The dignity of intellect amid political degradation was never more strikingly displayed than by those orators who arose during the reign of the Bourbons. The intrepid Manuel uttering his protests against royal encroachments, in a chamber of Royalists all heated by passions and prejudices; Lainé and De Serres, pathetic and patriotic; Guizot, De Broglie, and De St. Aulaire, learned and profound; Royer-Collard, religious, disdainful, majestic; General Foy, disinterested and incorruptible; Lafitte, the banker; Benjamin Constant, the philosopher; Berryer, the lawyer; Chateaubriand, the poet, most eloquent of all,--these and a host of others (some liberal, some conservative, all able) showed that genius was not extinguished amid all the attempts of absolutism to suppress it. It is true that none of these orators arose to supreme power, and that they were not equal to Mirabeau and other great lights in the Revolutionary period. They were comparatively inexperienced in parliamentary business, and were watched and fettered by a hostile government, and could not give full scope to their indignant eloquence without personal peril. Nor did momentous questions of reform come before them for debate, as was the case in England during the agitation on the Reform Bill. They did little more than show the spirit that was in them, which under more favorable circumstances would arouse the nation. There was one more power which should be mentioned in connection with that period of torpor and reaction, and that was the influence of the _salons_. To these all the bright intellects of Paris resorted, and gave full vent to their opinions,--artists, scholars, statesmen, journalists, men of science, and brilliant women, in short, whoever was distinguished in any particular sphere; and these composed what is called society, a tremendous lever in fashionable life. In the _salons_ of Madame de Staël, of the Duchesse de Duras, of the Duchesse de Broglie, of Madame de St. Aulaire, and of Madame de Montcalm, all parties were represented, and all subjects were freely discussed. Here Sainte-Beuve discoursed with those whom he was afterward to criticise; here Talleyrand uttered his concise and emphatic sentences; here Lafayette won hearts by his courteous manners and amiable disposition; here Guizot prepared himself for the tribune and the Press; here Villemain, with proud indifference, broached his careless scepticism; here Montlosier blended aristocratical paradoxes with democratic theories. All these great men, and a host of others,--Béranger, Constant, Etienne, Lamartine, Pasquier, Mounier, Molé, De Neuville, Lainé, Barante, Cousin, Sismondi,--freely exchanged opinions, and rested from their labors; a group of geniuses worth more than armies in the great contests between Liberty and Absolutism.