Never was a great social wrong dignified by higher courage.
Our admiration of the boldness with which these men have faced their fate
is mingled with the deepest regret that the prime conspirators are safe in
Paris; that one sits in derision of justice on fellow criminals--on men
whose crime may have some slight extenuation from ignorance, want, or
fancied cause of revenge; that the other, with the surpassing meekness of
Christianity, goes to mass in her carriage, distributes her alms to the
poor, and, with her soul dyed with the blood of the young, the chivalrous,
and the brave, makes mouths at Heaven in very mockery of prayer.
We once were sufficiently credulous to believe in the honesty of
LOUIS-PHILIPPE; we sympathised with him as a bold, able, high-principled
man fighting the fight of good government against a faction of
smoke-headed fools and scoundrel desperadoes. He has out-lived our good
opinion--the good opinion of the world. He is, after all, a lump of
crowned vulgarity. Pity it is that men, the trusting and the brave, are
made the puppets, the martyrs, of such regality!
As for Queen CHRISTINA, her path, if she have any touch of conscience,
must be dogged by the spectres of her dupes.
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