Blanden, however, could not but say to himself that political lyrics had already reached that ominous turning point where phrases compensate for thoughts, and every variety of detonating rockets and fireworks have superseded the steady flame of pure enthusiasm. Now his turn came; he knew that his appearance in the Citizen Assembly would be looked upon with suspicion by many of his equals, but he kept his object firmly before his eyes. His equals had dropped him, he turned to the great Liberal party, that was not bound to one district or circle of Government. He possessed no stentorian voice, but his organ did not lack power and warmth, and a certain elegance of delivery kept people's interest awake. Many considered it greatly in favour of so respected a representative of the nobility of the country that he not merely mixed in the circle of the Königsberg citizens, but also participated in their intellectual guidance. His lecture presented a picture of the charters of 1830, and the development of the French constitution under the July Dynasty; he then pointed out the advantages which advanced States like France possessed over Prussia by means of their constitutions, and alluded to the development of public life which with us still is numbered amongst our sacred wishes. But then he showed how the provisions of the French charters were circumvented by the Government, and cast no favourable horoscope for the latter in the existing state of dull, mental fermentation; he criticised the limited right of election and the system of two chambers with acumen, daring which public opinion at that time did not venture to follow. All the same, his speech reaped stormy approval. Blanden could not but admit that this applause rewarded every speaker, who spoke in the spirit of the Assembly, and that when the good master sweep opened his lips and snuff-box simultaneously, so as to launch from the platform a few telling sentences in which his pinches of snuff formed the punctuation, he was greeted with similar applause. Still Blanden believed he had by means of this speech opened for himself a road to political consideration; at last he felt himself to be exalted and calmed; his glance into the future appeared freer, he saw an attainable goal before him. Torn from his solitary brooding in the echo of similar sentiments which met him, he at the same time greeted the certainty that his political convictions would also find a farther soil ready to receive them, that the path to statesman-like importance lay open before him. Blanden's lecture was followed by a debate which commenced with the tickets of the box of questions; the first one concerned political discourses, should they be entirely excluded from these sittings? The committee pointed out that the object of these meetings was not political but social; that these discourses, however, might touch upon politics.