In 1847, three works, on the same important subject issued from the Parisian press. Lamartine published his "History of the Girondins," Louis Blanc and Michelet the first volumes of their respective "Histories of the French Revolution." All three were strange productions, and all of them attracted much attention. It has even been said that they so powerfully affected the public mind, as greatly to have contributed to bring about the Revolution of February, 1849. This, however, is an exaggeration and an error. It is an exaggeration, inasmuch as, in the general case--whatever may be the ultimate influence which a writer produces on his age--it will seldom begin sensibly to operate in so short a space of time as a single year; it is an error, for a little consideration will show that the works in question were not the causes, but the signs or prognostics, of the approaching movement. They did not help to kindle the flame that was so soon to break forth: they were, on the contrary, a preliminary ebullition ejected by it. Beyond this, there was no real connection between these precursors and the events they foreshadowed; foreshadowings, however, they undoubtedly were, and each of a different kind--Lamartine being the symptom of the poetical, Louis Blanc of the political and social, Michelet of the philosophical agitation that had long been smouldering in the heart of France, and was at length to force its way into open existence. The fate of these three authors has corresponded to their characteristics. The enterprise of February once accomplished, and the excitement of it past, men soon came to reckon the cost and value of the work, and the merits and qualifications of the workmen. The poet, in this estimate, was pronounced to be a dreamer, and his splendid visions were condemned as wanting reality; he was thrown aside into the shade. The socialist-politician, at the same time, was discovered to be half-charlatan, half-Utopian; his plans and theories were found to lead to no practical result, and, indeed, to stand no practical test; he was sent into exile. The philosopher alone remained, not more, not less than what he had been. And this shows the advantage which philosophy, be it true or false, possesses--in this, that, so long as it confines itself to the closet, and abstains from pushing forward into open action, it does not attract popular attention, needs no popular support, and thus escapes popular censure. The poet lives by applause, or the hope of gaining it; the politician by success, or the struggle to succeed: the one must have sympathy, the other, tools; but the philosopher depends on himself and his system; he is sustained by his own convictions, relies on his sturdy faith, and is thus as much beyond the want of external vindication as he is beyond the reach of external justice. So it has been with Michelet. He has remained in his obscurity; he has been a spectator, and not an actor; his name will not be written in the annals