tricolor flag, although it had waved over many a ruin, many a deed of horror, in the dreadful history of the past, had led on the nation to glory and military renown; for the last eighteen years it had typified the national watchwords of _that_ time, "Liberty and Public Order;" and it was set forth once more, under a more democratic rule, but not a rule of anarchy--liberty, public order, peace. To each symbol was attached a sentiment. On the one symbol, on the one sentiment, Lamartine had staked the future destinies of France, as he had staked the hazard of his life. Unsupported he stood before those yelling, suspicious, infuriated thousands. He was the man of the moment. A powerful appeal to the feelings of such a mob--one of those appeals, one of those words of history that are carried down to all posterity--one of those electric touches of simultaneous sentiment, which often suddenly pervade great crowds, seemingly thrilling through all frames at once alike, coming as it were from some supernatural influence, but which few mortal men know how to direct, when, and far less _as_ they would--such an appeal was to be made--such a word to be spoken--such a blow given. Again we repeat, he was the man of the moment--for he was the man of high poetic sentiment. Thence alone could come the electric stroke; and it was struck. The simple eloquence of the poet's heartfelt convictions fell over the crowd. He raised the tricolor banner; guns, swords, and pikes were lowered: "_Vive Lamartine!_" burst from every mouth: the cause of humanity was gained--_for the time at least_. That symbol stamped the sentiment of the future French Republic. Spite of the frivolous, sceptical, denying, and, in latter years, positive and anti-poetical character of the French people, there is no nation more easily led away by a word, however incomprehensible--an idea, however vague; but when that word, that idea, is embodied in an outward symbol, it is remarkable with what blind tenacity the French will cling to it, hoist it on high, worship it. What the deism of the Encyclopedists could not effect in the revolution of the last century; what even the frantic political atheism of the sect that followed in their footsteps could not accomplish over the masses; what the persecution of the priesthood could not establish over the minds of the people, was wrought by the personification of atheism in the embodiment of the Goddess of Reason. When the reason that denied a Godhead stood before them in a living and material form, the people fell down and worshipped; the orgies of atheism in the face of that half-naked bacchante form became universal.