iron armour, and it is touching when he totters under it to the tribune and has reached his old post, to see how he draws a deep breath and smiles. This smile, the deportment, and the whole being of the man while speaking on the tribune, are indescribable. There is in it all so much that is winsome and yet so much delicate irony, that one is enchained or enchanted as by a marvellous curiosity and a sweet strange enigma. We know not if these are the refined manners of a French marquis or the straightforward simplicity of an American citizen. All that is best in the ancien régime, the chivalresque courtesy and tact, are here marvellously fused with what is best in the modern bourgeoisie, love of freedom, simplicity, and honour. Nothing is more interesting than when mention is made in the Chamber of the first days of the Revolution, and some one in doctrinaire fashion tears some historical fact from its true connection and turns it to his own account in speech. Then Lafayette destroys with a few words the erroneous deduction by illustrating or correcting the true sense of such an event by citing the circumstances relating to it. Even Thiers must in such a case strike sail, and the great historiographer of the Revolution bows before the outburst of its great and living monument, General Lafayette.
There sits in the Chamber just before the tri-
