t debate in the
Assembly involving the principle of the _Higher Law_. The subject was a
bill reorganizing the National Guard, with the intent of sifting it as
clean as possible of the popular element, and thus rendering it either a
nullity, or an accomplice in the execution of the Monarchical
conspiracies now brewing. It is but a few days since Gen. Changarnier
solemnly informed the Assembly, in reply to President Bonaparte's covert
menaces at Dijon, that the army could not be made to level its muskets
and point its cannon at the Assembly: "Wherefore, Representatives of
France, deliberate in Peace." Following logically in the same train, a
"Red" saw fit to affirm that the Army could not be brought to use its
bayonets against the People who should take up arms, in defense of the
Republic. No stick thrown into a hornets' nest ever excited such
commotion as this remark did in the camp of "Order." In the course of a
violent and tumultuous debate, it came out that Gen. Baraguay
d'Hilliers, a leader on the side of "Order," refused in 1848 to take the
proffered command of the troops fighting on the side of Order in the
deplorable street combats of June. This was excused on the ground of his
being a Representative as well as a General! The Champions of "Order,"
having said all they wished and allowed their opponents to say very
little, hastily shut down the gate, and refused to permit further
discussion. No matter: the truth has been formally proclaimed from the
tribune that _No one has a moral right to do as a soldier that which it
would be wrong for him to do as a man_--that, no matter what human
rulers may decree, every man owes a paramount obedience to the law of
God, and cannot excuse his violation of that law by producing an order
to do so from any functionary or potentate whatever. The idea is a
fruitful one, and France is now pondering it.

I attended divine worship to-day at NOTRE DAME, which seems to me not
only the finest Church but the most imposing edifice in Paris. The
Pantheon may vie with it, perhaps, but it has to my eye a naked and
got-up look; it lacks adequate furnishing. Beside these two, nearly all
the public buildings of Paris strike me as lacking height in proportion
to their superficial dimensions. The Hotel de Ville (City Hall) has a
fine front, but seems no taller while more extensive than our New-York
City Hall, which notoriously lacks another story. Even the Louvre, with
ample space and a rare posit