"You will see, my dear cousin, that, at the rate things are going, you must possess your soul in patience. I would even add that the journey you propose to take to Paris will not advance your affairs. According to the police reckoning, there are at this present moment a hundred and twenty-three thousand people from the provinces, of all ranks, of all sexes, of all ages, who are here to make claims, furnished with almost as good credentials as yours, and who will have the advantage over you in obtaining a refusal of being first in the field to put forward their cases. Finally, as I know you are acquainted with philosophy and the best things in literature, I beg you to read over again a chapter in the English _Spectator_, on the just claims of these who ask for posts: it is in the thirty-second section of the seventh volume in the duodecimo edition: history repeats itself. "Accept, my dear cousin, an expression of my most affectionate greetings, coupled with my sincere regrets. "B. DE L----" In 1830, after the Revolution of July, Auguste Barbier produced a poem on the same subject, entitled the _Curée._ When one re-reads those terrible verses and compares them with work by M. de Jouy, the writings of the latter seem a model of that Attic wit which was characteristic of the old school, and Barbier an example of the brutal, fiery, unpremeditated writing I so typical of his Muse. Meanwhile, at about the period we have reached, whilst Louis XVIII. was hunting down men of letters with that ruthlessness of which we have just cited a few examples, he was laying claim to a place in their midst. Through the foolish advice of his sycophants, the regal author published a little work entitled _Voyage de Paris à Bruxelles._ I do not know whether it would be possible to-day to procure a single copy of the royal brochure, wherein were to be found not only such errors in French grammar as "J'étais déjà un peu gros, à cette époque, pour _monter et descendre de cabriolet_," but, worse still, revelations of ingratitude and heartlessness. A poor widow risks her head to take in fugitives, and sacrifices her last louis to give them a dinner; Monsieur relates this act of devotion as though it were no more than the fugitives' due, and ends the chapter by saying, "The dinner was execrable!" It was written in kitchen French, as Colonel Morisel observed to M. Arnault. "That is easily explained," replied the author of _Germanicus_, "since the work was by a _restaurateur"_. The _Miroir_, ordered to review the _Voyage de Paris à Bruxelles_, contented itself by saying, "If the work is by the august personage to whom it is attributed, it is above the region of criticism; if it is not by him, it is beneath criticism."