ffairs to that of popular
supremacy in religious affairs, from the defence of a landed aristocracy
to the demand for a community of property; and afterwards, in many
instances, returning with the backward current, abjuring freedom and
embracing imperialism.

In the case of M. Sainte-Beuve the changes were neither so abrupt nor so
complete as in that of many others. But his course was still more
meandering, skirting the bases of opposite systems, abiding with none.
Never a blind adherent or a vehement opponent, he glided almost
imperceptibly from camp to camp. He consorted, as we have seen, with
legitimists and neo-Catholics, and allowed himself to be reckoned as one
of them. Through the columns of the Globe, which had now become the
organ of the Saint-Simonians, he invited the Romanticists to "step forth
from the circle of pure art, and diffuse the doctrines of a progressive
humanity." On the advent of Louis Philippe, he was inclined to accept
the constitutional _regime_ as the triumph of good sense, as affording a
practical solution and a promise of stability. But he appears soon to
have lost his faith in a government too narrow in policy, too timid in
action, too vulgar in aspect, to satisfy a cultivated Parisian taste.

A similar flexibility will be noticed in his literary judgments. Shall
we then pronounce him a very chameleon in politics and in art? Shall we
say, with the critic already quoted, M. de Pontmartin, that his mental
hues have been simply reflections, effaced as rapidly as they were made?
On the contrary, we believe that he, of all men, has retained the
various impressions he has once received. Unlike so many others, who, in
changing their views, have contradicted all their former utterances,
disowned their former selves, undergone a sort of bisection into two
irreconcilable halves, M. Sainte-Beuve has linked one opinion with
another, modified each by its opposite, and thus preserved his
continuity and cohesion. "Everything has two names," to use his own
expression, and he has never been content with knowing only one of them.
Guided by a sympathetic intelligence, adopting, not symbols, but ideas,
he has, by force of penetration and comprehension, extracted the essence
of each doctrine in turn. His changes therefore indicate, not
superficiality, but depth. He is no more chargeable with volatility than
society itself. Like it he is a seeker, listening to every proposition,
accepting what is vital, rejecti