St. Cyr, July 2, 1853.
I am not going to talk to you, my dear Senior, about the Emperor, or the
Empress, or any of the august members of the Imperial Family; nor of the
Ministers, nor of any other public functionaries, because I am a
well-disposed subject who does not wish that the perusal of his letters
should give pain to his Government. I shall write to you upon an
historical problem, and discuss with you events which happened five
hundred years ago. There could not be a more innocent subject.
I have followed your advice, and I have read, or rather re-read,
Blackstone. I studied him twenty years ago. Each time he has made upon me
the same impression. Now, as then, I have ventured to consider him (if
one may say so without blasphemy) an inferior writer, without liberality
of mind or depth of judgment; in short, a commentator and a lawyer, not
what _we_ understand by the words _jurisconsulte_ and _publiciste_. He
has, too, in a degree which is sometimes amusing, a mania for admiring
all that was done in ancient times, and for attributing to them all that
is good in his own. I am inclined to think that, if he had had to write,
not on the institutions, but on the products of England, he would have
discovered that beer was first made from grapes, and that the hop is a
fruit of the vine--rather a degenerate product, it is true, of the wisdom
of our ancestors, but as such worthy of respect.
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