s deemed it his duty to proclaim these facts, and to write a book
which shall go far to remove the evils he complains of; yet, at the
outset of the work, he announces, to our astonishment, that France is
beyond all other lands the favoured land of heaven, the mistress of the
world, the paragon of countries. We turn back a page, and ask--Was it
for this that the student stepped from his retirement, or was it to
prove facts the very opposite to these? If France be indeed so
pre-eminently good and great, why write so many pages to prove that she
lies in bondage? If the literature of France be perfect, her army pure,
her people great, her religion the only true revelation of God's
purposes and will, wherefore complain and cry aloud, and seek to remedy
a condition already so enviable, to elevate a character already so
super-eminent? Is it that France is too self-loving to hear of her
faults even from her own offspring, or that she will not take her
wholesome medicine without the gilding that removes its flavour, and
hides its ugliness? Is she a child, and must the teacher flatter her as
a child; coax, pacify, and bribe her as a child, in order to work her
reformation and secure her happiness?

Let us for awhile follow the author of _The People_, as he traces
bondage and hatred throughout the social scheme of France, and gather
from him, as well as we may, the remedies he has for their destruction;
so shall we do him greater justice, and obtain, if they be within grasp,
the intention and the object of his undertaking.

"If we would know," says M. Michelet, "the inmost thought, the passion
of the French _Peasant_, it is very easy. Walk any Sunday into the
country, and follow him. Look! he is yonder before us! It is two
o'clock; his wife is at vespers, and he is in his Sunday's clothes. I
warrant you he is going to see his mistress!" His mistress! Yes; but
tropically. The peasant's mistress is his _Land_; he loves it with
intensest delight, with procreative love. Happy for France that it is
so; for let it once cease, and the land is barren from that instant. She
brings forth because she is loved. "_La terre le veut ainsi, pour
produire; autrement, elle ne donnerait rien, cette pauvre terre de
France, sans bestiaux presque et sans engrais._" By _Love_, the reader
will understand needful care and culture, but he will err in the
interpretation. It is something far more poetical and French. The
peasant having arrived face to face