beautiful examples in that tumultuous region of politics in which they are so rarely found. But these social virtues must be nursed in the bosom of domestic life; these social affections must spring from family affections. Home, the abode of stability and morality, also contains the hearth at which all our affections and all our self-devotion are kindled; it is in the circle of the Family that the noblest parts of our nature find satisfactions they would seek for else in vain; it is from that circle that, when circumstances demand, they can go forth to adorn and bless society. Next to the spirit of family, the political spirit is that from which France has now the greatest services to expect, and which she ought to foster with the greatest care. The political spirit shows itself in the will and the power to take a regular and active part in public affairs, without employment of violence or risk of disturbance. The greater the spread and cultivation of the political spirit, the more does it teach men the necessity and the habit of seeing things as they are in their exact and naked truth. To see, not what exists, but what they wish; to indulge complacently in illusions about facts, as if facts would, with equal complacency, take the form that they desire,--is the radical and characteristic weakness of men still new to political life, and the source of their most fatal errors. To see things as they are, is the first and very excellent fruit of the political spirit, and gives birth to another not less excellent, viz.--that, by learning to see only what is, we learn to desire only what is possible; the exact appreciation of facts begets moderation in designs and pretensions. The political spirit, true and sincere to itself, becomes prudent and reasonable towards others. Nothing inclines men more to moderation than a full knowledge of the truth; for it is rarely that she throws all her weight into one scale. The political spirit is thus naturally led by prudence, if by no higher morality, to that respect for rights which is not only its fundamental law and essential merit, but the sole basis of social stability; since, where law ceases, nothing remains but force, which is essentially variable and precarious. The respect for rights supposes, or produces, the respect for law, the habitual source of rights. The real and the possible, rights and law, such are the subjects upon which the political spirit is constantly exercised, and which become the habitual objects of its inquiry and its veneration. It thus maintains, or re-establishes, a moral principle of fixity in the relations of individuals, and a moral principle of authority in those of the state. The more the value for family ties shall increase at the expense of the selfishness of an isolated existence, and the more the political shall gain upon the revolutionary spirit, the more tranquil will the society of France become, and the more firmly will it rest upon its foundations.