"--The opinion could not be allowed to pass: he found himself
beset on all sides; not an individual supported him; and after a variety
of attempts to palliate and explain away the offensive passage, he was
obliged to consent to expunge it. This will give some farther idea of
the state of public feeling in France: the compliment upon the lilies
passed as words of course; but the same body that tolerated it,
positively refused to stamp with the sanction of their approbation, any
comparison unfavorable to the system of Napoleon, when put in opposition
to that of the subsisting government.
There is another literary body at Rouen; called _la Societe
d'Emulation_, of more recent establishment, it having been founded in
1791. Conformably to the national spirit which then prevailed, it is
directed exclusively to the encouragement of manufactories and
agriculture.--This society distributes annual medals as the reward of
improvements and discoveries, though I am afraid that as yet it has
been productive but of slender utility.
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