genuine appreciation of your works and yourself. But there were others
whom I should never have expected to meet under the roof of a Croesus who
has so great a stake in the order of things established. One young man--
a noble whom he specially presented to me, as a politician who would be
at the head of affairs when the Red Republic was established--asked me
whether I did not agree with him that all private property was public
spoliation, and that the great enemy to civilization was religion, no
matter in what form.

He addressed to me these tremendous questions with an effeminate lisp,
and harangued on them with small feeble gesticulations of pale dirty
fingers covered with rings.

I asked him if there were many who in France shared his ideas.

"Quite enough to carry them some day," he answered with a lofty smile.
"And the day may be nearer than the world thinks, when my confreres will
be so numerous that they will have to shoot down each other for the sake
of cheese to their bread."

That day nearer than the world thinks! Certainly, so far as one may
judge the outward signs of the world at Paris, it does not think of such
things at all. With what an air of self-content the beautiful city
parades her riches! Who can gaze on her splendid palaces, her gorgeous
shops, and believe that she will give ear to doctrines that would
annihilate private rights of property; or who can enter her crowded
churches, and dream that she can ever again install a republic too
civilized for religion?

Adieu. Excuse me for this dull letter. If I have written on much that