waited within the railings looking on the Place de la Concorde for the arrival of their carriage. This, however, was detained by an unexpected accident, for one of his piqueurs and three of the horses had been killed by the populace, before it could leave the court of the Tuileries. The news of this disaster perhaps made the king's flight more precipitate; he called for two broughams, which happened to be standing on the place for hire, and, entering into one with a part of his family, and placing the rest in the other, he drove off in all haste to St. Cloud. His retreat was protected first by a detachment of cavalry and a party of artillery, which occupied the alley and the place, and another party of cuirassiers served him as an escort on the way to St. Cloud. The king at this time was without any money on his person; for, in his hurried departure from the Tuileries, he had forgotten to take a sum of about 12,000 francs in gold which was deposited in his secreOne of his officers, however, who subsequently joined him, hap pened to have 1000 francs in his pocket, which he immediately handed to his royal master.

From St. Cloud the royal family went to Versailles, and thence to Trianon; and then, having disguised themselves as well as they could, they proceeded by an ordinary conveyance to Dreux, undetermined as yet to which point on the coast they should direct their steps. The Dukes of Nemours and Montpensier had now joined them, but quitted them again to take a separate route, and arrived in England before them. The royal party remained at Dreux that night, and next day the king resolved that they should proceed to one of his forests, in the neighbourhood of Evreux, for the purpose of consulting with the steward of his property there, a man in whom he placed great confidence. This was Friday, the 25th of February. When they arrived there, they found that the steward was absent, having gone upon business to Evreux; upon which a messenger was sent in search of him, and the whole party sought a temporary refuge in a farm-house by the road-side, the inmates of which, entirely ignorant of the quality of their guests, gave up to them two private rooms. This farm-house proved in the sequel a second Boscobel. When the steward arrived, he had a private interview with the king, in which he strongly recommended him to trust himself to the loyalty of the farmer in whose house he was a guest, for he was well known for his warm attachment to his person and government.

The farmer was immediately called in and presented to the king, who found in him all the devotion which he had been led to expect; the royal fugitives remained in his house in perfect security, until they had resolved on the direction in which it appeared safest to continue their flight. The farmer's offer to be their guide was willingly accepted, and as the king had a friend on the coast of Grasse, above Honfleur, in whom he could place confidence, it was determined to proceed thither. The principal difficulty lay in finding any kind of conveyance across the country, for the distance was upwards of thirty leagues; but the farmer had himself some very strong horses, with which he offered to try to go the whole distance without changing. In order not to excite suspicion in the country through which they had to pass, the royal party was divided into three. The king, with one of his grandchildren and the farmer, went first in a kind of cabriolet belonging to the latter, and reached the coast with

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out stoppage or accident. Two or three hours after came the queen and some others of the royal family; and a third carriage was equally successful in carrying to the place of rendezvous the remainder. At this place they found there was no chance of meeting with a vessel of any kind bound for England, and they, therefore, proceeded to Trouville, where they remained two days and two nights, with no greater prospect of success. At length they reached Honfleur, and there found a small steamer ready to start for Havre, on which, still preserving the strictest disguise, they obtained a passage. At Havre, as it is well known, the king found one of the English steamers which Queen Victoria had sent to the coast for his use, should he arrive there, and, after a rough voyage, he landed with his family at Newhaven, in Sussex, on Friday, March 3rd. The Duke and Duchess of Coburg, the Duke of Nemours, and the Duchess of Montpensier, who had separated from them at an early stage of their journey, were already in London.

The last of the royal family who left Paris was the Duchess of Orleans, who, on the disastrous Thursday which had driven her father-in-law from his throne, made an effort to recover it for her child, by throwing herself on the protection of the Chamber of Deputies, to which she went with her two children, the Count of Paris and the Duke of Chartres, accompanied by the Duke of Nemours. The Chamber was confused and hesitated; Odilon Barrot made a feeble appeal for the heir to the throne, which only brought upon himself suspicions of being less warmly affected, than it was supposed, to the sovereignty of the mob. Other members called for the formation of a temporary and Provisional Government, which should take the responsibility off their shoulders; and the question was decided by the hostile irruption of the populace into the Chamber, whose gallantry did not extend so far as to show respect for princesses, and their attitude was so threatening, that the duchess and her party made their way through the crowd and escaped. After a journey, which was not quite so checquered with adventures as that of the king, she reached Ems, in Germany, with her two children, wearied and moneyless.

The danger which threatened the ministers of the crown was doubtless more real than that of the royal family, though it is difficult to say what might have happened even to the king, had he fallen into the hands of the mob, either in the capital or in the provinces. The threats were loudest against MM. Guizot and Duchâtel. The latter, after having escaped from the Ministry of the Interior, disguised, and bearing a false passport, went direct in a post-chaise from Paris to Beauvais. As soon as he arrived at that city, he quitted the conveyance which had brought him, and turning off from the direct route, he made his way across Normandy to Havre, where he embarked for England without meeting with any difficulty. But he found the country through which he passed full of a variety of rumours ; and when he entered a small town named Meru, he was arrested by a body of rough fellows who called themselves the National Guard, and who demanded a sight of his passport. After examining this, and finding, as far as they could judge, that all was right, they allowed him to pass; but they informed him that their reason for stopping him was, that two strangers had passed through the town. the day before, who had not been examined, but who, they had since

been told, were the Duke of Nemours and M. Guizot; and they added, that if they had known it, they would immediately have taken them into the middle of the street and shot them.

M. Guizot we have left in safe concealment in the house of a friend in Paris, while a hundred reports were spread abroad as to the route which he had taken in his flight, which were in some instances apparently confirmed by the friendly fictions of those who were anxious to prevent any suspicion of his being in Paris. One person, on his arrival in London, wrote back to a correspondent in Paris that he had just met the president of the council in a street of the English capital. There was also a circumstantial account that he had been saved from the mob by a member of the Chamber of Deputies, that he had been carried secretly to the country house of a friend near the coast of Normandy, and that he was there waiting incognito an opportunity to pass over into England. At Paris it was universally believed that he was in London; while at London it was as generally supposed that he was at Brussels.

In the midst of this uncertainty as to his fate, M. Guizot left his friend's house without exciting any suspicions, on Wednesday afternoon, the 1st of March, and took his place in the railway-train to Brussels, where he arrived with no other hindrance than that caused by a difficulty of passing the river at Valenciennes, the populace having destroyed the bridge. From Brussels M. Guizot proceeded immediately by railway to Ostend, where he embarked on an English steamer which landed him at Dover about mid-day on Friday, March 3, and he arrived in London the same afternoon. He there found his two daughters, who had arrived with their governess on the previous day, and who had not seen or heard any intelligence of their father, except such as was conveyed by the ordinary newspapers, since the first outbreak of the insurrection in Paris. M. Guizot had removed his family from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the house of a friend, where they were more secure from danger or insult. After remaining till the tumults in the capital were somewhat pacified, the two young ladies, accompanied by their governess, with no other luggage than they could carry in their hands, left the house, and, not daring to leave Paris publicly, made their way on foot through the town, and, unknown, were assisted over the barricades by the very men who had so recently been vociferating vengeance against their father. When they got clear of the town they entered a public conveyance, which carried them to Senlis. There they took the railway, and proceeded direct to Boulogne, where they passed over to Folkestone, and so immediately to London. They were followed in the space of a few days, first by their brother, and subsequently by their grandmother.

VII.-THE REPUBLIC AND ITS PROSPECTS.

FRANCE has at length obtained her much longed-for republic, and M. Guizot's constitutional struggle is at an end. We have yet to see exemplified in that unhappy country the blessings of universal suffrage, and the advantages of national poverty and bankruptcy over national riches and prosperity. We have endeavoured to speak of the past in the light in which it will be viewed by the impartial historian at some

distant period; the future is too full of uncertainty, and the movement of events too rapid, to allow us to speculate upon it. The picture is the more dark to our eyes, from the inextricable confusion of the present.

In many of its characteristics totally dissimilar from the great Revolution of the last century, the Revolution of 1848 has one point of resemblance-the mob of Paris is again the despotic master of France, and it has only as yet shown more moderation than formerly, because it has met with less resistance. The old Revolution raised the lower classes on the ruins of an ancient, rich, and proud aristocracy, and thus gave them the power to tyrannise over the middle classes. The present Revolution is, in one of its points of view, a development, on an immense scale, of what occurred in the Flemish towns during the thirteenth century-the combination of the operatives to coerce and use the rest of society to their own advantage. The suddenness of the change makes it more difficult to foresee in what direction it will be carried, but it is advancing with no common rapidity. One day overthrew the throne of Louis Philippe; the next saw the previous leaders of the movement, Odilon Barrot and his party, who had been willing to stop at an intermediate point, thrown aside and neglected. A provisional government nominally rules France, but it is only at the beck of the populace, and by the toleration of the clubs; it has only appeased them by making condition after condition, and promise after promise, none of which it can by any stretch of possibility fulfil, until these promises are becoming absolute absurdities. The members of this government, no doubt, expect to be continued in power by the result of the elections, but the moment must soon arrive when the mob will find their incapability to perform the conditions imposed upon them, and will turn them off ignominiously, to substitute more violent agents in their place. They appear, in fact, to be already undermined. It is hoped that the moderate party will be strong in the first republican chamber; but the mob of Paris is stronger than the chamber, and will enforce its obedience. The National Guard is already in disgrace, because it demanded that influence should be given to the bourgeoisie. The mob will have no class of society superior to itself; the interests of the "ouvrier" alone are to be consulted; and who is there, as far as we can see at present, to coerce it. There are men among those who at present appear to rule the destinies of France, who are no doubt generous and humane; but when the time comes, which it certainly will, that the mob of Paris demands victims, these men must either comply, or give up their places to those who are less scrupulous.

Liberté! égalité! fraternité! Liberty in France is at present a mockery of the word. There is no liberty of the press; there is liberty neither of thought, nor of word, nor of action. Equality there apparently will be at last; but it is to be feared that it will be an equality of universal poverty and degradation, and many are the miseries and convulsions through which France will have passed before that equality arrives. What sort of fraternity it may bring with it, we dare not predict.

THE RICHEST COMMONER IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER III.

THOUGHTS UPON MATRIMONY-THE QUALITY BALL.

Ir is a wonderfully obliging world this if people did but know it. There are people quite as ready to deceive themselves as there can be others anxious to deceive them. How often do we see good-natured souls helping themselves on to disaster, aiding some enterprising youth in his designs against themselves. In the grand game of matrimony there is no species of gullibility too gross to go down. Not only do the enamoured couple appear quite "beside themselves," but the whole connexion seem to be carried away by a species of infatuation that renders them perfectly blind to what would be palpably apparent in the case of any one else. Old women never doubt that the man in hand is "every thing they could wish," a ten thousand a yearer in short. "True,' "True," they will say to their organ of communication, for they all have their speaking trumpets, through whom they send forth their manifestos, "true, I may appear to some to be acting imprudently, but I have good reason to know hem," &c., which, with a purse of the mouth, and a significant nod of the head, means he's all right, and can stand inquiry.

People like to encourage flirtations, they make a sort of ripple on the calm ocean of society that serves them to talk about. "Well how are Captain Sash and Miss Dancewell getting on?" inquires old Mrs. Lumberton, who, perhaps, has never seen either of them, but has depicted the pair in her mind's eye. Then some officious busybody, knowing how the parents wish it to be, volunteers to get them information-particulars of the gentleman's "ways and means," which is generally about as accurate as an auctioneer's puff.

There is one peculiarity attending the hunt matrimonial, namely, that up to a certain point there is nothing too good for a man-that point missed-and there is nothing too bad. The same ears that imbibed the most wholesale fulsome flattery will suck in the most atrocious calumnies that ever were uttered. Then it is, "O what an escape dear Angelina has had! Can never be sufficiently thankful; will make me most suspicious and cautious in future;" and they immediately cast about for some one else to play the same game over again with.

But we will descend from generalities to the parties introduced at the delightful watering-place of Glauberend. Our last left the subordinates, that is to say, the valet and lady's maid, enlightening each other on their respective masters and mistresses. Shocked as De la Tour was at the first mention of the Dooey's connexion with trade, he yet continued to listen, and his sensitive mind seemed relieved by the assurance of their enormous wealth. He finally parted with the fair maid, satisfied that whatever the ladies were like, she, at all events, was worth looking after. After a French cook there is nothing carries so much weight in the world as a French valet. It seems extraordinary that they should, for though we by no means deny the ability of a Frenchman to dress a dinner, we have seen very few with any idea of dressing themselves. Still there is no denying that there is a certain importance attached to the keeping a French valet. "O, he's a regular swell, French valet, and April.-VOL. LXXXII. NO. CCCXXVIII.

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