and that in the literal sense of the term. For Mauguin gives every Wednesday a demagogue soiree, and one of my friends who this week attended one did not find there a single deputy. An old member of the Convention who was present praised Mauguin for the energy of his action and efforts (fortstrebens); but Mauguin modestly replied that, as regarded this, he could keep no comparison with the men of power of the old Convention, yet that he had gone farther, politically, than his colleagues of the Opposition, and that the latter, as was evident, were leaving him.
But while distress and dire need of every kind riot in the bowels of the State, and foreign affairs since the events in Italy and Don Pedro's expedition become more seriously complicated; while all institutions, and even the royal, highest of all, is in danger, and the political disorder (Wirr-warr) menaces every life, Paris is still this winter the same old Paris, the beautiful enchanted city, which smiles so charmingly on youth, which so powerfully inspires the man grown, and so gently consoles old age. "C'est là qu'on peut se passer de bonheur"—"there one can do without happiness," said Madame de Staël—a remark which was strikingly true, but which in her mouth lost its point, because she could not live in Paris, and Paris was all her happiness. So the patriotism of the French consists in a great measure of love for Paris, and
