I hope in a day or two to receive permission from the Directeur-General, M. Davenne, to examine all the hospitals of Paris. I am working on gradually; but I find more clearly every day that the genius of the French nation does not suit me, and my love for the Anglo-Saxon race, and my admiration for our wonderful Fatherland, increase by the comparison.... We have had a strange glimpse of a revolution, a sort of theatrical representation of what that terrible thing might be. I confess that the whole exhibition seemed to me peculiarly French; and yet there are noble and terrible passions, lying below this mercurial excitability, that command hearty sympathy or serious consideration, and the unjust, tyrannical acts of the Government excite one’s strongest indignation. Now all is quiet again, however, and the whole affair is said to have been planned by the authorities to get rid of certain troublesome men. A. and E. have stood the shock well, though they turned quite pale on finding as they were quietly parading the streets that they were in the midst of an _émeute_, and later I was sent out to see if they had not better instantly return to England, before civil war broke out and their throats were cut.... On the afternoon of the 13th E. and I went out to see the curious sight. The Quai to the National Assembly, more than a mile long, was lined with soldiers with their drawn bayonets. The Louvre and the Tuileries opposite were closed and filled with soldiers. An army of cavalry was mounted and ready to start at any moment. We passed through hurrying crowds full of excitement, hearing fearful reports of what had happened and what was to come. On the bridges, at the corners of the streets, were large groups of blouses, students, citizens, women, listening to some orator of the moment, gesticulating violently. More than once I observed a woman enthusiastically haranguing an audience. The most curious mixture of passions was visible on the faces—fear, anger, indignation, hope, hatred; there was many a figure that realised the horrors of an earlier revolution. It seems inconceivable now that those violent expressions should have died away, and that Paris is going on in its usual busy way. June 1849.