The genuine temper of the people?--Nay, but this phrase must be mended ere it can convey to you any idea of what is indeed likely to be made visible; for, as it stands, it might intimate that the people were of one temper; and anything less like the truth than this cannot easily be imagined. The temper of the people of Paris upon the subject of this "atrocious trial," as all parties not connected with the government are pleased to call it, varies according to their politics,--from rage and execration to ecstasy and delight--from indifference to enthusiasm--from triumph to despair. It will be impossible, my friend, to ramble up and down Paris for eight or nine weeks, with a note-book in my hand, without recurring again and again to a theme that meets us in every _salon_, murmurs through the corridors of every theatre, glares from the eyes of the republican, sneers from the lip of the doctrinaire, and in some shape or other crosses our path, let it lead in what direction it may. This being inevitable, the monster must be permitted to protrude its horns occasionally; nor must I bear the blame should it sometimes appear to you a very tedious and tiresome monster indeed. Having announced that its appearance may be frequently expected, I will leave you for the present in the same state of expectation respecting it that we are in ourselves; and, while we are still safe from its threatened violence, indulge in a little peaceable examination of the still-life part of the picture spread out before me. The first objects that struck me as new on re-entering Paris, or rather as changed since I last saw them, were the Column of the Place Vendôme, and the finished Church of the Madeleine. Finished indeed! Did Greece ever show any combination of stones and mortar more graceful, more majestic than this? If she did, it was in the days of her youth; for, poetical association apart, and the unquestionably great pleasure of learned investigation set aside, no ruin can possibly meet the eye with such perfect symmetry of loveliness, or so completely fill and satisfy the mind, as does this modern temple. Why might not our National Gallery have risen as noble, as simple, as beautiful as this? As for the other novelty--the statue of the sometime Emperor of the French, I suspect that I looked up at it with rather more approbation than became an Englishwoman. But in truth, though the name of Napoleon brings with it reminiscences which call up many hostile feelings, I can never find myself in Paris without remembering his good, rather than his terrible actions. Perhaps, too, as one gazes on this brazen monument of his victories, there may be something soothing in the recollection that the bold standard he bore never for an instant wantoned on a British breeze.