‘Was not,’ I said, ’his contrast between the red flag and the tricolor eloquent?’

‘It was a fine bit of imagery,’ said Z., ’and admirably adapted to the occasion.  I do not deny to him the power of saying fine things—­perhaps fine speeches, but he never made a good speech—­a speech which it was difficult to answer.’

‘If anyone,’ he continued, ’ever takes the trouble to look into our Parliamentary debates, Lamartine will hold a higher comparative rank than he is really entitled to.  Most of us were too busy to correct the reports for the “Moniteur.”  Lamartine not only corrected them but inserted whole passages.’

‘He inserted,’ said M, ’not only passages but facts.  Such as “applaudissements,” “vive emotion,” “hilarite,” often when the speech had been received in silence, or unattended to.’

‘I remember,’ said Corcelle, ’an insertion of that kind in the report of a speech which was never delivered.  It was during the Restoration, when written speeches were read, and sometimes were sent to the “Moniteur” in anticipation of their being read.  Such had been the case with respect to the speech in question.  The intended orator had inserted, like Lamartine, “vifs applaudissements,” “profonde sensation,” and other notices of the effect of his speech.  The House adjourned unexpectedly before it was delivered, and he forgot to withdraw the report.’

‘Could a man like Lord Althorp,’ I asked, ’whom it was painful to hear, hold his place as leader of a French Assembly?’

‘Impossible,’ said Tocqueville, ’unless he were a soldier.  We tolerate from a man who has almost necessarily been deprived of a careful education much clumsiness and awkwardness of elocution.  Soult did not speak much better than the Duke of Wellington, but he was listened to.  He had, like the Duke, an air of command which imposed.’

‘Was there,’ I said, ‘any personal quarrel between Soult and Thiers?’

‘Certainly there was,’ said Z., ’a little one.  I will not say that Soult was in Spain a successful commander, or an agreeable colleague, or an obedient subordinate, but whenever things went wrong there, Soult was the man whom the Emperor sent thither to put them to rights.  Great as Thiers may be as a military critic, I venture to put him below Napoleon.’

‘I have been reading,’ I said, ’Falloux’s reception speech, and was disappointed by it.’

‘In his speech and Brifault’s,’ said Circourt, ’you may compare the present declamatory style and that of thirty years ago.  Brifault has, or attempts to have, the legerete and the prettiness of the Restoration.  Falloux is grandiose and emphatic, as we all are now.’

‘Falloux,’ said Z., ’made an excellent speech the first time that he addressed the Chamber of Deputies.  The next time he was not so successful, and after that he ceased to be listened to.

’But in the Constituent Assembly, and indeed in the Legislative, he acquired an ascendency.  In those Assemblies, great moral qualities and a high social position were rarer than they were among the Deputies, and in the dangers of the country they were more wanted.  Falloux possesses them all.  He is honest and brave, and in his province employs liberally and usefully a large fortune.’