THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 43 



when he saw and heard Rachel recite the ' Marseil- 

 laise ' at the Fran9ais, the tricolor in her arms. 

 What is still more strange, he had been up to then 

 invincibly indifferent to music, insomuch that he 

 could not distinguish ' God save the Queen ' from 

 ' Bonnie Dundee ' ; and now, to the chanting of 

 the mob, he amazed his family by learning and 

 singing ' Mourir pour la Patrie.^ But the letters, 

 though they prepare the mind for no such revolu- 

 tion in the boy's tastes and feelings, are yet 

 full of entertaining traits. Let the reader note 

 Fleeming's eagerness to influence his friend Frank, 

 an incipient Tory (no less) as further history 

 displayed ; his unconscious indifference to his 

 father and devotion to his mother, betrayed in 

 so many significant expressions and omissions ; 

 the sense of dignity of this diminutive ' person 

 resident on the spot,' who was so happy as 

 to escape insult ; and the strange picture of the 

 household — father, mother, son, and even poor 

 Aunt Anna — all day in the streets in the thick of 

 this rough business, and the boy packed off alone 

 to school in a distant quarter on the very morrow 

 of the massacre. 



They had all the gift of enjoying life's texture as 

 it comes : they were all born optimists. The name 

 of liberty was honoured in that family, its spirit 

 also, but within stringent limits ; and some of the 

 foreign friends of Mrs. Jenkin were, as I have said, 



