time one of the most beautiful of the royal palaces
of Europe.

At this time the railway mania raged in France, as it did in England.
Foremost among those who undertook to manage the great corporations
which had established district railways, was Arago the astronomer, who,
although a zealous Republican, was ever listened to with respect in the
Chamber of Deputies. These railways indicated great material prosperity
in the nation at large, and the golden age of speculators and
capitalists set in,--all averse to war, all worshippers of money, all
for peace at any price. Morning, noon, and night the offices of bankers
and stock-jobbers were besieged by files of carriages and clamorous
crowds, even by ladies of rank, to purchase shares in companies which
were to make everybody's fortune, and which at one time had risen
fifteen hundred per cent, giving opportunities for boundless frauds.
Military glory for a time ceased to be a passion among the most
excitable and warlike people of Europe, and gave way to the more
absorbing passion for gain, and for the pleasures which money purchases.
Nor was it difficult, in this universal pursuit of sudden wealth, to
govern a nation whose rulers had the appointment of one hundred and
forty thousand civil officers and an army of four hundred thousand men.
Bribery and corruption kept pace with material prosperity. Never before
had officials been so generally and easily bribed. Indeed, the
government was built up on this miserable foundation. With bribery,
corruption, and sudden wealth, the most shameful immorality existed
everywhere. Out of every one thousand births, one third were
illegitimate. The theatres were disgraced by the most indecent plays.
Money and pleasure had become the gods of France, and Paris more than
ever before was the centre of luxury and social vice.

It was at this period of peace and tranquillity that Talleyrand died, on
the 17th of May, 1838, at eighty-two, after serving in his advanced age
Louis Philippe as ambassador at London. The Abbe Dupanloup, afterward
bishop of Orleans, administered the last services of his church to the
dying statesman. Talleyrand had, however, outlived his reputation, which
was at its height when he went to the Congress of Vienna in 1814. Though
he rendered great services to the different sovereigns whom he served,
he was too selfish and immoral to obtain a place in the hearts of the
nation. A man who had sworn fidelity to thirteen consti