‘Two men,’ said Ampere, ’Mirabeau and La Fayette, could have saved the Monarchy, and were anxious to do so.  But neither the King nor the Queen would trust them.

’Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette are among the historical personages who have most influenced the destinies of the world.  His dulness, torpidity and indecision, and her frivolity, narrow-minded prejudices and suspiciousness, are among the causes of our present calamities.  They are among the causes of a state of things which has inflicted on us, and threatens to inflict on all Europe, the worst of all Governments—­democratic despotism.  A Government in which two wills only prevail—­that of the ignorant, envious, ambitious, aggressive multitude, and that of the despot who, whatever be his natural disposition, is soon turned, by the intoxication of flattery and of universal power, into a capricious, fantastic, selfish participator in the worst passions of the worst portion of his subjects.’

‘Such a Government,’ I said, ’may be called an anti-aristocracy.  It excludes from power all those who are fit to exercise it.’

‘The consequence,’ said Beaumont, ’is, that the qualities which fit men for power not being demanded, are not supplied.  Our young men have no political knowledge or public spirit.  Those who have a taste for the sciences cultivated in the military schools enter the army.  The rest learn nothing.’

‘What do they do?’ I asked.

‘How they pass their time,’ said Madame de Beaumont, ’is a puzzle to me.  They do not read, they do not go into society—­I believe that they smoke and play at dominos, and ride and bet at steeple-chases.

’Those who are on home service in the army are not much better.  The time not spent in the routine of their profession is sluggishly and viciously wasted.  Algeria has been a God-send to us.  There our young men have real duties to perform, and real dangers to provide against and to encounter.  My son, who left St. Cyr only eighteen months ago, is stationed at Thebessa, 300 miles in the interior.  He belongs to a bureau arabe, consisting of a captain, a lieutenant, and himself, and about forty spahis.  He has to act as a judge, as an engineer, to settle the frontier between the province of Constantine and Tunis—­in short, to be one of a small ruling aristocracy.  This is the school which has furnished, and is furnishing, our best generals and administrators.’

We talked of the interior of French families.

‘The ties of relationship,’ I said, ’seem to be stronger with you than they are with us.  Cousinship with you is a strong bond, with us it is a weak one.’

‘The habit of living together,’ said Beaumont, ’has perhaps much to do with the strength of our feelings of consanguinity.  Our life is patriarchal.  Grandfather, father, and grandson are often under the same roof.  At the Grange[3] thirty of the family were sometimes assembled at dinner.  With you, the sons go off, form separate establishments, see little of their parents, still less of their cousins, and become comparatively indifferent to them.’