e
crowds in the streets, and has a great effect on them. His vast wealth,
and the frequent and extensive aid it has afforded to the working
classes, have rendered him one of, if not the most popular man in
Paris: so that those most conversant with the actual state of affairs,
pronounce that with Lafayette and Laffitte now rest the destiny of
France. How strange is the alteration which has occurred within so
short a space of time! Five days ago, Charles the Tenth reigned in the
Tuileries; at present, on Lafayette and Laffitte it depends whether he
ever enters his palace again! The tocsin is now sounding! How
strangely, how awfully it strikes on the ear! All this appears like a
dream.

The formation of a provisional government is to-day spoken of. The cry
of "_Vive Napoleon!_" has been heard repeatedly shouted from one mass
of people, while "_Vive la republique!_" has been as loudly vociferated
by another. Various persons connected with both the royalist and
popular party, have been here to-day, so that I hear the opinions
entertained by the adherents of both sides of the question. Which to
credit I know not: there is but one point on which both agree, and that
is in praising the bravery and forbearance of the people.

When I look around on the precious objects that cover the tables,
consoles, and cabinets in the salon where I am now writing, and reflect
that these same people are not only in arms, but I may say masters of
the town, I cannot help wondering at their total avoidance of pillage
when such rich booties might be so easily acquired. Perhaps there is no
European city in which so many and such splendid collections of rare
and precious articles are to be found, as at Paris. In England, our
nobility possess equal treasures, but they are contained in their
country seats; whereas it is in the Parisian dwellings of the French
noblesse, that their valuable possessions of rare objects are to be
found, and at the present crisis, how soon could an armed mass seize
them!

_28th_.--The Duchesse de Guiche was exposed to considerable danger to
day, and evinced a courage nearly allied to temerity in speaking her
sentiments on the occasion. Alarmed for the safety of her eldest son,
she was proceeding to his college in search of him, when she was
stopped by a vast crowd of people assembled around the house of one of
the tradespeople of the royal family, over whose door were the arms of
France.

The frightened tradesman was