Question--"What is a King?" Answer--"A monster who devours the human race." Such was a part of the catechism taught to all the children of France during the first fervour of the Revolution in 1789. "I wonder the people should die of want," said a princess during the dreadful famine of 1774; "for my part, if I was one of them, I should live on beef-steaks and porter, rather than perish." Such are the feelings with which the members of the same community, children of the same family, unhappily sometimes come to regard each other during periods of democratic excitement, or mutual estrangement. Ignorance, worked on by falsehood, and misled by ambition, is the main cause of this fatal severance. Nothing removes it so effectually as bringing them together. So natural are the feelings of loyalty to the human heart, so universally do they spring up when the falsehood which has smothered them is neutralised by the evidence of the senses, that it may be considered as one of the greatest evils which can afflict society, when circumstances occur which keep sovereigns aloof from their people, and one of the greatest blessings when they can rejoin each other. Of this, a signal example occurred on the return of the royal family of France from the fatal journey to Varennes, when Barnave, who had been sent down with Petion, as one of the most vehement and stern republicans, to bring them back to Paris, was so impressed with the philanthropic benevolence of the King, and so melted by the heroic magnanimity of the Queen, that he became thenceforward one of the most faithful defenders of the royal cause. "How often," says Thiers, in recounting this remarkable conversion, "would factions the most inveterate be reconciled, if they could meet and read each other's hearts!" The sudden change often produced in the general mind, by the veil of ignorance and prejudice being withdrawn, which had concealed from them the real character of their rulers, is not to be ascribed merely to the lustre of royalty, or the dazzling of the public gaze by the magnificent pageants which, on such occasions, generally surround it. It arises mainly from a different cause: it is allied to the generous affections--it springs from the feelings planted by the Author of nature in the human heart, to bind society together. It is often seen most strongly when the royal pageants are the most unpretending, and the royal personages, laying aside their previous state, mingle almost without distinction, save from the superior grace of their manners, with the ordinary citizens. It is more like the irresistible gush of affection which overspreads every heart, when the members, long severed, of a once united family are reassembled; or when the prodigal returns to his father's home, only the more dear from the events which had estranged him from it.