This desirable end being attained beyond even the most sanguine hopes, the martial fever seems on the decline." Now all this gossip may be accepted as evidencing the tone prevailing in the very inmost circles of the citizen king's friends and surroundings, and as such is curious.
Writing on the 8th of October in the same year, after speaking at great length of Madame Laffarge, and of the extraordinary interest her trial excited, dividing all Paris into Laffargists and anti-Laffargists, and almost superseding war as a general topic of conversation, she passes to the then burning subject of the fortification of Paris, and writes as follows--curiously enough, considering the date of her letter:-- "Louis Philippe, whose favourite hobby it has ever been, from the idea that it makes him master of Paris, lays the first stone to-day.

Some people consider it the first stone of the mausoleum of his dynasty.
I sincerely hope not; for everything that can be called lady or gentleman runs a good chance of forming part of the funeral pile.

The political madness which has taken possession of the public mind is fearful.

Foreign or civil war! Such is the alternative.

Thiers, who governs the masses, flatters them by promises of war and conquest.