the ascendant, but, now that matters were jogging on regularly, and under their common-place aspects, we were obliged to take up with merely clever managers; that one of the wisest men that had ever lived (Bacon) had said, that "few men rise to power in a state, without a union of _great_ and _mean_ qualities," and that this was probably as true at Berne as it is at Washington, and as true at Paris as at either; that the old system in his country savoured too much of the policy of giving the milk of two cows to one calf, and that he must remember it was a system that made very bad as well as very good veal, whereas for ordinary purposes it was better to have the same quantity of merely good veal; and, in short, that he himself would soon be surprised at discovering how soon the new rulers would acquire all the useful habits of their predecessors, and I advised him to look out that they did not acquire some of their bad ones too. I never flattered myself with producing a change of opinion in the captain, who always listened politely, but with just such an air of credulity as you might suppose one born to the benefits of the Burgerschaft, and who had got to be fifty, would listen to a dead attack on all his most cherished prejudices. The next day was Sunday, and we still lingered in our comfortable quarters at the Crown. I walked on the Plateforme before breakfast, and got another of those admirable views of the Upper Alps, which, notwithstanding the great beauty of its position and immediate environs, form the principal attraction of Berne. The peaks were draped rather than veiled in clouds, and it was not easy to say which was the most brilliant, the snow-white vapour that adorned their sides, or the icy glaciers themselves. Still they were distinct from each other, forming some such contrast as that which exists between the raised and sunken parts on the faces of new coin. We went to church and listened to some excellent German, after which we paid our last visit to La Lorraine. This house had been hired by King Jerome for a short time, after his exile in 1814, his brother Joseph occupying a neighbouring residence. The W----s told me that Jerome arrived, accompanied by his amiable wife, like a king, with horses, chamberlains, pages, and all the other appliances of royalty, and that it was curious, as well as painful, to witness how fast these followers dropped off, as the fate of the family appeared to be settled. Few besides the horses remained at the end of ten days!