Our humble-minded project of looking at the walls which enclose the blustering rebels and their patient judges has been at length happily accomplished, and not without affording us considerable amusement.
In addition to our usual party, we had the pleasure of being accompanied by two agreeable Frenchmen, who promised to explain whatever signs and symbols might meet our eyes but mock our comprehension. As the morning was delightful, we agreed to walk to the place of our destination, and repose ourselves as much as the tossings of a fiacre would permit on the way home.
That our route lay through the Tuileries Gardens was one reason for this arrangement; and, as usual, we indulged ourselves for a delightful half-hour by sitting under the trees.
Whenever six or eight persons wish to converse together—not in tête-à-tête, but in a general confabulation, I would recommend exactly the place we occupied for the purpose, with the chairs of the party drawn together, not spread into a circle, but collected in a group, so that every one can hear, and every one can be heard.
Our conversation was upon the subject of various prints which we had seen exposed upon the Boulevards as we passed; and though our two Frenchmen were excellent friends, it was very evident that they did not hold the same opinions in politics;—so we had some very pleasant sparring.
We have been constantly in the habit of remarking a variety of portraits of a pretty, elegant-looking youth, sometimes totally without letters—and yet they were not proofs, excepting of an antique loyalty,—sometimes with the single word "Henri!"—sometimes with a sprig of the pretty weed we call "Forget-me-not,"—and sometimes with the name of "Le Duc de Bordeaux." As we passed one of the cases this morning which stand out before a large shop on the Boulevards, I remarked a new one: it was a pretty lithographic print, and being very like an original miniature which had been kindly shown me during a visit I paid in the Faubourg St. Germain, I stopped to buy it, and writing my name on the envelope, ordered it to be sent home.
M. P——, the gentleman who was walking beside me when I stopped, confirmed my opinion that it was a likeness, by his personal knowledge of the original; and it was not difficult to perceive, though he spoke but little on the subject, that an affectionate feeling for "the cause" and its young hero was at his heart.
M. de L——, the other gentleman who had joined our party, was walking behind us, and came up as I was making my purchase. He smiled. "I see what you are about," said he: "if you and P—— continue to walk together, I am sure you will plot some terrible treason before you get to the Luxembourg."
When we were seated in the Tuileries Gardens, M. de L—— renewed his attack upon me for what he called my seditious conduct in having encouraged the vender of a prohibited article, and declared that he thought he should but do his duty if he left M. P—— and myself in safe custody among the other rebellious characters at the Luxembourg.
"My sedition," replied M. P——, "is but speculative. The best among us now can only sigh that things are not quite as they should be, and be thankful that they are not quite as bad as they might be."