For a while Hanbury sat without stirring. He still held in his hand the paper his mother had given him. He knew he had not escaped the battle. He was merely reposing between the fights. He sat with his head drooped low upon his chest, his arms lying listlessly by his side, his legs stretched out. This was the first rest of body or mind he had had that day, but, as in a sleep obtained from narcotics, while it gave him physical relief his mind was gaining no freshness. At length Hanbury shook himself, shuddered, and rose. The light was not fully up. He left his window open from the bottom all night. He went to it, pulled up the blind and sat down on the low window-frame. He put his hand on the stone window sill, and leaning forward looked below. Here the silence was not so deep or monotonous as in the room with the blind down. There arose sounds, faint sounds of music from the backs of houses where entertainments were being given, now and then voices and laughter could be heard indistinctly. In many of the windows shone lights. No suggestion of tumult or trouble came from any side or from the sky above. On earth spread a peaceful heaven of man's making and man's keeping; above a peaceful heaven of God's will. Here was the largest, and richest, and most powerful, and most civilized city of all time, lying round the feet of a stupendous goddess of liberty, whose statue had been reared by wisdom borrowed from all the ages of the history of man. This was the heart of the colossal nation whose vital blood flowed in every clime. Here were powers capable of beneficent application lying ready to the hand of every strength. To be here and able was to have the key-board of the most gigantic organ ever devised by human mind open to one's touch. Here all creeds were free, all thoughts were free, all words were free, all men were free. There was no slavery of the soul or the person. Here, the leader of the people was the ruler of the state. The people made the laws, and the King saw that the laws were obeyed. Each man of the people was a monarch who deputed his regal powers to the King. An hereditary sovereign was the best, better a thousand times than elected King. In this country were no plots and schemings about succession. Here the King's son came to the throne under the will of the people. This country was never disturbed by struggles to get a good ruler. This country always had a good ruler, that is the will of the people. What a miserable spectacle France, great France, chivalric France presented now! How many pretenders were there to the throne?--to the presidential chair? There were the Legitimists, and the Orleanists, and the Napoleons, two branches of Napoleons, and a dozen aspirants to the presidency! How miserable! What waste of vigour and dignity. Yes, he was glad he had made up his mind. He would devote himself, body and soul, to the sovereign people under the constitutional sovereign.