I have not personally received anything from La Mennais, as, born under other circumstances, mental facts which he, once the pupil of Rome, has learned by passing through severe ordeals, are at the basis of all my thoughts.

But I see well what he has been and is to Europe, and of what great force of nature and spirit.

He seems suffering and pale, but in his eyes is the light of the future.
These are men who need no flourish of trumpets to announce their coming,--no band of martial music upon their steps,--no obsequious nobles in their train.

They are the true kings, the theocratic kings, the judges in Israel.

The hearts of men make music at their approach; the mind of the age is the historian of their passage; and only men of destiny like themselves shall be permitted to write their eulogies, or fill their vacant seats.
Wherever there is a genius like his own, a germ of the finest fruit still hidden beneath the soil, the "_Chante pauvre petit_" of Beranger shall strike, like a sunbeam, and give it force to emerge, and wherever there is the true Crusade,--for the spirit, not the tomb of Christ,--shall be felt an echo of the "_Que tes armes soient benis jeune soldat_" of La Mennais.
LETTER XI.
FRANCE AND HER ARTISTIC EXCELLENCE .-- THE PICTURES OF HORACE VERNET .-- DE LA ROCHE .-- LEOPOLD ROBERT .-- CONTRAST BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH SCHOOLS OF ART .-- THE GENERAL APPRECIATION OF TURNER'S PICTURES .-- BOTANICAL MODELS IN WAX .-- MUSIC .-- THE OPERA .-- DUPREZ .-- LABLACHE .-- RONCONI .-- GRISI .-- PERSIANA.--"SEMIRAMIDE" AS PERFORMED BY THE NEW YORK AND PARIS OPERAS .-- MARIO .-- COLETTI .-- GARDINI .-- "DON GIOVANNI."-- THE WRITER'S TRIAL OF THE "LETHEON."-- ITS EFFECTS.
It needs not to speak in this cursory manner of the treasures of Art, pictures, sculptures, engravings, and the other riches which France lays open so freely to the stranger in her Musees.