A HAPPY EXILE.

I.

A heavy load was lifted, the air seemed lighter, one could breathe freely. The uprising in Paris was but short-lived, the bloody skirmish had lasted two days and Louis Phillipe was once more safe on his throne, reinforced by a new cabinet. The citizen-king—le roi citoyen—once more made the people believe that he was the same Louis Phillipe who had been in the habit of carrying an umbrella like any plain citizen, with a modest round felt hat on his uncrowned head no different from one worn by the masses. Peace was again restored. The red flag was again replaced by the one of three colors; the shouts of “Long live the Republic” and “Down with Louis Phillipe” had once more been hushed; the vicinity of the Cloister St. Merry, where the zealous One Hundred Republicans had fought and fallen, was quiet and deserted. The French capital always lived from day to day and forgot the past. Barricades and booming cannon one day, gay laughter and resplendent parades the next.

The genial sun of early summer was in the sky and all Paris seemed to have turned out into the streets, into the public gardens, into the parks; God, feeling bored in his celestial abode, “opened the window of heaven and looked down on the Boulevards.” And the Boulevards were amusing enough. The deathly clash of a few days ago was forgotten. There was merriment in every face; smiling eyes beamed above the marble-topped tables along the sidewalks in front of the busy cafés; from side streets came the tremulous gurgling of hurdy-gurdies, the emotional tones of chanting beggars, singing the latest, La Parisienne. Suddenly a frantic, joyous shout rent the air; handkerchiefs waved, canes were brandished—the variegated colors of a crowd in motion. An old man in a phaeton passed. His white hair was covered with a brown wig; his kindly eyes sparkled with youth in spite of his seventy-four years; he raised his hat and bowed with military dignity and yet with the humility of the very great.

“Vive le général LaFayette!”

The appearance of the hero of two hemispheres on the Boulevards always had a soothing effect upon the masses. They felt that with this champion of liberty still among them the rights of the people were preserved.