great mass of the people to back him, he is at least too able a man, be certain, if not too honest a man, to have dared what he has dared.  You will see the result of the elections.  As to Paris, don’t believe that Paris suffers violence from Louis Napoleon.  The result of my own impressions is a conviction that from the beginning he had the sympathy of the whole population here with him, to speak generally, and exclusively of particular parties.  All our tradespeople, for instance, milkman, breadman, wine merchant, and the rest, yes, even the shrewd old washerwoman, and the concierge, and our little lively servant were in a glow of sympathy and admiration.  ’Mais, c’est le vrai neveu de son oncle! il est admirable! enfin la patrie sera sauvee.’  The bourgeoisie has now accepted the situation, it is admitted on all hands.  ’Scandalous adhesion!’ say some.  ‘Dreadful apathy!’ say others.  Don’t you say either one or the other, or I think you will be unjust to Paris and France.

The French people are very democratical in their tendencies, but they must have a visible type of hero-worship, and they find it in the bearer of that name Napoleon.  That name is the only tradition dear to them, and it is deeply dear.  That a man bearing it, and appealing at the same time to the whole people upon democratical principles, should be answered from the heart of the people, should neither astonish, nor shame, nor enrage anybody.

An editor of the ‘National,’ a friend of ours, feels this so much, that he gnashes his teeth over the imprudence of the extreme Reds, who did not set themselves to trample out the fires of Buonapartism while they had some possibility of doing it.  ‘Ce peuple a la tete dure,’ said he vehemently.

As to military despotism, would France bear that, do you think?  Is the French army, besides, made after the fashion of standing armies, such as we see in other countries?  Are they not eminently civic, flesh of the people’s flesh?  I fear no military despotism for France, oh, none.  Every soldier is a citizen, and every citizen is or has been a soldier.

Altogether, instead of despairing, I am full of hope.  It seems to me probable that the door is open to a wider and calmer political liberty than France has yet enjoyed.  Let us wait.

The American forms of republicanism are most uncongenial to this artistic people; but democratical institutions will deepen and broaden, I think, even if we should soon all be talking of the ‘Empire.’

As to the repressive measures, why, grant the righteousness of the movement, and you must accept its conditions.  Don’t believe the tremendous exaggerations you are likely to hear on all sides—­don’t, I beseech you.

The President rode under our windows on December 2, through a shout extending from the Carrousel to the Arc de l’Etoile.  The troups poured in as we stood and looked.  No sight could be grander, and I would not have missed it, not for the Alps, I say.