It was _light_ which the people demanded. Social _order_ was precisely the thing they wished for in the place of social chaos. Government was what they asked. They had learned by bitter experience that it was on the body of old King Log Laissez-faire that King Stork perched to devour them. _Let-alone_ is good policy after you have once got your perfect system established to let alone. There is not in all history an instance of such heroic self-denial as that which was displayed by what it is the fashion to call the Mob of Paris during the few days immediately following the flight of the Orleans dynasty. What was the shield which the noble Lamartine held up between the Provisional Government and the people? Simply the Idea of the Republic! And this Idea was respected by starving men with arms in their hands.” The verses “To Lamartine,” also, which appeared in August, illustrate the appeal which French idealism made to Lowell’s mind. It is not surprising that the year 1848, which seemed at the time to witness the lifting of the lid from the Republican pot which was at the boiling point, should not only have quickened the pulse of lovers of freedom in America, but should have given generous-minded men here a twinge of envy as they contrasted the sanguine expectancy of Europe with what they saw of the seared conscience of America; and in the papers just quoted Lowell turns fiercely upon the public expressions of sympathy with the ruling powers of Europe. It was a natural transition from these reflections on the movements in France to ask bitterly in his next editorial article, “Shall we ever be Republicans?” In this he speculates on the extraordinary lack of agreement in the United States between names and things, and finds slavery the opiate which has made men’s minds drowsy.