compels me to say, I cannot subscribe to this opinion.  My own observation, imperfect though it be, has led to a different conclusion.  I believe there are thousands, even among those who throng the Tuileries, who would hasten to throw off the mask at the first serious misfortune that should befall the present dynasty, and who would range themselves on the side of what is called legitimacy.  In respect to parties, I think the republicans the boldest, in possession of the most talents compared to numbers, and the least numerous; the friends of the King (active and passive) the least decided, and the least connected by principle, though strongly connected by a desire to prosecute their temporal interests, and more numerous than the republicans; the Carlists or Henriquinquists the most numerous, and the most generally, but secretly, sustained by the rural population, particularly in the west and south.

Lafayette frankly admitted, what all now seem disposed to admit, that it was a fault not to have made sure of the institutions before the King was put upon the throne.  He affirmed, however, it was much easier to assert the wisdom of taking this precaution, than to have adopted it in fact.  The world, I believe, is in error about most of the political events that succeeded the three days.

LETTER II.

The Cholera in Paris.—­Its frightful ravages.—­Desertion of the city—­My determination to remain.—­Deaths in the higher classes.—­Unexpected arrival and retreat.—­Praiseworthy conduct of the Authorities.—­The Cholera caricatured!—­Invitation from an English General.—­Atmospherical appearance denoting the arrival of the Cholera.—­Lord Robert Fitzgerald.—­Dinner at the house of Madame de B——.

Dear ——­,

We have had little to occupy us since my last letter, but the cholera, which alighted in the heart of this great and crowded metropolis like a bomb.  Since the excursion on the frontiers last year, and our success in escaping the quarantine, I had thought little of this scourge, until the subject was introduced at my own table by a medical man who was among the guests.  He cautiously informed us that there were unpleasant conjectures among the faculty on the subject, and that he was fearful Paris was not to go unscathed.  When apart, he privately added, that he had actually seen a case, which he could impute to no other disease but that of Asiatic cholera.

The next day a few dark hints were given in the journals, and, with frightful rapidity, reports followed that raised the daily deaths to near a thousand.  The change in the appearance of the town was magical, for the strangers generally fled, while most of the habitues of the streets in our immediate vicinity were soon numbered with the dead.  There was a succession of apple-women seated at the corners, between the Rue St. Dominique and the Pont Royal, with whose faces I had become intimate in the course of P——­’s traffic, as we passed to and fro, between the hotel and the Tuileries.  Every one of these disappeared; the last, I was told, dropping from her chair, and dying before those who came to her aid had reached the nearest hospital.