Nearly sixty years have elapsed since Mr Burke observed—“The age of chivalry is gone; that of sophists, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex—that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life—the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiments—is gone. It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half of its evil, by losing all its grossness.”[12] What a commentary on these well-known and long-admired words have recent events afforded! It is indeed gone, the loyalty to rank and sex—the proud submission, the dignified obedience, the _subordination of the heart_, which formerly characterised and adorned the states of modern Europe. With more courage than the German Empress, the Duchess of Orleans fronted the revolutionary mob in the Chamber of Deputies; but no swords leapt from their scabbards in the Chamber of Deputies when her noble appeal was made to the loyalty of France—no generous hearts found vent in the words, “Moriamur pro rege nostro, Maria Theresa!” It could no longer be said— “Fair Austria spread her mournful charms— The Queen, the beauty, roused the world to arms.” The infuriated rabble pointed their muskets at the royal heroine, and the few loyal members of the assembly were glad to purchase her safety by removing her from the disgraceful scene. Not a shot was thereafter fired; not a show even of resistance to the plebeian usurpation was made. An army of four hundred thousand men, five hundred thousand National Guards, thirty-four millions of men, in a moment forgot their loyalty, broke their oaths, and surrendered their country to the worst of tyrannies, the tyranny of a multitude of tyrants.