During supper there was a free general conversation, and we were asked for news, the movements in La Vendée being evidently a subject of great interest with them. Our French fellow-traveller on the lake of Brientz had been warm in his eulogiums on this community, and, coupling his conversation with the present question, the suspicion that they were connected by a tie of common feeling flashed upon me. A few remarks soon confirmed this conjecture, and I found, as indeed was natural for men in their situation, that these religious republicans[39] took a strong interest in the success of the Carlists. Men may call themselves what they will, live where they may, and assume what disguises artifice or necessity may impose, political instincts, like love, or any other strong passion, are sure to betray themselves to an experienced observer. How many of our own republicans, of the purest water, have I seen sighing for ribands and stars--ay, and men too who appear before the nation as devoted to the institutions and the rights of the mass. The Romish church is certain to be found in secret on the side of despotic power, let its pretensions to liberty be what it may, its own form of government possessing sympathies with that of political power too strong to be effectually concealed. I will not take on myself to say that the circumstance of our being Americans caused the fraternity to manifest for us less warmth than common, but I will say that our Carlist of the lake of Brientz eloquently described the warm welcome and earnest hospitality of _les bons pères_, as he called them, in a way that was entirely inapplicable to their manner towards us. In short, the only way we could excite any warmth in them, was by blowing the anthracite coal, of which we had heard they had discovered a mine on the mountain. This was a subject of great interest, for you should know that, water excepted, every necessary of life is to be transported, for leagues to this place, up the path we came, on the backs of mules; and that about 8,000 persons cross the mountain annually; all, or nearly all, of whom lodge, of necessity, at the convent. The elevation renders fires constantly necessary for comfort, to say nothing of cooking; and a mine of gold could scarcely be as valuable to such a community, as one of coal. Luckily, C----, like a true Pennsylvanian, knew something about anthracite, and by making a few suggestions, and promising further intelligence, he finally succeeded in throwing one or two of the community into a blaze. [Footnote 39: Your common-place logicians argue from these sentiments that distinctions are natural, and ought to be maintained. These philosophers forget that human laws are intended to restrain the natural propensities, and that this argument would be just as applicable to the right of a strong man to knock down a weak one, and to take the bread from his mouth, as it is to the institution of exclusive political privileges.]