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or less concealed under a dark indifference. However, it is to be remembered that we were in Paris at what would, under any circumstances, have been a dull period; and that we went into its worst quarters. Its best are however nearly deserted, and in the gardens of the Tuileries, where I have seen the people of an afternoon thronged like ants, and mobs of merry children skipping under and about the trees, we counted the passers-by by twos and threes, and saw nothing dancing but dead leaves.

At Rouen, where we stayed about three weeks, the distress though nearly as great, is not so ghastly, and seems to be confined in its severity to the class of workmen. There seems, however, everything to be dreaded both there and at Paris-and the only door of escape seems to be the darkest-that which grapeshot opens. I do not see how another struggle for pillage is avoidable-a simple fight of the poor against the rich-desperate certainly-and likely to be renewed again and again. And the pity of it is that in the midst of all this there are many signs of the best and most patient dispositions borne down by the crowd-or ruined only for want of common humanity and kindness in their former treatment, for now, there is, I believe, nothing available-nothing to be done but by ball cartridge. Vagabonds and ruffians-undisguised-fill the streets, only waiting-not for an opportunity but for the best opportunity of attack. And yet even from the faces of these I have seen the malice and brutality vanish if a few words of ordinary humanity were spoken to them. And if there were enough merciful people in France to soothe without encouraging them, and to give them some-even the slightest-sympathy and help in such honest efforts as they make-few though they be-without telling them of their Rights or their injuries-the country might still be saved. The only hope at present is from the common sense views which have at last been forced on the bourgeoisie-who are, as well as the soldiery, thoroughly sick of the republic, and from the generally clear views of the provincials upon the whole subject-they say the king was a bad one, but better than none.

On his return from France, Ruskin established himself in a house of his own, No. 31 Park Street, Grosvenor Square, and there during the winter wrote The Seven Lamps of Architecture. During the same time he wrote for the Art Journal an account of Samuel Prout,¹-the artist whose drawings had first familiarised him with French architecture, and whose work must have occurred to him at every turn in Rouen and Lisieux. The paper on Prout is reserved for publication in this edition,

¹ It appeared in the number for March 1849; and was reprinted in On the Old Road (1899, vol. i. §§ 137-148). For a letter of Ruskin’s to Prout, see Vol. III. p. 662.

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