Page:Life of Louis Philippe, late king of the French.pdf/10

10 one M. Siret, an inhabitant of Vendôme, sub-engineer in the office of roads and bridges. I go to bed happy!

“August 11.-Another happy day. I had been invited yesterday to attend at the Town-House with some non-commissioned officers and privates. I went to-day, and was received with an address; there was then read a letter from M. Siret, who proposed that the municipal body should decree that a civic crown should be given to any citizen who should save the life of a fellow-creature, and that, in course, one should be presented to me. The municipal body adopted the proposition, and I received a crown amidst the applause of a numerous assembly of spectators. I was very much ashamed. I nevertheless expressed my gratitude as well as I could.”

We quote a single passage to show his diligence in the studies which engaged his attention:-

“Yesterday morning at exercise. On returning, I undressed, and read some of Hénault, Julius Caesar, Sternheim, and Mably. Dined, and after dinner read some of Ipsipyle, Metastasio, Heloise, and Pope. At five, to the riding-house; and afterwards read Emile."

A writer in the Quarterly Review, referring to the Journal from which these extracts are taken, says- “There are in it many puerile passages, and a few which, even under all extenuating circumstances, may be called blameable. * * But we think it must be agreed that, on the whole, it is creditable to his [the duke's] good sense, and even to his good nature. Let it be recollected that it was written at the age of seventeen-that his mind, ever since it was capable of receiving a political idea, had been imbued with revolutionary doctrines by the precepts of his instructors, the authority and example of a father, and a general popular enthusiasm, which had not yet assumed the mad and bloody aspect which it soon after