The upheaval of the French people, therefore, and the downfall of
privilege, seemed to him no portent for good or evil, but rather the
tardy return of a society to its stable equilibrium. He passed
through revolutionized Paris with satisfaction and sympathy, but
with little active emotion, and proceeded first to Orleans, and then
to Blois, between which places he spent nearly a year. At Orleans he
became intimately acquainted with the nobly-born but republican
general Beaupuis, an inspiring example of all in the Revolution that
was self-devoted and chivalrous and had compassion on the wretched
poor. In conversation with him Wordsworth learnt with what new force
the well-worn adages of the moralist fall from the lips of one who
is called upon to put them at once in action, and to stake life
itself on the verity of his maxims of honour. The poet's heart
burned within him as he listened. He could not indeed help mourning
sometimes at the sight of a dismantled chapel, or peopling in
imagination the forest-glades in which they sat with the chivalry of
a bygone day. But he became increasingly absorbed in his friend's
ardour, and the Revolution--_mulier formosa superne_--seemed to him
big with all the hopes of man.
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