nly gives certain incongruous
piquancy to her pleasant, kind-hearted exuberance. She returns to
England, but far-away echoes reach her soon of changes and revolutions
concerning all the people for whom her regard is so warm. In August,
1830, came the news of a new revolution--'The Chamber of Deputies
dissolved for ever; the liberty of the press abolished; king, ministers,
court, and ambassadors flying from Paris to Vincennes; cannon planted
against the city; 5,000 people killed, and the Rue de Rivoli running
with blood.' No wonder such rumours stirred and overwhelmed the staunch
but excitable lady. 'You will readily believe how anxious, interested,
and excited I feel,' she says; and then she goes on to speak of
Lafayette, 'miraculously preserved through two revolutions, and in
chains and in a dungeon, now the leading mind in another conflict, and
lifting not only an armed but a restraining hand in a third revolution.'

Her heart was with her French friends and intimates, and though she kept
silence she was not the less determined to follow its leading, and,
without announcing her intention, she started off from Norwich and,
after travelling without intermission, once more arrived in her beloved
city. But what was become of the Revolution? 'Paris seemed as bright and
peaceful as I had seen it thirteen months ago! The people, the busy
people passing to and fro, and soldiers, omnibuses, cabriolets, citadenes,
carts, horsemen hurrying along the Rue de Rivoli, while foot passengers
were crossing the gardens, or loungers were sitting on its benches to
enjoy the beauty of the May-November.' She describes two men crossing
the Place Royale singing a national song, the result of the
Revolution:--

Pour briser leurs masses profondes,
Qui conduit nos drapeaux sanglants,
C'est la Liberte de deux mondes,
C'est Lafayette en cheveux blancs.

Mrs. Opie was full of enthusiasm for noble Lafayette surveying his court
of turbulent intrigue and shifting politics; for Cuvier in his own
realm, among more tranquil laws, less mutable decrees. She should have
been born a Frenchwoman, to play a real and brilliant part among all
these scenes and people, instead of only looking on. Something stirred
in her veins too eager and bubbling for an Englishwoman's scant share
of life and outward events. No wonder that her friends at Norwich were
anxious, and urged her to return. They heard of her living in the midst
of excitement, of admiration,