"I see a thousand phantom forms of LIBERTY--but only one living symbol of
ORDER--that which spoke from a throne to-day."


Isaura left her letter uncompleted. On the following Monday she was
present at a crowded soiree given by M. Louvier. Among the guests were
some of the most eminent leaders of the Opposition, including that
vivacious master of sharp sayings, M. P-------, whom Savarin entitled
"the French Sheridan;" if laws could be framed in epigrams he would be
also the French Solon.

There, too, was Victor de Mauleon, regarded by the Republican party with
equal admiration and distrust. For the distrust, he himself pleasantly
accounted in talk with Savarin.

"How can I expect to be trusted? I represent 'Common Sense;' every
Parisian likes Common Sense in print, and cries '_Je suis trahi_' when
Common Sense is to be put into action."

A group of admiring listeners had collected round one (perhaps the most
brilliant) of those oratorical lawyers by whom, in France, the respect
for all laws has been so often talked away: he was speaking of the
Saturday's ceremonial with eloquent indignation. It was a mockery to
France to talk of her placing Liberty under the protection of the Empire.

There was a flagrant token of the military force under which civil
freedom was held in the very dress of the Emperor and his insignificant
son: the first in the uniform of a General of Division; the second,
forsooth, in that of a _sous-lieutenant_. The other liberal chiefs
chimed in: "The army," said one, "was an absurd expense; it must be put