Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays

[307] happened very often, it was like a cage of lions. For instance, I entered just as somebody had questioned the minister of war, General Borel, about an alleged interference with elections; and his defiant reply had enraged the “Lefts,” or radicals, who constituted the majority of the assembly. They shouted and gesticulated, throwing up their hands and then slapping them on their knees very angrily, until the president rang his great bell, and they quieted down, lest he might put on his hat and adjourn the meeting. In each case the member speaking took his stand in the desk, or tribune, below the president; and the speeches were sometimes read, sometimes given without notes. The war minister, a stout, red-faced man, -always, the radicals said, half intoxicated, stood with folded arms, and looked ready for a coup d'etat; yet I heard it said about me that he would be compelled either to retreat or to resign. One saw at a glance how much profounder political differences must be in France than with us, since in that country they avowedly concern the very existence of the republic.

I saw no women at the Chambre des Deputes, even as spectators, though they may have been concealed somewhere, as in the Ladies' Gallery of the House of Commons. An American was surprised, twenty years ago, with all the associations