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thousand men at useless embankments: his opposition, however, has not prevented the responsibility of the national workshops being thrown, most unjustly, upon his shoulders. He was also accused of living sumptuously at the Palace of the Luxembourg, notwithstanding that his expenses were so small that M. Garnier Pagès thought fit to address some observations to him and Albert, on what he styled their parsimony. Neither of them spent, in truth, more than two francs and a half for their dinner. "It has the appearance of a reflection upon your colleagues," said M. Garnier Pagès, and on the expenses they are obliged to incur." "It is very well for you and your colleagues, who receive bankers. and millionaires as guests at your table," Louis Blanc is reported to have replied, “to entertain them handsomely; but I-constantly with workmen sitting opposite to me, who often stand in need of the common necessaries of life,-I could not, without insulting their misery, make a display of a sumptuous table." A few days before the elections, I was invited to a dinner at M. Crémieux's, where I found M M. Lamoricière, Bedeau, Etienne Arago, Louis Blanc, and Albert. I said to the last, that M. Grandmesnil had complained of the bad fare of the Luxembourg, asserting that the employés kept a far better table. "It is true," replied Albert, "we endeavor to live as simply as possibie; we could not find it in our hearts to live sumptuously when the people are suffering." This incident reminds me of another. At this very same dinner at M. Crémieux's a great deal was said about the days of February. Etienne Arago addressed Lamoricière respecting the affair of the Palais Royal. The General avowed that he was then in the most critical position, and that if it had not been for the timely assistance of Etienne Arago he might have fared badly. A great deal was said about the chances of that day, and Lamoricière observed," Matters would not have taken the turn they did, if I had not met with so much hesitation at Court." He then told how, on the 24th of February, at about eleven o'clock in the morning, he waited upon the King to receive his orders. His Majesty seemed much cast down, and referred him to the Duke of Nemours. The future regent, more undecided and more terrified than the King, refused to have recourse to any extraordinary measures. It was this want of instructions that paralyzed the zeal of the General. "All the zeal in the world would have been of no avail," returned Albert. Everything was prepared for sucThe secret societies would have stirred up the military population of Paris. After

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the massacre on the Boulevard des Capucines, the insurgents were determined to conquer or die. The soldiers of Louis-Philippe, in case of a dearly bought victory, would have had to walk over corpses and ruins." I supported Albert's opinion. After what I myself had been a witness to, the issue could not have been doubtful. If the struggle had been prolonged for a few days more, it would only have tended to establish the enfranchisement of the people on a firmer basis."

Citizen Caussidière has now but a melan

choly satisfaction in indulging the rapture with which these first days of the republic had inspired him. "Sad illusions!" as he remarks of

them, "too soon destroyed."

"The bourgeoisie seemed inclined to make concessions to the "droit de la blouse." Evil passions were on the decrease. Paris had a certain festive air about it; some of the theatres presented patriotic plays; the song of the Marseillaise repeated night after night at the Theatre National, by the energetic talent of Mademoiselle Rachel, excited a holy enthusiasm. The people were invited as guests to behold the masterpieces of Corneille and of Voltaire. It may be said that never did the Théâtre National boast of a more attentive or betterconducted audience. It was the least that could be done to mitigate their sufferings by a few hours of honest and elevating amusement. The song of the Girondins blending with the Chant des Montagnards, was like the prophetic announcement of the fusion of all inte rests, of all shades of opinion, which in its action was to destroy, for long years to come, all feelings of hatred and enmity. Paris breathed freely. Trees of liberty were planted in every district. The bourgeoisie, the National Guard, and the workmen, figured in these processions. The clergy were always invited to attend, and speak words of peace and of conciliation. Bands of military music and choral singers added to the splendor of these popular ceremonies. It seemed as if the tree of liberty was never more to be sprinkled with blood. Sad illusions, too soon destroyed! The Préfecture of Police inaugurated one of the first trees of liberty. My speech to the enthusiastic multitude that crowded around me, if not spoken in set phrases and choice sentences, came directly from my heart. Like the priest of the Redeemer, I also preached fraterrity, that I might assure them that the Préfecture, formerly a place of terror to the people, was henceforth the sanctuary of permanent justice, and could in future inspire fear only in those who should break the laws of the land. The most ardent indications of sympa

an attack from the reactionists, armed all the men employed on his journal, who, with himself, adopted a blouse and a red sash, like the Montagnards. His journal, La Commune,' denounced all the intrigues of the royalists; and the name of Sobrier was always to be found at the bottom of leaders too piquant for many palates. He became the object of complaint of all the fearful; and afterwards they took ample revenge for the alarm he caused them. On the eve of the 15th of May, he came to see me. I was in bed, very unwell, and suffering moreover from evil presentiments. Monier and Bobe, both secretaries at the Préfecture, were at my bedside. Sobrier reproached me with not having seen that it was the object of the reactionists to disarm us. After exchanging a few words, he told me that he purposed being present at the demonstration of the morrow; that all would pass over quietly, and that he and his followers were most peaceably inclined; the object of the demonstration being simply to prove to the Assembly that the people desired an intervention in favor of Poland. I explained to him, as also to others who called upon me in the course of the evening, the immense responsibility that would fall upon the leaders of the demonstration if any unforeseen disturbances should give it a different character. He left me, reiterating promises of the most assuring nature. On the morrow, he was one of those who entered the hall, and was seen quite close to the President. Had he altered his mind? or was he carried along by the popular excitement? It is not for me to say.'

So when the days of June came. He knew nothing of what had been agitating Paris for a number of days till he heard of it at the National Assembly. He had withdrawn to a friend's house quite away from the scene of action, and had been busying himself, in the most innocent way imaginable, with getting well as fast as he could, and with the study of some questions he was going to bring forward,-when the disturbance fell quite like a thunderbolt on this amazed ex-prefect!

It was in the hall of the Assembly that I was informed, that the temper of the public mind, which had agitated Paris for some days past, had taken the shape of an outbreak, for I no longer lived in the centre of the city, but had withdrawn to the house of a friend near the Barrière de l'Etoile, to accelerate my convalescence, and to devote myself to the study of certain questions which I had proposed bringing forward."

had come and passed, and its results were stated to the National Assembly, marvellously was it declared that the ex-prefect had posi tively implicated himself, and must be put on his defence! A sorry exhibition he made thereupon, but which he thus characteristically accounts for.

"The continuous state of excitement in which I had been living for the last week, with twelve hours of a fatiguing debate, had superinduced a complete moral prostration within me. Anger and disgust succeeded each other rapidly in my mind. I had often mentally gone through all the accusations brought against me, and yet when I was in the tribune my memory failed me; an invincible drowsi ness came over me, and I felt the utmost indifference to everything around. A prey to a kind of temporary hallucination, I thought I beheld in that Assembly a tribunal of the Inquisition. The semi-obscurity which pervaded the hall, a heavy atmosphere, and faces pale from fatigue, increased the deception. I me chanically commenced reading the enormous bundle of papers I had in my hand, which certainly deserved a better reader. I could scarcely see the writing, and I endeavored to shake off the sort of stupor that was stealing. over me. At this moment, when my memory is clear, I remember that on this occasion I was drawling through my narrative as a priest would his breviary. I kept apostrophizing my self all the time, as follows: "Thy family and thy friends are in a state of anxiety; throw away those papers, and speak out like a man:-a bold, unpremeditated speech will have a better effect than this drawling narrative." In fact, once or twice I stopped reading, and by a few energetic words gained for a moment the attention of the Assembly; but I soon fell back into the torpor that enthralled me, and resumed the interminable manuscript. I suffered terribly that night. When I think of the success some of my speeches have obtained under certain circumstances, I ask myself how it happened, that with so much to say, I did not, according to my own estimation, act up to the exegencies of the case. Opium and fatigue had paralyzed my powers.'

Perhaps we have quoted enough: but a few anecdotes of the mysteries of the prefecture will probably amuse the reader.

SECRET AGENTS.

The author of this interesting volume is already favorably known to the public, both through his pencil and pen. "Walks about Jerusalem" is a popular book; with a subject that has been so often ably handled, that it now is difficult to render popular. There is no part of the world of which fuller and and better accounts have been published than of Palestine. It has therefore become dangerous ground, but the work to which we refer has achieved popularity. The author is an enthusiast. Every man who expects to write a good book on Eastern affairs must be an enthusiast. A dull though an able statistician would make nothing of Damascus. He would break down utterly in Petra-would find Beyrout even yet the most interesting port on his journey-would hasten to Smyrna to inquire after figs to Constantinople to learn the state of the Sultan's finances —or to Alexandria for a note of the Pasha's last shipment of cotton. The Mediterranean is this author's favorite sea, the Nile his pet river. Of the former he says::

"What a halo seems to hang over the shores of the Mediterranean! such as invests no other place on earth. The empires, whose revolutions fill the stirring page of history, from its dawning light down to modern times, are all around; some, as Tyre and Carthage, having indeed utterly perished; but others, like Egypt, leaving behind a glorious legacy of monumental records. Where can we wander in this beautiful sea, without being reminded of the great and the good of past ages ? Our footsteps are ever in the tract of sages and poets, of prophets and apostles, or of Him who is greater than all."

The details of preparation for a journey from Cairo through the wilderness, or anywhere else, are now so well known that we pass them by, as does the author, quietly. We should remark that the volume abounds with beautiful illustrations, of which the first is Cairo. The party started on the 1st October, not of the last October, but, we presume, the one immediately preceding it. Their route was that of the overland mail to Suez, and, therefore, as far as that town, though in, they seemed not to be of, the desert; for, in some respects, Egypt has again become a highway of the nations.

writes what would seem absurd, if we forget that he was an experienced traveller, who had been ere then in the desert :

"What most surprised me was the elasticity of spirits I generally experienced in the wil derness. The dry pure air probably had much to do with this.

Sometimes the sense of free movement over the boundless expanse was indescribably and wildly ecstatic; in general the incidents of our little caravan seemed sufficient! stimulus, and a universal cheerfulness prevailed among us in those hours of dawn."

When the sun was up, they felt the miseries of thirst in the desert, and the water was always bad. The evidence of this witness regarding the wilderness corresponds exactly with that of previous travellers. He says:

"There is a terrible and triumphal power of the sun upon this wide region of sterility and death, like that of a despot over a realm blighted by his destructive sway; no trace of verdure is there but the stunted shrubs, which struggle at wide intervals about the sandy bed of some dried watercourse; no sign of living thing but the burrow of the rat, the slimy trail of the serpent, or the carcase of the camel who makes his grave as well as his home in the wilderness, met with in every stage of decay, from the moment when the vultures have but just fleshed their beaks in his fallen corpse, till, stripped of every integument, the wind whistles through the ghastly framework of his naked ribs, and his bones falling asunder and bleached by heat and wind, serve to mark the appointed track upon which his strength was spent."

Egypt is still under the curse of vermin.— Miss Martineau complained sadly of their annoyance. Messrs. Irby and Mangles were hunted by them wherever they turned. This author folded his own sheets, spread his carpet, kept the Arabs at a distance, and enjoyed an entire exemption from all the plagues.

The party reached Suez at the same time with the steamer which brought the Overland Mail from Bombay. The arrival offered the traveller an opportunity of gathering up his own stray thoughts of home. He had been struck with the respect paid to the name of his country in the desert, and in the sickly travellers by the caravan he saw part of the prize. It was