Grenoble is a great town for dissension: nowhere have the seeds of liberty produced more luxuriant crops than in this unsubmissive city, which, in 1815, out of reverence for Napoleon, burst the gates that would not open to him; which, in 1816, witnessed the guillotining of Didier, Drevet and Buisson, and the shooting down of twenty-two conspirators, including an old man of sixty-five and a child of fifteen! A couple of score of young men on horseback and several carriages came out to greet the general; they met him a league away from the town to form an escort; then at the gate of France the former mayor, deprived of his office, probably through the many political reactions of the times, awaited him, to present him with a crown of silver oak leaves. This wreath--_a token of the love and gratitude of the people_--was the outcome of a subscription at fifty centimes a head. At Vizille they outdid even this: they fired cannon. On 5 September it was the turn of Lyons to show the general sympathy by means of a reception that was quite an ovation in itself. A deputation was even appointed to receive him at the borders of the department of the Rhône; it was escorted by a troop of five hundred horsemen, by a thousand young folk on foot and by sixty carriages occupied by the leading merchants of the town. In the midst of these carriages came an empty barouche, drawn by four horses, which was intended for the general's use. At the gate of the city the general was harangued by a former lawyer. We do not recollect the speech, except that it was ultra Liberal in tone, but we recall a few words of the reply from him to whom it was addressed. "To-day," the general replied, "after a long diversion of brilliant patriotism and of constitutional hopes, I once again find myself in your midst at what I should consider a critical moment, had I not observed everywhere during my journeyings, as also in this powerful city, the calm and even contemptuous steadfastness of a great people, which is aware of its rights, conscious of its strength and will remain faithful to its duties!" This utterance, ten months beforehand, was prophetic of the Bretonne Association, the refusal of tax-paying and the Revolution of July. The general's account of his travels was printed, and a hundred thousand copies of it were sold. "Those whom God would ruin He first deprives of reason." The Monarchy had, indeed, gone mad! A most influential paper, a monarchical one, published an article on this journey, of which the following few lines may serve as a specimen:--