be it of heart or of table, rules supreme;[1] there is much laughing and dancing; there is the court of the sovereign people; there any one may be presented who is the son of his own works and has never made mésalliance with falsehood, and Lafayette is the master of ceremonies. The name of this country place is Lagrange, and it is very charming, especially when the hero of two worlds relates to the young people his adventures, when he appears like an epoch surrounded by the garlands of an idyll.[2]
But it is in the real middle-class more than any other, that is, among tradespeople and small shopkeepers, that there is the most veneration for Lafayette. They simply worship him. Lafayette establishing order is their idol. They adore him as a kind of Providence on horseback, an armed tutelary patron of public peace and security, as a genius of freedom, who also takes care in the
- ↑ German "Umringt von strebenden jünglingen;" French—"Entouré de jeunes gens au noble cœur." Of the hospitality here alluded to I am well assured. I heard long ago, of a fellow-countryman who, when in Paris, packed his trunk, and, without any letter of introduction to Lafayette, went to Lagrange, sent up his card to the General as "an American," was received civilly, and stayed a week. I mention this not for gossip's sake, but as illustrating Heine's remark to the effect that an unbounded hospitality prevailed at Lagrange.—Translator.
- ↑ This last paragraph is omitted in the French version.
