It is, you will allow, a little difficult to say:--there is, however, _one_ benefit that the country has gained (as for liberty of press or person, diminished taxation, a juster representation, who ever thinks of them?)--_one_ benefit they have gained, or nearly--_abolition de la peine-de-mort_, namely _pour délit politique_--no more wicked guillotining for revolutions. A Frenchman must have his revolution--it is his nature to knock down omnibuses in the street, and across them to fire at troops of the line--it is a sin to balk it. Did not the King send off Revolutionary Prince Napoleon in a coach-and-four? Did not the jury, before the face of God and Justice, proclaim Revolutionary Colonel Vaudrey not guilty?--One may hope, soon, that if a man shows decent courage and energy in half a dozen _émeutes_, he will get promotion and a premium. I do not (although, perhaps, partial to the subject) want to talk more nonsense than the occasion warrants, and will pray you to cast your eyes over the following anecdote, that is now going the round of the papers, and respects the commutation of the punishment of that wretched, foolhardy Barbès, who, on his trial, seemed to invite the penalty which has just been remitted to him. You recollect the braggart’s speech: ‘When the Indian falls into the power of the enemy, he knows the fate that awaits him, and submits his head to the knife:--_I_ am the Indian!’ ‘Well----’ ‘M. Victor Hugo was at the Opera on the night the sentence of the Court of Peers, condemning Barbès to death, was published. The great poet composed the following verses: ‘“Par votre ange envolé, ainsi qu’une colombe, Par le royal enfant, doux et frêle roseau, Grâce, encore une fois! Grâce, au nom de la tombe! Grâce, au nom du berçeau!”[1] ‘M. Victor Hugo wrote the lines out instantly on a sheet of paper, which he folded, and simply despatched them to the King of the French by the penny-post. ‘That truly is a noble voice which can at all hours thus speak to the throne. Poetry, in old days, was called the language of the gods--it is better named now--it is the language of the kings. ‘But the clemency of the King had anticipated the letter of the poet. The pen of his Majesty had signed the commutation of Barbès, while that of the poet was still writing. ‘Louis Philippe replied to the author of _Ruy Blas_ most graciously, that he had already subscribed to a wish so noble, and that the verses had only confirmed his previous disposition to mercy.’