How gloriously he gleamed in the glow of the sun of July, which rayed his head as with an aureole, and even cast such splendour over his faults that we were even blinded more by them than by his virtues. Valmy and Jemappes was the patriotic refrain which ran through all his speeches, and he caressed the tri-coloured flag like a lady-love long lost and found again. He stood on the balcony of the Palais Royale, and beat time with his hand to the Marseillaise which the mob sang below, and he was altogether the son of Equality, of Egalité, the soldat tricolore of freedom, as he had himself sang by Delavigne in the Parisienne, and painted by Horace Vernet in the pictures which were so significantly placed on exhibition in the chambers of the Palais Royale. The multitude always had free access to them, and there they wandered about on Sundays, and were amazed to see how citizen-like everything looked in contrast to the Tuileries, where no poor common person could come in. And they regarded with special delight the picture in which Louis Philippe is represented standing as a schoolmaster in Switzerland before a globe teaching children geography.[1] The good folks wondered
- ↑ It is also said that he gave lessons in French in Philadelphia, wherewith there is also a romance; to all of which Heine would doubtless have done the fullest injustice had he ever heard of it.—Translator.
