Society under the New Regime.--Controversy
in France respecting the Cost of Government in America.--Conduct of
American Agents in Europe.

Dear ----,

The government is becoming every day less secure, and while it holds
language directly to the contrary, it very well knows it cannot depend
on the attachment of the nation. It has kept faith with no one, and the
mass looks coldly on, at the political agitation that is excited, in all
quarters, by the Carlists and the republicans. The bold movement of the
Duchess of Berri, although it has been unwise and unreflecting, has
occasioned a good deal of alarm, and causes great uneasiness in this
cabinet.[5]

[Footnote 5: Louis-Philippe has been more singularly favoured by purely
fortuitous events than, probably, ever fell to the fortune of one in his
situation. The death of the Duke of Reichstadt, the arrest and peculiar
position of the Duchess of Berri, the failure of the different attempts
to assassinate and seize him, and the sudden death of the young Napoleon
Bonaparte, in Italy (the son of Louis), are among the number.]

In a country where the cholera could not escape being caricatured, you
will readily imagine that the King has fared no better. The lower part
of the face of Louis-Philippe is massive, while his forehead, without
being mean, narrows in a way to give the outline a shape not unlike that
of a pear. An editor of one of the publications of caricatures being on
trial for a libel, in his defence, produced a large pear, in order to
illustrate his argument, which ran as follows:--People fancied they saw
a resemblance in some one feature of a caricature to a particular thing;
this thing, again, might resemble another thing; that thing a third;
and thus from one to another, until the face of some distinguished
individual might be reached. He put it to the jury whether such forced
constructions were safe. "This, gentlemen," he continued, "is a common
pear, a fruit well known to all of you. By culling here, and here,"
using his knife as he spoke, "something like a resemblance to a human
face is obtained: by clipping here, again, and shaping there, one gets a
face that some may fancy they know; and should I, hereafter, publish an
engraving of a pear, why everybody will call it a caricature of a man!"
You will understand that, by a dexterous use of the knife, such a
general resemblance to the countenance of the King was obtained, that it
was instantly recognised. The