‘Of late,’ he wrote to me, ‘I have been devoting my entire attention to the science of barricades, which I found amusing. They have systematised it in a way which is pleasing to the cultivated intellect. We had only one good day’s fighting, and I naturally kept out of cannon-shot. But I took a quiet walk over the barricades in the morning, and superintended the construction of three with as much keenness as if I had been clerk of the works. You’ve seen lots, of course, at Berlin, but I should not think those Germans were up to a real Montagnard, who is the most horrible being to the eye I ever saw,—sallow, sincere, sour fanaticism, with grizzled moustaches, and a strong wish to shoot you rather than not. The Montagnards are a scarce commodity, the real race—only three or four, if so many, to a barricade. If you want a Satan any odd time, they’ll do; only I hope that _he_ don’t believe in human brotherhood. It is not possible to respect any one who does, and I should be loth to confound the notion of _our_ friend’s solitary grandeur by supposing him to fraternise,’ &c. ‘I think M. Buonaparte is entitled to great praise. He has very good heels to his boots, and the French just want treading down, and nothing else—calm, cruel, business-like oppression, to take the dogmatic conceit out of their heads. The spirit of generalisation which, John Mill tells us, honourably distinguishes the French mind, has come to this, that every Parisian wants his head _tapped_ in order to get the formulæ and nonsense out of it. And it would pay to perform the operation, for they are very clever on what is within the limit of their experience, and all that can be “expanded” in terms of it, but beyond, it is all generalisation and folly.... So I am for any carnivorous government.’ And again, in the same letter:— ‘Till the Revolution came I had no end of trouble to find conversation, but now they’ll talk against everybody, and against the President like mad—and they talk immensely well, and the language is like a razor, capital if you are skilful, but sure to cut you if you aren’t. A fellow can talk German in crude forms, and I don’t see it sounds any worse, but this stuff is horrid unless you get it _quite_ right. A French lady made a striking remark to me:—“_C’est une révolution qui a sauvé la France. Tous mes amis sont mis en prison_.” She was immensely delighted that such a pleasing way of saving her country had been found.’