masked balls (Redouten) are to be seen in the Palais Bourbon, in the Luxembourg, and the Tuileries. Not only in the Chamber of Deputies, but also in that of the Peers and in the royal cabinet there is played an abominable comedy, which will perhaps end as a tragedy. The men of the Opposition, who only keep on playing the comedy of the time of the Restoration, are masked Republicans, who, with evident irony or plain repugnance, act as apparent aids (comparses) to royalty. The peers now play the part of men who have not inherited office but earned it by merit;[1] yet when we look behind their masks we generally find the well-known noble faces, and however modern their attire may be, they are still the heirs of the old aristocracy, and they still bear the names which recall the ancient horrors (misère), so that we even find among them a Dreux-Brezé, of whom the National remarks that he is only famous for a good retort which he once made to one of his ancestors.[2] As for Louis Philippe, he always
- ↑ "Die Pairs spielen jetzt die Rolle von unerblichen, durch Verdienst berufenen Amtsleuten." In French—"Les pairs jouent maintenant le role de fonctionnaires viagers, choisis a cause de leur merite." Many such passages in these letters seem to indicate a French original.
- ↑ Vorfahren. In the French version "Un Dreux-Brézé, dont le National dit qu'il n'est remarquable que par une belle réponse qui fut fait à son père."
