Among a free people, intellect alone ought to be admitted into the councils of the nation.
No one could have a word to say against such men as the Duke of Argyll and the Marquis of Salisbury having a vote to cast into the scales of England's destinies; but would not these able members of the aristocracy of birth gain in influence and prestige, if they sat in an elected house, side by side with the aristocracy of talent?
Perhaps they may think so themselves.
The House of Lords owes its existence to the English taste for antiquities or curiosities; this people, to its honor be it said, only slowly rids itself of its trammels.
It may safely be predicted that the first great political gust of wind will blow away to pieces this sort of hydropathic establishment.
CHAPTER XXV.
WHAT FRANCE HAS DONE TO MERIT THE RESPECT OF THE WORLD.
France, ruined by the wars and extravagances of Louis XIV., exasperated by the turpitudes of Louis XV., encouraged by the weakness of Louis XVI., revolts. Thrones tremble, and the whole world is awe-struck at the terrible Revolution. Kings league themselves together against her; but such is her might that, with soldiers half armed, half clothed, half fed, she puts to flight the allied armies of the enemies, who had sworn to crush her.
Up rises a man and wrests from her all the liberty she had just bought at the price of so much bloodshed. To steady himself upon an unsteady throne, Napoleon engages in dynastic wars for ten years, marching his victorious army from capital to capital, while Europe wonders and trembles. At length the eagle falls, and France, sick of military glory, beaten, but not humiliated, takes breath and submits to the Restoration imposed upon her by the allied invaders. To console herself for the loss of the Republic, a form of government least calculated to foster literature and the fine arts, she profits by the return of monarchical rule to inaugurate the Golden Age of 1830. I say the Age of 1830, for such is the name this epoch, one of the most glorious in the history of France, will be known by in the next century. Now appear, in poetry, Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Alfred de Musset, Béranger; in fiction, Balzac, Chateaubriand, Alexandre Dumas, George Sand; in history, Thiers, Guizot; in political oratory, Manuel, Foy, Berryer; in criticism, Sainte-Beuve, Jules Janin; in painting, Horace Vernet, Ingres, Delacroix, Gudin; in music, Boiëldieu, Herold, Halévy, Auber; in tragedy, Talma, Rachel; in comedy, Mars, Duvernoy; in opera, Nourrit, Duprez, Lablache, Baroilhet, Malibran.