eness of
discrimination which must belong to a legislator for a _Christian_
commonwealth."

Much as Margaret admired the noble sentiments expressed in Mazzini's
writings, she admired still more the love and wisdom which led the
eminent patriot to found, with others, the school for poor Italian boys
already spoken of. More Christ-like did she deem this labor than aught
that he could have said or sung.

"As among the fishermen and poor people of Judaea were picked up those
who have become to modern Europe a leaven that leavens the whole mass,
so may these poor Italian boys yet become more efficacious as
missionaries to their people than would an Orphic poet at this period."

At the distribution of prizes to the school, in which Mazzini and
Mariotti took part, some of the Polish exiles also being present, she
seemed to see "a planting of the kingdom of Heaven."

Margaret saw a good deal of James Garth Wilkinson, who later became
prominent as the author of the work entitled "The Human Body in its
Relation to the Constitution of Man." She found in him "a sane, strong,
and well-exercised mind, but in the last degree unpoetical in its
structure." Dr. Wilkinson published, years after this time, a volume of
verses which amply sustains this judgment.

"Browning," she writes, "has just married Miss Barrett, and gone to
Italy. I may meet them there." Hoping for a much longer visit at some
future time, and bewildered, as she says, both by the treasures which
she had found, and those which she had not had opportunity to explore,
Margaret left London for its social and aesthetic antithesis, Paris.

CHAPTER XI.

PARIS.--MARGARET'S RECEPTION THERE.--GEORGE
SAND.--CHOPIN.--RACHEL.--LAMENNAIS.--BERANGER.--CHAMBER OF
DEPUTIES.--BERRYER.--BALL AT THE TUILERIES.--ITALIAN OPERA.--ALEXANDRE
VATTEMARE.--SCHOOLS AND REFORMATORIES.--JOURNEY TO
MARSEILLES.--GENOA.--LEGHORN.--NAPLES.--ROME.

If the aspect of London society has changed greatly since Margaret's
visit there in 1846, the Paris which she saw that winter may be said to
exist no longer, so completely is its physiognomy transformed by the
events of the last thirty-seven years. Like London, Paris had then some
gems of the first water, to which nothing in the present day
corresponds. Rachel was then queen of its tragic stage, George Sand
supreme in its literary domain. De Balzac, Eugene Sue, Dumas _pere_, and
Beranger then lived and moved among admiring friends. Victor Hugo