placarded in the streets: "_A nettoyer, deux Chambres et une Cour_":
"Two _Chambers_ and a _Court_ to clean." A French Government that had
been crafty, but not crafty enough to conceal the fact, that was
rather contemned for plotting than dreaded for unscrupulous energy,
was already in peril. The still unsubdued revolutionary spirit,
working under the smooth surface of French society, was the element
which accomplished the destruction of this discredited Government.

The outbreak in France acted like a spark in a powder magazine; ere
long great part of Europe was shaken by the second great
revolutionary upheaval, when potentates seemed falling and ancient
dynasties crumbling on all sides--a period of eager hope to many,
followed by despair when the reaction set in, accompanied in too many
places by repressive measures of pitiless severity. The contemptuous
feeling with which many Englishmen were wont to view such Continental
troubles is well embodied in the lines which Tennyson put into the
mouth of one of his characters, speaking of France:

"Yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden heat,
The gravest citizen seems to lose his head,
The king is scared, the soldier will not fight.
The little boys begin to shoot and stab,
A kingdom topples over with a shriek
Like an old woman, and down rolls the world
In mock-heroics--
Revolts, republics, revolutions, most
No graver than a schoolboy's barring out;
Too comic for the solemn things they are,
Too solemn for the comic touches in them."