portions, had inspired us with
admiration.

We pursued our way along the dull road, now halting a moment to cool our
fevered feet, now restlessly shifting our knapsacks in the vain hope of
lightening the burden, when, being in the immediate neighbourhood of the
village of Aibling, we came upon a second monument equally classical in
form, though of less pretensions than the first. A twice-told tale,
uttered this time in a woman's accents; for the block of stone repeated
the same story in almost identical words.

"Here the Queen of Bavaria parted with her beloved second son Otho, only
comforted in her affliction by the knowledge that he has left her to
become the Deliverer of Greece."

The hopes of the King and Queen of Bavaria, thus unluckily commemorated
by these monuments, were no less at that time the hopes and the belief of
all Europe--with what little of prophetic spirit full twenty years of
experience has shown. Greece, swarming with Bavarian adventurers, till
goaded to the utmost she drove them from her bosom; Greece, bankrupt,
apathetic, and ungrateful; a Greek port blockaded by the ships of her
first defender, and her vessels held in pawn for the payment of a
miserable debt; Greece, piratical, dissembling, and rebellious, aiding in
her weak and greedy ambition the worst enemy of Europe--so runs the
story--but Greek deliverance not yet. Her joint occupation by French and
English forces, and the possible imposition of a provisional government,
may indeed lead to the unprophesied consummation--her deliverance--from
King Otho.

No doubt, those monuments of mingled weakness and arrogance still whiten
in the air; as for us, we continued our march towards the Bavarian
capital, slept at a pilgrimage church that night, and on the following
morning made a bargain with the driver of a country cart who had
overtaken us, and seated on the rough timber which formed his load,
jolted into Munich.

King Louis then reigned in Bavaria, but being so indifferent a prophet
could not foresee his own speedy abdication.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FRENCH WORKMAN.

The original stuff out of which a French workman is made, is a street boy
of fourteen years old, or, perhaps, twelve. That young _gamin de Paris_
can sing as many love ditties and drinking songs as there are hairs upon
his head, before he knows how much is nine times seven. He prefers
always the agreeable to the useful: he knows how to dance all the
quadrilles: