Chapter X (9)

I left London without waiting for the season to conclude, and buried myself and a fishing-rod in a lonely Welsh cottage. For months I saw nobody but the old woman whom I brought from Monmouth to cook my dinners. She, I believe, thought me decidedly mad--principally because I once swore dreadfully at her, when, _àpropos_ of a chicken on which I was to dine, she used a word vernacularly employed to signify the stripping birds of their feathers. I fished, caught nothing, and mused on Emily. At last, however, on casually extending a ramble to a greater length than usual, I found that a house, five miles from my present residence, and quite as solitary, had been taken by an English family. As a matter of course--though I really cannot precisely remember in what way--we became acquainted. All I know is, that I determined the acquaintance should commence as soon as possible, immediately after meeting a young lady in a pink bonnet, who was sauntering along the side of the stream in which I was pretending to fish. This was Caroline Lumley. They were the Lumleys--Captain and Mrs Lumley, and two daughters. The family had lived the anomalous life common to English semi-genteel families with small incomes. They had resided, now in Jersey, now in Dublin, now on the Continent--every where but in civilised and inhabitable parts of England. At present they had settled themselves down, for the sake of cheapness, in a spot where every thing except mutton and house-rent was twice as expensive as in London, and where they had to walk five miles to meet with a neighbour.

That neighbour was myself. I was sick with disappointed love, and Caroline Lumley was dying with ennui. Need I say that in six weeks we were engaged!

I really believe that she worshipped me as a superior being. There had been few or no men in the out-of-the-way places where they had lived. There never are. They are all draughted off to business and employments of various kinds. So I not only had no equal in her estimation, but could not, by any possibility, have had one. She thought me the handsomest man in the world. She used to praise my talents and accomplishments to my face. Indeed, by the side of old Captain Lumley, who, prosy by nature, had long ago exhausted all his topics, I might have appeared a Crichton. Every now and then, however, when Caroline had called me clever, there used to come over me a shudder. Could _she_ be ever brought to think of me as Emily Jobson probably did? The idea was positively maddening. Many a night did I lie awake, speculating whether, after all, it might not be better to secure myself against another such cross of destiny by freely revealing to her my great secret.

At last, reflection, building on the reminiscences of an old Cambridge tradition, suggested to me a plan which I lost no time in executing.

"My love," said I to Caroline one morning, "did you ever hear of Cambridge?"

"Oh yes!" she replied, apparently quoting from Pinnock; "it's the capital of Cambridgeshire."

"Did you never hear any thing else about it?" rejoined I.

"It's famous for its university, isn't it?" said she, seemingly from the same source.

"On this hint I spake," and told her how that I had been educated at Cambridge, and how that, after three years of intense study, I had received the greatest honour the university had to bestow--_a plucking_.

"Yes," said I, my face radiant with a triumphant expression--"I was actually plucked."

"I am sure you were, you dear, clever thing!" cried she, throwing her arms round my neck.

We were married at Monmouth, and I took my bride straight to London. I own I was a little desirous of showing Emily Jobson, or rather Emily Swetter, that there was a young lady in the world quite as pretty as herself, and with better taste. Swetter and his wife called on us as soon as he heard we were in town; and shortly afterwards we dined with them at their new house in Torrington Square. Among the guests was Grindham--_my_ Grindham, but how changed! He had become tutor of his college, and had expanded into the most perfect specimen of the university don I ever beheld. He was positively swelling with importance. So inordinately conspicuous, indeed, was his air of self-appreciation, that even my little Caroline noticed it; and I heard her ask Mrs Swetter who and what he was.

"He took the very highest honours at Cambridge," said she in reply.

Caroline smiled, and seemed to think him quite justified in looking as important as he did.

The cloth was removed. Caroline was sitting by Grindham's side. She had spoken little during dinner-time; but I had noticed that several times she had seemed fidgetty, as though she ought to say something to her neighbour. Now my wife had at that time a bad habit of speaking in a very loud voice--in consequence of a deaf father, and of the little society she had seen. The conversation, accordingly, had no sooner stopped (as is its wont) with a dead pause, than she turned to Grindham, and said in a tone of appalling distinctness--

"Mr Grindham, _were you ever plucked_?"

Had a trumpet been suddenly blown close to Grindham's ear, he could not have looked more thoroughly taken aback.

Caroline repeated her words with yet more frightful clearness--

"_I understand that you were plucked at Cambridge._"

Grindham's countenance grew purple; we had a room full of university men, and the insulting speech was overheard by all. There was a universal stare and stir; and Mrs Swetter seemed to be saying to herself, "what wild beast have I got here!"

Caroline, perceiving she had done something very much amiss, got frightened, and bent over her plate during the rest of dinner.

When the gentlemen came to the drawing-room, Mrs Swetter and she were sitting together. They had been talking, and Caroline's face was very red. Our eyes met: her look was full of contempt.

She has been more than my better half ever since. There never passes a day on which I am not taunted with my plucking.

THE REVOLUTIONS IN EUROPE

When an Eastern sage was desired by his sultan to inscribe on a ring the sentiment which, amidst the perpetual change of human affairs, was most descriptive of their real tendency, he engraved on it the words:--"And this, too, shall pass away." It is impossible to imagine a thought more truly and universally applicable to human affairs than that expressed in these memorable words, or more descriptive of that perpetual oscillation from good to evil, and from evil to good, which from the beginning of the world has been the invariable characteristic of the annals of man, and so evidently flows from the strange mixture of noble and generous with base and selfish inclinations, which is constantly found in the children of Adam.

"And this, too, shall pass away." The moral whirlwind which has lately swept over the states of Europe, and shaken all the kingdoms to their foundations, will subside. Old habits will in the end return--old affections revive--old desires resume their sway--old necessities become imperious. Institutions may be modified--dynasties overturned--forms of government altered--monarchs sent into exile; but the human heart remains, and will for ever remain, the same. That foundation being unaltered, the social necessities of men will in the end compel them to the old establishment of authority, under names perhaps new. Old power will revive, old rule be established, old authority be confirmed. The great body of men will still remain hewers of wood and drawers of water; because Nature never intended them for any other destination, and she has rendered them incapable of discharging the duties of any other station. Respectable, useful, and virtuous, when confined to it, they become pernicious and ridiculous when for a time withdrawn from it to be placed in another. Mind will ere long resume its sway over matter, moral over physical strength. Nations may rise in insurrection; they may destroy the existing government; they may establish a democratic or republican institution;--but that will not alter the nature of things; it will not compensate the incapacity for self-government of the great body of mankind; it will not relieve them from _the first of human necessities, that of being directed by a few_. Under one name or another--that of Decemvirs, a Triumvirate, a Committee of Public Salvation, a Directory, or a Provisional Government, the old authority is speedily evolved, only the more powerful that it has been cradled in violence. It is not the weakness, it is the irresistible strength of a democratic government which is its greatest evil. It is the iron grasp it never fails to lay on the property of others which is its principal danger, the never-failing instrument of its speedy overthrow. Property is soon swept away by it, but liberty is swept away still more quickly. A Cæsar, a Cromwell, a Napoleon, arises like an avatar to stay the wrath of Heaven let loose in the unbridled passions of men; and ages of servitude succeed one terrible and unforgotten period of popular license.

It is the more important to refer to these lasting principles in human affairs at this time that the events which have recently occurred on the Continent seem at first sight to set all former experience and history at defiance. Not only has monarchy been again overthrown, and a republic restored in France by a single urban tumult, but the contagion of the example has spread to other countries, hitherto deemed the stronghold of the conservative principle, and farthest removed from the influence of the revolutionary mania. That Italy, following in the wake of a reforming Pope, should be speedily convulsed by popular fervour, was anticipated, and might easily be understood. That Lombardy and Venice, long impatient of the Tramontane yoke, should seize the first opportunity to cast it off, was what every person acquainted with the feelings of the people in those beautiful provinces has long expected. That Prussia, the most highly educated state in Europe, and which has long murmured at the delay in conceding the popular institutions promised during the struggle with Napoleon in 1813, should make an effort now to obtain them, might be understood. That the Poles, smarting under their recent dismemberment, and mourning their lost nationality, should eagerly grasp at the shadow even of the means of restoring it, was of course to be expected. But that Austria, the most aristocratic monarchy in Europe--that Austria, without either seaports, commercial cities, or manufacturing emporiums, should be seized by the same passions, and that the monarchy which had defeated Napoleon at Aspern, and all but destroyed him at Wagram, should be overturned by an urban tumult, headed by a burgher guard and the beardless students of the university--this indeed surpassed human comprehension.

It not unnaturally induced in superstitious or highly excited minds the belief that the end of the world was approaching, or that an entire new era had opened upon human affairs, to which nothing which had preceded it could furnish any thing like a parallel. According to the temper of their minds, men and women either believed that the dark prophecies of the Revelation were about to be accomplished, and that the great battle of Armageddon was to precede the advent of the Millennium, or that the era of commercial organisation and socialist felicity was approaching, and that all the miseries of mankind were to expire amidst the universal dominion of the people. In the midst of these general hopes and fears, more experienced or practical observers fixed their eyes on the spoliation of Austria by liberalised Piedmont; of Denmark, by revolutionised Prussia; and of Lithuania, by regenerated Poland; and drew the conclusion that human selfishness was the same in all times and ages; that pirates could sail under the red as well as the black flag, and that the fervour of Louis Blanc and Lamartine would terminate in a conflict as fierce, and disasters as wide-spread, as those which followed the visions of Siêyes, and the philanthropy of Robespierre.

What is in a peculiar manner worthy of consideration in the overthrow, in so short a time, of so many of the established governments of Europe, is the facility with which they appear to have been overturned by sudden urban tumult, and the immediate submission of the whole provinces and remainder of the empire, the moment the ruling power in the capital was changed. It was not thus, in former days, either in France or any of the other European monarchies. Paris was often lost and won during the English wars, the contests of the League and the Fronde, but the provinces were not dismayed by the loss of the capital; and, in their fidelity, Charles VII. and Henry V. found the means of changing the scales of fortune, and again wresting it from the arms of rebels or strangers. Charles I. set up his standard at Northampton; and London, from the very outset of the conflict, was in the hands of the Long Parliament; but he found, in the fidelity of the northern and western counties, the means of maintaining for years a gallant conflict, in which victory more than once was on the verge of rendering triumphant the royalist cause. Berlin, during the Seven Years' War, was twice taken by the Russians; but Frederick the Great emerged victorious out of that terrible strife. Vienna, in the time of Maria Theresa, was wrested from her arms by the French and Bavarians; but she threw herself on the fidelity of the Hungarians, and, ere long, the standards of France were driven with disgrace behind the Rhine. The double capture of the same city by Napoleon did not determine the conflict between France and Austria; but a desperate struggle was subsequently maintained, with almost balanced success, at Austerlitz, Aspern, and Wagram. But now a single tumult, in which the loss of life does not equal that of an ordinary skirmish, has overthrown the greatest monarchies. That of Louis Philippe fell before fifty men had been killed in the streets of Paris; that of Prussia sank in a conflict in which one hundred and eighty-seven men fell on the popular side; and an échauffourée, which scarcely would deserve a place in military history, overturned the monarchy of Austria, within sight of the steeples of Aspern, and around the cathedral which had witnessed the victory of John Sobieski and the triumphant entry of Maria Theresa!

It is impossible not to conclude that moral and political causes have here enervated the minds of men, and weakened, to a most ruinous extent, the strength of nations. The depositaries of power have not, in general, shown themselves worthy of the trust which they held. There is no reason to suspect them of personal cowardice; but the moral courage which carries through a crisis, and so often _averts danger by venturing to face it_, appears to have been generally awanting. Men forgot the words of Napoleon, on occasion of Malet's conspiracy--"The death of a soldier would be the most glorious of all, if that of a magistrate, slain in the faithful discharge of his civil duties, were not still more honourable." Of few in these days can it be said, in the words of the poet,--

"Justum et tenacem propositi virum
Non civium ardor prava jubentium,
Non vultus instantis tyranni,
Mente quatit solidâ;
Si fractus illabatur orbis,
Impavidum ferient ruinæ."

A long peace seems to have enervated the minds of the higher orders on the Continent; habitual luxury to have disinclined them to sacrifices by which it might be endangered. To slip through a crisis quietly, and with as little risk or disturbance as possible, seems to have been the great object; to avert danger at the moment, by pushing it forward to future times, the universal system. With how much success it was practised, the present deplorable state of France, Prussia, Austria, and Lombardy, sufficiently attests. The army was apparently everywhere faithful, and fought bravely; it was the want of moral courage and determination in the government which ruined every thing. They forgot the words of Mirabeau--"Such is the fate of those who hope, by concessions dictated by fear, to disarm a revolution."

But farther, the surprising facility with which the governments of these great military monarchies have been overthrown, in the late extraordinary revolutions, and the immediate submission of all the provinces to the new central power in the capital, suggests another, and a still more important consideration:--that is, the danger attendant on that system of centralisation, which, adopted by all the governments of France, monarchical and republican, for two centuries, from Imperial Rome, and from thence imitated over all Europe, has now apparently concentrated the whole strength of a state, moral as well as physical, in the capital. That such a system is very convenient; that it improves and facilitates administration in many respects, and greatly augments the national strength, when held together by unanimous feeling, and ably directed, may readily be conceded. The great power and extraordinary triumphs of Prussia under Frederick the Great, and of France under Louis XIV. and Napoleon, sufficiently demonstrate that. But what is the situation of such a centralised power when assailed, not in its circumference, but in its centre; not in the extremities, but the heart? Can any thing be expected of it but immediate submission to the power, _whatever it be_, which is in possession of the wonted seat of government, which has the command of the palace, the bank, the treasury, the post-office, and the telegraph? These revolutions, of which so much is said, cease to be national, to become merely urban movements; they are no longer an effort of plebeians against patricians, but of one set of prætorians in the capital against another. They are no longer "révolutions d'état," but "révolutions du palais." It is of no consequence who inhabits the palace--a king, a tribune, an emperor, or a decemvir. It is there, under whatever name that despotic power resides, it is discovered where the vital spring is to be found. Deprived of its capital, a centralised state, be it republican or monarchical, is Samson when shorn of his hair; it becomes the victim of any Dalilah who takes the trouble to lure it to perdition.

That this is the true character of the revolutions which have lately taken place on the Continent, and struck the world with such astonishment, from the magnitude of the changes which they involved, and the facility with which they were accomplished, is apparent on the very surface of things. They were all urban tumults, not national movements; the nation was never consulted on them at all. They were all concluded before the provinces heard of their commencement; they succeeded so easily, because the nations in which they occurred had been accustomed to obey the commands of the capital as implicitly as troops do the orders issuing from headquarters. The national consent of France, so far as it could be collected, was decidedly in favour of the Duchess of Orleans and the Count de Paris on the night of the 24th February; for two-thirds of the Chamber of Deputies were for that government. But what then? The armed mob, the prætorians of the capital, rushed in--the refractory deputies were dragged from their benches as summarily as the Council of Five Hundred were expelled from their seats by the grenadiers of Napoleon on the 18th Brumaire; a voice called "_C'est trop tard. A l'Hotel de Ville! Vive la Republique!_" and the Orleans dynasty was overthrown, and universal suffrage established. In Prussia the whole affair was a combat in the capital, between fifteen thousand regular troops and thirty thousand trained and disciplined citizens, (every man in Prussia is bred a soldier;) and after one hundred and eighty-seven men on the popular side had been killed, the King yielded, and the nation rushed headlong, from absolute despotism to household suffrage, equal electoral districts, and a single National Assembly. This is just the Cadiz constitution of 1812, which has ever since been the rallying point of the democrats throughout the south of Europe, over again. It was the same at Vienna: the whole affair there was determined in a single day, before intelligence of the commencement of the revolt had reached either Lintz or Presburg. It is ridiculous to talk of these as _national_ movements, or revolutions of the state: they are mere urban tumults, originating in a struggle for the dictatorship in the capital, and decided without the sense of the nation being taken either on the one side or the other.

But, most of all, these Continental revolutions teach a lesson of inestimable importance to the people of this country, and which recent events have so well illustrated, as to the incalculable value of a hereditary order of succession in the government, supported by hereditary respect, and resting on the _disinterested_ loyalty of the people. It is in vain to conceal that it was the fact of its being a _usurping government_ which proved fatal, in the crisis of its fate, to the monarchy of Louis Philippe. He was the King of the Barricades, and how could he withstand the force of the Barricades? It was the same with the government of Robespierre, the Directory, and Napoleon: they were all usurpations, and fell before the power which had created them. They had not taken root in the loyal and generous affections of men. The dynasty of Cromwell perished with himself; Charles II. was restored amidst the unanimous transports of the whole nation. It was the same with the government of Great Britain for long after the Revolution of 1688: it is well known that, during the last years of the reign of Queen Anne, it was almost an open question in both houses of parliament, whether the Stuart line should be restored, or the Hanoverian family, in terms of the Act of Settlement, be called to the throne. The devastating civil wars and bloody contests of the Prætorian Guards with the legions, which stained with blood the annals, and shortened the existence of the Roman empire, may show what is the fate of a great nation which, having cast away the bonds of hereditary loyalty, has nothing to be guided by, in the choice of a ruler, but the blind partiality of armed men, or the corrupted support of interested hirelings. It will be long before either will produce the fidelity of the Scottish Highlanders in 1745, or the glories of La Vendée in 1793. Usurpation of the throne is a sure prelude to endless dissension, national corruption, and endangered freedom. The expulsion of the Tarquins brought Rome to the brink of ruin; its effects were not removed for two centuries. England took nearly a century to recover the effects of the most just and necessary revolution in which men were ever engaged--that which chased James II. from the throne. Our present stability, amidst the fall of so many other governments, is mainly owing to this, that by the long possession of the throne by her ancestors, Queen Victoria unites in her person the two firmest foundations of regal power--a nation's consent, and a nation's loyalty.

If any doubt could exist as to the importance of the barrier which the government of Louis Philippe and the administration of M. Guizot opposed to the torrent of revolutionary anarchy, and the ascendant of selfish ambition, it would be removed by the dreadful nature of the events which have since taken place, or are in progress, in every part of Europe. Never was so clearly demonstrated the incalculable moment of the restraint which religion, law, and order impose on the rapacious and selfish passions of men, or the truth of Hobbes' doctrine that the natural state of man is a state of war. Instantly, as if by magic, the world has been thrown into confusion; and out of the chaos have arisen not the virtuous and benevolent, but the vicious and aggrandising propensities. While "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" are in every mouth, "tyranny, rapacity, enmity" are in every heart. A legion of demons seem to have been suddenly let loose upon the world; the original devil was expelled, but straightway he returned with seven other devils, worse than himself, and the last state was worse than the first. Kings and Kaisars, ministers and generals, demagogues and aristocrats, seem to have become alike seized with the universal contagion. In the general scramble, when society seemed to be breaking up, as in the horrors of a shipwreck or the disasters of a retreat, all subordination has been lost, all sense of rectitude passed away, and the prevailing principle appears to have been to make the most of the crisis to the purpose of separate advantage.

The great parent republic took the lead in this demoniac race. From the very first, its steps were disgraced by rapine and robbery; by the most audacious violation of vested rights, and the most shameful disregard of private interests. The first thing they did was to burn the railway stations, and expel with savage barbarity several thousand inoffensive and industrious English and Belgian labourers and artisans, without their wages or their effects, from the French territory. The next was, to confiscate the savings' banks throughout France--virtually destroying thereby nine-tenths of the accumulated savings of French industry since the peace. The suspension of cash payments soon after lowered the value of all realised property a third. A heavy addition (45 per cent) was imposed on direct taxes: the period of payment anticipated by six months. Fifty millions of francs (£2,000,000) was next exacted from the Bank of France without interest; the "Bons du Trésor Royal" (Exchequer Bills) were thrown overboard; a _progressive_ income-tax is hinted at; and Government have now openly commenced the work of spoliation by seizing upon the Paris and Orleans and Orleans and Vierzon railways, and directing their whole proceeds, averaging 200,000 francs (£8000) a week, to be paid into the public treasury! This is done without a hint at disapprobation, or even an expression of dissent, from the whole press of France. Nay, they have now taken to stopping, like footpads, common travellers, and forcing them to give up their specie in exchange for worthless paper. We doubt if the whole history of mankind contains an account of the perpetration, in so short a time, of so many acts of rapacity, or such an instance of the slavish degradation into which the press has fallen.

Lord Brougham, a great liberal authority in his day, has given, in the House of Peers, the following graphic and characteristic account of the state of France at this time, (April 17,) from which he has just returned:--

"The present condition of Paris, if it continue for any
time, would inevitably effect the ruin of that glorious
country. Paris governs France, and a handful of the mob
govern Paris. He hoped and trusted that they would live to
see better times. He hoped that what they now saw passing
before their eyes--the general want of credit, the utter
impossibility of commerce going on, the complete ruin of
trade in the capital and great towns, the expedients to
which the Provisional Government finds itself compelled to
have recourse day by day to perpetuate its existence, and to
make its ephemeral being last--one day taking possession of
the banks of deposit to the robbery of the poor--another,
stopping the supplies of the rich--a third day stopping
travellers for the purpose of taking their money from them
(hear, hear, and laughter) at the barriers, upon the ground
that the town was in want of cash. He hoped, he said, that
they would soon see such an unsettled state of things give
way to a more firm form of government. He knew some of those
individuals who had severely suffered by these
circumstances--(hear, and laughter)--but he should inform
their Lordships that he was not here present. (Continued
laughter.) Although it was a pity to spoil their merriment,
he yet rejoiced in being able to show them that there was
not a shadow of foundation for the report which had been
circulated respecting himself; when he came to the barrier,
the circumstance occurred which had no doubt given rise to
the story. He was told that he should stop in order that his
baggage might be examined. On requiring further explanation
for this conduct, he was informed that the inquiry was
sought for _for the purpose of seeing whether he had any
money_. (Laughter.) He had heard a great deal respecting the
misgovernment of former rulers, but he had never heard of
such a step as this being tolerated. He knew one person
_from whom they took 200,000 francs, giving him bank paper
instead_. The state of trade in that country was
dreadful--the funds falling suddenly from 70 to 32; the bank
stopping, notwithstanding the order for the suspension of
cash-payments; the taking possession of one of the railways,
with the proceeds, amounting to about £8000 a-week, which
were put into Louis Blanc's pocket to be dispensed again
according to his peculiar theory. In the same way, it was
said, the Provisional Government intended to act with all
the other railways. They had, no doubt, a right to do all
this, if they pleased, and also, as it was rumoured they
intended to do, to seize the bank, and to issue a paper
currency to a very large amount. He only hoped that at the
meeting of the National Assembly, they would open their eyes
to the necessity of taking such steps as to prevent that
mischief to which such experiments as these were likely to
lead. (Hear, hear.) He believed that the certain result of
such a government would be this--that they would be stricken
down with imbecility, and would become too weak to perform
the ordinary functions of a government. They might struggle
on for a time, until some military commander would rise and
destroy the Republic, and perhaps plant in its place a
military despotism. At this moment he was of opinion that
any one general, with 10,000 men, marching into Paris, would
have the effect of at once putting an end to the Republic.
No man could doubt it. The Belgian ambassador the other day
had applied to M. Lamartine for protection; the latter said
in reply, he admitted the full right of the ambassador to
such protection, but he had not really three men at his
disposal. The people in Paris were as uneasy as any persons
could be at this state of things, but they have made up
their minds to the fact that this experiment of a Republic
must be tried; so that France must remain a Republic for
some time, whether it be for her advantage or
not."--_Morning Chronicle_, April 13, 1848.

Wretched as this account of the present state of France is, its prospects are if possible still more deplorable. The misery brought on the working-classes by the ruin of commerce, destruction of credit, and flight of the opulent foreigners, is such that it is absolutely sickening to contemplate it. _Seventy-five thousand persons_ are out of employment in Paris alone, which, with the usual number of dependents, must imply two hundred thousand human beings in a state of destitution. The only way of supporting this enormous mass of indigence is by maintaining it as an armed force; and it is said that 200,000 idlers are in this way paid thirty sous a-day to keep them from plundering the capital! But the resources of no country, far less one shipwrecked in capital, trade, and industry, can withstand such a strain. The following is one of the latest accounts of the financial and social condition of France, by an able observer on the spot:--

"The time is now fast approaching when the pecuniary
resources left in the treasury at the revolution will be
exhausted. The old loan has ceased to be paid up. The new
loan remains a barren failure. The regular taxes are paid
with reluctance, and are not paid beforehand except in
Paris. The additional impost of 45 centimes (near 50 per
cent on the direct taxes) is positively refused as illegal
by the rural districts and provincial cities. The stock of
bullion in the Bank of France decreases, and, in short, the
progress of financial ruin goes steadily on. We pointed out
some weeks ago the exact and inevitable course of this
decline, and we now read in a French journal of repute the
precise confirmation of our predictions:--'We are now,' says
the _Journal des Debats_, 'but two steps removed from a
complete system of paper-money; and if we enter on that
system, we shall not get out of it again _short of the total
ruin of private persons and of the state_, after having
passed through the most rigorous distress; for it would be
the suspension of production and of exchange.' The plan
proposed, though not yet sanctioned by the Provisional
Government, seems to be a _general seizure and incorporation
with the state of all the great financial and trading
companies, such as the Bank of France, the railways, the
canals, mines, &c._, and the issue of a vast amount of paper
by the state on the alleged credit of this property--in
short, a _pure inconvertible system of assignats_. Monstrous
as such a proposal appears, we are inclined to think that
the rapid disappearance of the precious metals will render
some such scheme inevitable, and it will be the form given
to the bankruptcy and ruin of the nation."--_Times_, 14th
April.

In the midst of these woful circumstances, the Provisional Government does not for a moment intermit in the inflaming the public mind by the most fallacious and false promises of boundless future prosperity from the adherence to republican principles, and the return of stanch republicans to the approaching assembly. In the same able journal it is observed,--

"We have now before us a handbill entitled the _Bulletin de
la Republique_, and printed on white paper, the distinctive
mark of _official_ proclamations, headed, moreover, with the
words "Ministère de l'Intérieur." This document is one of
those semi-officially circulated, as we understand, by M.
LEDRU ROLLIN, for the purpose of exciting the Republican
party. A more disastrous appeal to popular passions, and a
more delusive pledge to remedy all human sufferings, we
never read; for after having laid to the charge of existing
laws _all_ the miseries of a poor man's lot, heightened by
inflammatory description, the working classes are told that
'henceforth society will give them _employment, food,
instruction, honour, air, and daylight_. It will watch over
the preservation of their lives, their _health, their
intelligence, their dignity_. It will give asylum to the
aged, work for their hands, confidence to their hearts, and
rest to their nights. It will watch over the virtue of their
daughters, the requisite provision for their children, and
the obsequies of the dead.' In a word, this exceptional and
transitory power, whose very form and existence are still
undefined, announces some necromantic method of interposing
between man and all the laws of his existence on this
globe--of suspending the principles of human nature, as it
has already done those of society--and of changing the whole
aspect of human life. No delusions can be so enormous: the
word is too good for them--_they are frauds_; and these
frauds are put forward by men who know well enough that the
effect of the present crisis already is, and will be much
more hereafter, to plunge the very classes to whom these
promises are made _into the lowest depths of human
suffering_."--_Times_, 14th April.

One of the most instructive facts as to the ruinous effect of the late Revolution on the best interests of French industry, is to be found in the progressive and rapid decline in the value of all French securities, public and private, since it took place. It distinctly appears that _two-thirds of the capital of France has been destroyed since the Revolution_, in the short space of six weeks! Attend to the fall in the value of the public funds during that brief but disastrous period:--

French 3 per cents. 5 per cents.

Fr. Ct. Fr. Ct.
1825 76 35 July 23 1817 69 0 July 29
1829 86 16 Dec. 5 1821 90 60 Nov. 2
1830 85 35 Jan. 18 1822 95 0 Sept. 5
1831 70 50 Dec. 2 1824 104 80 Feb. 5
1834 85 50 Nov. 30 1828 109 0 Sept. 4
1840 86 65 July 22 1829 110 65 Mar. 4
1844 85 65 Dec. 22 1831 98 30 Dec. 15
1845 86 40 May 20 1835 110 36 Feb. 4
1846 85 0 Feb. 28 1837 111 0 Sept. 5
1847 80 30 Jan. 2 1841 117 5 Sept. 4
1848 47 0 Mar. 15 1844 126 30 Mar. 4
1848 41 27 Mar. 28 1847 119 40 Feb. 22
1848 35 67 April 1 1848 116 75 Feb. 22
1848 34 64 April 5 1848 97 50 {fell to 80 Mar. 7.}
1848 33 10 April 14 1848 65 80 April 2
1848 51 0 April 12

_La Presse_, March 12, and _Times_ since that date.

The value of railway stock and bank shares has declined in a still more alarming proportion. Bank shares, which in 1824 sold for 3400 francs, are now selling at 900 francs--or little more than A FOURTH of their former value. Railway stock is unsaleable, being marked out for immediate confiscation. Taking one kind of stock with another, it may safely be affirmed that TWO-THIRDS _of the capital of France has perished since the Revolution, in the short space of seven weeks_. The fruit of thirty-three years' peace, hard labour, and penurious saving, has disappeared in seven weeks of anarchical transports!! Of course, the means of employing the people have declined in the same proportion; for where credit is annihilated, how is industry to be maintained, before its produce comes in, but by realised capital? How is its produce to be disposed of if two-thirds of the classes possessed of property have been rendered bankrupt? Already this difficulty has been experienced in France. The Paris papers of 13th April announce that seventy-five thousand persons will be employed at the "ateliers Nationaux," or public workshops, at 30 sous a-day, in the end of April--at a cost of 112,500 francs a-day, or 3,375,000 francs, (£150,000) a-month. This is in addition to an armed force of above 100,000 men, paid for the most part two francs a-day for doing nothing. No exchequer in the world can stand such a strain; far less that of a bankrupt and revolutionised country like France. It is no wonder that the French funds are down at 32, and an issue of assignats--in other words, the open and avowed destruction of all realised property--is seriously contemplated.

This is exactly the condition to which France was brought during the Reign of Terror, when the _whole_ inhabitants of Paris fell as a burden on the government, and the cost of the 680,000 rations daily issued to them, exceeded that of the fourteen armies which combated on the frontiers for the Republic. In those days the misery in Paris, the result of the Revolution, was so extreme, that the bakers' shops were besieged day and night without intermission by a famishing crowd; and the unhappy applicants were kept all night waiting during a severe frost, with a rope in their hands, and the thermometer often down at 5° Fahrenheit, to secure their place for the distribution when the doors were opened. There is nothing new in the condition of France and Paris at this time: it has been seen and experienced in every age of the world; it has been familiar to the East for three thousand years. The principle that the state is the universal proprietor, the middle class the _employés_ of government, and the labouring class the servants of the state, is exactly the oriental system of government. It is just the satraps and fellahs of Persia--the mandarins and peasants of China--the zemindars and ryots of Hindostan over again. Exact parallels to the armed and insolent rabble who now lord it over Paris, and through it over France, may be found in the Prætorians of Rome--the Mamelukes of Egypt--the Janissaries of Constantinople. The visions of perfectibility and utopian projects of Louis Blanc, Lamartine, and Ledru Rollin, have already landed the social interests of France in the straits of the Reign of Terror--its practical government in the armed despotism of the Algerine pirates, or the turbulent sway of the Sikh soldiery.

But the contagion of violence, the ascendant of ambition, the lust of rapine have not been confined to the armed janissaries of Paris, or their delegates the Provisional Government. They have extended to other countries: they have spread to other states. They have infected governments as well as their subjects; they have disgraced the throne as well as the workshop. Wherever a revolution has been successful, and liberal governments have been installed, there a system of _foreign aggression_ has instantly commenced. The first thing which the revolutionary government of Piedmont did, was to invade Lombardy, and drive the Austrian armies beyond the Po; the first exploit of constitutional Prussia, to pour into Sleswig to spoliate Denmark. Open preparations for revolutionising Lithuania are made in the grand-duchy of Posen. A war has already commenced on the Po and the Elbe; it is imminent on the Vistula. Lamartine's reply to the Italian deputation proves that France is prepared, on the least reverse to the Sardinian arms, to throw her sword into the scale; his conduct in permitting an armed rabble to set out from Paris to invade Belgium, and another from Lyons to revolutionise Savoy, that the extension of the frontier of France to the Rhine and the Alps is still the favourite project of the French republic. If he declines to do so, the armed prætorians of Paris will soon find another foreign minister who will. France has 600,000 men in arms: Austria 500,000: 150,000 Russians will soon be on the Vistula. Hardly was uttered Mr Cobden's memorable prophecy of the approach of a pacific millennium, and a universal turning of swords into spinning-jennies, when the dogs of war were let slip in every quarter of Europe. Hardly was M. Lamartine's hymn of "liberty, equality, fraternity," chanted, when the reign of internal spoliation and external violence commenced in France, and rapidly extended as far as its influence was felt throughout the world.

"And this, too, shall pass away." The reign of injustice is not eternal: it defeats itself by its own excesses: the avenging angel is found in the human heart. In the darkest days of humanity, this great law of nature is unceasingly acting, and preparing in silence the renovation of the world. It will bring about the downfall of the prætorian bands who now rule France, as it brought about the overthrow of Robespierre, the fall of Napoleon. The revolutionary tempest which is now sweeping over Europe cannot long continue. The good sense of men will reassume its sway after having violently reeled: the feelings of religion and morality will come up to the rescue of the best interests of humanity: the generous will yet combat the selfish feelings: the spirit of heaven will rise up against that of hell. It is in the eternal warfare between these opposite principles, that the true secret of the whole history of mankind is to be found: in the alternate triumph of the one and the other, that the clearest demonstration is to be discerned of the perpetual struggle between the noble and generous and selfish and corrupt desires which for ever actuate the heart of man.

"To rouse effort by the language of virtue," says Mr Alison, "and direct it to the purposes of vice, is the great art of revolution." What a commentary on these words have recent events afforded! Judging by the language of the revolutionists, they are angels descended upon earth. Nothing but gentleness, justice, philanthropy is to be seen in their expressions: nothing but liberty, equality, fraternity in their maxims. Astræa appears to have returned to the world: the lion and the kid have lain down together--Justice and Mercy have kissed each other. Judging by their actions, a more dangerous set of ruffians never obtained the direction of human affairs: justice was never more shamelessly set at nought in measures, robbery never more openly perpetrated by power. Their whole career has been one uninterrupted invasion of private rights; their whole power is founded on continual tribute to the selfish desire of individual aggrandisement among their followers. We do not ascribe this deplorable contrast between words and actions to any peculiar profligacy or want of conscience in the Provisional Government. Some of them are men of powerful intellect or fine genius; all, we believe, are sincere and well-meaning men. But "Hell is paved with good intentions." They are pushed on by a famishing crowd in their rear, whom they are alike unable to restrain or to feed. They are fanatics, and fanatics of the most dangerous kind--devout believers in human perfectibility, credulous assertors of the natural innocence of man. Thence their enormous error--thence the enormous evils they have brought upon the world--thence the incalculable importance of the great _experimentum crucis_ as to the justice of these principles which is now taking place upon the earth.

To give one instance, among many, of the way in which these regenerators of society proceed to spoliate their neighbours, it is instructive to refer to the proposals officially promulgated by the Provisional Government, in their interview with the railway proprietors of France, whom, by one sweeping act, it was proposed to "_absorb_" into the state. The Minister of the Interior stated that it was proposed to "purchase" the shares of the proprietors; and the word "purchase" sounded well, and was doubtless a balm to many a quaking heart, expecting unqualified confiscation. But he soon explained what sort of "purchase" it was which was in contemplation. He said that it was the intention of Government to "absorb" all the railway shares throughout France; to take the shares at the _current price in the market_, and give the proprietors not money but _rentes_, or public securities, to the same amount! That is, having first, by means of the revolution, lowered the current value of railway stock to a twentieth, or, in some cases, a fiftieth part of what it was previous to that convulsion, they next proceed to _estimate it at_ that depreciated value, and then pay the unhappy holders, not in cash, but in Government securities, themselves lowered to a third of their value, and perhaps ere long worth nothing. A more shameful instance of spoliation, veiled under the fine names of "absorption," centralisation, and the like, never was heard of; but the Minister of the Interior had two conclusive arguments to adduce on the subject. Some of the railway lines at least were "paying concerns," and the republic must have cash; and all of them afforded work for the labouring classes, and Government must find employment for the unemployed.

To such a length have these communist and socialist projects proceeded in Paris, that a great effort of all the holders of property was deemed indispensable to arrest them. The effort was made on Monday, 17th April; but it is hard to say whether the dreaded evils or the boasted demonstration were most perilous, or most descriptive of the present social condition of the French capital. Was it by argument in the public journals, or by influencing the electors for the approaching Assembly, or even by discussion at the Clubs, as in the days of the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, that the thing was done? Quite the reverse: it was effected by a demonstration of _physical strength_. They took a leaf out of the book of the Chartists--they copied the processions of the Janissaries in the Atmeidan of Constantinople. The National Guard, _two hundred and twenty thousand strong_, mustered on the streets of Paris: they shouted out, "A bas les Communistes!"--"A bas Blanqui!"--"Vive le Gouvernement Provisoire!" and the Parisians flattered themselves the thing was done. Is not the remedy worse than the disease? What were fifteen thousand unarmed workmen spouting socialist speeches in the Champs de Mars to 200,000 armed National Guards, dictating their commands alike to the Provisional Government and the National Assembly! Was ever a capital handed over to such a lusty band of metropolitan janissaries? What chance is there of freedom of deliberation in the future Assembly in presence of such formidable spectators in the galleries? Already M. Ledru Rollin is calculating on their ascendancy. Like all persons engaged in a successful insurrection--in other words, who have been guilty of treason--he is haunted by a continual, and in the circumstances ridiculous, dread of a counter-revolution; and in his circular of 15th April, he openly avows the principle that Paris is the soul of France; that it is the advanced guard of Freedom, not for itself alone, but the whole earth; and that the departments must not think of gainsaying the will of their sovereign leaders, or making the cause retrograde, in which all nations are finally to be blessed.

The account of this extraordinary demonstration, given in the Paris correspondence of the _Times_ of 19th April, is so characteristic and graphic, that we cannot forbear the satisfaction of laying it before our readers. It recalls the preludes to the worst days of the first Revolution.

"Ever since the appearance of this bold defiance to the
moderate majority in the Provisional Government, and its
announcement that 'the gauntlet was thrown down--the
death-struggle was at hand,' the city has naturally been in
a state of subdued ferment. Various reports, some of the
most extravagant kind, were circulated from mouth to mouth.
It was said that the majority of the members of the
Government intended retreating to the Tuileries, and
fortifying their position--that a collision between the
violent and moderate parties was imminent--that the Ultras,
led by Blanqui, were to profit by a new manifestation in
favour of a further delay in the general elections, and
against the admission of the military into the city upon the
occasion of the great fraternisation _fete_, in order to
upset the moderate party in the Government; in fine, that
Ledru Rollin, with two or three of his colleagues, was
instigating, aiding, and abetting Blanqui in this movement
to get rid of that majority of his other colleagues that
thwarted his designs. Whatever the truth of all these
rumours, the alarm was general. It soon became generally
known that a monster meeting of the working classes was to
be held in the Champ de Mars on the Sunday, and that Messrs
Louis Blanc and Albert, instigated, it was said, by the
Minister of the Interior, had convoked this assembly. The
Ultra party, it was added, designed to make use of this
manifestation in order to forward the schemes already
mentioned. This was the state of things on Sunday morning.
In the Champ de Mars, a little after noon, the scene was
certainly an exciting one. Delegates of all the trades and
guilds of Paris were assembled, to the number of nearly
100,000 men. Banners were waving in all directions, and the
fermenting crowd filled about a third of the vast space of
the plain. It was with difficulty that an explanation could
be obtained of the real object of the meeting. Its
ostensible object, however, appeared to be the election from
among the working classes of fourteen officers for the staff
of the National Guard; although other motives, such as the
choice of candidates among them for the general elections,
and various deputations to the Government upon various
matters connected with the endless organisation of work,
were also put forward. There is every reason to believe that
the greater part of the meeting had in reality no other
object in view, and that the other secret intrigues fomented
by the Blanqui party were confined, at all events, to but a
chosen few. About two o'clock the monster procession began
to move towards the Hotel de Ville. Along the outer
boulevards, along the esplanade of the Invalides, over the
Pont de la Concorde, and along the quays, it moved on, like
a huge serpent, bristling with tricoloured banners. The head
of the monster appeared to have nearly reached its
destination before the tail had fully left the Champ de
Mars. In passing through the Faubourg St Germain, I found
the _rappel_ beating in every street; the National Guards
were hurrying to their places of meeting, columns were
marching forward; in every mouth was the cry that the
Provisional Government was in danger from the _anarchists_
of the Ultra party.