"Things, in their continual and fatal transformations, do not always carry every intelligence with them; they do not master every character with equal facility; they do not take the same care of all interests: this is what we must understand and make some allowance for the protests raised on behalf of the past. When a particular period is finished, the mould is shattered, and it is enough for Providence that it can not be made over again; but of the fragments left upon the ground, there are occasionally some that are beautiful to look upon." After these fine lines, I myself added this summary: "The man who was able to write those words has reasons for sympathy with those who have faith in Providence, who respect the religion of the past and who also have their eyes fixed upon fragments." M. Carrel came to thank me. He represented both the courage and the talent of the _National_, on which he worked with Messieurs Thiers and Mignet. M. Carrel belongs to a pious and royalist family of Rouen: the blind Legitimacy, which rarely distinguished merit, misjudged M. Carrel. Proud and alive to his worth, he had resort to dangerous opinions, in which one finds a compensation for the sacrifices one lays upon one's self: there happened to him what happens to all characters fit for great movements. When unforeseen circumstances oblige them to restrict themselves within a narrow circle, they consume their super-abundant faculties in efforts which go beyond the opinions and events of the day. Before revolutions, superior men die unknown: their public has not yet come; after revolutions, superior men die neglected: their public has disappeared. M. Carrel is not happy: there is nothing more material than his ideas, nothing more romantic than his life. After being a republican volunteer in Spain, in 1823, being captured on the battle-field, condemned to death by the French authorities, and escaping a thousand dangers, he finds love mingled with the pleasures of his private existence. He has to protect a passion[359] which is the mainstay of his existence; and this large-hearted man, ever ready to face a sword's point by day-light, sets wicket-gates before him, and the shades of night: he walks in the silent fields with a beloved woman at that first dawn at which the reveille used to call him to the attack of the enemy's tents. I leave M. Armand Carrel in order to write a few words on our famous song-writer. You will find my story too short, reader, but I have a claim on your indulgence: his name and his songs must be engraved on your memory. M. de Béranger is not, like M. Carrel, obliged to conceal his love-affairs. After singing the praises of liberty and the popular virtues, while defying the gaols of the kings, he puts his _amours_ into a couplet, and behold Lisette immortalized. [Sidenote: A flying visit to Paris.]