Little Thiers, to be sure, blustered; and Odillon Barrot assumed pompous airs, and tried to look like a Roman citizen, at our small patriotic cosmopolitan reunions; but I never could believe that either of them was thoroughly in earnest. We all know the game that is played in Britain, where the doors of the ministerial cabinet are constructed on the principle of a Dutch clock. When it is fair weather, the ambitious figure of Lord John Russell is seen mounting guard on the outside—when it threatens to blow, the small sentry retires, and makes way for the Tamworth grenadier. Just so was it in Paris. Guizot, if wheeled from his perch, was expected to be replaced by the smarter and more enterprising Thiers, and slumbrous Duchatel by the broad-chested and beetle-browed Barrot. At the same time, I could not altogether shut my eyes to the more active state of the press. I do not mean to aver that the mere political articles exhibited more than their usual vigour; but throughout the whole literature of the day there ran an under-current of revolutionary feeling which betokened wonderful unanimity. Less than usual was said about Marengo, Austerlitz, or even the three glorious days of July. The minds of men were directed further back, to a period when the Republic was all in all, when France stood isolated among the nations, great in crime, and drunken with her new-won freedom. The lapse of half a century is enough to throw a sort of halo around the memory of the veriest villain and assassin. We have seen Dick Turpin and Jack Sheppard exhumed from their graves to be made the heroes of modern romance; and the same alchemy was now applied to the honoured ashes of Anacharsis Clootz, and other patriots of the Reign of Terror. All this was done very insidiously, and, I must say, with consummate skill. Six or seven simultaneous romances reminded the public of its former immunity from rule, and about as many melodramas denounced utter perdition to tyranny. I liked the fun. Man is by nature a revolutionary animal, especially when he has nothing to lose; and it is needless to remark that a very small portion indeed of my capital was invested in the foreign funds. I saw little of my friend the Marquis, beyond meeting him at the usual promenades, and bowing to him at the theatres, where he never failed to present himself. A casual observer would have thought that De la Pailleterie had no other earthly vocation than to perambulate Paris as a mere votary of pleasure. Once or twice, however, towards evening, I encountered him in his uniform of the National Guard, with fire in his eye, haste in his step, and a settled deliberation on his forehead; and I could not help, as I gazed upon him, feeling transported backwards to the period of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. At length I received the expected billet, and on the appointed evening rendered myself punctually at his house. The rooms were already more than half filled by the company.