e aurora of a most beautiful day for Russia. How pleased I
am at having always seen in his soul that which this day shows itself
with a glory so fair and so pure! He is a true hero of humanity. He
seems in his conduct to realize all my dreams of moral dignity; and I
find, at last, in this union of religious sentiments and liberal
ideas, the long-sought resemblance of the type I carry in my mind,
and which has hitherto been qualified as fantastic, the creation of a
too sanguine imagination. In him we see, that, even on the throne, in
the wild tumult of all interests, of all passions, one can remain
man, Christian, philosopher; pursue the wisest and most generous
plans; and carry into his actions every thing that is beautiful, from
the highest justice to the most touching modesty."

Alexander testified his respect and regret, when Madame Swetchine
departed to reside in Paris, by asking her to be his correspondent.
The correspondence was continued until his death, ten years
afterwards. The Emperor Nicholas, on his accession, restored to
Madame Swetchine all her letters; and she allowed an eminent
statesman, in 1845, to read the whole collection. After her death, no
trace of it was to be found among her papers. It must possess an
intense interest; and it is to be hoped that it still exists, and may
yet one day see the light.

Perhaps the most intimate and truly devoted of all the friends of
Madame Swetchine was that accomplished member of the French Academy
whose biographic and editorial labors have erected such an attractive
and perdurable monument to her memory, the Count Alfred de Falloux.
The soul of reverence, gratitude, and love exhales in his sentences
when he writes of her. After describing what "she was to all who had
the inexpressible happiness of knowing her," he acids, "and this she
will now be to all who shall read her; and death will but give to her
words one consecration more." But the modesty of M. de Falloux has
not given the public her letters to him, and has kept his personal
relations with her much in the background. We are left to guess the
measure and the activity of their friendship, from indirect
indications.

On the whole, possibly because of the editor's reticence as to
himself, we are left to believe, that the friend who held the
pre-eminent place in the heart of Madame Swetchine, during the last
twenty-five years of her life, was Father Lacordaire, the illustrious
Catholic preacher. A complet