man did not beg in the name of God, but implored with most believing fervour, "Au nom de Napoléon, donnez-moi un sou." So this name is the deepest word of adjuration among the people. Napoleon is its god, its cultus, its religion, and this religion will, by and by, become tiresome, like every other. Lafayette, on the contrary, is venerated more as a man or as a guardian angel. He, too, lives in picture and in song, but less heroically, and—honourably confessed—it had a comic effect on me when I last year, on the 28th July, heard in the song of La Parisienne the words—
"Lafayette aux cheveux blancs,"[1]
while I saw him in person standing near me in his brown wig. It was the Place de Bastile; the man was on his own right ground, and still I needs must laugh unto myself. It may be that such a comic contradiction brings him humanly somewhat nearer to our hearts. His good-nature, his bonhomie, acts even on children, and they perhaps understand his greatness better than do the great. And here I will tell a little story about a beggar which will show the characteristic contrast between the glory of Lafayette and that
- ↑ French version—"Lafayette en cheveux blancs."
