Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

“Still, however, the mischief might yet have been repaired if vigorous
measures had been taken. But, from that hour, nothing but the most
extraordinary blunders and pusillanimity marked the conduct of the
Court. Count Molé was sent for, and the evening of Wednesday passed in
attempts, or no attempts, we hardly know which, on his part to form a
semi-Liberal Cabinet. In the city, the fall of the Guizot ministry was
hailed with acclamation and illumination, as the first sign of popular
victory; and at that same critical juncture the fatal discharge of
musketry took place opposite the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which
stained the pavement with blood, and inflamed the people to a
revolutionary pitch. The night was spent in preparation for a more
terrible morrow; but as yet the army had neither fraternised nor laid
down its weapons. It was, on the contrary, for the most part prepared
to act; but a circumstance occurred at Court which totally paralysed
its resistance.

“After Count Molé’s failure, the King sent for M. Thiers. That
gentleman may be said to have actually formed a Cabinet in conjunction
with M. Odillon Barrot and M. Duvergier de Hauranne, for they
instantly proceeded to the discharge of the highest possible duty
which could devolve on ministerial responsibility. The one act of
their government was the publication of that inconceivable
proclamation, stating that _no further resistance should be made, and
the promulgation of orders to the officers commanding regiments to
withdraw them_. This was of course the capitulation of the Monarchy.
Marshal Bugeaud—who had the command of the troops, had now completed
his preparations for the general attack of the barricades, and was
confident of success—protested most energetically against this
extraordinary order, and said that if it was acted on all was lost.
The King’s then ministers, M. Thiers and M. Barrot, insisted; the King
took their advice, and Marshal Bugeaud resigned the command of the
troops, observing that it was useless for him to retain it if nothing
was to be done. General Lamoricière was therefore named to the command
of Paris, and M. Thiers and his friends proceeded to effect their
pacific arrangements. The effects of their orders were immediately
perceptible, although the declaration of their names was certainly not
followed by the consequences they had anticipated. The officers of the
army, indignant at so unexpected a termination of their duties,
sheathed their swords; the men allowed themselves to be disarmed by
the mob, whom they had been ordered not to resist, and the people,
encountering no serious opposition except from the Municipal Guard,
which was cut to pieces, rushed on to the conquest of the Palais-Royal
and the Tuileries. To sum up this narrative in two words—the dismissal
of the Guizot government rendered it impossible for the Executive
Government to act effectually; the subsequent advice of M. Thiers and
the resignation of Marshal Bugeaud, rendered it impossible to act at
all. If this be, as we have every reason to believe it is, a correct
narrative of these transactions, we are not surprised that M. Thiers
and his colleagues should not have made themselves conspicuous in the
subsequent passage of this Revolution.

“The mob of Paris, at no hour of the day, (the 24th,) was formidable
to ten thousand men, much less to a hundred thousand, or at least
eighty thousand. On the Thursday (24th) public opinion had abandoned
the _émeute_. _The National Guard would now have done any thing to
reproduce order, but they had no time_; there was no opportunity to
reunite themselves; besides which, they wanted courage and support,
and did not _even dream of the extreme to which things might be
pushed_. There never was, at any time, any _acharnement_ among the
people; the troops were every where well received; not a hostile head
looked from a window. It was hoped that something might be done by a
demonstration of public opinion, but nothing more. The _émeutiers_ the
first and second day simply took advantage of the absence of the
National Guard. They were all the time ill looked upon by the real
people of Paris, but they were permitted to go on as a means of action
on the court and government. The accident, or rather the gross and
infamous blunder, committed before the Bureau des Affaires Etrangères
(of which the accounts published are erroneous), produced a violent
irritation, which was ably worked upon by the Republican committee,
who were all along on the watch; but this irritation, which certainly
changed the character of the contest, gave no arms to the people; and
although it increased their numbers, they were never, even
numerically, formidable, as I have said, to ten thousand men. As for
the barricades, there was not one that was ever defended except
against some weak patrol, and then, after a little popping, it was
always abandoned. Literally, there was no fighting; there was
skirmishing on the part of the brave Municipals—the only force that
acted—and I presume it acted on orders which did not emanate from the
chief military authority, but had some separate and general
instructions of its own. Literally, I repeat, there was no fighting.
How could there be? There were no arms; that is, not a musket to a
hundred men, till eleven or twelve o-clock in the day, when the
troops, without orders—except “not to fire,” or act against the
people—became, in several parts of Paris, mixed up and united with
them.”—_Times_, March 8 and 14, 1848.

Here, then, is the whole affair clearly revealed. It was the timidity of Government, and the defection of the National Guard, which ruined every thing; which paralysed the troops of the line, encouraged the insurgents, left the brave Municipal Guards to their fate, and caused the surrender of the Tuileries. And what has been the result of this shameful treachery on the part of the sworn defenders of order—this “_civic_” prætorian guard of France? Nothing but this, that they have destroyed the monarchy, ruined industry, banished capital, rendered freedom hopeless, and made bankrupt the state! Such are the effects of armed men forgetting the first of social duties, that of fidelity to their oaths. How soon were these treacherous National Guards passed in the career of revolution by the infuriated rabble! How soon were Odillon Barrot and Thiers supplanted by Lamartine and Arago! How rapidly were the Duchess of Orleans and the Count of Paris expelled at the point of the bayonet from the Chamber of Deputies—the cry for reform drowned in that of revolution! How many of the twenty thousand National Guards, who by their treachery brought about the Revolution, will be solvent at the end of two months? Not a tenth of their number. They will perish deservedly and ignobly; ruined in their fortunes, beggared in their families, despised by their compatriots, execrated by Europe! That they may anticipate what history will say of their conduct, let them listen to the verdict which it _has_ pronounced on the National Guard which, on a similar crisis, 10th August 1792, betrayed Louis XVI., as pronounced by an authority whom they will not suspect of leaning to the Royalist side—M. Lamartine.

“The National Guard, on the 10th August, returned humiliated and in consternation to their shops and counting-houses; _they had justly lost the lead of the people_. Thenceforth it could no longer aspire but to be the parade force of the Revolution, compelled to assist at all its acts, at all its fêtes, _at all its crimes; a vain living decoration of all the mechanists of the Revolution_.”[9]

Of which revolution is Lamartine now speaking; of that of 10th August 1792, or of 24th February 1848? Beyond all doubt history will pass a severer judgment on the treachery which overthrew Louis Philippe than on that which consummated the destruction of Louis XVI.: for the former had the example of the latter for its guide; they knew how soon the massacre of September followed the triumph of August, and what incalculable calamities the defection of their predecessors in the Place Carousel brought upon their country and Europe.

What benefit have the working classes derived, or are they likely to derive, from this deplorable convulsion? Great ones they doubtless expect, as it has issued in a triumph of labour over capital. But what has it realised? We shall mention one or two particulars to illustrate the benefits hitherto reaped by this class from its victory.

The savings’ banks of France had prospered immensely under the firm and pacific government of Louis Philippe. The following account of them is derived from official sources.

“The state of the savings’ banks in France at the time of the
Revolution indicated an extraordinary degree of confidence in the
stability of the late government. In 1834 there were only seventy
savings’ banks in France, and the amount of deposits on hand was
34,000,000 francs. In 1839 there were four hundred and four banks, and
the deposits had increased to 171,000,000 francs; in 1848, at the
moment of the Revolution, the deposits had risen to 355,000,000
francs, or ten times the amount deposited fourteen years before. In
1839 the average value of each deposit was 550 francs, which is
probably increased to 600 francs average at the present time. The
partial suspension of payment by these institutions must affect at
least half a million of persons of the most industrious and economical
part of the population, chiefly belonging to the towns, and they are
deprived of a large portion of their savings at the very moment they
most need them.”—_Times_, March 14, 1848.

Now, these savings’ banks, holding deposits to the amount of about £14,000,000 at the commencement of the Revolution, and which had increased _tenfold_ during Louis Philippe’s reign, have to all practical purposes _been rendered bankrupt_. Unable to stand the dreadful run upon them after the outbreak, or to realise the amount of their deposits by the sale of their funded property, in consequence of its prodigious fall, they had no resource but to suspend payment. By a decree of Government, the holders of deposits in the savings’ banks are to receive only _a tenth_ in cash, the remainder being payable six months hence, in a paper now practically worth nothing. By this single result of the Revolution, above five hundred thousand of the most meritorious and hard-working of the operatives of France have been in effect deprived of the savings of a whole lifetime.

Nor is the condition of the labouring population in any degree more favoured. In the _Times_ correspondent from Paris of March 14, we find the following account of their present condition:—

“The financial question, the state of trade and commerce, and the task
of providing work and food for the people, with which the government
has charged itself, are additional motives for seriousness, however.
The credit of more than one banking-house is to-day said to be
tottering. One firm, it is openly mentioned, has resolved to stop
payment to-morrow. Trade is very bad. Work will soon become scarce,
and distress and outcry must be expected; and with the knowledge of
all these facts, and with the determination to do every thing possible
for the relief of the working classes, possessed by the Provisional
Government, this source of uneasiness is menacing to-day. I wish a
more cheerful view of the situation of affairs were more general than
it is, for it might check the departure of rich natives and foreigners
from the capital, who _continue to retire from it in alarming
numbers_, and, obviously, with no view to return, for we hear of sales
of carriages and horses, for a _fifth part of the value_ they bore
three weeks since. _Twelve thousand servants are said to be already
discharged_ in Paris, and many houses or hotels in the fashionable
quarters have become literally devoid of occupants.”—_Times_, 14th
March 1848.

That such a state of things must in the end terminate in domestic or foreign war must be evident to all who have looked even on the surface of past events. The causes which at present uphold, and must ere long destroy the Republican Government in France, are thus ably stated by the Paris correspondent of the same well-informed journal:—

“The Provisional Government continues to exist at the moment only from
two causes. The first is, that all respectable persons hasten to its
support under the influence of fear. The other day every body expected
to be robbed and murdered: as the Provisional Government showed a
strong desire to preserve order, all those individuals, still
surprised to find themselves unplundered and unassassinated,
attributed the miracle to the government, and ran to its support in
self-defence. The adhesions have been readier and more numerous many
times over than in 1830. The second cause which gives a short reprieve
to the government is, that it _humours the ferocious monster that made
it_,—and which is ready at any moment to overturn it as it set it
up,—by the most absurd indulgences, by still more fatal promises for
the future. The same set of ruffians (heroes) who forced the Chamber,
and who thrust the Provisional Government on the deputies, are still
there to invade the Hotel de Ville, and substitute another idol for
Lamartine & Co. Still I believe they will not do so just yet; perhaps
we may get on till the constitutional or National Assembly meets, but
I doubt it. But then, even then,—what is to take place? Faction,
clubs, war to the knife. The French are precisely the same men they
were in ‘89—they are not changed in the least. Classes have been
modified by wealth, commerce, prosperity, &c.; but _these are the
quiet classes, who will be swallowed up in the course of the next five
years_. At the present moment the working, or the _soi-disant_ working
classes, who are literally the sovereign power, are looked upon with
fear, disgust, and abhorrence by every man in France of a superior
condition, _including the National Guard_; and they are all
speculating how to get quit of them; while, on the other hand, Louis
Blanc is keeping them quiet by preaching Utopianism. He is doing so,
honestly and enthusiastically, it is said; and certain it is, that a
great mass of the people is flattered and soothed by the idea of
converting work into an amusement, of obtaining perpetual easy
employment by the state, and a pension at fifty-five years of age.
This pause, however, does not deceive the commerce, _the capital, the
education of France, and, as I said, the universal consideration is
how to throw off the many-headed tyrant_. The plan of doing so, most
consonant with the French character, is war. The National Guard is
convinced they must shortly fight these men themselves, or send them
to fight the foreigner; the latter is the expedient that will be hit
upon; and unfortunately the state of Europe incites them to interfere
in the concerns of others, from whom they will receive invitations
which, in the condition of men’s minds in this country, it will be
impossible for any government to reject. Besides which, even Frenchmen
of the best order are, on questions of national glory or honour, not
to be relied on for a moment; the best of them may be carried away by
a word, a paragraph, a rumour, and all rave ‘Frontier of the Rhine,’
‘Waterloo,’ and a thousand other follies, which, however sad, may be
excused in the present state of their neighbours, though not for that
reason the less to be lamented. In all international questions
whatever, the characteristics of the French are arrogance, and
susceptibility of so extreme a nature, that no body of Frenchmen can
be dealt with by foreigners. A sovereign and a minister or two in cold
blood, and with all the weight of undivided responsibility upon them,
are difficult enough to manage even by the ablest and most impartial
of negotiators; but the masses must always be intractable.

“I give the present Provisional Government immense credit for their
efficient exertions, and I have considerable reliance on the good
intentions of the majority of them; but they will not last; and, above
all, whether they last or not, they must obey and not pretend to
guide. Lamartine, by his genius, has now and then gained a point; but
he, as well as the rest, have been rather _the organs of the sovereign
of the day than his directors and guides_.”—_Times_, March 13, 1848.

It is not surprising that views of this description should be entertained by all well-informed persons on the spot in France, for the new “National Assembly,” to whom the formation of a constitution is to be intrusted in that country, is to be composed in such a way, as renders the direct or indirect spoliation of property a matter of almost certainty. The following is the decree of the Provisional Government on the subject:—

“FRENCH REPUBLIC.

“LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY.

“The Provisional Government of the Republic, wishing to resign, as
soon as possible, into the hands of the Definitive Government the
powers it exercises in the interest and by the command of the people,

“Decrees,

“Article 1.—The electoral assemblies are convoked in each district for
the 9th of April next, to elect the representatives of the people in
the National Assembly, which is to frame the constitution.

“Article 2.—The election shall have the population for its basis.

“Article 3.—The total number of the representatives of the people
shall be 900, including those of Algeria and the French colonies.

“Article 4.—They shall be apportioned by the deputies in the
proportion indicated in the annexed table.

“Article 5.—The suffrage shall be direct and universal.

“Article 6.—All Frenchmen, 21 years of age, having resided in the
district during six months, and not judicially deprived of or
suspended in the exercise of their civic rights, are electors.

“Article 7.—All Frenchmen, 25 years of age, and not judicially
deprived of or suspended in the exercise of their civic rights, are
eligible.

“Article 8.—The ballot shall be secret.

“Article 9.—All the electors shall vote in the chief town of their
district, by ballot. Each bulletin shall contain as many names as
there shall be representatives to elect in the department.

“No man can be named a representative of the people unless he obtain
2,000 suffrages.

“Article 10.—Every representative of the people shall receive an
indemnity of 25f. per day during the session.”

Here is a tolerably democratic constitution, which will probably excite some little disquietude in the breasts of the holders of French stock and railway shares. Universal suffrage—a single assembly of nine hundred members, each of whom is to be paid a pound a-day during the session. To make the experiment still more perilous, the minister of public instruction to the Provisional Government has issued a circular to the ministers of instruction throughout the country, in which he enjoins them to recommend to the people “_to avoid the representatives who enjoy the advantages of education or the gifts of fortune_.”[10] This circular excited, as well it might, such a panic in Paris, that the other members of the Provisional Government were obliged to disown it. But that only makes matters worse: it shows what the Provisional Government really meant, and how completely they have already come to stand on the verge of civil war. The projected decree for levelling the National Guard, by distributing the companies of voltigeurs and chasseurs (the _élite_) through the whole mass, has already produced an address by their battalion, _in uniform_, to the Provisional Government, which was received at the Hotel de Ville by an immense crowd with cries of “_A bas les Aristocrats! on ne passe pas!_” It is no wonder the National Guard are at length alarmed. The aristocracies of knowledge and property are to be alike discarded! Ignorance and a sympathy with the most indigent class are to be the great recommendations to the electors! This is certainly making root-and-branch work; it is Jack Cade alive again. Paris, it is expected, will return for its representatives

11 of the Provisional Government,
5 Socialists,
18 Operatives,
——
34

Truly the National Guard will soon reap the whirlwind; we are not surprised the French funds have undergone so prodigious a fall. The holders of Spanish bonds and American States’ debts know how universal suffrage assemblies settle with their state-creditors. Sidney Smith has told the world something on the subject.

The “pressure from without” on the Provisional Government becomes every day more severe and alarming as time rolls on: wages cease, stock falls in value, savings’ banks suspend payment, and all means of relief, save such as may be extorted from the fears of the government, disappear. The following is a late account of the state of matters in this important respect, from the French metropolis:—

“France, crowded, impoverished, indebted, and straitened at all
points, sees an opening in the exercise of a sovereign people’s will.
It gets a glimpse of light and life through the Hotel de Ville. Hence
this desperate competition for the national resources; and hence, we
grieve to add, this wasteful and improvident distribution.

“These deputations are a congenital evil. They began from the very
moment the Provisional Government was proclaimed in the Chamber of
Deputies. Its progress thence from the Hotel de Ville was a
deputation. The members immediately began to thunder at the doors and
clamour for admittance. A club orator has since boasted that, had it
not been for this importunity, nothing would have been done—that not a
step has been taken without external impulse—and that the people had
to wait two hours, on that wonderful Thursday, before the Provisional
Government would announce a republic. Since that moment the
deputations may be said _never to have ceased in Paris_. For the first
week they did not affect a distinctive character, but came as accident
had thrown them together—_ten thousand from this quarter, and twenty
thousand from that; sometimes the people, and sometimes the National
Guard, or a medley of all sorts. In those days they were armed._
Lamartine had to turn out six times a-day, make gestures half an hour
for a hearing, and then spend his brilliant eloquence on a field of
bayonets and blouses. When the poet had sunk from sheer exhaustion,
the indefatigable deputation adjourned to the Ministry of the
Interior, and drew forth M. Ledru Rollin, who had not learned his way
about the apartments, or the names of the officials, before he was
required to promulgate, off-hand, a complete system for the internal
administration of France. It is possible that his first thoughts might
have been as good as his second on this subject; but the demand was
nevertheless premature. The stream of deputation has since become less
turbid, violent, and full; but it has been quite continuous, and, to
all appearance, _Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis œvum_.

“We believe there is not a single branch of employment or of idleness
in Paris, that has not marched _en masse_ to the Hotel de Ville to
demand _more wages, less work, certainty of employment, and a release
from all the rules and restrictions which the experience of their
masters had found to be necessary_. It is unwise to damp the
expectations of five thousand armed men. In some cases, therefore, the
government capitulated on rather hard terms. By and by it adopted what
we really think the best possible alternative. It requested the trades
to nominate their several deputies, and set the operative parliament
to adjust all its rival pretensions at the Luxembourg. Then there came
deputations of women, of students, of pawnbrokers’ tickets, of
bankers, of bread-eaters, of bread-makers, of cabmen, of ’bussmen, of
sailors, of porters, of every thing that had, or had not, an office
and a name. France, of course, has had the precedence, having, in a
manner, the first start; but the nations of the earth are beginning to
find room in the endless procession. All the world will run into it in
time. The vast column is just beginning to form in Chinese Tartary,
and is slowly debouching round the Caspian Sea. Already we see a
hundred European sections. They follow in one another’s trail. An
Anacharsis Clootz is waiting to receive them at the barriers, and
marshal them to the Hotel de Ville.”—_Times_, March 15, 1848.

This state of matters is certainly abundantly formidable to France and to Europe. A great experiment is making as to the practicability of the working-classes governing themselves and the rest of the state, without the aid of property or education. France has become a _huge trades-union_, the committee of which forms the Provisional Government, and the decrees of which compose the foundation of the future government of the republic. Such an experiment is certainly new in human affairs. No previous example of it is to be found, at least, in the old world; for it will hardly be said that the republic of 1793, steeped in blood, engrossed in war, ruled with a rod of iron by the Committee of Public Salvation, is a precedent to which the present regeneration of society will refer, in support of the principles they are now reducing to practice. We fear its state has been not less justly than graphically described by one of our most distinguished correspondents, who says—“They are sitting as at a pantomime; every thing is grand and glorious; France is regenerated, and all is flourish of trumpets. Meanwhile France is _utterly insane—a vast lunatic asylum without its doctors_.”

The present state of Paris, (March 21,) and the germs of social conflict which are beginning to emerge from amidst the triumph of the Socialists, may be judged of from the following extracts of the correspondent of the _Morning Chronicle_, dated Paris, 18th March:—

“Paris, Friday Evening.—There has been another day of great excitement
and alarm in Paris. Upwards of thirty thousand of the working classes
congregated in the Champs Elysés, and went in procession to the Hotel
de Ville to assure the Government that it might depend upon their
assistance against any attempt that might be made to coerce it, from
whatever quarter it came. I need hardly inform you that this
formidable demonstration is intended as a _contre coup_ to the protest
presented by the National Guards yesterday, against M. Ledru Rollin’s
decree dissolving the grenadier and light companies of the National
Guards. It is not the least alarming feature in this affair, that it
exhibits an amount of discipline among the working classes, and a
promptitude of execution, which are but too sure indications both of
the power and the readiness of the leaders of the movement to do
mischief. It was only yesterday that the demonstration took place
which displeased the masses; yet, in one short night, the order goes
forth, the arrangements are made, and before ordinary mortals are out
of their beds, thirty thousand of the working classes are marshalled
under their leaders, and on their march to make a demonstration of
their force, in presence of the executive government—a demonstration
which, on the present occasion, to be sure, is favourable to the
Government, but which to-morrow may be against it. Who have the orders
proceeded from that drew together these masses? How were they brought
together? The affair is involved in mystery, but there is enough in it
to show an amount of organisation for which the public was not
prepared; and which ought to show all those within its operation that
they are sitting upon a barrel of gunpowder. The fact is—and there is
no denying or concealing it—Paris is in the possession of the clubs,
who rule not only it, but the ostensible government. The National
Guards, so powerful only a week ago, are now impotent whether for good
or evil. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” The National
Guards have quarrelled. The Chasseurs look with jealousy on the
_compagnies d’élite_—the _compagnies d’élite_ will not fraternise with
the Chasseurs. The eighty-four thousand men, who formed the National
Guards before the 24th of February, look with contempt on the one
hundred and fifty thousand new men thrust into their ranks by M. Ledru
Rollin, for election purposes, and call them _canaille_. The new
levies feel that they cannot compete in wealth with the good company
in which they so unexpectedly find themselves, and they call the old
guards _aristocrats_. Add to this the discontent of the grenadier and
light companies at being deprived of their distinctive associations
and dress, the displeasure of the old officers, who are about to be
deprived of their epaulettes by their new and democratic associates,
and the intriguing of the would-be officers to secure a majority of
suffrages in their own favour, and you may arrive at a judgment of the
slight chance there is of the National Guards of the present day
uniting for any one purpose or object. The result of this is obvious.
In case of an outbreak, the National Guards, who were so useful in
re-establishing order on the two days after the abdication of Louis
Philippe, could no longer be depended on. Paris would be in the
possession of the mob, and that mob is under the direction of leaders
composed of the worst and the most unscrupulous of demagogues.”

The same correspondent adds:—

“The financial and commercial crisis which has created such ravages
here for the last week is rapidly extending. I have already given you
a distressing list of private bankers who have been obliged to suspend
payment. Another bank, though not one of any great name, was spoken of
yesterday as being on the eve of bankruptcy; but on inquiry, I find
that the bank is still open this morning, although it is doubtful if
it will continue so to the end of the day. I abstain from mentioning
the name. The commercial world is just in as deep distress as the
financial world. _Every branch of trade is paralysed._ It is useless
to attempt to give particular names or even trades. I shall,
therefore, only mention, that in one branch of trade, which is
generally considered one of the richest in France, namely, the metal
trade, there is an almost total suspension of payments. It is not that
the traders have not property, but that they cannot turn it into cash.
They have acceptances to meet, and they have acceptances in hand, but
they cannot pay what is due by them, for they cannot get what others
owe. In short, _trade is paralysed_, for the medium by which it is
ordinarily carried on has disappeared. In other trades precisely the
same circumstances occur; but I only mention this one trade as showing
the position of all others. How long is this to last? No one can say;
but one thing certain is, that no symptom of amelioration has hitherto
shown itself.”—_Morning Chronicle_, March 20.

As the experiment now making in France is new, and in the highest degree important, so it is to the last degree to be wished that it may go on _undisturbed_. The other powers of Europe cannot be too much on their guard against it; but no armed intervention should be attempted, if France retains the pacific attitude she has hitherto held in regard to other states. The republicans of that country have never ceased to declare that the first Revolution terminated in internal bloodshed, military despotism, and foreign subjugation, because it was not let alone—because the Girondists plunged it into war, in order to provide a vent for the ardent passions and vehement aspirations of the unemployed multitudes in that country. Lamartine admits, in his celebrated circular, that in 1792 “war was a necessity to France.” He disclaims, as every man of the least knowledge on the subject must do, the idea that it was provoked by the European powers, who, it is historically known, were drawn into it when wholly unprepared, and as unwillingly as a conscientious father of a family is forced into a duel. Lamartine says the same necessity no longer exists—that the world has become pacific, and that internal regeneration, not foreign conquest, is the end of this revolution. We hope it is so. We are sure it is ardently desired in this country that pacific relations should not be disturbed with the great republic, provided she keeps within her own territory, and does not seek to assuage her thirst at foreign fountains. By all means let the long wished-for experiment be made. Let it be seen how society can get on without the direction of property and knowledge. Let it be seen into what sort of state the doctrines of the Socialists and St Simonians, the dictates of the trades-unions, the clamour of the working masses, will speedily reduce society. Theirs be the glory and the honour if the experiment succeeds—theirs the disgrace and the obloquy if it fails. Let all other nations stand aloof, and witness the great experiment—“a clear stage and no favour” be the universal maxim. But let every other people abstain from imitating the example, _till it is seen how the experiment has succeeded in the great parent republic_. It will be time enough to follow its footsteps when experience has proved it is conducive to human happiness and social stability.

But while, as ardently as any Socialist in existence, we deprecate the commencement of hostilities by any European power, and earnestly desire to see the great social experiment now making in France brought to a pacific issue, in order that its practicability and expedience may for ever be determined among men, yet it is evident that things _may_ take a different issue in that country. It is possible—though God forbid we should say it is probable—that the great republic may, from internal suffering, be driven to foreign aggression. This, on Lamartine’s own admission, has happened once: it may happen twice. France has four hundred thousand regular troops under arms; and every man capable of bearing a musket is to be forthwith enrolled in the National Guard. Twenty-five thousand of that body have already been taken into regular and permanent pay, at thirty sous, or about fifteenpence, a-day, and sent to the frontier. It is impossible to say how soon this immense and excited mass, with arms in their hands, and little food in their stomachs, may _drive_ the government, as in 1792 they did that of the Girondists, on Lamartine’s admission, into foreign warfare. It behoves Europe to be on its guard. Fortunately the course which its governments should pursue in such an event lies clear and open. They have only to resume the Treaty of Chaumont, concluded in 1813, to curb the ambition of the great military republic of which Napoleon was the head. Let that treaty be secretly but immediately renewed as a purely _defensive league_. Let no one think of attacking France; but the moment that France invades any other power, let the four great powers forthwith bring a hundred and fifty thousand each into the field. Let not the wretched mistake be again committed, of the others looking tamely on when one is assailed—“et dum singuli pugnant, universi vincuntur.”[11] The moment the French cross the Rhine or the Alps, the states of Europe must stand side by side as they did at Leipsic and Waterloo, if they would avoid another long period of oppression by the conquering republicans.

Nearly sixty years have elapsed since Mr Burke observed—“The age of chivalry is gone; that of sophists, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex—that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life—the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiments—is gone. It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half of its evil, by losing all its grossness.”[12] What a commentary on these well-known and long-admired words have recent events afforded! It is indeed gone, the loyalty to rank and sex—the proud submission, the dignified obedience, the _subordination of the heart_, which formerly characterised and adorned the states of modern Europe. With more courage than the German Empress, the Duchess of Orleans fronted the revolutionary mob in the Chamber of Deputies; but no swords leapt from their scabbards in the Chamber of Deputies when her noble appeal was made to the loyalty of France—no generous hearts found vent in the words, “Moriamur pro rege nostro, Maria Theresa!” It could no longer be said—

“Fair Austria spread her mournful charms—
The Queen, the beauty, roused the world to arms.”

The infuriated rabble pointed their muskets at the royal heroine, and the few loyal members of the assembly were glad to purchase her safety by removing her from the disgraceful scene. Not a shot was thereafter fired; not a show even of resistance to the plebeian usurpation was made. An army of four hundred thousand men, five hundred thousand National Guards, thirty-four millions of men, in a moment forgot their loyalty, broke their oaths, and surrendered their country to the worst of tyrannies, the tyranny of a multitude of tyrants.

“The unbought grace of life,” says Mr Burke, “the _cheap defence of nations_, is at an end.” What a commentary has the triumph of the Barricades, the government of Louis Philippe, afforded on these words! M. Garnier Pages, in his Financial Report, has unfolded the state of the French finances, the confusion and disastrous state of which he is fain to ascribe to the prodigal expenditure and unbounded corruption of Louis Philippe. He tells us, and we doubt not with truth, that during the seventeen years of his government, the expenditure has been raised from 900,000,000 francs, (£36,000,000,) to 1700,000,000 francs, (£68,000,000;) that the debt has been increased during that period by £64,000,000; and that the nation was running, under his direction, headlong into the gulf of national bankruptcy. He observes, with a sigh, how moderate in comparison, how cheap in expenditure, and pacific in conduct, was the government of Charles X., which never brought its expenditure up to £40,000,000. It is all true—it is what we predicted eighteen years ago would be the inevitable result of a democratic revolt; it is the consummation we invariably predicted of the transports following the fall of Charles X. The republicans, now so loud in reprobation of the expenditure of the Citizen King, forget that his throne was of their own making; that he was a successful democratic usurper; that his power was established to the sound of the shouts of the republicans in all Europe, amidst the smoke of the Barricades. A usurping government is necessarily and invariably more costly than a legitimate one; because, having lost the loyalty of the heart, it has no foundation to rest on, but the terrors of the senses, or the seductions of interest. It was for precisely the same reason that William III. in ten years raised the expenditure of Great Britain from £1,800,000 a year, to £6,000,000; and that, in the first twenty years of the English government subsequent to the Revolution, the national debt had increased from £600,000 to £54,000,000. When the moral and cheap bond of loyalty is broken, government has no resource but an appeal to the passions or interests of the people. The Convention tried an appeal to their republican passions, and they brought on the Reign of Terror. Napoleon tried an appeal to their military passions, and he brought on the subjugation of France by Europe. Louis Philippe, as the only remaining resource, appealed to their selfish interests, and he induced the revolution of 1848. Mankind cannot escape from the gentle influence of moral obligations, but to fall under the reaction of conquest, the debasement of corruption, or the government of force.

But all these governments, say the republicans, fell, because they departed from the principles of the Revolution, and because they became corrupted by power as soon as they had tasted its sweets. But even supposing this were true,—supposing that Mirabeau, Danton, Robespierre, Napoleon, and Louis Philippe were all overthrown, not because they took the only method left open to them to preserve the support of the senators, but because they departed from the principles of the Revolution; do the republicans not see that the very announcement of that fact is the most decisive condemnation of their system of government? Do they expect to find liberals more eloquent than Mirabeau, republicans more energetic than Danton, socialists more ardent than Robespierre, generals more capable than Napoleon, citizen kings more astute than Louis Philippe? Republican power must be committed to some one. Mankind cannot exist an hour without a government: the first act of the infuriated and victorious rabble in the Chamber of Deputies was to name a Provisional one. But if experience has proved that intellect the most powerful, patriotism the most ardent, genius the most transcendent, penetration the most piercing, experience the most extensive, are invariably shipwrecked amidst the temptations and the shoals of newly acquired republican power, do they not see that it is not a form of government adapted for the weakness of humanity; and that if the leaders of revolution are not impelled to destruction by an external and overbearing necessity, they are infallibly seduced into it by the passions which, amidst the novelty of newly acquired power, arise in their own breasts? In either case, a revolution government must terminate in its own destruction,—in private sufferings and public disasters; and so it will be with the government of M. Lamartine and that of the new National Assembly, as it has been with all those which have preceded it.

“Deus patiens,” says St Augustin, “quia æternus.”[13]—What an awful commentary on this magnificent text have recent events afforded! Eighteen years ago Louis Philippe forgot his loyalty and broke his oath; the first prince of the blood elevated himself to power by successful treason; he adopted, if he did not make, a revolution. He sent his lawful monarch into exile; he prevented the placing the crown on the head of his grandson; he for ever severed France from its lawful sovereigns. What has been the result of his usurpation? Where are now his enduring projects, his family alliances, his vast army, his consolidated power? During seventeen years he laboured with indefatigable industry and great ability to establish his newly acquired authority, and secure, by the confirmation of his own power, the perpetual exile of the lawful sovereign of France. Loud and long was the applause at first bestowed by the liberal party in Europe on the usurpation; great was the triumph of the bourgeoisie in every state at seeing a lawful monarch overturned by a well-concerted urban revolt, and the National converted into a Prætorian Guard, which could dispose of crowns at pleasure. But meanwhile the justice of Heaven neither slumbered nor slept. The means taken by Louis Philippe to consolidate his power, and which were in truth the only ones that remained at his disposal, consummated his ruin. His steady adherence to peace dissatisfied the ardent spirits which sought for war; his firm internal government disconcerted the republicans; his vast internal expenditure drew after it a serious embarrassment of finance. He could not appeal to the loyal feelings of the generous, for he was a usurper; he could not rest on the support of the multitude, for they would have driven the state to ruin; he could not rally the army round his throne, for they would have impelled him into war. Thus he could rest only on the selfish interests; and great was the skill with which he worked on that powerful principle in human affairs. But a government which stands on selfish feelings alone is a castle built on sand; the first wind of adversity levels it with the dust. Napoleon’s throne was founded on this principle, for he sacrificed to warlike selfishness; Louis Philippe on the same, for he sacrificed to pacific selfishness. Both have undergone the stern but just law of retribution. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, has been meted out to both. To Napoleon, who had sent so many foreign princes into banishment, and subverted so many gallant states, a defeat in the field, a melancholy exile, and unbefriended death, in a foreign land; to Louis Philippe, who had dethroned his lawful sovereign, and carried the standard of treason into the halls of the Tuilleries, the fate which he allotted to Charles X., that of being expelled with still greater ignominy from the _same halls_, being compelled to eat the bread of the stranger, and see his dynasty driven from their usurped throne amidst the derision and contempt of mankind.

“If absolute power,” says M. De Tocqueville, “shall re-establish itself in whatever hands, in any of the democratic states of Europe, I have no doubt it will assume a form unknown to our fathers. When the great families and the spirit of clanship prevailed, the individual who had to contend with tyranny never found himself alone—he was supported by his clients, his relations, his friends. But when the estates are divided, and races confounded, where shall we find the spirit of family? What form will remain in the influences of habit among a people changing perpetually, where every act of tyranny will find a precedent in previous disorders, where every crime can be justified by an example; where nothing exists of sufficient antiquity to render its destruction an object of dread, and nothing can be figured so new that men are afraid to engage in it? What resistance would manners afford which have already received so many shocks? What would public opinion do, when twenty persons do not exist bound together by any common tie; when you can no more meet with a man, a family, a body corporate, or a class of society, which could represent or act upon that opinion; where each citizen is equally poor, equally impotent, equally isolated, _and can only oppose his individual weakness to the organised strength of the Central Government_? To figure any thing equal TO THE DESPOTISM which would then be established amongst us, we would require to recur not to our own annals; we would be forced to go back to those frightful periods of tyranny, when, manners being corrupted, old recollections effaced, habits destroyed, opinions wavering, liberty deprived of its asylum under the laws, men made a sport of the people, and princes wore out the clemency of heaven rather than the patience of their subjects. They are blind indeed who look for democratic equality in the monarchy of Henry IV. and Louis XIV.”[14] What a commentary on this terrible prophecy have recent events supplied! The revolutionists say, that France is entering the last phase of the revolution.—It is true, it is entering it; but it is the last phase of punishment to which it is blindly hurrying. The sins of the fathers are about to be visited on the third generation. To talk of real freedom, stable institutions, protected industry, social happiness, in such a country, is out of the question. With their own hands, in the first great convulsion, they destroyed all the bulwarks of freedom in the land, and nothing remains to them, after the madness of socialism has run its course, but the equality of despotism. They have thrown off the laws of God and man, and Providence will leave their punishment to their own hands. “The Romans,” says Gibbon, “aspired to be equal: they were levelled _by the equality of Asiatic bondage_.”

Amidst so many mournful subjects of contemplation, there is one consideration which forces itself upon the view, of great importance in the present condition of this country. This revolution in France being a revolt of labour against capital, its first principle is a _deadly hostility to the principle of free-trade_. The recent barbarous expulsion of the English labourers from France, several thousands in number, after having enriched the country by their labour, and taught it by their example, proves what sympathy foreign industry meets with from the great and _fraternising_ republic. The confiscation of their hard-won earnings by the cessation of the savings’ banks to pay more than a tenth in cash, shows what they have to expect from the justice and solvency of its government. With the rise of the communist and socialist party in France to power, whose abomination is capital, whose idol is labour, it may with certainty be predicted that the _sternest and most unbending prohibition of British goods will immediately be adopted by the great philanthropic and fraternising republic_. All other countries which follow in any degree the example of the great parent republic, by the popularising of their institutions, will, from the influence of the labour party, do the same. America already draws nineteen million dollars, or nearly £4,000,000 sterling, from its imports, the greater part of which is a direct tax levied on the industry of this country. Reciprocity, always one-sided, will ere long be absolutely isolated. We shall be,

“Penitus divisos orbe Britannos,”

even more by our policy than our situation.

What chance there is of free-trade doctrines being adopted by the present socialist and free-trade government in France, may be judged of by the following quotation from the _Constitutionnel_:—

“Is not, in fact, the consumer, such as the free-traders represent him
to us, a strange creation? He is, as he has been wittily described, a
fantastic being—a monster who has a mouth and a stomach to consume
produce, but who has neither legs to move nor arms to work. We do not
fear that the operative classes will suffer themselves to be seduced
by those doctrines. We are aware that they have constantly rejected
them through the organs of the press more especially charged with the
defence of their interests; but it behoves them likewise that the
Provisional Government should remain on its guard against principles
which _would be still more disastrous under existing circumstances_.
M. Bethmont, the minister of commerce, has declared, in a letter
addressed by him to the association for the defence of national
labour, that he would never grant facilities of which the consequences
would be calculated to injure our manufacturers. We see by this
declaration that the dispositions of the Provisional Government are
good. The very inquiry which is now being held to devise means to
ameliorate the moral and material condition of the operatives, ought
to confirm the government in the necessity of maintaining the system
_which protects industry_. Let us inquire what the consequence would
be, in fact, if we were so imprudent as to suffer foreign produce to
enter France free of duty. Political economy teaches us that wages
find their balance in consequence of the competition existing between
nations; but they find their equilibrium by falling, and not by
rising. If that were not the case, there would be no possibility of
maintaining the struggle. Now, if we opened our ports, this cruel
necessity would become the more imperious for us, as, being placed
opposite to England in conditions of inferiority, greater in respect
to capital, to the means of transport, and to the price of matters of
the first necessity, we could not redeem those disadvantages except by
a reduction of wages. This, in fact, would be the annihilation of the
operative.”—_Constitutionnel_, March 16, 1848.

This is the inevitable result of republican and socialist triumph in the neighbouring kingdom, and the impulse given to liberal institutions, an inlet thereby opened to manufacturing jealousy all over the world. Debarred thus from all possibility of reciprocal advantages; shut out for ever from the smallest benefit in return, is it expedient for Great Britain to continue any longer her concessions to foreign industry, or incur the blasting imputation of a suicidal policy towards her own inhabitants in favour of ungrateful and selfish foreigners, who meet concessions with prohibition, and industrial teaching with savage expulsion from the instructed territory.