to
fill it at all--in that very chair, I say, has his noble form reclined,
when he for hours, even from night till the next day's dawn, dwelt with
sorrowful eloquence upon his country's present, and looked forward with
gloomy foreboding and prediction for the future. It almost seems to me
that this mighty shade is with us now!"

"And why was all this despondency, my dear Armand?" remarked Louis
Blanc, mildly. "Was it not because our noble and gifted friend was
essentially a soldier, not a civilian, not a statesman, not a
revolutionist? Had Armand Carrel gone to Algeria, he would have died--if
died he had not in an unknown duel, with an unknown bravo--he would
have died a Marshal of France--a Bugeaud, a Chaugarnier, a Bedeau, a
Cavaignac, a Clausel, a Lamoriciere. Carrel had no faith in the masses
to achieve a revolution. He never believed that they could even
withstand a single charge of regular troops, much less repel and
overcome it."

"Not even with barricades?" asked Rollin.

"Not even in