g in a low tone to a gentleman who was performing the
same office, "Our Whig friends seem in high spirits, baron."

The gentleman thus addressed was Baron Sergius, a man of middle age. His
countenance was singularly intelligent, tempered with an expression
mild and winning. He had attended the Congress of Vienna to represent
a fallen party, a difficult and ungracious task, but he had shown
such high qualities in the fulfilment of his painful duties--so much
knowledge, so much self-control, and so much wise and unaffected
conciliation--that he had won universal respect, and especially with the
English plenipotentiaries, so that when he visited England, which he did
frequently, the houses of both parties were open to him, and he was as
intimate with the Whigs as he was with the great Duke, by whom he was
highly esteemed.

"As we have got our coffee, let us sit down," said the baron, and they
withdrew to a settee against the wall.

"You know I am a Liberal, and have always been a Liberal," said the
baron; "I know the value of civil and religious liberty, for I was
born in a country where we had neither, and where we have since enjoyed
either very fitfully. Nothing can be much drearier than the present lot
of my country, and it is probable that these doings at Paris may help my
friends a little, and they may again hold up their heads for a time; but
I have seen too much, and am too old, to indulge in dreams. You are a
young man and will live to see what I can only predict. The world is
thinking of something else than civil and religious liberty. Those are
phrases of the eighteenth century. The men who have won these 'three
glorious days' at Paris, want neither civilisation nor religion. They
will not be content till they have destroyed both. It is possible that
they may be parried for a time; that the adroit wisdom of the house of
Orleans, guided by Talleyrand, may give this movement the resemblance,
and even the character, of a middle-class revolution. It is no such
thing; the barricades were not erected by the middle class. I know these
people; it is a fraternity, not a nation. Europe is honeycombed with
their secret societies. They are spread all over Spain. Italy is
entirely mined. I know more of the southern than the northern nations;
but I have been assured by one who should know that the brotherhood are
organised throughout Germany and even in Russia. I have spoken to
the Duke about these things. He is not indiffer