"Now unbend, Mrs. Ermine, and send some plum-pudding for the Arctic sailors!"

On sending the pamphlet, he says: "It may not be very polite to send you my speech in favor of the Arctic expedition after you have expressed yourself so strongly against it, but then a man likes to be read by a woman; so pardon me, if there be anything which requires pardon. Pardon is so easily granted in America! Imagine yourself a Governor, and me one of the worst murderers, and your pardon will be ready!" (This was in 1858, not in our enlightened 1873, when we have Dix for our Governor. (To another lady who asked him for some literary information, he wrote: "The literary pack-horse of the nineteenth century has been searching for your facts all day, digging in a used-up memory-searching for and pulling over dusty folios. What can a pair of bright eyes want of these dull facts? However, Caliban will always pile logs at the bidding of Miranda. He is as faithful as Ferdinand, but he must not expect the smiles which are bestowed on Ferdinand!"

He was once asked by a lady for a few hints about a Louis Quinze dress; and it is a singular proof of his immense versatility, that he answered the light question with a learned treatise on powdered hair, and gave many valuable hints as to the colors which should be worn with it, winding up his note with: "I demand for my wages, to see you 'en Marquise,' and I am always yours, whether I am endusted or enbooked, or whether you are en-violeted, en-rosed, or en-pinked."

Once, on being asked to go and pay a visit in some circle rather given to "mutual admiration," he declined; on being asked why, he said: "I do not wish to be like Joseph in the Holy Family, the only one without a halo round my head."

He wound up one of his most serious letters from the South, after considering all the questions of her political position, with the playfulness: "Take me from this land, where the skies are so blue, and the negroes are so black."

He considered no subject as beneath him if, by illuminating it with his knowledge, he could make it useful, witty, or agreeable to his friends.

It was a serious sorrow to those many friends, when, yielding to the gravity of advancing years, and a certain deep melancholy (not always read aright) which formed an undertone to his richly gifted nature, he withdrew from general society. He had always preferred his happy home and its

gentle influences to all other places. It finally became all in all to him. At a delightful dinner given by one of his oldest, truest, and best friends-Mr. Ruggles-to the Bishop of Lichfield, about a year before the death of Lieber, he appeared, and talked with his accustomed grace and felicity; but on being rallied after dinner, on his neglect of that society which so assiduously sought him, he said touchingly: "All noble things are difficult; society is difficult after you get old; and you grow less noble!"

This phrase, "All noble things are difficult," was one of the mottoes in which he dedelighted. Mottoes and busts ornamented his house. He greatly admired Alexander Hamilton; named a son for him; and had his bust in his library. Many of the portraits of his favorite heroes, as William of Orange, Washington, Hampden and Pym, hung about the room. In the vestibule over his inner door, he placed: "Die Studirende Eule," the studying owl, imported from Berlin. He dated his notes from "The Owley," and declared that he bore himself strong resemblence in feature to that bird. "It has the advantage of looking wise, and being stupid," he was fond of saying.

On the ceiling of the vestibule he caused to be inscribed:

Patria Cara.
Carior Libertas.

Veritas Carissima.

Wherever his eyes looked, they fell on these noble and suggestive thoughts and images. Although his was no "mind of hearsays," he was not indifferent to the fact, that poor human nature must work hard to keep always up to the highest note. He was a man with an infinity of work in him, needing little sleep and little rest. The still hours of the night and the early morning found him at his books.

He was very fond of art. "What will become of the world when there is no Raphael!" he exclaimed. He loved and read poetry in all languages; was fond of flowers, perfumes, and little children. Most beautifully would he talk about Goethe and his universality; but how much higher was the morale of Francis Lieber than that of Goethe!

On what subject did he not talk well? And his voice, rich, deep-toned like an organ, gave new attraction to his wise and witty words.

Lieber was married in 1829, and led a domestic life of great beauty and devotion.

has not the official ear of the Chamber, for he cannot hold his peace. Some of the speakers ascend the stairway with the mien of Brutus; and one fancies, were they in toga and sandals, their harangue would be a close imitation of the old Roman manner. This disposition to act must render it difficult sometimes for the orator himself to distinguish the sham from the real in what he says; and when there is an unusual show of austerity and abnegation, the greater part is comedy.

In the tribune the speaker's back is turned to the President of the Assembly, whom he practically ignores. He speaks directly to the deputies, addressing them as Messieurs; and this way of speaking straight to the hearers, in a mercurial people like the French, incites to disturbance. It is a wise rule in the English and American legislatures for the speaker to address himself to the presiding officer only, and to refer to adversaries in the third person, and without calling the individual name, thus diminishing the chances of offensive personality. In the heat of angry discussion the Frenchman sometimes singles out his man and talks to him face to face, in a manner not far removed from that of a fishwoman of the Hall. Besides, in following this direct mode of address, he is led into extravagances which would be curbed somewhat under the restriction of the parliamentary forms of England and America. Thus, in speaking to a body of 750 men representing the people, he often unduly exalts himself with the idea that the ear of the nation is listening to his words through these 750 men; he no longer addresses an assembly of individuals, but gives rein to his patriotic sentiments and harangues the country at large with inflated periods and some rather wild talk; he speaks to France entire, and from France, as he grows warmer, he communicates his thoughts to Europe, then to the civilized world, and possibly in the end to the universe. This tendency, however, is held in check to a certain degree by the fear of ridicule. If the expansive orator soars too high and too long, a bullet, in the shape of one of those sharp words in which Frenchmen are such adepts, brings him floundering down to earth again. These men of the Chamber are saved from many a serious denouement through a keen sense of the ridiculous. In a word, the Gaul is born a blagueur, and when he laughs he is disarmed. Thus, at a critical moment in electoral reform, socalled, when all are devoured with political ambition and ready to resort to extreme

measures in the way of attack and reprisal, the following resolution is passed around the Chamber :

Article I. That all Frenchmen are, and are hereby declared, Presidents of the Republic.

Article II. That alone, the chief executive officer of the nation is, and shall remain, a private citizen.

This is offered as a solution of the pending difficulty, and, for the time, it brings hilarity and sequent calm to the perturbed spirits of Versailles. Mots are then in order. A man of the Left observes that the President of the Assembly holds himself remarkably well on the political tight-rope, considering that his balance-pole is nearly all on one side. ers quickly follow, and general good-humor is restored.

The President has a large bell with which he strives to keep order. A half-dozen tipstaffs in different parts of the Chamber endeavor to assist him by crying "silence" from time to time, but their cries are little heeded, for they have no authority to act. These subordinates are garbed in silver-embroidered coats, and wear decorative swords. Part of the time the President reads bills and puts questions, and none but those in his immediate vicinity hear him. Again, when the business or question is very interesting, there is a complete lull, showing how quiet the body can remain if it so desires. This lull is followed by a burst of feeling which has been dammed up in the few minutes of order-in loud laughter, groans, or shouts. Little restraint is exercised, and the Assembly is gregarious in its manifestations, the Right approving and the Left condemning, systematically or vice versa. The most frequent words of interruption are "très bien, très bien," or "asses, assez," mingled with laughs of derision and partisan plaudits. In the British Parliament and the American Congress it is understood that the adversary is to have some sort of fair play-that is, he is allowed to make his argument, and if reply is to be made, it is when he is done; here the reply is frequently a running accompani ment in addition to what follows. Much of the time the Assembly is like the New York Gold-room, the voices swelling into a steadily sustained roar.

In America, committees, and especially their chairmen, are selected by the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, and with some regard to fitness; in France, the committees are drawn by lot, and are called bureaus. Thus, a deputy who has spent

pulsion of the man so offending, and a vote of sympathy for the victim in the person of the unfortunate Speaker.

Men of talent in the legislature of America possibly place as high an estimate on their ability as men do in the French Chamber, but they show it less; for with us when men act out the presumption of being superior to their neighbors, they dig their graves politically; hence a certain reserve is observed in our public men touching their own qualities, and in those of England it is still more pronounced. The repressive faculty in the Frenchman is not strong, and his views as to himself are soon ascertained. Occasionally a British member of Parliament is seen who is rated higher by his constituents than he is by himself, but this is rare in France. The calm repressive power of the Briton is now what France stands more in need of than anything else. To triumph in his success is a temptation the Frenchman cannot withstand. To be decorated with the Legion of Honor and not have the red ribbon in the button-hole of all his coats, to be shown in public as well as private, would grieve him sorely; an Englishman has the Order of the Bath, and there is no indication of it on his dress, although it is of more value, being rarely conferred save for distinguished service. To make brilliant, effective phrases on the floor of the Chamber or elsewhere, and then talk about them with friends and admirers, is one of the Gaul's pleasures. To keep the secret of one of his successful strokes to himself, is a trial to which he is not often equal. To possess a talent and be silent about it, is a hardship. Thus, in his successes, the colloquial expansion to which they give rise is the next thing cf importance to the successes themselves.

The central figure is not in the chair of the presiding officer, nor on the ministerial bench. It is Thiers in one of the seats of the Left Center, where he occasionally appears a careful observer of the proceedings. In the flesh, he is the shortest man in the Chamber, and in intellect, head and shoulders taller than the most gifted. The name of Little Giant would be still more appropriate to him than it was to Stephen A. Douglas, for he is shorter. He is rather burly than fat, for his shoulders are broad and he is thick through; he carries his head as erect as it is possible to do. Like most men with a big body and short legs, he has an iron constitution, that stands, even at his advanced age, any sudden and extraordinary demand made upon it; and this healthy organization evidently contributes to the unfailing good-nature which he exhibits.

Most of the time there is a smile twinkling behind the spectacles and turning up the corners of his large mouth; but there are two smiles, one for his opponents and another for his friends; the first has malice in it, and the second is good-nature itself. He is essentially Gallic in finesse and rapidity of thought. In reply, whether in the tribune or in hours of social relaxation, no man is quicker than he. Some of his countrymen show a tendency to talk without a purpose, but this is not one of his faults. He is an indefatigable worker, and whatever he undertakes he does thoroughly, be it negotiating treaties, speaking in the tribune, or writing history. He is He is a complete man, who finds time in the midst of his literary and political labors to hunt up rare objects in the way of books, pictures, and general bric-a-brac. Where his duties admit of it, he is regular and temperate in his habits, and is seldom if ever known to complain of illness or any incapacity for 'work. He is somewhat of a statesman of the Talleyrand school, where diplomacy and expediency exert too great an influence to admit of very high moral aims. Something of the bourgeois, too, adheres to him, and prevents the growth of moral grandeur, which, in the crisis through which he has passed, would appear to be the complement to a man of his genius and ster. ling qualities. In a word, he is not a Washington, although he has an ambition to imitate that great character; he is incapable of great personal sacrifice for the good of his country in the matter of material interests, and this is the most disagreeable blemish in the mar

Thus, in material affairs he is acquisitive and narrow, although rich and without children. When his hotel was burnt down under the Commune, the state, although not responsible for this act of the Communists, offered him a handsome sum for its reconstruction in a style superior to what it was before, and at a time when France was struggling to pay her indemnity to Prussia; and Thiers accepted the money without hesitation. This is in striking contrast to the acts of some of our public men: Washington declined his salary as commander-in-chief of the army; and Lincoln, when Congress proposed to double his salary as President, replied that he could not spend that which they had already given him. This unfortunate trait is ingrained in the character of Thiers, and he is now too old to change.

Thiers is gifted with rare penetration of men and things, joined to a natural prudence which has grown with age. The latter part of his presidency of the Republic furnishes