of being jealousies, these rivalries become emulation. What does it signify whether a thing be English or French, provided it be a benefit? Virtues have no country, or, rather, they are of every country; it is God who inspires them, and humanity which profits by them. Let us then learn, for one, how to admire. But I am told that these practical virtues of the English to the poorer, the _proletaire_, the suffering classes, are nothing but the prudence of selfishness! Even if that were the case, we ought still to applaud, for a selfishness so prudent and so provident, a selfishness which could do itself justice by so well imitating virtue, a selfishness which would corrupt the people by charity and prosperity--such a selfishness as that would be the most profound and most admirable of policies, it would be the Machiavelism of virtue. But it is not given to selfishness alone to transform itself so well into an appearance of charity; selfishness restricts itself, while charity diffuses itself; without doubt there is prudence in it, but there is also virtue, without doubt Old England, the veritable patrician republic under her frontispiece of monarchy, feels that the stones of her feudal edifice are becoming disjoined, and might tumble under the blast of the age, if she did not bind them together every day by the cement of her institutions in favor of her people. That is good sense, but under that good sense there is virtue; and it is impossible to remain in England for any length of time without discovering it. The source of that public virtue is the religious feeling with which that people is endowed more than many others; a divine feeling of practical religious liberty, has developed at the present moment, under a hundred forms, among them. Every one has a temple to God, where every one can recognize the light of reason, and adore that God, and serve him with his brothers in the sincerity, and in the independence of his faith. Yes, there is, if you will, at the same time, prudence, well-understood selfishness, and public virtue in the acts of England, in order to prevent a social war. Let it be whatever you like; but would that it pleased God that plebeian and proprietary France could also see and comprehend its duty to the people! Would that it pleased God that she could take a lesson from that intelligent aristocracy! Would that she could, once for all, say to herself, "I perish, I tremble, I swoon in my panics. I call at one time on the Monarchy, at another on the Republic, at another on legitimacy, now on illegitimacy--then on the Empire, now on the Inquisition--then on the police, now on the sabre, and then on eloquence to save me, and no one can save me but myself. I will save myself by my own virtue."