Harriet's experiences, however, were not all quite so agreeable. Mrs. Marcet, who "had a great opinion of great people--of people great by any distinction, ability, office, birth, and what not--and innocently supposed her own taste to be universal," formed a warm and generous friendship for Miss Martineau, and used to delight in carrying to her the "homages" of the savants and the aristocratic readers of the _Illustrations_ in France, where Mrs. Marcet's acquaintance was extensive. She one day told Miss Martineau, with much delight, that Louis Philippe, the then King of the French, had ordered a copy of the series for each member of his family, and had also requested M. Guizot to have the stories translated, and introduced into the French national schools. This was presently confirmed by a large order from France for copies, and by a note from the officially-appointed translator requesting Harriet Martineau to favor him with some particulars of her personal history, for introduction into a periodical which was being issued by the Government for the promotion of education amongst the French people. The writer added that M. Guizot wished to have Miss Martineau's series specially noticed in connection with her own personality, since she afforded the first instance on record of a woman who was not born to sovereign station affecting practical legislation otherwise than through a man. At the very time that she received this flattering note, Harriet was engaged in writing her twelfth number, _French Wines and Politics_. The topic treated in this story is that of value, with the subsidiary questions relating to prices and their fluctuations. The tale takes up the period of the great French Revolution, and shows how the fortunes of certain wine-merchants near Bordeaux, and of the head of the Paris house in connection, were affected by the course of that great social convulsion. The scene was unquestionably happily chosen. The circumstances were abnormal, it is true; but the causes which created such vast fluctuations in prices, and such changes in the value of goods, were, in fact, only the same fundamental causes as are always at the basis of such alterations in price and value; it was merely the rapidity and violence of the movement which were peculiar. The story was well put together; and the "Illustration" was in every way admirable for every possible desirable object, except only for the one of being pleasant to the ruling powers in the France of 1833.