Chapter XI: Part 11

Of churches and religious establishments, there were plenty in and about the Rue St Denis. Besides the great church of St Jacques, mentioned before, there were in the street itself the churches of the Holy Sepulchre, of St Leu, and St Gilles; of the Innocents; of the Saviour; and of St Jacques de l'Hopital: while of conventual institutions, there were the Hospitals of St Catharine; of the Holy Trinity; of the Filles de St Magloire; of the Filles Dieu; of the Community of St Chaumont; of the S[oe]urs de Charite; and of the great monastery of St Lazare. The fronts, or other considerable portions of those buildings, were all visible in the street, and added greatly to its antiquated appearance. The long irregular lines of gable roofs on either side, converging from points high above the spectator's head, until they met or crossed in a dim perspective, near the horizon, were broken here and there by the pointed front, or the tapering spire of a church or convent. A solemn gateway protruded itself at intervals into the street, and, with its flanking turrets and buttresses, gave broad masses of shade in perpendicular lines, strongly contrasted with the horizontal or diagonal patches of dark colour caused by the houses. At early morn and eve, a shrill tinkling of bells warned the neighbours of the sacred duties of many a secluded penitent, or admonished them that it was time to send up their own orisons to God. Before mid-day had arrived, and soon after it had passed, the deeper tones of a _bourdon_, from some of the parochial churches, invited the citizens to the sacrifice of the mass or the canticles of vespers. Not seldom the throngs of busy wordlings were forced to separate and give room to some holy procession, which, with glittering cross at the head, with often tossed and sweetly smelling censers at the side, with white-robed chanting acolyths, and reverend priests, in long line behind, came forth to take its way to some holy edifice. The zealous citizens would suspend their avocations for a while, would repeat a reverential prayer as the holy men went by, and then return to the absorbing calls of business, not unbenefited by the recollections just awakened in their minds. On the eves and on the mornings of holy festivals, business was totally suspended; the bells, great and small, rang forth their silvery sounds; the churches were crowded, the chapels glittered with blazing lights; the prayers of the priests and people rose with the incense before the high altar; the solemn organ swelled its full tones responsive to the loud-voiced choir; the curates thundered from the pulpits, to the edification of charitable congregations; and after all had been prostrated in solemn adoration of the Divine presence, the citizens would pour out into the street, and repair, some to their homes, some to the Palace of the Tournelles, with its towers and gardens guarded by the Bastille; others to the Louvre or to the Pre-aux-clercs, and the fields by the river side; others would stroll up the hill of Montmartre; and some in boats would brave the dangers of the Seine! On other and sadder occasions, the inhabitants of the Rue St Denis would quit their houses in earnestly talking groups, and would adjourn to the open space in front of the Halles. Here, on the top of an octagonal tower, some twenty feet high, and covered with a conical spire, between the openings of pointed arches, might be seen criminals with their heads and hands protruding through the wooden collar of the pillory. The guard of the provost, or the lieutenant of police, would keep off the noisy throng below, and the goodwives would discuss among themselves the enormities of the coin-clipper, the cut-purse, the incendiary, or the unjust dealer, who were exposed on those occasions for their delinquencies; while the offenders themselves, would--a few of them--hang down their heads, and close their eyes in the unsufferable agony of shame; but by far the greater number would shout forth words of bold defiance or indecent ribaldry, would protrude the mocking tongue, or spit forth curses with dire volubility. Then would rise the shouts of _gamins_, then would come the thick volley of eggs, fish-heads, butcher's-offal, and all the garbage of the market, aimed unerringly by many a strenuous arm at the heads of the culprits; and then the soldiers with their pertuisanes would make quick work among the legs of the retreating crowd, and the jailers would apply the ready lash to the backs of the hardened criminals aloft; and thus, the hour's exhibition ended, and the "king's justice" satisfied, away would the criminals be led, some on a hurdle to Montfaucon, and there hung on its ample gibbet, amid the rattling bones of other wretches; some would be hurried back to the Chastelet, or other prisons; and others would be sent off to work, chained to the oars of the royal galleys.

This was a common amusement of the idlers of this quarter: but the passions of the mob, if they needed stronger excitement, had to find a scene of horrid gratification on the Place de Greve, opposite the Hotel de Ville, where at rare intervals a heretic would be burnt, a murderer hung, or a traitor quartered; but this spot of bloody memory lies far from the Rue St Denis, and we are not now called upon to reveal its terrible recollections: let us turn back to our good old street.

One of the most curious objects in it was the Church of the Innocents, with its adjoining cemetery, once the main place of interment for all the capital. The church lay at the north-eastern end of what is now the Marche des Innocents, and against it was erected the fountain which now adorns the middle of the market, and which was the work of the celebrated sculptor, Jean Goujon, and his colleague, the architect, Pierre Lescot. The former is said to have been seated at it, giving some last touches to one of the tall and graceful nymphs that adorn its high arched sides, on the day of the Massacre of St Bartholomew, when he was killed by a random shot from a Catholic zealot. The simple inscription which it still bears, FONTIUM NYMPHIS, is in better taste than that of any other among the numerous fountains of the French capital. The church itself (of which not the slightest vestige now remains) was not a good specimen of mediaeval architecture, although it was large and richly endowed. It was founded by Philip Augustus, when he ordered the Jews to be expelled from his dominions, and seized on their estates--one of the most nefarious actions committed by a monarch of France. The absurd accusation, that the Jews used periodically to crucify and torture Christian children, was one of the most plausible pretexts employed by the rapacious king on this occasion; and, as a kind of testimonial that such had been his excuse, he founded this church; dedicated it to the Holy Innocents; and transferred hither the remains of a boy, named Richard, said to have been sacrificed at Pontoise by some unfortunate Jews, who expiated the pretended crime by the most horrible torments. St Richard's remains, (for he was canonized,) worked numerous miracles in the Church of the Innocents, or rather in the churchyard, where a tomb was erected over them; and so great was their reputation, that tradition says, the English, on evacuating Paris in the 15th century, carried off with them all but the little saint's head. Certain it is, that nothing but the head remained amongst the relics of this parish; and equally certain is it, that no Christian innocents have been sacrificed by those "circumcised dogs" either before or since, whether in France or England, or any other part of the world. It remained for the dishonest credulity of the present century, to witness the disgraceful spectacle of a French consul at Damascus, assisting at the torturing of some Jewish merchants under a similar accusation, and assuring his government of his belief in the confessions extorted by these inhuman means; and of many a party journal in Paris accrediting and re-echoing the tale. Had not British humanity intervened in aid of British policy, France had made this visionary accusation the ground of an armed intervention in Syria. The false accusers of the Jews of Damascus have indeed been punished; but the French consul, the Count de Ratti-Menton, has since been rewarded by his government with a high promotion in the diplomatic department!

Once more, "a truce to digression," let us see what the ancient cemetery of the Innocents was like. Round an irregular four-sided space, about five hundred feet by two, ran a low cloister-like building, called Les Charniers, or the Charnel Houses. It had originally been a cloister surrounding the churchyard; but, so convenient had this place of sepulture been found, from its situation in the heart of Paris, that the remains of mortality increased in most rapid proportion within its precincts, and it was continually found necessary to transfer the bones of long-interred, and long-forgotten bodies, to the shelter of the cloisters. Here, then, they were piled up in close order--the bones below and the skulls above; they reached in later times to the very rafters of these spacious cloisters all round, and heaps of skulls and bones lay in unseemly groups on the grass in the midst of the graveyard. At one corner of the church was a small grated window, where a recluse, like her of St Opportune, had worn away forty-six years of her life, after one year's confinement as a preparatory experiment; and within the church was a splendid brass tomb, commemorating this refinement of the monastic virtues. At various spots about the cemetery, were erected obelisks and crosses of different dates, while against the walls of the church and cloister were affixed, in motley and untidy confusion, unnumbered tablets and other memorials of the dead. The suppression of this cemetery, just at the commencement of the Revolution, was a real benefit to the capital; and when the contents of the yard and its charnel-houses were removed to the catacombs south of the city, it was calculated that the remains of two millions of human beings rattled down the deep shafts of the stone pits to their second interment. In place of the cemetery, we now find the wooden stalls of the Covent Garden of Paris; low, dirty, unpainted, ill-built, badly-drained, stinking, and noisy; and their tenants are not better than themselves. Like their neighbours, the famous Poissardes, the Dames de la Halle as they are styled, are the quintessence of all that is disgusting in Paris. Covent Garden is worth a thousand of such markets, and Pere la Chaise is an admirable substitute for the Cemetery of the Innocents.

High up in the Rue de Faubourg St Denis, which is only a continuation of the main street, just as Knightsbridge is of Piccadilly, stand the remains of the great convent and _maladrerie_ of St Lazarus. In this religious house, all persons attacked with leprosy were received in former days, and either kept for life, if incurable, or else maintained until they were freed from that loathsome disease. From what cause we know not, (except that the House of St Lazarus was the nearest of any religious establishment to the walls of the capital,) the kings of France always made a stay of three days within its walls on their solemn inauguratory entrance into Paris, and their bodies always lay in state here before they were conveyed to the Abbey Church of St Denis. There was no lack of stiff ceremonial on these occasions; and, doubtless, the good fathers of the convent did not receive all the court within their walls without rubbing a little gold off the rich habits of the nobles. The king, on arriving at the Convent of St Lazare, proceeded to a part of the house allotted for this purpose, and called _Le Logis du Roy_, where, in a chamber of state, he took his seat beneath a canopy, surrounded by the princes of the blood-royal. The chancellor of France stood behind his majesty, to furnish him with replies to the different deputations that used to come with congratulatory addresses, and the receptions then commenced. They used to last from seven in the morning, without intermission, till four or five in the afternoon; there were the lawyers of the Chastelet, the Court of Aids, the Court of Accounts, and the Parliament, to say nothing of the city authorities and other constituted bodies. The addresses were no short unmeaning things, like those uttered in our poor cold times, but good long-winded harangues, some in French, some in Latin, and they went on, one after the other, for three days consecutively. On the third day, when the royal patience must have been wellnigh exhausted, and the chancellor's talents at reply worn tolerably threadbare, the king would rise, and mounting on horseback, would proceed to the cathedral church of Notre Dame, down the Rue St Denis. One of the best recorded of these royal entries is that of Louis XI. On this occasion, the king, setting out from a suburban residence in the Faubourg St Honore, got along the northern side of Paris to the Convent of St Lazare; and thence, after the delay and the harangues of the three days--the real original glorious three days of the French monarchy--proceeded to the Porte St Denis. Here a herald met the monarch, and after the keys of the city had been presented by the provost, with long speeches and replies, the former officer introduced to his majesty five young ladies, all richly clad, and mounted on horses richly caparisoned, their housings bearing the arms of the city of Paris. Each young damsel represented an allegorical personage, and the initials of the names of their characters made up the word _Paris_. They each harangued the king, and their speeches, says an old chronicle, seemed "very agreeable" to the royal ears. Around the king, as he rode through the gateway, were the princes and highest nobles of the land--the Dukes of Orleans, Burgundy, Bourbon, and Cleves: the Count of Charolois, eldest son of the Duke of Burgundy; the Counts of Angoulesme, St Paul, Dunois, and others; with, as a chronicle of the time relates, "autres comtes, barons, chevaliers, capitaines, et force noblesse, en tres bel ordre et posture." All of these were mounted on horses of price, richly caparisoned, and covered with the finest housings; some were of cloth of gold furred with sable, others were of velvet or damask furred with ermine; all were enriched with precious stones, and to many were attached bells of silver gilt, with other "enjolivements." Over the gateway was a large ship, the armorial bearing of the city, and within it were a number of allegorical personages, with one who represented Louis XI. himself; in the street immediately within the gate was a party of savages and satyrs, who executed a mock-fight in honour of the approach of royalty. A little lower down came forth a troop of young women representing syrens; an old chronicle calls them, "Plusieurs belles filles accoustrees en syrenes, nues, lesquelles, en faisant voir leur beau sein, chantoient de petits motets de bergeres fort doux et charmans." Near where these damsels stood was a fountain which had pipes running with milk, wine, and hypocras; at the side of the Church of the Holy Trinity was a _tableau-vivant_ of the Passion of our Saviour, including a crucified Christ and two thieves, represented, as the chronicle states, "par personnages sans parler." A little further on was a hunting party, with dogs and a hind, making a tremendous noise with hautboys and _cors-de-chasse_. The butchers on the open place near the Chastelet, had raised some lofty scaffolds, and on them had erected a representation of the Bastille or Chateau of Dieppe. Just as the king passed by, a desperate combat was going on between the French besieging this chateau and the English holding garrison within; "the latter," adds the chronicle, "having been taken prisoners, had all their throats cut." Before the gate of the Chastelet, there were the personifications of several illustrious heroes; and on the Pont-au-Change, which was carpeted below, hung with arms at the sides, and canopied above for the occasion, stood the fowlers with their two hundred dozens of birds, ready to fly them as soon as the royal charger should stamp on the first stone. Such was a royal entry in those days of iron rule.

Before Louis XI.'s father, Charles VII., had any reasonable prospect of reigning in Paris as king, the English troops had to be driven out of the capital; and when the French forces had scaled the walls, and entered the city, A.D. 1436, the 1500 Englishmen who defended the place, had but little mercy shown them. Seeing that the game was lost, Sir H. Willoughby, captain of Paris, shut himself up with a part of the troops in the Bastille, accompanied by the Bishop of Therouenne, and Morhier, the provost of the city. The people rose to the cry of "Sainct Denys, Vive le noble Roy de France!" The constable of France, the Duke de Richemont, and the Bastard of Orleans, led them on; those troops that had been shut out of the Bastille, tried to make their way up the Rue St Denis, to the northern gateway, and so to escape on the road to Beauvais and England but the inhabitants stretched chains across the street, and men, women, and children, showered down upon them from the windows, chairs, tables, logs of wood, stones, and even boiling water; while others rushed in from behind and from the side streets, with arms in their hands, and the massacre of all the English fugitives ensued. A short time after, Sir H. Willoughby, and the garrison of the Bastille, not receiving succours from the commanders of the English forces, surrendered the fortress, and were allowed to retire to Rouen. As they marched out of Paris, the Bishop of Therouenne accompanied them, and the populace followed the troops, shouting out at the Bishop--"The fox! the fox!"--and at the English, "The tail! the tail!"

Another departure of a foreign garrison from Paris, took place in 1594, and this time in peaceable array, by the Rue St Denis. When Henry IV. had obtained possession of his capital, there remained in it a considerable body of Spanish troops, who had been sent into France to aid the chiefs of the League, and they were under the command of the Duke de Feria. The reaction in the minds of the Parisians, after the misery of their siege, had been too sudden and too complete, to give the Spaniards any hope of holding out against the king; a capitulation was therefore agreed upon, the foreign forces were allowed to march out with the honours of war, and they were escorted with their baggage as far as the frontier. The king and his principal officers took post within the rooms over the Porte St Denis--then a square turreted building, with a pointed and portcullised gate and drawbridge beneath--to see the troops march out, and he stationed himself at the window looking down the street. First came some companies of Neapolitan infantry, with drums beating, standards flying, arms on their shoulders, but without having their matches lighted. Then came the Spanish Guards, in the midst of whom were the Duke de Feria, Don Diego d'Ibara, and Don Juan Baptista Taxis, all mounted on spirited Spanish chargers; while behind them marched the battalions of the Lansquenets, and the Walloons. As each company came up to the gateway, the soldiers, marching by fours, raised their eyes to the king, took off their headpieces, and bowed; the officers did the same, and Henry returned the salutation with the greatest courtesy. He was particular in showing this politeness, in the most marked manner, to the Duke de Feria and his noble companions, and when they were within hearing, cried out aloud, "Recommend me to your master, but never show your faces here again!" Some of the more obnoxious members of the League were allowed to retire with the Spaniards; and in the evening, bonfires were lighted in all the streets, and the _Te Deum_ was sung on all the public places. The mediaeval glory of the Porte St Denis vanished in the time of Louis XIV., where he unfortified the city, which one of his successors has taken such pains again to imprison within stone walls, and the present triumphal arch was erected upon its site. This modern edifice, it is well known, served for the entrance of Charles X. from Rheims, and, shortly after, for a post whence the trumpery patriots of 1830 contrived to annoy some of the cavalry who were fighting in the cause of the legitimacy and the true liberties of France. Many a barricade and many a skirmish has the Rue St Denis since witnessed!

All the churches have disappeared from the Rue St Denis except that of St Leu and St Gilles, a small building of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries: all the convents have been rased to the ground except that of St Lazare. To this a far different destination has been given from what it formerly enjoyed: it is now the great female prison of the capital; and within its walls all the bread required for the prisons of Paris is baked, all the linen is made and mended. The prison consists of three distinct portions: one allotted for carrying on the bread and linen departments: a second for the detention of female criminals before conviction, or for short terms of imprisonment; and in this various light manufactures, such as the making of baskets, straw-plait, and the red phosphorus-match boxes, are carried on: the third is an hospital and house of detention for the prostitutes of the capital. We were once taken all through this immense establishment by the governor, who had the kindness to accompany us, and to explain every thing in person--a favour not often granted to foreigners--and a strong impression did the scenes we then saw leave. In the first two departments every thing was gloomy, orderly, and quiet: the prisoners were much fewer than we had expected--not above two hundred--many of them, however, were mere children; but the matrons were good kind of women and the work of reformation was going on rapidly to counteract the effects of early crime. In the third, though equal strictness of conduct on the part of the superiors prevailed, the behaviour of the inmates subjected to control was far different. The great majority had been confined there as hospital patients, not as offenders against the law, and they were divided into wards, according to their sanatory condition. Here they were very numerous; and a melancholy thing it was to see hundreds of wretched creatures wandering about their spacious rooms, or sitting up in their beds, with haggard looks, dishevelled hair, hardly any clothing, and a sort of reckless gaiety in their manner that spoke volumes as to their real condition. The _regime_ of this prison-hospital is found, however, to be on the whole most salutary: the seeds of good are sown with a few; the public health, as well as the public morals, has been notably improved; and from the time when a young painter employed in the prison was decoyed into this portion of it and killed within a few hours, the occurrence of deeds of violence within its walls has been very rare.

From the top of the Faubourg St Denis, all through the suburb of La Chapelle, the long line of modern habitations extends, without offering any points of historical interest. It is, indeed, a very commonplace, everyday kind of road, which hardly any Englishman that has jumbled along in the Messageries Royales can fail of recollecting. Nothing poetical, nothing romantic, was ever known to take place between the Barriere de St Denis and the town where the abbey stands. We know, however, of an odd occurrence upon this ground, towards the end of the thirteenth century, (we were not alive then, gentle reader,) strikingly illustrative of the superstition of the times. In 1274, the church of St Gervais, in Paris, was broken into one night by some sacrilegious dog, who ran off with the golden pix, containing the consecrated wafer or host. Not thinking himself safe within the city, away he went for St Denis--got without the city walls in safety, and made off as fast as he could for the abbatial town. Before arriving there, he thought he would have a look at the contents of the precious vessel, when, on his opening the lid, out jumped the holy wafer, up it flew into the air over his head, and there it kept dodging about, and bobbing up and down, behind the affrightened thief, and following him wherever he went. He rushed into the town of St Denis, but there was the wafer coming after him, and just above his head; whichever way he turned, there was the flying wafer. It was now broad daylight, and some of the inhabitants perceived the miracle. This was immediately reported by them to the abbot of the monastery. The holy father and his monks sallied forth; all saw the wafer as plain as they saw each others' shaven crowns. The man was immediately arrested; the pix was found on him, and the abbot, as a feudal seigneur, having the right of life and death within his own fief, had him hung up to the nearest tree within five minutes. The abbot then sent word to the Bishop of Paris of what had occurred; and the prelate, attended by the curates and clergy of the capital, went to St Denis to witness the miracle. But wonders were not to cease; there they found the abbot and monks looking up into the air; there was the wafer sticking up somewhere under the sun, and none of them could devise how they were to get it down again. The monks began singing canticles and litanies; the Parisian clergy did the same; still the wafer would not move a hair's breadth. At last they resolved to adjourn to the Abbey Church; and so they formed themselves into procession, and stepped forwards. The monks had reached the abbey door, the bishop and his clergy were following behind, and the clergy of St Gervais were just under the spot where the wafer was suspended, when, _presto_, down it popped into the hands of the little red-nosed curate. "Its mine!" cried the curate: "I'll have it!" shouted the bishop: "I wish you may get it," roared the abbot--and a regular scramble took place. But the little curate held his prize fast; his vicars stuck to him like good men and true; and they carried off their prize triumphant. The bishop and the abbot drew up a solemn memorial and covenant on the spot, whereby the wafer was legally consigned to its original consecrator and owner, the curate of St Gervais; and it was agreed that every 1st of September, the day of the miracle, a solemn office and procession of the Holy Sacrament should be celebrated within his church. The reverend father Du Breul, the grave historian of Paris, adds: "L'histoire du dit miracle est naifvement depeinte en une vitre de la chapelle Sainct Pierre d'icelle eglise, ou sont aussi quelques vers Francois, contenans partie d'icelle histoire."

THE LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT.

In days of old it was the remark of more than one philosopher, that, if it were possible to exhibit virtue in a personal form, and clothed with attributes of sense, all men would unite in homage to her supremacy. The same thing is true of other abstractions, and especially of the powers which work by social change. Could these powers be revealed to us in any symbolic incarnation--were it possible that, but for one hour, the steadfast march of their tendencies, their promises, and their shadowy menaces, could be made apprehensible to the bodily eye--we should be startled, and oftentimes appalled, at the grandeur of the apparition. In particular, we may say that the advance of civilization, as it is carried forward for ever on the movement continually accelerated of England and France, were it less stealthy and inaudible than it is, would fix, in every stage, the attention of the inattentive and the anxieties of the careless. Like the fabulous music of the spheres, once allowed to break sonorously upon the human ear, it would render us deaf to all other sounds. Heard or not heard, however, marked or not marked, the rate of our advance is more and more portentous. Old things are passing away. Every year carries us round some obstructing angle, laying open suddenly before us vast reaches of fresh prospect, and bringing within our horizon new agencies by which civilization is henceforth to work, and new difficulties against which it is to work; other forces for co-operation, other resistances for trial. Meantime the velocity of these silent changes is incredibly aided by the revolutions, both moral and scientific, in the machinery of nations; revolutions by which knowledge is interchanged, power propagated, and the methods of communication multiplied. And the vast aerial arches by which these revolutions mount continually to the common zenith of Christendom, so as to force themselves equally upon the greatest of nations and the humblest, express the aspiring destiny by which, already and irresistibly, they are coming round upon all other tribes and families of men, however distant in position, or alien by system and organization. The nations of the planet, like ships of war man[oe]uvring prelusively to some great engagement, are silently taking up their positions, as it were, for future action and reaction, reciprocally for doing and suffering. And, in this ceaseless work of preparation or of noiseless combination, France and England are seen for ever in the van. Whether for evil or for good, they _must_ be in advance. And if it were possible to see the relative positions of all Christendom, its several divisions, expressed as if on the monuments of Persepolis by endless evolutions of cities in procession or of armies advancing, we should be awakened to the full solemnity of our duties by seeing two symbols flying aloft for ever in the head of nations--two recognizances for hope or for fear--the roses of England and the lilies of France.

Reflections such as these furnish matter for triumphal gratulation, but also for great depression: and in the enormity of our joint responsibilities, we French and English have reason to forget the grandeur of our separate stations. It is fit that we should keep alive these feelings, and continually refresh them, by watching the everlasting motions of society, by sweeping the moral heavens for ever with our glasses in vigilant detection of new phenomena, and by calling to a solemn audit, from time to time, the national acts which are undertaken, or the counsels which in high places are avowed.

Amongst these acts and these counsels none justify a more anxious attention than such as come forward in the senate. It is true that great revolutions may brood over us for a long period without awakening any murmur or echo in Parliament; of which we have an instance in Puseyism, which is a power of more ominous capacities than the gentleness of its motions would lead men to suspect, and is well fitted (as hereafter we may show) to effect a volcanic explosion--such as may rend the Church of England by schisms more extensive and shattering than those which have recently afflicted the Church of Scotland. Generally, however, Parliament becomes, sooner or later, a mirror to the leading phenomena of the times. These phenomena, to be valued thoroughly, must be viewed, indeed, from different stations and angles. But one of these aspects is that which they assume under the legislative revision of the people. It is more than ever requisite that each session of Parliament should be searched and reviewed in the capital features of its legislation. Hereafter we may attempt this duty more elaborately. For the present we shall confine ourselves to a hasty survey of some few principal measures in the late session which seem important to our social progress.

We shall commence our review by the fewest possible words on the paramount nuisance of the day--viz. the corn-law agitation. This is that question which all men have ceased to think sufferable. This is that "mammoth" nuisance of our times by which "the gaiety of nations is eclipsed." We are thankful that its "damnable iterations" have now placed it beyond the limits of public toleration. No man hearkens to such debates any longer--no man reads the reports of such debates: it is become criminal to quote them; and recent examples of torpor beyond all torpor, on occasion of Cobden meetings amongst the inflammable sections of our population, have shown--that not the poorest of the poor are any longer to be duped, or to be roused out of apathy, by this intolerable fraud. Full of "gifts and lies" is the false fleeting Association of these Lancashire Cottoneers. But its gifts are too windy, and its lies are too ponderous. To the Association is "given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies;" and out of this mouth issues "fire," it is true, against all that is excellent in the land, but also "smoke"--as the consummation of its overtures. During many reigns of the Caesars, a race of swindlers infested the Roman court, technically known as "sellers of smoke," and often punished under that name. They sold, for weighty considerations of gold, castles in the air, imaginary benefices, ideal reversions; and, in short, contracted wholesale or retail for the punctual delivery of unadulterated moonshine. Such a dealer, such a contractor, is the Anti-Corn-Law Association; and for such it has always been known amongst intelligent men. But its character has now diffused itself among the illiterate: and we believe it to be the simple truth at this moment, that every working man, whose attention has at any time been drawn to the question, is now ready to take his stand upon the following answer:--"We, that is our order, Mr Cobden, are not very strong in faith. Our faith in the Association is limited. So much, however, by all that reaches us, we are disposed to believe--viz. that ultimately you might succeed in reducing the price of a loaf, by three parts in forty-eight, which is one sixteenth; with what loss to our own landed order, and with what risk to the national security in times of war or famine, is no separate concern of ours. On the other hand, Mr Cobden, in _your_ order there are said to be knaves in ambush; and we take it, that the upshot of the change will be this: We shall save three farthings in a shilling's worth of flour; and the _honest_ men of your order--whom candour forbid that we should reckon at only twenty-five per cent on the whole--will diminish our wages simply by that same three farthings in a shilling; but the knaves (we are given to understand) will take an excuse out of that trivial change to deduct four, five, or six farthings; they will improve the occasion in evangelical proportions--some sixty-fold, some seventy, and some a hundred."

This is the settled _practical_ faith of those hard-working men, who care not to waste their little leisure upon the theory of the corn-laws. It is this practical result only which concerns _us_; for as to the speculative logic of the case, as a question for economists, we, who have so often discussed it in this journal, (which journal, we take it upon us to say, has, from time to time, put forward or reviewed every conceivable argument on the corn question,) must really decline to re-enter the arena, and _actum agere_, upon any occasion ministered by Mr Cobden. Very frankly, we disdain to do so; and now, upon quitting the subject, we will briefly state why.

Mr Cobden, as we hear and believe, is a decent man--that is to say, upon any ground not connected with politics; equal to six out of any ten manufacturers you will meet in the Queen's high road--whilst of the other four not more than three will be found conspicuously his superiors. He is certainly, in the senate, not what Lancashire rustics mean by a _hammil sconce_;[28] or, according to a saying often in the mouth of our French emigrant friends in former times, he "could not have invented the gun-powder, though perhaps he might have invented the hair-powder." Still, upon the whole, we repeat, that Mr Cobden is a decent man, wherever he is not very indecent. Is he therefore a decent man on this question of the corn-laws? So far from it, that we now challenge attention to one remarkable fact. All the world knows how much he has talked upon this particular topic; how he has itinerated on its behalf; how he has perspired under its business. Is there a fortunate county in England which has yet escaped his harangues? Does that happy province exist which has not reverberated his yells? Doubtless, not--and yet mark this: Not yet, not up to the present hour, (September 20, 1843,) has Mr Cobden delivered one argument properly and specially applicable to the corn question. He has uttered many things offensively upon the aristocracy; he has libelled the lawgivers; he has insulted the farmers; he has exhausted the artillery of _political_ abuse: but where is the _economic_ artillery which he promised us, and which, (strange to say!) from the very dulness of his theme making it a natural impossibility to read him, most people are willing to suppose that he has, after one fashion or other, actually discharged. The Corn-League benefits by its own stupidity. Not being read, every leaguer has credit for having uttered the objections which, as yet, he never did utter. Hence comes the popular impression, that from Mr Cobden have emanated arguments, of some quality or other, against the existing system. True, there are arguments in plenty on the other side, and pretty notorious arguments; but, _pendente lite_, and until these opposite pleas are brought forward, it is supposed that the Cobden pleas have a brief provisional existence--they are good for the moment. Not at all. We repeat that, as to economic pleas, none of any kind, good or bad, have been placed on the record by any orator of that faction; whilst all other pleas, keen and personal as they may appear, are wholly irrelevant to any real point at issue. In illustration of what we say, one (and very much the most searching) of Mr Cobden's questions to the farmers, was this--"Was not the object," he demanded, "was not the very purpose of all corn-laws alike--simply to keep up the price of grain? Well; had the English corn-laws accomplished that object? Had they succeeded in that purpose? Notoriously they had not; confessedly they had failed; and every farmer in the corn districts would avouch that often he had been brought to the brink of ruin by prices ruinously low." Now, we pause not to ask, why, if the law already makes the prices of corn ruinously low, any association can be needed to make it lower? What we wish to fix attention upon, is this assumption of Mr Cobden's, many times repeated, that the known object and office of our corn-law, under all its modifications, has been to elevate the price of our corn; to sustain it at a price to which naturally it could not have ascended. Many sound speculators on this question we know to have been seriously perplexed by this assertion of Mr Cobden's; and others, we have heard, not generally disposed to view that gentleman's doctrines with favour, who insist upon it, that, in mere candour, we must grant this particular postulate. "Really," say they, "_that_ cannot be refused him; the law _was_ for the purpose he assigns; its final cause _was_, as he tells us, to keep up artificially the price of our domestic corn-markets. So far he is right. But his error commences in treating this design as an unfair one, and, secondly, in denying that it has been successful. It _has_ succeeded; and it ought to have succeeded. The protection sought for our agriculture was no more than it merited; and that protection has been faithfully realized."

[28] A _hammil sconce_, or light of the hamlet, is the
picturesque expression in secluded parts of Lancashire
for the local wise man, or village counsellor.

We, however, vehemently deny Mr Cobden's postulate _in toto_. He is wrong, not merely as others are wrong in the principle of refusing this protection, not merely on the question of fact as to the reality of this protection, (to enter upon which points would be to adopt that hateful discussion which we have abjured;) but, above all, he is wrong in assigning to corn-laws, as their end and purpose, an absolute design of sustaining prices. To raise prices is an occasional means of the corn-laws, and no end at all. In one word, what _is_ the end of the corn-laws? It is, and ever has been, to equalize the prospects of the farmer from year to year, with the view, and generally with the effect, of drawing into the agricultural service of the nation, as nearly as possible, the same amount of land at one time as at another. This is the end; and this end is paramount. But the means to that end must lie, according to the accidents of the case, alternately through moderate increase of price, or moderate diminution of price. The besetting oversight, in this instance, is the neglect of the one great peculiarity affecting the manufacture of corn--viz. its inevitable oscillation as to quantity, consequently as to price, under the variations of the seasons. People talk, and encourage mobs to think, that Parliaments cause, and that Parliaments could heal if they pleased, the evil of fluctuation in grain. Alas! the evil is as ancient as the weather, and, like the disease of poverty, will cleave to society for ever. And the way in which a corn-law--that is, a restraint upon the free importation of corn--affects the case, is this:--Relieving the domestic farmer from that part of his anxiety which points to the competition of foreigners, it confines it to the one natural and indefeasible uncertainty lying in the contingencies of the weather. Releasing him from all jealousy of man, it throws him, in singleness of purpose, upon an effort which cannot be disappointed, except by a power to which, habitually, he bows and resigns himself. Secure, therefore, from all superfluous anxieties, the farmer enjoys, from year to year, a pretty equal encouragement in distributing the employments of his land. If, through the dispensations of Providence, the quantity of his return falls short, he knows that some rude indemnification will arise in the higher price. If, in the opposite direction, he fears a low price, it comforts him to know that this cannot arise for any length of time but through some commensurate excess in quantity. This, like other severities of a natural or general system, will not, and cannot, go beyond a bearable limit. The high price compensates grossly the defect of quantity; the overflowing quantity in turn compensates grossly the low price. And thus it happens that, upon any cycle of ten years, taken when you will, the manufacture of grain will turn out to have been moderately profitable. Now, on the other hand, under a system of free importation, whenever a redundant crop in England coincides (as often it does) with a similar redundancy in Poland, the discouragement cannot but become immoderate. An excess of one-seventh will cause a fall of price by three-sevenths. But the simultaneous excess on the Continent may raise the one-seventh to two-sevenths, and in a much greater proportion will these depress the price. The evil will then be enormous; the discouragement will be ruinous; much capital, much land, will be withdrawn from the culture of grain; and, supposing a two years' succession of such excessive crops, (which effect is more common than a single year's excess,) the result, for the third year, will be seen in a preternatural deficiency; for, by the supposition, the number of acres applied to corn is now very much less than usual, under the unusual discouragement; and according to the common oscillations of the season according to those irregularities that, in effect, are often found to be regular--this third year succeeding to redundant years may be expected to turn out a year of scarcity. Here, then, in the absence of a corn-law, comes a double deficiency--a deficiency of acres applied, from jealousy of foreign competition, and upon each separate acre a deficiency of crop, from the nature of the weather. What will be the consequence? A price ruinously high; higher beyond comparison than could ever have arisen under a temperate restriction of competition; that is, in other words, under a British corn-law.

Many other cases might be presented to the reader, and especially under the action of a doctrine repeatedly pressed in this journal, but steadily neglected elsewhere--viz. the "_devolution_" of foreign agriculture upon lower qualities of land, (and consequently its _permanent_ exaltation in price,) in case of any certain demand on account of England. But this one illustration is sufficient. Here we see that, under a free trade in corn, and _in consequence_ of a free trade, ruinous enhancements of price would arise--such in magnitude as never could have arisen under a wise limitation of foreign competition. And further, we see that under our present system no enhancement is, or could be, _absolutely_ injurious; it might be so _relatively_--it might be so in relation to the poor consumer; but in the mean time, that guinea which might be lost to the consumer would be gained to the farmer. Now, in the case supposed, under a free corn trade the rise is commensurate to the previous injury sustained by the farmer; and much of the extra bonus reaped goes to a foreign interest. What we insist upon, however, is this one fact, that alternately the British corn-laws have raised the price of grain and have sunk it; they have raised the price in the case where else there would have been a ruinous depreciation--ruinous to the prospects of succeeding years; they have sunk it under the natural and usual oscillations of weather to be looked for in these succeeding years. And each way their action has been most moderate. For let not the reader forget, that on the system of a sliding-scale, this action cannot be otherwise than moderate. Does the price rise? Does it threaten to rise higher? Instantly the very evil redresses itself. As the evil, _i.e._ the price, increases, in that exact proportion does it open the gate to relief; for exactly so does the duty fall. Does the price fall ruinously?--(in which case it is true that the _instant_ sufferer is the farmer; but through him, as all but the short-sighted must see, the consumer will become the reversionary sufferer)--immediately the duty rises, and forbids an accessary evil from abroad to aggravate the evil at home. So gentle and so equable is the play of those weights which regulate our whole machinery, whilst the late correction applied even here by Sir Robert Peel, has made this gentle action still gentler; so that neither of the two parties--consumers who to live must buy, growers who to live must sell--can, by possibility, feel an incipient pressure before it is already tending to relieve itself. It is the very perfection of art to make a malady produce its own medicine--an evil its own relief. But that which here we insist on, is, that it never _was_ the object of our own corn-laws to increase the price of corn; secondly, that the real object was a condition of equipoise which abstractedly is quite unconnected with either rise of price or fall of price; and thirdly, that, as a matter of fact, our corn-laws have as often reacted to lower the price, as directly they have operated to raise it; whilst eventually, and traced through succeeding years, equally the raising and the lowering have co-operated to that steady temperature (or nearest approximation to it allowed by nature) which is best suited to a _comprehensive_ system of interests. Accursed is that man who, in speaking upon so great a question, will seek, or will consent, to detach the economic considerations of that question from the higher political considerations at issue. Accursed is that man who will forget the noble yeomanry we have formed through an agriculture chiefly domestic, were it even true that so mighty a benefit had been purchased by some pecuniary loss. But this it is which we are now denying. We affirm peremptorily, and as a fact kept out of sight only by the neglect of pursuing the case through a succession of years under the _natural_ fluctuation of seasons, that, upon the series of the last seventy years, viewed as a whole, we have paid less for our corn by means of the corn-laws, than we should have done in the absence of such laws. It was, says Mr Cobden, the purpose of such laws to make corn dear; it is, says he, the effect, to make it cheap. Yes, in the last clause his very malice drove him into the truth. Speaking to farmers, he found it requisite to assert that they had been injured; and as he knew of no injury to them other than a low price, _that_ he postulated at the cost of his own logic, and quite forgetting that if the farmer had lost, the consumer must have gained in that very ratio. Rather than not assert a failure _quoad_ the intention of the corn-laws, he actually asserts a national benefit _quoad_ the result. And, in a rapture of malice to the lawgivers, he throws away for ever, at one victorious sling, the total principles of an opposition to the law.[29]

[29] Those who fancy a possible evasion of the case
supposed above, by saying, that if a failure, extensive
as to England, should coincide with a failure extensive
as to Poland, remedies might be found in importing from
many other countries combined, forget one objection,
which is decisive--these supplementary countries must be
many, and they must be distant. For no country could
singly supply a defect of great extent, unless it were a
defect annually and regularly anticipated. A surplus
never designed as a fixed surplus for England, but
called for only now and then, could never be more than
small. Therefore the surplus, which could not be yielded
by one country, must be yielded by many. In that
proportion increase the probabilities that a number will
have no surplus. And, secondly, from the widening
distances, in that proportion increases the extent of
shipping required. But now, even from Mr Porter, a most
prejudiced writer on this question, and not capable of
impartiality in speaking upon any measure which he
supposes hostile to the principle of free trade, the
reader may learn how certainly any great _hiatus_ in our
domestic growth of corn is placed beyond all hope of
relief. For how is this grain, this relief, to be
brought? In ships, you reply. Ay, but in what ships? Do
you imagine that an extra navy can lie rotting in docks,
and an extra fifty thousand of sailors can be held in
reserve, and borne upon the books of some colossal
establishment, waiting for the casual seventh, ninth, or
twelfth year in which they may be wanted--kept and paid
against an "_in case_," like the extra supper, so called
by Louis XIV., which waited all night on the chance that
it might be wanted? _That_, you say, is impossible. It
is so; and yet without such a reserve, all the navies of
Europe would not suffice to make up such a failure of
our home crops as is likely enough to follow redundant
years under the system of unlimited competition.--See
PORTER.