August 6th.—­Reports are now afloat that the crown of France has been offered to the Duke of Orleans, but that the offer was not unanimous, and that consequently he has not accepted it.  Other rumours state, that if he should be induced to do so, it will only be to hold it as a sacred deposit to be restored to the rightful owner when, with safety to both parties, it can be transferred.  Should this be the case, then will the Duke of Orleans deserve well of the elder branch of his family who have behaved so kindly towards him, but I confess I am not one of those who believe in the likelihood of such an abnegation of self, as this voluntary abdication would display.

Rich possessions are seldom if ever willingly resigned, and a crown is one said to have such irresistible charms to the person who has once worn it, that history furnishes but few examples like that of Charles the Fifth, or Christina of Sweden.  Time will prove whether Louis-Philippe d’Orleans will offer a pendant!

I walked with Comte d’O——­ this evening into the Champs-Elysees, and great was the change effected there within the last few days.  It looks ruined and desolate, the ground cut up by the pieces of cannon, and troops as well as the mobs that have made it a thoroughfare, and many of the trees greatly injured, if not destroyed.

A crowd was assembled around a man who was reading aloud for their edification a proclamation nailed to one of the trees.  We paused for a moment to hear it, when some of the persons recognising my companion, shouted aloud, “Vive le Comte d’Orsay!  Vive le Comte d’Orsay!" and the cry being taken up by the mass, the reader was deserted, the fickle multitude directing ail their attention and enthusiasm to tho new comer.  We had some difficulty in escaping from these troublesome and unexpected demonstrations of good will; and, while hurrying from the scene of this impromptu ovation to the unsought popularity of my companion, I made him smile by hinting at the danger in which he stood of being raised to the vacant throne by those who seem not to know or care who is to fill it.

Comte d’O——­ was as much puzzled as I was how to account for this burst of enthusiasm, for, taking no part in politics, and all his family being attached to the legitimate cause, this demonstration of regard appears more inexplicable.  It seems, however, to establish one fact, and that is, that though the monarch has fallen into disrepute with the people, the aristocracy have not, and this alone proves how totally different are the feelings of those who have effected the present revolution with those of the persons who were engaged in the former one, a difference, perhaps, not more to be attributed to the change produced in the people by the extension of education, than in the noblesse by the same cause, aided by the habits and feelings it engenders.  Whatever may be the cause, the effect is salutary, for the good understanding evident between the two classes tends greatly to the amelioration and advantage of both.  There is something very contagious in popular feeling.  It resembles an epidemic from which few of the class more peculiarly exposed to it escape.