On the only day in which there was much fighting (Thursday), Wiedeman was taken out to walk as usual, under the precaution of keeping in the immediate neighbourhood of this house.  This will prove to you how little we have feared for ourselves.

But the natural emotion of the situation one could not escape from, and on Thursday night I sate up in my dressing gown till nearly one, listening to the distant firing from the boulevards.  Thursday was the only day in which there was fighting of any serious kind.  There has been no resistance on the part of the real people—­nothing but sympathy for the President, I believe, if you except the natural mortification and disappointment of baffled parties.  To judge from our own tradespeople:  ‘il a bien fait! c’est le vrai neveu de son oncle!’ such phrases rung on every tone expressed the prevailing sentiment.

For my own part I have not only more hope in the situation but more faith in the French people than is ordinary among the English, who really try to exceed one another in discoloration and distortion of the circumstances.  The government was in a deadlock—­what was to be done?  Yes, all parties cried out, ‘What was to be done?’ and felt that we were waist deep a fortnight ago in a state of crisis.  In throwing back the sovereignty from a ‘representative assembly’ which had virtually ceased to represent, into the hands of the people, I think that Louis Napoleon did well.  The talk about ‘military despotism’ is absolute nonsense.  The French army is eminently civic, and nations who take their ideas from the very opposite fact of a standing army are far from understanding how absolutely a French soldier and French citizen are the same thing.  The independence of the elections seems to be put out of reach of injury; and intelligent men of adverse opinions to the government think that the majority will be large in its favour.  Such a majority would certainly justify Louis Napoleon, or should—­even with you in England.

I think you quite understate the amount of public virtue in France.  The difficulties of statesmanship here are enormous.  I do not accuse even M. Thiers of want of public virtue.  What he has wanted, has been length and breadth of view—­purely an intellectual defect—­and his petty, puny tracasseries destroyed the Republican Assembly just as it destroyed the throne of Louis Philippe, in spite of his own intentions.

There is a conflict of ideas in France, which we have no notion of in England, but we ought to understand that it does not involve the failing of principle, in the elemental moral sense.  Be just to France, dear friend, you who are more than an Englishwoman—­a Mrs. Jameson!

Everything is perfectly tranquil in Paris, I assure you—­theatres full and galleries open as usual.  At the same time, timid and discouraged persons say, ‘Wait till after the elections,’ and of course the public emotion will be a good deal excited at that time.  Therefore, judge for yourself.  For my own part I have not had the slightest cause for alarm of any kind—­and there is my child!  Judge....