This plucky little uprising was soon put down. The leaders were
brave, eloquent, ardent young men, but their followers were not disposed
to fight long and well--perhaps their stomachs were too empty. The
Chartists stirred again, and renewed their not unreasonable or
treasonable demands; but all in vain. There is really something awful
about the strength and solidity and impassivity of England. When the
French monarchy went down in the earthquake shock of that wild winter,
and a republic came up in its place, it surely would have been no wonder
if a vast tidal-wave of revolution caused by so much subsidence and
upheaving had broken disastrously on the English shores. But it did not.
The old sea-wall of loyalty and constitutional liberty was too strong.
There were only floated up a few waifs, and among them a "_forlorn and
shipwrecked brother_," calling himself "John Smith," and a poor, gray-
haired, heart-broken woman, "Mrs. Smith," for the nonce. When these came
to land they were recognized as Louis Philippe and Marie Amelie of
France. Afterwards most of their family, who had been scattered by the
tempest, came also, and joined them in a long exile. The English asylum
of the King and Queen was Claremont, that sanctuary of love and sorrow,
which the Queen, though loving it well, had at once given over to her
unfortunate old friends, whom she received with the most sympathetic
kindness, trying to forget all causes of ill-feeling given her a year or
two before by the scheming King and his ambitious sons.
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