one of these orators arose
to supreme power, and that they were not equal to Mirabeau and other
great lights in the Revolutionary period. They were comparatively
inexperienced in parliamentary business, and were watched and fettered
by a hostile government, and could not give full scope to their
indignant eloquence without personal peril. Nor did momentous questions
of reform come before them for debate, as was the case in England during
the agitation on the Reform Bill. They did little more than show the
spirit that was in them, which under more favorable circumstances would
arouse the nation.

There was one more power which should be mentioned in connection with
that period of torpor and reaction, and that was the influence of the
_salons_. To these all the bright intellects of Paris resorted, and gave
full vent to their opinions,--artists, scholars, statesmen, journalists,
men of science, and brilliant women, in short, whoever was distinguished
in any particular sphere; and these composed what is called society, a
tremendous lever in fashionable life. In the _salons_ of Madame de
Stael, of the Duchesse de Duras, of the Duchesse de Broglie, of Madame
de St. Aulaire, and of Madame de Montcalm, all parties were represented,
and all subjects were freely discussed. Here Sainte-Beuve discoursed
with those whom he was afterward to criticise; here Talleyrand uttered
his concise and emphatic sentences; here Lafayette won hearts by his
courteous manners and amiable disposition; here Guizot prepared himself
for the tribune and the Press; here Villemain, with proud indifference,
broached his careless scepticism; here Montlosier blended aristocratical
paradoxes with democratic theories. All these great men, and a host of
others,--Beranger, Constant, Etienne, Lamartine, Pasquier, Mounier,
Mole, De Neuville, Laine, Barante, Cousin, Sismondi,--freely exchanged
opinions, and rested from their labors; a group of geniuses worth more
than armies in the great contests between Liberty and Absolutism.

And here it may be said that these kings and queens of society
represented not material interests,--not commerce, not manufactures, not
stocks, not capital, not railways, not trade, not industrial
exhibitions, not armies and navies, but ideas, those invisible agencies
which shake thrones and make revolutions, and lift the soul above that
which is transient to that which is permanent,--to religion, to
philosophy, to art, to poetry, to the gl