François Guizot

An Embassy to the Court of St. James's in 1840

Richard Bentley, 1862.

Regent's Park particularly pleased me. It is separated from the crowded districts; the space is immense, the verdure fresh, the waters clear, the clumps of trees still young. I found there two qualities combined which rarely associate, extent and grace. I seldom encountered or recognized any one. In complete solitude and in presence of nature, we forget isolation. On Sundays, Regent's Park was more animated; there were many promenaders, generally all silent; open air preachers, surrounded by thirty or forty listeners, expounding a text of the Bible, or a precept from the Gospel

The author was ambassador for less than a year, returning to France to become Foreign Minister and later Prime Minister. He is probably best known for the saying, 'Not to be a republican at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head.'

I paused one day before two of these groups. In one, the preacher held a book in his hand, Travels in Africa, from which he read an account of a missionary who had cured himself from a long illness by living soberly and drinking water: "You see plainly from that," concluded he, "that drinking water cannot be injurious to health." The other orator, a rigid Calvinist, maintained, against an opponent who argued with him, that man is not a free agent, and has no free will; "Look at this tree," said he, "you would like to think that it is a house; you cannot think so; you have therefore no free judgement." The common sense of his auditors was confounded, but they still continued to listen attentively. These do not include, by a great number, all the people of London, and all their recreations; but amongst them there are many families who have no other