There is a quiet steadiness and confidence in their own strength among these doctrinaries, that seems to promise well for the lasting tranquillity of the country; nor does it impeach either their wisdom or sincerity, if many among them adhere heart and hand to the government, though they might have better liked a white than a tri-coloured banner to wave over the palace of its head. Whatever the standers-by may wish or feel about future struggles and future changes, I think it is certain that no Frenchman who desires the prosperity of his country can at the present moment wish for anything but a continuance of the tranquillity she actually enjoys. If, indeed, democracy were gaining ground,--if the frightful political fallacies, among which the very young and the very ignorant are so apt to bewilder themselves, were in any degree to be traced in the policy pursued by the existing government,--then would the question be wholly changed, and every honest man in full possession of his senses would feel himself called upon to stay the plague with all his power and might. But the very reverse of all this is evidently the case; and it may be doubted if any sovereign in Europe has less taste for license and misrule than King Louis-Philippe. Be very sure that it is not to him that the radicals of any land must look for patronage, encouragement, or support: they will not find it. After quitting the Luxembourg, we went to the _bureau_ of the secretary at the Institute, to request tickets for an annual sitting of the five Academies, which took place yesterday. They were very obligingly accorded--(O that our institutions, our academies, our lectures, were thus liberally arranged!)--and yesterday we passed two very agreeable hours in the place to which they admitted us. I wish that the Polytechnic School, when they took a fancy for changing the ancient _régimes_ of France, had included the uniform of the Institute in their proscriptions. The improvement would have been less doubtful than it is respecting some other of their innovations: for what can be said in defence of a set of learned academicians, varying in age from light and slender thirty to massive and protuberant fourscore, wearing one and all a fancy blue dress-coat "embroidered o'er with leaves of myrtle"? It is really a proof that very good things were said and done at this sitting, when I declare that my astonishment at the Corydon-like costume was forgotten within the first half-hour.