There has been an untoward gap in my correspondence, because I have fallen back a little into home habits, and have been pegging away at Old French again.... But the days are so short! and it has been such gloomy weather. Fifty-seven days of rain, think of it, and the only excitement the _crue_ of the Seine. Yes, we are beginning to have another, for we are threatened with a revolution. The Right are resolved to push things to extremes, and would rather have a military triumvirate than Thiers with a ministry of his own choosing. The French look upon Paris as the metropolis of the world, but I am more and more struck with a certain provincialism of mind shown in the importance they attach to their own personality. Every one of them has the flavor of a village great man. It is not individuality I mean, but value of self. No man can bring himself to get out of the way, even though it is the country he is blocking. I pick up a good deal at my _table d’hôte_ and am more and more pleased with it. I have not yet been to call on Littré, but I shall before long. My French still refuses to go trippingly from my tongue. However, I manage now to converse at table, and plunge into general discussion bravely. In the intervals of the rain (for it does not always rain all day long, though it rains every day) I take long walks in every direction, and am grown pretty intimate with Paris. I still like it and the people. By the way, Clarice (the maid who waits at breakfast) said to me this morning: “Les aristocrats ne veulent pas que la basse classe soit instruite. Ils croient que le peuple sait trop déja. Avec la République nous aurions l’instruction obligatoire. Ah, ce serait une chose très bonne pour nous.” I am inclined to believe that the people know more than my friend, the Marquis de Grammont, thinks! _To the Same._ PARIS, 11 January, 1873.