Will this satire apply anywhere in England? Have we any Consolidated European Blacking Associations amongst us? Have we penniless directors issuing El Dorado prospectuses, and jockeying their shares through the market? For information on this head, we must refer the reader to the newspapers; or if he be connected with the City, and acquainted with commercial men, he will be able to say whether _all_ the persons whose names figure at the head of announcements of projected companies are as rich as Rothschild, or quite as honest as heart could desire. When Macaire has sufficiently _exploité_ the Bourse, whether as a gambler in the public funds or other companies, he sagely perceives that it is time to turn to some other profession, and, providing himself with a black gown, proposes blandly to Bertrand to set up--a new religion. ‘Mon ami,’ says the repentant sinner, ‘le temps de la commandite va passer, _mais les badauds ne passeront pas_.’ (O rare sentence! it should be written in letters of gold!) ‘_Occupons-nous de ce qui est éternel._ Si nous fassions une religion?’ On which M. Bertrand remarks, ‘A religion! what the devil--a religion is not an easy thing to make.’ But Macaire’s receipt is easy. ‘Get a gown, take a shop,’ he says, ‘borrow some chairs, preach about Napoleon, or the discovery of America, or Molière--and there’s a religion for you.’ We have quoted this sentence more for the contrast it offers with our own manners, than for its merits. After the noble paragraph, ‘Les badauds ne passeront pas. Occupons-nous de ce qui est éternel,’ one would have expected better satire upon cant than the words that follow. We are not in a condition to say whether the subjects chosen are those that had been selected by Père Enfantin, or Chatel, or Lacordaire; but the words are curious, we think, for the very reason that the satire is so poor. The fact is, there is no religion in Paris; even clever M. Philipon, who satirises everything, and must know, therefore, some little about the subject which he ridicules, has nothing to say but, ‘Preach a sermon, and that makes a religion; anything will do.’ If _anything_ will do, it is clear that the religious commodity is not in much demand. Tartuffe had better things to say about hypocrisy in his time; but then Faith was alive; now, there is no satirising religious cant in France, for its contrary, true religion, has disappeared altogether; and having no substance, can cast no shadow. If a satirist would lash the religious hypocrites in _England_ now--the High Church hypocrites, the Low Church hypocrites, the promiscuous Dissenting hypocrites, the No-Popery hypocrites--he would have ample subject enough. In France, the religious hypocrites went out with the Bourbons. Those who remain pious in that country (or, rather, we should say, in the capital, for of that we speak) are unaffectedly so, for they have no worldly benefit to hope for from their piety; the great majority have no