n end; and open
to an easy, unrestricted course, which excited apprehension that they
might themselves drift towards the rocks they cautioned others to avoid.
At the same time the spirit of partisanship, inclining men to be wrapped
up and isolated in the narrow circle of their immediate associates,
without remembering the general public for whom they labour and to whom
they speak, exercised too much influence in the pages of the 'Globe.'
Turgot intended to write several articles for the 'Encyclopaedia.'
D'Alembert came one day to ask him for them. Turgot declined: "You
incessantly say _we_," he replied; "the public will soon say _you_; I do
not wish to be so enrolled and classed." But these faults of the
'Globe,' apparent today, were concealed, thirty years ago, by the merit
of its opposition; for political opposition was at the bottom of this
miscellany, and obtained favour for it with many in the party opposed to
the Restoration, to whom its philosophical and literary opinions were
far from acceptable. In February, 1830, under the ministry of
M. de Polignac, the 'Globe,' yielding to its inclination, became
decidedly a great political journal; and from his retirement at
Carquerannes, near Hyeres, where he had gone to reconcile his labour
with his health, M. Augustine Thierry wrote to me as follows:--"What
think you of the 'Globe' since it has changed its character? I know not
why I am vexed to find in it all those trifling points of news and daily
discussion. Formerly we concentrated our thoughts to read it, but now
that is no longer possible; the attention is distracted and divided.
There are still the same spirit and the same articles, but it is
disagreeable to encounter by their side these commonplace and every-day
matters." M. Augustine Thierry was right. The 'Globe' sank materially by
becoming a political journal, like so many others; but it had not been
the less essentially political from its commencement, in tendency and
inspiration. Such was the general spirit of the time; and, far from
avoiding this, the 'Globe' was deeply impregnated with it.

Even under the controlling influence of the right-hand party, the
Restoration made no attempt to stifle this actual but indirect
opposition, which they felt to be troublesome though not openly hostile:
justice requires that we should remember this to the credit of that
epoch. In the midst of the constant alarms excited by political liberty
and the efforts of power to re