Statesmen, wits, philosophers, beauties, dandies, blacklegs,
adventurers, artists, idlers, the king and his court, beggars with
matches crying for charity, wretched creatures dying of disease and want
in garrets. There is no condition of life which is not to be found in
this gorgeous and fantastic Fairyland."

Macaulay had excellent opportunities for seeing behind the scenes during
the closing acts of the great drama that was being played out through
those summer months. The Duc de Broglie, then Prime Minister, treated
him with marked attention, both as an Englishman of distinction, and as
his father's son. He was much in the Chamber of Deputies, and witnessed
that strange and pathetic historical revival when, after an interval of
forty such years as mankind had never known before, the aged La Fayette
again stood forth, in the character of a disinterested dictator, between
the hostile classes of his fellow-countrymen.

"De La Fayette is so overwhelmed with work that I scarcely knew how
to deliver even Brougham's letter, which was a letter of business, and
should have thought it absurd to send him Mackintosh's, which was a mere
letter of introduction, I fell in with an English acquaintance who told
me that he had an appointment with La Fayette, and who undertook to
deliver them both. I accepted his offer, for, if I had left them with
the porter, ten to one they would never have been opened. I hear that
hundreds of letters are lying in the lodge of the hotel. Every Wednesday
morning, from nine to eleven, La Fayette gives audience to anybody who
wishes to speak with him; but about ten thousand people attend on these
occasions, and fill, not only the house, but all the courtyard and half
the street. La Fayette is Commander in Chief of the National Guard of
France. The number of these troops in Paris alone is upwards of forty
thousand. The Government find a musket and bayonet; but the uniform,
which costs about ten napoleons, the soldiers provide themselves. All
the shopkeepers are enrolled, and I cannot sufficiently admire their
patriotism. My landlord, Meurice, a man who, I suppose, has realised a
million francs or more, is up one night in four with his firelock doing
the duty of a common watchman.

"There is, however, something to be said as an explanation of the zeal
with which the bourgeoisie give their time and money to the public. The
army received so painful a humiliation in the battles of July that it
is by no me