d require a very nice eye,
indeed, to detect wherein the difference lay. The simple truth is
this--that Talleyrand and his associates did in 1829-30, what Odillon
Barrot and his accomplices (including the ubiquitous Thiers) did in
1847-48, but more successfully; for there can be no comparison between
the government established under Louis Philippe and that inaugurated in
the person of Louis Napoleon, and still less between the prospect of
happiness which France enjoyed in 1830, and that which lies before her
in 1850. The experiment has been closely copied by M. de Talleyrand's
pupils, though the result has not been analogous; but this does not
depend so much upon the men as upon the circumstances. Such a substitute
for legitimate authority as the Duke of Orleans was can not be found
twice in the same age and country; and one of the most mournful
spectacles of our time is, the fate of the man and his family, for whom
all these violent, and we must add, tortuous exertions, were made twenty
years ago. Talleyrand's share in these transactions can not be gainsaid.
Though a revolutionist, in so far as the elder branch of the Bourbons
was concerned, he was not, however, a Republican in 1830; and had,
probably, never been honestly so at any period of his life. The feeling
of the ancient seigneur was strong in him to the last; and his
constitutional timidity made him shrink with instinctive aversion from
all contact with the mob: hence his terror during the "three glorious
days of July" was agonizing: and when he discovered that, in the bloody
triumph of the populace, no superiority of rank, talent, or fortune, was
regarded, he trembled for his own safety--"for he knew that the people
loved him not."

Talleyrand survived this, his last great political exploit, nearly eight
years, having expired tranquilly at his hotel in Paris, in May, 1838.
His ex-secretary has a copious and rambling commentary upon his death,
in which there is the usual amount of complaint and vindication. His
patron had become reconciled to the church, and had submitted to its
formalities immediately before his decease; and, considering his past
hostility to it as a social institution, his renunciation of his sacred
vows, and his ostentatious rejection of the Christian religion, such a
step naturally caused some talk, and requires explanation--though none
is given by M. Colmache, beyond the barren and somewhat commonplace
intimation, that "he was influenced i