While Louis Philippe lives, the gases, compressed by his strong grasp, may not burst up to light; but the need of some radical measures of reform is not less strongly felt in France than elsewhere, and the time will come before long when such will be imperatively demanded.  The doctrines of Fourier are making considerable progress, and wherever they spread, the necessity of some practical application of the precepts of Christ, in lieu of the mummeries of a worn-out ritual, cannot fail to be felt.  The more I see of the terrible ills which infest the body politic of Europe, the more indignation I feel at the selfishness or stupidity of those in my own country who oppose an examination of these subjects,—­such as is animated by the hope of prevention.  The mind of Fourier was, in many respects, uncongenial to mine.  Educated in an age of gross materialism, he was tainted by its faults.  In attempts to reorganize society, he commits the error of making soul the result of health of body, instead of body the clothing of soul; but his heart was that of a genuine lover of his kind, of a philanthropist in the sense of Jesus,—­his views were large and noble.  His life was one of devout study on these subjects, and I should pity the person who, after the briefest sojourn in Manchester and Lyons,—­the most superficial acquaintance with the population of London and Paris,—­could seek to hinder a study of his thoughts, or be wanting in reverence for his purposes.  But always, always, the unthinking mob has found stones on the highway to throw at the prophets.

Amid so many great causes for thought and anxiety, how childish has seemed the endless gossip of the Parisian press on the subject of the Spanish marriage,—­how melancholy the flimsy falsehoods of M. Guizot,—­more melancholy the avowal so naively made, amid those falsehoods, that to his mind expediency is the best policy!  This is the policy, said he, that has made France so prosperous.  Indeed, the success is correspondent with the means, though in quite another sense than that he meant.

I went to the Hotel des Invalides, supposing I should be admitted to the spot where repose the ashes of Napoleon, for though I love not pilgrimages to sepulchres, and prefer paying my homage to the living spirit rather than to the dust it once animated, I should have liked to muse a moment beside his urn; but as yet the visitor is not admitted there.  In the library, however, one sees the picture of Napoleon crossing the Alps, opposite to that of the present King of the French.  Just as they are, these should serve as frontispieces to two chapters of history.  In the first, the seed was sown in a field of blood indeed, yet was it the seed of all that is vital in the present period.  By Napoleon the career was really laid open to talent, and all that is really great in France now consists in the possibility that talent finds of struggling to the light.