l hopes of success vanish in the Chambers, now
embraced Lamartine's plan of agitating the people. They must either
fall into perfect insignificance or dare to attack the very basis of
the government. The party of Thiers and Odillon Barrot joined the
movement, and by that means gave it a practical direction; while
Lamartine, Marrast, Louis Blanc, and Ledru Rollin were operating on
the masses, Thiers and Odillon Barrot indoctrinated the National
Guards. While Thiers was willing to stake his life to dethrone Guizot,
the confederates of Lamartine aimed at an organic change of the
constitution.

Was Lamartine a conspirator? may here be asked. We answer most
readily, no! Lamartine is what himself says of Robespierre, "a man of
general ideas;" but not a man of a positive system; and hence,
incapable of devising a plan for attaining a specific political
object. His opposition to Louis Philippe's government was general; but
it rested on a noble basis, and was free from individual passions. He
may have been willing to batter it, but he did not intend its
demolition. The Republic of France was proclaimed in the streets,
partly as the consequence of the king's cowardice. Lamartine accepted
its first office, because he had to choose between it and anarchy, and
he has thus far nobly discharged his trust. If he is not a statesman
of consummate ability, who would devise means of extricating his
country from a difficult and perilous situation, he will not easily
plunge it into danger; if he be not versed in the intrigues of
cabinets, his straight forward course commands their respect, and the
confidence of the French people. This is not the time for Europe to
give birth to new ideas--the old Revolution has done that
sufficiently--but the period has arrived for elaborating them, with a
view to a new and lasting organization of society. The present
revolution in Europe need not forcibly overthrow any established
political creed; for there is no established political conviction in
Europe. The people have arrived at a period of universal political
scepticism, which, like scepticism in religion, always prepares the
soil for the reception of the seed of a new faith. The great work of
the revolution is done, if the people will but seize and perpetuate
its consequences. Such, at least, are the views of Lamartine, and with
him of a majority of European writers, as expressed in the literature
of the day.

The history of the Girondists contains