failures a triumph for himself.  His management of the language, too, was masterly, and French is the best of languages for such a purpose,—­clear, flexible, full of sparkling points and quick, picturesque turns, with a subtile blandness that makes the dart tickle while it wounds.  Truly he pleased the fancy, filled the ear, and carried us pleasantly along over the smooth, swift waters; but then came from the crowd a gentleman, not one of the appointed orators of the evening, but who had really something in his heart to say,—­a grave, dark man, with Spanish eyes, and the simple dignity of honor and earnestness in all his gesture and manner.  He said in few and unadorned words his say, and the sense of a real presence filled the room, and those charms of rhetoric faded, as vanish the beauties of soap-bubbles from the eyes of astonished childhood.

I was present on one good occasion at the Academy the day that M. Remusat was received there in the place of Royer-Collard.  I looked down from one of the tribunes upon the flower of the celebrities of France, that is to say, of the celebrities which are authentic, comme il faut.  Among them were many marked faces, many fine heads; but in reading the works of poets we always fancy them about the age of Apollo himself, and I found with pain some of my favorites quite old, and very unlike the company on Parnassus as represented by Raphael.  Some, however, were venerable, even noble, to behold.  Indeed, the literary dynasty of France is growing old, and here, as in England and Germany, there seems likely to occur a serious gap before the inauguration of another, if indeed another is coming.

However, it was an imposing sight; there are men of real distinction now in the Academy, and Moliere would have a fair chance if he were proposed to-day.  Among the audience I saw many ladies of fine expression and manner, as well as one or two precieuses ridicules, a race which is never quite extinct.

M. Remusat, as is the custom on these occasions, painted the portrait of his predecessor; the discourse was brilliant and discriminating in the details, but the orator seemed to me to neglect drawing some obvious inferences which would have given a better point of view for his subject.

A seance to me much more impressive find interesting was one which borrowed nothing from dress, decorations, or the presence of titled pomp.  I went to call on La Mennais, to whom I had a letter, I found him in a little study; his secretary was writing in a larger room through which I passed.  With him was a somewhat citizen-looking, but vivacious, elderly man, whom I was at first sorry to see, having wished for half an hour’s undisturbed visit to the apostle of Democracy.  But how quickly were those feelings displaced by joy when he named to me the great national lyrist of France, the unequalled Beranger.  I had not expected to see him at all, for he is not one to be seen in any show place; he lives in the hearts