"A case has just occurred in point," said the secretary. "Last week La Fayette had a quarrel with a battalion of the National Guard on the subject of drill; they considering the manual exercise as an infringement of the Rights of Man. The general being of the contrary opinion, a deputation of corporals, for any thing higher would have looked too aristocratic, waited on him at the quarters of his staff in the Place Vendôme, to demand--his immediate resignation. On further enquiry, he ascertained that all the battalions, amounting to thirty thousand men, were precisely of the same sentiments. Next morning happened to have been appointed for a general review of the National Guard. La Fayette appeared on the ground as commandant at the head of his staff, and after a gallop along the line, suddenly alighted from his horse, and taking a musket on his shoulder, to the utter astonishment of every body walked direct into the centre of the line, and took post in the ranks. Of course all the field-officers flew up to learn the reason. 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'I am tired of receiving orders as commander-in-chief, and that I may _give_ them, I have become a _private_, as you see.' The announcement was received with a shout of merriment; and, as in France a pleasantry would privilege a man to set fire to a church, the general was cheered on all sides, was remounted and the citizen army, suspending the 'Rights of Man' for the day, proceeded to march and manoeuvre according to the drill framed by despots and kings." "Well done, La Fayette," said the prince, "I did not think that there was so much in him. To be sure, to have one's neck in danger--for the next step to deposing would probably be to hang him--might sharpen a man's wits a good deal." "Yes," said Sir P----, "so many live by their wits in Paris, that even the marquis of the mob might have his chance; but a bon-mot actually saved, within these few days, one even so obnoxious as a bishop from being _sus. per coll_. In the general system of purifying the church by hanging the priests, the rabble of the Palais Royal seized the Bishop of Autun, and were proceeding to treat him 'à la lanterne' as an aristocrat. It must be owned that the lamps in Paris, swinging by ropes across the streets, offer really a very striking suggestion for giving a final lesson in politics. It was night, and the lamp was trimmed. They were already letting it down for the bishop to be its successor; when he observed, with the coolness of a spectator--'Gentlemen, if I am to take the place of that lamp, it does not strike me that the street will be better lighted.' The whimsicality of the idea caught them at once; a bishop for a _reverbère_ was a new idea; they roared with laughter at the conception, and bid him go home for a '_bon enfant_!'"