be ready to sacrifice his friendships and his popularity itself for the interests of his country.

The Revolution of July was executed by the school students of the middle classes and of the people, and conducted by two old men, Lafitte and Lafayette. The former commenced the movement by the lever of his popularity and his credit, and 1.afayette accomplished it by means of the tri-colored flag, and the bayonets of the National Guard. Strange inventicns of modern genius! The telescope has peopled the firmament with worlds of stars. The compass has discovered America. The invention of gunpowder has changed the system of warfare. Paper money has overthrown feudalism, by the substitution of movable wealth, commercial and industrial, to landed wealth and predominance. Printing has pierced a thousand mouths in the trumpet of fame. Steam has supplied, on land and water, the motive power of horses, water, and wind. In fine, the National Guard has taken the government out of the absolute hands of the king, to restore it to those of the country. In fact, the National Guard of each village is master of the village, of each town of the town, of each city of the city, and the Guards united of all the villages, towns and cities, are masters of France. What I say of France may be said of all Europe; for it may truly be said that, throughout all the rest of Europe, the muskets are ready, the matches are ready, the banner is ready, and there remains but to issue the proclamation and appoint the officers. And it happens, as if by I know not what providential design, that the most revolutionary of all institutions has been invented and put in practice by the most revolutionary of all men.

Yes, Lafayette has been the man the most frankly and resolutely revolutionary of our time. He entered with ardor, with impetuosity into every combination which had for its object the subversion of some despotism, and life was with him a stake of no great account. Martyr to his political faith, he would have mounted the scaffold and held out his head to the executioner, with the serenity of a young wo

man who, crowned with roses, drops into slumber at the close of a banquet.

It is confidently reported that after the funeral oration of General Lamarque, certain conspirators entertained the horrible design to kill Lafayette in the carriage in which they led him back in triumph, and to exhibit his bloody corpse to the people, like Anthony, in order to excite them to insurrection; which having been after related to Lafayette, he only smiled, as if he considered the thing natural and an ingenious stratagem!

I have the idea, but do not affirm it-for who could affirm or gainsay it-that Lafayette, on his death-bed, in the last lullings of thought, flattered himself that an insurrection of the people might possibly break out on the passage of his remains to the grave, to reanimate liberty and illustrate his obsequies!

There are many fiery lovers of democracy who might be, as far as the thing is now possible, aristocrats, if they were born among the aristocracy. It is difficult to determine whether such are of the liberal party from spite or from conviction; and their love of equality is often but an arrogant covetousness of privileges which they do not enjoy. But when men of birth become democrats, the people surround them with their confidence, because these have honored the popular cause by a costly abjuration. Such was Lafayette.

He retained, of the old aristocracy, but that refined and sprightly naïvete, which is the grace of speech, and that elegant simplicity of manners, which is passed away and will never return. But his soul was entirely plebeian. He loved the people in his heart, as a father loves his children, ready at all hours of the day or the night, to rise, to march, to fight, to suffer, to conquer or be conquered, to sacrifice himself for it without reserve, with his fame, his fortune, his liberty, his blood and his life.

Illustrious citizen! contemporary at once of our fathers and our children, placed, as if to open and to close it, at the two extremities of this heroic half-century, you have wit

nessed the death of the revolution of 1789, beneath the sabre of a soldier, and that of the revolution of 1830, under the cat-o'-nine-tails of the Doctrinarians; and, notwithstanding this twofold failure, you did not regret what you had accomplished for them, for you knew that everything has its due time, and that, though it may germinate and flourish more or less slowly, not a grain is lost of the seed which is sown in the fields of republicanism! You knew that all nations, some by the direct paths, others by oblique routes, are advancing towards their emancipation with the irresistibility of the current which empties the waters of all the tributary rivers into the sea, and you moved on, with head erect and hopeful heart, along the highways of truth! I thank you, generous old man, for not having been shaken in your faith in the eternal sovereignty of the nations, and for having always sacredly preferred the proscribed to their oppressors, the people to their tyrants! When the veil of a patriotic but deplorable illusion fell from your eyes and showed you the present generation, with its gangrened sores and its dying languors, you turned consoled to the vitality, the virtue, and the greatness of future generations; you did not allow yourself to be overcome, like Benjamin Constant, by the melancholy of disgust, and you were worthy of liberty be cause you never despaired of her cause!

ODILLON-BARROT.

ODILLON-BARROT does not possess, like Maguin, one of those lithe and spiritual figures which twirl about incessantly as on a pivot, and which, reflecting both shade and light, both force and grace, please when painted, by the variety of ornaments and the bold vivacity of lineament and coloring.

Odillon-Barrot is marked rather by the imposing and staid wisdom of the philosopher than the capricious activity and brilliant impetuosity of the extemporizers. His intellect, like a fruit precocious but sound, has ripened before its time. He was, at four-and-twenty, an advocate of the Councils and of the Court of Cassation. Nicod was the dialectitian of his companions; Odillon-Barrot was the orator.

Half lawyer, half politician, Odillon-Barrot had already, under the Restoration, set his name beside the most celebrated names of the Opposition, and liberty was proud in numbering him among her defenders.

Odillon-Barrot studies little and reads little; he meditates. His mind has no activity and can scarce keep awake but in the upper regions of thought. A minister, he would languish and be dangerously dilatory in matters of application. He would be more fit to direct than to execute, and would excel much less in action than in counsel. He would neglect the details and daily current of business, not that he was unqualified for it, but he would be inattentive to it. He sheds his own fertility upon the subject, rather than borrows any from it. He culls off it but the blossom, he touches but the elevations. He reflects rather than observes. What strikes him first in a subject is its general aspect; and this mode of viewing things arises from the particular aptitude of his mind, from the exercise of the tribune and the practice of his former calling as advocate of the Court of Cassation. No man is more capable of making an abstract and presenting

a summary of a theory; and I regard Odillon-Barrot as the first generalizer of the Chamber. He even possesses this faculty in a higher degree than M. Guizot, who brings it to bear but upon certain points of philosophy and politics, whereas Odillon-Barrot improvisates his generalizations with remarkable power, upon the first question that offers. Both are dogmatic, like all theorists. Both positive, but M. Guizot more; for Guizot doubts less than Odillon-Barrot. He decides more promptly, and carries his resolution into effect with the energy and determination of his character.

Odillon-Barrot is an honest man, a quality which I am ashamed to praise, but which, however, I am obliged to praise, since it is so rare. No manager, no intriguer, and scarce ambitious. His political reputation is high and without a stain; his eloquence is always ready when the cause is generous, always at the service of the oppressed. Odillon-Barrot enjoys electoral popularity, but not popular popularity. At the same time, it appears hard to conceive that Odillon-Barrot is not at heart a radical by sentiment of equality, by experience of monarchical government, by conscious dignity of manhood, by foresight of the future. How is it, then, that, in the tribune, he is so prone, uselessly enough, to make dynastical professions of faith? This is sometimes explained by saying that he feels for the person of Louis-Philippe a sort of unaccountable predilection which captivates and enthralls him. But we are very sure that Odillon-Barrot does not love Louis-Philippe upon whatever conditions, after the manner of his domestics, liveried in silk and gold, and that he would not hesitate a single instant, were he obliged to choose, between the cause of the country and the Ordinances of another July.

Odillon-Barrot has a beautiful and meditative countenance. His vast and well-developed forehead announces the power of his intellect. His voice is full and sonorous, and his expression singularly grave. In dress, he is somewhat finical, which does not misbecome him. His attitude is dignified without being theatrical, and his gesticulation is full of