Chapter XVI (2)

The consent of the Eastern Powers to the overthrow of the kingdom of the United Netherlands, and to the establishment of a State based upon a revolutionary movement, would probably have been harder to gain if in the autumn of 1830 Russia had been free to act with all its strength. But at this moment an outbreak took place in Poland, which required the concentration of all the Czar's forces within his own border. The conflict was rather a war of one armed nation against another than the insurrection of a people against its government. Poland--that is to say, the territory which had formerly constituted the Grand Duchy of Warsaw--had, by the treaties of 1814, been established as a separate kingdom, subject to the Czar of Russia, but not forming part of the Russian Empire. It possessed an administration and an army of its own, and the meetings of its Diet gave to it a species of parliamentary government to which there was nothing analogous within Russia proper. During the reign of Alexander the constitutional system of Poland had, on the whole, been respected; and although the real supremacy of an absolute monarch at St. Petersburg had caused the Diet to act as a body in opposition to the Russian Government, the personal connection existing between Alexander and the Poles had prevented any overt rebellion during his own life-time. But with the accession of Nicholas all such individual sympathy passed away, and the hard realities of the actual relation between Poland and the Court of Russia came into full view. In the conspiracies of 1825 a great number of Poles were implicated. Eight of these persons, after a preliminary inquiry, were placed on trial before the Senate at Warsaw, which, in spite of strong evidence of their guilt, acquitted them. Pending the decision, Nicholas declined to convoke the Diet: he also stationed Russian troops in Poland, and violated the constitution by placing Russians in all branches of the administration. Even without these grievances the hostility of the mass of the Polish noblesse to Russia would probably have led sooner or later to insurrection. The peasantry, ignorant and degraded, were but instruments in the hands of their territorial masters. In so far as Poland had rights of self-government, these rights belonged almost exclusively to the nobles, or landed proprietors, a class so numerous that they have usually been mistaken in Western Europe for the Polish nation itself. The so-called emancipation of the serfs, effected by Napoleon after wresting the Grand Duchy of Warsaw from Prussia in 1807, had done little for the mass of the population; for, while abolishing the legal condition of servitude, Napoleon had given the peasant no vestige of proprietorship in his holding, and had consequently left him as much at the mercy of his landlord as he was before. The name of freedom appears in fact to have worked actual injury to the peasant; for in the enjoyment of a pretended power of free contract he was left without that protection of the officers of State which, under the Prussian regime from 1795 to 1807, had shielded him from the tyranny of his lord. It has been the fatal, the irremediable bane of Poland that its noblesse, until too late, saw no country, no right, no law, outside itself. The very measures of interference on the part of the Czar which this caste resented as unconstitutional were in part directed against the abuse of its own privileges; and although in 1830 a section of the nobles had learnt the secret of their country's fall, and were prepared to give the serf the real emancipation of proprietorship, no universal impulse worked in this direction, nor could the wrong of ages be undone in the tumult of war and revolution.

[Insurrection at Warsaw, Nov. 29.]

A sharp distinction existed between the narrow circle of the highest aristocracy of Poland and the mass of the poor and warlike noblesse. The former, represented by men like Czartoryski, the friend of Alexander I. and ex-Minister of Russia, understood the hopelessness of any immediate struggle with the superior power, and advocated the politic development of such national institutions as were given to Poland by the constitution of 1815, institutions which were certainly sufficient to preserve Poland from absorption by Russia, and to keep alive the idea of the ultimate establishment of its independence. It was among the lesser nobility, among the subordinate officers of the army and the population of Warsaw itself, who jointly formed the so-called democratic party, that the spirit of revolt was strongest. Plans for an outbreak had been made during the Turkish war of 1828; but unhappily this opportunity, which might have been used with fatal effect against Russia, was neglected, and it was left for the French Revolution of 1830 to kindle an untimely and ineffective flame. The memory of Napoleon's campaigns and the wild voices of French democracy filled the patriots at Warsaw with vain hopes of a military union with western Liberalism, and overpowered the counsels of men who understood the state of Europe better. Revolt broke out on the 29th of November, 1830. The Polish regiments in Warsaw joined the insurrection, and the Russian troops, under the Grand Duke Constantine, withdrew from the capital, where their leader had narrowly escaped with his life. [390]

[Attempted negotiation with the Czar.]

The Government of Poland had up to this time been in the hands of a Council nominated by the Czar as King of Poland, and controlled by instructions from a secretary at St. Petersburg. The chief of the Council was Lubecki, a Pole devoted to the Emperor Nicholas. On the victory of the insurrection at Warsaw, the Council was dissolved and a provisional Government installed. Though the revolt was the work of the so-called democratic party, the influence of the old governing families of the highest aristocracy was still so great that power was by common consent placed in their hands. Czartoryski became president, and the policy adopted by himself and his colleagues was that of friendly negotiation with Russia. The insurrection of November was treated not as the beginning of a national revolt, but as a mere disturbance occasioned by unconstitutional acts of the Government. So little did the committee understand the character of the Emperor Nicholas, as to imagine that after the expulsion of his soldiers and the overthrow of his Ministers at Warsaw he would peaceably make the concessions required of him, and undertake for the future faithfully to observe the Polish constitution. Lubecki and a second official were sent to St. Petersburg to present these demands, and further (though this was not seriously intended) to ask that the constitution should be introduced into all the Russian provinces which had once formed part of the Polish State. The reception given to the envoys at the frontier was of an ominous character. They were required to describe themselves as officers about to present a report to the Czar, inasmuch as no representatives of rebels in arms could be received into Russia. Lubecki appears now to have shaken the dust of Poland off his feet; his colleague pursued his mission, and was admitted to the Czar's presence. Nicholas, while expressing himself in language of injured tenderness, and disclaiming all desire to punish the innocent with the guilty, let it be understood that Poland had but two alternatives, unconditional submission or annihilation. The messenger who in the meanwhile carried back to Warsaw the first despatches of the envoy reported that the roads were already filled with Russian regiments moving on their prey.

[Diebitsch invades Poland, Feb. 1831.]

Six weeks of precious time were lost through the illusion of the Polish Government that an accommodation with the Emperor Nicholas was possible. Had the insurrection at Warsaw been instantly followed by a general levy and the invasion of Lithuania, the resources of this large province might possibly have been thrown into the scale against Russia. Though the mass of the Lithuanian population, in spite or several centuries of union with Poland, had never been assimilated to the dominant race, and remained in language and creed more nearly allied to the Russians than the Poles, the nobles formed an integral part of the Polish nation, and possessed sufficient power over their serfs to drive them into the field to fight for they knew not what. The Russian garrisons in Lithuania were not strong, and might easily have been overpowered by a sudden attack. When once the population of Warsaw had risen in arms against Nicholas, the only possibility of success lay in the extension of the revolt over the whole of the semi-Polish provinces, and in a general call to arms. But beside other considerations which disinclined the higher aristocracy at Warsaw to extreme measures, they were influenced by a belief that the Powers of Europe might intervene on behalf of the constitution of the Polish kingdom as established by the treaty of Vienna; while, if the struggle passed beyond the borders of that kingdom, it would become a revolutionary movement to which no Court could lend its support. It was not until the envoy returned from St. Petersburg bearing the answer of the Emperor Nicholas that the democratic party carried all before it, and all hopes of a peaceful compromise vanished away. The Diet then passed a resolution declaring that the House of Romanoff had forfeited the Polish crown, and preparations began for a struggle for life or death with Russia. But the first moments when Russia stood unguarded and unready had been lost beyond recall. Troops had thronged westwards into Lithuania; the garrisons in the fortresses had been raised to their full strength; and in February, 1831, Diebitsch took up the offensive, and crossed the Polish frontier with a hundred and twenty thousand men.

[Campaign in Poland, 1831.]

[Capture of Warsaw, Sept. 8, 1831.]

The Polish army, though far inferior in numbers to the enemy which it had to meet, was no contemptible foe. Among its officers there were many who had served in Napoleon's campaigns; it possessed, however, no general habituated to independent command; and the spirit of insubordination and self-will, which had wrought so much ruin in Poland, was still ready to break out when defeat had impaired the authority of the nominal chiefs. In the first encounters the advancing Russian army was gallantly met; and, although the Poles were forced to fall back upon Warsaw, the losses sustained by Diebitsch were so serious that he had to stay his operations and to wait for reinforcements. In March the Poles took up the offensive and surprised several isolated divisions of the enemy; their general, however, failed to push his advantages with the necessary energy and swiftness; the junction of the Russians was at length effected, and on the 26th of May the Poles were defeated after obstinate resistance in a pitched battle at Ostrolenka. Cholera now broke out in the Russian camp. Both Diebitsch and the Grand Duke Constantine were carried off in the midst of the campaign, and some months more were added to the struggle of Poland, hopeless as this had now become. Incursions were made into Lithuania and Podolia, but without result. Paskiewitch, the conqueror of Kars, was called up to take the post left vacant by the death of his rival. New masses of Russian troops came in place of those who had perished in battle and in the hospitals; and while the Governments of Western Europe lifted no hand on behalf of Polish independence, Prussia, alarmed lest the revolt should spread into its own Polish provinces, assisted the operations of the Russian general by supplying stores and munition of war. Blow after blow fell upon the Polish cause. Warsaw itself became the prey of disorder, intrigue, and treachery; and at length the Russian army made its entrance into the capital, and the last soldiers of Poland laid down their arms, or crossed into Prussian or Austrian territory. The revolt had been rashly and unwisely begun: its results were fatal and lamentable. The constitution of Poland was abolished; it ceased to be a separate kingdom, and became a province of the Russian Empire. Its defenders were exiles over the face of Europe or forgotten in Siberia. All that might have been won by the gradual development of its constitutional liberties without breach with the Czar's sovereignty was sacrificed. The future of Poland, like that of Russia itself, now depended on the enlightenment and courage of the Imperial Government, and on that alone. The very existence of a Polish nationality and language seemed for a while to be threatened by the measures of repression that followed the victory of 1831: and if it be true that Russian autocracy has at length done for the Polish peasants what their native masters during centuries of ascendency refused to do, this emancipation would probably not have come the later for the preservation of some relics of political independence, nor would it have had the less value if unaccompanied by the proscription of so great a part of that class which had once been held to constitute the Polish nation. [391]

[Insurrection in the Papal States, Feb., 1831.]

During the conflict on the banks of the Vistula, the attitude of the Austrian Government had been one of watchful neutrality. Its own Polish territory was not seriously menaced with disturbance, for in a great part of Galicia the population, being of Ruthenian stock and belonging to the Greek Church, had nothing in common with the Polish and Catholic noblesse of their province, and looked back upon the days of Polish dominion as a time of suffering and wrong. Austria's danger in any period of European convulsion lay as yet rather on the side of Italy than on the East, and the vigour of its policy in that quarter contrasted with the equanimity with which it watched the struggle of its Slavic neighbours. Since the suppression of the Neapolitan constitutional movement in 1821, the Carbonari and other secret societies of Italy had lost nothing of their activity. Their head-quarters had been removed from Southern Italy to the Papal States, and the numerous Italian exiles in France and elsewhere kept up a busy communication at once with French revolutionary leaders like Lafayette and with the enemies of the established governments in Italy itself. The death of Pope Pius VIII., on November 30, 1830, and the consequent paralysis of authority within the Ecclesiastical States, came at an opportune moment; assurances of support arrived from Paris; and the Italian leaders resolved upon a general insurrection throughout the minor Principalities on the 5th of February, 1831. Anticipating the signal, Menotti, chief of a band of patriots at Modena, who appears to have been lured on by the Grand Duke himself, assembled his partisans on February 3. He was overpowered and imprisoned; but the outbreak of the insurrection in Bologna, and its rapid extension over the northern part of the Papal States, soon caused the Grand Duke to fly to Austrian territory, carrying his prisoner Menotti with him, whom he subsequently put to death. The new Pope, Gregory XVI., had scarcely been elected when the report reached him that Bologna had declared the temporal power of the Papacy to be at an end. Uncertain of the character of the revolt, he despatched Cardinal Benvenuti northwards, to employ conciliation or force as occasion might require. The Legate fell into the hands of the insurgents; the revolt spread southwards; and Gregory, now hopeless of subduing it by the forces at his own command, called upon Austria for assistance. [392]

[Attitude of France.]

The principle which, since the Revolution of July, the government of France had repeatedly laid down as the future basis of European politics was that of non-intervention. It had disclaimed any purpose of interfering with the affairs of its neighbours, and had required in return that no foreign intervention should take place in districts which, like Belgium and Savoy, adjoined its own frontier. But there existed no real unity of purpose in the councils of Louis Philippe. The Ministry had one voice for the representatives of foreign powers, another for the Chamber of Deputies, and another for Lafayette and the bands of exiles and conspirators who were under his protection. The head of the government at the beginning of 1831 was Laffitte, a weak politician, dominated by revolutionary sympathies and phrases, but incapable of any sustained or resolute action, and equally incapable of resisting Louis Philippe after the King had concluded his performance of popular leader, and assumed his real character as the wary and self-seeking chief of a reigning house. Whether the actual course of French policy would be governed by the passions of the streets or by the timorousness of Louis Philippe was from day to day a matter of conjecture. The official answer given to the inquiries of the Austrian ambassador as to the intentions of France in case of an Austrian intervention in Italy was, that such intervention might be tolerated in Parma and Modena, which belonged to sovereigns immediately connected with the Hapsburgs, but that if it was extended to the Papal States war with France would be probable, and if extended to Piedmont, certain. On this reply Metternich, who saw Austria's own dominion in Italy once more menaced by the success of an insurrectionary movement, had to form his decision. He could count on the support of Russia in case of war; he knew well the fears of Louis Philippe, and knew that he could work on these fears both by pointing to the presence of the young Louis Bonaparte and his brother with the Italian insurgents as evidence of the Bonapartist character of the movement, and by hinting that in the last resort he might himself let loose upon France Napoleon's son, the Duke of Reichstadt, now growing to manhood at Vienna, before whom Louis Philippe's throne would have collapsed as speedily as that of Louis XVIII. in 1814. Where weakness existed, Metternich was quick to divine it and to take advantage of it. He rightly gauged Louis Philippe. Taking at their true value the threats of the French Government, he declared that it was better for Austria to fall, if necessary, by war than by revolution; and, resolving at all hazards to suppress the Roman insurrection, he gave orders to the Austrian troops to enter the Papal States.

[Austrians suppress Roman revolt, March, 1831.]

[Casimir Perier, March, 1831.]

The military resistance which the insurgents could offer to the advance of the Pope's Austrian deliverers was insignificant, and order was soon restored. But all Europe expected the outbreak of war between Austria and France. The French ambassador at Constantinople had gone so far as to offer the Sultan an offensive and defensive alliance, and to urge him to make preparations for an attack upon both Austria and Russia on their southern frontiers. A despatch from the ambassador reached Paris describing the warlike overtures he had made to the Porte. Louis Philippe saw that if this despatch reached the hands of Laffitte and the war party in the Council of Ministers the preservation of peace would be almost impossible. In concert with Sebastiani, the Foreign Minister, he concealed the despatch from Laffitte. The Premier discovered the trick that had been played upon him, and tendered his resignation. It was gladly accepted by Louis Philippe. Laffitte quitted office, begging pardon of God and man for the part that he had taken in raising Louis Philippe to the throne. His successor was Casimir Perier, a man of very different mould; resolute, clear-headed, and immovably true to his word; a constitutional statesman of the strictest type, intolerant of any species of disorder, and a despiser of popular movements, but equally proof against royal intrigues, and as keen to maintain the constitutional system of France against the Court on one side and the populace on the other as he was to earn for France the respect of foreign powers by the abandonment of a policy of adventure, and the steady adherence to the principles of international obligation which he had laid down. Under his firm hand the intrigues of the French Government with foreign revolutionists ceased; it was felt throughout Europe that peace was still possible, and that if war was undertaken by France it would be undertaken only under conditions which would make any moral union of all the great Powers against France impossible. The Austrian expedition into the Papal States had already begun, and the revolutionary Government had been suppressed; the most therefore that Casimir Perier could demand was that the evacuation of the occupied territory should take place as soon as possible, and that Austria should add its voice to that of the other Powers in urging the Papal Government to reform its abuses. Both demands were granted. For the first time Austria appeared as the advocate of something like a constitutional system. A Conference held at Rome agreed upon a scheme of reforms to be recommended to the Pope; the prospects of peace grew daily fairer; and in July, 1831, the last Austrian soldiers quitted the Ecclesiastical States. [393]

[Second Austrian intervention, Jan., 1832.]

[French occupy Ancona, February, 1832.]

It now remained to be seen whether Pope Gregory and his cardinals had the intelligence and good-will necessary for carrying out the reforms on the promise of which France had abstained from active intervention. If any such hopes existed they were doomed to speedy disappointment. The apparatus of priestly maladministration was restored in all its ancient deformity. An amnesty which had been promised by the Legate Benvenuti was disregarded, and the Pope set himself to strengthen his authority by enlisting new bands of ruffians and adventurers under the standard of St. Peter. Again insurrection broke out, and again at the Pope's request the Austrians crossed the frontier (January, 1832). Though their appearance was fatal to the cause of liberty, they were actually welcomed as protectors in towns which had been exposed to the tender mercies of the Papal condottieri. There was no disorder, no severity, where the Austrian commandants held sway; but their mere presence in central Italy was a threat to European peace; and Casimir Perier was not the man to permit Austria to dominate in Italy at its will. Without waiting for negotiations, he despatched a French force to Ancona, and seized this town before the Austrians could approach it. The rival Powers were now face to face in Italy; but Perier had no intention of forcing on war if his opponent was still willing to keep the peace. Austria accepted the situation, and made no attempt to expel the French from the position they had seized. Casimir Perier, now on his death-bed, defended the step that he had taken against the remonstrances of ambassadors and against the protests of the Pope, and declared the presence of the French at Ancona to be no incentive to rebellion, but the mere assertion of the rights of a Power which had as good a claim to be in central Italy as Austria itself. Had his life been prolonged, he would probably have insisted upon the execution of the reforms which the Powers had urged upon the Papal government, and have made the occupation of Ancona an effectual means for reaching this end. But with his death the wrongs of the Italians themselves and the question of a reformed government in the Papal States gradually passed out of sight. France and Austria jealously watched one another on the debatable land; the occupation became a mere incident of the balance of power, and was prolonged for year after year, until, in 1838, the Austrians having finally withdrawn all their troops, the French peacefully handed over the citadel of Ancona to the Holy See.

[Prussia in 1830.]

[The Zollverein, 1828-1836.]

The arena in which we have next to follow the effects of the July Revolution, in action and counter-action, is Germany. It has been seen that in the southern German States an element of representative government, if weak, yet not wholly ineffective, had come into being soon after 1815, and had survived the reactionary measures initiated by the conference of Ministers at Carlsbad. In Prussia the promises of King Frederick William to his people had never been fulfilled. Years had passed since exaggerated rumours of conspiracy had served as an excuse for withholding the Constitution. Hardenberg had long been dead; the foreign policy of the country had taken a freer tone; the rigours of the police-system had departed; but the nation remained as completely excluded from any share in the government as it had been before Napoleon's fall. It had in fact become clear that during the lifetime of King Frederick William things must be allowed to remain in their existing condition; and the affection of the people for their sovereign, who had been so long and so closely united with Prussia in its sufferings and in its glories, caused a general willingness to postpone the demand for constitutional reform until the succeeding reign. The substantial merits of the administration might moreover have reconciled a less submissive people than the Prussians to the absolute government under which they lived. Under a wise and enlightened financial policy the country was becoming visibly richer. Obstacles to commercial development were removed, communications opened; and finally, by a series of treaties with the neighbouring German States, the foundations were laid for that Customs-Union which, under the name of the Zollverein, ultimately embraced almost the whole of non-Austrian Germany. As one Principality after another attached itself to the Prussian system, the products of the various regions of Germany, hitherto blocked by the frontier dues of each petty State, moved freely through the land, while the costs attending the taxation of foreign imports, now concentrated upon the external line of frontier, were enormously diminished. Patient, sagacious, and even liberal in its negotiations with its weaker neighbours, Prussia silently connected with itself through the ties of financial union States which had hitherto looked to Austria as their natural head. The semblance of political union was carefully avoided, but the germs of political union were nevertheless present in the growing community of material interests. The reputation of the Prussian Government, no less than the welfare of the Prussian people, was advanced by each successive step in the extension of the Zollverein; and although the earlier stages alone had been passed in the years before 1830, enough had already been done to affect public opinion; and the general sense of material progress combined with other influences to close Prussia to the revolutionary tendencies of that year.

[Insurrections in Brunswick and Cassel.]

[Constitutions in Hanover and Saxony, 1830-1833.]

There were, however, other States in northern Germany which had all the defects of Prussian autocracy without any of its redeeming qualities. In Brunswick and in Hesse Cassel despotism existed in its most contemptible form; the violence of a half-crazy youth in the one case, and the caprices of an obstinate dotard in the other, rendering authority a mere nuisance to those who were subject to it. Here accordingly revolution broke out. The threatened princes had made themselves too generally obnoxious or ridiculous for any hand to be raised in their defence. Their disappearance excited no more than the inevitable lament from Metternich; and in both States systems of representative government were introduced by their successors. In Hanover and in Saxony agitation also began in favour of Parliamentary rule. The disturbance that arose was not of a serious character, and it was met by the Courts in a conciliatory spirit. Constitutions were granted, the liberty of the Press extended, and trial by jury established. On the whole, the movement of 1830, as it affected northern Germany, was rationally directed and salutary in its results. Changes of real value were accomplished with a sparing employment of revolutionary means, and, in the more important cases, through the friendly co-operation of the sovereigns with their subjects. It was not the fault of those who had asked for the same degree of liberty in northern Germany which the south already possessed, that Germany at large again experienced the miseries of reaction and repression which had afflicted it ten years before.

[Movement in the Palatinate.]

Like Belgium and the Rhenish Provinces, the Bavarian Palatinate had for twenty years been incorporated with France. Its inhabitants had grown accustomed to the French law and French institutions, and had caught something of the political animation which returned to France after Napoleon's fall. Accordingly when the government of Munich, alarmed by the July Revolution, showed an inclination towards repressive measures, the Palatinate, severed from the rest of the Bavarian monarchy and in immediate contact with France, became the focus of a revolutionary agitation. The Press had already attained some activity and some influence in this province; and although the leaders of the party of progress were still to a great extent Professors, they had so far advanced upon the patriots of 1818 as to understand that the liberation of the German people was not to be effected by the lecturers and the scholars of the Universities. The design had been formed of enlisting all classes of the public on the side of reform, both by the dissemination of political literature and by the establishment of societies not limited, as in 1818, to academic circles, but embracing traders as well as soldiers and professional men. Even the peasant was to be reached and instructed in his interests as a citizen. It was thought that much might be effected by associating together all the Oppositions in the numerous German Parliaments; but a more striking feature of the revolutionary movement which began in the Palatinate, and one strongly distinguishing it from the earlier agitation of Jena and Erfurt, was its cosmopolitan character. France in its triumph and Poland in its death-struggle excited equal interest and sympathy. In each the cause of European liberty appeared to be at stake. The Polish banner was saluted in the Palatinate by the side of that of united Germany; and from that time forward in almost every revolutionary movement of Europe, down to the insurrection of the Commune of Paris in 1871, Polish exiles have been active both in the organisation of revolt and in the field.

[Reaction in Germany.]

Until the fall of Warsaw, in September, 1831, the German governments, uncertain of the course which events might take in Europe, had shown a certain willingness to meet the complaints of their subjects, and had in especial relaxed the supervision exercised over the press. The fall of Warsaw, which quieted so many alarms, and made the Emperor Nicholas once more a power outside his own dominions, inaugurated a period of reaction in Germany. The Diet began the campaign against democracy by suppressing various liberal newspapers, and amongst them the principal journal of the Palatinate. It was against this movement of regression that the agitation in the Palatinate and elsewhere was now directed. A festival, or demonstration, was held at the Castle of Hambach, near Zweibrücken, at which a body of enthusiasts called upon the German people to unite against their oppressors, and some even urged an immediate appeal to arms (May 27, 1832). Similar meetings, though on a smaller scale, were held in other parts of Germany. Wild words abounded, and the connection of the German revolutionists with that body of opponents of all established governments which had its council-chamber at Paris and its head in Lafayette was openly avowed. Weak and insignificant as the German demagogues were, their extravagance gave to Metternich and to the Diet sufficient pretext for revising the reactionary measures of 1819. Once more the subordination of all representative bodies to the sovereign's authority was laid down by the Diet as a binding principle for every German state. The refusal of taxes by any legislature was declared to be an act of rebellion which would be met by the armed intervention of the central Powers. All political meetings and associations were forbidden; the Press was silenced; the introduction of German books printed abroad was prohibited, and the Universities were again placed under the watch of the police (July, 1832). [394]

[Attempt at Frankfort, April, 1833.]

If among the minor sovereigns of Germany there were some who, as in Baden, sincerely desired the development of free institutions, the authority exercised by Metternich and his adherents in reaction bore down all the resistance that these courts could offer, and the hand of despotism fell everywhere heavily upon the party of political progress. The majority of German Liberals, not yet prepared for recourse to revolutionary measures, submitted to the pressure of the times, and disclaimed all sympathy with illegal acts; a minority, recognising that nothing was now to be gained by constitutional means, entered into conspiracies, and determined to liberate Germany by force. One insignificant group, relying upon the armed co-operation of Polish bands in France, and deceived by promises of support from some Würtemberg soldiers, actually rose in insurrection at Frankfort. A guard-house was seized, and a few soldiers captured; but the citizens of Frankfort stood aloof, and order was soon restored (April, 1833). It was not to be expected that the reactionary courts should fail to draw full advantage from this ill-timed outbreak of their enemies. Prussian troops marched into Frankfort, and Metternich had no difficulty in carrying through the Diet a decree establishing a commission to superintend and to report upon the proceedings instituted against political offenders throughout Germany. For several years these investigations continued, and the campaign against the opponents of government was carried on with various degrees of rigour in the different states. About two thousand persons altogether were brought to trial: in Prussia thirty-nine sentences of death were pronounced, but not executed. In the struggle against revolution the forces of monarchy had definitely won the victory. Germany again experienced, as it had in 1819, that the federal institutions which were to have given it unity existed only for the purposes of repression. The breach between the nation and its rulers, in spite of the apparent failure of the democratic party, remained far deeper and wider than it had been before; and although Metternich, victor once more over the growing restlessness of the age, slumbered on for another decade in fancied security, the last of his triumphs had now been won, and the next uprising proved how blind was that boasted statesmanship which deemed the sources of danger exhausted when once its symptoms had been driven beneath the surface.

[Conspirators and exiles.]

[Dispersion of the Swiss exiles, 1834.]

In half the states of Europe there were now bodies of exasperated, uncompromising men, who devoted their lives to plotting against governments, and who formed, in their community of interest and purpose, a sort of obverse of the Holy Alliance, a federation of kings' enemies, a league of principle and creed, in which liberty and human right stood towards established rule as light to darkness. As the grasp of authority closed everywhere more tightly upon its baffled foes, more and more of these men passed into exile. Among them was the Genoese Mazzini, who, after suffering imprisonment in 1831, withdrew to Marseilles, and there, in combination with various secret societies, planned an incursion into the Italian province of Savoy. It was at first intended that this enterprise should be executed simultaneously with the German rising at Frankfort. Delays, however, arose, and it was not until the beginning of the following year that the little army, which numbered more Poles than Italians, was ready for its task. The incursion was made from Geneva in February, 1834, and ended disastrously. [395] Mazzini returned to Switzerland, where hundreds of exiles, secure under the shelter of the Republic, devised schemes of attack upon the despots of Europe, and even rioted in honour of freedom in the streets of the Swiss cities which protected them. The effect of the revolutionary movement of the time in consolidating the alliance of the three Eastern Powers, so rudely broken by the Greek War of Liberation, now came clearly into view. The sovereigns of Russia and Austria had met at Münchengrätz in Bohemia in the previous autumn, and, in concert with Prussia, had resolved upon common principles of action if their intervention should be required against disturbers of order. Notes were now addressed from every quarter to the Swiss Government, requiring the expulsion of all persons concerned in enterprises against the peace of neighbouring States. Some resistance to this demand was made by individual cantons; but the extravagance of many of the refugees themselves alienated popular sympathy, and the greater part of them were forced to quit Switzerland and to seek shelter in England or in America. With the dispersion of the central band of exiles the open alliance which had existed between the revolutionists of Europe gradually passed away. The brotherhood of the kings had proved a stern reality, the brotherhood of the peoples a delusive vision. Mazzini indeed, who up to this time had scarcely emerged from the rabble of revolutionary leaders, was yet to prove how deeply the genius, the elevation, the fervour of one man struggling against the powers of the world may influence the history of his age; but the fire that purified the fine gold charred and consumed the baser elements; and of those who had hoped the most after 1830, many now sank into despair, or gave up their lives to mere restless agitation and intrigue.

[Difficulties of Louis Philippe.]

[Insurrections, 1832-1834.]

[Repressive Laws, Sept., 1835.]

It was in France that the revolutionary movement was longest maintained. During the first year of Louis Philippe's rule the opposition to his government was inspired not so much by Republicanism as by a wild and inconsiderate sympathy with the peoples who were fighting for liberty elsewhere, and by a headstrong impulse to take up arms on their behalf. The famous decree of the Convention in 1792, which promised the assistance of France to every nation in revolt against its rulers, was in fact the true expression of what was felt by a great part of the French nation in 1831; and in the eyes of these enthusiasts it was the unpardonable offence of Louis Philippe against the honour of France that he allowed Poland and Italy to succumb without drawing his sword against their conquerors. That France would have had to fight the three Eastern Powers combined, if it had allied itself with those in revolt against any one of the three, passed for nothing among the clamorous minority in the Chamber and among the orators of Paris. The pacific policy of Casimir Perier was misunderstood; it passed for mere poltroonery, when in fact it was the only policy that could save France from a recurrence of the calamities of 1815. There were other causes for the growing unpopularity of the King and of his Ministers, but the first was their policy of peace. As the attacks of his opponents became more and more bitter, the government of Casimir Perier took more and more of a repressive character. Disappointment at the small results produced in France itself by the Revolution of July worked powerfully in men's minds. The forces that had been set in motion against Charles X. were not to be laid at rest at the bidding of those who had profited by them, and a Republican party gradually took definite shape and organisation. Tumult succeeded tumult. In the summer of 1832 the funeral of General Lamarque, a popular soldier, gave the signal for insurrection at Paris. There was severe fighting in the streets; the National Guard, however, proved true to the king, and shared with the army in the honours of its victory. Repressive measures and an unbroken series of prosecutions against seditious writers followed this first armed attack upon the established government. The bitterness of the Opposition, the discontent of the working classes, far surpassed anything that had been known under Charles X. The whole country was agitated by revolutionary societies and revolutionary propaganda. Disputes between masters and workmen, which, in consequence of the growth of French manufacturing industry, now became both frequent and important, began to take a political colour. Polish and Italian exiles connected their own designs with attacks to be made upon the French Government from within; and at length, in April, 1834, after the passing of a law against trades-unions, the working classes of Lyons, who were on strike against their employers, were induced to rise in revolt. After several days' fighting the insurrection was suppressed. Simultaneous outbreaks took place at St. Etienne, Grenoble, and many other places in the south and centre of France; and on a report of the success of the insurgents reaching Paris, the Republic was proclaimed and barricades were erected. Again civil war raged in the streets, and again the forces of Government gained the victory. A year more passed, during which the investigations into the late revolt and the trial of a host of prisoners served rather to agitate than to reassure the public mind; and in the summer of 1835 an attempt was made upon the life of the King so terrible and destructive in its effects as to amount to a public calamity. An infernal machine composed of a hundred gun-barrels was fired by a Corsican named Fieschi, as the King with a large suite was riding through the streets of Paris on the anniversary of the Revolution of July. Fourteen persons were killed on the spot, among whom was Mortier, one of the oldest of the marshals of France; many others were fatally or severely injured. The King, however, with his three sons, escaped unhurt, and the repressive laws that followed this outrage marked the close of open revolutionary agitation in France. Whether in consequence of the stringency of the new laws, or of the exhaustion of a party discredited in public estimation by the crimes of a few of its members and the recklessness of many more, the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe now seemed to have finally vanquished its opponents. Repeated attempts were made on the life of the King, but they possessed for the most part little political significance. Order was welcome to the nation at large; and though in the growth of a socialistic theory and creed of life which dates from this epoch there lay a danger to Governments greater than any purely political, Socialism was as yet the affair of thinkers rather than of active workers either in the industrial or in the Parliamentary world. The Government had beaten its enemies outside the Chamber. Within the Chamber, the parties of extremes ceased to exercise any real influence. Groups were formed, and rival leaders played against one another for office; but they were separated by no far-reaching differences of aim, and by no real antagonism of constitutional principle. During the succeeding years of Louis Philippe's reign there was little visible on the surface but the normal rivalry of parties under a constitutional monarchy. The middle-class retained its monopoly of power: authority, centralised as before, maintained its old prestige in France, and softened opposition by judicious gifts of office and emolument. Revolutionary passion seemed to have died away: and the triumphs or reverses of party-leaders in the Chamber of Deputies succeeded to the harassing and doubtful conflict between Government and insurrection.

[The English Reform movement.]

The near coincidence in time between the French Revolution of 1830 and the passing of the English Reform Bill is apt to suggest to those who look for the operation of wide general causes in history that the English Reform movement should be viewed as a part of the great current of political change which then traversed the continent of Europe. But on a closer examination this view is scarcely borne out by facts, and the coincidence of the two epochs of change appears to be little more than accidental. The general unity that runs through the history of the more advanced continental states is indeed stronger than appears to a superficial reader of history; but this correspondence of tendency does not always embrace England; on the contrary, the conditions peculiar to England usually preponderate over those common to England and other countries, exhibiting at times more of contrast than of similarity, as in the case of the Napoleonic epoch, when the causes which drew together the western half of the continent operated powerfully to exclude our own country from the current influences of the time, and made the England of 1815, in opinion, in religion, and in taste much more insular than the England of 1780. The revolution which overthrew Charles X. did no doubt encourage and stimulate the party of Reform in Great Britain; but, unlike the Belgian, the German, and the Italian movements, the English Reform movement would unquestionably have run the same course and achieved the same results even if the revolt against the ordinances of Charles X. had been successfully repressed, and the Bourbon monarchy had maintained itself in increased strength and reputation. A Reform of Parliament had been acknowledged to be necessary forty years before. Pitt had actually proposed it in 1785, and but for the outbreak of the French Revolution would probably have carried it into effect before the close of the last century. The development of English manufacturing industry which took place between 1790 and 1830, accompanied by the rapid growth of towns and the enrichment of the urban middle class, rendered the design of Pitt, which would have transferred the representation of the decayed boroughs to the counties alone, obsolete, and made the claims of the new centres of population too strong to be resisted. In theory the representative system of the country was completely transformed; but never was a measure which seemed to open the way to such boundless possibilities of change so thoroughly safe and so thoroughly conservative. In spite of the increased influence won by the wealthy part of the commercial classes, the House of Commons continued to be drawn mainly from the territorial aristocracy. Cabinet after Cabinet was formed with scarcely a single member included in it who was not himself a man of title, or closely connected with the nobility: the social influence of rank was not diminished; and although such measures as the Reform of Municipal Corporations attested the increased energy of the Legislature, no party in the House of Commons was weaker than that which supported the democratic demands for the Ballot and for Triennial Parliaments, nor was the repeal of the Corn Laws seriously considered until famine had made it inevitable. That the widespread misery which existed in England after 1832, as the result of the excessive increase of our population and the failure alike of law and of philanthropy to keep pace with the exigencies of a vast industrial growth, should have been so quietly borne, proves how great was the success of the Reform Bill as a measure of conciliation between Government and people. But the crowning justification of the changes made in 1832, and the complete and final answer to those who had opposed them as revolutionary, was not afforded until 1848, when, in the midst of European convulsion, the monarchy and the constitution of England remained unshaken. Bold as the legislation of Lord Grey appeared to men who had been brought up amidst the reactionary influences dominant in England since 1793, the Reform Bill belongs not to the class of great creative measures which have inaugurated new periods in the life of nations, but to the class of those which, while least affecting the general order of society, have most contributed to political stability and to the avoidance of revolutionary change.