There is one thing which cannot but make one indignant here in Paris,
and which, I think, is keenly felt by some of the best among the
French; and that is, the indifference of many Americans, while here,
to their own national principles of liberty. They seem to come to
Paris merely to be hangers on and applauders in the train of that
tyrant who has overthrown the hopes of France. To all that cruelty and
injustice by which thousands of hearts are now bleeding, they appear
entirely insensible. They speak with heartless levity of the
revolutions of France, as of a pantomime got up for their diversion.
Their time and thoughts seem to be divided between defences of
American slavery and efforts to attach themselves to the skirts of
French tyranny. They are the parasites of parasites--delighted if they
can but get to an imperial ball, and beside themselves if they can
secure an introduction to the man who figured as a _roue_, in the
streets of New York. Noble-minded men of all parties here, who have
sacrificed all for principle, listen with suppressed indignation,
while young America, fresh from the theatres and gambling saloons,
declares, between the whiffs of his cigar, that the French are not
capable of free institutions, and that the government of Louis
Napoleon is the best thing France could have.
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