That revolution was Puritanism, a far more important thing than the change from a monarchical to a republican form of government, because it really changed the mental habits of the nation, making English people more peculiar than they themselves know, and quite incomprehensible by the French; making English customs differ from continental customs more widely than they had ever differed before; changing even the fundamental character of the English mind by chastening and repressing the light-hearted gaiety of merry England and substituting for it a gravity often deepening into gloom; replacing the old morals by severer morals, establishing a strict censorship even over language, substituting for the old religion of Europe a faith less picturesque and less indulgent, consequently less in harmony with French feeling. [Sidenote: Puritanism in the British Middle Classes.] There is a temptation to exaggerate the importance of historical influences when once they have been perceived, but one can hardly exaggerate the importance of Puritanism in the history of the English people, especially in the history of the middle classes, where it is still predominant at the present day. Both the qualities and the defects that distinguish the British middle classes are for the most part directly traceable to the influence of Puritanism, and so are those feelings and opinions of which they themselves have forgotten the origin. [Sidenote: Not a Special Creed.] [Sidenote: Transformation of British Sentiment and Custom.] [Sidenote: An English Family in Paris.] [Sidenote: The old English Sunday.] [Sidenote: Sunday a Cause of Separation between English and French.]