Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/francesocialliteOOdallrJcli FRANCE, SOCIAL, LITERARY, POLITICAL BY HENRY LYTTON BULWER, M.P. Nature and truth are the same everywhere, and reason shows them everywhere alike. But the accidents and other causes which give rise and growth to opinions, both in speculation and prac- tice, are of infinite varieiy. — Bolini^hroke mi the true Use. of Retirement and Study, Reverere conditores Deos, numina Deorum. Reverere gloriam veterem, et hanc ips^in senectu- tem quse in homiae venerabilis, in urbibus sacra est. Sit apud te honor antiquati, sit ingentibus facti, sit fabulis quoque, nihil ex cujusquam dignitate, nihil ex liberiatc, niliil etiam ex jactations decerpseris. — Pliniut Maximo Teus S. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. TTEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANELIN SQUARE. 1857. ^ BOOK I. THE CAPITAL. , " Tnmsportons I'Angleterre au milieu de la Franc©.*' Vol. L— B O /^ m » -fe u»j — DEDICATION B. GILES KING, Esq. My dear King, We have such few opportunities afforded us of testi- fying esteem, that I feel inexpressible gratification in thus being able to give a very unworthy token of those sentiments with which a long acquaintance has inspired me for you — nor is this all : the present dedication is not only an ordinary tribute paid to friendship, it is a tribute paid to a friend whom I esteem as much for his public principle as his private worth. And indeed it is no small consolation, in thus entering upon a new career, to feel that whatever may be my fate as an author, there must still remain to me the pleasure and the honour with which I shall ever look back to the temporary connection of my name with yours. This is not said, my dear King, in the form and customary spirit of dedicatory addresses, but with the deepest and sincerest sentiments of regard and affection. Yours most truly, HENRY LYTTON BULWER. Hill-street, September 3, 1834. CONTENTS THE FIRST VOLUME. rAGB Introduction 9 Analysis of France 14 BOOK I. THE CAPITAL Paris. — Entry 27 Boulevards 30 Palais Royal 35 The Quais and the Tuileries 44 Divisions 50 The Capital, now and formerly 52 THE CHARACTERISTICS. Politeness 71 Gallantry 80 Vanity 90 Wit ..... 101 Gayety and Frivolity 112 Crime . 124 1* « • « t c 4 • • « 'cb^ifNW. ' ' BOOK 11. HISTORICAL CHANGES. PAGE Old R6ginie 155 Revolution of Eighty-nine 163 The Directory 174 The Consulate and the Empire 176 Appendix — Containing extracts from M. Chabrol's Reports as to the Population, &c. of Paris, and extracts from Dr. Bowring's Report as to the rate of Workmen's Wages, &o. ...... 191 INTRODUCTION. It is now very nearly four years ago — when the old dynasty went once more into exile — that I first thought of writing a work on France : not altogether a work such as many which have appeared, skimming lightly over the surface of things, and pretending merely to be the result of a six weeks' residence at Paris ; but a work which in describing the present would connect it with the past — which, in speaking of what is daily and accidental, would separate it from what ages have sanctioned, and distant ages are likely to see, — a work which, in showing the effect which time, and laws, and accident produce upon the char- acter of a people, would also show the manner in which the character of a people traverses time, enters into laws, dominates over accident. I thought such a work might be useful in England : because it might at once teach us where we could or could not imitate our neighbours ; and at the same time convince us that a wise imitation does not consist in copying the laws or the customs of another nation, but in adapting those laws and customs that we wish to imitate to om own dispositions. I thought such a work might be useful ; I thought too such a work might be interesting, and that in order to make it useful and interesting, it would be neces- sary to make it amusing. The English writer of the present century is placed in man}'- respects in the same situation as the French writer of the last. I do not say that he has the same instruction to give, but A 3 10 •••••• iNTRVX>UOT^ON. •' he has in the same manner to render instruction popular : and this I trust will be my excuse for having sometimes adopted a lighter tone, and introduced lighter matter into the following volumes than the gravity and importance of their subject might seem to require. It is some time ago, then, since I first conceived the project of this book — but I had not long proceeded to collect the materials for my undertaking before I abandoned the pursuit. Carried along in the active rush of passing events — called upon to consider and to take an humble part in advancing a great revolution, far greater than many of its originators supposed — a revolution therefore before which it was wise to pause ere you began it, as it is wise to complete it now that it is commenced — a member of two reforming^ parliaments, and one reformed parliament — obliged to give eight or nine hours at the veiy least to daily at- tendance in the House of Commons, where the public affairs of the week, like the fabled islands of the Mediterranean, for ever flit before you, and for ever vanish at your approach, — I soon resigned an idea which I had only imperfectly formed, or rather reserved it for some moment of literary leisure,* such as we always hope will one day arrive to us. In a visit, how- ever, that I paid to Paris last year, I recurred to my former thoughts, and pursued with some diligence my former researches. As far as the materials with which those researches furnished me are concerned, I feel almost convinced that I obtained sufficient to give enter- tainment and information to these volumes. But no one * There was, let me add, another difficulty thrown in my way by the late publication of a near and dear relation, in whose literary success no one more deeply sympathizes than myself. This publica- tion, being also in part a political one, made me feel that where our opinions differed I might be accused of intending to convey a censure, where our sentiments agreed I might, with (iqual justice, be accused of aiming at an imitation. But the difl'ereut nature of oui works will, I think, clear me from the last charge ; wiiile the respect which I bear to that relation's ability, and the very sincere affection I have for himself, will also, I trust, dehver me from the other. INTRODUCTION. 1 1 can be more sensible than I am that 1 have not profited as I ought to have done by this advantage. The greater part of these pages were written during the heat and fever of a London existence ; many of them, begun before the ordinary pursuits of the day were commenced, have been finished on returning home after a late parliamentary division ; and thus, inde- pendent of those faults which my inability would have involuntarily led me into, there are others for which I am deeply sensible that I have to request the con- sideration of the reader, and the indulgence of the critic. Still, in spite of these faults of commission and omission, I venture to hope that this publication is not wholly void of interest, and that the curious and good- natured reader may find in it wherewithal to repay his labour. I have endeavoured to paint France — France as France is — not only France serious, but France gay. I have endeavoured to paint France in her studies, in her crimes, in her pleasures. I have not forsaken the guinguette for the ball-room, and I have not been with- out the idea of connecting the ball-room with the prison. In political as in domestic life, happiness de- pends as well on little things as on great things ; and so saith the Scripture most sublimely of the wisest of men — "his heart was as the sands of the sea;" "one of the largest bodies," observes Bacon, " consisting of the smallest proportions." In passing from one subject to another I have writ- ten desultorily, and for this reason : — it has always appeared to me, that ideas are most naturally intro- duced into the minds of others in the form and order in which they most naturally introduce themselves into our own minds — in endeavouring to cut and to square, and to press and to clip our thoughts into certain set fonns and proportions, we most frequently injure every part of a work on the false idea of improving the whole, and make our book on the plan which pre- sided over Queen Christina's palace, where all the 12 INTRODUCTION. chef-d*oeuvres of Italy were systematically mutilated to the form and size of an apartment. I have written, then, desultorily, and hardly checked my disposition to do so. Nor, however in some re- spects 1 might deem it desirable, have I attempted to throw the colouring of one particular idea over the whole of my work, nor to connect every effect that I have observed with one particular cause. Lideed I confess, for my own part, that when I pursue specula- tions of this kind, I advance on my way with consider- able hesitation and doubt. I confess that I am one of those who believe there to be so many chains, visible and invisible, in the connection of human affairs — so much mystery and intricacy in the government of hu- man actions, that oftentimes I hesitate involuntarily even at the moments when I feel most inclined to be presumptuous. The plague breaks out at Florence, — all the pious virgins, the religious matrons, and even the sacred sisters devoted to seclusion and God, give themselves up in a species of voluptuous delirium to the wildest excesses of prostitution and debauch. The same pes- tilence visits Aix, and the oldest courtesans of the place rush in pious phrensy to the hospitals, and de- vote themselves to the certain death which seizes those who attend upon the sick. Yet a religious education does not lead necessarily to debauch — nor are brothels the best seminaries of charity and Christian zeal. What happened once might never happen again. It forms no ground for a theory ; it is interesting as a fact. I will now allude to one difficulty I have laboured under in this work — a difficulty whicfi I particularly feel, and which if I had been writing of England I should have been spared. In speaking of our o^vn country, we speak in a spirit which induces us to be- lieve that we may take any liberty we think proper with our friends. We are at home, and we have the privilege of relationship. But it is different in a for- eign land. Received as a stranger, but received with INTRODUCTION. 13 kindness and hospitality— the seal of courtesy is placed upon our lips, and we shrink with becoming disgust from being, or seeming, guilty of ingratitude. If then I could suspect myself of any of that national hostility which might induce me to find lumecessary fault with my hosts — if I disliked the French because they wear wooden shoes, or if I despised them because they do not live upon roast-beef and plum-pudding — if I felt that kind of antipathy to them which I have re- marked among some of my countrymen — if I thought all their women had the features of Calmucks, and ail their men the principles of Count Fathom — if I deemed Regent-street infinitely superior to the Boulevards, and the Louvre a hovel by the side of St. James's pal- ace, — if I believed all this, and even believed it con- scientiously, I should hesitate long, after the kindness I have experienced, before I stated my opinions. But France to me is a country in which repose many of my affections. I visited it young — its scenes and its people are connected with some of my earliest, and therefore with some of my dearest, recollections. 1 never touch its soil but the green memory of olden times rises up around me. Some of those whom 1 have most valued — some of those whom I have most loved, link me with the land of which I write, and in- fuse into my thoughts a colour which is assuredly not the hue of jealousy or aversion. I ask myself, then, whether the opinions of a friend, even if they are de- livered with impartiality — of a friend who, seeing with foreign eyes, gazes as it were through a magnifying glass on all around him, and discerns at once both beauties and blemishes which are imperceptible to persons who, imder the influence of long habit and custom, regard without observing — I ask myself whe- ther the opinions of such a friend, even if they do not always contain praise, ought to be considered as any derogation from that amity which he is bound to feel, and very distant from forswearing. It is said of Her- cules (a great reverer of the gods) that Avhen he saw the statue of Adonis in the temple of Venus, he ex- 14 INTRODUCTION. claimed with indignation, " Nil sacri es." And so surely there are objects which a traveller may venture to criticise, even when he finds them in a nation which he is most inclined to respect. But enough of this — the preceding pages have been written too much for the sake of the author — the few introductory remarks I have to add will be addressed to the reader only — and I imagine that he may like to have submitted to him a rough sketch of the form, and a brief summary of the materials, of the country to which he is about to be introduced. A SHORT ANALYSIS OF FRANCE. The extent of France from north to south, from Dun- kirk to Perpignan, is 575 French miles ; its breadth from east to west, from Strasbourg to Brest, is 499 French miles ; its total superficies 53,000 hectares ;* its population in 1833, 32,560,934 inhabitants.! This population is divided between the towns and the coun- try in the following manner: — 35,384 little communes contain . . . 23.725,809 inhabitants. 1,620 towns, from 1,500 to 50,000 inhabitants, contain 7,209,855 8 great cities, from 50,000 inhabitants, and upwards, contain^ . . . 1,625,270 * A hectare is equal to two acres, one rood, thirty-five two-fifths perches English measure. t In France the population increases every sixteen years by one- tenth. The proportion of male to female births is as sixteen to fifteen, and not as twenty-two to twenty-one— a proportion anciently established. The average of life, calculated fifty years ago at twenty- eight years, is now calculated at thirty-five. } Paris 774,338 ^ Lyons 292,370 , ^„^ „^„ Marseilles 145,115 | iSo^? Bordeaux 104,467 . ''209,65j Rouen 88,076 f 23,725,809 Nant«s 87,198 ~Z77Zr~~ _, , , Lille 69,073 32,560,934 Total. 69,630, INTRODUCTION. 16 SO that 33,725,809 may be considered the agricultural population, and 8,835,125 the population devoted to other jiiirKiiits — a result entirely different from that which ho population of Great Britain gives us.* The division of France, according to law, is into 86 departments. 363 arondissements. 2,835 cantons. 37,012 communes. The division which nature seems to have established is of a different description : for nature seems to have divided France into four great plains, round which are grouped other parts less important, and which amalga- mate less with tlie general character of the kingdom. Each of these plains or platforms is confined, as it were, by a net of streams, rivulets, and rivers, which, intersecting it in every direction, keep it at once in communication with itself, and separate from the ad- joining districts. For the south you have the Saone and the Rhone, which meet at Lyons, and fall into the Mediterranean between Marseilles and Montpellier, after having re- ceived into their bed all the rivers and rivulets which flow through this division. For the north you have the Se'ine, communicating between Paris and Rouen. For the east the Loire, with its various tributary streams, falling into the sea beneath Nantes. And, lastly, you have the Gironde, forming the far- ther great division, which has always had its peculiar characteristics. * In England, as appears by census of 1821, 1,350.239 families engaged in trade and manufacture. 978,656 in agriculture. 612,488 in other objects. 2,941,383 families. 46 per cent, in trade. 33 in agriculture. 21 other pursuits. 16 INTRODUCTION. Round these four great fluvial divisions are, to the south — the little basins of the Herault and the Aude ; to the west — the Landes, so different from the rest of France, the country watered by the Charente, La Vendee, and that ancient Brittany, with its old man- ners, its peculiar language, and peculiar history ; to the north — Normandy and the basin of the Orne ; and to the north-east — that region bordering on the Rhine, only half French, where three millions of men still talk German and Flemish — region of which France covets the entire possession, and over which Germany will not permit the progress of France — region which must be attacked and defended in the next war that breaks out in Europe. Here then is France as divided by pursuits, as di- vided by law, as divided by nature. Another division exists in cultivation ; and the 53,000,000 hectares which constitute her surface are thus distributed : — Hectares. Land in ordinary agricultural cultivation - 22,818,000 In vines 2,000,000 In fruit gardens, vegetable gardens, olives, chestnuts, hops, i^c. ... - 2,500,000 27,318,000 Parks and shrubberies .... 39,000 Forests 6,522,000 Meadows and pasturage. .... 7,013,000 Buildings 213,000 Mines, stone pits, and turf pit - - - 35,000 Canals 900,000 Roads, rivers, mountains, and rocks - - 6,555,000 7,693,000 Uncultivated 4,240,000 53,035,000 Thus, out of the 53,000,000 of hectares capable of cul- tivation in France, There are under the plough or spade 27,318,000 In forests 6,522,000 Parks and shrubberies - - - 39,000 In pasturage 7,013,000 In buildings, niines, roads, &c. - - 7,693,000 Uncultivated, but .... 4,24,0000 INTRODUCTION. 17 France being the only country in the world, perhaps, where ten-elevenths of the land to be cultivated is actually under cultivation. But at the same time there are few countries where upwards of 22,000,000 of cultivated hectares (54,000,000 English acres) are hardly sufficient to supply food to 32,000,000 of in- habitants.* These two facts are connected together by another, for which France is more especially remarkable, viz. the allotment of her soil. There are in France about 10,000,000 of distinct properties charged to the land tax. This tax is about the sixth of the revenue from the land. Of these 10,000,000 properties there are not above 34,000, as will be seen by the annexed table, that pay upwards of 300 frs., i. e. that yield an income of 1,800 frs. — little more than 70/. Number of properties paying from _ 300frs.to400frs. 34,^94 400 500 - 17,028 500 600 - 9,997 600 700 - 6,379 700 800 - 4,254 800 900 - 3,044 40,702 2,495 900 1,000 1,000 1,500 8,634 1,500 2,000 3,313 2,000 3,000 832 3,000 4,000 861 4,000 5,000 939 14,579t Properties, however, distinct in their taxation, may belong to the same proprietor. M. Dupin, taking this union of properties into consideration, reckons 5,000,000 of landed proprietors ; and from the best sources from which I can derive information, there would be 1,400 or 1,500 persons paying from 4,000 to 6,000 francs, i. e. receiving a landed income of from 24,000 to 30,000 francs a year, instead of 939, which is the number of distinct properties paying that sum, * See impc«,ts. t Taken tcT>tian column. SRT&V. 09^ habits of a people of the sun ; they are not the people of one stock ; collected in every crowd are the features and the feelings of divers races and different regions. In Paris you are not in the climate of Paris — France is brought into a focus, and concentrated in the capital you find all the varieties that vivify the many provinces of the kingdom. It is this which gives a city of the North the gracious and agreeable aspect of the South, and transports the manners that are legitimate to the olives and the myrtles of Provence to the elms of the Champs Elysees and the Boulevards. London is the city of the English, as Constantinople is the city of the Turks. Paris is the city of Europe ; it imites more than any city in the world the wants of a variety of classes, the habits of a variety of people. With the snow you have the sledge of St. Petersburg ; Virith the summer the music, the nightly promenade, the ice, the lemonade, and all — but the sea and the sky, of Naples. I am now at the comer of the Rue de la Pais. It. is a beautiful autumnal evening. What a dazzling con* fiision of colours and images! white houses, green trees, and glittering lights ! The rattling equipage rushes by me, the whispering saimterer lounges before me, and the group is seated round the ** cafe ;'* and the music is far enough away to lose all harshness ; and in the background— behold ! the piles of buildings, and the lines of lamps, rising one above the other, and broken at intervals by some dark mass of verdure ! It is almost impossible to describe this scene, and as im- possible to gaze upon it, without inhaling some por- tion of the spirit it breathes, without feeling a charac- ter more soft and southern — a ray of light that had not penetrated there before, stealing into the severe and sombre recesses of one's northern imagination. Here it is more especially that the Boulevards justify the old French proverb, which says, " When le hon Dieu is out of humour, he opens one of the windows of heaven^ and recovers his spirits by a glimpse of this long line of trees." There is certainly nothing that I know ol like the Boulevards in any other city in the world. 3* ^) f>^S Qk&a^Mi, BOULEVARDa The Boulevards contain a part of every district of Paris, and exhibit every class of Paris — Description from the Rue Royale to the Rue de la Paix — Terraces of the Rue Basse du Rampart — Stalls oppo- site, horses, equipages, &e. &c. — Description from the Rue de la Paix to the Rue de Richelieu — Voluptuaries-^Gamblers — Stock- trokers — The man of La BruySre — Portraits — Description after the Rue Montmartre — Parisian Medici — Farther on, commerce more modest— Gayeties—Dubureaux, waxworks, &€.•— Boulevard Beau- marchais — Place Ro3rale— Elephant — Boulevards the best place to •see the French people, and to study the French history — Paris, 1814 — Review by Loms Philippcw Oxford-street gives one aspect of London, Re- sent-street another, the Strand another ; but the Bou- levards, running directly through Patis, display the character of the town in all its districts, and the char- acter of its inhabitants in all their classes. Go from the Rue Royale to the site of the old Bastille. You first pass by those zigzag and irregular houses Ihat jut out upon the old rampart, and which have rather a picturesque appearance, from the gay little ter- -races and balconies which, when there is a ray of sun, are sure to be lit up by it ; and opposite, you have the stalls, gay also (notwithstanding their poverty), where you may get nailed shoes and cotton-net braces, and works " six sous the volume !'* stalls which carry, even into this scene of wealth and pleasure, the de- >■ O > * «0 t- OiOit >aD oo « eo i^ l^ i- «o c $£ Mo » .5 MBS P " s '■flic C3 S X o^ m — < s «» ■ 00 •11 XI o III s a ■S®-o ■§§•=2 2 i»2 cB ;: o lu ai "3 c rt 3 C U "■2 o c ■2 t: fefi-i — <.-<(?»cicoe'S"*oo> — itst^o rl-^i-iOMC^fOTfiiOl- « te " - i M CO." I V T3 to : g § a .5 2 r-s i!2 £-3 ^.Sfc.2 5 .2 £ rt S* :?.£? 5J2o^S'ajS'o3M3 iT'C 5 o * -^l « 'S 00 O 132 CHARACTERISTICS. )0000005C5l^iO «o tc o m t^ : S o . p nj 5^ c S.S .5 = c : S ■= ^ 2 o. 3 5> us o " o is 1 03 " tc X X S WHO • . u ■ ■ ' 5 : •' : £ m m • , « •So 1.1 0) w '3 "S •- 73 5 S ^ 5 » " bii i_ c3 cc 0) C 0; <-• j:^ c!!3 r*^ m ^.^ m r/^ -»^ '.•^so.-^so^fii-oeaisxi i-i!MM Tj<0«OJ>C»050-HC^m rril0 50l^00O5O«(NCC- i C< O* IM !M !M CM C-J I t^ l> ifj O O CO ( CQ 0< C< >-< -^ " 1-1 £ >,-« ; sH bfC , ■I I CO .5-g ^iic ..^ ... 3M-bC- •-« «-3?'<- g£ ® i-i I i S S -H ? S S U-S g -S a i: S « a « :.S Sb 4) 00 00 00 00 142 CHAUACTEKISriCS. — the influence of climate, thus seeing it, as we do, in conjunction with the influence of the seasons, is difficult to controvert, and seems sufficient, in a slight degree, to separate France from other countries, and the different divisions of France from each other. But it is in the influence which age and which sex exercise upon crime in France that there more espe- cially lies a vast field of inquiry — as to the morals, the habits, and the character of the French. In respect to the influences of age, I publish a table, the only one of the sort ever made, and which I think no reader will look at without considerable interest. As is natural to suppose, the greatest number of crimes committed by both sexes are committed be- tween twenty-five and thirty years of age : a time when the faculties are most developed, and the pas- sions most strong. Assassinations become more and more frequent after the age of twenty years up to the age of fifty : forgery takes the same rule of progres- sion, but continues increasing up to the age of seventy and above. The most striking fact is the enormous proportion that rapes upon children bear among crimes committed by persons past the age of sixty — in a thousand crimes, from fifty to sixty, eighty-eight are rapes upon children ; from sixty to seventy, one hun- dred and sixty-six ; from seventy to eighty and up- wards, three hundred and eighteen. This crime is thrice as frequent as any other among old people, and one sees here — what is the case in maladies of all kinds — precisely the most appetite where there is the worst digestion. Thus we are led to the influence of the sexes ; and most singularly does it display itself in the fact, that the crime* second in precedence among young men is "if which the laws and the pohce are different ; still, make every allowance for these, and you will yet find the same difference be- tween France and England that there is between the south of France and the north. There will be more crimes in England against property, fewer crimes against the person, and a larger total of crimes altogether. * I speak of the crimes against persons. CRIME. 143 rape upon adults — the crime first in precedence among old men, rapes upon children. From the first step to the last then, from the entry into life to the departure from it, the influence of the sexes, in all its wonderful variations, from physical passion to moral depravity, predominates in France over human actions, and shows here, in a more serious manner, many of those traits in character to which I have elsewhere, in a lighter tone, alluded. Nor is this all ; we find that in the committals in England and Wales, the females are in the proportion of one to five ; in France, the females are in the pro- portion of one to three. The difference indeed between the crimes of the male and the female in France does not seem .caused by the superior innocence, but by the greater weakness of the female : for exactly as a woman's facility for committing crime increases, her criminality also in- creases, and becomes more especially remarkable — where one would have hoped to find it least so, viz. beneath her master's, her father's, and her husband's roof. Two-fifths of the thefts by females are domestic thefts, whereas only one-fifth of the thefts by males are thefts of this description. Committing only one murder in twenty, and one assault in twenty-five,* the woman is guilty of every third parricide, of half the crimes by poison, — and whenever man or wife conspire against the life of the other, the accomplice, if chosen from the family, is almost certain (says M. Guerry) to be a female. So restless, so active, so incapable of repose and insignificance, in France, is this nervous and irri- table sex — here poisoning a husband, there intriguing for a lover — here spouting for equal rights, there scrib- bling in the"livre rose," — the nature. of the French woman is still the same, sometimes conducting her to glory, sometimes to the galleys. * Infanticide is the crime most frequent to females ; assassination (murder premeditated) comes the next. There are one hundred and seven assassinations by women to forty-nine murders. On a hundred crimes " against persons" the men are guilty of eighty-six, the women of fourteen. On a hundred crimes against property, the men com- mit seventy-nine, the women twenty-one. 1 44 CHARACTERISTICS. And now pursumg his analysis, Monsieur Guerry conducts us from crimes to their motives. On a thousand crimes of poisoning, murder, assassi- nation, and incendiarism, we find by his account that Hatred and vengeance cause . . 264 Domestic dissensions . . . 143 Quarrels at gambling-houses . . 113 Adultery 64 Debauchery, concubinage, seduction . 53 Jealousy . . . . . . 16 Hatred and vengeance cause the most of these crimes — ;jealousy causes the least. Remark ! — one of the most common crimes in France is — rape ; one of the weakest incentives to crime is jealousy ! . . . . Adultery, however, causes a large proportion of the crimes (thirty-five in a hundred). But this is not the effect of jealousy — it is not the person injured who avenges himself or herself; no, it is the person injur- ing ; it is not the deceived, it is the deceiver, who commits one crime as the consequent of the other. Clytemnestra is the home tragedy of private life, and we find that in three cases out of five it is the adul- terous wife and her accomplices who conspire against the life of the betrayed husband.* Debauch, concubinage, and seduction cause almost as many crimes as adultery ; but here it is the life of the woman, as in adultery it is the life of the man, that is most menaced. A faithful mistress is a burthen ; an unfaithful one is passionately loved. The connection sought from inclination is viewed very dif- ferently from that which is usually dictated by in- terest, and the infidelity of the mistress excites far more angry feelings than the infidelity of the wife. At all events, among wives, the infidelity of the woman causes but one in thirty-three of the assaults upon her * I recommend M. Guerry's tables as an antidote to the novels of the day, and the doctrines in favour of adultery — to which husbands listen with so willing an ear. CRIME. 145 life : among mistresses, the infidelity of the woman causes one in every six of these assaults. It is amus- ing to have these facts before our eyes, and instructive to communicate them to those married ladies who declare that the fickleness of their nature renders them inimical to wedlock. Let me venture to suggest —that their infidelity will expose their lives six times as often as it does now, if they succeed in their pro- jects of female enfranchisement. The two circumstances next demanding our atten- tion are the number of natural children and the number of suicides in France, which, though not coming under the head of crimes, are connected with the same state of society, with the same character, and with the same passions. The annual number of natural children is 67,876 (34,708 males, and 33,168 females). The depart- ment of the Seine, which produces a thirty-second of the population, produces one-sixth of the natural children ; and one-third* of the population of Paris would actually be illegitimate but for the unhappy destiny which infants so begotten undergo ; three- fifths of these children are abandoned by their parents, and one out of every three dies before attaining his third year. Where we find the most hospitals — there we find the fewest infanticides. But such is the state of these institutions that, little better than a device for encouraging prostitution and checking pop- ulation, they do that which the law forbids the aban- doned parent to do — they murder the child. They transfer the guilt from the individual to the state. Miserable duplicity ! — the mother is punished for her crime — the government is lauded for its humanity.f Such is charity misapplied — Benefacta male coUocata, malefacta existima. Terent. * M. Chabrol gives a greater proportion. t It appears, tliat in the northern provinces where there is the most instruction there are the most natural children — the most prostitutes also come from these provinces. Vol. I— G 13 146 CHARACTERISTICS. I'he number of suicides committed from 1827 to 1830 are 6,900, i. e. about 1,800 per year; and the department of the Seine, which contains only one- thirty-second of the population, presenting us, as 1 have said, with one-sixth of the illegitimate children, presents us also with one-sixth of the suicides. The most suicides are committed in tlfe north, the least in the south, just the inverse of what happens in respect to murders and assassinations ; and it seems an invariable law,* that precisely in those provinces where people are most tempted to kill one another, they are the least tempted to kill themselves. Strange to say, the number of suicides committed in one year amounts to almost the total number of crimes against the person,! and, excluding infanticide, to more than three times the number of murders and assassinations :| so that, if a person be found dead, and you have only to con- jecture the cause, it is three times as probable that he died by his own hand as by that of another person ! It is hardly necessary to observe, that the number of suicides really committed must be far more numer- ous than those which can be furnished by official docu- ments. Monsieur Guerry has given a table of the different sentiments uppermost in the minds of different individuals at the time when they have deprived them- selves of existence. The table is formed according to the papers found on the persons of the deceased. * With the exception of Alsace and Provence, t Number of suicides 1800 ; crimes against the person 1865. i Number of murders, assassinations, &c. . , 679 Infanticide . . . . . . . 118 561 3 1683 Suicides 1800 ; i. e. more than three times the amount of murders? CRIME. 147 Sentiments expressed in the writings of persons having co?nmitted Suicide. CITY OF PARIS. That they enjoy their reason. That one has a right to deUver one's self from hfe when Life is a burden. That they have come to the deter- mination after much hesitation. Agonies of their mind. That they were confused in their ideas. The horror inspired by the action which they are about to com- mit. Pre-occupied with the pains they are about to suffer. Fear to want courage. Avowal of some secret crime. Regret to have yielded to tempta- tion. Prayer to be pardoned their faults. Desire to expiate a crime. That they are become reckless on earth. Disgust of life. Reproaches to persons of whom they think they have a right to complain. Kind expression to persons, &cc. Adieus to their friends. Desire to receive the prayers of the church. Insult to the ministers of reUgion. Belief in a future hfe. Thoughts of debauch and hber- tinage. MateriaUsm. Prayer not to give pubhcity to their suicide. Wish to have their letters pub- hshed in the newspapers. Reflections on the misery of hu- man life. BeUef in a fatality. Prayer to their children to pardon the suicide they are committing. That they die men of honour. Regret not to be able to testify their gratitude to their benefac- tors. Talk of the hopes which they see vanish. Regrets for life. Prayers to their friends to bestow some tears upofi their memory Regrets to quit a brother, &c. Prayer to conceal the nature of their death from their children. Solicitude for the future of their children. Incertitude of a future life. Recommendation of their souls to God. Confidence in divine mercy. Instructions for their funerals. Prayer to their friends to keep a mesh of hair, a ring, in remem- brance of them. Desire to be buried with a ring or other token of remembrance. Request as to the manner they would be buried. Fear to be exposed at the Morgue. Reflections on what will become of the body. Desire to be carried directly to the cemetery. Prayer to be buried with the poor. M. Guerry has a large collection of these papers, which published simply as they are, would be one of the most interesting of modem publications. G2 148 CHARACTERISTICS. Here we find men — " fearing to want courage," — *' feeling that they are becoming reckless on earth," — " disgusted with life," — " insulting the ministers of religion," — " thinking of debauch and libertinage," — " wishing to have their letters published in the news- papers," — " boasting that they die men of honour," — "giving instructions for their funerals." Mark what these sentences contain ! Mark the vanity, the frivol- ity which do not shrink before the tomb. Mark the passions, so light, so ridiculous, so strong ! — the pas- sion which points a pistol to the brain, and dictate at the same moment a paragraph to the " Constitution- nel !"* Any one little given to the study of these subjects would hardly imagine that the method by which a person destroys himself is almost as accurately and invariably defined by his age as the seasons are by the sun. So it is, notwithstanding, if we may rely upon M. Guerry's experience. The young hang themselves ; arrived at a maturer age they usually blow out their brains ; as they get old they recur again to the juvenile practice of sus- pension. The tables annexed give the number of persons who kill themselves by the pistol and the halter ; their age is indicated at the base, and a little above is the proportion which these numbers bear to the total number of observations taken upon one thousand. I have gone thus into the details of M. Guerry's work now before me,t first, because I think so important * This paper seems, for some reason or other, the paper in which suicides are most anxious to be recorded.. t There are other facts in M. Guerry's work to which I do not allude, but which are still interesting. From his statements in re- spect to education, it appears that from 1815 to 1827 the number of persons receiving instruction had so far augmented as to furnish in the most enlightened arondissements of the north-east (where there are the universities of Mentz, Strasbourg, Douai, and Dijon), one boy going to school in every 11, 12, and 15 inhabitants — instead of one in 14, 15, 16, and 17 inhabitants ; and so in the districts of Angers, Or- leans, Rennes, and Clermont, where there is the least instruction, for one boy going to school in 113, 126, 190, 158, and 167 inhabitants in 1819, there was in 1827 one m every 74, 92, 128, 150, and 159. But CRIME 149 an attempt to carry certain rules into those departments of morals and jurisprudence, which have hitherto been vaguely treated and considered, would be, whether successful or unsuccessful, well worthy our deepest attention ; and, secondly, because I feel greatly dis- posed to concur in the majority of M. Guerry's conclu- sions. This disposition, I own, is not merely founded upon a faith inspired by the calculations 1 have sub- mitted to the reader. I do not feel that faith in such calculations which many do. But in this instance, the results which M. Guerry has given are those which the ordinary rules of nature and observation would teach me to believe. A philosopher, writing on history, once said, that statues, and monuments, and triumphal arches were only to be received as credible witnesses when the facts which they pretended to commemorate were likely to be true. This is about the manner in which, under the necessity of quoting from very imperfect sources, I usually consider the figures of most statists. But what does M. Guerry prove ? Those facts which he demonstrates as most probable are facts which we were taught, centuries before the kind of tables which he gives us, to believe. It is the wife who wrongs the husband, or the husband who wrongs the wife, that the schools which in England receive a third of the pubhc donations receive in France but a thirtieth ; and in seventeen departments there was not, during the space of ten years, one gift or bequest to an in- stitution of tliis description. This leads me to remark that there are some curious statements in M. Guerry's work respecting donations, more especially as they concern the clergy and the poor. From these it would appear that the wealthiest and most enlightened prov- mces make the greatest number of donations to the clergy, and that the most ignorant provinces make the fewest donations to anybody. Where there are the most crimes against the person, the most priests, there the most is given to the poor. More than half of the bequests and gifts that take place are for the benefit of this class (the poor), and the support of hospitals, and other beneficent establishments ; and, contrary to general belief, it would appear, 1st, that the gi-eatest number of charitable contributors are of the male sex ; 2dly, that instead of the priests wringing what is left to them from the dying sinner, it is the poor who gain the most by testament, and the clergy the most by donation. 13* 150 CHARACTERISTICS. in ninety-four cases out of a hundred, adds murder to adultery. The profound author of the Prince divined on a large scale what M. Guerry has just established on a small one ! The dogma, too beautiful to be true, that wealth and knowledge are incompatible with crime, stood opposed to every page of history that ever pretended to portray the character of man- kind. It is refuted by figures ; it is by figures only that men would have dared or attempted to assert it. The earliest philosophers and legislators had con- demned, on the score of policy and morality, those sexual disorders on which Christ set the seal of divine reprobation, and which we are now for the millionth time shown to be injurious to the well-being of society. The influence exercised by climate and race is a doc- trine as ancient as the separation of the sons of Noah. One stands amazed at the slow progress of intelligence when one sees it necessary to prop up these old and hackneyed precepts with new authority So much for the facts that concern mankind in general : as for those which relate to France in par- ticular, M. Guerry's calculations conform, for the most part, with the views that a rational observer would have taken. He paints the population of France active and industrious in the north ; indolent, passion- ate, charitable in the south ; ignorant, honest, reli- gious, and attached to their parents in the centre ; while in Paris we find, as we might have supposed, a people universally sensual, and easily disgusted with life. This is what we should have said without seeing M. Guerry's tables — this is what his tables teach us. I do not, by these observations, mean to depreciate the class of works which I have been considering ; it has, undoubtedly, its peculiar merits ; but I see people of the present day insensible to its defects — astonished when a truth is proved to them by ciphers — credulous when an error is similarly asserted, and falling per- petually into trivialities, absurdities, and superficiali- ties, merely because they think that nothing can be CRIMK. 151 absurd, trivial, or superficial which puts on a business- like appearance.* The philosophers of the eighteenth century, material as they were, were not quite so material as we have become. Every argument now used must appeal to the senses ; no doctrine is worth a farthing that does no|; march boldly forth, supported by figures. The orator, the philosopher, and even the novelist address themselves "to facts," Facts, no doubt, are the necessary basis of general truths — but figures are not always facts ; figures, impossible to contradict, are very frequently contradicted in politics as in science, by the mere absurdities they prove. For instance, by a subsidy granted to Philip de Valois (1328), it would appear that there were at that time eight mil- lions of hearths, or families, in the countries which at present compose France ; eight millions of families, at the moderate calculation of four persons to a family, would give thirty-two millions of inhabitants, the whole population of France at the present time. Voltaire cites this absurdity; in similar absurdities history abounds. But M. Guerry's volume, as well from the ability of that gentleman as from the conscientious scruples with which all his inquiries are conducted, is the most valuable work of this description which exists, or which we can hope for many years to see, respecting the country on which I am writing. Let me then return to the investigation I set out with, viz. " how far what he says of the crimes, con- curs with what I have said of the pleasures, of the French." Do we find no connection between the gallantry which formed the subject of a former chapter and the contents of this chapter ? See we nothing to remark in the rapes of young men upon adults, in the rapes * How often do we find a manufacture or a country in that singu- lar condition which poor Pope so happily described when, turning jfrora his doctor to his friend, he said, " Alas ! my dear sir, I'm dying every day of the most favourable symptoms." 152 CHARACTERISTICS. of old men upon children, in the female poisonings attendant upon adultery, in the immense population perishing in the enfans trouves ? Is there no con- nection between the vanity I formerly spoke of and the hatred and the vengeance which dictate so many crimes, and the disgust for life which leads to so many suicides I Is there no connection between the gay, and unthinking, and frivolous disposition which pre- sides over the follies of the French, and the careless- ness and recklessness of human life which swells the calendar of their guilt, and opens so remarkable, so terrible a chapter in the history of human nature 1 This inquiry I do not venture to pursue : my object is, noi to establish doctrines, but to awake attention. And now, having hastily and feebly, but not, I trust, inac- curately, sketched some of the principal features of French character, such as it appears before me, may I hope to lead my reader back to some of the later pas- sages in French history, from which we must not wholly divide the present, to some of those many rapidly succeeding changes, out of which a new people, different but not separate from the old people, have grown up ? for this I am anxious to do, holding it im- possible to speculate with any security on the future of a nation of which we have not studied the past. END OF BOOK I. BOOK II. HISTORICAL CHANGES. " Men will never see far into posterity who do not sometimes looK backward to their ancestors." Burke. "Je veux parler de la condition materielle de la societe, des changemens materiels introduits dans la maniere d'etre et de vivre des hommes, par un fait rrouveau, par une revolution, par un nouvel ^tat social." GUIZOT. G3 HISTORICAL CHANGES. OLD REGIME. It IS at Versailles that you can best understand the old r§gime — The monarchy overturned by the first revolution, the monarchy of Louis XIV. — Faults that he committed — Character of his suc- cessors — The alchymist and the cook — Necessity of maintaining the court nobility in pubUc opinion by war — Impossibility of doing so — Many circumstances hastened what Louis XV. foresaw — Colbert, Law, Voltaire — Review of the revolution and the old regime— Definition of the old "regime" — What Louis XV^ might have done — The court formed by the old nobility — The monarch impoverished, and obliged to satisfy the former adherents of that nobility — The destruction of the great aristocracy burthened the monarch with the vices of the gentry — The wrath of the people delivered the nation into the hands of the mob — The good which came out of evil. Relieve yon palace from the century with which its royal dome is overcharged — light up those vast apart- ments, gorgeous in paintings and gold — open wide those stately and solemn doors, — crowd with a gay throng of courtiers that wide flight of marble steps, down which a daughter of the house of Hapsbourg, a queen of France, half naked, was once seen to fly — Give for a moment, give its ancient splendour to the palace where you are still haunted by the memory of Louis XIV. It is at Versailles, as you gaze on those stifl" and stately gardens, on that large and spacious court, on those immense buildings, still decorated with their title inscribed in letters of gold, '* Les e curies du Roi" — it is at Versailles, as you stand between the five roads which quit the royal gates for Spain, Italy, Paris, Ger- many, and England — it is at Versailles that you under- stand the genius of the ancient " regime," such as it existed in the head of its founder. 156 HISTORICAL CHANGES. I call Louis XIV. its founder: for the monarchy which the revolution of 1789 overthrew was the mon- archy of Louis XIV., who made of a great fief a great kingdom, and destroyed the feudal government of eight centuries, which Richelieu had already undermined. The ancient monarchy was of a mixed nature, and the sovereign might be said to share his power with the nobility, the magistracy, and the clergy of the realm. Louis XIV. simplified the system, and said, " I am the state." He said it with impunity. In the camp and the court, the nobility had sacrificed their independ- ence : weakened by the unsuccessful struggles of the Fronde, the parliament had not attempted to resist their youthful master's indignation : the clergy were sub- dued when they renounced the distribution of their possessions ; and the silence which reigned every- where was the sign of universal submission. The vowed enemy of revolutions, this great king acted the part of a revolutionist ; a part dangerous for prince or people. The violence of the mob placed the dictatorship in the hands of Cromwell and Napoleon ; the absolute doctrines of their predecessors led Charles I. and Louis XVI. to the scaffold. In concentrating the power of the kingdom in the monarch, Louis XIV. united all the faults of his government with the exist- ence of the monarchy, and made the force of the mon- archy depend upon the force of an individual — the crown became too weighty to wear, and even he who made it what it was could only support it during the pride and strength of his youth. The character of the Duke of Orleans, a prince to whose capacity posterity has not rendered justice, was still the character of all others least likely to infuse vigour into a system already travailed by decay. Less affrighted by dangers than difficulties, and easily cap- tivated by any novelty that had originality to recom- mend it, his government was a series of harassing in- trigues to avoid trouble, a continuation of dangerous expedients to avoid distress. The edifice, which de- pended for its safety on the preservation of the solemn OLD REGIME. 157 grandeur that had presided over its foundation, he attempted to sustain by the brilliant tricks of a versa- tile address, and Europe was for a while amused by a profligate and clever buflbon, who, in the masquerade of a cardinal, represented the stately and decorous monarchy of Louis XIV. In the amusements of the regent, and of his suc- cessor — in the pursuits of the alchymist and the cook, you may discover the genius which accompanied them into more serious affairs. The indolent epicureanism of Louis XV. sanctioned as a system that which under the regency was tolerated as a transient disorder. The eccentric debauch of the one consolidated itself into the regulated profligacy of the other, and the court which awed during the reign of Louis XIV. by its cere- monious pride, which astonished during the regency by its mysterious vices, disgusted under the succeed- ing reign by its insolent and dissolute manners. Be- sides, to sustain a nobility void of all civil resources, and arrogant only in the exclusive privilege of wearing a sword, it was necessary to bring that nobility fre- quently before the nation on the field of battle ; and, indeed, we find it pardoned, if not beloved, by a vain and military people, when it mingled valour with volup- tuousness, ambition with frivolity, chivalry with love. But as war is carried on in modern times, it cannot be maintained without considerable expense, and every year increases the necessity and the danger of making peace. The condition, therefore, on which such a sys- tem was based, rendered it, under the present military system, difficult of duration. The nobility, caged in the court, were likely to find themselves opposed by the great body of the people ; and the sovereign, if he identified himself with the nobility, was likely to share the fate of an impotent and insolent aristocracy, whose pretensions he had left, and whose power he had de- stroyed. Undoubtedly many circumstances hastened this con- clusion, which the eye of Louis XV., less improvident than his disposition, had from afar dimly foreseen. 14 158 HISTORICAL CHANGES. The more indeed that we look at the events of those times, the more we are struck by the variety of ele- ments which were working towards the same result. The commercial prosperity which rose with the wis- dom and economy of Colbert, the commercial ruin which followed the scientific but terrible operations of Law, were equally favourable to that moneyed nobility by whom the first revolution was aided, and to whom the second revolution belongs. More than this ; the poetical vanity of Richelieu, the domineering arrogance of Louis XIV., the intriguing character of the regent, the weak and indolent disposition of Louis XV., all concurred in hastening the advancement of a new no- bility, destined to be still more formidable to the ancient order of 'things, and which has, in fact, changed the destiny of a great part of the world. Flattering the passions, and associating itself with the tastes, literature finally overthrew the interests of the great. The doctrines, which delivered from a philosophic chair would have been punished and pro- hibited, insinuated the'mselves into favour by the ele- gance of a song, the point of an epigram, or the elo- quence of the stage : conducted less by systematic artifice than casual interest, the writer who abused the class praised the individual ; and the same man, who from the solitude of Ferney breathed destruction to the clergy, the monarchy, and the court, dedicated a poem to a pope, corresponded with an empress, and was the unblushing panegyrist of a fashionable debauche and a royal mistress. Thus were there two new classes, the one powerful for its wealth, the other more mighty for its intelligence, in tacit league against the existing order of things — an order of things from which they had sprung, but which, having been formed at a time when they were hardly in existence, offered them no legitimate place in society equal to that which they found themselves called upon to assume. It was by the side of galleys crowded with musicians, and deco- rated with flowers, that you might once have seen the sombre vessel destined to bring to France the pesti- OLD REGIME. 159 lence* which had been merited by her crimes ; and so with the prosperity and the glory of the golden days of the ancient " regime," with its commerce and with its arts, came on, darkly and unnoticed, the just but terri- ble revolution of 1789. For many years it has been the custom to pick up our recollections of the ancient " regime" out of the ruins of the Bastille, or to collect our materials for the history of the revolution from the dungeons of the Conciergerie and La Force. The time is come when the writer is bound to be more impartial, and to allow that there was a certain glory and greatness in the an- cient monarchy, a strict justice, and an almost inevit- able necessity, in the catastrophe which overwhelmed it. Of the revolution I shall speak presently. What I have to say of the ancient " regime" will be confined to a few remarks. A writer, whose essay on the mon- archy of Louis XIV. is at once calculated to impress posterity with a just idea of the ancient history and the modern genius of the French people, has said, — " Cette monarchic pent etre ainsi definie ; une roy- aute absolue et dispendieuse, severe pour le peuple, hostile envers I'etranger, appuyee sur I'armee, sur la police, sur la gloire du roi, et temperee par la justice du monarque et par la sagesse de ses conseils choisis dans les differens ordres de I'etat, et par le besoin de menager pour la guerre et pour rimp6t le nombre et la fortune de ses sujets." This sentence comprises the spirit of a military system which, as I have said before, depended upon the personal character of its chief. Scratch out the words "dispendieuse" and " severe ;" read " une royaute absolue mais ^conomique, douce pour le peuple,"" and you have, what may be said with some propriety of the Prussian monarchy, not an unpopular government with an enlightened people at * The Chevalier d'0rl6ans, natural son of the regent and grand prior of Malta, was returning from Genoa, whither he had escorted his sister. By the side of his galleys floated several vessels, which, coming from a port in Syria, carried into France the plague, which desolated Marseilles. 160 HISTORICAL CHANGES. the present day, and a government peculiarly adapted to many characteristic dispositions of the French. It was into something like the Prussian government that Louis XVI. might perhaps have converted his own. The expenses of the crown, the privileges of the nobility, the venality of places, the frequent imprison- ments, and the excessive charges of the people — these were faults incompatible with the welfare of a nation, but not necessarily combined with the haughty prerog- atives of the crown. By diminishing the useless ex- penses of the court, the army might more easily have been supported ; by equally dividing the burthens of the state, the commons might have become recon- ciled to the nobility ; and by uniting the army with the nation, and thus avoiding the necessity of display- ing the valour of one class in order to appease the dis- content of another, the military system might have become one of defence instead of one of aggression. By these means, doubtless, the ancient monarchy might have been rendered tolerable, and its destruc- tion prevented or deferred. Its faults, if you do not consider the court as part of the constitution, were faults chiefly of administration, but were faults insep- arable from the court. The great misfortune entailed by the destruction of the great nobility was the crea- tion of this court. In other respects, the policy of Louis XIV., dangerous to himself and to his descend- ants, was not, upon the whole, so disadvantageous to his people. The simplicity which he introduced, productive of despotism, was also productive of order, — the indis- putable necessity of a state that wishes to advance and to improve. In hfs reign the streets of Paris were regularly lighted, and an effective police created. The arts, as an embellishment to the monarchy, were cultivated ; commerce, as the means of supporting a more regular state of warfare, was encouraged ; and during the time that the genius of him who had ope- rated the change was equal to preside over it, France obtained a prosperity which it required a long series OLD REGIME. 161 of disasters to overthrow. Even the great vice of Louis XIV. was not without its advantages. The im- mense buildings in which so much was lavishly ex- pended, useful in promoting a taste for architecture, which has since tended, not merely to the embellish- ment, but to the health and comfort of France and Eu- rope (for its effects extended far), was also useful in creating that power and majesty of thought which, proceeding from the admiration of what is great, and the conquest of what is diflicult, is, under proper reg- ulation and control, a mighty element in the composi- tion of any state which aspires to a high place among the royal dynasties of the world. Seen, then, from afar, where its outlines are only dimly visible, there is much in the ancient " regime" to admire as well as to accuse. But penetrate more into the subtile mechanism of the political machine, turn from the sovereign to his servants, from the de- sign of the government to the vices of the administra- tion, — vices inter.woven and inseparably connected each with the other ; follow out the court into its va- rious ramifications, from the " noblesse" to the " nobi- lace," it is there that you find faults impossible to con- tinue, and yet almost impossible to amend. The impoverishment of the high aristocracy threw thirty thousand noble paupers upon the community, for whom forty thousand places were created. Here was the formidable body united in the support of abuses, and connecting, if supported by the crown, those abuses with its majesty and prerogatives. The monarch must have been no ordinary man to have attacked such a cortege, the representatives of his authority, the crea- tures of his bounty, and the organs of that public opin- ion which circulated about his person. The people, on the other hand, long since forgetful of the benefits it originally conferred, could no longer endure a sys- tem which, founded on the ideas of foreign conquest and domestic tranquillity, had not even glory to offer as an excuse for the injustice, the extravagance, and insecurity that it contained. 14* 102 HISTORICAL CHANGES. In the history of all nations, an invisible hand seems ever mingling with human affairs, and events appa- rently the most distant and inseparable are linked mys- teriously together. Louis XIV. founded an absolute system of order on the ruins of a powerful noblesse, for whose adherents he is thus obliged to provide. The evil attendant on a greater good produces in turn its calamity and advantages. The destruction of the great aristocracy burdened the monarch with the vices of the gentry, and the wrath of the people delivered the nation for a time into the hands ojf the mob. The fanatics who traversed the unnatural career of those gloomy times have passed away, and produced nothing in their generation for the immediate benefit of mankmd. But Providence, ever watchful for futu- rity, was even then preparing its events. The terri- ble philosophers of the " salut public," like the hus- bandman in the fable of jEsop, dug for a treasure im- possible to find : but as the husbandman, by reason of stirring the mould about his vines, so fertilized the soil as to make it abundant to his successors ; so these rash and mistaken philosophers, in quest of impossible advantages, produced ulterior benefits, and while they lost their labour, enriched posterity by the vanity of their search. REVOLUTION OF EIGHTY-NINE 163 REVOLUTION OF EIGHTY-NINE. The procession of the States-General at Versailles— The conse- quences of Richelieu's policy — All classes demanded the States- General — Each had a different object — The conduct of the people, of the parliament, of the army — Mirabeau's death, and flight of Louis XVI. — Character of the National Assembly — Character of Mirabeau — What could have saved Louis XVL — The factions of the revolution hke the priests of the temple at Rome, who be- came the successors of the man they murdered — Conduct of the Girondists — Character of the Mountain — Character of Robespierre. Many can yet remember the day when through the streets of Versailles — through the streets of that royal Versailles, whose pomp, when I spoke of the olden monarchy, I was desirous to restore ; — many can even now remember the day when through those streets — here conspicuous for their violet robes or snow-white plumes ; there for their dark, modest, and citizen-like attire — marched in solemn order the States-General ; the men to whom had been confided the happiness and the destinies of France. This was the first scene of the revolution, then on the eve of being accomplished. For the philosopher had prepared an age of action as the poet had prepared an age of philosophy. One of the consequences of the policy of Richelieu and Louis XIV. was, that having made the crown the spoliator of every class in the kingdom, every class imagined it had something to gain by despoiling the crown. The Parliament of Paris, which had once as- sisted the king against the aristocracy of the sword, passed natiirally over to the people on that aristocracy being subdued, and raised at every interval, when the weakness of the sovereign or the force of the subject gave it power, the standard of magisterial revolt. The noblesse de Vepie themselves, imbued with that respect for their ancestors, which hereditary honours always inspire, looked back with jealousy to a time when their 164 HISTORICAL CHANGES. iivniiiies enjoyed a kind of feudal independence, and felt something like pleasure in the humiliations of a power by which their own consequence had been humbled. Every class saw a chance, in the convoca- tion of the States-General, for asserting its own privi- leges ; every class therefore demanded that convoca- tion.* But the different motives which induced all parties to unite for this common object separated them as soon as it was attained. The differing factions commenced a struggle for power — ^the famous meeting at the racket court decided to which faction power should belong. And now the parliament, accustomed to aid the weaker party, united with the crown ; while the mili- tary nobility under the Comte d'Artois recovered in this crisis the old spirit of their order, and at the head of an army would have rendered themselves at once independent of the people and the throne. The 14th of July, which separated the officers from the soldiery, offered no resource to this body but a foreign camp : and as the aristocracy of France united itself with the aristocracy of Europe, the emigration commenced : signal of a war which was to be waged between two opinions. The succeeding epochs of the revolution are at short distances from each other, and bring us speedily to the great catastrophe. The natural consequence of the events of July confined the court to Paris, and confirmed the power of the assembly : the death of Mirabeau left Louis no alternative but an unconditional submission or flight; his capture and his pardon changed his condition from that of a monarch who had made concessions, into that of a captive who had to be grateful for a favour, and contrite for a fault. In this situation the dissolution of the national assembly left him. With the national assembly perished the best por- tion of the revolution — rather learned than wise, rather * By the parliament and the peers of France, by the states of Dau- phiny, and by the clergy in the assembly of Paris. REVOLUTION OF EIGHTY-NINE. 165 vain than ambitious, rather democratic than loyal, rather loyal than aristocratic — more profound than practical, more zealous than able, more rhetorical than eloquent — virtuous, great, courageous — it has left a vast monument of enthusiasm, energy, disinterested- ness, superb language, deep thought, and political in- capacity. It contained all that a great nation, stirred by a noble passion, could produce, without being educated for affairs — it proved the value of that education ; — with more than the ideas necessary to form a good govern- ment, it wanted the tact which, in bodies that have long existed, becomes the instinct of conversation; and in setting for itself the trap in which Cromwell caught his opponents, displayed the most profound ignorance of the variable nature of revolutions in general, as well as of the peculiar and characteristic disposition of the French people.* The national assembly was called upon, not merely to announce certain opinions — as I have been told in France such opinions were al- ready announced — it was called upon to give a durable form to these opinions, and in this, the most important part of its mission, it was egregiously, unfortunately, and perhaps inevitably unsuccessful. Let us pause for a moment upon this epoch : it was then that you might have seen a man, his high brow wrinkled with study, his eye haggard with debauch — there he stands surrounded by wild and strange figures, in whose countenances you read, " Revenge upon our oppressors !" while their agitated lips pronounce words — destined to be so terrible, then so pure — " Liberty, justice for the great masses of mankind" — there he stands, his large hand clenched, his broad chest ex- panded, his great head erect and high, and rendered * " Depuis qu'on nous rassassie de principes," said Duport, the founder of the Jacobins, one of the leaders of the Mountain, and the most practical politician of the assembly ; " depuis qu'on nous rassas- sie de principes, comment n'est on pas avise que la stabiUt6 est aussi unprincipe de gouvernement ! veut-on exposer la France dont les t^tes sont si ardentes et si mobiles, a voir arriver tous les deux ans una revolution dans les lois et dans les opinions." 166 HISTORICAL CHANGES. Still more terrible by the profusion of hair, artfully ar- ranged, so as to give effect to the formidable character of his person. See him in the club of the Jacobins, which rings and resounds with his voice — or see him in those voluptuous fetes which still linger about the court — in a room dazzling with light, abounding in shaded al- coves ; — see him there, surrounded by opera dancers and actresses, familiar with roues and aristocrats, ner- vous under the influence of wine, society, and love — or see him (so strange and so various are the attributes of this mortal) — see him in the quiet seclusion of his cabinet, the patron, the idol, and the preceptor of the most studious and disciplined youth of his time — com- municating to them his ideas, profiting by their labours, and preparing, by the severe application of theories to facts, those profound and passionate displays with which he annihilated the ancient system, and would have renovated the new ! Such was Mirabeau, without whom some have ima- gined the revolution of eighty-nine would not liave been, by whom many have deemed that revolution might have been stopped. Undoubtedly this man pos- sessed a vast genius, and was one of those mysterious mortals described by Bossuet as the instruments of God's designs. Deriving a certain aristocracy of ideas from his birth, he took part with the people because he had shared in their oppressions. Carried by the same passions which sullied his private life up to the loftiest paths of a public career — the intriguing agent at Berlin, the studious prisoner at Vincennes — cour- tier, plebeian, profligate, patriot — learned, active, reso- lute — he was the only man who, belonging to every class, and possessing every quality of his time, could fully comprehend and concentrate its movement. A noble in his democracy, he would have sacrificed the privileges and not the titles of his order ; he would have stripped the sovereign of power, but left him with respect ; and while he recognised the welfare of the many as the end of government, denounced the sove- REVOLUTION OF EIGHTY-NINE 167 reignty of the multitude as its curse. If he were paid during his later days (as is almost certain) by the court, he was not bought by it. His conviction would never have carried the revolution further than it had been carried by the national assembly, and the mise- rable debates, as to whether the sovereign should be called " Sire," or seated upon a chair, would have ex- cited his contempt and his disgust. This was the debate with which the labours of the legislative as- sembly commenced ; an assembly which, as Duport predicted, undertook a new revolution. Then came the commencement of proscriptions : then came the decrees against the emigrants and the priests— the ministry of the Gironde (the first republi- cans in office) — the insurrection of June (which was to overturn the throne) — the invasion of the Prussians — the massacres of September — and the convocation of the convention. The Mountain was in the conven- tion what the Gironde had been in the legislative as- sembly ; and the king whom the first dethroned, the second beheaded. Thus perished Louis XVI., declaring that he had never harboured a thought against the happiness of his people : the victim of his own character, and of the violence and the necessity of his times. Few per- sons have thought or written on this event without hazarding some opinion on the possibility or impossi- bility of preventing it. Many have supposed that if the monarch had from the first sternly resisted all re- forms, he would have succeeded. Others again have imagined that if he had yielded altogether to the popular movement, he might have retained his place as the beloved constitutional sovereign of his country. Some, and Mr. Burke among the number, have ap- peared to think, that if Louis, not obstinate against change, but prescribing the changes to take place, had revived and renovated the ancient institutions — or that even if the States-General themselves had done this — by connecting the past with the present, a principle of duration would have been recognised and observed in 168 HISTORICAL CHANGES. the new system, which would thus have adapted itself better to the habits and the wants of an ancient peo- ple, who had not their history to commence, but to con- tinue. The first course I deem altogether impossible : be- cause to keep things as they were was to keep a par- liament that refused to register taxes, a people who re- fused to pay them ; and a clergy, a nobility, and an army, all the powers and all the classes of the state, discontented with the authority which flattered no opin- ion, and could no longer purchase adherents. The second course, plausible in theory, was, I fear, impos- sible in practice ; since it supposed that one party would be always moderate in conquest, and another always patient in defeat. The third course offered the im- mense advantage of altering the spirit without chang- ing the nominal form of the constitution. If resorted to at the death of Louis XIV, — as might have been the case if the Due de Bourgogne had been his successor — it is possible that the new ideas gradually arising would gradually have infused themselves into a form of government which was susceptible of popular im- provements. But after the reign of Louis XV., of Rousseau, and of Voltaire, to the modern ideas and the modern people who had grown up nothing could have appeared so new, so strange, and so grotesque as the old and forgotten constitution which slumbered in the tomb of Louis XIII. The nobility might indeed have received it ; it made them more independent ; but it ■was against the nobility that the nation murmured. More vain than proud, more alive to personal affronts than to public rights, enamoured with freedom as a novelty rather than regarding it as a possession, — less the enemy of the crown than of the court, — the nation would have bowed to a new tyranny which established equality in its empire, sooner than to an ancient system of liberty favourable to privileges and distinctions. Adopting the example of those who had founded the system over which he was called upon to preside — still farther humbling, still more vigorously controlling REVOLUTION OF EIGHTY-NINE. 169 the nobility which his great predecessor had humbled and controlled, Louis XVI. might have attempted arbi- trarily to crush those vices, and to put dov^^n that inso- lence, and those pretensions, which a constitution was invoked to destroy. Like the savage but illustrious Czar, he might have concentrated a revolution in his own person, which would probably have rendered him guilty of much of that violence, and many of these crimes, which have discoloured the fasts of the repub- lic. But the enterprise would have been difficult ; and the character of Louis XVL (as little suited for his part as that of his predecessors had been for theirs), was wholly unequal to this great and hardy design, which he should have had Napoleon as a general, Mi- rabeau as a minister, to have accomplished. The past generation suffered, the present generation has gained, by that king being better and weaker than the continuance of his dynasty required : he had not the fortune or the genius to offer an enlightened des- potism ; and the nation, in the natural evolutions of concession and aggression, arrived at a terrible re- public. There was a temple at Rome where, by murdering the priest, you became his successor. Humanity shud- ders before a period in history when parties struggling for power adopted this maxim without remorse. First came the assassination of Louis XVL, then that of the Girondists, then that of the Hebertists, then that of the Dantonists, then that of the Triumvirate. Terrible calamity of a terrible epoch — there is no safeguard in a revolution from error and from crime ! Show me men more gifted with talents to promise greatness, with virtues to promise justice, than that noble and elo- quent faction of the Gironde, that band of eminent and mistaken men, who by their brutal and insensate emis- saries assaulted the palace of a monarch whose good- ness they knew, and whose errors it was their policy to have forgiven. Vol. L— H 15 170 HISTORICAL CHANGES. It was thus that they became the victims oi' L! sr own example ; and in vain did their leader in aiicr- times attempt to separate what he called the seditious insurrections of the Mountain, from the insurrection equally seditious by which his party had momentarily obtained the execution of their designs.* The Gi- rondists had in view a system of government compati- ble with justice and society ; they did not hesitate at committing a certain degree of violence in favour of that system. The Jacobins had in view a system of government which man and nature could not endure, and they were ready conscientiously to perpetrate any crime which gave their theory a chance of realization. " De I'audace, de I'audace, et encore de I'audace," said Danton ; " II n'y a que les morts qui ne reviennent pas," said Barr^re ; " Plus le corps social transpire plus il devient sain," said CoUot d'Herbois ; and in the midst of massacres and executions, by scaffolds and through prisons, over the dead bodies of their friends, their countrymen, and their colleagues, these legislative frenetics marched with a cool and deter- mined step towards the terrible Liberty, whose temple, like that of Juggernaut, was to be known by the im- molated victims with which its road was overlain. It is impossible to deny these men a daring disposi- tion, a stern intelligence, which, if under the influence of a less horrible delirium, would have rendered them dear to France as her national defenders. Threat- ened at once by foreign and civil war — rebell::on in the east, rebellion in the south, the Girondists, the roy- alists in arms — the white flag flying from Toulon, and an English fleet in the harbour, — they never for a mo- ment doubted, hesitated, or feared ; — proving the assu- rance of Machiavel, which Montesquieu has repeated, viz. that a nation is never so powerful to a foreign * " Vous etes libres, mais pensez comme nons, ou nous vous d6- nonijerons aux vengeances du penple. Vous etes libres, mais as- sociez-vous k nous pour persecuter les hommes dont vous redoutez la probity, et les lumiferes, ou nous vous denon^erons aux ven- geances du peuple." — Speech of Vergniaud REVOLUTION OF EIGHTY-NINE. 171 enemy us when torn by civil dissensions — in the midst of enemies at home, they daringly threw down the gauntlet to Europe, and proved, by 1,200,000 men lu arms, that their means and their boasts were equal. There are two historians who, dazzled, as it appeats to me, by the courage and character which these men displayed, in circumstances so critical, have veiled their crimes under a pedantic fatalism, have connected by a horrid necessity their massacres with their victo- ries, and imagined that the new principles of liberty could not have been defended at that time from the hostile cabals of the aristocracy, but by the most infer- nal system of illegality, espionage, and blood. I re- spect the character, I respect the valour of the French nation more than either of these authors : I do not think that the descendants of those men who fought under Bayard and Du Guesclin — I do not think that the same race which furnished the brave soldiers of Henry IV., and filled the armies in the brilliant days of Louis the Great — I do not, I cannot think that the French, known in every period of their history for their bra- very, their enthusiasm, their hatred of a foreign yoke, were obliged to derive their valour from their fears. The Romans were better judges of the sentiment which animates, and ought to animate, an army — when they left honour even to defeat. They felt that we humil- iate those whom we threaten or whom we punish, and that the way to make men capable of great actions is to show a great generosity for their weaknesses. As for liberty, it does not consist in planting trees, and signing decrees with the names symbolic of a re- public. When Danton said, " We are few in number —we must show no mercy, for the sake of liberty, to those who are opposed to us," he did not simply estab- lish a momentary despotism among his fellow-citi- zens, he said that which will favour despotism through all ages — he did not merely inflict an injury upon his countrymen, he inflicted a severer injury upon his principles, upon the principles professed by him and his ; for he sullied and rendered suspicious those great H2 172 HISTORICAL CHANGES. words which the Romans had left us, and which up to that time were fresh in all their antique purity — and thus it is hardly wonderful that the crimes of Jacobin- ism were said to be paid by royal gold. No one would willingly pause long upon the events f^ this mysterious and awful epoch. I pass them gladly by — but there was one man who, when politics were a game at which the loser laid down his head, took a prominent part in that terrible amusement. You who declaim against the vice and venality of Mirabeau will be delighted to know that this man was surnamed the pure, the incorruptible, the just. No follies had disfigured his youth ; severe, neat, careful in his carriage and his costume, there was none of that easy negligence, of that nervous susceptibility in his character or his person, which marks and makes a man forgetful of himself. In the preciseness of his dress, you saw what was uppermost in his opinion. In every thing about him you read the egotism which reigned in his heart, and that firm and unconquerable will, superior to all things, even to genius, which ele- vated him above Vergniaud and Danton, chiefs of a party like himself — more capable of great enterprises — but less active, less intriguing — their views were more vast than his, but their views were also more obscure, for they knew not frequently at what they aimed. He never doubted, never for one moment doubted as to the object of his endeavours. It was circumscribed, concentrated, clear : amid all the misery, all the ter- ror, all the victories, and all the glories which stupified the world, that man saw nothing but the success, the power of one little individual — that individual was him- self, was Robespierre. More evil has been said of this triumvir than perhaps he merited. The most powerful of the terrible Mountain, he has frequently been taken as its representative. The slayer of those by whom so many had been slaughtered ; the sole pos- sessor for a time of the terrible machine which then dictated the law ; the vanquisher of the Gironde, which REVOLUTION OF EIGHTY-^INF . 173 had vanquished the monarchy ; the vanquisher of C. DesmouUns, who had commenced the revohition, of Danton, whose name was so terrible in its annals ; he has been considered as a person at once more mar- vellous and more monstrous than he really was. Robespierre had this great advantage in the revolu- tion, he arrived late in it. Too insignificant in the national assembly for the part he took there to be at- tached to his career, he entered the convention at the head of a new party, whose ungratified ambition panted for action, when the Girondists, having succeeded in their object, were disposed to enjoy in quiet the fruits of the victory they had obtained. But the Girondists could not have gone so far as they had gone without strongly exciting the passions of the people : and when the passions of the people are thoroughly excited, that faction the most violent soon becomes the most power- ful. In order to understand the real character, the crimes, and the talents of Robespierre, it is necessary to say two or three words more of the views of that party with which he acted. When St. Just talked of making justice and virtue " the order of the day," he was sincere according to his comprehension of those terms. His idea was to ban- ish misery and wealth from society, which he consid- ered the origin of all vice. The St. Simonians of the present day say the same thing. But that which the St. Simonians wish to arrive at by means of the pulpit and the press, St. Just and Marat were determined to arrive at by the guillotine. They did not blind them- selves to the necessity of establishing a tyranny for this, but they justified their means by their end : and to sanction the one, made perpetual references to the other. These two men were fanatics, who united the most horrible crimes with the most benevolent intentions. Robespierre was more of an egotist than a fanatic, and adopting the views of his faction less from general principles than private ambition, did not carry them to the same insatiate extent. We find him mild at 15* 174 rflSTORICAL CHANGES. times when his comrades are implacable, and it is only during the last two months of his reign, when he saw a system of blood indissolubly connected with himself, that he sent his fellow-citizens by groups of fifty per day down to execution. Even then, however, he was meditating a compromise ; and having sent his brother on an expedition into the provinces, would most prob- ably have regulated himself by his advice. Once sensible of the reaction in favour of order, he would probably, if he had lived, have attempted to restore it, and accomplished the part with energy and economy which the Directory discharged with feebleness and waste. THE DIRECTORY. The march towards a new " regime" begun — The government of III. — A system of energy succeeded by a system of repose — Up to a certain time fortunate — Could not continue so when its armies were defeated, its overthrow certain, and its successor sought for — Bonaparte supplied the man whom Sieyes was in search of. Robespierre was destroyed, but the guillotine was still furnished with victims ; and the conquest made in the name of peace supported itself by terror ; and " the golden youth," their long hair dressed a la victime, were seen running up and down the Boulevards, and hunting their enemies with the same cry of "Liberty!" that had presided over the noyades of Nantes, and the executions of Paris. But the march towards a new regime now began ; after the committee fell the Moun- tain ; the Jacobins were cast down ; the Faubourgs disarmed ; and the bust of Marat removed .from the Pantheon, as the bust of Mirabeau had been before it. The reaction which commenced by depriving the people of power ended by the appeal of the royalists to arms, and from the double defeat of the populace THE DIRECTORY. 175 and the sections rose the constitution of III., the government of the Directory. The government of the Directory was the regency of the republic. To the system which had been adopted as the means of awak- ing all the energies of the nation, succeeded a system intended to lull those energies to repose. The city was wooed to pleasure in the balls of the luxurious Barras, and the army employed in suppressing the tu- mults which the Faubourgs had formerly been insti- gated to create. This government had one merit — exposed to the at- tacks of two different factions, it spilled little blood. Pichegru and his party, with a humanity rare in those times, were transported to Cayenne, and the conspi- racy which Babceuf had denounced as so formidable was suffered to disperse in quiet after the death of its leader. Up to a certain time the Directory was fortu- nate. At home the royalists and the democrats were alike subdued. Abroad, the peace of Campo Formio and the treaty of Radstadt proclaimed in Germany and Italy the power of the republic. But a government perpet- ually obliged to conquer must be constituted on a sys- tem of concentration and force, and the constitution of III. was purposely weak, purposely divided ; such a government could not always be victorious, and on its first failure its fall was certain. No sooner, then, were its armies on the retreat, than its overthrow was fore- seen, and its successor sought for. Bonaparte supplied the man whom Sieyes was in search of — his mind, en- dowed with all the elements of order and force, was the very type of that genius which the country, turbu- lent and dissatisfied under the irregular and enfeebled sway of the quintumvirate, desired. Long torn by factions, accustomed to no particular form of freedom, the people sighed for stability, and did not feel repugnant to change. They knew not that agitation is the necessity of a free state, and that when their general exclaimed, " Je ne veux point de fac- tions,''^ he said in reality, " Je ne veux point de liberte.^' 176 HISTORICAL CHANGES. THE CONSULATE AND THE EMPHIE. The constitution of Abbe Si^yes — Excellent, but formed without consideration for the persons who were to perform its parts — Bo- naparte at Corsica — At Toulon— As first consul — Destroyed liberty, maintained equality ; sensible of literary influence, and calling him- self membre de I'institut, and founding "the legion of honour — Took as the foundation of his power the passions of mankind, but could not understand their virtues — His genius was to materialize every thing — His empire a great mass, which he rolled along, but which without him had no vitality, no power to move — The consulate em- ployed in preparing for the empire — Bonaparte's situation before the war with Spain — All his faults concentrated and made visible in his marriage — Greater than the greatest legitimate kings as their ene- my, far smaller than the smallest as the suitor for their alliance — The rising of Germany — The last war — He fell easily, for he stood unsupported — The energies of the nation he represented, pulver- ized under the weight of his image — Bonaparte not to be judged as an ordinary general — The conduct of the English in persever- ing in a war against Mm justified — His statue now put up — There is a generosity approaching to meanness — The effects of the em- pire—Advantages and disadvantages — It contains three epochs — Bonaparte mistook public opinion, but alwaj^s valued it. There never was, perhaps, a government so vast m its conception, so simple and yet so various in its de- tails, so proper as it appeared for the time, as that pro- posed after the triumph of Bonaparte by Abbe Sieyes. It offered order, it preserved liberty — immense in its basis, and rising regularly to its apex, it was popular, it was strong, and it gave neither to the masses nor to one man a power that could be against the will and the interests of the community. It was an immense design, but it had the fault which on a less stage has frequently marred the effect of genius ; it was formed without sufficient consideration of the persons for whom its parts were destined. The soldier who had returned from Egypt to drive the 500 from the Oran- gery at the point of the bayonet, was not the indo- lent citizen to be satisfied with the idle guards, or the insignificant splendour of " grand electeur." Sieyes's CONSULATE AND THE EMl'IIiK. 177 system was rejected ; Sieyes's name was kept as a kind of emblem to the constitution of VIII. This con- stitution, however, imperfect as it was, obtained double the number of votes that had appeared in favour of the two preceding ones : so powerful was the desire for repose — so great was the name of Bonaparte. Already in 1793 this enterprising and ambitious soldier had seen the throne of France in his horizon : advised to return to Corsica, and offered the prospect of Paoli's succession, he had said, " // est plus aise de devenir roi de France que roi de Corse'"' and from that day his star rose steadily and proudly, and as if by an irresist- ible influence, above the destinies of his contempo- raries. A second-rate officer of artillery at Toulon, and having Marescot, the most expert engineer of his time, for rival, he maintained his opinions before the temble tribunal which pronounced death when it pronounced censure, and spoke already with the voice and superi- ority of a master. Commanding under Barras at the battle of Vendemiare, he gave his name to the victory that was obtained, and established for a time the totter- ing republic that he was doomed to overthrow. Sent as a general to Italy, he assumed the part of a sovereign, received ambassadors, concluded treaties, and formed and overthrew states. Impatient of repose, from Italy he passed to the East, with the desire and the hope of imprinting his genius upon the soil over which the shadow of so many mighty conquerors has passed, and faded ; and at last he returned to take his place in the revolution — which had known many chiefs, but which in him received for the first time — a master. With that instinct, the attribute of those who are born to command, he saw at once the despotism that was possible, and the characteristics of the time and of the nation he aspired to govern. He quarrelled with no faction — for he wished to found a new system, and was willing to comprehend all parties who were willing to compromise their opinions. The sentiment of equality is natural to all men, and if admitted into H3 178 HISTORICAL CHANGES. society takes a deep and eternal root. The love of liberty is a passion that requires long growth ; it is remote in its ramifications, difficult in its definition, and for the most part associated with particular laws, and particular institutions, that must have entered into our habits in order to take a firm hold upon our hearts. The love of liberty, then, could not exist in France, 'vhere no form of liberty had existed long. The sen- timent of equality, on the contrary, had instantaneously penetrated into the core of the nation. Bonaparte crushed at once that which was lightly loved and care- lessly defended : he maintained that which was diffi- cult, if not impossible, to destroy. You see this double action in all his works — you see it in his codes — where he attempts to make every citizen equal before the law, and to raise every act of his power above the law. You see it in his administration, where his justice as governor supplied that justice which should have been found in the statutes of his government, and where he punished with severity the vexations and oppressions which he forbade the nation to punish. His despotism was terrible, but his despotism was just and glorious, and buoyed up gracefully and majestically by many of the dispositions of the French. When I said that Louis XVI. might perhaps have continued to reign if he could have flattered the lite- rary ambition of the eighteenth century, by destroying the privileges of the court, which only accorded h?)n- ours to arms, and restricted the use of arms to the nobility — when I said that the old monarchy was per- haps possible, if the aristocracy could have been re- generated by the new ideas which Voltaire had pro- mulgated from his throne at Ferney, and which gave to literature and the arts the position in the state which they were accorded in society — when I .said this, I said that which Bonaparte saw when he assumed as his proudest title, previous to the consulate, " Membra de Vinstitut,^'' and when, as first consul, he founded tlie legion of honour, and gave to Massenathe first general CONSULATE AND THE KMPIRK. 17 > and David the first painter of the kingdom, the same mark, and the same title of distinction. It was thus that he united the vanity natural to the French with the passion for equality, which had be- come to them a second nature, and threw upon the moving sands of the revolution which every wind had ■ previously dispersed, those masses of granite on which many still believe that his edifice might have stood with security if it had not aspired to the skies. Car- ried beyond the pitch of his intentions by the ardour of his character, the policy of Napoleon was, notwith- standing, everywhere profound. He took as the foundation of his power the passions of mankind : re- ligion is one — he re-established religion ; war is another — he indulged in war to an excess that would sooner have wearied any other nature than that of the Gauls. The aim of the present to appear gigantic to the future was ever present to his eyes, and in roads, ca- nals, bridges, he has traced on every side of him those vast characters on which prosperity is transmitted to distant generations. But, great in his designs, great in himself, he saw little beyond the weaknesses, the ma- terial wants of his fellow-men : he beheld in the revo- lution the ambition which distracted and lost it — but he neither beheld nor believed (in spite of the cour- age of Carnot) the disinterestedness and the devotion which had ennobled and produced it. This was his error. The superiority of virtue over vice in government IS, that in vice there is no fecundity, no productive principle of duration. If you wish your machine to last, you will harden and elevate the elements it is composed of. You must govern men according to the passions of mankind — but if you wish your govern- ment to endure, you will infuse into those passions something of that sublime and immaterial nature which furnishes us with the conception of eternity. Now the genius of Bonaparte, especially mathe- matic, was to materialize every thing. He saw and 180 IIISTOKiCAL ClIANGES. seized at once those feelings which he found, and out of which his government was to be shaped ; he com- bined, consolidated those feelings into a form, compact, solid, strong ; but in their composition he destroyed their vitality. His empire became an immense mass, wieldy in his gigantic hands, and which he rolled im- petuously along : under his guidance, and together, it was terrible, and for a long time irresistible ; — deprived ' of him (broken by the shock of a still mightier, be- cause a more moral, force), it was nothing ; for it bad no life, no individuality, no soul. The consulate was employed in collecting" the ma- terials for the empire ; and in his generals, his solici- tors, and his senate, Napoleon found the marshals, the chamberlains, and the ministers that were to support and decorate the imperial throne. The office which he held ostensibly from the nation, but which in reality he owed to his sword, was to be sanctioned before his soldiers by a victory, and the campaign which termi- natedat Marengo placed the modern Hannibal above the most renowned generals of antiquity. The assump- tion of the imperial purple demanded a similar exploit, and the battle of Austerlitz raised the destinies of the empire above the glories of the republic. Here is the point where Napoleon might at once have consulted his security and his ambition : absolute over France and over Italy, as emperor and king — over Spain, by the servility of its minister — over Switzerland, by the act of moderation — over Holland and Naples, by his two brothers — and having at his or- ders the kings of Bavaria and Wirtemberg, and the Confederation of the Rhine — what enemy had he to fear — save his own mind ? His tyranny had hitherto been applauded, and he reigned over the greatest part of Europe without shocking the feelings of its inhab- itants. Thus may reason the philosopher and the historian : thus rarely reason those upon whose deeds the philos- opher and the historian meditate, and who have usu allv shown more temerity and more madness in the CONSULATE AND THE EMPIRE. J 81 first obscure steps of their career, than in those which carry them finally beyond the possibilities of human ambition. Bonaparte had risen hitherto by the victories he had achieved, the admiration he had excited, the conspira- cies he had subdued. Attacked at home and abroad, he had been successful in his defence. In France his despotism was wise, his glory was great, and on the Continent he had combated the sovereigns and their armies, but he had rather appeared as a protector than an enemy to the people. His impolitic spoliation of Prussia, his unjustifiable seizure of Spain, brought new elements into the conflict against him. From that moment the emperor of the French, who had hitherto been considered as a being apart, became one of the ordinary kings of the earth, and awakened the feelings which an emperor of Austria or of Russia would awaken now if he declared war against the lib- erties of Europe. Confounded with the mass of mon- archs, he sought their alliance, and the hand which had been at the service of Barras was offered to the daughter of the Caesars. All Bonaparte's faults may be concentrated into this act, by which he was at once separated from the sys- tem he had formed, and the career he had traversed, and transformed from the daring adventurer, taking the lead in a new order of things, into one of those " Vieilles Perruques," which, up to that hour, had been the vic- tims of his arms and the objects of his ridicule. No fault is so absurd in a public man as that of confusing the nature of his position. As long as he is the decided enemy of one party, the decided friend of another, he never has any occa- sion to halt or to hesitate. He knows those from whom he may expect enmity, and those to whom he may naturally look for assistance. But the instant he complicates his relations, every action and consider- ation become uncertain. He has something to hope, something to fear in either course he may adopt ; and doubts as to the manner in which he may be most cer- 16 182 HISTORICAL CHANGES. tain to succeed prevent that concentration of purpose which is so essential to success. Bonaparte was the child of new thoughts and new feelings, to which his genius had given a gigantic force, and of which he stood for the time as the representative, before alarmed and astonished Europe. He had turned a republic, it is true, into a military empire, and around his throne stood a new aristocracy. But still he had hitherto ruled as an elder brother over a nation of soldiers, and the titles he had given were so many orders of merit distributed to the most deserving of the people. He was not the master but the organ of public opinion, and through him, as through a trumpet, spake the warlike genius of the French. To those who possessed the anciont thrones, the wasted prerogatives and worn-out genealogies of an- tique Europe, he was naturally opposed. They could not make peace with him without making peace with a principle at war with their own existence. As long as he saw this, his course was plain ; his enemies were before him, and it was only in the sympathies that he could enlist against them that he could hope to find allies. As the foe of the legitimate monarchs, he was ten thousand times greater than they ; but there was not a petty prince in Germany whom he did not sink be- neath when he became a suitor for their alliance. The prestige which made him superior to other men was gone ; even those around him felt their conse- quence diminished, and all the new names and glories of France sunk into comparative insignificance, when it appeared that Napoleon himself found it necessary to mingle the renown of his deeds with the " histori- cal blood" of the enemy he had subdued, and seemed to doubt the reality of his dignity, and to deem that his diadem could not be truly royal until it was placed on the legitimate brows of a daughter of some ancient dynasty. The refusal of his alliance in Russia was an almost certain presage of his subsequent defeat there ; and CONSULATE AND THE EMPIFiE. 183 the miserable policy with which he afterward pre- ferred consulting the interest of his Austrian father-in- law to conferring liberty on Poland, betrayed all the errors he fell into from the falsity of his position. The only success which attended his new alliance was the birth of a son, heir to an empire already on the de- cline. The reaction which commenced with Russia, Prussia, and with Spain, and which rapidly extended itself by the continental system throughout Europe, was signalized by the defection of the Emperor of Austria, notwithstanding the courtesies of his son-in- law, and the rising of the whole of the north of Ger- many, after that memorable campaign in which Napo- leon left among the snows and the ruins of Moscow the character of his troops and the charm of his renown. He was vanquished at the moment when it was most necessary for him to conquer ; for the nation, long enslaved by his glory, was fatigued by his do- minion. Crushed beneath the conscription, the impo- sitions, and the cours prevotales of Napoleon, the citi- zen languished for security, quiet, and commerce, while the priest conspired in his prison against the enemy of the pope, and the ex-minister of the empire plotted to be minister of the " restoration." Then it was that, driven behind the Rhine, aban- doned by the people he defended, alone against the world, Bonaparte relied upon his veteran soldiers and his own genius, and prepared, with a skill and a courage suited to his better days, to protect France from the armies who, profiting by the returning tide of war, were pouring on to her invasion. Svvartzenburg was advancing by Switzerland, Blucher by Frankfort, Bernadotte by Holland, and the English under the com- mand of Wellington — the English, who had never bowed the neck, nor relaxed in the pursuit — the Eng- lish, proud of their indomitable perseverance, looked down on their ancient enemy from the heights of the Pyrenees. It was not lonjf before these hostile bands dictated 184 HISTORICAL CHANGKS. their terms of peace to the inhabitants of Paris. At Pra^e, Napoleon might have bounded his empire by the Rhine ; at Chatillon, he might have sat upon the throne of ancient France. All that now remained to him was the sovereignty of Elba, to which he re- treated. Thus fell the only man who in modern times has aspired to universal dominion ! After having planted his standard in every capital of Europe except London ; after having visited as a conqueror Rome, Naples, Madrid, Berlin, Vienna, Moscow — after having gained a kingdom at every battle, and distributed crowns and sceptres with the majesty and the omnipotence of a providence, one reverse defeated him ; and he fell easily, for he stood unsupported. The energies of the nation he represented were pulverized under the weight of his image. Even the military spirit which had hitherto sustained forsook him — when in one year he demanded one million one hundred thousand soldiers from a population that had already sustained three thousand battles. The later years of his reign, splendid for his mili- tary achievements, but pale in the aspect of his for- tunes, were stained by a weakness from which one vainly hopes that heroes may be free. It was then that the king of kings boasted he was a gentleman — it was then that the severe, but frank and friendly soldier degenerated into the bourgeois emperor, and surrounded himself with all the antiquated niaisiries of a Bourbon court. One sickens at the disgusting vulgarity with which he sought to fill his palace with a proud nobility that despised him ; at his respect for the " dames du chdteau,''^ and those who under the old regime engrossed the privilege of riding in the royal coaches. Ambitious to be revered more as the mon- arch than the warrior, he was now rather surrounded by courtiers than by pupils. He inspired less the passion of glory than the desire to rise ; and his mar- shals, different from the poor and enthusiastic generals of the republic, thought less of the country than of the estates for which they fought, — less of the victory they CONSULA.TE AND THE EMPIRE. 185 liad to gain than of the principality that would re- ward it. As a warrior, Bonaparte is not to be judged by or- dinary rules, by his simple success or failure on the field of battle. Some great political conception was usually connected with his military plans, and he fought, not to gain a post or a place, but to change the desti- nies of the world. It was frequently necessary, then, not merely to obtain a victory, but to obtain it in a par- ticular manner — to frighten Europe by the audacity of his designs, as much as by the success of their execu- tion, and so we see, during the whole of his career, he hardly ever gained a battle without dictating a peace. Indeed, it was the immense consequences attendant upon his victories that should have taught him that they could not often be repeated. No one yet ever played for a number of years with the chances against him, in order to win much, without finally losing all. But the despotism which had been organized to make war rendered war necessary to continue it. " France was obliged to conquer Europe, or Europe to conquer France :"* — the phrase is the phrase of a French general attached to the person of Bonaparte, and the Englishman who reads it, and who has had the oppor- tunity of inquiring into, the vast plans, and of tracing the vast ambition, of Napoleon Bonaparte, will acknow- ledge — ay, even despite the taxes and the calamities which a long war necessarily entails — will still acknow- ledge, if he have the courage to rise above the prejudices of party faction — that as Europe owes a great debt to England for Jier perseverance, so England owes a great debt to those ministers and those warriors by whose unwearied energy and untiring resolution the only peace was obtained which could really guaranty the liberty of mankind.! * General Foy's Peninsular War. ■f I do not approve of our conduct to Bonaparte when he was at our mercy, nor of our conduct to France iij 1815, when we should not have confounded the nation with the army, nor humiliated a 16* 186 HISTORICAL CHANGES. One of the circumstances most difficult to reconcile with the violent royalism, the constitutional doctrines, and the passionate republicanism of the present day, is the still remaining affection among all parties for their ancient emperor. Forgetful of the sentiment with which they shook off his tyranny, the partisans of almost every opinion now unite in chanting the same fatiguing hymn of applause ; and as one among the many marvels of our epoch, we saw the monarchy which rose upon the shoulders of a free press banish Lafayette from. its councils, and re-establish the statue of Bonaparte. There is a generosity which approaches to meanness. What can a government, preaching peace, professing liberty, have to do with the conqueror who broke under the wheels of his war-chariot every law but that of his own will ? Can it admire him ? No : why should it profess admiration ? Ay ! cry the French, the foot of a despot was on our necks ; but his despotism was glorious ! — " Glorious !" Vous avez vu tomher la gloire D'un h6ros trop indompte Qui prit I'autel de la victoire, Pour I'autel de la liberie, Vingt nations ont pousse Jusqu'en vos murs — le char imp6rieux ' Where, Frenchmen, was the glory of having the Cossacks encamped in your walls, and a sovereign dictated to you by the stranger? Never was France, since Crecy and Agincourt, in so pitiable a condition as at the end of that reign with which you connect her glory. Her commerce was destroyed,4ier industry repressed, her population absorbed by a system too weak to keep the enemy from her capital. From 1802 brave people, with whom we wished to rest in peace ; but, opposed as I am, and have ever been, to many of the principles of that party who then possessed power in England, I think it but an act of justice to observe, that the long war it engaged us in appears to me a fatal ne- cessity—dangerous to obey, but, with such a man as Bonaparte on the throne of France, impossible to avoid. CONSULATE AND THE EMPIRE. 187 to 1817 (fifteen years), the number of patents were only- increased by 56,000;* from 1817 to 1829 (but twelve years), they underwent an increase of 253,000.1 In 1814 the births in Paris were 21,257 ; deaths, 27,815. These are facts that signalize the glories of the empire ; and such is the diiference between peace and war, between even an enlightened despotism and an imperfect constitution. The continent which he con- quered owes more to Napoleon than the nation subser- vient to his conquests. Abroad he carried the civili- zation and the code of France. In the old kingdoms which have been re-established, he destroyed many of the old ideas, which it has become impossible to restore. Wherever he carried defeat he carried im- provement, and the communications which were to facilitate victory have been utilized to industry and commerce. At home he repressed many of the energies which elsewhere he excited. But in criticising his reign, it would be unjust to deny its advantages. The same passion which carried Bonaparte to Egypt and to Moscow expended itself in the interior of his kingdom on those bridges, canals, triumphal arches, and memo- rable edifices with which France, during his power, v/as decorated and improved. The same system, which for a time so fatally confined industry within certain channels, gave a stimulus to native manufac- tures. The same unlimited thirst for glory which finally brought the stranger within his dominions mounted up the mind of the French to a pitch which will long render them capable of great achievements : and, lastly, that spirit of concentration and force which destroyed many of the principles and benefits of the revolution consolidated and secured the rest. He was as much the creature of circumstances as of his own genius ; both contributed to his success, both con- tributed to his fall. The reign of Bonaparte, instead of an argument for * Patents in 1802, 791,500; 1817, 847.100. t Patents in 1817, 847,100; 1829, 1,101,193. 188 HISTORICAL CHANGES. despising public opinion, is a strong proof of its power — a power which he never offended with impunity, and to which, even in his most unpopular acts, he always paid a certain attention. It contains three epochs : — The first when the nation and the army were one, and military success abroad and security at home were the public opinion. To this period Bonaparte properly belonged. This was the era suited to his genius, and he was then what he idly believed himself afterward, the real and sole representative of the people. The next period is that when, hurried on by his genius, he passed by that public opinion which lay in the course which he pursued : the admiration for mili- tary glory which had carried him to the highest place in the republic, he made the foundation of an arbitrary empire — the desire for security, which had strengthened his hands as a free magistrate, he made the basis of a servile submission. The policy of reigning by an army separates the army from the nation, and gives to each its particular views and its particular interests. In France, where the whole population was deeply imbued with a love of arms, this division M'^ould naturally take place with a certain insensibility and slowness that nearly rendered its progress unperceived. The victory of Austerlitz was celebrated with almost as much national enthusiasm as if it had been gained by the first consul : but the battles which followed, in which success was equally as complete and equally as glorious, seem to have created among the people at large only a moderate sensation ; and the triumphs of Eckmuhl and Ratisbon, in the trophies of which might be counted twenty thousand prisoners, added less to the glory of the conqueror than to the satiety (beginning to exist) of conquest. — The third and last portion of Napoleon's reign commences where his despotic spirit had created a reaction in public opinion, which had formerly favoured tyranny by its passion for repose, while his warlike genius, equally extreme, had wearied even the martial ardour of his soldiers. It was then that liberty acquired new force by every im- CONSULATE AND THE EMPIRE. 189 perial decree destined to subdue it, and that that great army was defeated which had marched almost dis- piritedly to conquest.* * To any one who reads the conspiracy of Mallet, Bonaparte will not appear to have been lost at Moscow. When a soldier of fortune (escaped from prison with eighteen francs for liis treasure, and only those whom a disposition to be credulous might render dupes, for his accompHces) could endanger a throne which had no hereditary prestige for support, the popularity on which it stood was a treach- erous quicksand. But while the essential qualities of Bonaparte's genius, seeming to acquire additional force by the continuance of their action, irresistibly prescribed his course, the clearness of his judgment always showed what ought to be his object. He always felt and saw that his power was that of popular favour and public opinion ; but those strong energies in his character, which had made him a type of the inchnations of a particular period, were too indomitable to be turned or constrained towards the wants and wishes of another. He was far from despising popularity, but decision and force being the characteristics of his genius, he always flattered himself that it was by decision and force that popularity was to be obtained. APPENDIX [Documents referred to — Chabrol's Statistique de Paris — Dr. Bowring's Report — Census of Paris.] It was at the end of the reign of Louis XV. that garu- bling-houses, privileged by the police, first established themselves at Paris. Then there were : — Dufour, rue neuve des Mathurins. Amyot et Fontaine, rue Richelieu. Deschamps, faubourg St. Germain. Nollet, rue Richelieu. Andrieu, au Pont-aux-Choux. Chavigny, rue Montmartre. Delzene, rue Platriere. Pierry, rue Clery. Barbaroux, rue des Petits-Peres. Herbert, au cafe de la Regence. David et Dufresnoy. Odelin, rue Neuve des Petits-Champs. Latour, rue Feydeau. Bouillerot, a I'Arche Marion. Boyer et Remy, rue Richelieu. At present Paris contains eight such gambling- houses. Four at the Palais Royal, Nos. 154, 129, 113, et 36. One rue Marivaux, No. 13. One rue du Bac, No. 31. One at Frascati's, rue Richelieu. One at the grand salon, rue Richelieu. The privilege is at present granted at the price of 6,500,000 francs, which are paid into the treasury through the medium of the city of Paris, which receives 6,500,000, and pays 6,000,000. The company, besides 192 APPENDIX. this, are obliged to surrender to the municipality three- quarters of its clear benefits, and the police assist every day at the closing of the accounts. Income of one thousand francs according to Mr. Millot. Francs, For Taxes, direct, indirect, local, &c, . . 136"05 Food, of which the proportions per cent, are 26 drink . "] 34 animal food I 19 bread . | 11 colonials )- . . 352*43 7 vegetables 2 condiments 1 water Education of children . . ' . . . 35-75 Rent and repair of buildings . . . 114- Clothing 70-48 Light and fuel . . . . . . 68-18 Washing 36" Furnishing houses 68-02 Expenses for servants 46* Horses and carriages . . . . . 32-88 Coach hire 11*54 Tobacco . 6-51 Baths 3-20 Charity 1142 Medical attendance 11*56 Newspaper 3.43 Theatres 7*09 Other expenses ...... 6 '44 Francs . . 1020 98 Dr. Bowring has, I find, in his late report, given this calculation. Nothing can be more false as a picture of the expense of any individual ; but as far as the habits of the mass are concerned, it gives, if correct, a general idea. Consumption of the City of Paris for the year 1832. Wine . . . . . 595,585 hectolitres. Brandy 27,794 „ APP£ND1X. 193 Cider and Perry Vinegar Beer Oxen Cows Calves Sheep . Swine Meat of all kinds Pork Dry Cheeses Oysters Fresh-water Fish Butter Eggs Poultry and Game Hay Straw Oats 12,352 hectolitres. 17,902 78,948 67§,159 head. 15,290 ,, 60,237 „ 306,327 „ 67,241 „ 3,1 17,759 kilogrammes 492,820 „ 986,532 „ 731,590 francs. 399,967 „ 9,196,274 „ 4,053,959 „ 6,660,590 „ 7,655,592 bundles. 11,511,976 „ 893,873 hectolitres It is not worth while to put in the " carte" of a res- taurant referred to, but I have had the curiosity to count the number of articles it contained, and which I gave as 200 ; I find 302. RAPPORTS FROM M. CHABROL. It was my original intention to have quoted very largely from the reports published annually, during the time M. Chabrol was prefet de la Seine, the materials for which still continue to be collected — reports which contain the most curious, and interesting, and valuable information. It was my original intention to have closed this volume with a great variety of tables taken from these reports.* I have been induced, however, to re- frain from this ; first, because I have some consideration for the feehngs of those readers who would have shrunk * These reports have been framed by the " Chef du bureau de Statistique de la ville de Paris," under the direction of M. Fourier, " Secretaire de 1' Academic des Sciences," and the author of the very remarkable memoirs at the head of each volume. Vol. L— I 17 194 APPENDIX. in dismay from a book which put on so formidable and business-like an appearance ; and secondly, because I find these reports, though not originally sold, may yet be purchased, and, it is therefore possible to refer to them. Refer to them I do, therefore, and in order that the reader may not be disappointed, I subjoin an enu- meration of the contents of one volume, published as " Recherches Statistiques sur la Ville de Paris et le Departement de la Seine, 1826." Enumeration Generale des Ohjets Contenus dans ce Recueil. TABLEAUX STATISTIQUES. Tableau meteorologique (1822). idem (1823). Resume des principales observations qui ont ete faites a Paris depuis le milieu du XVII.* siecle. Tableau de la hauteur des eaux (1822). idem (1823). Chemins de halage des bateaux le long de la Seine et de la Marne, dans le departement. Canal de la Seine a la Seine. — 1.'* branche. Canal S. Denis. — 2.* idem. Canal S. Martin. Note de rectification a faire dans le rapport des hauteurs de diff"erens points du departement de la Seine au niveau de I'Ocean {Recueil public en 1823, tableau 21). Tableau geologique du sol du departement de la Seine. Apergu geognostique du territoire du departement de la Seine. idem du territoire de chaque commune (arron- dissement de Saint Denis). idem (arrondissement de Sceaux). Substances minerales combustibles. metalliques. pierreuses et terreuses. Chaux carbonatee. Idem sulfatee. ^Quartz. Cailloux roules, gravier, sable et sablon. Argile et marne. Diverses. Releve general des actes de I'^tat civil dans le d^parte- APPENDIX. 195 rnent de la Seine, pour chaque mois et par arrondisse- ment (1822). Releve des actes de naissance dans le departement, pour chaque mois et par arrondissement (1822). Details concernant les enfans naturels (1822). concernant les enfans morts-nes (1822). Releve des actes de mariage dans le departement, pour chaque mois et par arrondissement (1822). des actes de deces dans le departement, pour chaque mois et par arrondissement (1822). Tableau des deces, avec distinction d'age, de sexe, et d'etat de mariage {ville de Paris, 1822). Details concernant les morts accidentelles {yille de Paris, 1822). concernant les suicides (1822). concernant les deces pour cause de |)etite verole, et les vaccinations gratuites {ville de Paris, 1822). Releve general des actes de I'etat civil dans le departe- ment de la Seine, pour chaque mois et par arrondisse- ment (1823). Releve des actes de naissance dans le departement, pour chaque mois et par arrondissement (1823). Details concernant les enfans naturels (1823) concernant les enfans morts-nes (1823). Releve des actes de mariage dans le departement, pour chaque mois et par arrondissement (1823). des actes de deces dans le departement, pour chaque mois et par arrondissement (1823). Tableau des deces, avec distinction d'age, de sexe, et d'etat de mariage {ville de Paris, 1823). Details concernant les morts accidentelles {ville de Paris, 1823). concernant les suicides (1823). concernant les deces pour cause de petite verole, et les vaccinations gratuites {ville de Paris, 1823). Mouvement moyen de la population dans chacun des 12 arrondissemens de la ville de Paris (1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, et 1821). Nombre moyen annuel des naissances dans chacun des 12 arrondissemens de la ville de Paris, rapporte k la population des deux sexes (1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, et 1821). -^ idem des naissances d'enfans legitimes dans chacun des 12 arrondissemens de la ville de Paris, rap- 12 1 96 APPENDIX. porte a lu population des deux sexes et au nombre des manages (1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, et 1821). Nombre des naissaiices d'enfans naturels dans chacun des 12 arrondissemens de la ville de Paris, rapporte a la population des deux sexes et au nombre des enfans naturels reconnus (1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, et 1821). Nombre moyen des enfans morts-nes dans chacun des 12 arrondissemens de la ville de Paris, rapporte a celui des naissances pour les deux sexes (1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, et 1821). idem annuel des mariages dans chacun des 12 arrondissemens de la ville de Paris, rapporte a la population (1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, et 1821). idem des deces a domicile dans chacun des 12 arrondissemens de la ville de Paris, rapporte a la population des deux sexes (1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, et 1821). idem des deces dans les hopitaux et hospices civils de Paris, evalues pour chacun des arrondissemens, et rapporte a la population des deux sexes (1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, et 1821). Observations relatives au nombre des deces dans les hopitaux et hospices civils distribues proportionnelle- ment dans chacun des 12 arrondissemens de la ville de Paris {tableau No. 49). Nombre moyen annuel des deces a domicile et aux hopitaux et hospices reunis, pour chacun des 13 ar- rondissemens de la ville de Paris, rapporte a la popu- lation des deux sexes (1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, et 1821). Comparaison des nombres respectifs des naissances dans les differens mois de I'annee (1770 a 1787). des valeurs rnoyennes des nombres re- spectifs des naissances dans les differens mois de I'annee (1770 a 1787). des nombres respectifs des manages dans les differens mois de I'annee (1770 a 1787). des valeurs moyennes des nombres res- pectifs des mariages dans les differens mois de I'annee (1770 a 17,87). Secours administres aux individus noyes (1822). idem (1823). Tableau des voitures de place, voitures publiques, &c. dans la ville de Paris (1824), et renseignemens con- cernant le nombre des voyageurs. APPENDIX. 197 Service des inhumations (1824). Cimetiere du Nord {Monimarlre, 1824). du Sud-ouest {Vaugirard, 1824). de I'Est (de Mont-Louis ou du Pere la Chaise, 1824). Recapitulation des monumens et sepultures des trois cimetieres. Cataconibes. Jugemens rendus par le tribunal de commerce du de- partement de la Seine ; nombre des faillites et ar- restations en vertu de contrainte par corps (1822 et 1823). Tableau des decisions rendues par le conseil de prefect- ure du departement de la Seine, depuis Pan 8 jusqu'en 1823 inclusivement. Resume general des levees qui ont ete faites dans le de- partement de la Seine, en vertu de la loi du recrutement, pendant les annees 1816, 1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, 1821, 1822, et 1823. Details concernant la composition du contingent et les causes d'exemption pour les memes annees. Tableau des differentes especes d'infirmites ou difform- ites qui ont donne lieu a I'application de Particle 14 de la loi du recrutement, et du nombre des jeunes gens qui ont ete reformes pendant les m^mes annees. Recapitulation des differentes professions des jeunes gens compris dans la liste departementale du con- tingent pour les memes annees. Recherches statistiques relatives a I'ancienne conscrip- tion pendant les annees 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14; 1806, 1807, 1808, 1809, 1810, 1811, 1812, 1813, et 1814. Tableau des maladies, diffbrmites, et infirmites qui ont motive la reforme des conscrits du departement de la Seine, pendant les annees 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14; 1806, 1807, 1808, 1809, et 1810. Resume general des comptes de situation des hospices et hopitaux civils de la ville de Paris, annee 1821, 1822, et 1823. Tableau des indigens secourus a domicile, annee 1821, et 1822. Details concernant les secours distribues a domicile (1822). Tableau des indigens secourus a domicile (1823). Details concernapo les secours distribues k domicile (1823). j^. 198 APPENDIX. Tableau comparatif de la population des etablissemens hospitallers de la ville de Paris, en 1786, et en 1822. Resume general du mouvement de population des alienes dans I'hospice de Bicetre, pendant les annees 1815, 1816, 1817, 1818, 1819, et 1820; et rapports divers relatifs aux causes d'alienation et aux professions des alienes. ■ general du mouvement de population des alienees dans Thospice de la Salp^triere, pendant les annees 1815, 1816, 1817, 1818, 1819, et 1820; et rapports divers relatifs aux causes 4'alienation et aux professions des alienees, general du mouvement de population des alienes dans I'hospice de Bicetre, pour Tannee 1821 ; et ren- seignemens concernant les causes d'alienation, la profession, Page, et la duree du sejour des alienes a i'hospice. general du mouvement de population des alienees dans I'hospice de la Salpetriere, pour I'annee 1824: et renseignemens concernant les causes d'alienation, la profession, I'age, et la duree du sejour des alienees a I'hospice. Etat des consommations principales dans la ville de Paris, pendant les annees 1822, 1823, et 1824. Releve des differens prix du pain blanc dans la ville de Paris, pendant les annees 1821, 1822, 1823, et 1824. Etat et prix moyen des bestiaux vendus sur les marches de Poissy, Sceaux, et S. Denis. Annee 1822, 1823, et 1824. Tableau des prix courans de la viande sur pied aux marches de Sceaux, et de Poissy, pendant les amines 1822, 1823, et 1824. des engagemens et des degagemens faits au Mont-de-Piete, pendant les ann§es 1821, 1822, 1823, et 1824. concernant les recoltes dans les deux arrondisse- mens ruraux du departement de la Seine (1822). idem dans le departement de la Seine (1822). Tableau concernant les recoltes dans les deux arron- dissemens ruraux du departement de la Seine (1823). idem dans le departement de la Seine (1823). concernant les recoltes dans les deux arrondisse- mens ruraux du departement de la Seine (1824). idem dans le departement de la Seine (1824). Fabrication du verre et du cristal. APPENDIX 109 Fabrication do la biere. de diverses couleurs. d'encre a ecrire et d'encre d'imprimerie. du borax par I'acide borique. RafRnage du camphre. du sel. Fabrication du salpetre. de I'iode. : de la potasse factice. d'eau de javelle. de sous-chlorure de chaux. de deuto-chlorure de mercure {suhlimi cor- 'if)- soude. de chlorate de potasse. d'acide pyroligneux et d'ac6tate de fer et de d'acide nitrique. d'acide sulfurique. de soude et d'acide muriatique. de sulfate de kinine. Epuration d'huiles de graine. Fabrication d'huile de pieds de boeuf, onglons aplatis et colle noire. de colle forte. de suif d'os. de cordes et autres produits de boyaux. de charbon ou noir animal et de sel am- moniac. de cirage. Fonderies et forges de fer. Affinage des matieres d'or et d'argent. des matieres plombeuses et argentiferes. Fabriques de plomb ouvre. Tableau de marchandises qui ont 6te exportees al'etran- ger par la douane de Paris (1822 et 1823). Releve des quantites de diverses marchandises coloniales ou exotiques introduites annuellement a Paris. Devis estimatif des frais de construction d'une maison neuve, a Paris, dans des proportions donnees ; et renseignemens divers relatifs a la construction des maisons (1824). Tableau systematique des ouvrages qui ont ete imprimes en France, pendant I'annee 1824, et dont une tres- grande partie sort des presses de la ville de Paris. 200 APPENDIX. Tableau comparatif de I'exposition des produits de I'in- dustrie dans le departement de la Seine (1821 et 1823). Rapport fait par M. le Comte de Chahrol, Conseiller d'etat, Prefet du departement de la Seine, au Conseil general de ce departement, sur le moyen d'amener et de distribuer les eaux dans la ville de Paris et sa ban- lieue. This enumeration is long, but it is more important than may at first appear; it is important because it tells the reader at once what he can find by a reference to the volumes in question — it is more important be- cause it shows the vast extent of those subjects on which, by a little order and arrangement, it is possible to give the most interesting information ; — here it will appear that there is hardly any subject which can in- terest the inhabitants of Paris and the department of the Seine, which maybe curious to the traveller, or interest- ing to the statesman, that the government has not found it possible to procure and to give, not with perfect ac- curacy, perhaps, but still with sufficient accuracy to enable one, on along series of years, to come to certain conclusions. That we are to receive all statistical docu- ments with a certain hesitation, I have already said in the course of this work is my belief; and I should be very cautious in building up, or in placing confidence in, any improbable theory which rested upon such foundations. There are many subjects, however, in these reports — some the most interesting — which the system of admin- istration in France affords every facility for ascertaining. The tables in question, then, place the vast number of sui- cides,* and the number of natural children, in Paris and its environs, beyond dispute. These tables allow you to form some opinion as to the physical and moral effect of the different seasons, their effect on births, deaths, and marriages. These tables give you the general cli- mate of the French metropolis, and they detail to you all the circumstances connected with the industry, with the charity, with the wealth, with the distress, with some of the most interesting maladies, such as madness, that are to be found in the department. It is with re- gret that I confine myself to extracting a few among the facts relating to these subjects. * The calculation is, as I have said, under the mark APPENDIX. 201 Population in 1822.* — Paris : births, 26,880 ; born in marriage at home, 16,841 ; hospitals, 288; total in mar- riage, 17,129. Out of marriage, at home, 4,896 ; in hospitals, 4,765 ; total illegitimate, 9,751 Illegitimate children recognised at their birth, 2,270 ; not recognised, 7,481. Recognised after birth by celebration of mar- riage, 700 ; otherwise recognised, 172. Add (recognised at birth) 2,270; total recognised, 3,142, out of 9,751. Violent Deaths. — Females, 181 ; males, 427 ; total, 608, By capital punishments, 5. Asphyxies, 14 ; by charcoal, 38 ; by suffocation, 14 ; by drowning, 169 ; by firearms, 24 ; by strangulation, 20 ; by poison, 8 ; by suicide, the means being unknown, 11; assassinated, 3; falls, 84; burns, 52 ; wounds by sharp instruments, 49 ; fractions, contusions, &c. 96 ; run over, 20. It is to be observed, that in all the easy modes of death, asphyxies, by char- coal, suffocation, and poison, there are as many female as male deaths. In accidents by fire, 38 women perish, and but 14 men. Suicides dans le Departement de la Seine, annee 1822. — Male, 206 ; females, 111 ; total, 317. Followed by death; 215. Effected or tried, not followed by death, 102. By unmarried individuals, 161 ; married, 156 ; total, 317. * The part on population is the best 202 APPENDIX. CD ._ a; «S >- CD - 3 O m^ ^ S -Si P '^ .<1^ ^ i^ s o cs S -Td o be o o c C sQJ ■ - -XJ o C 03 C 'i' • vO) : xj 03 T2 be" cd > Qi o ^ • vn ., 2 S OJ'S ft ,£2 :dn3 fl> S o . . t^ bX) J-i 3 ^^ iH »-• O rt bJDO.S^S ^•2 2i^ c o t-t ^ d rj - S cc ►C^ I o ft «« . i^ ft.2 §.22 > ^3 ^§ ^2 ^i CJ 73 cc" Tl ^ O a. 3 <» m TS o t ^ APPENDIX 203 The average amount of the population of Paris (takeu from different tables) in the years 1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, and 1821, is as follows :— Births— males, 12,337; females, 11,877 ; total, 24,214. Marriages, G,316. Deaths— males, 10,906; females, 11,410; total, 22,316. Births at home, of both sexes, 24,214, of which 15,472 are legitimate. Proportions of legitimate children to marriages will be — marriages, 6,316; number of births to one marriage, 2, 4 (1). Natural children, born at home, males, 2,320 ; females, 2,234 ; born at the lying- in hospital, males, 2,143 ; females, 4,463 ; total, 8,760 ; of which 2,056 are recognised. Marriages between bachelors and maids, 5,128 ; with widows, 314. Marriages contracted by bachelors, 5,442; by widowers, 874. Between widowers and maids, 652 ; widowers and widows, 222. Total by maids, 5,780 ; total by widows, 536. According to the table of the married and unmarried population, for the year 1817, published under No. 4, in 1821, we have, 1. The number of married men to that of married women in the report is as 128 to 129. 2. The number of bachelors of all ages to widowers is as 11.78 to 1. 3. The number of maids of all ages to widows is as 3.71 to 1. 4. The number of maids of all ages to bachelors of all ages is as 1.075 to 1. 5. The number of widows to widowers is as 3.41 to l! Number of Deaths. — At home: males, 6,259 ; females, 7,058 ; total, 13,317. In hospitals and charitable insti- tutions : males, 3,634 ; females, 4,082 ; total, 7,716. Deaths on 10,000 inhabitants during these five years : 145 males to 163 females. Total number of deaths in each year, 21,033: females, 11,140; males, 9,893. Died at home, 13,317; in hospitals and benevolent in- stitutions, 7,716. By a calculation taken from the year 1670 to the year 1787, it would appear that there are the most births in February, the fewest in December, and the boys seem to be five per cent, above the number of girls born in the different months. So in respect to marriages, taking the same period, there seem to be the most marriages in February, the fewest in De- cember. 204 APPENDIX. Commerce. — Before the Tribunal of Commerce, in 1822 and 1823, there were 13,707 cases decided, and 280 bankruptcies, and 692 arrests for debt ; out of the number of persons thus arrested, 463 were imprisoned, and 223 discharged by making some arrangement. Charity. — City of Paris* — In 1786, the population in the different hospitals and charitable institutions of Paris was 28,855 ; i. e. children, 17,672 ; persons in the charitable institutions, 8,162 ; in hospitals, 3,021. In 1822, total number 35,630 : i. e. children, 20,545 ; char- itable institutions, 9,990 ; hospitals, 5,095 : increase, from 1786 to 1822, 6,775 persons. francs, cts. Revenues of hospitals and charitable institutions in 1822 .... 9,849,652 94 Expenses 9,705,689 26 Balance in hand 143,963 68 The number of persons who received assistance at home from the bureaux of charity in 1822 was 54.371 : t. e. 7,753 girls ; 7,657 boys ; 25,127 women ; 13,834 men; expense, 1,182,483 francs. Nature of relief— 561,773 loaves of two kilos, each loaf ;t of meat, 134,939 1-2 kilos. ; flower to the meres "nourrices," 130 sacks ; tickets for soup, 5,500 ; bundles of wood, 52,891 ; in money distributed, 40,979 francs. The rest in shoes, stockings, petticoats, shirts, mattresses, &c. &c. * There is much valuable information on this subject in a book entitled " Le Visiteur dii Pauvre," 1 vol. in 8vo. t The kilogramme is equal to 2lb. 3oz. avo"- APPENDIX. 205 "S. I I 5^1 1 t^ £gfl c r j; s •a g>4j s 0" s !i{ »3 ■3. .1 ^ 2 1 Si u a (J J05-4 ao t>- B C3 "oi irj (M CO CO S aj 13 rs >,« ^i§ ^ro CO r- 2 d T— 1 'b ~ 05 CO ~ 00 1 »oS ^ g i^'g § 1 N Co CO 00 oToo" 00~ K" (N OD O) r^ r-l 03 -<* io r- ,2 en C3 •S 05 00 1 ^ N 10 1— <^ CO 10 r-H p-T ■"* . r-l ^ SO CT 00 ^ '. . B „-CO OTN 00 N & d— 1 «o 1 §0. 1 05 10 t^ •OO) ^-^ t- f/5 S S2^ 1 1 r-t^O) 1 1—1 CO «3 a 'i -3 » ^s-i ■S 'qj "S s •l § « H Ci !=l S=! "£ (U 0) a> tfp^> "S 4J — «: rill «o 1 T3 18 206 APPENDIX. Provisions. — The average price of white bread is 0.61 centimes for the loaf of two kilogrammes. The average price of cattle at the various markets, in 1823, — for oxen, first quality, 1 fr. 03 c. per kilo- gramme ; cows, first quality, 0.88 c. : calves, first qual- ity, 1 fr. 27 c. ; sheep, first quality, 1 fr. 9 c. There are two or three tables of which I more par- ticularly regret the omission : one, which gives in de- tail all the expenses of building a house, the materials and the work necessary for each part, the revenue to be derived from the building, and each part of the building, when constructed; the number of persons employed in the diff*erent departments of house-building, and the increase of houses in Paris. Another, which gives the number of persons insane, their professions, the causes of their insanity, the length of time they stay in the establishment of Bicere, &c. To these I should have wished to add one at least of the tables in w^hich the different manufactures of Paris are analyzed — their number, the value of their ma- chinery and utensils, the designation of the persons they employ, the number and the wages of those per- sons, the articles they use, their general expenses, and their general returns, all clearly and systematically given. These tables I certainly omit with great regret, but the only two which 1 think myself, upon the whole, justified in inserting, are the two that follow, and which give the double movement of the human mind in the French metropolis. * Since writing this, I have found in Dr. Bowring's re^iort many of these tables given. APPENDIX. 207 Tableau des Marchandises qui ont ete exportees a Velranger par la Douane de Paris. (Annees 1823 et 1823.) Denomination des Marchandises Exportees. Valeur declar^e pour les ann 6es. 1822. 1823. francs. francs. 10,030 142,190 136,099 90,210 81,452 45,976 22,432 26,238 18,640 11,161 6,884 17,544 9,640 250 170 28,680 31,200 11,230 4,400 ,, 1,650 j> 1,020 9,300 9,940 32,945 21,370 ,, 3,176 22,350 14,020 35,200 40,290 7,069 10,580 156,010 95,617 86,960 470 7,570 4,460 3,820 10,078 » 3,270 50,404 54,170 49,190 7,850 23,310 1,070 850 154,064 123,294 6,900 •> 31,245 19,260 5,900 8,280 10,170 6,530 „ 21,420 Antimoine Armes de luxe Bimbeloterie Bois cornmuns, baguettes dorees, bois d'acajou, liege, &c. . - - . { Vins - - - < Liqueurs distillees - - - Chandelles Cheveux „ nonouvrages - - . - „ ouvrages Cire „ ouvr6e „ non ouvree Coton en feuilles, file, gomme ; ouates - Couleurs ,, Cochenille „ Diverses „ Encre ,, Noir de souliers - - - - „ Vernis Coutellerie Crayons Cuivre „ dore, battu, lamine „ ouvre Eau minerale Etain ouvre - - _ - Farineux et pates d'ltalie - Fanons de baleine ... - Fer „ de tr6filerie (Fil de fer) - „ ouvre „ plating, 6tame, fer-blanc „ carbonate (Acier ouvre) - - - Feutres (Chapeaux) . . . . , . < blanchi - - - ^.. J'^etors \,^^^ . . . * ^ • i . ^1/ jblanc . < coton fil6 ^tgij^t . . . Fruits sees et confits - . . . 208 APPENDIX Tableau des Marchandises qui ont ete exportees a Vetranger par la Douane de Paris. (Annees 1822 et 1823.) Valeur doclarfeepour D6non lination des Marchandises Exportees. les annees. 1822. 1823. francs. fraacs. Graines, semences de jardins, de fleurs et de prairies - . ' . . 23,910 18,240 Horlogerie » Ouvrages montes 738,479 231,570 Fournitures d'horlogerie - 1,050 19,710 Habillemens neufs H 107,020 Instrumens » Outils a metiers 35,110 41,500 » Caracteres d'imprimerie - 65,825 50,660 Gardes a carder 25,604 30,352 » Machines et mecaniques - de sciences et d'arts liberaux - 153,510 120,623 jy 94,189 98,063 M de musique .... 163,975 136,491 Medicamens „ composes 107,511 158,200 )> Sues vegetaux, especes medici- nales >> 26,623 Mercerie , „ commune 1,947,496 1,635,992 ,, fine 1,254,478 1,506,060 M6taux communs »> plaques 277,539 208,420 argent^s et dores 1,555,957 1,419,538 » verniss^s et moires - - - 823,212 626,820 » moires m6t.alliques - 22,301 » M6taux pr^cieux » Argent brut ou lingots » 400 » Or (monnay6) ... - >> 44,500 j> Or battu en feuilles - 16,886 23,720 » Or file, sole .... >> 4,600 >> Or brut, lingots - - - - 3,120 » Bijouterie d'or ou de vermeil - 29,758 136,990 » Bijouterie idem, ornee de pierres etperles fines 451,700 370,090 » Bijouterie idem, orn6e de pierres et perles ordinaires 5> 36,210 » Orfevrerie d'or ou de vermeil 297,994 238,600 » Orf6vrerie, argent ... 269,971 386,980 » Orfevrerie, platine - 4,690 >» »» Bijouterie, argent 71,721 59,590 »» Bijouterie, platine - 800 » APPENDIX. 209 Tableau des Marchandises qui out ete exporlees a Vetranger par la Douane de Paris, (Annees 1822 et 1823.) Denomination des Marchandises Exportfeea. Meubles Modes „ (Ouvrages de) - - - - - „ Fleurs artificielles - . - - Moutarde Objets de collection hors de commerce „ Histoire naturelle - - - - „ Curiosites „ Statues et bustes en bronze „ Idem en marbre - - . - „ Tableaux - - „ Dessins a la main - - - - „ Medailles . . . - Papier „ carton moule „ blanc ,, colorie, pour reliures . . - „ peint, pour tentures „ Librairie - - - - „ Cartes geographiques „ Idem a jouer „ Gravures ------ „ Musique gravee - - - . Parapluies Parfumerie Peaux „ preparees ou appretees - - - „ ouvrees Pelleteries „ ouvrees „ non ouvrees - - . - . Perles fines (non mont6es) . . . Pierres, &c. „ Marbre (ouvre) - . . . „ Albatre (ouvre) . . . . „ Platre moule „ a. aiguiser et a feu - - - - Pierres gemmes, diamans et pierres de couleur (montees et non montees) Plants d'arbres ------ Plumes „ a ecrire ..--.- „ de parure 18* Valeur diiclaree pour les annees. francs. 438,558 1,730,083 481,209 30,973 40,599 28,078 24,798 11,956 410,200 6,800 10,840 82,410 93,800 21.080 909,484 2,473,969 39,450 223,381 46,999 111,274 586,244 491,400 1,417,056 363,642 131,900 6,270 19,348 12,845 91,800 292,999 francs. 507,912 1,510,452 518,554 19,300 128,962 13,560 37,156 3,392 339,058 1,792 8,256 115,770 68,910 34,620 726,742 2,634,050 36,510 20,860 218,500 56,310 51,530 613,840 658,860 579,150 34,500 531,560 121,900 11,120 9,410 16,624 4,124 86,900 41,190 8,090 278,660 210 APPENDIX. Tableau des Marchandises qui ont ele export^es a Vetranger par la Douane de Paris. (Annees 1822 et 1823). Valeur declaree pour lea Denomination des Marchandis es Export^es. ann6es. J 822. 1823. francs. francs. Polls et laines „ en masses (Merinos) . 1,470 6,330 „ laines filees . 45,704 33,860 Poterie „ de gr^s fin . 41,395 31,496 „ Porcelaine . 1,740,231 1,451,730 Produits chimiques - Sellerie en cuir et autres - - 103,742 81,818 . 111,789 157,146 Sucreries. (Bonbons, &c.) . 22,289 26,770 Soie „ a coudre, par petits echeveaux 51,340 37,560 „ a tapisserie . 8,710 5,090 Tabac fabriqu^ - . M 33,310 Tabletterie . 227,150 247,850 Teintures, tannins, safrans, cochenilles, &€.---- - 357,607 468,415 Tissus de lin et chanvre „ Toiles - . 168,236 121,500 „ Cordages . » 1,900 „ Batistes et linons - . 974,818 814,230 „ Dentelles . 168,118 56,758 „ Bonneterie . 6,510 9,150 „ Passementerie - 45,388 50,890 „ Rubans - . 7,180 1,490 Tissus de laine „ Couvertures - . 1,110 1,780 „ Tapis . 22,640 30,820 „ Casimirs - - 247,849 417,450 „ Draps . 334,129 208,940 „ Schals - - 937,946 1,178,630 „ Bonneterie - 28,650 12,790 „ Passementerie . 30,340 40,390 Tisius de poils angora „ Schals - . 4,330 >j „ Bonneteries - . 20 7,200 Tissus de crin. (etoffes et crin fris^) 23,312 14,915 Tissus de soie „ Etoffes 4,755,985 4,824,780 „ Idem broch^ en or fin et faux - M 6,900 „ Schals soie et laine - 2,087,255 458,310 „ Idem pure soie . >> 445,810 „ Gaze . 778,594 844,600 „ Cr^pe . - . - - -1 77,962 303,460 APPENDIX. 211 *M des Marchandises qui out He exportees a Vetranger par la Douane de Paris. (Annees 1822 et 1823.) Denomination des Marchandises Export6es. Tissus de sole „ Tulle „ Dentelles de sole, dites blondes , Bonneterie „ Passementerie d'or ou d'arg. fin. „ Idem d'or ou d 'argent faux „ Idem sans melange - - - - „ Rubans „ Bourre de sole, fa9on cachemire Tissus de coton n Yoiles denies. (Calicos.) „ Idem blanches. {Idem.) - „ Idem peintes et imprimees „ Tulle - „ Piques. (Basins.) - . - - „ Schals et mouchoirs „ Couvertures „ Bonneterie „ Chapeaux „ Passementerie - - Vannerie „ Feuilles tissues et non tressees „ Paniers d'osier . . . . „ Nattes ou tresses - - . - „ Chapeaux de paille et 6corce - VaniUe Verres et cristaux. (Glace.) Verreries et cristal Verreries, verres a lun.'^s, a cadrans, tallies etpohs Voitures a ressorts Viande de bouch. et pore sal^, volaille et gibier Totaux - Valeur declarfee pour les annees. 1823. 38,408 84,550 593,310 513,982 540,490 606,590 76,343 39,520 34,208 20,290 415,889 436,990 1,556,824 1,081,060 >> 395,780 820 16,454 6,820 56,713 52,870 ,, 2,200 78,483 97,000 44,030 61,580 10,916 5,410 27,440 18,200 ,, 13,210 28,621 45,190 42,009 24,040 ,, 6,920 24,065 24,280 196,041 402,830 )) 20,800 5) 200,756 328,488 266,804 )) 25,490 33,188 7,272 n 6,490 36,475,745 35,279,703 212 APPENDIX. Marchandtses exportees sous la reserve de la prime. Trimestres. Ann6e 1822. Anu6e 1823. l.r. . .... 2.e . .... 15: : : : • : francs. cents. 1,282,735 65 1,675,466 39 2,160,764 95 1,480,238 90 francs. 1,192,981 1,499,253 3,225,418 2,737,482 Totaux g6neraux - 6,599,203 9 8,655,134 APPENDIX. 213 •2 2 y> CO CT' 3.2 £ § [OJe»5>rt«0'«j<(NC<^'- ^ ■g"5 05 « CO S o.i: a §-.21? ES 2 = 05 sT » C S o S *- «-"«£« .2^.2 «J (uC 3 0) « g |xO o_gSg.5 •3 S « Si 2" Co I a « = » s - .2 2 S I. o u u S 2 ^3 M -^l* « M i-lOS 00 00 lO « lO 00 0> «0 03 CO « -^ 00 M lO (N d e< i-H PJ rH I— f^ t- o I 2- SIS' pea § I 214 APPENDIX. OT^ r 5 > c 4J § O 2 3 CO 3 .2 &*' o T3 a< so o ed «*- e -a it^ CO to t^ OS M 0> •* (N M O r-( O (N CO 00 T*< — I ® (?) .^ o .2 CO aj CM " ® - bo. S 3 blJ>. '« R £i2 -S'^ §^ vt^ 11 (jj _< C.-ovisional government, and the people were less dissatisfied than before. In this proclamation Charles X. was, for the first time, declared to have lost his throne ; and M. Perier refused to sign it, be- cause it contained, as he conceived, an act of authority beyond the power with which the provisional or municipal government were endowed. 60 REVOLUTION OF iS30. park,* by the pale and flickering light of a torch, that the Due d'Orleans read the communication so impor- tant to his family and to France. He saw the crisis — he saw that the time, long perchance looked forward to, was arrived ; he lost not an instant : he set off im- mediately, and on foot, to Paris. Nor were his parti- sans idle. On all the walls you, might have read, — " Charles ne se croit pas vaincu." — " Le Due de Chartres marche au secours de Paris avec son regi- ment." — " La republique nous brouillerait avec I'Eu- rope." — "Le Due d'Orleans etait aJemmapes." — "Le Due d'Orleans est un roi citoyen," &c. Such was the state of things at Paris ; agitation with the people, indecision with the republicans, — neither courage, energy, nor good fortune with the royalists ; and amid all suiTOunding doubts, difficulties, and fears, to the empty throne the faction Orleans wound itself ably and rapidly along. The advice of Marshal Marmont to the king at St. Cloud was, " Take your troops to the Loire ; they will there be beyond the reach of disaffection ; summon the Chambers and the ' corps diplomatique' to your place of residence ; take these measures immediately, — your throne is yet secure." The king hesitated — the troops deserted. The few moments that should have been spent in adopting some energetic line of conduct were wasted in a violent dispute between the dauphin and the Due de Raguse.f There was no hope where there was no union, no conduct, no courage. We are arrived at the 31st. The succeeding events of the revolution are rapid in their succession. A.t twelve o'clock, the Due * He had returned to Neuilly. t The Due de Raguse published an order of the day to the troops, which, by inadvertence, he had not shown to the Due d'Angoul^me. This order, moreover, was contrary to the dauphin's opinions. He was furious, rushed upon the Due de Raguse, and even wounded himself in wresting his sword from the marshal's side. Charles X. succeeded in procuring mutual apologies ; but such a quarrel at such amoment inspired mistrust among all parties, and filled up the fataUty of the unfortunate kind's fortunes. REVOLUTION OF iS30. 61 d'Orleans, with some affected coyness, accepts the *' lieutenance-generale." The Chamber, assembled at one, receives his royal highness's answer, and pub- lishes a declaration of its proceedings.* Almost im- mediately after this, the new lieutenant-general on horse- back, with no guards, escorted by the deputies, visited the Hotel de Ville. The crowds who lined his passage were cold, doubtful, and as it were embarrassed. They felt they had not been consulted — they did not know whether they had been deceived. All eyes were turned upon the Hotel de Ville — great was its power at that moment, and solemn v/as the pause when Lafayette — the picture of that venerable man, the * " La France est libre : le pouvoir absolu levait son drapeaii : Pheroique population de Paris I'a abattu. Paris attaque a fait triompher par les armes la cause sacree qui venait de trionipher en vain dans les elections. Un pouvoir usurpateur de nos droits, per- turbateur de notre repos, menacjait a-ia-fois la liberte et I'ordre : nous rentrons en possession de I'ordre et de la liberte. Plus de crainte pour les droits acquis, plus de barri^re entre nous et les droits qui nous manquent encore. " Un gouvernement qui, sans delai, nous garantisse ces biens, est aujourd'hui le premier besoin de la patrie. Franqais, ceux de vos deputes qui se trouvent deja a Paris se sont reunis, et, en attendant I'intervention reguliere des Chambres, ils ont invite un Frangais qui n'a jamais combattu que pour la France, M. le Due d'Orleans, a exercer les fonctions de lieutenant-general du royaume. Cest a leurs yeuxle plus sur moyen d'accomplir promptement par la paix le succ^s de la plus legitime defense. " Le Due d'Orleans est devoue a la cause nationale et constitu- tionnelle. 'II en a toujours defendu les interets et professe les principes. 11 respectera nos droits, car il tiendra de nous les siens. Nous nous assurons par les lois toutes les garanties necessaires pour rendre la liberte forte et durable ; " Le retablissement de la garde nationale avec I'intervention des gardes nationaux dans le choix des officiers ; " L'intervention des citoyensdans la formation des administrations departementales et municipales ; " Le jury pour les d^lits de la presse ; la responsabilit6 legalement organisee des ministres etdes agens secondaires de 1 'administration ; " L'etat des militaires legalement assure ; " La reelection des d6putes promus a des fonctions publiques ; " Nous donnerons enfin a nos institutions, de concert avec le chef de r^lat, les developpemens dont elles ont besoin. " Frangais, le Due d'Orleans lui-m^.ne a deja parle, et son Ian- gage est celuiqui convient a un pays libre : ' Les Chambres vont se r6unir,' nous dit-il ; ' elles aviseront aux movens d'assurer le r6gne des lois et le maintien des droits de la nation. "La charts sera desormais une verity." 6 62 RESOLUTION or 1S30. arbiter of the troubled hour, whom Virgil has so beau- tifully described — his aged head crowned with the char- acter of seventy years — appeared in the same balcony where he had been so conspicuous nearly half a century before, waving in one hand the flag of the old republic, and presenting in the other the candidate for the new monarchy. Then, and not till then, burst out the loud, hearty, and long-resounding shouts of a joyous and trusting people ; then, and not till then, the nation that had been fighting for its liberties, and the party that had been plotting for their prince, understood one another, and felt that their common object was to be found in their common union. It is useless to dwell on the conversations which are stated to have taken place on this day, and which have been so frequently recounted and disputed. Their wording is of little import ; their spirit could not be very different from the proclamation published at the same period, and which said nearly all that the wildest demagogues could desire. But who wants to know that in a mo- ment of popular triumph the parties investing them- selves with power must have made popular profes- sions ?* * Conversation of M. Lafayette and Louis Philippe. — " Vous savez, lui dis-je, que je suis republicain, et que je regarde la constitution des Etats-Unis comma la plus parfaite qui ait jamais existe." — " Je pense comme vous, repondit le Due d'Orleans ; il est impossible d'avoir passe deux ans en Amerique, et^ de n'^tre pas de cet avis ; mais croyez-vous, dans la situation de la France, et d'apr^s I'opinion generale, qu'il nous convienne de I'adopter ?" — " Non, lui dis-je; ce qu'il faut aujourd'hui au peuple Francjais, c'est un trone populaire entour6 d'institutions Hpublkaines, tout-a-fait republi- caines." — " C'est bien ainsique je I'entends," repartit le prince. Proclamation of General Lafayette. — "La reunion des deputes actuellement a Paris vient de communiquer au general en chef la resolution qui, dans I'urgence des circonstances, a nomme M. le Due d'Orleans lieutenant-general du royaume. Dans trois jours la Chambre sera en seance reguli^re. conformernent au mandat de ses commettants, pour s'oecuper de ses devoirs patriotiques, rendus plus importants et plus etendus encore par le glorieux ev^ne- ment qui vient de faire rentrer le peuple Francjais dans la plenitude de ses imprescriptibles droits. Honneur a la population Parisienne ! " C'est alors que les representans des colleges electoraux, honores de I'assentiment de la France enti^re, sauront assurer a la patrie, pre- alablement aux considerations et aux formes seeondaires de gouverne- ment, toutes les garanties de liberie, d'egalite et d'ordre public, que REVOLUTION OF 1830. 63 The Provisional Government was now superseded by the lieutenant-general. We are come to the 1st of August ; it was a Sunday. The weather was beautiful ; the streets were crowded with that idle populace so peculiarly Parisian — the churches open, the Quais thronged, and the people dancing — and every- where you heard, everywhere you saw the national colours — the notes of the too famous " ga ircC swelling the soft breezes of a luxurious summer evening — and all Paris seemed one large family. " Men met eacli other with erected look, The steps were higher which they took, Friends to congratulate their friends made haste, And long inveterate foes saluted as they pass'd." Dryden's Threnod. Aug. The 1st of August was a day of rest, a day of Jubilee. On the 2d of August came the abdication of Charles X. and of the dauphin. On the 3d the Chambers met, and the lieutenant-general opened them with a speech. On the 4th the Chamber of Deputies verified the powers of its members, and the Chamber of Peers, which had hitherto kept aloof, nominated a commission to reply to the opening speech of the lieutenant-general. On the 6th, M. C. Perier was named president of the Lower Chamber, r^clament la nature souveraine de nos droits, et la ferme volonte du peuple Franqais. " Deja sous le gouvernement d'origine et d'influences etrang^res C[ui vient de cesser, grace a I'heroique, rapide et populaire effort d'une juste resistance a I'aggression contre-revolutionnaire, il etait reconnu que, dans la s-ession actuelle, les demandes du retablissement d'ad- ministrations 61ectives, communales et departementales, la formation des gardes nationales de France sur les bases de la loi de 91 , 1'exten- sion de I'application au jury, les questions relatives a la loi electorale, la liberty de I'enseignement, la responsabilite, devaient etre des ob- jets de discussion legislative, prealables a tout vote de subsides ; k combien plus forte raison ces garanties et tmites celles que la liberti et rdfialitd peuventreclamer doiventelles precedtr la concession des pou- voirs definitifs que la France jugerait a propos de conferer ! En at- tendant, elle sait que le lieutenant-general du royaume, appele par la Chambre, fut un des jeunes patriotes de 89, un des premiers g6n6- raux qui firent triompher le drapeau tri-colore. Liberte, 6galit6 et ordre public, fiit toujours ma devise, je lui serai fiddle." 64 REVOLUTION OF 1830. and a commission was appointed to consider M. Be- rard's proposition for a modification of the Charta. On the 7th, the Due d'Orleans was invited by the two Chambers to assume the crown upon such conditions as the aUerations in the Charta, that had been agreed to, then prescribed. " I receive with profound emotion the offer which you present to me. I regard it as the expression of the national will, and it seems to me conformable to the political principles which I have expressed all my life. Still, filled with those recollections which have always made me shrink from the idea of ascending a throne, — free from ambition, and accustomnd to the peaceful life which I have passed in my family — I cannot conceal from you the sentiments which agitate me at this great conjuncture. But there is one senti- ment predominating over every other — it is the love of my country. I feel what that sentiment prescribes, and I shall fulfil its commands." This was the prince's answer ; and on the 9th, amid peals of cannon, and the loud chant of the " Marseillaise," the French people accepted Louis Philippe as King of the French, while the Bey of Titeri was vowing allegiance to Charles X., " the great and the victorious." On the 16th of August this unfortunate monarch em- barked at Cherbourg. On the 30th of July he had left St. Cloud ; for a day he halted at Versailles. He halted there amid the recollections of bygone times ; every tree had a story linked with far distant days ; and melancholy must it have been to have seen him as he looked fondly over those stately avenues — as he lin- gered (and long, his attendants say, he did linger) upon the steps of that royal palace, which he had known so early, and which he will never see again. When he arrived at Rambouillet it was night. The moon threw a ghastly light on the antique tower, and into the dim court-yard of the old chateau, as bent with fatigue, and worn by agitation, the old king descended amid the scanty crowd, collected, less from affection than curi- REVOLUTION OF 1830. 66 osity. Here he determined to abide. The great body of the troops were bivouacked in the woods and park, and in spite of many desertions, a large force was still devotedly attached to the royal family. There is something mysterious in the transactions of this period. In a letter, published by the dauphin (1st of August), an arrangement is spoken of as being then entered into with the Government at Paris. Almost immediately after was announced the abdication of the king and the dauphin in favour of the Due de Bor- deaux. This certainly seems to have been the ar- rangement previously alluded to. Whether the lieu- tenant-general or the government at Paris had held out any expectations, which they never had the wish, or which, if they had the wish, they had not the power, to realize, must long remain a mystery, because, if any communications did pass, it is improbable that they should have been of that direct nature which leaves the matter capable of a positive decision. But certain it is, that up to the time that the Duke of Orleans 'accepted the throne, Charles X. believed that it would be given to his grandson. Even the commis- sioners* did not combat this belief. M. Odillon Barrot said — " Votre majeste sentira que le sang verse pour le Due de Bordeaux, servira mal sa cause — il ne faut pas que son nom, qui n'a pas ete encore compromis dans nos debats civils, se mele un jour a des souvenirs de sang." Why this language, from a man so sincere as M. Odillon Barrot, if the Due de Bordeaux was at that time out of the question ? This was on the 3d ; already on the 2d the com- missioners had attempted to obtain an interview with the king for the purpose of inducing him to withdraw from France, or at all events from the neighbourhood of Paris. They passed through the camp ; Charles X. refused to see them. They returned to Paris, and their return was the signal for one of the most sin- * M, Schonen, M. Odillon Barrot, Marshal Maison, sent by the government. 6* 66 KE VOLUTION OF 1830. gular expeditions by which a monarch was ever yet driven from his dominions. The drum beat in the streets : the still excited populace collected : — " Charles X. is coming to Paris I" — " Charles X. will not go away from Rambouillet ;"' all the women in accents of terror — all the little boys in accents of fury screeched out the name of " Charles X.," — " to Rambouillet ! — to Rambouillet ! — after Charles X. to Rambouillet !" was the cry — as on a no less memorable occasion it had once been — " to Ver- sailles /" — And to Rambouillet, in Carolines and hack- ney-coaches, in carts, in cabriolets, running, riding, driving, without plan as without preparation, rushed the population of Paris. The Commissicwers preceded this incongruous cohort, and to-day they succeeded in obtaining an interview with the king.' Charles X., even as a young man, wanted per- sonal courage. He had been accused of this weak- ness in the court of Louis XVI. Years had not invigo- rated his spirit. His nerves were shaken, and his mind unstnmg by the quick succession of adventures and calamities that had so rapidly followed one another during the last few days. He received the deputation in a state of great agitation. " QiCest ce quHls vculent 1 me tuerT was his address to Marshal Maison. He then asked advice of the Due de Raguse. What can you say to a man who at the head of a gallant army asks what he should do ? There were that day at Rambouillet twelve thou- sand infantry, three thousand five hundred cavalry, and forty pieces of cannon. The Royal Guards were on foot, at the head of their horses, one hand on their pis- tols, one foot ready to put into their stirrups ! A prince of courage, wisdom, and resolution might still have extricated himself from the difficulties surrounding Charles X. ; but in these difficulties such a prince would never have been involved. Alarmed by an ex- aggeration of the numbers of the approaching multi- tude ; fatigued with the toil of thinking and planning REVOLUTION OF 1830. 67 which he had already undergone ; and incapable of a new mental effort to meet the new crisis ; flattering himself that the Due de Bordeaux would still, as the best political combination, be named to the throne ; conscious that blood spilled even in victory might en- danger the peaceful establishment of this prince, in whose favour he had himself already abdicated ; swayed in some degree, doubtless, by these considerations, but urged more especially by his fears and his irresolu- tions, Charles threw away the sword where others might have thrown away the scabbard, and resigned himself quietly to the destiny which doomed his exile. The soldiers of the hackney-coaches returned to Paris, and the late 'ling of France set out for Maintenon, where, reserving a military escort, he bade adieu to the rest of his army. His journey was now made slowly, and under the delusion that all France would yet rise in his favour. Betrayed, and left by many of his courtiers, his hopes remained by him to the last ; and perhaps still remain, alone faithful in sorrow and in exile. REVIEW OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1830. IV. The two parties among the Royalists and the Liberals — The wishes and ideas of each — Young Napoleon and a republic, or Henry V. and the monarchy the two best combinations — Reasons why not adopted — Having formed the existing government, it is wise to maintain it — Astonishment to the hostility shown by those who put the present king on the throne to the natural consequences of his accession — What Louis Phdippe's system must be — Louis Philippe named Philippe I. and not Philippe V. — Triumph over the more moderate party — Constitutional changes caused by the revolution. To any one who has followed the events of this revolution, there will seem to have been on the side of the people, as on the side of the king, two factions. 6S REVIEW OF THE The Royalists were divided into the friends cf the ordonnances and the ministry, and the friends of the monarchy without the ordonnances. The liberal deputies also were divided. There were those who, without any personal affection for the reigning family, wished for the old form of govern- ment, popularly administered (M. Guizot and M. Sebas tiani). There were those (M. Latitte, Laborde, Mau- guin*) who wished for a new dynasty and new insti- tutions. M. C. Perier seems to have been between the two parties, and General Lafayette to have gone beyond them both. To M. Guizot, and those who thought like M. Guizot, Henry V. ought to have been more acceptable than the Due d'Orleans — by M. Lafitte the Due d'Orleans, even if not personally recommended, would have been preferred to Henry V. — To M. C. Perier the claims of the one, whom circumstances most favoured, were likely to appear the best — To M. de Lafayette the American republic was the dream of a long life. In the nation, if it could have been polled, the liberal nobility would probably have been for Henry V. ; the bourgeoisie for the Due d'Orleans ; the old army for young Napoleon ; the masses for a republic. If the Due d'Orleans was selected, it was because, while his accession promised the least to any particular party, it promised something to all, and was least likely to offend any one party. "The multitudes would have been passionately opposed," say many, " to the legitimate line of the family they had been fighting against.' The army would have despised, and the bourgeoisie dreaded the red cap, which had presided over the con- fiscations and proscriptions of the Comite de Salut Pub- lique. M. Guizot and his friends accepted the Due d'Orleans as a Bourbon ; M. Lafitte and M. Mauguin as a member of the opposition during the time of the Bourbons ; General Lafayette as the soldier of Jem- mapes, as the aid-de-camp of Dumourier. Besides, * It is these two parties that have formed the government and the opposition of Louis Philippe's reign. REVOLUTION OF 1830. 69 Louis Philippe was the first person proposed, when everybody was uncertain. " Take the Duke of Orleans for your king," said M. Lafitte. "Liberty will be satisfied with the sacrifice of legitimacy ! Order will thank you for saving it from Robespierre ! England, iu your revolution, will recognise her own !" All declared against Charles X. None spoke of young Napoleon ; none of Henry V. ; and yet, if circumstances had favoured, a government might per- haps have been formed under the sanction of either of these names, more popular and more strong than the one which was adopted. The Legitimate Monarchy and Henry V. ; the Republic and young Napoleon ; these (I venture the opinion as an historical specula- tion) would have been the two great and most reason- able alternatives. For the legitimate monarchy there was the past ; for a republic the future. The claims of the one were in the tombs of St. Denys ; it was sanctioned by time, and it promised repose. A desire for new things could alone justify the pretensions of the other ; and its existence could only have been an existence of action and glory, invasion, defence, conquest. As for a republic, with Lafayette it would have been the vision of an hour — for the title of a republic would have been a declaration of war ; and if war were to ensue, what name but that of " Napoleon" had a military prestige 1 Nor had young Bonaparte without a republic any chance of success. The soldier of France would have rallied round his cause — the citizen of France would have shrunk from it. A name possessed by one, a boy in the Austrian capital, was not alone a sufficient basis for a government. If France were desirous of throw- ing herself at once into a new position, of braving Europe, and defying the propagande in hand, the legions of the Holy Alliance — the young Napoleon, first consul of a military republic, would, I say, have aroused and united all the energies demanded for this daring career. If, on the other hand, the revolution 22 70 nfc.VIE\V OF THE was a combat for what had been obtained by the Charta, and not for a new system that was to succeed the Restoration ; — if the internal policy of France was to be conservation, the external policy peace ; if mon- archy was to be preserved and royalty respected, it was better to keep a crown that nine centuries had hallowed, and to preserve to majesty its history and its decorations. Tranquillity and the past with Henry V. — agitation and the future with young Napoleon — these, I repeat, were the two great and complete ideas between which the people, if they could then have rea- soned with the cool philosophy with which we reason now, would have chosen after the combat of July. But in times of trouble and intrigue, it is not one great idea that strikes us with force ; we bend beneath a thousand little circumstances and considerations. Besides, though I have conjecturally united the young Bonaparte with a republic, as the best combination, we must not forget that at the time of the revolution, those who thought of Napoleon thought of the empire ; those who thought of a republic thought of Lafayette. The people, moreover, still saw in Henry V. the shadow of the old " regime.'* A long array of peers and pensions, of guards and tabourets, stood between him and them. They had been fighting to the cry of " a has les Bourbons," and the blood was yet dripping from their clothes which had been shed by the sol- diers of legitimacy. But might not a liberal regency have been named ? Was not Louis Philippe himself a Bourbon ? And is it not just possible that the same people who bound up the wounds of the Swiss would have felt pity for the innocence of a child ? Charles X. at the head of his guards, the Duchesse de Berri with the Due de Bordeaux in her arms, might at two different moments have changed the destinies of France. But the blood of the grand constable was frozen in the veins of his descendant ; the heroine of La Vendee was guarded in her chamber ; the religion of legitimacy passed away when he who wore the crown of Henry IV. had neither REVOLUTION OF 1830. 71 his heart nor his sword ; and an army of omnibuses dispersed the heroes who had gathered round the oriflamme of St. Louis. But whatever might have been best under possible circumstances, I am by no means surprised at what took place under existing ones. Nay, more ; whatever government it might have been advisable to form for France in 1830, as a liberal and rational Frenchman, I should be anxious, in 1834, to maintain the govern- ment that is ; — liberty cannot exist without stability — it cannot exist under perpetual and violent changes ; and there are some cases where it is wise for a people to preserve even many evils in order to acquire the habit so necessary for all social purposes, of preserving something. They, I say, who, when every thing was to form four years ago, might wisely have been repub- licans or legitimists — cannot wisely be so now — when a government is constituted, and can only be upset by a new and more terrible revolution, of which they could neither direct the course nor predict the consequences. Moreover, the government of Louis Philippe was, if not the strongest, perhaps the easiest and safest that could have been adopted ; and 1 own that what most surprises me is, not that the French should have chosen the government, but that, now they have chosen it, they should be so hostile to their choice. They seem to have thought that because the present king would owe his situation to the popular voice, he would always concede to popular opinion. If this was their theory, was it a wise one ? Do not we know that every man is under the influence, not of the circumstances which placed him in a particular station, but of the circum- stances resulting from the situation in which he is placed. Give a man rank and power, he will endeav- our to preserve that rank and power, it matters not how he obtained it. If there be in his origin difficul- ties to overcome, it is to his origin that he will be per- petually opposed. The veriest schoolboy in politics and in history might see at once, that the life of a prince sprimg from a popular convulsion, would be 72 REVIEW OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1830. passed in struggling against popular concessions. Here he may do well to yield, there to resist ; but to resist he will somewhere be obliged, to yield he will always be required. The nation will be imruly under him, and you must govern an unruly nation as, if you are a skilful rider, you will govern an unruly horse ; you will not dare to lay the reins upon his neck, but as you pat his crest you will play with his bridle ; if you give him his head, or if you pull at his mouth, it is neither force nor fear that will restrain him ; he will run away wath you. The system of the present king of the French must be a system of repression, for the expectations which he excited are extravagant : but it may be a system of granting much, in order to obtain the power of refusing more : if he refuse every thing, if he pull too hard — but — I am about to recur to my simile of the unruly horse. It now only remains to me to say — that in the two questions which arose respecting the throne, first, whe- ther it should be declared vacant on account of the absence of the family of Charles the Tenth ; secondlly, whether Louis Philippe should fill it as Philip Fifth (thus connecting the old monarchy with the new) or as Philippe the First — a negative was given to the more moderate party, and so far the commencement of ano- ther era was undoubtedly proclaimed. A reference to the charta as it was* and as it is, forms the best con- clusion to this part of my work. ♦ See Appendix. THE STATE OF PARTIES SINCE THE REVOLUTION. Two parties during the Three Days — A third party — Natural conse- quences of their union — In order to understand, the policy of the present government, we must perpetually refer to the policy which presided over its creation — In creating the government, the French should have considered that its course was prescribed for at least ten years — What the present King's government was likely to do, what it was not likely to do — Its policy — The persons who can best maintain it on that policy — The Doctrinaires — Ministry of Lafitte, of M. Perier, of Due de Broglie — Of Soult, of Gerard — M. Thiers — His character — He the best person to maintain the present government — What are the difficulties in maintaining it ? — Its necessary unpopularity — The dangers of that unpopularity — Its safety in its gaining time. Having carried the political events of France down from the first to the second revolution, I would now take a brief view of the condition of the new monarchy, and of the state of the parties which have existed un- der it ; reserving to myself the opportunity of return- ing to the subject, when, having made more familiar to the reader the manners, the character, the influ- ences, the institutions, and the men of this country, I may take a broader, a bolder, and a more satisfactory view of its future destiny. It is evident from what I have already said, that the revolution from the first of the three days contained two parties — those who felt strongly, and those who reasoned calmly. The first joined it with the desire to overthrow a tyrannical government, the second with the hope to prevent present confusion. The first, while the conflict was still uncertain, was for declar- ing the ordonnances illegal, and placing themselves at the head of the people ; while the second were for renouncing a resistance by force, and for treating with Charles X. So, after the treaty of Rambouillet, the 74 THE STATE OF PARTIES one was for Philippe I., the other for Philippe V. The one for declaring the throne vacant by the departure of the elder branch of the Bourbons, the other for filling it by the choice of the people. The natural bent of these two parties would have led them to diverge even wider than they did. The en- thusiasts for liberty would have taken the republic — the advocates of order would willingly have declared for Henry V. But there was a third party — the per- sonal party of the Due d'Orleans, which appealed to the sympathies of the republicans — to the ideas of the legitimists. To the first it said, I fought with you in the days of July, and I propose to you the soldier of Jemmapes. To the second it said, the Due d'Or- leans is a Bourbon, and remember the revolution of 1788. In this manner the revolution which had been commenced and continued without a plan, was consti- tuted and confirmed with one. Its natural consequences were vast concessions to popular opinion in the moment of passion. The tri- umph of the party in favour of order and tranquillity, when tranquillity and order were restored. And lastly — since in order to overthrow the former government the personal friends of the Due d'Orleans had been obliged to side rather with those who were for destroy- ing than with those who were conserving — they would, when the principles of the present reign became con- servative, be obliged to separate, either from their party or their patron. In order to have a proper idea of the present king's policy, it is necessary to be perpetually refer- ring to the policy by which his election was dic- tated. Very few of the French understand their own revolution. They cry out against the "juste milieu." Their revolution, as I have said, was the " juste milieu." Louis Philippe was the " juste milieu.'' If they had expected, through peaceable representa- tions, the respect, the attention, the confidence of the despotic governments of Europe, they should not have taken Louis Philippe : if they had expected war SINCE THK HEVOLUriON. /O With those governments, a reign of glory and action, they should not have taken Louis Philippe. If they had expected from the crown the continued perpetual concession of popular rights, they should not have taken Louis Philippe ; for they should not have taken a man with the passions and the ambition of a man. If they had expected tranquillity in the South of France, — submission in La Vendee on the one hand — or an ab- horrence to hereditary rights, and a detestation of the royal name of France on the other, — they should not have taken Louis Philippe. Directly they chose their sovereign, they ought to have considered that they had traced, for ten years at least, the direction of their revo- lution. They had chosen the Due d'Orleans to sat- isfy those who were against the family of Charles X. They had chosen a Bourbon, in order to reconcile the friends of legitimate succession ; they had chosen a monarchy, in order to pacify those who were afraid of a republic ; they had made that monarchy the com- mencement of a new era, in order to satisfy the repub- licans ; and more than all, they had chosen peace in the selection they had made, and evinced a dislike, if not a fear, of war; — and yet there is not one of the parties to whom Louis Philippe was a compromise, that has not alternately claimed the triumph of its own opinions. Was Louis Philippe's government the one likely to allow the family at Holyrood to enter France ? Was Louis Philippe's government the one to pull down from the public edifices the fleurs-de-lis? Was Louis Philippe's government the one likely to march hand-in- hand with the Americo-republican Lafayette? And was Louis Philippe's government the one best calcu- lated to remonstrate effectually with the Emperor of Russia, or to march with the tri-colour flying, in favour of the Poles ? Was Louis Philippe's govern- ment the one which would command the ear of Prince Metternich — or Louis Philippe's the name that would speak to the Austrian veterans of Austerlitz and Ma- rengo ! No ; Louis Philippe's government was a gov* D2 76 THE STATE OF PARTIES eminent of peace — of peace to be obtained by an un- pretending posture abroad, by a sober, quiet position at home. It was the government of the ^^ juste milieu^''' as Louis Philippe himself was the "juste milieu" be- tween a variety of thoughts and things. It was a gov- ernment of the " bourgeoisie," in which we wero neither to look for the chivalry of ancient France, noi the turbulent energy of the Republic, nor the military greatness of the empire, nor the hereditary majesty of the Restoration. It was a government of the " bourgeoisie" in action as in ideas, of that order which is least susceptible to imaginative impressions ; the most likely to be con- ducted by material interests ; of that class which looks to the enjoyment of the ordinary rights and pursuits of life ; and which occupies itself the least with the goveramental theories and the state of Europe ; of that class which, in the present state of civilization, forms the bulk of every nation, but rarely the force ; given, too much, in every crisis, to cry, like the Italian mar- quis when hoisted on the shoulders of the Carbonari, and proclaimed chief of the Piedmontese revolution, " Faites ce que vous voulez, messieurs ; mais, ne me chiffonez pas." It was this feeling which created the first reluctance to fire upon the insurgents of June, and produced, after it was put down, the cry of " Vive I'etat de siege !" It was this feeling which, on a late occasion, sanctioned the barbarities of the troops, and permitted an innocent family to be butchered in cold blood, because some- body, in somebody's part of the building they inhab- ited, had disturbed the order so beloved by the bour- geois of Paris. Such is the government of Louis Philippe ; such, if he remain, must his government remain ; a government of order and peace. If a foreign war break out, there is the chance of a military republic ; if internal agita- tion long continue, there is a chance for the Bona- partes ; there is even a chance of Henry V. The sovereign's policy is distinctly traced, nor can he SINCE THE REVOLUTION. 77 govern by any other party than that which, possessing the ideas conformable to his origin, is alone compatible with his existence. They who exclaim against the policy which is the destiny of Louis Philippe's reign, exclaim against Louis Philippe himself. Now who are the men by whom the inevitable policy of Louis Philippe can best be supported ? The principles of those who are placed at the head of a government, more especially when that govern- ment is a government of principle, and has a peculiar line traced out for it, is no doubt an object of great importance ; but neither must we forget that to individ- uals and to names there is also an importance which it is never wise wholly to despise or to neglect. The cry of " a bas les Je suites" was fatal to the ministry of Polignac. The cry of " a bas le doctri- naires" was raised against the administration of the Due de Broglie. " What do you mean by doctrinaries ?" is the question that a foreigner is perpetually asking in France, and it is very rare indeed that he gets an answer from which much can be understood. During the time of the " Restoration" there was a small party in France, consisting chiefly of young men, affecting to consider the Due de Broglie as their head, and conducting a paper called "The Globe." M. Guizot was their historian, M. Cousin their philoso- pher. This party was a party of system, which lay- ing down certain ideas as the general basis of all good government, admitted few exceptions to its peculiar plan, and allowing little for time and circumstances, measured by a fixed rule the goodness or badness of all that was meditated or proposed. It was not a school that answered to that of our utilitarians, since it supported the intrinsic merit or demerit of actions, and defended virtues altogether independent of utility. Its metaphysics were German, its politics English. It combated the government of the time by appeals to the reason — and never by appeals to the passions — and from the kind of doctoral tone in which it lectured the public, obtained the name, at that time popular, of '* Doctrinaires." ^ 78 THE STATE OF PARTIES The great misfortune of this party was to have ac- cepted power directly after the days of July, when the minds of men were in that state of agitation which made it necessary to govern them rather through their passions and their imagination than through their judg- ment — when there was something more than absurd in speaking with book-learned pedantry of a liberty which had been conquered in a moment of drunken enthusi- asm; and measuring out the refinements of legisla- tion to a mob who had conquered with the barricade and the bayonet. The name which had been given as one of respect became then a by-word of ridicule and reproach ; and for having at an unfavourable moment wished to govern the nation by its reason, the Doctri- naires lost all their hold upon its sympathies. The cabinet of M. Lafitte failed through want of ad- ministrative skill ; and the nation, placed between a bankruptcy and a change of ministers, cheerfully ac- cepted his resignation. The administration of M. C. Perier, unwise and impolitic in many respects, was the administration which, more than any other, repre- sented the destiny and the genius of the existing gov- ernment ; and this was so generally felt and acknow- ledged, that the overthrow of the minister and the overthrow of the monarch were considered almost synonymous. The system was a weak one, but it was sustained by a man of energy and force. At Monsieur Perier's death it was necessary to maintain, and difficult to avoid changing, the policy he had pursued. The three alternatives were : — M. Du- pin ; the Due de Broglie ; M. Odilon Barrot. But M. Dupin would only enter on the condition of forming his own cabinet ; and the discontent, or retreat, or ex- pulsion of M. Perier's friends, would necessarily be taken, for the time at least, as the sign of that change which was to be avoided. M. Odilon Barrot could not enter without the real change of which M. Dupin would have been the appearance. The preference then was given, not without some intrigues, to the Due de Broglie. SINCE THE REVOLUTION. 70 But the Due de Broglie, though a person of great knowledge, and indeed of great ability, was too much of the " grand seigneur," and too much of the " s^a- vant," to conduct an administration which was to be perpetually dealing with the casual views, and the passing passions, which a representative system will be perpetually bringing into play. A man of views, he was not a man of expedients. He could plan his voyage, but he could not set his sails quick enough to catch the favouring shifts of every breeze. He could see the port he was to arrive at, but he could not steer with sufficient adroitness through the creeks, and by the rocks near which the course of the French government is destined for many years to run. He was succeeded nominally by Marechal Soult, and Marechal Soult is succeeded nominally by Marechal Gerard ; but M. Thiers is the person who, as well for his ability as his influence, is really to be considered the chief of the present ministry.* If any man can maintain the existing monarchy, and the system of the existing monarchy, it is M. Thiers. Sprung from the revolution of July, he knows its men ; he understands its passions ; he has no prejudices separate from it. With an intelligence which must give him a general plan for his career, he has a peculiar quickness for seeing, a peculiar facility for adopting and adapting him- self to the events of the day. He looks around him with at once the eyes of the journalist and the statesman ; he projects for distant times ; he acts for the present ; and, instead of despising, profits by the daily prejudice and opinion. Ready, bold, adventurous ; revolving great schemes, and possessing an extraordinary facility in elucidating and arranging intricate details, carrying to the tribune what is remarkable in his character ; never hesitating for an argument or a word, but seizing the first that occurs, and caring less for its accuracy than Its force ; supporting his party or his principle with a * The king himself is no inconsiderable person in his own cabinet 80 THE STATE OF PARTIES popular on dit ; attacked on all sides, and not troubling himself with a defence, but carelessly attacking ; an excellent parliamentary leader, for the courage he gives, in spite of the animosities he excites, sound, I believe, in his views ; not so scrupulous, it is said, as to his means ; talking of the English revolution of 1688, but knowing, and studying, and calculating upon the dispositions of the French in 1834; wishing to improve their history, but remembering that he cannot alter their character ; an advocate of education, but a strong upholder of the executive power ; if the present government is to be maintained, M. Thiers, I repeat, is the best man to maintain it. Yes ; you, M. Thiers, are the man of the present molnarchy ; and to you I address myself ; Nam quid ordinatione civilius ? Quid libertatc pretiosius ? Porro qudm turpe si ordinatio ; eversione^ libertas servitute mutetur ? Accedit, quod tihi certamen est tecum : one- rat questurcB tucsfama." But what are the difficulties you will have to con- tend against? The present government of France is, as I have said, a government of peace, a government without preten- sion abroad, a government that is to please the Bour- geois at home ; it is a government essentially based on the "bourgeoisie," and on the character of the "bourgeoisie." In England, this foundation for a government would be solid, because it is just the qualities which distinguish the "bourgeoisie" as a class, which distinguish England as a nation. It is the " bourgeoisie" which in England is the class most national, in its seriousness and thoughtfulness, in its industry, in its morality, in its love of order. These qualities, the characteristics of the " bourgeoisie" of every country, are, reader, the peculiar characteristics of our country. But what is the case in France ? Are seriousness, and thoughtfulness, and industry, and mo- rality, and a love of order — are these the character- istics of the French people ? As in England tlie " bourgeoisie" represents the character of the English, SINCE THE REVOLUTION. 81 SO in France the character of the "bourgeoisie" is most antipathetic to the character of the French. The French are gay, are gallant, are witty, are vain. This is what the French are most especially — and this is what the " bourgeoisie" is less than any other part of the French nation. So much for the character of France — then for the history — What does the history of France show us ? The reign of a court — the reign of philosophers — the reign of a mob — the reign of an army — the reign of priests and a provincial gentry — a revolution effected at once by the populace, by the soldiery, and by the journalists — have any one of these epochs sown the seeds for a government of the " bour- geoisie ?'* Then there are influences arising out of the combination of the character and the history of a nation. What are these in France ? — female influence — military influence — literary influence — are any of these influences favourable to a government of the " bourgeoisie V We may regret it, but I think we must own that a government of the shopkeepers, incorporating the feel- ings, the wishes, the prepossessions, and the prejudices of the shopkeepers, cannot be popular in France. It may be a good government — I think, upon the whole, it would, in time, become a good govenrment for France — but for many years it cannot be a popular one. For many years it must have the wit, and the vanity, and the gallantry of the French — the influence of the women, who are universally fond of letters and arms, and of the military men, and of the literary men, opposed to it. It cannot be a popular government — but what are the dangers of an unpopular government ? One great danger of an unpopular government is, that it never knows what unpopular act it may be obliged to have recourse to on the one hand, nor by what extent of concession it may be obliged to pur- chase popularity on the other. It cannot pursue a certain course, because it must be regulated, not by what it really intends to do, but by what people suspect it of intending to do But, if you are suspected of D3 82 THE STATK OF PARTIES intending to overturn the liberties of a state, such will be the spirit prevailing, and the resistance prepared, against you, that if you mean to resist, you must resist such violent fears by violent means, and the existence of your power then depends upon the chances of an *' emeute." If, on the contrary, you mean to concede, how extraordinary must be the concessions that satisfy suspicion 1 Besides, in France, to what and to whom will the government have to concede ? To military influence, to literary influence, — to the military men, to the literaiy men ! Atud where would these men, and these influences, if the government must concede to their extremes, lead it ? To a war with Europe, and then to a republic — or to a republic, and then to a war with Europe. This is the perilous position of the present govern- ment in France. It took its origin from a course not natural to the character of the people ; it remains based upon conditions to which the character of the people are opposed. Hence, a long series of agitations — and the dangers attendant upon a long series of agitations — if its policy be moderate. Hence, the chances of revolution on the one side, if it take a violent course to put down resistance — the chances of war on the other, if it take a violent course to obtain popularity — a war and a revolution both leading to the same result. Time, however, is the great resource of a state placed in this situation ; for the effect of time is to blend and to harmonize opposing things, to introduce the character of a nation into the institutions — the institutions of a nation into the character of its people ; and for this reason the policy which the present monarchy has to pursue is, and must be, a policy of expedients. A ministry must be formed sufficiently strong to sustain the weakness which exists in the principle of the government itself. This is the best chance, perhaps the only one, for the stability of exist- ing things. Oh ! it is impossible to stand in the spot where I am now standing, with yon splendid confusion of domes SINCE THK UEVOLUTION. S3 and spires, of palaces and public buildings, stretching out before me — in sight of the altars of Bossuet and Massillon ; of the palace of Louis XIV. and Napoleon ; of the Quai de Voltaire, and the senate of Foy, with- out feeling the wish (where all is great in recollec- tions, as in hopes) to unite the past with the future — and from the monarchy of the fleurs-de-lis, and from the empire of the sword, and from the classic eloquence of the theatre, and from the noble reason of the tribune, to see, in letters as in government, a new system arise, with the youth and freshness of which may be blended the venerability and majesty of by-gone years. And yet is it impossible to see so many of this peo- ple ridiculing the past without comprehending its poesy or its power ; plunging into the future, too ignorant of its depth ; discontented with the present, without having any hope that satisfies, to supply the reality they would destroy — yet is it impossible to see the strife between the ideas and the habits — the reason and the imagina- tion — the desires and the capabilities — the fanaticism and the irreligion — the loyalty and the republicanism of this doctrinizing, democratizing, romanticizing, clas- sifizing, religionizing, St. Simonizing race, — without doubting, amid the confused and the uncertain shadows which float around you, — which are those of the things that have been, which are those of the things that are to he. In the present monarchy there is neither the love for the new nor for the old ; it rests not on the past, it con- tents not the future. It was taken by all as an indif- ferent substitute for something which their theory or their imagination taught them to consider worse. It has no hold on the affections, no root in the habits, no power over the passions, of the people — no magic bridle upon the genius of the time, which it would curb and guide. Still, let us not forget that the incertitude of its des- tiny is in the uncertain character of its origin — the blemish which disfigures it seems to have been inflicted at its birth. There is a scar on the rind of the young 84 THE STATE OF PARTIES, ETC. tree, which, as it widens every year, beomes at once more visible and more weak. And so in the monarchy of July, the time which displays, destroys — which ex- pands, obliterates its defects. END OF THE SECOND BOOK. BOOK III. PREDOMINANT INFLUENCES. Est enim admirabilis quasdam continuatio seriesgue reruin, ut alia ex alifi nexa et oinnes inter se aptae, colligataeque videantur. — ('icerOf Hroiem Lib. I. de Naturd Deorum. PREDOMINANT INFLUENCES. WOMEN. Influence of women — Talleyrand, Bonaparte, and Louis XVIII. — Female influence at the time of the Restoration — Madame de Ro- land and Madame de Stael — Share of women in public affairs — Their importance in French history — Their assumptian of the mascuhne character — Female A ids -de -camp — A lady-duelhst — Contrast between French women and EngUsh women — Influence of domestic habits — Moral Phenomenon — New doctrine of mascu- line obedience — Female disputants— Le Royaume des Femmes — Policy of encouraging the development of female intelligence, and the exaltation of female principle. I HAVE just been speaking of influences, partly cre- ated by history, partly by national character — and which, rooted deep into the past, must extend over the future. One of these influences, I said, when I was on the subject of gallantry, that I should again speak of — I mean the influence of women. Not even the revolu- tion of 1789 — not even those terrible men who shivered a sceptre of eight centuries to atoms — not even the storm which overthrew the throne of the Capets, and scattered over Europe the priests and the proud no- bility of France — not the excesses of the Girondists, the Dantonists, and the triumvirate — not the guillotine, not the dungeon, not the prison, not the scaffold, not the law — not the decrees which cut up the provinces of France into departments, and the estates of France into farms — none of these great changes and instru- ments of change affected an empire exclusive to no class, which had spread from the Tuileries to the cot- tage, and which was not so much in the hearts as in the habits of the French people. Beneath no wave of the great deluge, which in sweeping over old France 88 INFLUKNCE OF fertilized new France — beneath no wave of that great deluge, sank the presiding landmark of ancient man- ners ; — and on the first ebbing of the waters, you saw — the boudoir of Madame Recamier, and the " bal des victimes." Monsieur de Talleyrand comes from America in want of employment; he finds it in the salon of Madame de Stael. Bonaparte, born for a military career, commenced it under the gentle auspices of Madame de Beauharnais. Even Louis XVIII. him- self, that fat, and aged, and clever monarch, bestowed more pains* on writing his pretty little billets-doux than he had ever given to the dictation of the Charta. There was a back way to the council-chamber, which even his infirmities did not close ; and many were the gentle lips, as some persons have confessed to me, that murmured over " amo," in its diff'erent moods and tenses, in the vain hope of rivalling Mes- dames P * * * and D * * * in the classical affections of this royal and lettered gallant. It was under this influence, indeed, that the unfor- tunate king succumbed : as it was with this influence that many of the faults, as well as many of the graces of the Restoration were combined. "In 1815, after the return of the king," says a late author, " the drawing-rooms of Paris had all the life and brilliancy which distinguished them in the old regime. It is hardly possible to conceive the ridicu- lous and oftentimes cruel sayings which were circu- lated in these pure and elegant saloons. The Prin- cesse de Tremouille, the Mesdames d'Escars, De Ro- han, and De Duras, were the principal ladies at this time who ruled in the Faubourg St. Germain. With them you found the noble youth of the old families in France ; the generals of the allied armies ; the young women exalted in their ideas of loyalty and loyal de- * When Bonaparte entered the Tileries, during the hundred da.ys, he found many of these httle billets, and a large collection of Louis's interesting correspondence. The Emperor would not hear of tlieir being read or published. WOMKN. 89 votion; the more elderly ladies, celebrated in that witty and courtly clique for the quickness of their re- partees, and the graces of their conversation ; the higher functionaries of the Tuileries ; the prelates and peers of France : and it was amid the business of whist and the amorous whisperings of intrigue that these personages discussed the means to bring back the olden monarchy, and to restore the reign of religion. " There was, more especially among the women, an ardour for change, a passion for the divine rights of legitimacy, which blended naturally with their adulterous tendernesses in favour of a handsome mous- quetaire, or a well-grown lieutenant of the garde royale. Then it was, that with their nerves excited by love, they called for proscriptions, for deaths, for the blood of Ney and Labedoy^re ! What must have been the violence of parties, when a young and beautiful female applauded the massacres of the South, and associated herself in thought with the assassins of Ramel and Lagarde !" But if the women in France exercise, and some- times exercise so fatally, a greater influence than, since the time of the Babylonians and the Egyptians, they have been known to exercise elsewhere ; no country has yet produced a race of women so remark- able, or one which affords history so many great names and great examples. I might take the reader back to the times of chivalry ; but with these times the man- ners of our own may hardly be said to mingle. Let us look then at the annals of these very days ! Who was the enemy most dreaded by the Mountain ? Who was the rival that disputed empire with Napoleon ? Madame de Roland and Madame de Stael. These two women alone, without fortune, without protection, save that of their own talent, boldly vindicated the power of the mind before its two most terrible ad- versaries, and have triumphed with posterity even over the guillotine and the sword. There is an energy, a desire for action, a taste, and a capacity for business among the females of France, the more remarkable 8* 90 INFLUENCE OB from the elegance, the grace, the taste for pleasure and amusement with which this sterner nature is combined. Observe ! from the very moment that women were admitted into society in France, they have claimed their share in public affairs. From the time of Francis the First, when they established their influence in the court, up to the pres- ent moment, when they are disputing the actual pos- session of the Bar and the Chamber of Deputies, they have never shrunk from a contest with their bearded competitors. Excluded from the throne and sceptre by the laws, they have frequently ruled by a power stronger than all laws, and amid a people vain, frivo- lous, gallant, chivalric, and fond of pleasure ; amid a people among whom the men have in their character something of the woman ; the women have taken up their place in life by the side of the men. More adroit in their conduct, more quick in their perceptions than the slower and less subtle sex, they have ruled absolutely in those times when adroitness of conduct and quickness of perception have been the qualities most essential to pre-eminence ; and even during the violent and passionate intervals which have demanded the more manly properties of enterprise and daring, they have not been altogether lost amid the rush of contending parties and jarring opinions.* Not a page in French history, from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth, but has to speak of some female reputation ; nor is there a path to fame which female footsteps have not trod ! Is royalty more his- torical than the names of De Montespan, De Maintenon, De Pompadour! What chief of the Fronde do we know better than the Duchesse de Longueville ? What diplomatist of Louis XIV. better than the Prin- cesse d'tlrsins ? What clever and able intriguant of the regency better than Mademoiselle de Tencin? And then, who does not remember the ingenious Scu- * It was the women marching to Versailles that created one of the remarkable epochs of the revolution of 1789. WOMEN. 91 dery — the epicurean Ninon — the dear and agreeable Sevigne — the lettered and voluptuous Marion de Lorme — the virtuous Cheron — the celebrated and learned Da- cier — the amiable Staal (Mademoiselle Delaunay) — the unfortunate Duch^telet — the witty Dudeffand — the graceful Deshouilli^res ? Such are the familiar names of a past generation. Have we not those of D'Abrantes, Gay, Girardin, Tastu, AUart, Dudevant (G. Sand), in our own 1 Go to France, and you will find that even costume itself is not considered an insuperable barrier between the sexes. Certes, any good citizen of London would be strangely surprised if he found her Majesty Queen Adelaide amid the most retired recesses of Windsor Park skipping over the daisies and buttercups in a pair of breeches ! and yet, so lately, when royalty in France was more essentially a spectacle, and every eye was turned on the unfortunate family again passing into exile, it struck no one with astonishment, no one with disgust, that the mother of Henry V. should appear masqueraded as one of her pages.* More is con- tained in a fact of this sort than we generally sup- pose ! Besides, there are various examples (the Che- valier d'Eon is one of the most notorious) where French women have not only attired themselves as males, but actually pursued through life a masculine career. Never have the French armies been engaged in the neighbourhood of France without there being found many of those females, of those delicate and fra- gile females, whom one sees in the " salons" of Paris, slain on the field of battle, to which they had been led, not so much' by a violent passion for their lovers (French women do not love so violently) as by a pas- sion for that action and adventure which they are will- ing to seek even in a camp. At the battle of Jemmappes, Dumourier had for his aids-de-camp two of the most beautiful, the most deli- cate, and accomplished young women in society of the * See the description of the Duchesse de Bern's dress, 92 - INFLUENCE OF time ; equally chaste and warlike, these modern Ca- millas felt a veneration for the profession of arms ; they delighted in the smoke of the cannon and the sound of the trumpet. Often, a general told me, in the most desperate cries of the battle, he has heard their slender but animated voices reproaching flight and urging to the charge ; " Ou allez-vous, soldats ? ce n'est pas la I'ennemi ! En avant ! suivez !" — and you might have seen their waving plumes and amazonian garb amid the thickest of the fire. In the duel of the Marquise de B you see, in the time of Louvet, and in the romance of Faublas, the manners and the disposition, the reckless and the dar- ing character, of the ladies of the court previous to the Revolution. It happens that a similar event actually occurred to my knowledge not many years ago. Charged with infidelity to her lover by a person who falsely boasted of her favours, a lady challenged the slanderer under an assumed name, and moreover wounded him desperately in the rencounter. It is to this bold and restless disposition, favoured by past institutions, that you must attribute the inde- pendence which French women assert, and the power which they have enjoyed and still maintain ; aided, no doubt, by the general character of their nation, which denies many of the more stern and governing qualities of the mind to the men. But let it not be supposed that if a French woman possess power, she holds it in carelessness or indo- lence — that it costs her no pains to procure its posses- sion, or to secure its continuance. How is it possible that an Englishwoman, such as we ordinarily find the Englishwomen of London society — how is it possible that such a woman should possess the slightest influence over a man three degrees re- moved from dandyism and the Guards 1 What are her objects of interest but the most trumpery and insignifi- cant ? What are her topics of conversation but the most ridiculous and insipid ? Not only does she lower down her mind to the level of the emptiest-pated of WOMEN. 93 the male creatures that she meets, but she actually persuades herself, and is actually persuaded, that it is charming and feminine, &c. to do so. She will talk to you about hunting and shooting, that is not unfemi- nine ! oh no ! But politics, the higher paths of litera- ture, the stir and action of life, in which all men worth any thing, and from whom she could borrow any real influence, are plunged, of these she knows nothing, thinks nothing ; in these she is not interested at all ; and only wonders that an intellectual being can have any other ambition than to get what she calls good in- vitations to the stupidest, and hottest, and dullest of the stupid, hot, and dull drawing-rooms of London. There are of course reasons for all this ; and I agree with a late work* in asserting one of these reasons to be the practice which all England insists upon as so inno- cent, so virtuous, so modest, so disinterested, viz. : — " bringing out," as it is called, a young woman at six- teen, who is ushered into a vast variety of crowded rooms with this injunction : '* There, go ; hunt about, and get a good," which means a rick, " husband." This command — for miss is greatly bored with papa and mamma, and the country-house, and the country parsonis, — very readily obeyed. Away she starts — dances with this man, sighs to that ; and as her edu- cation has not been neglected, she ventures, perhaps, at the first onset, to give vent to a few of those ideas which her governess, or her reading, or the solitude of her early life have given birth to. Wo upon her ! The rich young man who has such a fine property in shire, and who is really so very good-looking, and so very well dressed, opens his eyes, shrugs up his shoulders, turns pale, turns red, and looks very stupid and very confused, and at the first opportunity glides away, muttering to an acquaintance, " I say, what a d — d blue that girl is." Never mind, my good young lady ! In a second season, you will be as simple and as silly as your chaperon can desire. Do but go on ' England and the English. 94 INFLUENCE OF — a constant succession of balls and parties, and list- less conversations, will soon make you all the most plottmg mother can desire — and all I regret is, that when you have at last succeeded in the wearisome aim of your youth, when you have fixed the fate of some wealthy, and perhaps titled booby, a constant habit of dulness will have been generated from the stupidity that was necessary to secure him. Of late years this misfortune has been increasing : because of late years fortune and rank have been more entirely separated from talent and education ; to such a degree indeed has it increased — that no man, after his reason has burst its leading-strings, ever now exposes himself to the insufferable ennui of general society. In England, then, the persons who are engaged in those pursuits which give public influence, fly, as from a pestilence, what is called a life of pleasure, and which, instead of being a relaxation to a set of think- ing and active human creatures, has become a busi- ness to a class of persons who have neither thought nor capability for action. When a woman comes into the world in France, she comes into the world with no pursuit that distracts her from its general objects. Her own position is fixed. She is married, not sold, as the English peo- ple believe — not sold in any degree more than an Eng- lish young lady is sold — though she has not been seen panting from party to party in quest of a buyer.* Young women, then, come into society in France with a fixed position there, and are generally interested in the subjects of general interest to the world. The * A marriage takes place in France under the following circum- stances : — The friends of the two parties agree, that if the young people like one another, a very suitable connection might be formed. The young people then meet, and, if they are to each other's taste, the match takes place ; and surely this is as sentimental, and as deU- cate as teaching a young lady every thing that can solicit a declara- tion of marriage, and which, you may depend upon it, she does not forget afterward, when anv declaration she receives must be a decla- ration of love WOMEN. 95 persons and the pursuits that they find most dis- tinguished, are the persons and the pursuits that most attract their attention. Educated besides, not with the idea that they are to catch a husband, but that they are to have a husband, as a matter of course, caught for them — a husband whom they are not obliged to seduce by any forced and false expressions of affection — ^but to take quietly from their friends, as a friend, — they occupy themselves at once with this husband's interests, with this husband's occupations, and never imagine that they are to share his confidence, but on the ground that they understand his pursuits — whoever be their lover, their husband is their companion.* I was talking one evening with the master of the house where I had been dining, on some subject of trade and politics, which I engaged in unwillingly, in the idea that it was not very likely to interest the lady. I was soon rather astonished, I confess, to find her enter into the conversation with a knowledge of detail and a right perception of general principles which I did not expect. "How do you think," said she to me, when I afterward expressed my surprise, " that I could meet my husband every evening at dinner, if I were not able to talk on the topics on which he has been employed in the morning?" An English fine lady would have settled the question very differently, by affirming, as an undeniable proposition, that politics and such stuff were great bores, and that a man, to be agreeable, must talk of balls and operas, and dress. But it is not only in high society and in good society, in the " salon" and in the " boudoir," that you find the female in France take an important position. It is the same in the comptoir, in the cafe, and at the shop. She is there also the great personage, keeps the accounts, keeps the money, regulates and super- * Matrimonial ragrCility is not high in France. I grant it. But this proceeds from a variety of causes with which the system of giving in marriage (a system which prevails all over the Continent, and in countries where the ladies are quite as faithful as our ovm), has nothing in the world to do. 96 INFLUENCE OF intends the business. Go even into a sword-maker's or a gun-maker's ; it is as likely as not that you will be attended to by a female, who will handle the sword and recommend the gun ; and there is a mixture of womanly gentleness and masculine decision in the little creature — so easy, so unembarrassed, so prettily dressed, and so delicately shaped — that you are at a loss to reconcile with all your preconceived notions of effrontery on the one hand and effeminacy on the other. There is generally some trait in the domestic habits of a country \vhich may seem at a casual glance un- important, but which is connected more closely than you imagine with the whole social system that custom, history, and character have established. If I wanted an illustration of this, I would take the still-prevailing custom that banishes women from the dinner-table in England as soon as a certain state of hilarity, or a certain seriousness of conversation be- comes visible. A profound observer sees in this little fact alone a distinction which must affect the laws, the morality, the crimes, and the amusements of a whole population. He sees at once that the one sex is not a free participator in the plans, and the projects, and the pleasures of the other. He sees at once how this fact extends itself over our society and our statute- book, our prisons and our public houses ; and many of the differences that he finds between the French and the English — differences sometimes to the advan- tage of one people, sometimes to the advantage of the other — he is prepared to account for by the differ- ent relations that exist in France and in England be- tween the two sexes. Let it be crime, or pleasure, conspiracy, assassination, or debauch — whatever takes place in France, be sure that the influence of woman has been felt upon it, that the passions of woman have been mingled up with it ;* for the same feelings and * Vidocq's Memoirs abound in proofs of this. WOMEN. 97 the same energies which make us capable of great things, propel us on to bad ; and if we wish to find the most innocent, I fear we must seek for them, as in Paraguay, among the weakest of mankind. There is a remarkable female phenomenon in France, which contrasts itself with what occurs in al- most every other country. In England, it is a melan- choly fact, that many of the miserable creatures who at midnight parade the streets, and whose only joy is purchased for a penny at Mr. Thomson's gin-shop, have fallen, perchance, but a few months since, from situations of comfort, honesty, and respectability. In France, the woman who begins with the most disgust- ing occupation on the Boulevards, usually contrives, year after year, to ascend one step after another into a more creditable position.* The hope and the desire to rise never forsake her ; notwithstanding her vanity and her' desire for dress, and her passion for pleasure, she husbands her unhappy earnings. There is a kind of virtue and order mingling with the extravagance and vice which form part of her profession. The aged mother, or the little sister, is never forgotten. She has not that first horror of depravity which is found among our chaster females ; but she falls not at once, nor does she ever fall lower than necessity obliges her. Without education, she contrives to pick up a certain train of thought, a finesse, and a justness of ideas — a thorough knowledge of life and 'of character * A great many of the furnished hotels in Paris are kept by women of this description; some of these hotels belong to them; for when- ever they have money sufficient, they always invest it in property of this description. The commonest of Madame Leroi's httle apprentices has an air, and a manner, and a tone that approach her to good society ; a mind of natural distinction, which elevates her at once above the artificial lessons of good breeding, and makes her, grammar and orthography excepted, just what you find the fine lady; you see that the clay of which both are made is of equal fineness, and that it la only by an accident that the one has been moulded into a marquise, the other into a milliner. There is hardly an example of a French woman, sud- denly elevated, who has not taken, as it were by instuict, the man- ners belonging to her new situation. Madame iu Barry was as re- markable for her elegance as the Duchesse de Berri. 98 INFLUENCE OF — and, what perhaps is most surprising of all, a tact, d delicacy, and elegance of manners, which it is per- fectly marvellous that she should have preserved — much more that ^she should have collected from the wretchedness and filth which her life has been dragged through. In the lowest state of infamy and misery, she cherishes and displays feelings you would have thought incompatible with such a state ; and as one has wept over the virtues and the frailties of the dear, and the beautiful, and imaginary Marie I'Escaut, so there are real heroines in Vidocq, whom our sympathy and our affection accompany to the galleys. Such are the women of France ! The laws and hab- its of a constitutional government will in a certain degree affect their character — will in a certain degree diminish their influence ; but that character is too long confirmed, that influence is too widely spread, for the legislation which affects them on the one hand, not to be affected by them on the otlier ; and it would take a revolution more terrible than any we have yet seen, to keep the deputy at the Chamber after six o'clock in the evening, and to bring his wife to the conviction that she was not a fit companion for him after dinner. Still, undoubtedly there has been a change, not as much in the habits of domestic, as in the habits of po- litical life ; and though the husband and the lover are still under feminine sway, the state is at all event!? comparatively free from female caprice. Is it on ac- count of the power they possess, or because that power appears rather on the decline, that the more sturdy heroines of the day have raised the old standard of the immortal Jeanne, and with the famous device, " Notre banniere etant au peril, il faut qu'elle soit a I'honneuj,"* marc?h to what they call the deliverance of female kind ? I was present in the Rue Taranne at one of the weekly meetings which take place among these high- spirited ladies ; and I own that, as I cast my eye round * Motto of Jeanne d'Arc. WOMEN. 99 tJhe room upon the unprepossessing countenances of the feminine apostles who preached the new doctrine of masculine obedience, I could at all events perfectly conceive that there were some conditions between the sexes which they would naturally desire to see altered. An old gentleman, a member of the " institut^^^ and decorated with a red riband — an old gentleman, a very kind and amiable, but debile-looking old gentleman, was raising a tremulous and affrighted voice in the vain endeavour to calm the eloquent passions of his agitated audience, who, after having commenced, in an orderly manner enough, by most timidly reading three or four cold and learned discourses, were now extem- porizing a confusion of clamours and contradictions, which justified in some sort their pretensions to a seat in their national assembly. These most independent dames could no longer, it appeared, support the idea of being presided over by any thing that approached, even as much as the un- happy old academician, to the form and propensities of a man. And the question they called upon him to propose was, his retreat from the post of honour that he occupied, in favour of some one of the sage and moderate crew who, mounted on the chairs, on the table, vociferating, threatening, applauding, reminded one of the furies of Thrace, without giving one the least idea of the music of Orpheus. What became of that ancient gentleman — where he is — whether — his eyes torn from their sockets, his tongue from his mouth, his hair from his head, his limbs from his body — he has joined in unhappy fractions the great substance and spirit of the universe — Heaven knows ! I shud- der to inquire — but, on leaving him, I certainly felt far more impressed with pity for his situation than for that of the complaining ladies over whom he presided.* * It would be unjust, however, not to acknowledge that there were many ideas just and reasonable enough in the written discourse's with which the evening's proceedings commenced. The orators on this occasion were, for the most part, governesses, who, as I understand, under the pretext of addressmg themselves to the subject of educa- tion, to which the room and the president are dedicated, give vent to 100 INFLUENCE OF The cry of this society, however, has found an echo even in the Royal Academy of Music, where you may see the "revolt of the women" spreading confusion amid the vast and beautiful galleries of the Alhambra. But if you really wish to find female power in that proud situation of pre-eminence in which " the Parisian philosophesses" wish to place it, go to the Ambigu Comique ! . . . there you find LE ROYAUME DES FEMMES. Piece fantastique en Deux Actes. Two French travellers, carried rather farther in a balloon than they had any idea of journeying, arrive at this powerful and enlightened kingdom, in which, strange to say, the language of France, by some miracle, is spoken. Here every thing is changed which under an abominable tyranny has flourished elsewhere — and the queen, at the head of a very lady-like garde na- tionale, reminds her brave sisters in arms that the fate of their country, of their husbands, of their children, is in their hands, and that it is for them to protect a sex feeble and without defence.* their notions as to the pursuits and the occupations to which the society ought properly to devote themselves. I will not dismiss the subject of this meeting, -without mentioning one proposition made that evening by a lady, and with which I must say I heartily concur, viz. that the members of this sect should be distinguished by — as she expressed herself — "a piece of red or blue riband, or some other badge of distinction" '' Fsenum habet in cornu, hunc tu," good reader, " caveto !" * Neilora entre en sc^ne ; son costume est dans le meme style que les autres, mais beaucoup phis riche, elle a unecouronne sur la tdte. Mouvement des femmes analogue a celui de nos soldats lorsqu'ils presentent les armes. Nellora, apres un salut afFectueuxde Rodolphe, se toumant vers les femmes. Mesdames et braves camarades, je suis contente de votre zele, de votre bonne tenue . . . le sort de la patrie, celui de vos mans et de vos enfans est entre vos mains . . . c'est h vous de proUger wi sexe faible et sans defense. Air d'Adolphe Adam. (Introduction de Casimir.) Guerri^res de tons grades Dociles a ma voix, Mes braves camarade, Defendez a la fois Le bon ordre et les lois. Ce sexe qu'on encense WOMEN. 101 In this island La femme est pleine de valeur, De force et de science, Elle est soldat ou procureur, Lois, commerce, finance, Elle fait tout Et son amant ? Fait la soupe et garde Fenfant. Jeime lille aux yeux seducteurs, Pres d'un garQon trop sage. Pour cacher ses desseins trompeurs Parle de mariage ; Le jeune homme modestement Repond : demandez. a maman. And in fact the dignity of one's sex is somewhat shocked to find the queen keeping her seraglio ; an old dowager, a major of the Royal Guards, attempting to seduce the whiskered object of her aflfections by cer- tain lucrative propositions ; and a young man of this remarkable kingdom weeping over the disgrace he has fallen into from his, weakness in favour of a young lady, who, after profiting by a promise of marriage, refuses to keep her word. But it would not be fair, in ridiculing the absurdities of women who are too mad or too ignorant to under- stand the extent of their folly — it would not be fair to Vous promet au retour, Pour votre recompense, Le bonheur et I'amour. En avant, en avant ! {bis.) Marchez, le pays vous appelle, Courageux et fiddle - A la foi du serment, Un soldat va toujours en avant. Ce drapeau quand il le faudra, Signal de gloire, A la victoire Vous guidera. Et vmis, Messieurs, soyez toujours exempts (Talarmes, Faut-il courir aux armes ? Nous sommes Ih. {ChvBur.) En avant, etc. 9* 102 INFLUENCE OF deny that, in the idea which some foolish followers of a ridiculous system have made contemptible, there is, as that idea was first conceived, much justice and much benevolence. In opening other careers to fe- male ambition — in making fame and fortune more easy of honest attainment, you would doubtless diminish that calamity which is engendered by necessity and ambition on the one hand, and the want of an honoura- ble way to power and independence on the other. It would never enter into the head of any but a fanatic or a fool to dress up Mademoiselle Cecile in a judge's robes, or a field marshal's uniform; but it would be wise in a government to encourage and assist, as far as a government can encourage and assist ; that devel- opment of intelligence and that habit of application which would give, in the various situations of life, every facility to the female who pursues a virtuous and useful avocation.* Much of the fate of females must depend on the in- struction they receive. One dislikes to indulge in theories which seem to have no immediate chance of realization ; and when we see the wild doctrines of fe- male licentiousness that are abroad in France, it ap- pears almost absurd to show what might be done by female morality — yet, if it be possible to breathe a higher and purer tone into French society — and this is what French society wants — if it be possible to ap- proach in peace the visions of St. Just, and to make virtue, honesty, and justice, " the order of the day," — if it be possible to make that change in manners with- out which the laws which affect the surface of a na- tion will not penetrate to its core ; if it be possible to do this — in a country where the influence of the sexes 'enters into almost every crime, it must be by making that influence serviceable to every virtue. * In a comitty where the division of fortunes rarely throws a wo- man upon the world in an utter state of destitution, there is httle real necessity for the vices she may fall into ; pay, that any clamour should have been ever so indistinctly raised, for perfect equaUty between the sexes— shows the very great equality that in France really exists ! VVOMKX. 103 How are you to do this ? — It is not so much the fe- male mind that wants cultivating, it is the female char- acter that wants exalting. The doctrine may be un- popular, but what you have to do cannot be done merely by the elegances of literature or the specula- tions of science. The education which you must give — to be useful must be — moral : must be an education that will give a chivalric love — such love as women are prone to feel — not for the romantic depravities of life — not for the mawkish devilry and romance of a bourgeois Byron, but for what is great and noble in life — for the noble heroism of a Farcy, for the political integrity of a Berenger. The sex most capable of rewarding public virtue, should be taught to honour and admire public virtue — should be taught to admire public virtue as it was for- merly taught to admire accomplished vice ; should be taught to feel for the patriot what it feels for the sol- dier, and what too often it feels for the roue. The female mind should be hardened and strengthened by logical notions of right, as well as filled with the fan- ciful theories which a smattering of letters and philoso- phy inspires. I fear this can hardly be done by laws ; much to- wards it, however, might be done by a court patroni- sing merit and honouring principle ; much towards it might be done by a government which, extending by its nature into every position and relation of society, has an opportunity in every village of distinguishing merit and rewarding virtue. At all events, whatever the court or the government can do for this object — that it ought to do ; for there is no influence which should not be employed to elevate the morality of a people to whom Providence has denied the support of religion ; — and the influence of which I have been speaking is an influence which the history and the character of the French ally to sanction, and which will be working deeply to the injury of the state, if it be not turned to its advantage. 104 MILITARY INFLUENCE. MILITARY INFLUENCE. France under Richelieu — Under Bonaparte — Now — Military spirit of each epoch— The camp has entered into the city— The duel of the Due de Beaufort and of the Editor of the " National"— The union between the sword and the tribune impossible in England, may be possible in France— The people who mourned Foy, La- marque, Lafayette, mourned a type of themselves. On a height which overlooked the plains of Rousil- lon,* and which commanded the dark ramparts of the city he was besieging — a cuirass on his breast — his bald head, the scene and centre of so many plans, great and terrible, covered with the red cap of the church — stood the Cardinal — profound minister, astute favourite, great captain. All eyes were fixed on him, and he could be seen everywhere ; and near him were the generals and the grand seigneurs of the monarchy, grand seigneurs whom he had made courtiers, and around him the chivalry and nobility of France. Never did a more loyal troop follow their sovereign than that which galloped after King Louis, when, the eye bright, and the hand firm, he forgot the reveries of Chambord on the plains of Perpignan. Many and brave cava- liers were there. When was the oriflamme unfurled in olden times, and that a brilliant army was not ready to follow the white pennon 1 Yet, the army of France under Richelieu was not France. The priest who humbled the aristocracy had not ventured to open its honours to the nation. Twenty-one years ago, in that palace which has since known more than one master, you might have seen a man, at once a prey to his ambitious follies and his reasonable fears — with the brow bent and the lip * See the eloquent romance of Cinq-Mars. MILITARY INFLUENCE. 105 curled — now pacing his chamber for hours — now- stretched for a day together, in still and mute concen- tration of thought, over immense maps, to which his conquests had given a new surface — nervous, restless, agitated, as he said, by a destiny not yet accomplished — you might have seen that mysterious man, whose sword had already decided the fate of empires, medi- tating, almost in spite of himself, the scheme of a new conquest — of a conquest cast in the gigantic mould of his own genius, and which was to submit the oldest dynasties of Europe to the sway of an empire hardly yet seen rising from its foundations. Lo ! he wakes from his stupor. " Vive la France ! vive la grande armee !" sounds in his ear. And hark to the tramp of soldiers, and the beating of drums ! and already along the road to Germany, behold the triumphal arches — which should have been reserved for his re- turn ! And now may you see those stern and martial men, accustomed to the reception of conquerors — the head high, the step firm, the eye determined, the lip compressed. Now may you see those men — men of execution — men who only live in the hazards of ad- venturous action, brandishing their arms with a fero- cious gayety, and waiting in fixed devotion the com- mands of a chief, whose star has never yet paled on the field of battle. Such was the army of France under Napoleon ; but the army of France under Napoleon was not the nation of France. Bonaparte reigned in an immense camp, which was guarded from the approach of the people. " La France n'est qu'un soldat," said M. de Cha- teaubriand, in the first of those eloquent pamphlets which showed that his genius was not on the decline. Yes, the army of France is now the nation of France ; but the nation of France is more than an army. France is not only a soldier — France is more than a soldier. But do not expect that you can at once sweep away the effects of centuries ! Do not expect that you can make a nation of warriors, by the scratch of a pen, a E3 106 MILITARY INFLUENCE. nation of legislators — rather expect that you will give to legislation the manners of war ; that, instead of transporting the city into the camp, you will transport the camp into the city.* The ideas of the one will blend themselves with the institutions of the other. The feelings which Francis carried to Pavia, and which made Bonaparte refuse the peace of Chatillon — the feelings which the grand seigneur carried to Fontenoy, and the republican soldier to Marengo, — these feelings you may expect to find in the cabinet of the poet, the deputy, and the journalist of the present day. The poet will fight for his verses, the grave constitutional senator for his opinions ; and the time was when we might have seen B. Constant himself — his long white hair flowing loosely over his benevolent countenance, seated calmly on a chair — a crutch in one hand, a pistol in the other, and — an enemy at twelve paces. Do not laugh at this, reader, because it would be ridiculous in England. France is not England, and never can be. Besides, the threads and cords of society are so mixed and intermingled, that it is almost impossible to trace the mysterious force which each exercises over the play of the other ; and perchance it is this very military spirit which now pervades all * There is a little book published in France, called " Ahnanach du Peuple," and intended to make the government popular with the people, and a parallel in two columns is drawn between the government of the Restoration and the goverrmient of July. Here I ftnd — kSoiis la Restauration. JDepuis la Revolution. Le Gouvernement de la Restau- ' Louis Philippe a fait replacer ration et les armees etrang^res la statue du grand homme sur la avaient fait abattre partout les colonne de la Place Vendome. statues de Napoleon — on faisaii un crime aux vieux soldats de se souvenir de leur Empereur et des victoires de Marengo, d'Auster- litz, et de Wagram. * * ♦ * So far so good ! — ^but what fol- lows ? — * * * * Notre armee etait rdduite a L'armee est aujourd'hui portde i. 250,000 hommes. 400,000 hommes I ! ! I should Uke to see the government in England, that by way of makins^ itself popular, boasted that it had doubled the army. MILITARY INFLUENCE. 107 classes and professions of French society, and which keeps men perpetually mindful of the regard that they owe to one another — it is perchance this very military spirit which maintains order in the movement of the civil machine, shocked and deranged as it is, and as it has been ; and allows a universal equality to exist, without engendering universal confusion. Be this as it may, in the various forms of society that France has yet known, that part of society governing for the moment, has always been agitated by the same spirit. Even in the times of the church, we have the old distich — *'Un archev^que est amiral, Un gros ev^que est corporal ; Un prelat preside aux frontieres, Un autre a des troupes guerriferes ; Un capucin pense aux combats, Un cardinal a des soldats." The precepts of the church did not alter the char- .tA \!er of the people ; the character of the people car- ried war into the peaceful bosom of the church.* But let us draw a parallel ; it will show the genius of the French, the influences, and the manners of two times. In 1652 the Due de Beaufort and Due de Nemours met behind the Hotel de Vendome ; the Due de Beau- fort accompanied by the Comte de Barry, the Due de Nemours by the Due de Villars. In addition to these noblemen the princes brought each three gentlemen of their suite. They fought five to five, and the Due de Nemours was killed. This happened in 1652 — now let us turn back to the literary quarrels of last year, and the manner in which they were settled. The Corsaire laughs at the Duchesse de Berri, and the editor of a legitimist paper calls out the editor of the Corsaire. The editor of the * One day the Abbe Maury was followed and insulted by the mob on coming out of the Assembly. One man came up to him and said — " Maury, veux-tu que i'aille te servir la messe?" — ** Oui," replied Maury, showing two pocket-pistols—" Viens, voila mes burettes." 108 MILITARY INFLUENCE. Corsaire is wounded ; but, though his hand is disabled, the colour of his ink is not altered, and he very fairly says that he will have his joke for his wound. The duchesse is still laughed at as much as before. " That will not do," says the legitimist, and he calls out the satirist again ; but the latter shakes his head this time, and shows his arm in a sling. " He can't always be lighting." — " Ho ! ho !" says M. Carrel, the warlike editor of the National, whose semicolons almost look like inverted swords ; " does anybody want to fight ?" — " We ! we !" the National, and the editors of the National, " we will fight as much as you please." A challenge is immediately sent by a gentleman, and a journalist, whose name I forget ; but in the mean time, the editors of the liberal papers had had a con- sultation together, and agreed that if one fought all should fight, and that there should be a pitched battle of five on a side.* Well, what is the difference between the two com- bats — the journalists five on a side, and the great no- blemen five on a side— except that the one were jour- nalists and the others great noblemen ? But the journal of to-day answers to the great nobleman of ancient time. We'll take the " National" for the Due de Beaufort, for instance. The " National" has its three gentlemen attached to it now, as the Due de Beaufort had his three gentlemen formerly attached to him. The gentlemen who write for these papers answer — do not they ? — to the gentlemen who were attached to the houses of these grand seigneurs ! — the great families of France — its great fortunes — are gone. The whole power of government and of society is " When the gentleman commissioned to carry a hostile message to M. Carrel made his appearance, he was informed of this resolution, " but," said M. C. " there is no rule without its exception. I will be the exception, and fight your friend, sir, as a particular favour to-mor- row morning." They fought and wounded one another severely. But the great battle was still to have taken place, and it was by an accident that we lost the spectacle of ten gentlemen of the press stripped to their shirts, and sword in hand, thrusting quart and tierce up to their knees in §now, in a quarrel respecting the virtue of the Duchesse de Berri. MILITARY INLFUENCE. 109 changed ; but the feelings formerly represented by one class have found their way into another. How do you account for this? The equality which existed among the French nobility has descended and exists now among all classes — the military spirit and the military manners of France have done the same — for the character of a nation will penetrate all its institu- tions — will give its air and physiognomy to everj" form of government which that nation essays, and even to which the character of that nation seems op- posed.* But it is not only that we find the soldier's character stamped on the citizen ; we also find the soldier promi- nent in the different pursuits of the city. What man more known to succeed in that society where a certain air of gayety and gallantry captivates the woman, whose reign of coquetry is drawing to a close, and excites the admiration of the young men who are just beginning to be a-la-mode, than Col. ? A lively and agreeable countenance, over which an eye that flashes fire and a slight but dark moustache throws a martial air of energy and determination : that sort of wit which is always delivered a-propos, and which rather consists in having something on all occa- sions ready to say than in the precise excellence of what is said ; a peculiar turn of phrase, which some- how or other gives you an idea, but an agreeable idea, of his profession ; and a manner of speaking, soft but short, and full of a slight emphasis, which as he pro- nounces his words gives a value to them above their meaning : these are the qualities, assisted by an im- perturbable impudence and an excellent education, which have given to this hero of the drawing-room the notoriety he possesses. Magnificent, prodigal, study- ing effect in his expenses, and desirous to give to his premeditated follies the air of a careless extravagance — famous for the bills he owes for bonbons, and the money he has spent in canes — famous also for his in- * I say nothing of the array, and its spirit, and its discipline, since I hope, at a future time, to go more fully into that subject. 10 110 MILITAUY INFLUENCK. trigues behind the scenes of the " Fran^ais," in the foyers of the opera, and in the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain — perfect in the art of ripening one in- trigue before he passes from the other, and deriving much of his pleasure from the pain he inflicts — ready to give offence, to take offence — great gambler, great duellist, and fortunate as both — this gentleman is the idol of a circle whose praise one courts at twenty, and despises ten years afterward. Col. is another character, entirely different from the one I have just been describing ; for he is the model of a soldier, such as we figure a soldier in the times of sensibility, chivalry, and parfait amour. Passionate, nervous, incapable of rest, he has had but two idols, — peril and the woman he loved. Has he no softer object to transport, torment, irritate, and occupy him ? malheur a Vetat ! — he conspires. But do not imagine that his character changes in his new part ; that he is less frank, less open ; that he does not say all that he thinks, all that he does. Listen to him ! he will tell you that the scheme is almost or- ganized, that so many men are ready in such a prov- ince, that so many barrels of powder are concealed in such a cellar in Paris ; that the day is fixed ; that success is certain. He is so frank that he deceives every one. The police are disconcerted, they cannot believe in arrangements that are publicly talked of at Tortoni's ; a shower of rain, a change of humour, or the sight of a pretty foot, deranges the plot, and the conspiracy sleeps for a while in the arms of a new mistress. dreams of the noblest things, and as his physi- cal force never yields before his desires, he imagines himself capable of carrying the state upon his shoul- ders, of restoring, destroying ; his breast is a volcano of resolutions, of plans half organized, long meditated, and then in turn abandoned. But, if you told him that he mistook restlessness for activity, discontent for ambition, a love of change for a love of liberty, and MILITARY INFLUENCE. Ill the follies of a vague enthusiasm for the concentrated plans of genius, he would believe that you totally mis- understood his character, and rush with redoubled passion into some new absurdity, in order to prove that he deserved the title of " wise and great" which you refused to him. This man is irritable, jealous, vain, and easily affronted : but if he knows you well, his anger soon ceases ; for he is generous, tender, and desirous of communicating his emotions. His friends are few ; these he loves passionately, and they are generally in a worse position than himself — perhaps because such are more likely to forgive the irregularities of his tem- per, and to worship the virtues he possesses ; perhaps because he has a sort of instinctive adoration for poverty, which corresponds with the rudeness and at the same time awakens the kindness of his nature. With the rest of his sex he is boastful, overbearing, full of his own merits and exploits ; always talking of the army, " the great army," for he despises sedentary pursuits, and deems that incapability of repose is an aptitude for action. With women his heart melts : he is all softness, delicacy, gentleness. If he speak with affection, the tears are in his eyes ; if he love, his passion knows no bounds ; his gallantry is romantic, ardent, respectful ; his features are strong and coarse, his person uncouth and gigantic ; but if Louis XIV. were alive, he would have no occasion to tell the ladies of his court " qu'il etoit le plus beau, — parcequ'il etoit leplus brave de son royaume." Plain, slovenly, savage, he has been listened to by the most spiritual and ele- gant women of his time ; vain, disinterested, brave, and passionate to excess, he has in turn been deemed a hero when he boasted of his exploits, an adventurer when he refused to receive a fortune, a man full of ambition when he was only occupied by love. He seems an anachronism in his time : he represents a part of it. Alike dissimilar from the two persons whose sketches 112 MILITARY INFLUENCE. I have just been giving, General obtained and deserved a more solid reputation than either. His life was not formed on the scandalous memoirs of a Due de Richelieu, nor would it afford an episode to the romance of Amadis in the desert. Gallant, courteous, endowed with equal firmness and reflection; the rigid observer of subordination in the camp, the warm defender of liberty in the tribune ; sincere, independ- ent, unaffected — uniting the somewhat brusque manner of Napoleon's soldier with the polished address that would have charmed the court of Louis XV. — in my recollections of General , I almost see a militaiy model for the rising generation of his country. When I knew this very remarkable person, fatigue, sickness, and meditation — the toils of war, and the changes of climate, had bronzed the fine, and delicate, and woman- like features of his youth, and rendered a countenance which was naturally effeminate, severe and stern. General was acquainted with all subjects, and spoke well upon all ; but his sentiments did not come from him with that easy flow, or with that passionate vehemence, which marks the man of imagination and enthusiasm : they were rather delivered in observa- tions, separate and apart, observations remarkable for the tact with which they were turned, acute, elegant, and especially satiric. The great man of his time — legislator, warrior, statesman — he could not have been either of those men in whom these characters were most remarkably found conjoined. More vain and imperious than the simple Washington ; more generous and patriotic than the selfish and ambitious Napoleon ; more cold and more proud than the fanatical and deceit- ful Cromwell ; he was too haughty to have sunk calmly into the private citizen of the republic, too just to have mounted the throne of the empire, too eloquent to have taken the mace from the table of a House of Commons. Fond of honour, he would have sacrificed it to liberty ; fond of liberty, he might have sacrificed it to glory ; the statesman, he would have been the soldier ; but in the camp he would not have resigned the Chamber. MILITARY INFLUENCE. 113 Fortunate in most things, Gen. was more espe- cially fortunate in living at the moment most favourable to his genius, and in dying at the moment most suscep- tible to his loss. These are characters taken from the society of France, and thus we see — now in the journalist with the sword in his hand— now in the general delivering his speech — the same influence still predominating ; and let it be so ! There are political truths equally applicable to all states arrived at a similar epoch of civilization ; but they will vary in their application according to the history, the customs, the ideas they meet with among the people to whom they are applied. To these varia- tions give a full and unlimited scope : it is the only method by which you can blend the ideas of the few with the habits of the many, and give the life which you derive from ancient customs to a new constitution. Where the same species of government finds a new soil, a different genius presides over its foundations. Thus may we see two oaks, whose height and grandeur are nearly the same, lifting with equal majesty their heads to heaven, but their roots will all the while be taking a different course ; for in nature and society there is a secret sympathy — and as the fibres of the tree will, if they meet a stone or a ditch, strike under it, in order to escape the obstacle or avoid the cold ; so the interior course of institutions, regulated by obscure causes, is oftentimes shaped in darkness, and escaping your observation, defies your control. France, then, may yet be able to blend a military spirit with a free constitution, and the sword which, appearing as an accident in England, banished the mace of civil authority from the House of Commons, seen here as a custom, may lie side by side with it in the Chamber of Deputies. This idea, as it seems to me, should be present to the monarch who governs the French : the people who have just mourned Lamarque 10* 114 MILITARY INFLUENCE. and Lafayette, saw in the general and the legislatof the type of their own mind.* ♦ Time that France has passed in war from the Thirteenth to the Eight eenth Century. In the fourteenlli century, forty -three years of war ; i. e. five of civil vvar, thirteen of war off the territory, twenty-five of war on the territory of France. — In this period there were fourteen great battles. — among others, that of Contrai, where the Flemish won four hundred pair of spurs from the French knights ; and that of Poictiers, where the King of France was taken prisoner. In the fifteenth century, seventy-one years ol war ; i. e. thirteen of civil war, forty-three of war on the territory, and fifteen of war carried out of the territory of France. Iio this period there were eleven great battles — Agincourt, Castillon, and Monthery were among the number. In the sixteenth century, eighty-five years of war ; i. e. forty- four of war off the French territory, eight of war on the French territory, and thirty-three of civil and religious war. — In this period there were twenty-seven great battles. In the seventeenth century, sixty-nine years of war ; i. e. eleven of civil war, fifty-two of war carried off the French territory, and six of religious war. — In this period there were thirty-nine great battles. In the eighteenth century, fifty-eight years of war ; i. e. one of religious war, six of civil war, and fifty-one of war off the French territory. Thus in the space of five centuries we have : Civil war 35 years. Rehgious war 40 years. On the French territory 76 years. Off the French territory 175 years. Total 326 years. During which time were fought one hundred and eighty-four great battles. LITERARY INFLUENCE. The anniversary of Moliere — Speech of M. Thiers — The man of letters is what the Baron and the Courtier were— The hterary man in France is what he is not in America, Germany, and England — Election of Finsbury — The false conclusions drawn during the re- form bill, as to the respect which would be afterward felt for men of letters— How a love of letters grew up in France — The causes that extend a power need not be those which have created it — If you wish to create a love for the arts and for science in England, how you must do it — Dr. Bowring's evidence on silk trade — What are the advantages that England would derive from a taste for the arts — How men of science and letters have been encouraged in France — List — Public establishments in France — Ecole des arts et metiers — What is honoured by the state is honoured in society — Situation of literary men in France and hterary men in England — Unhappy situation of the latter — Causes — The French niight even derive more advantages than they have yet done from their national love of science and letters — New aristocracy that might be base; I upon it. I6th January^ 1832. It is the anniversary of Mo« Here " Le Theatre Frangais joue ' le Misan- thrope' et ' le Malade Imaginaire,' avec la ceremonie. Mademoiselle Mars, et I'elite de la troupe joueront dans cette representation. L'anniversaire de la naissance de Moliere sera aussi celebre au Faubourg St. Ger- main. L'Odeon jouera ' Tartuffe' et ' le Medecin mal- gre lui.' "* I copy this paragraph from the newspaper. Every year, on the same day, is observed and cele- brated the birthday of Moliere, by the great theatre of France.! On this day one of his comedies is invari- ably given, and the best performers, male and female, * " The French Theatre will give ' The Misanthrope' and ' The Malade Imaginaire,' with the usual ceremony. Mademoiselle Mars and the ilite of the company will perfonn in this representation. The anniversary of Moliere will also be celebrated in the Faubourg St. Germain. The Odeon will give the ' Tartuffe' and the • Medecin malgr6 lui.' " t The great comedian's bust is placed in the middle of the theatre ; the comedians, all in the costume of some of the great parts in Mohere, walk in procession round the theatre, salute the assembly, and depose, one after the other, a laurel branch at the foot of the statue. 116 LITERARY INFLUENCE. appear in any part, however inconsiderable, that may be assigned to them. Some piece, made for the oc- casion, as the " Menage de Moliere," follows, or an ode in honour of the great French dramatist is recited, and the evening concludes with the ceremony, sacred in the place where it is performed, " the Crowning of the Statue of Moliere," amid the shouts and the tears, the religious joy and veneration, with which the populace of Paris hail a triumph of the arts. One of the influences most powerful in France, and most visible in every society of France, is undoubt- edly the influence of letters. " I begin my political life," said M. V. Hugo, when his tragedy of " Le Roi s'amuse" was prohibited ; and in a country where the public take so deep and lively an interest in literature, the prohibition of a tragedy is, in fact, the commence- ment of a political life. At the very moment I am writing, the words yet ring in my ear which I heard one of the most distinguished members address the other evening to the Chamber of Deputies : — "And I — I who am speaking to you, ' messieurs,' when peo- ple talk to you of an aristocracy, what am I ? What am I, whom you think worthy of your attention ; who take my place on yonder bench, by the side of men who have gained battles ;* by the side of men bear- ing the noblest namesf in France ? What am I, 'messieurs,' but an humble man of letters, whom a 'little talent, kindly noticed, introduced among you ?" There are countries, the monarchs of which show an enlightened sense of the dignity with which men of learning and science decorate their dominions — there are countries in which you will find ambassa- dors and ministers as eminent for their literary attain- ments as for their high political station ; but in no country do literature and science open so free, and honourable, and independent a career as in that France which M. Thiers addressed from the National Tri- bune, in the few touching words that I have just cited. * Looking at Marshal Soult. f Looking at the Due de Broghe. LITERARY INFLUENCE. 117 •'Overturn the monarchy: — Give me the liberty of *.h;e press, and I will restore it in six months,"* was the noble expression of an author confident in his talent, confident in the genius of his countrymen, and only wrong in the folly of his cause. A great writer in France is a great power. The baron of feudal times sallied forth against his neighbour, or his sove- reign, with his armed retainers at his heels ; and in those days of violence the goodness of the right de- pended on the goodness of the sword ; the courtier in France, who succeeded the baron, abandoned the glaive and the gauntlet — for the Graces — and trusted to an appropriate smile and a well-turned compliment for the success of his career. But mark yonder pale young man ; feeble in his person, slovenly in his dress — holding his pen with a trembling hand, doubled up over his paper! That young man has come from some mean abode, from some distant province, where, amid penury and insignificance, with his eyes now fixed on the page of history, now on the heading of a newspaper, he has long indulged his reveries of immor- tality and his hopes of power.f In him see the baron and the courtier of the day ; he attacks the monarch or the minister, but it is not with the falchion and the lance. He glides into the cabinet and the boudoir, not in a powdered wig and an embroidered waistcoat, but bound in vellum. He does not measure his force or his address with yours, but his intelligence : he is the person to admire ; he is the person to fear ; he is the person — in France which he is nowhere else. He is the person in France that he cannot be in America, for there is no superstition for the arts in America; the vanity of wealth, the natural conse- * M. de Chateaubriand. t Mirabeau, consulted by the Queen of France ; and the Institut admitted to the Council of Napoleon : — these are the pictures present to the young man who, in some remote village, surrounded by pov- erty, and bom a httle above the plough, pursues with indefatigable f)erseverance studies which he sees every day conducting his fel- ows to the highest situations in letters and the state, and which, if sometimes a cause of misery to himself, are still a source of energy, and strength, and prosperity to his country. 34 118 LITERARY INFLUENCE. quence of a nation depending wholly on its industry and its commerce, predominates over the diviner thoughts and more graceful occupations of letters. He is the person in France that he cannot be in Ger- many, for in Germany a " ron" before your name is a matter of social necessity; for in Germany, to be " well born," or to be " nobly bom," or to be " right- nobly born," is a matter submitted to historical rules, and the superscription of a letter demands the pro- foundest study, the most accurate knowledge, the nicest distinctions. He is the person in France that he can- not be in England — for in England, politics is the only passion of the men, fashion the only idol of the women — for in England, to be a blockhead is far more par- donable than to live in a bad street — for in England, to have voted against the house and window-tax would make you of far more consequence than to have writ- ten the profoundest work on legislation. Observe ! Messrs. Cousin, and Villemain, and Royer Collard are made peers, because they are very learned and eloquent professors. M. Lamartine is elected a representative of the French people on account of his poems — M. Arago on account of his mathematical acquisitions — M. Thiers on account of his talent as a journalist and an historian. This takes place in France — and what takes place in England ? THE CLOSE OF THE POLL AT A LATE CONTEST. Buncombe _ . - - 2,497 Pownall - - - - 1,839 Wakley ... - 677 BABBAGE - - . . 383 The most distinguished man of science ai this mo- ment in England, appears upon the hustings as can- didate for a great metropolitan district ; he professes liberal but moderate opinions, such as a life of reflec- tion usually engenders. How is he received ? Do the people feel grateful and flattered by the philosopher's appearing among them as a solicitor for popular hon- LITEHARV INFLUENCK. 119 ours ? Do tliey esteem his search after their favour as ahuost the highest compliment that could be paid to popular rights ^ Are they sensible to the circumstance, that the individual who appears before them and says, " I prefer the pursuit which you can give me — I prefer the honours that you can confer upon me — I prefer the life that is to be passed in combating for your rights and your rewards, to the pursuits which have made me known throughout Europe, to the honours which would be showered upon me by every learned corporation — to the life that in calm and quiet would lead me to an immortal reputation" — Are they even aware that the person who says, or might say all this, is raising to the highest possible pitch the character and the career of a free state ? Are they proud and conscious of the fact, that the man who offers to sacrifice his energies to their cause has — at the very moment he does so — the eyes of the learned and the wise directed from every corner of Europe on his labours ? No, they see nothing of this ; they feel nothing of this. Mr. Buncombe's abilities and principles fully justify, in my opinion, the choice of his electors. — I do not speak of Mr. Duncombe then, — but mark ! the un- known Tory, the violent and eloquent demagogue — every kind of man is preferred to the man of science — and the person who, perhaps, more than any other without exception in this country, would, if he went to Paris, or even to Berlin, or Petersburg, or Vienna, be courted and honoured by all who themselves received honour and courtship, hardly obtains one-half of the votes of any other description of persons in the popular borough of Finsbury !* * I know there are some little minds ready at once to say — a man of science is not fitting to be a politician. No view is so narrow, so contrary to truth, to history, and to experience. In the three greatest politicians and generals of past times — Alexander, Julius Csssar, and Napoleon Bonaparte — their love of letters and their knowledge of science are at least as conspicuous as their other attainments. The greatest orators and politicians that England has ever produced — Hampden, Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, Pulteney, the Pitts, Fox, Shendan, Windham, Canning, Burke, and, let me add, Lord 120 LITEKARY INFLUENCl.. I dwell the more upon this, because the most crude conclusions are drawn frequently from what are falsely seen as analogous facts. In the discussion on the re- form bill, it was frequently argued that if the people of England had the free choice of their representatives, they would be sure to choose men of science and liter- ature, because the people in France did — and this passed for excellent reasoning ! Nay, if any one had Brougham, and Sir Robert Peel, and Lord John Russell, and Sir John Hobhouse — have all been men of letters and of business ; sin- cerely and deeply attached to academical as to political pursuits ; and finding time, as all men of active and clear minds do find time, for elevating and enlarging their views, for cultivating and improving their judgment and their fancy, as well as for handling and grappling with state aflfairs. " As for matter of policy and government," says Bacon, " that learning should rather hurt than enable thereunto, is a thing very improbable ; we see it is accounted an error to commit a natural body to empiric physicians, who commonly have a few pleasing receipts, whereupon they are confident and advantageous, but know neither the causes of diseases, nor the complexions of pa- tients, nor peril of accidents, nor the true method of cures ; we see it is a hke error to rely upon advocates and lawyers, who are only men of -practice, and not grounded in their books, who are many times easily surprised when matter falleth out besides their experience, to the prejudice of the causes they handle ; so, by like reason, it cannot be but a matter of doubtful consequence, if states be managed by empiric statesmen, not well mingled with men grounded in learning. But contrariwise, it is almost without instance contradictory, that ever any government was disastrous that was in the hands of learned governors. For however it hath been ordinary with politic men to ex- tenuate and disable learned men by the names of pedants, yet in the records of time it appeareth in many particulars, that the government of princes in minority (notwithstanding the infinite disadvantage of that kind of state) have nevertheless excelled the government of princesof mature age, even for the reason which they seek to traduce, which is, that by that occasion the state hath been in the hands of pedants. Nay, let a man look into the government of the bishops of Rome, as by name, into the government of Pius Quintus and Sextus Quintus, in our times, who were both, at their entrance, esteemed but as pedantical friars, and he shall find that such popes do greater things, and proceed upon truer principles of state than those who have ascended to the papacy from an education and breeding in affairs of state and courts of princes. Neither can the experience of one man's life furnish examples and precedents for the events of one man's hfe : for as it ha])peneth sometimes that the grandchild, or other descendant, resembleth the ancestor more than the son ! so many times occurrences of present times may sort better with ancient examples than with those of the latter or immediate times ; and lastly, the wit of one man can no more countervail learn- ing, than one man's means can hold way with a common purse," — and so he continues proving the activity of learned men in public affairs. — See Bacon's Advancem£nt of Learning. LITERACY INFLUENCF. 121 possessed sufficient information for this, he might have pushed the argument still further, and proved pretty plausibly, that what happened in France would happen in a far greater degree in England. For instance, there rises a member of the House of Commons ! — " Sir, the honourable gentleman says, that if the people of England had the choice of their representatives, men of science and letters would be excluded from this assembly. Was ever any thing so absurd ? I beg gen- tlemen not to be drawn away by idle theories and vague declamations. I beg them to pay attention to facts. I beg them to see what happens from the people choosing their representatives in one country, and then draw their conclusions as to what would happen in another. When we are talking of England, let us look to France. In France, it is undeniable, that men of letters and science are actually hunted out of their retreats, in order to be honoured with popular favours. Who does not remember M. Royer Collard, that learned professor, a man of no violent opinions, being chosen by eight different colleges ? Well, sir, but are we less likely to choose men of letters and science than the people of France ? Let us, I say again, look to facts. In France, there is not more than one person in three who can read and write. But in England and Wales, taken upon an average, we find out of 14,000,000, nearly 7,000,000, that is nearly one in every two, who receive education. Is it not likely, is it not certain, that the most educated people will set the highest value on the acquisitions of knowledge ? (Hear, hear !) Is not this clear, is not this incontrovertible ? (Hear, hear, hear.) Sir, I say, that that which happens in France will happen in a greater degree in England, and that the honourable gentleman is as wrong in his conclu- sions as he was violent in announcing them." (Loud cheers.) " Those were ver}^ sensible remarks." — "Yes, yes, he gave it him well," say two old whig gentle- men, on the third of the treasury benches. Yet never was there such stuff, such miserable twopenny halt- penny twaddle ! Never was man more completely 122 LITERARY INFLUENCE. wrong than the orator whom we will paint triumphing, if you please, in his success — never was man so wrong — And why? For the best, and shortest, and simplest, and most incontrovertible of all reasons — be- cause he was wrong ; because the people of England, though there are more of them who read and write than there are of the people of France, have not, and will not, and cannot have for long years to come, that love for letters and the arts, that respect for men of science and letters which the French have, and which the French had — when, in caligraphy and orthography, they were many times more ignorant than they are at present. It is folly to talk of reading and writing being alone sufficient to prevent crime. It is folly to imagine that reading and writing will necessarily open men's minds m an extraordinary degree to the perception of the ele- gant, and to a sense of the beautiful and the sub- lime. It will do this to a certain degree ; but people do not perceive that there will be other and pre-existent causes M^hich will influence the tastes, and the feelings, and the judgment, which writing and reading are cal- culated to produce — and that history, and society, and conquest, and even geographical position, all exercise as great an influence upon the knowledge derived from writing and reading, as the mere knowledge of writing and reading exercises upon the mind itself. They do not see this ; neither do they see that writing and read- ing form but a small part of the education of the man who also sees, and hears, and acts. No, nor do they even recognise that the natural perceptions of some men, and of some races of men, are quicker, and keener, and more acute than others — more likely to be acted upon by what pleases the senses than by what excites the mind — more likely to be afl^ected by the beautiful than by the useful — by the showy than by the solid. That there are two countries, in each of which a cer- tain number of the people read and write — proves what ? That in these two countries this certain number do write and read — it proves this — it proves nothing LITERARY INFLUENCK. 123 more than this — unless you can show that in every other respect the people in the two countries are alike. (f the French have an ardent passion for literature, a vast respect for men of letters, it is from a long series of facts, from a long train of events, as well as from a peculiar disposition with which these events and these facts naturally coincide. Here is a passion, here is a respect, which an increase of education, a spread of knowledge will tend to increase and spread, because to that education and to that knowledge an impulse has been already given — because the feelings originally existed in a small circle, which are therefore natu- rally extended, as that small circle extends, into a large one. When Louis the XIV. said to Racine, "What man do you think the greatest glory to my reign ?" and Racine answered, " Moliere," there was no free press, no national education, none of those vast and noisy engines at work by which we produce from the minds of the masses what is called public opinion. Now, as I said somewhere in the beginning of this book, that in a vain nation, sentiments and habits de- scend from the higher classes to the lower, as in a voluptuous nation they ascend from the lower to the higher. It was the policy of Richelieu and Louis XIV. — it was the taste of the regent, and the embroidered philosophy of the court of Louis XV., that gave to cer- tain classes that love for the arts and that esteem for their professors which the destruction of privileges, the division of property, all the circumstances which melted the court and the monarchy into the nation, blended with the great mass of the nation also. It is to kings and to courts that the French people originally owe the predilection which many of you, my countrymen, imagine to be naturally and necessarily the feeling of the multitude — it is from the education of the garden, of the gallery, and the theatre that those tastes have in a great measure been derived, which many of you would attribute wholly to the school. It is, moreover, as the camp succeeded to the court — from war and F2 124 LITERARV INFLUENCE. from conquest, — from the variety and the history which connect the chefs-d'oeuvres of Raphael and Mi- chael Angelo with the victories of Italy and Napoleon,* that a sentiment is felt for the picture-gallery and the statue-room, which many of you attribute to the im- provements and the refinements of peace. And it is again owing to the quick and vivid perceptions, to the enthusiastic and admiring character of the French themselves, that so strong an impulse has been given to the natural effect of the causes I have described. Some of you still think in your hearts, perhaps, that it is only to the press, to the Chamber, to the long num- ber of republican laws and free constitutions which have succeeded with so much rapidity in France, that a mere man of letters became all of a sudden so proud a title. It is just the reverse : it was not because there was liberty, but because there was despotism ; it was not because there was a free press, but because there was no free press ; it was not because there was a popular assembly, but because there was no popular assembly, — that literary men, as the only organs of en- lightened opinion, became towards the latter days of the old " regime" a second estate in the realm, and possessing extraordinary power, obtained an hereditary respect.f Such nonsense is it to embrace all advantages in * During the campaigns of Bonaparte, in addition to that know- ledge which the views of other countries and the necessary study of other customs must have produced with the soldiers abroad— war contributed to the education of the peasant left at home, and the conscript who wrote to his family on account of his exploits, stimu- lated the most ignorant of his village to acquire a knowledge neces- sary to give the key to so interesting a correspondence. And, in the same manner, from the successes of military despotism, the daily f»ress acquired an interest, an influence, and a power which at a ater period it used against that despotism itself. 1 1 need hardly say that, in stating what have been the causes of a feeling in France, which I would wish to see introduced into England, I by no means think the same causes necessary to introduce it into one country that did originally introduce it into the other. On the contrary, we must look at the feeling by itself, ask whether it is good or bad, advantageous or disadvantageous to a state — and if we de- cide, not in favour of its advantage, turn our thoughts to the considera- tion, — of what grafted it on the French character — but of what might graft it on ours. LITERARY INFLUENCK. 125 one system and to exclude them from another ; so ne- cessary is it in looking at the present to refer to tlie past ; so sure are we to be wrong, if we think one effect is always produced by one cause ; or to believe that the same events which confirm and extend a power have, as a matter of course, planted or pro- duced it. The authority of letters now extending and main- taining liberty in France, originated in despotism ; and the class carried by the revolution of July into ofHce^ was encouraged under the ministry of Napoleon, and created by the policy of Richelieu. If you wish, as I wish, my readers, to encourage the arts, to raise in public estimation the character of men ofleters in Eng- land, it is not by resigning yourselves to tlie belief that, because you find the one cultivated and the other re- spected where the people have power, the people having power will alone do this. Neither is it by imagining that ordinary education, which would be sufficient to spread and to increase a love for science and the arts where it already exists, is sufficient to generate that anection where it does not exist. Neither must you think that what has been produced by certain causes in one country requires the same causes to produce it in yours. If you wish to introduce a love of the arts and to elevate literary men in England, you must study the genius, the character, and the history of the English people. You must introduce the passion you wish to create, in the manner in which it can best blend with the dispositions that you find existing. If you wish to wake the attention of a cold and apathetic people to the arts, you must multiply statues and forms of beauty in your public walks — you must let your galleries and your collections stand with doors wide open to the pub- lic* If you wish to inspire a manufacturing people * There is no doubt that the best collections belonging— not to the state, but to individuals, and depending for their exhibition rather on private courtesy than on public advantage — has kept that taste among the higher classes, where it is only a personal accomplishment — from 11* 126 LITERARY IKFLUENCK. with any just idea of the vahie of sculpture and of paint- ing, you must not simply institute schools of painting and sculpture, but schools that shall connect painting and sculpture with manufactures. If you wish among an aristocratical people to raise the situation of men of science and men of letters, you must not merely in slitute universities and societies which shall keep men of letters and science apart from the rest of their fel low-citizens, you must confer such honours and dis tinctions upon literary and scientific labours, as are ob- tained in the army or at the bar, and not forbid the highest genius in literature to aspire to the same posi- tion and the same rank in society that even wealth and court favour are sufficient to give. I do not, for my own part, see only evil in that spe- cies of aristocracy which has long existed in England. 1 may elsewhere have occasion to observe why I think the modified continuance of such an aristocracy still desirable. But if it continue, it will be by the enlarge- ment and extension of that principle on which it has hitherto maintained itself — it will be by taking into its body all those who are formidable as its rivals. It will be by not considering itself apart from any set of men who confer public benefit or enjoy popular favour. Had I to choose between the two, I should certainly prefer the aristocracy of birth and of land to that which has bought its titles yesterday at the stock exchange. But the time is approaching when neither the one nor the other will be able to stand alone. The time is ap- the lower, where it is a source of national prosperity ; instead of en- deavouring to counteract this evil, the state seems to favour and to encourage it, and at the door of galleries called "public," you are impertinently, for it is "impertinently," requested to pay for your admission. Nor is this all. Whenever the question is agitated of how- much you ought to do to encourage national taste, it is always dis- cussed on the principle of how little you need do. Instead of seeing that, if we wish to rival France, we must do more than France, it is thought a most triumphant argument if we can show, that in any one instance, as in the opening of the museum, for example, we do as much as France. Nor are we at all sensible, that a taste important to the French, who are not a commercial and manufacturing people, would be of f^^ '"^ore importance to the English, who are devoted to commerce and manvfactures. LITERARY INFLUENCE. J 27 preaching when an hereditary aristocracy must receive support from an aristocracy that is not hereditary — and the alliance which it formerly made with talent in the House of Commons — be renewed under nobler and purer auspices in another assembly. But it is not here that I would pursue this subject. And now let me give a striking instance of the value and of the pervading nature of that literary influ- ence which extends over every thing in France, and which is so essentially wanting to decorate the indus- try, as well as to brighten and to cultivate the character in England. Dr. Bowring, in his evidence before the Silk Com- mittee in 1832, says, "I was exceedingly surprised (he is speaking of Lyons) at finding among weavers themselves, and among their children, and among every- body connected with the production of patterns, a per- petual attention to every thing which was in any way connected with hcauty and colour. I have again and again seen weavers walking about gathering jiowers^ and arranging them in their most graceful and attract- ive shape ;" and so, he says farther on, " I beg to state that the universal conviction in France is, that the French are wholly dependant on the superior beauty of their productions for their foreign sale, and the uni- versal desire among the manufacturers is to do some- thing which, in the '•regions of taste ^^ shall be better than that which is done by their neighbours." I do not know any thing more worthy of remark than the whole of this part of Dr. Bowring's evidence. The Mayor of Lyons, aware of the pressure which compe- tition is likely to bring upon the trade of his town, and taking the best means to avert the calamity, does — what ? Why, he supports and encourages a school, where the weaver may be taught painting, and sculp- ture, and botany ; and begs Dr. Bowring to send him — copies of the Elgin marbles from England ! But it is not only a superiority of colour or of pat- tern which this study of the arts produces ; the taste which it creates is not only present in the " atelier," 128 LITERARY INFLUENCE. and presiding- over the loom — it is at the very seat and capital of fashionable empire, viz. — in the milliner's shop. If the French milliner knows what colours best assimilate, where to put in a little bit of pink, and where a little stripe of brown — if she has a peculiar taste in arranging the set of a gown and the fall of a sleeve,* it is the work of laws, customs, years, and not the work of chance ; it is the effect of an influence cher- ished and created at the apex of society, and which has worked its Avay into the foundations of society — it is the effect of the causes which made Voltaire the idol of the court of Louis XV., which gave David the great cordon of honour, which made Bonapartef boast of * So far has this taste for the arts penetrated into the Tiation, and mingled witia all that is most national, that you find it enter into the occupations of the army, and many of the regiments amuse and occupy themselves by ornamontingwith statues, and fountains, and walks, the town in which they may happen to be stationed. But if i wished to give at once the most simple and striking instance of the influence of literature in France, I do not think I could give a better one than is to be found in the first nevi^spaper on Galignani's table. Observe, whatever the paper is, whatever the subjects of the day it has to speak of — observe, that literature, either in the review of a play, or in the review of a novel, or in an account of the lectures of a pro- fessor, is sure to occupy one third of its sides. Here it is not the lite- raryjournal separate from the political journal ; the same person who takes an interest in politics is supposed to take an interest in hterature ; and that to which I wish to draw particular attention, is the pubhc, and popular, and general mode which science, in the weekly account of its proceedings — proceedings which appear with all the other news of the day, has of corresponding with the public, and interesting and per- petually informing the public by its inquiries. I allude to the reports of the Institut, which appear in all the political newspapers, and carry to every extremity of France the daily and weekly discoveries of the metropolis. The savant appears before his brethren, he tells them what he has been doing during the week, and this information is in every body's hands almost as soon as it has passed the philo- sopher's lips. The circumstance of such reports finding their way into papers only professing to feed the public appetite, is no less extra- ordinary as a proof of the general taste for science, than valuable as a channel for its general diffusion. t I never heard louder applause than I did at Franconi's (our Astley's, and filled with a Parisian populace), when the actor, who was Napol6on for the night, had gave to this painter the same deco- ration which he had just been giving to Massena the general. And such was the feeling which lormerly made the French bow to a despot whom they had seen boast of being a man of science ! They had understood from that boast that their emperor placed the power of the mind above every other power, and the respect which they paid his tyranny spremg from the thought that it was governed by intelligence. LITERARY INFLUENCE. 129 being a member of the Institut of France, and which have brought, as I first said, Messrs. Lamartine, and Thiers, and Arago, into the Chamber of Deputies. If England could join to her talent for detail, to her power of perfecting and polishing the discoveries of others, to her sound and sterling sense — if she could join to the positive qualities which the practice of daily activity gives — the comprehension, the inven- tion, the elevation, which the study of vague and beau- tiful things inspires — more industrious than the states of Rome — more steady and resolute of spirit than the states of Greece — she would transmit to posterity a fame which antiquity has not left behind it. To enti- tle her to this fame, and to the riches, and to the ho- nour, and to the moral greatness which would accom- pany this fame — to make her mistress of the arts, and to keep her mistress of the seas — to spread with her wealth and her manufactures the love of the beautiful and the study of the sublime ; to make commerce a carrier to science, and to impress on a riband, which shall traverse the world, the triumphs of modern indus- try, and the aspirations of olden times ; — here is an object well worthy of a statesman — an object difficult, but not impossible io attain — an object the most noble, the most glorious, the most useful, that a British states- man 6ver yet pursued. But, reader, when you are shown the child of the ope- rative walking about the fields and gathering and arrang- ing flowers to improve the manufactures of Lyons- -you must at the same time see (for one circumstance is con- nected with the other) what every successive govern- ment has done for men of letters and science in France. The following are among the names of persons who, during the empire, the restoration, and since the revo- lution, have received the rewards and honours of the state on account of their literary and scientific attain- ments.* * In this list the members of the four classes of the Institut are not included, though all, as meml)ers of this institution, receive in- comes, the smallest of which is 1,500 francs, the largest 12,000 francs per annum. F3 130 LITERARY INFLUENCE. UNDKR Bernardin de St. Pierre, Legouve, Andrieux, Luce de Lancival, Piis (chansonnier), Baour Loriniran, Picard, Chenier, Lebrun (le Pindarique), Lebnm (Pierre), Millevoyc, Victorin Fabre, Jouy, Delrieu, Parseval Grandmaison, Treneuil, Parny, Tissot, Campenon, Roger, Creuze de Lessert, THE EMPIRE. Lacretelle, Chenedoll6, Castel, ' Soumet, Etienne, Mercier(du tableau de Paris), Laya, Bonald, Feletz, Palissot, Amauld, Esmenard, Delille, Cuvier, Fourrier, Villemain, Guillard, Rajmouard, Le Chevalier, Dacier. To'this list add the names of those persons whose literary talent raised them to the high ranks of the empire ! — Among the senators were : — Fontanes, Laplace, Lac6pede, Lebrun, Lagrange, Daru, Volney, Segur, Bougainville, Bassano, Tracy, Regnaud de St. Jean d'An- Pastoret, gely. Gamier, UNDER ' rHE RESTORATION. Chateaubriand, Mazeres, Ancelot, Barante, Delaville, Augustin Thierry, V. Hugo, Guiraud, Nodier, Aime Martin, Briffaut, Auger, Chazet (30,000 francs) c'est J. Bonald. un chansonnier, SINCE THE REVOLUTION OF JULY. P. Lebrun, • Amauld, p^re, Tissot, I reparation ; they had been deprived ol their pensions. LITERARY INFLUENCE. 131 Benjamin Constant, Mery, Thiers, Jouy, Mignet, D'Lpagny, Alex. Duval, Lucien Arnauld, Say, Augustin Thierry (augmenta- Casinair Delavigne, tioii), Casimir Bonjour, Rouget de Lisle (auteur de Barthelemy, la Marseillaise). Made Peers. Cousin, Royer Collard, Villemain, Berlin de Vaux, &c For the number of libraries, and for the number of books which these libraries contain, relative to the population in the different departments of France (the department of the Seine excepted), I refer the reader to the Appendix ; but as the provinces are far behind the capital, it is worth while remarking, that in Paris the public has three volumes to every two individuals. i. e. there are 1,378,000 volumes. 774,000 individuals. For the number of works published in literature, the arts, and on science, I also refer my reader to the Ap- pendix, where he will find a statement of the numbers of societies founded by the state, or by individuals, for the advancement of different branches of knowledge among different classes of society. Among these I would here, however, mention — " Ecole royale gratuite de Mathematique et de Dessin en faveur des Arts Micaniques,^^ where five hundred children, the children of artisans, receive in- struction gratis. Observe, that this school was founded in 1760, and authorized by the letters patent of Louis XV. " Ecole royale et gratuite de Dessin de jeunes per- sonnes," where drawing in its various branches is taught for the same purpose. The School of St. Peter, at Lyons — and for an ac- count of which I refer to Dr. Bowring's evidence on the Silk Committee, which I have alluded to, and which I may give in the Appendix — andLesEcoles royalesdes Arts et Metiers ; the one at Chalons (Morne),the other at Angers, Maine-et-Loire. Here, the boys going at fourteen 132 LITERARY INFLUENCF. pr seventeen years of age, stay three years, and study every thing which can conduce to their understanding or practising their profession with skill and intelligence. They are not only taught the principles of science that would be applicable to their craft, they are made to apply those principles. They work in the carpenter's shop, at the forge, they handle the hammer and the file, and every pains is taken to make them at once clever men and good mechanics. In order to confine these institutions strictly to persons connected with in- dustry, none by a late rule are allowed to enter them who have not served for one year as apprentice to a trade. Some of the children are apprentices to fathers, who can afford to pay five hundred francs per year, the ordinary sum which those not admitted gratuitously pay ; but there are one hundred and fifty who pay only half of this ; one hundred and fifty who only pay three quarters ; one hundred and fifty who pay nothing : be- sides, as prizes are distributed to those boys who dis- tinguish themselves, many, who enter at two hundred and fifty francs per annum, gain their pension before the time is expired.* It only remains for me to ob- serve, that so entirely does the government abstain from any improper influence in the patronage of these schools, those who are sent at a less rate than the five hundred francs, i. e. for two hundred and fifty francs, or for three hundred and seventy-five francs, or for nothing, are named on an examination bj/ a jury of the different departments. It is impossible to calculate the advantages of these establishments, since such advantages are not to be estimated by the number of persons who receive in- struction, but by the extension which, through them, that instruction receives, and by the emulation which, through them, that instruction excites. It is by the union of practice and theory, of science and its appli- cation ; it is by the ecole polytechnique in one class, * On quitting these schools, the pupils are placed out advantage- ously, according to their profession and their proficiency in it. LITERARY INFLUENCE 133 and these institutions in another ; it is by these two fountains which, starting from two different sources, meet and blend in the great stream of social civiliza- tion, that the French are now extending the advantages of literary influence, and at the same time correcting the defects it was likely to engender But if 1 have an opportunity of speaking more fully of industry and education, then will be the time to pursue the discussion of these matters — it pleases me now to turn back from the artisan and the workshop to the fine lady and the salon, and to show the same spirit presiding over the two extremes. As the literaiy man is honoured in the state, so is he honoured in society. At Madame D 's, at Madame de M 's, at Madame de R 's, you meet all the literary men who belong to all the differ- ent political opinions. Indeed, wherever you go, be sure that the person particularly noticed, if not a remarkable officer — is a remarkable writer. This is the case in France, where we are met on the one hand by the evidence of Dr. Bowring — on the other by the list of pensions, donations, and appoint- ments that I have submitted to the reader. This is the case in France, where the advancement of men of letters seems to go hand in hand with the advance and progress of manufactures. But in England — where men of letters are least esteemed, and yet where industry ought to be most encouraged — what is the case in England and in the society of England ? A literary Frenchman whom I met not long ago in Paris, said to me, that a good-natured young English nobleman, whom I will not name, had told him that dancers, and singers, &c. were perfectly well received in English society, but not men of letters. *' Est-il possible qu'on soit si barbare chez vous V said the French gentleman to me. I think the young nobleman, to whom the persons pursuing literature in England must be very much obliged, rather exaggerated. I do not think the door is actually bolted upon you directly you are found out to write — but I think it is 12 134 LITERARY INFLUENCE. Opened to you with a much more cautious air — and I am quite sure it would not be opened to you wholly and solely because you had written. To be known as a writer is certainly to your preju- dice. First — people presume you are not what they call a " gentleman," and the grandfather who, if you were a banker, or a butcher, or of any other calling or profession, would be left quiet in his tomb, is evoked against you. If this exhumation take place in vain, if a gentle genealogy be established, and the fact of your being, in vulgar parlance, " a gentleman," placed beyond denial, then your good blood is made the reservoir of all evil passions ; you are obligingly painted as the incarnation of envy, of malice, and all uncharitable- ness ; your picture is drawn in some friendly maga- zine, twisted into contortions that would terrify all the witches of the Hebrides. You have got a horrid nose, red hair, and a heart blacker than all Valpy's, and Whittingham's, and Bentley's printing devils could paint it. At last your banker's book is looked into, and it is found out or presumed that you are poor, or if you are not poor, it is quite clear that you are penurious. You refused ten guineas to a dozen poorer authors than yourself, and did not give 100/., as you ought to have done, to the Literary Fund. How many gentlemen have refused, and how many gentlemen would refuse their purse to a poetical impos- tor, without being pelted with every species of abuse, as Horace Walpole was on that story of Chatterton, and simply because Horace Walpole, though a gentle- man, and a moderately rich man, was also, unfortu- nately for him, an author ! How many people does one meet quite as be-mummified and twice as ill- natured and disagreeable as poor Mr. R s, and who yet are neither called dead men nor such very odious and disagreeable men, as everybody, chuckling, calls poor Mr. R , because — he is an author ! A thousand husbands are as bad as Lord Byron ever was, and yet they are not cut, nor called diabolical, and Satanic, as poor Lord Byron was cut and called all LITERARY INFLUENCE. 135 this, because Lord Byron was an author. It is a most singular thing, but hardly is a man pointed out in England as having wielded a pen with tolerable suc- cess, than everybody spits upon him every kind of venom. Some — many of the reasons for this difference between France and England — I have stated. They belong to history ; they belong to the past ; they belong to the fact, that a monarchy governed in France which sought to humble the aristocracy, while an aristocracy governed in England which sought to abase the Com- mons. But there are three causes which more espe- cially operate at the present time to maintain the dis- tinction originated by former laws, and customs, and intentions. First — The influence of'Womo:i in France, and the higher cast of their thoughts and their pursuits. Sec- ondly — The " esprit de corps," which in France, as connected with the natural vanity of the French, I have already noticed. And lastly, the state of property in France — the state of property, which enters more than people imagine, into every relation of life, into every production of human intelligence, into every law passed for social happiness, and which, when we consider the present state of France, it is most especially our duty to keep before us. The greater frivolity of English women, and conse- quently the greater frivolity of English society, neces- sarily create a kind of fear and horror among that body for a being who, having been guilty of writing, is supposed, oftentimes very fallaciously, to have been guilty of thinking, and who is therefore considered what a sober man would be by a set of drunken asso- ciates, viz. — a bore and a critic. The esteem which every man sets upon himself in England — so different from the vanity which makes every man in France connect himself, wherever he can, with all that is greater than himself, induces persons to view with jealousy instead of with pride, any man who, employ- 136 LITERARY INFLUENCE. ing no more pens ink, and paper than he does, con- trives to make a greater reputation. His first saying is, " that man cannot be cleverer than I am." Then he says, " Why should he be more suc- cessful ?" Then he hates and abhors him because he is more successful ; and then he very naturally abuses him because he abhors him. No men in France hang more together than literary men ; no men defend their order with more tenacity. M. Thiers, as " ministre," does not forget that he is " homme de lettres." No men in England pull one another so much to pieces. When Mr. Brougham, when Mr. Macaulay first appeared as politicians, all the papers, and all the newspaper writers, poured forth their ridicule and their abuse on these literary young men who presumed to make speeches. It was utterly impossible, shouted forth all these gentlemen, — employed themselves every day, by-the-by, in writing and deciding upon the politics of Europe, — for any man who had also written, to have any notion of these politics. It was indignation, it was scorn, it was vituperation, that these two gentlemen excited, just among those very persons who in France would have been most proud and most happy to say : " We are delighted at Mr. Brougham's or Mr. Macau- lay's eloquence ; it shows the advantages of a culti- vated taste ; the position which literary men might and ought to aspire to" — secretly whispering to themselves, " and we too are literary men." As for property and its division in France, that subject is one too vast for me here to do more than glance at. But it is easily seen that where fortunes are not of themselves sufficient to make great and important dis- tinctions ; where every person is more or less in the situation of the basket-maker and the nobleman among the savages, and chiefly dependant for what he receives on what he is able to do : it is easy to see. that where the pen easily procures an income, which not three thousand persons possess from land, the profession of "Writing must hold a different rank from that which it LITKUAKY INFLUENCE. 137 occupies in a country where fortunes are sufficiently great to overbalance every other distinction. There are many things to say in disparagement and in favour of this, which, as I said before, I should wish to say more amply and satisfactorily, if I have the opportunity, elsewhere — which I should wish to say — ■ after having more fully explained the various effects for good and evil which the great division of property in France has produced ; effects which I shall presently attempt to trace in some matters which many would suppose they could hardly reach. But I cannot conclude this chapter without observ- ing, that even in France people do not seem sufficiently aware of the end to which the influence of intelligence and the insignificance of fortune must necessarily lead them. They do not seem sufficiently aware of the necessity of recognising, and more fully establishing that aristocracy — for aristocracy in every country there must be — that aristocracy which time and taste have already recognised ; an aristocracy which would be powerful because it is national ; which would be safe because it is peaceably created ; and which when peaceably created and historically established in a nation, is the most rational, because the best calculated to combine change with conservation, and moderation with improvement. Yet may we see a new Chamber of Peers taken from the category of the Academy and the Institut ;* yet may we see the concentration and the representation * The Institut, even at present, opens to the French a double am- bition, and a double career. It is there that the national character is represented, and that the national distinctions blend and meet. M. Thiers seeks the title of academician with an ardour at least equal to that wliich has carried him so far in the Chamber of Deputies. The Due de Raguse was as proud of the title of " Membre de I'lnsti- tut," as that of " Marechal de France." In that society the statesman is brought into honourable connection with the Doet ; the philosopher with the soldier. In that society the passionate man, the hterary man, the active man, the studious jnan, are blended together ; a prac- tical energy is given to speculation, a nobility to ambition. The warrior, the orator, ennoble their conceptions by science ; the his- torian, the professor, correct their theones bjr experience — the one learns to act with dignity, the other to think with truth. 12* 138 LITERATURE. of the intelligence of the kingdom more fully recog- nised as the proper mediator between the throne^ which its political science would teach it to preserve, and the people, whom its natural affections would pre- vent it from betraying. LITERATURE. Literature — Society in a transitory state — Every epoch in civilization bears its certain fruit— Afterwrard, that society wears out, or must be invigorated by a new soil — A new stratum for society produced in France a new era — The genius of this era first visible in the Army — Now in Literature — What I intend to do in speak- ing of French literature. The three influences most popular in society, and most consulted with the character and the history of France, are then — the influence of arms, the influence of women, and the influence of letters — and the gov- ernment that is wise will not endeavour to destroy, but will endeavour so to mould and employ these in- fluences as to invigorate and embellish the institutions — to improve and to elevate the social existence of the French. But there is another influence, an influence to which I have just been alluding — an influence of more modern growth, twining itself in with the his- tory, incorporating itself with the character of the na- tion — an influence which, while other influences de- scend from the past, is now creating a future — an in- fluence which, as I have just been speaking of the in- fluence of literature, I will trace through the labours of literature itself. "We are not, as it seems to many, in the epoch of any peculiar revolution, but in an era of general trans- formation. All society is on the change. What pe- riod will see this movement cease, God alone caii say." LITKRATUUK. 139 *' To what end is society directing itself? Behind us, ruins ; before us, an impenetrable obscurity ; where we are, a terrible inquietude. Religions fall, other religions rise, or attempt to rise ; the confusion of literary and political opinions is what has rarely been before." These are two passages, the one from M. Chateau- briand, the other from the preface of a youthful poet,* who seemed at one time likely to represent the char- acter of his times. Society indeed is, in France, as it is all over the world, in a state of transition ; so is society always, we may say, for civilization, retrogad- ing or advancing, never standing still. So is society always ; yet there are periods to which the epithet of " transitory" may be peculiarly applied ; for there are periods at whieh it is more evident than at others, that a movement is taking place. No fixed taste predomi- nates ; there is an incongruity in all things, a want of unity, a want of harmony ; the sons have passed beyond the recognised rule of their sires, but they have not yet found any for themselves. They are on the search, they try, they abandon, they adopt, they forsake. Each has his own scheme, his own thought : looking at them separately, these schemes, these thoughts are diverse : viewing them together, they appear less unlike, for there is always a general tendency throughout them all, a general tendency to The New Age, in which there will be unity, in which there will be harmony, in which there will be an insensibility to the movement that must always be going on. For society has its resting- places, at which it collects and breathes itself; at which it prepares for new efforts, engendering new ideas — ideas which, until they triumph over those more antiquated, are unheeded ; and then comes an- other epoch of doubt, uncertainty, and search. So is it for ever f That we are in one of those periods of search ard discovery, of mingling and jarring doubts, of disputes, * M, Barbier. t The reign of Louis XIV. was a stationary epoch ; remark the 140 LITERATURE. pretensions, and contradictions — that we are in one of those periods which the world calls " transitory," and which ought rather to be called " confused," there is no denying ; but the vague truism which M. de Cha- teaubriand so pompously puts forth may hardly pass for a description of the peculiar genius which sepa- rates modern France from ancient France. Every epoch of civilization bears its certain fruit ; - but to get a further produce you must stir and upturn the ground anew, and invigorate the earth that is grown fatigued and old by mingling it with a fresh and uncul- tivated soil. This is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of necessity ; it is the law of nature, the law of the world, which, incessantly perishing, is inces- santly providing means for its regeneration and sup- port. The form of society which, since the period of Richelieu, had been gradually developed, was arrived, at the period of the revolution, at its utmost state of refinement, and exhausted in the school of the eigh- teenth century all its powers. The wit, the grace, the incredulity, the scientific vice, the cold and bloodless philosophy of a blazS^d, debauched, and clever court could produce nothing more than "la pucelle," — "I'esprit," — "les liaisons dangereuses." What could come after the philosophers, and the poets, and the novelists of Louis XV. and Louis XVL — what could come after the profligate productions of an age, the life and spirit of which were completely enervated and worn out, but a long imbecility or a total change ? A total change took place, a new era came, for a new similarity between the government and the manners and the literature which existed then ; remark the similarity, the harmony, if I may so express myself, between a royal ordonnance, a poem of Racine, a court dress, and a cabriole chair. Every thing was grand, stately, ceremonious, decorous ; rigid in its rules of art and etiquette ; the same genius presided over the drama that regulated the cotillon. It was the age of the court, of the unities, of the minuet. The reaction from the solemn regularity of one period was the irreligious disorder of the other : then men had thought too much ; they wished to think no longer, and for a time the empire of action and of the sword replaced tlie Uieoretic realities of t^e revolutionary tribune. LITERATURE. 141 Stratum for society was laid, — a new era came, in which France was formed of new materials, endowed with new thoughts, and clothed with new expressions. The genius of this dawning time did not first make itself visible in literature ; for it is a mistake to sup- pose that, because literature sometimes represents the mind of an epoch, it does so always. It does so only when that mind is not otherwise and more forcibly ex- pressed. This is why the character of the empire was traced — not with the pen, but with the sword ; while the placid sweetness of Delille and the com- monplace prettiness of M. Jouy were striking as a contrast to the marvellous magnificence of their age. But from the fall of Napoleon, philosophy and letters have been gradually assuming an ardent spirit and a vivid colouring, analogous with the glory and the fever of that man's reign. It would be far, I fear, beyond the compass of this work to enter fully into the merits of the different existing writers, or even to take an ex- tended critical survey of the different species of wri- ting now most popular in France. This I should have wished if I had been able to devote a volume to the purpose. But all that I now hope is, to show that a great change has taken place in French literature — connected with the nature and the causes of which change we shall easily trace an influence — the influ- ence of which I have spoken — and which, in affecting the literature, has not less affected the philosophy, and the religion, and the society, and the government of tho French people. 25 HISTORY. Consider History and the Drama — France for the first time remark- able for historical composition — The old Chronicles, the Memoirs that succeeded them — The history of the eighteenth century — The history of the nineteenth — The first brought a bastard kind of an- tiquity into your parlour, the last carries men back into antiquity itself — Michaud — Barente — Thierry — Thiers — Mignet — Guizot — Sismondi — Chateaubriand — The modern French Historian is hke the old French Novelist, and attempts rather to paint than to describe — Why? — History only interesting to those persons whose actions make history, and whose fortunes are affected by it — The diffusion of honours, of employments, of property, has diffused the interest of history — The Historian writes now to a country where he wrote formerly to a clique— He adopts, therefore, a popular style, and ap- peals to the senses instead of to the judgment. Confined, as I now am, in the observations I have to make on this part of my subject, I shall proceed to consider French literature in its two most important divisions — History and the Drama ; and perhaps the first thing to strike us in the present literature of France is, that it is, for the first, pre-eminent in historical com- position. The old chronicles, indeed, were bold and rigorous — the bones, if I may use such an expression, with which a history might have been formed ; but the innumer- able memoirs which succeeded them, and in which the courtly times of France are handed down to posterity, appear as compiled exaggerations of the fashionable .icles which could to-day be taken from the Morn- mg Post. Alas ! the authors of these memoirs never spoke, wrote, or thought of the nation. They were satisfied in recording the minutest whisper that creeped around the precincts of the throne. " Have you heard the most miraculous, the most extraordinar}^, the most stupendous thing in the world ?" says Madame de Se- vigne, in her memorable letter which announced the possibility of a princess of the house of Orleans con- HISTORY. 143 descending to ally herself with the Due de Lauzun. M. de Turenne, says D'Angeau — from the utmost height of his sublime gravity — M. de Turenne, eldest son of M. de Bouillon, and " grand chambellan en sur- vivance," struck the king's nose the other day in giving him his shirt. " Le roi se promena dans ses jardins ou il s'amuse k voir planter, il faisait un tems effroyable et le cha- peau du roi etait perce : on envoya le port-manteau chercherun autre. Le port-manteau donna le chapeau au Due de Nismes qui sert pour le D. d'Aumont qui est en annee. Le Due de Nismes le presenta au roi ; mais Mons. de la Rochefoucauld pretendit que c'etait a lui de le donner et que le D. de Nismes empietait sur ses fonctions. Ceci a fait une assez grande affaire entre eux quoiqu'ils fussent bons amis." " On one of his days of business, Louis XIV.," says Madame de Maintenon's memoirs, " remained with this lady but a short time before the minister came in, and a still shorter time after he had gone out. His majesty went to the ' chaise percee^^ returned to the bed of Madame de Maintenon, where he stood for a few minutes, and then wishing her good-night, sat down to table." The enumeration of facts like these is so far im- portant : when you see what the court was that gov- erned the country, you may come pretty accurately to the conclusion that the country was very ill governed. But for thinking of the country at all, as you read some hundreds of volumes, you are entirely indebted to a patriotic imagination. After the great tire which destroyed Rennes, there were discovered among the ruins different coagulated masses of various colours, out of which a vast number of pretty ornaments were made ; and it was from these useless trinkets on some ladies' dress that the greater part of France became informed that the capital of a province had been de- stroyed. So, during the whole period I am speaking of, it is to some trumpery toy, to some paltry passion, to some miserable closet-wise intrigue, to some crafty 144 HISTORY. confession of a still more crafty mistress, that we are to look, as the signs and tokens of a great people's destiny. But if the memorialist was necessarily narrow in his range, he at all events contrived to give you some idea of the region he described. Not so the historian. While the one, impressed with the greatness of his subject, prosaically repeated the chit-chat of the royal nursery, pompously perorated upon the *' chaise percee" of a king ; the other, passing in contemptuous silence over the character, the customs, the arts of the people he described, expended the fire of his genius in a tre- mendous outpouring of battles, sieges, victories, de- feats, murders, and invasions. Quick over your mind rushed a deluge of dates and deaths ; and the people who could count the greatest number of obscure names upon their fingers, and cite an insignificant fact with the nicest accuracy, were deemed, by all reputed judges, the most accomplished possessors of historical lore. Voltaire rescued history from Daniel and Griffet. The " Essai sur les Moeurs," in its marvellous com- bination of wit, research, and philosophy, is, perhaps, one of the most astonishing evidences on record of the power of the human mind ; but, wonderful as a testi- mony^of intelligence, it is more than imperfect as a history. It wants the power, without which all histoiy is lifeless — it wants the power which transports you to distant regions and to distant times, and which brings the dim face of weird antiquity plain and pal- pably before you ; it wants the power which makes you look upon the things and mingle with the men that are described. What you see in Voltaire's history is Voltaire. His cynical, intelligent, and thoughtful face comes back to you from every page, as so many re- fractions of the same image from a broken mirror. You never get beyond the philosopher's study. Like Don Quixote in the duke's castle, you pass through every atmosphere without stirring from the same place. It is the shrewd old gentleman of the eighteenth cen- HISTORY 145 tury talking to you most sagaciously about a number of things which he has got carefully under lock and key, and will never let yon get a glimpse of. I forget who it is who says, that what is most visible in the history of every time is the time of the histo- rian writing ; this, which is true of all the historians of the Voltairian school, is especially true of Voltaire. He looks at every thing, and argues upon every thing, with the eyes and with the feelings not merely of his own age, but of his own country and his own clique. We know that Herodotus relates of the Babylonian ladies, that they were all obliged, once at least in their lives, to prostitute themselves to strangers in the temple of Milita, or Venus. "Can any one," cries Voltaire, " believe in such a story ? Is it likely — is it possible that such a custom should exist among a people in any state of refinement? — What is not natural is never true." " Now," says Grimm, " it would be very difficult to say what is natural ; and if we were to strike out from history every thing that seemed unnatural to us, there would only remain the chronicle of our own times." Did Grimm say the truth ? Cer- tainly, human sacrifices in any state of society are not very natural. Suicide, which was a fashion among one of the most sensible people in the world, was one of the most unnatural fashions that can well be ima- gined. It is not very long ago that it was the fashion in England for all young ladies to wear pads, in order to make them appear with child ; which, among a people who set the highest value on female chastity, was also very unnatural, surely. The law of Babylon was at least as natural as the vow of celibacy ; nor are we to suppose that, if the Babylonish ladies were refined, their notions of refinement must necessarily have re- sembled those of the Parisians. But the best part of the story is, that not above half a century after Voltaire wrote, a person appeared in France, actually in France, who preached nearly the same doctrines in the Chaus- see d'Antin that, Herodotus says, were followed in Babvlon. Nay, there was even a moment of doubt as 146 HISTORY. to whether the father of this creed was not a true prophet ; many have even still a faith in his success ; so that, after all, what the Babylonian ladies practised as a solemn ceremony, the French ladies are not in- duced to shudder at from social usage. A man who says, " what is not natural cannot be true," and who looks at nature through the prism of his own epoch, cannot be a good historian ; and Voltaire, with the in- dustry which Gibbon acknowledged, and the genius which no one disputes, was not a good historian. But the chief portion of that public for which Vol taire wrote was a knot of philosophers, who imagined the time in which they lived a golden climax in civili- zation ; who really thought they could measure all things past, present, and to come, by the ideal stand- ard they had set up in their own minds ; who looked back to history, not to form their opinions, but to illus- trate their doctrines, and who, when the facts which they read clashed with the theories they believed, de- nounced the facts to cherish the theories. These men had no idea of a virtue that was different from their virtue ; of the power and the force of a genius which was not cast in the mould of their own minds. They were at once too speculative to be struck by a picture, and too proud to think that the darker ages were worth portraying; all they wished for were reasonings similar to their own — the description of other times, which did not take them from theirs ; — and the writer who pleased them most, was the one who took a lesson from the artist, and drew Hercules in the costume of Louis XIV. Such were the men who formed the chief part of that public for which Voltaire wrote ; and to these men were joined others equally cold and equally fastidious. Courtiers, whose ideas were in rows, stiff and trim like the trees at Versailles ; who were easily shocked, who could not be astonished, who liked to fancy they were being instructed, and who only wished to be amused. The popular writer of tlie day mirrored forth the taste of the popular critics of the day, and wit and dissertation were the combined ma- terials to please the two classes of those critics. HISTORY. 147 But when a new school of history arose, it drew more especially from the stores which its predecessors had cautiously neglected. *' Time," said the Encyclopedists,* " is too precious and the space of history too immense, to give the reader ridiculous fables and absurd theories of ignorant men." — " Without crediting the fables of ancient writers," says M. Michaud, " I have not disdained to make use of them for what these writers said their con- temporaries believed ; and in so much they show the manners, and the ideas, and the knowledge which pre- vailed at the period they describe."! Here then are the two schools in direct opposition. The first brought a bastard kind of antiquity into your parlour; the second would carry you back into antiquity itself. In- stead of reasoning upon the acts of your ancestors, the modern historian would show you those ancestors themselves, clad in the panoply, the passions, and the prejudices of olden time. The writer of the " Cru- sades" does not coldly tell you that the religious ad- venturers, who poured mto Palestine, were a set of superstitious soldiers cased in mail. No : you see the sun shine on their glittering harness ; you hear them shouting, " Dieu le veut," as they rush to battle. Lo ! there are the warlike fanatics marching upon Jerusalem I " They have fasted for three days, and, sallying forth, at length they walk, their weapons in their hands, but their feet bare, and their heads un- covered. Thus they walk three times round the sacred city ; and before them march their priests, robed in white, and carrying the images of saints, and singing psalms ; and the banners are unfurled, and loud sounds the timbrel and the trumpet ; for thus was it that the Israelites had thrice made the tour of Jericho, the walls of which crumbled to pieces at the sound of the war- like music."* * * ♦ » * Art. " Histoire." First edit. Encyclopedia, t Michaud's " Exposition de I'Histoire des Croisadw." % Michaud. vol. i. p. 412. Hist, des Croisade*. G3 148 HISTORY. " I have endeavoured," says M. de Barante,* '« to restore to history the charm of the romance, which the romance had, in fact, borrowed from history ;" and so in a work, a model of its kind, this modern histo- rian continually cites the old chronicles, and borrows himself something of their simple, and perhaps bar- barous style of narrative, telling you things in the tone, and with the colouring of a contemporary. The erudition which makes most works dry, makes his de- lightful.f You see Charles the Bold, his long black hair floating in the wind, his proud lip trembling, and his swart face pale with passion. You know the very name of his coal-black charger ; and before him are the Swiss on their knees, and the heavens clearing at their prayer ; and there you read how the Burgundians beseeched their prince to remember " his poor peo- ple," and how the clergy told him that he was de- feated because he taxed the church. The age speaks to you in its own language, and expresses its own ideas. You make acquaintance with its personages, as they existed in the flesh and blood ; you learn its manners without knowing you have been taught them. The first author of the school that I read was M. Thierry, and I yet remember the pleasure I felt at the following simple, but, I think, very admirable passage, in that part of his history which relates to the Norman descent. " And now there arrived from Rome the conse- crated flag, and the bull which authorized the descent upon England. The eagerness increased. Every one contributed to the enterprise as best he could ; and even mothers sent their favourite children to enlist for the sake of their souls. William published his war- ban in the countries adjacent : he ofTev^d a large sum, * Histoire du Due de Burgoine : Preface, t M. de Barante is called a copyist ; and so he Is a copyist of the old writers, from whom he has taken his materials. But if an his- torian has any merit in infusing into you the spirit of the times whose actions he is narrating, to copy the writers of those times is a necessity, and not a fault. HISTORY. 149 and the pillage of England, to every man of tall and robust stature who would serve either with the lance, the sword, or the cross-bow ; and a multitude poured in from all parts, from far and near, from north and from south ; from Maine and from Anjou, from Poitou and from Brittany, from France and from Flanders, from Aquitaine and from Burgundy, from Piedmont and the borders of the Rhine ; all the adventurers by profes- sion, all the brave and vagabond spirits of Europe, came eagerly and gladly at his call. Some were knights and captains of war ; others simple foot-sol- diers and ' servants at arms,' — such was the phrase of the time. — These demanded money in hand; those, their passage, and all the booty they could gain. Many wished for an estate in England, a domain, a castle, a town — or simply bargained for a Saxon wife. * * * * " William refused no one." * * # * " And during the spring and the summer, in all parts of Normandy, workmen of all kinds were employed in constructing and in equipping vessels. Here were the blacksmiths and the armourers fabricating lances and coats of mail — and there were the porters in- cessantly carrying arms from the workshops to the ships — and during these preparations William pre- sented himself at St. Germain's to the King of the French, and saluting him with a deference which his ancestors had not always paid to the kings of France : * You are my seigneur,' said he ; * if it please you to aid me, and that God give me grace to obtain my right in England, I promise to do homage to you for that realm, as if I held it of you.' Philip assembled his council of barons and of freemen, without whom he could decid^ no important affair, and the barons were of opinion that he could in nowise aid William in his conquest. " * You know,' said they to their king, ' how little the Normans obey you now — they will obey you less if thev have England. Besides, it wiU be a grej^t ex^ 13* 150 HISTORY. pense to aid the duke in his enterprise ; and if it fail we shall have the English for our mortal enemies.' " William, thus treated, retired ill contented from Philip. " The rendezvous for the vessels and men at arms was at the mouth of the Dive, a river which falls into the sea between the Seine and the Orme. For a month the winds were contrary, and the Norman fleet was retained in the harbour. At length a southern breeze carried it to St. Valery near Dieppe. There the bad weather recommenced, and it was necessary to cast anchor and wait for several days. — During this delay the tempest shattered several vessels, and many of their crew perished. And at this accident, mur- murings arose among the troops, already fatigued with their long encampment. The soldiers, idle in their tents, passed the day in conversing upon the dangers of the voyage, and the dilSiculties of the enterprise they were undertaking. " ' There has yet been no battle,' they said, ' and already several of our companions are no more ;' and then they calculated and examined the number of dead bodies which the sea had thrown upon the sands. And these reports abated the ardour of the adventurers who had enlisted with so much zeal ; so that some broke their engagement and retired. " In the mean time William, in order to check a dis- position so fatal to his projects, had the dead buried secretly, and increased the supply of victuals and strong liquors. But the same thoughts of regret and discouragement still recurred. ' Very foolish,' said the soldiers, ' very foolish is the man who pretends to conquer another's land ! God is often led at such de- signs, and now he shows his anger by refusing us a favourable wind !' At last, perhaps from real super- stition, perhaps for the mere purpose of distracting their followers from unwelcome thoughts, the Norman chiefs conducted the relics of St. Valery in great HISTORY 151 pomp and with a long procession through the camp. All the army began to pray ; and the following night the fleet had the wind they wished for. " And now, four hundred ships with large sails and upwards of one thousand boats of transport, started from the shore at the same signal. The vessel of William took the lead, and he carried at his mast's head the banner sent from the pope, and a cross upon his flag. The sails were of divers colours, and in many parts of them were painted the three lions, the arms of the Normans ; and at the prow was carved the face of a child carrying a bent bow with an arrow ready to fly forth. This vessel, a better sailer than the rest, headed the expedition during the day, and at night was far in the advance. On the following morning the duke bade a sailor climb to the top of the mainmast and see if there were any other vessels coming. * I only see,' said the sailor, * the sky and the sea,' — and thereupon the anchor was cast. " The duke aflfected a gayety that was to put down any appearance of care or fear among his friends, and he ordered a sumptuous repast and wines highly spiced. Anon, the sailor mounted again ; and this time he said he saw four vessels, and presently after- ward he cried, * I see a forest of masts and sails.' ***** "Now while this great armament was preparing in Normandy, Harold the Norwegian, faithful to his en- gagements towards the Saxon Tostig, had assembled his soldiers and some hundreds of vessels of war and transports. The fleet remained some time at anchor, and the Norwegian army awaiting the signal for de- parture, encamped on the coast, as the Norman army had encamped at the mouth of the Dive. " There also, vague impressions of discouragement and inquie.'ude manifested themselves, and under ap- pearances }et more gloomy and conformable with the visionary imagination of the north. Many soldiers thought thai they received prophetic revelations in their sleep. One imagined that he saw his companions 152 HISTORY. debarking on the English coast, and in presence of the English army ; and that before the front of that army a woman of gigantic stature galloped — a wolf for her steed. The wolf held in its jaws a human corpse dripping with blood, and as the wolf devoured one corpse the woman gave it another. " A second soldier dreamed that the fleet was depart- ing, and that a cloud of ravens, and vultures, and other birds of prey settled upon the masts ; and that on a neighbouring rock sat a female, holding a naked sword, counting and regarding the ships. ' Go,' said she to the birds ; ' go without fear — you will have to feast — you will have to choose — for I go with them — I go there.' And his followers remarked, not without ter- ror, that when Harold put his foot upon the royal ' cha- louipe^ the weight of his body pressed it down into the water more than usual." This is a picture where the skill of the artist is conspicuous in the ease of his work. In these two or three pages you find almost every thing which could be told you characteristic of the time described. You learn the nature of the Norman troops, the manner in which they enrolled, the hopes which they entertained, the very arms with which they fought ; their restlessness and their superstition. And by the side of the Normans come yet more darkly out the savage and mysterious dispositions of the Norwe- gian bands ; and you see at once that William was a great commander, and a valiant and crafty man. A child, who read the passage I have cited, would be im- pressed with all these facts ; and yet there has been no laying down the law, no teaching, no prosing, no explaining. And now let us turn from this eloquent description of the feudal time to the awful narrative of our own. ^t us take up M. Thiers !* For the somewhat sol- * La Revolution Fran^aise. HISTORY. 153 emn and chivalric gravity which suited the chronicles of the olden day, you have the vivid colouring, the rush of thought and style, the glow and flash of ex- pression, which, startling at every step, carries you with an appropriate pace over thrones, and over con- stitutions, and over the mangled bodies of noble and mistaken men, down the fiery and precipitous path of a revolution destined to destroy. And here you see Mirabeau, " terrible in the ugliness of his genius,"* hesitating (his great brow labouring with his idea), and then bursting on to the expression that he sought, his words falling like a torrent from chasm to chasm, vio- lent, irresistible, abrupt. And here you see the gigantic Danton, at the head of the dark multitude which stormed the Tuileries on the 10th of August,! waving that terrible and daring hand, a fatal signal to the pro- scribed ! And lo ! Marat,+ hid during the attack in some obscure retreat, has come out since the victory, and marches, flourishing a sabre through the town, at the head of the fierce Marseillians, while " the neat and respectable-looking" Robespiere delivers to " the Jacobins" one of his " doctoral harangues." I hardly know any passage in history more powerful than that one in vol. iii. page 53, which begins " La terreur reg- nait dans Paris . . . ." It is not eloquent in point of diction. The narrative of those dreadful days, which Danton commenced by the declaration, " QuHl fallait faire peur aux Royal- istes" is told in the simplest and least pretending man- ner ; but from the moment that these words have passed that terrible man's lips, a kind of mysterious horror breathes over the page : you feel that something sickening is to come : sentence after sentence this sensation grows upon yoUj and the object on which your apprehensions are to rest is now gradually and artfully pointed out : — Madame Fausse Landry entreats to be permitted to share the captivity of her uncle, *' the Abbe de Rastignac," and Sergeni answers her by * La Revolution FraiKjaise, p. 5, vol. iii. f Ibid p. 124, vol. i. 6 Ibid. p. 54. G3 154 saying, " Vous faites une imprudence les prisons ne sont pas surest Then comes the declaration of Dan- ton the day after — " The cannon you are about to hear is not the cannon of alarm, c'est le pas de charge sur les ennemis de la patrie." Then — "La ville entiere etait debout. Une ter- reur profonde regnait dans les prisons . . . Les geoliers semblaient consternes. Celui de TAbbaye, des le matin fait sortir sa femme et ses enfans. Le diner avait ete servi aux prisonniers deux heures avant I'instant accoutume ; tous les couteaux avaient ete retires le leur serviettey * * * # * At length the tocsin sounds, the cannon's heavy peal rolls through the city, the people rush to the Champ de Mars, throng round the " Commune" and the " Assembly," and group together in the great square. It is now, at this moment of gloom, of tu- mult, and agitation, chosen by chance or by intention for the purpose, that twenty-four priests are taken from the Hotel de Ville to be transferred to the Abbaye. They are put into six hackney-coaches, and conducted at a slow pace along the Quais, and by the Pont Neuf to the Faubourg St. Germain. The savage and ex- cited crowds kindle at the sight like hounds in view of their prey ; they grind their teeth, they howl round the carriage ; they follow it ; they butcher, they tear these unhappy men to pieces, as one by one they de- scend in the court of the Abbaye. This is the first scene of Liberty's St. Bartholo- mew.* .... And now arrives Billaud Varennes. He comes decorated with his official badge ; walks through the splashing blood, and over the mangled bodies, speaks to the crowd of assassins, and says, " People ! thou slayest thy enemies, and thou doest well!" — " There is nothing more to do here !" cries Maillard. * The too famous massacres of September, 1792. HISTORY. 155 ** AUons aux Carmes ;" and to the Cannes they go ; murder two hundred priests more, and then return to the Abbaye ; and here Maillard calls for wine " joowr les braves travailleurs, qui deliverent la nation de ses ennemis.^^ And wine is served in the court, and these wretches drink and make merry, and shout and revel ; and around them are the ghastly carcasses of those whom they had butchered in the morning. Let us pass from this scene, sketched with too hor- rible a truth ! .... In the action of his narrative, and in the vividness of his paintings, consists M. Thiers's most remarkable merits as an historian ; but his work, remarkable for its vivacity, is also remarkable for its clearness — while it displays a spirit that would be singularly impartial — were it not warped at times by a system, false, because it denies the possibility of an accident — horrible, because it breaks down all distinc- tion between crime and virtue, making both the neces- sity of a position. M. Mignet, who has written upon the same epoch as M. Thiers, has been guilty of the same fault. He too has seen an infernal fatalism connecting all the horrors with all the energies — all the crimes with all the triumphs of the revolution.* * According to this system, all the terrible leaders of that time are concentrated, as it were, into one executioner, all society into one malefactor. Now, Mr. Executioner, strike off the head of your victim ; nobody can call you a bad man — you are only doing your duty, the duty to which Providence has set you, and it is all for the benefit of the world, and for the advantage of future geneiations ! If the poor creature delivered to you be innocent, be no male- factor, that is no business of yours — the law, t. e. the law of destiny, has decided that you shall strike ; therefore be quick, and never think there is any reason to be ashamed of your task, though it be a bloody; one. Good God ! what a progress has the human mind made in forty years! We are now. doubting whether society has the right to inflict death on an individual ; we were then believing that two or three individuals had a right to murder all society. " Accord- ing to Messrs. Thiers and Mignet," says M. de Chateaubriand, *' the historian must speak of the greatest atrocities without in- dignation — of the noblest virtues without affection. II faut que d'un ceil glace il regarde la societe comme soumise a certaines lois irre- sistibles, de mani^re que chaque chose arrive comme elle devait inevitablement arriver. L'innocent ou I'homme de g6nie doit mourir, non pas parcequ'il est innocent, ou homme de g6nie Mais parceque 156 HISTORY. But, looking at these authors apart from their theory, the work of M. Mignet is as incomparable for fixing and concentrating your thoughts as that of M. Thiers is for developing and awakening your ideas. M. Cha- teaubriand calls the work of M. Thiers* a splendid picture, the work of M. Mignet a vigorous sketch :t it is impossible to choose a word so ill-applied to M. sa mort est necessaire, et que sa vie mettrait, obstacle a un fait general place dans la serie des evenements." And who is to judge of this necessity ? The man of power will always think that neces- sary for the benefit of mankind which is necessary for his own advan- tage. Every wretch who wishes to place himself at the head of society will think, if he attain its summit for a moment, that it is for the advantage of the world, and that Providence requires that he should maintain himself there by shooting little children, and drowning pregnant women, and massacring aged and feeble priests; and Carrier and Le Bon will pass to posterity as patterns of those apostles whom God has designed to be the harbingers of liberty, prosperity, and civilization. But the folly of this system is equal, if that be possible, to its horror and its danger. Tne Prussians retired before Dumourier, and there were the massacres of September ! — ergo, the massacres of Sep- teniber saved the capital of Paris. Was it the massacres of September which gave Dumourier his quick eye, his extraordinary activity, his great courage and enterprise / Suppose he had been a stupid and a slow fellow — a bad general — what then? Did the massacres of September inspire him with one plan for his campaign, and his councii of war with another ? Did the massacres of September show him the march across the forest of Argone, or the passage of the Aisne ? Did the massacres of September place him on the heights of Valmy ? A false step, a wrong position, and then what would have been the result of the massacres of September ? — Why, the establishment of the old despotism by foreign hands, and the preference, among all sober men, of that despotism to the bloody, and inhuman, and beastly, and infernal tyranny that had preceded it ; the re-estabhshment of a despotism which would have stood upon those massacres firmer than upon a rock of adamant ; while a sacred execration would have been bequeathed to all ptsterity for every man, however pure his motives or upright his intentions, who stood forward with the title of " reformer." The comparative moderation of the directory, the glory, the laws, the order of empire, the long confusion of ranks, and the continued division of fortunes, made what had been the reveries of philosophers the habits of a people ; and these habits, habits which could never have grown up without domestic tranquilUty and security, were in- compatible with a court despotism and the old distinctions. But for this the people of France are mainly indebted, I repeat, to the laws of the empire, and not to the massacres of the republic. * The work of M. Thiers is in ten volumes, that of M. Mignet in two. t M. de Chateaubriand seems to think that every thing on a large •cale must be a picture, and every thing on a small one a sketch. HISTORY. 167 Mignet*s work as that word '* sketch." Were the word applicable to either work, it would be far more appli- cable to the work of M. Thiers, which, varied, ani- mated, and full of interest, is nevertheless in many- parts hasty and unfinished. The peculiar beauty of M. Mignet's work, on the contrary, is its perfect finish, Its accurate and nicely adjusted proportions, its com- pleteness in every one of its parts. Each epoch of the revolution stands just as it should do in respect to the other, and occupies precisely the space it should do to harmonize with what follows and precedes it. Comprising every circumstance within the smallest possible compass, M. Mignet has given every circum- stance its exact and proper effect — looking at the events of those times with a magnifying-glass, he has reflected them in a mirror. Many of his reflections are at once just, simple, and profound ; his descrip- tions, rarer and shorter than those of M. Thiers, are still paintings. We see Camille Desmoulins (the me- morable 12th of July) mounted on a table in the Palais Royal, a pistol in his hand, and shouting " to arms !" We see the bust of Necker, in those first days when the demands of liberty were so moderate, crowned with mulberry leaves, and carried (singular ensign of revo- lutionary tumult) round the city of Paris. And soon we see (10th of August) the corpulent and irresolute rather than timid king reviewing, with downcast look, the gallant and generous Swiss, who, far from their mountains, their simplicity, and their freedom, v/ere burning with a loyal and chivalric enthusiasm, and eager to fight in a foreign land for a sovereign whom they would have despised and resisted in their own . And there is the queen, the beautiful and graceful queen, more warlike than her spouse, her Austrian lip curling, the nostril of her eagle-nose dilating ; there is the beautiful and graceful Marie Antoinette, ready to stake the crown and sceptre of her child on the chance of battle.* And but too soon after we shall hear the Page 359. 14 158 HISTORY. shouts of the hot-blooded populace, and the heavy rolling of the cannons along the streets, and the beating of the melancholy drum ; and lo ! the son of St. Louis mounting to heaven.* But leaving M. Thiers and M. Mignet to the high reputation which their talents de- serve, I come to M. Guizot, formerly Minister of the Interior, now Minister of Instruction, and once Pro- fessor of History. M. Guizot, full of deep and lofty thoughts, and skilful in their combination, of a medi- tative rather than an active mind, is by nature less of a painter than a philosopher, but the popular taste per- vades his own. He would be as an artist what he is not as a man, and gives at least its full value to the life and the colouring which constitutes the charm of his countrymen and contemporaries. *' Mr. Brodie," he says (in speaking of our writer on the English revolution), " studies and does not see — discusses, and does not paint — admires the popular party without bringing it on the stage ; his work is a learned and useful dissertation: mais pas une histoire morale et vivante. So Sismondi complains of the little interest that the old histories of France, notwithstanding their learning, excited ; and in illustrating his own history by romances, shows why he supposed his predecessors to be neglected. M. de Chateaubriand, whom I have had different occasions to quote in this chapter, and with whose opi- nions in criticism and in politics I very seldom agree, has nevertheless said, I think, every thing which can, and which ought to be said of the two styles of his- tory — the philosophic history of the past century in France, the pictorial history of the present. Eminent as an artist himself, eminent for seizing and painting the costume of each particular time, and bringing be- fore our eyes, as no other writer has done, the feudal customs, and stately and chivalric manners of a sturdier time, he has armed the critic as it were against his own excellence, and insisted on the imperfectness of a * " Fils de St. Louis," said the priest officiating, *' montez au del." HISTORY. 159 history which does not mingle thought and philosophy with ardour and description. " La pensee philosophique," says he, *' employee avec sobriete n'est-elle pas necessaire pour donner a I'histoire sa gravite, pour lui faire prononcer les arrets qui sont du ressort de son dernier et supreme tribunal ? Au degre de civihzation ou nous sommes arrives I'his- toire de Vespece peut-elle disparaitre enti^rement de I'histoire de Vindividu. Les verites, eternelles bases de la societe humaine, doivent-elles se perdre dans des tableaux qui ne representent que des mceurs privees." — " On the other hand," he continues, " history as a work is not a work of philosophy — it is a picture. We must join to our narrative the representation of the ob- jects of which we speak, i. c. we must design and paint. We must give to our personages the language, the sentiments of their time, and not regard them through the medium of our own opinions and ideas, a fault which has been the principal cause of those dis- tortions of facts which have disfigured history." — " Si prenant pour regie ce que nous croyons de la liberte, de I'egalite de la religion, de tous les principes poli- tiques, nous appliquons cette regie a I'ancien ordre de choses nous fausons la verite ; nous exigeons des hommes vivant dans cet ordre de choses ce dont ils n'avaient pas I'idee. Rien n'etait si mal que nous le pensons : le pretre, le noble, le bourgeois, le vassal, avaient d'autres notions du juste et de I'injuste que les notres ; c'etait un autre monde, un monde sans doute moins rapproche des principes generaux naturels que le monde present, mais qui ne manquait ni de grandeur ni de force, temoin ses actes et sa duree." Nothing, I think, can be more true, more just than the ideas which are here expressed, or than the principles which are here laid down. The historian, to be perfect, should show at once the peculiarities and costume of each separate epoch, and the common feelings and the common passions of all epochs. He should paint the man of the thirteenth century, the man of the nineteenth, he should know 160 HISTORY. that each were men under different circumstances, but possessing similar propensities ; he should show what is nature, what is her costume — her costume that ever varies — her naked figure, which is always the same. My object, however, is not to write a general criticism upon history, nor even a general criticism upon the present historians of France, for I find that I have al- ready outstepped my limits, and that I have said no- thing of M. Girardin, nothing of M. Michelet,^ nothing of M. St. Aulaire, and his interesting picture of a time so interesting in the annals of France, so replete with the grace and the energy of the French character, so remarkable for uniting the chivalry of an age gone by with the grace of an age advancing. My object has simply been to show that history in France is in a new school — that the modern French historian follows the example of the great old French novelist and comedian — and like Le Sage and Moliere, attempts rather to paint than to explain. Why is this ? Authors, since authors have mixed with mankind, have been modelled more or less by their public. The historian's public in the eighteenth century was, as I have said, a public of would-be philosophers and agreeable fine gentlemen ; and the historian went trippingly along, now lecturing the one class, now chatting with the other. The historical style of the nineteenth century is different from the historical style of the eighteenth ; but the historian's manner has not changed more than his readers have changed. He was formerly read by a clique — he is now read by a country. It is not only that more men read now than they used to do — this has not increased the number of those who disturb the dusty volumes in the royal library that treat of astrology and magic — it is not only that more men read than they used to do, but that more men read history — that more men naturally feel an in- terest in historical composition. * I ought also, in that case, to have mentioned the very interesting narrative of Charles Edward, by M. A. Rihot, an author who is the more deserving of praise from an EngUsh critic as being the first French critic who introduced modern English literature into France. HISTORY. 161 History is in fact not interesting far beyond the pale of those whose actions make history, and whose fortunes are affected by it. History would not be widely interesting in a country where the great mass of the people were slaves and mendicants, without hon- ours to gain or property to lose. History would be widely interesting in a country where the great bulk of the people were proprietors, and where there was no post in the state which every citizen might not rea- sonably hope to obtain. In the one case it is an idle speculation to be studied from curiosity ; in tlie other it is a practical lesson to be looked to for examples. With the general diffusion of honours, of employments, and more especially with the general diffusion of prop- erty, on which the diffusion of honours and employ- ments mainly depends, has been diffused the interest of history. The small herd of encyclopaedists and courtiers, who once listened to the historian, are now cut up, as it were, into an immense crowd of journalists, shop- keepers, soldiers, and mechanics. This division and diffusion of property, bringing up a fresh class of feelings upon the surface of France — inverting the usual order of events — creating a new society when we might have been looking to the ma- ture caducity of an old one — turning an aristocracy of readers into a democracy of readers — has made the historian a popular orator where he was formerly a wit and a metaphysician. Addressing a more numer- ous, a more impassioned, a less reasoning class of readers than his predecessor, he has assumed a more vehement, a more impassioned, a more powerful style of writing. 14* 16d DRAMA. DRAMA. Have spoken of History — Speak of the Drama — But one step from Racine to Victor Hugo and M. A. Dumas—" Hemani" — Proceed to " Lucrece Borgia." I HAVE spoken of history, that branch of French lit- erature the least known to us, and in which the French of the modern day have most succeeded. I would now speak of the drama, that branch of French literature which we have most criticised, and in which the later successes of the French have been most disputed. There are but two epochs in the French drama. Louis XIV. was on the throne, and in the declining shadow of one man* you yet saw the feudal vigour of the Fronde, and in the rising genius of another! you caught the first colouring of that royal pomp, of that Augustan majesty which reigns in the verse of Virgil and the buildings of Versailles. And all things were then stamped w'^h lue great kingly seal. The orator was in the chair what the writer was on the stage. This was a great period of the human mind, and since this period to our own, tragedy has taken but one giant stride. The genius which governed the theatre stood unappalled when the genius which had founded the throne lay prostrate. The reign of Robespierre did not disturb the rule of Racine. The republican Che- nier, erect and firm before the tyranny of Bonaparte, bowed before the tyranny of the academy ; the trans- lations of Ducis were a homage to the genius of Shak- speare, but no change in the dramatic art. In M. Delavigne you see the old school modernized, but it is the old school. I pass by M. de Vigny,J who * Comeille. t Racine. +More known for his very remarkable romance, " Cinq Mars," and the publication of Stello. DRAMA 163 has written La Marechale cTAncre ;* I pass by M. Sou- lier, who has written Clotilde ;t I pass by the follow- ers to arrive at the chiefs of the new drama, M. V. HugoJ and M. A. Dumas,§ two young men — two rivals, * The plot of " La Marechale d'Ancre," a title taken from the well known favourite of Mary de Medicis, turns upon a passion which this lady smothers for a Corsican adventurer, the bitter enemy of Concini, her husband ; the love of Concini for this Corsican's wife, whose name he is ignorant of; and the divided feelings of the Corsi- can himself, who at once hates and pursues Concini, and loves and relents when he thinks of Concini's wife. Another passion also works in the drama — the jealousy of the Corsican's wife, who finds out that her husband is in love with the marechale, and appears in consequence as evidence against her on her trial for sorcery and witchcraft. This play, which falsifies history in making its heroine, the marechale, beautiful and amiable, which is just what she was not, is written nevertheless with great spirit, and contains some very elo- quent passages and powerful situations. t This is the subject of " Clotilde :" Christian, an adventurer, is to marry her on such a day, and receive with her a large fortune ; but in order to do this he must show himself to be the possessor of a certain sum. To obtain this sum, he murders the Jew who would not lend it him. Clotilde, however, who is passionately attached to him, quits her father's house at the very time he commits tins mur- der, in order to live with him even as his mistress ; this she rather inexplicably continues to do after the murder has been committed. At last Christian, who is about as great a rascal as one could desire to meet, determines on marrying an intriguante who can make him sec- retary of embassy, and quitting Clotilde. Clotilde, in despair at tliis treachery, and acquainted by his dreams with the crime of Christian, informs against him. He is condemned t'^ '"^ ";nth. She is in despair, and forces her way into the prison to see' hmi.'" "What have you brought me?" says Christian. "Poison," says Clotilde; and they poison themselves together. The play is full of absurdities, but powerfully written. X The father of M. Victor Hugo was a general. One of his rela- tions of the same name still holds the same rank, and commands in one of the departments. In his early days his opinions were directly opposed to those he has since and now professes. On leaving col lege, he and his brother pubhshed a small newspaper of the same opinions as the " Censor ;" it existed but a very short time. M. V. Hugo next published a novel which he had written while at college ; afterward a variety of odes appeared, on the Virgins of Verdun, on La Vendee, on the death of Louis XVIL, on the death of the Due de Berry, on the baptism of the Due de Bordeaux, and on the death of Louis XVIIL, and also one on Napoleon. M. Victor Hugo received a pension from Louis XVIIT. Charles X. wished to increase this pension ; M. V. Hugo, in a letter which I have seen, honourably refused this addition. (j M. Dumas, the son of a general also, has written his own life, as a portrait taken from the gallery of " young France." This life is too interesting to be crowded into a note, and I hope to have another opportunity of alluding to it. Coming up to Paris to make his for 164 DRAMA. each has his enthusiastic partisans, but their talents are entirely different ; and there is no reason why these writers, or their friends, should suppose that the suc- cess of one is incompatible with the reputation of the other. The first drama which M. Victor Hugo brought on the stage (for he had written " Cromwell," a clever but cold performance some years before) was " Her- nani ;"* and as it has been already translated, it would be useless to enter here into any lengthened criticism upon its merits. Among M. V. Hugo's plays, how- ever, Hernani stands alone. No other of his dramas has the same tenderness, the same gentleness, the same grace, the same nature ; for Hernani was written by M. Hugo before he laid down for himself the extra- ordinary rules which I shall presently have to speak of. In Hernani, then, you find the characters of Spain — truly Spanish — in Hernani you find the old Spaniard, jealous and vindictive, and the young Spanish noble, high-minded, adventurous and romantic, and the Span- ish maiden ardent, fond, with all the love and all the enthusiasm which the warm sun of her country begets, and which the dark convent, and the keen-eyed du- enna have been invented to check. tune, the Chamber and the Theatre before him on one side, the Morgue and the Seine on the other, M. Dumas was placed, through the interest of General Foy, in one of the bureaux of the Duke of Orleans, where he improved his education, and first received his dra- matic inspirations. More fortunate than many of his predecessors, his career was from the commencement a series of theatrical triumphs, and he almost immediately quitted the desk for the stage. * The play turns on the love of Dona Sol, a young Spanish lady, for Hernani, first known to her as a bandit, but who afterward proves to be a grandee of Spain. Dona Sol, however, is also beloved by her uncle, Don Gomez de Silva, whom she was originally engaged to marry. Don Gomez saves Hernani, in the early part of his career, from the vengeance of Charles V., and Hernani promises the old Spanish noble to give him the life he has saved whenever he shall ask for it. At the end of the play Charles pardons Hernani, on dis- covering his birth, and gives him Dona Sol in marriage. It is on the wedding-night of the young couple that the old uncle comes and claims Hernani's promise. This last scene is the best part of the play, which finishes by Hernani and his bride both taking the poison that Don Gomez brings, and the lovers die in each other's arms. Charles V. character, particularly in his wild and early days, is painted with a very masterly hand. DRAMA 165 Better go seek to rob the fiercest tigress Of her fond young — than rob me of my love. Oh ! know you Dona Sol, and what she is? Long time, m pity for thy sicklied age And sixty years — I was all tenderness — All innocence, the soft and timid maiden. But see you now this eye? it weeps with rage ; And see you not this poniard? foolish old man ! Kot fear the steel, when menaced by the eye? Don Ruy beware ! 1 am thy blood, my uncle ! Ay, list thee well ! — were 1 thy only daughter, 'Twere ill with thee wert thou to harm my husband. And yet forgive me ! Pity me ! Pardon me ! See, I am at your feet ! Pity, alas ! my lord ! I'm but a woman — Pm weak, my force miscarries in my soul. I feel my feebleness, I fall before you — I beg your pity ! — and you know, my lord — You know we Spanish women have a grief That measures not its wording. Such is the heroine of the piece — such is the pas- sion which she feels — a passion for the chosen of her heart — for her husband whom she marries when a no- ble — but whom she loved, whom she selected, whom she would have followed when a bandit. With such a heroine, and with such a passion, we can sympa- thize. But I will preface what I shall have to say of M. V. Hugo, and the observations I shall subsequently venture to submit on the present state of the French drama, by translating certain parts of one of the most popular and recent pieces that this author has brought upon the stage. 26 106 DRAMA. LUCRECE BORGIA. LucRECE Borgia is only in three acts. It begins at Venice. You are at Venice — it is Venice's gay time, and you see her carnival, her masked revels — and there, on the terrace of the Barbarigo palace, are some young nobles — and at the bottom of this terrace flovirs the canal De la Zueca, on which, through the " darkness visible" of a Venetian night, you see pass the gondola, and the masquerade, and the musicians. Twenty years have gone by since the death of Jean Borgia. The young nobles speak of that awful assas- sination, and of the body plunged into the Tiber, and perceived by a boatman, involuntary witness of the crime — and Comte de Belverana, supposed to be a Spanish seigneur, joins in the conversation, and seems indeed, to the surprise of the Venetians, better ac- quainted than any of them with the history of Italy. One young cavalier alone is inattentive, and even sleeps, while the rest pass their conjectures on the fate of the young boy, son of Lucrece Borgia, by Jean Borgia — the Jean Borgia who had perished in the manner described — victim, as it was said, of the wrath and jealousy of his brother and his rival, Caesar. At last the Comte Belverana is left alone upon the stage with the yomig man who is still sleeping, and whose indifference to the conversation that had been going on has already been accounted for by his com- panions on the ground that, ignorant alike of his father and mother, he could not feel an interest in those DRAMA. 167 family stories which then agitated Italy, and had more or less affected every one of themselves. A masked lady enters and addresses the Spaniard by the name of " Gubetta," He reminds her of his disguise, and warns her also to be cautious " If they don't know me," says the lady, " caution is of little consequence — if they do, it is they who have cause to fear." It is easy to see that Gubetta, or Comte Belverana, is an Italian bravo in the service of this dame, who now says that for the future she means to be all virtue and clemency, and that her only desire is to obtain the affections of the young man who is sleeping. Gubetta shrugs up his shoulders at what he seems to consider a very startling change of disposition, and thinks it better, under these circum- stances, to leave his mistress and the sleeper together. Lucr^ce, for the lady is no other, takes off her mask, and kisses the forehead of the youth ; but in doing so she has been seen by two strangers who had been watching her — one her husband,* the other a gentle- man attached to his service, and of the same honour- able profession as Gubetta. Gennaro (this is the name of the personage hitherto so quiescent) now awakes. He tells Lucrece that he is a soldier of fortune, an or- phan ignorant of his parents, and that he only lives to discover his mother, and to make himself worthy of her. " I mean my sword to be pure and holy as of an emperor. I've been offered any thing to enter the ser- vice of that infamous Lucrece. I refused." "Gennaro! Gennaro!" says the lady, "you should pity the wicked ; you know not their hearts." It is at this moment that the young nobles, with whose conversation the play commenced, come again on the scene. ♦ The Duke of Ferrara. 168 DRAMA. ACT I. SCENE V. The same. Maffio Orsini, Jeppo Liveretto, Ascanio Petrucci, Oloferno Vitellozzo, Don Apostolo Gazella. Nobles, ladies, pages carrying torches. Maffio (a torch in his hand). Gennaro, dost thou wish to know the woman to whom thou art talking love 1 Dona Lucrece {aside., under her mask). Just Heaven ! Gennaro. You are my friends — but I swear before God, that whoever touches the mask of this lady is a bold fellow ! — The mask of a woman is as sacred as the face of a man. Maffio. But first the woman must be a woman, Gennaro ; not that we wish to insult this lady — we only wish to tell her our names. (Making a step towards Dona Lucrece.) Madam, I am Maffio Orsini, brother to the Duke of Gra- vina,whom your bravoes strangled during the night while he was sleeping. Jeppo. Madam, I am Jeppo Liveretto, nephew of Liveretto Vitelli, poniarded by your orders in the caves of the Vatican. Ascanio. Madam, I am Ascanio Petrucci, cousin of Pandolfo Petrucci, Lord of Sienna, whom you had assassinated in order to rob him more easily of his town. Oloferno. Madam, my name is Oloferno Vitellozzo, nephew of Jago d'Appiani, whom you had poisoned at a f^te, after having treacherously despoiled him of his good and lordly citadel of Piombino. DRAMA. 169 Don Apostolo. Madam, you had Don Francisco Gazella put to death upon the scaffold. Don Francisco Gazella was mater- nal uncle to Don Alphonso of Aragon, your third hus- band, killed by your order on the stairs of St. Peter. I am Don Apostolo Gazella, cousin of the one and son of the other. Dona Lucrece. OGod! Gennaro. Who is this woman ? Maffio. And now that we have told you our names, do you wish that we should tell you yours ? Dona Lucrece. No — no, my lords — not before him ! Maffio {taking off her mask). Take off your mask, madam, so that one may see whether you can blush. Don Apostolo. That woman, Gennaro, to whom you were whispering love, is a murderess and an adultress. Jeppo. Incestuous in every degree — incestuous with her two brothers, one of whom slew the other for her love Dona Lucrece. Pity! Ascanio. Incestuous with her father, who is pope. Oloferno. A monster who would be incestuous with her children, if children she had ; but Heaven refuses issue to such monsters. Dona Lucrece. Enough! enough! Maffio. Woul'' vou know her name, Gennaro ? 170 DR..MA. Dona Lucrecc Pity — pity, my lords ! Maffio. Gennaro, would'st thou know her name ? LucRECE {dragging herself to the knees of Gennaro^. Listen not, my Gennaro ! Maffio {stretching out his arm). It's Lucrece Borgia ! Gennaro {pushing her hack). Oh! {She falls, having fainted at his feet.) Soon after this, Maffio, Jeppo, Ascanio, Oloferno, Don Apostolo, are sent by Venice on a special embassy to Ferrara, where Lucrece Borgia holds her court, and Gennaro accompanies them, being the sworn brother in arms of Maffio d'Orsini. The passions in action are — the affection of Lu- crece for Gennaro — the jealous indignation of the Due de Ferrara against Gennaro, whom he supposes, from what he saw at the mask of Venice, to be a lover — and the vengeance of Lucrece, who has determined to punish the young Venetian nobles who had insulted her. Gennaro lays himself open to the due's plans by the historical outrage of erasing the B from the front of the ducal palace, which left " orgia" engraved upon that part which Lucrece inhabited. The first act ends with a meeting between the two emissaries of the due and the duchesse ; the one seek- ing, as he supposes, a lover for Lucrece, the other a victim for the due. In the difficulty of reconciling the two missions, the bravoes decide by tossing up, whether Gennaro shall be adored or murdered. The duke's bravo gains. The second act contains a most spirited scene be- tween Lucrece Borgia and her husband. Lucrece having first passionately demanded vengeance on the person who had outraged her palace, as passionately DRAMA. 171 demands the offender's pardon on discovering the in- sult to have been offered by the young Gennaro. The due, ho'Vvever, more and more confirmed in his jeal- ousy, persists in his determination that death should be inflicted on the culprit, and only allows his wife to choose whether her supposed paramour should be stabbed or poisoned ; on Lucrece preferring the latter, the famous Borgia poison is served to Gennaro, who, however, believes himself pardoned — and the due then, quitting the room, tells his wife that he gives her her lover's last quarter of an hour. Lucrece, on finding herself alone with Gennaro, offers him an antidote for the poison he has taken — and there is a fine moment where he doubts whether the Due de Ferrara has really poisoned him, or whether it is Lucrece herself who wishes to do so. Finally, however, he swallows the antidote, and is warned by Lucrece to quit Ferrara without delay. But I pass by the second act, which, however, is fully worthy of the reader's attention, in order to arrive at the third act, which closes the play, that opened with the insult given to Dona Lucrece, at the masked ball at Venice, by a vengeance she takes for that insult at a supper at Ferrara. The five young Venetian nobleman have been invited by Lucrece's order to an entertainment at the Negroni Palace, and Gennaro, whom he supposes distant from Ferrara, ac- companies them thither. ACT III. Oloferno {his glass in his hand). What wine like that of Xeres 1 — Xeres of Frontera is a city of Paradise ! •VIaffio {his glass in his hand). The wine that we drink, Jeppo, is better than any of your stories. ASCANIO. Jeppo has the misfortune to be a great teller of tales when he has drunk a little. H2 172 DRAMA. Don Apostolo. The other day it was at Venice at his serene high- ness's the Doge Barbarigo's : to-day it is at Ferrara, at the divine Princess Negroni's. Jeppo. The other day it was a mournful tale ; to-day it's a merry one. Maffio. A merry tale, Jeppo! — How happened it that Don Sihceo, a fine cavalier not more than thirty, after having gambled away his patrimony, married that rich Mar- quesa Calpurnia, who has counted forty-eight springs, to say the least of it ? By the body of Bacchus, do you call that a gay story 1 GUBETTA. It's sad and trite — a man ruined who marries a woman in ruins ; one sees it every day. {He turns to the table. Some get up and come to the front of the scene during the continuance of the orgie.) The Princess Negroni {to Maffio, pointing to Gennaro.) You seem, D'Orsini, to have but a melancholy friend there. Maffio. He is always so, madam. You must pardon me for having brought him without an invitation; he is my brother in arms — he saved my life in an assault at Rimini ; I received a thrust intended for him in the attack of the bridge of Vicenza: we never quit one another. A gipsy predicted we should die the same day. The Negroni {smiling). Did the gipsy say that it was to be in the night or the morning T Maffio. He said that it should be in the morning. The Negroni. Your Bohemian did not know what he was saying ; and you are friends with that young man 1 — Maffio. As much as one man can be with another. DRAMA. 173 The Negroni. Well, and you suffice one to the other : you are happy. Maffio. Friendship does not fill all the heart, madam. The Negroni. My God ! what does fill all the heart I Maffio. Love. The Negroni. You have love always on your lips. Maffio. And you, madam, have love in your eyes. The Negroni.- You are very singular. Maffio. You are very beautiful ! {He puts his arm round her waist.) The Negroni. Monsieur Orsini!* Maffio. Give me, then, one kiss upon your hand. The Negroni. " No. {She escapes.) GuBETTA {approaching Maffio.) Your business goes on well with the princess. Maffio. She always says " No" to me. GuBETTA. But in a woman's mouth " No" is the eldest brother to "Yes." Jeppo {coming up io Maffio). What do you think of the Princess Negroni ? * The reader will observe that it is not my fault if the Count Or- sini and the Princess Negroni behave a little too much like a younj cantab and a Dover chambermaid. 15* 174 DRAMA. Maffio. She is adorable ! Between ourselves, she begins to work upon my heart most furiously. Jeppo. And her supper 1 Maffio. As perfect as orgie can be ! Jeppo. The princess is a widow. Maffio. One sees that well enough by her gayety. Jeppo. I hope that your fears of the supper are gone by this time 1 Maffio. I ! how then 1—1 was stupid. Jeppo {to Gubetta.) Monsieur de Belverana, you would hardly think that Maffio was afraid of supping at the princess's ^ Gubetta. Afraid '.—why 1 Jeppo. Because the palace Negroni, forsooth, joins the palace Borgia ! Gubetta. To the devil with the Borgia, and let's drink ! Jeppo {in a ivhisper to Maffio). What I like in this Belverana is, his thorough hatred of the Borgias. Maffio {in a whisper). True, he never misses an occasion of sending them to the devil with a most particular grace. Nevertheless, my dear Jeppo — Jeppo. Well. DRAMA. 176 Maffio. I have watched this pretended Spaniard from the be- ginning of the supper ; he has drank nothing but water. Jeppo. What ! at your suspicion again, my good friend Maf- fio ! The effect of your wine is strangely monotonous ! Maffio. Perhaps so ; I am stupid. GuBETTA (retiring, and looking at Maffio from head to foot). Do you know, Monsieur Maffio, that you are built to live ninety years, and that you are just like my grand- father, who did live to those years, and was called, like myself, Gil-Basilio-Fernen-Fernan-Ireneo-Felipe-Fras- con Frasquito Comte de Belverana ] Jeppo (m a whisper to Maffio). I hope you do not now doubt of his being a Spaniard — he has at least twenty Christian names ! What a litany, Monsieur de Belverana ! GuBETTA. Alas ! our parents have the habit of giving us more names at our baptism than crowns at our marriage. But what are they laughing at down there 1 (Aside.) — Those women must have some pretext to get away ; what's to be done 1 (He returns and sits down to table.) Oloferno (drinking). By Hercules, I never passed a more delicious even- ing ! Ladies, taste this wine ; it's softer than the wine of tacryma Christi, more generous than the wine of Cy- prus ! Here, this is the wine of Syracuse, my seigneurs ! Gubetta. (eating). Oloferno's drunk, it seems. Oloferno. Ladies, I must tell you some verses that I have just made. 1 wish I were more of a poet than I am, in order that I might celebrate such admirable women ! 176 DRAMA. GUBETTA. And I wish I were more rich than 1 am, in order to present my friends with just such other women.* Oloferno. Nothing is so agreeable as to sing the praise of a good supper and a beautiful woman ! GuBETTA. Except to kiss the one and eat the other. Oloferno. Yes, I wish I were a poet ; I would raise myself to heaven — I wish I had two wings !— GuBETTA. Of a pheasant in my plate. Oloferno. At all events, I'll tell you my sonnet. GuBETTA. As I dispense the dogs from biting me, the pope from blessing me, and the people in the street from pelting me. Oloferno. By God's head, I believe, little Spanish gentleman, that you mean to insult me ! GuBETTA. I don't insult you, colossus of an Italian ; I don't choose to listen to your sonnet — nothing more. My throat thirsts more after the Syracusan wine than my ears after poetry. Oloferno. Your ears, you Spanish rascal — I'll nail them to your heels ! Gubetta. You are a foolish beast ! Fy ! did one ever hear of such a lout, to get drunk with Syracusan wine, and have the air of being sottish with beer ! Oloferno. I'll cut you into quarters, that will I ! * Rather singular language in a princess's palace, and addressed to her and her friends. DRAMA. 177 GuBETTA (still carving a pheasant), I won't say as much for you ; I don't carve such big fowls. Ladies, let me offer you some pheasant, Oloferno (seizing a knife). Pardieu ! I'll cut the rascal's belly open, were he more of a gentleman than the emperor himself ! The Women (rising from the table.) Heavens ! they are going to fight ! The Men, Come, come, Oloferno ! (They disarm Oloferno ^ who wishes to rush upon Gu- betta. While they are doing thisj the Women disappear.) Oloferno (struggling). By God's body— Gubetta. Your rhymes are so rich with God, my dear poet, that you have put these ladies to flight. You are a terrible bungler ! Jeppo. It's very true : where the devil are they gone to ? Maffio. They were frightened : " steel drawn, woman gone.'* ASCANIO. Bah ! they'll come back again. Oloferno (menacing Gubetta). I'll find you again to-morrow, my little devil Bellive- dera ! Gubetta. To-morrow as much as you please. (Oloferno seats himself tottering with rage. Gubetta bursts out laughing.) That idiot ! to send away the prettiest women in Fer- rara with a knife wrapped up in a sonnet ! To quarrel about rhymes ! — I believe indeed he has wings. It is not a man, it's a bird — it perches ; it ought to sleep on one leg, that creature Oloferno. H3 178 DRAMA. Jeppo. There, there, gentlemen, let's have peace— you'll cut one another's throats gallantly to-morrow: by Jupiter! you'll fight, at all events, like gentlemen — with swords, and not with knives ! ASCANIO. Apropos ! what have we done with our swords * Don Apostolo. You forget that they were taken from us in the ante- chamber. GUBETTA. And a good precaution too, or we should have been fighting before ladies, a vulgarity that would bring blushes into the cheek of a Fleming drunk with tobacco ! Gennaro. A good precaution, in sooth ! Maffio. Pardieu ! brother Gennaro, those are the first words that have passed your lips since the beginning of the supper, and you don't drink ! Are you thinking of Lu- crece Borgia, Gennaro 1 Decidedly you have some little love affair with her — don't say " No." Gennaro. Give me to drink, Maffio ! I won't abandon my friends at the table any more than I would in the battle. A black Page, with two flagons in his hand. My lords, the wine of Cyprus or of Syiracuse 1 Maffio. Syracusan wine, that's the best. {The black Page fills all the glasses.) Jeppo. The plague seize thee, Oloferno ! are those ladies not coming back again 1 — {He goes successively to the two doors.) — The doors are fastened on the other side, gen- tlemen. Maffio. Now, Jeppo, don't you in your turn be frightened ; they don't wish we should follow them, nothing can be more simple than that. DRAMA. 17$ Gennaro. Let us drink, gentlemen ! {They bring their glasses together.) Maffio. To thy health, Gennaro! and mayst thou soon re- cover thy mother ! Geiwaro. May God hear thee ! {All drink, except Gubetta^ who throws his wine over his shoulder.) Maffio {in a whisper to Jeppo). This time, at all events, Jeppo, I saw it clearly. Jeppo {whispering). What? Maffio. The Spaniard did not drink. Jeppo. Well, what then? Maffio. He threw his wine over his shoulder. Jeppo. He is drunk, and you too. Maffio. It is just possible. GUBETTA. Come, a song, gentlemen ! I am going to sing you a song worth all the sonnets of the Marquis Oloferno. I swear, by the good old scull of my father, that I did not make the song, and that I have not wit enough to make two rhymes jingle at the end of an idea. Here's my song — it's addressed to St. Peter, the celebrated porter of Paradise, and it has for its subject that delicate thought that God's heaven belongs to the drinkers. Jeppo {to Maffio, whispering). He is more than drunk ; the fellow's a drunkard. All {except Gennaro). The song ! the song ! 180 DRAMA. GuBETTA (singing), St. Peter, St. Peter, ho ! Your gates open fling To the drinker, who'll bring A stout voice to sing Domino ! Domino ! All in chorus {except Gennaro.) Gloria Domino ! {They clash their glasses together, and laugh loudly. All of a sudden, one hears distant voices, which sing in a mournful key.) Voice without. Sanctum et terribile nomen ejus, initium sapientiae timor Domini ! Jeppo {laughing still loUder). Listen, gentlemen ; by the body of Bacchus, while we are singing " to drink," Echo is singing " to pray !" All. Listen! Voice without {a little nearer). Nisi Dominus custodierit civitatem, frustra vigilat qui custodit earn. {They all burst out laughing.) Maffio. It's some procession passing. Gennaro. At midnight ! — that's a little late. Jeppo. Bah ! Go on. Monsieur de Belverana. Voice without, and which comes nearer and nearer. Oculos habent et non videbunt, nares habent et non odorabunt, aures habent et non audient. {All laughing louder and louder.) Jeppo. Trust the monks for bawling ! DRAMA. 181 Maffio. Look, Gennaro ; the lamps are going out here — a min- ute more, and we shall be in darkness. {The lamps get pale, as if for want of oil.) Voice without, still nearer* Manus habent et non palpabunt, pedes habeiit et non ambulabunt, non clamabunt in gutture suo. Gennar.o. It seems to me as if the voices approached. Jeppo. It seems to me as if the procession were at this mo- ment under our windows. Maffio. They are the prayers of the dead. ASCANIO. It's some burial. Jeppo. Let's drink to the health of him they are going to bury. GUBETTA. How do you know whether there be not many ? Jeppo. Well, then, let's drink to all their healths ! Apostolo {to Gubetta). Bravo ! and let's continue our invocation to St. Peter. Gubetta. Speak, then, more politely; one says Mr. St. Peter, honourable holder of the patent place of jailer, and door-keeper of Paradise. {He sings.) St. Peter, St. Peter, ho ! Thy gates open fling To the drinker, who'll bring A stout voice to sing Domino! Domino! {All.) Gloria Domino ! 16 182 DRAMA. GUBETTA. To the drunkard, who, stanch To his wine, has a paunch, That by Jove you might ask — Is't a man — or a cask! All {in clashing their glasses together ^ and laughing loudly.) Gloria Domino ! {The great door at the farther end of the stage opens silently to its full width. You see within — an im- mense room hung with black — lit with torches — and with a large silver cross at the end of it. A long line of penitents in white and blacky and whose eyes are visible through their hoods, cross on head, and torch in hand, enter by the great door, chanting in an ominous and loud voice — De profundis ad te Domine ! (Then they arrange themselves on the two sides of the room, and stand immoveable as statues, while the young gentlemen regard them stupified. Maffio. What does this mean ! Jeppo {forcing a laugh). It's some joke. — I'll lay my charger against a pig, and my name of Liveretto against the name of Borgia, that it is our charming comtesses, who have disguised them- selves in this fashion to try our courage, and that if we lift up one of those hoods, we shall find under it the fresh and wicked face of a pretty dame. Let's see ! {He raises, laughingly, one of the capuchins, and stands petrified at seeing under it the livid face of a monk, who stands motionless ; the torch in his hand, and his eyes bent to the ground. He lets the cowl fall, and totters back. This begins to be strange ! Maffio. I don't know why my blood chills in my veins — {The penitents sing loith a loud voice.) Conquassabit capita in terra multorum ! Jeppo. What a terrible snare! Our swords, our swords! Ah ! gentlemen, we are with the devil here. DRAMA. 183 ACT III. SCENE II. The same. Donna Lucreoe {appearing of a sudden^ robed in blackj on the threshold of the door). You are my guests ! All (except Gennaro, who observes every thing from the re- cess of a window^ where he is not seen by Donna Lucrece). Lucrece Borgia ! Donna Lucrece. It's some days ago since all of you whom I see here repeated that name in triumph. To-day you repeat it in dread. Yes, you may look at me with your eyes glassed by terror. It's I, gentlemen! 1 come to an- nounce to you a piece of news — you are poisoned, all of you, my lords ; here is not one of you who has an hour to live. Don't stir ! The room adjoining is filled with pikes. It's my turn now to speak high, and to crush your heads beneath my heel. Jeppo Liveretto, go join thy uncle Vitelli whom I had poniarded in the caves of the Vatican! Ascanio Petrucci, go rejoin your cousin Pandolfo, whom I had assassinated in order to rob him of his town ! Oloferno Vitellozzo, thy uncle expects thee — thou knowest that Jago d'Appiani whom 1 had poisoned at a fdte. MaiRo Orsini, go talk of me in another world to thy brother Gravina, whom I had strangled in his sleep. Apostolo Gazella, I had thy father Francisco Gazella beheaded. I had thy cousin Alphonso of Arragon slain, say'st thou : — go and join them ! On my soul, I think the supper I gave you at Ferrara is worth the ball you gave me at Venice. F6te for f6te, my lords ! Jeppo. This is a rude waking, Maffio ' Maffio. Let us think of God ! Donna Lucrece. Ah ! my young friends of last carnival, you did not 184 DRAMA. quite expect this ! Par Dieu — it seems to me that I can revenge myself. What think you, gentlemen 1 Who is the most skilled in the art of vengeance here 1 This is Jiot bad, 1 think — hem ! W^hat say you 1 for a woman ! — {To the monks.) My fathers, carry these gentlemen into the adjoining room, which is prepared for their re- ception. Confess them ! and profit by the few instants which remain to them to save what can be saved of their souls. Gentlemen, I advise those among you who have souls, to look after them. Rest satisfied ! they are in good hands. These worthy fathers are the regular monks of St. Sixtus, permitted by our holy father the pope to assist me on occasions such as this — and if I have been careful of your souls, 1 have not been careless of your bodies. — Judge ! — (To the monks who are before the door at the end). Stand on one side a little, my fathers, so that these gentlemen may see. {The monks withdraw^ and leave visible five coffins^ covered each with a black cloth, and ranged before the door. The number is there — there are five ! — Ah ! young men ! you tear out the bowels of a poor woman, and you think she'll not avenge herself. Here, Jeppo, is your coffin — Maffio, here is yours. Oloferno, Apostolo, Ascanio, here are yours ! Gennaro {whom she had not seen till then, steps forth). There must be a sixth, madam. Donna Lucrece. Heavens, Gennaro ! Gennaro. Himself! Lucrece. Let everybody leave the room — ^let us be left alone. Gubetta, whatever happens, whatever you may hear without, let no one enter here. Gubetta. You shall be obeyed. {The monks go out in procession, taking with them in their ranks the five seigneurs, tottering with wine. Lucrece now presses Gennaro to save himself by DRAMA. 185 taking what remains of the antidote she had formerly given him. He asks, Is there enough to save all 1 She answers, No ; barely enough for one. Gennaro then, furious at the death of his friends, seizes a knife from a table, and prepares to inflict the death which Lucrece had merited for her crimes. LUCRECE. Oh ! Gennaro, if thou knewest — if thou knewest the relationship between us ! Thou knowest not how near and dear thou art to me — thou knowest not how we are connected. — The same blood runs in our veins. — Thy father was Jean Borgia, Duke of Gandia. Gennaro. Your brother ; — then you are my aunt. " His aunt !" says Lucrece, falteringly ; and before her is death on one side, and an acknowledgment to her own son of incest with his father on the other She hesitates to say all, and Gennaro, who looks upon her as his aunt, and the persecutrix of his mother, is only more resolved in his plans of vengeance. '* A crime," he says : " and supposing it be a crime, am I not a Borgia T' At this instant the dying voice of Maffio d'Orsini calling for vengeance comes to him from the adjoining chamber. He stabs Lucrece — " Ah ! tu m'as tuee, Gennaro ; — je suis ta mere." 16* DRAMA. CHAPTER IV. The merits of M. V. Hugo — His theory — M. V, Hugo aims at unat- tainable things — M. Dumas at attainable things — Translation from Antony. 1 HAVE preferred thus copiously translating from Lucrece Borgia, to writing a more formal description, with short and imperfect extracts, of M. V. Hugo's different dramatic productions. In the first place, I thus give a tolerable idea^ at all events, of one of this writer's principal dramas. In the next place, by selecting a popular performance, I obtain the right to judge the audience which applauded that performance ; and lastly, by selecting for criticism a work which was written on a particular plan, and which, written on that plan, has succeeded, it cannot be said that I have taken an unfair opportunity of judging and condemning this plan itself. As far as the ta|*»nt of the author is concerned in Lucrece Borgia, I vrn that I admire the dark, and terrible, and magnificent, though coarse and furious, energy that he has here brought upon the stage. The last act ; the act in which you see the wine-cup and the bier, in which you hear the bacchanal and the dirge, in which, mingled with the voluptuaries garlanded with roses, stalk forth the cowled instruments of assassina- tion and religion ; the last act, in the wild mixture of death and luxury, of murder and superstition, exhibits one of the most striking, the most terrific, the most tremendous pageants that has yet been brought upon the modern stage. The author of Hemani and Lucrece Borgia is not only a writer of extraordinary powers, but a writer of extraordinary powers in that very branch of com- position wherein he has generally been deemed the DRAMA. 187 least successful. M. Victor Hugo might aspire to the place (under a total change of the circumstances of life, and therefore under a total change in the rules of art) which Corneille or Racine once held upon the stage of his country, and, I had almost said, to a place near that which Shakspeare once held upon our own. But why, then — why is it that some of his attempts have been such signal failures ? Why is it that, in some of his dramas, without ever soaring to the sublime, he has grovelled amid the ridiculous, while even in the last piece I have quoted, in one of those where there is the most to admire, I confe':is chat there appears to me at least as much to forgive. It is not that M. Victor Hugo is incapable of oeing a great dramatist, but that he has laid down a set of rules which almost render it impossible that he should be one. The system which spoils the romance of " Notre Dame,"* has been carried out to the most extravagant extent, where it is still less calculated to succeed; and what is most extraordinary, M. Hugo lays it down, with all the solemnity of profound wisdom, that the great art of exciting interest and propagating morality is to take for your heroes and your heroines the most atrocious characters, a. ' inspire them with some one most excessive virtue. It is hardly to be believed that such a doctrine should be gravely stated : but let us hear M. Victor Hugo himself ! " What is the secret thought of the * Roi s'Amuse ?' This : — Take the most monstrous physical deformity — place it in the meanest and most degraded social po- sition.! Well ; give this creature a soul, and breathe into this soul the sentiment of paternity. The de- graded creature will become sublime, the little creature * A beautiful romance — in which the most interesting person, how- ever, is described as the likeness of a grotesque figure in a gothic church — and one of the most dehcate females ever drawn by the pen of romance trembles like a frog ! •f Triboulet, the well-knovra buffoon of Francis I. The play turns on the grief of this wretch, painted by M. V. Hugo himself as the vilest of mankind, at his daughter's being seduced by the king, — a misfortune which, according to his character and the character of his times, he would have been too happy to undergo. 188 DRAMA. will become great, the depraved creature will become beautiful. " This is the Roi s'Amuse. And what is Lucr^ce Borgia? Now take the moral deformity, the most hideous, the most disgusting, the most complete ; put it, where it is most remarkable, in the breast of a woman, and plant in this breast ihe purest senti- ment a woman can possess — the sentiment of ma- ternity, and the monster will interest you, and the monster will make you weep, and that soul so deformed will be replete with grace and loveliness The author will not bring Marion de Lorme* on the stage without ennobling her with a pure affection, nor Tri- boulet without making him an excellent father ; nor Lucre ce Borgia without making her a devoted mother." True, if there were any law to oblige a dramatist to choose the characters of Marion de Lorme, and Triboulet, and Lucr^ce Borgia, and awake in the mind of his audience an affectionate interest for such characters — if there were such a barbarous law as this— it might then be very well, and perhaps very right, for the author to say, " I'll soften the characters I am obliged to use in this manner, and since 1 must make them as interesting, I will make them as virtuous as I can." — It is very true, moreover, that a vicious buffoon may possibly love his daughter, that a depraved woman of the town may have a chaste and noble passion, that a murderess and assassin may adore her son. But when an author may choose any personage he thinks proper, and may give to that per- sonage any part he thinks proper — if he wish to inter- est us with a tale of extraordinary filial affection, he should not take a villanous buffoon for his hero, any more than, if he wish to interest us in a tale of pure and romantic love, he should take a harlot for his heroine. In allying things hideous with things beauteous, * The famous prostitute of the time of Louis XIII. The force of the drama consists in the pure and passionate attachment of this lady for a youth, to save whom from prison she sacrifices once more her oft-sacrificed hono*>r DRAMA. 189 tilings vicious with things virtuous, instead of enno- bling ugliness by the beauty, vice by the virtue you connect with it, you too frequently make that ridiculous and ignoble which should be kept sacred, venerated, and religious. " Affix God to the gibbet," says M. Victor Hugo, *' and you have the cross." We know that punishment does not constitute crime, that God does not cease to be God for his crucifixion ; but to prove the value of M. Victor Hugo's theory, it would be necessary to show— not that Christ remained Christ after he was crucified — but that he actually became Christ by the very act of his crucifixion. Nothing can be so absurd as to attempt to arrive at a particular eifect in opposition to the natural sympathies that produce it. It is very true that a young man may be attached to an ugly old woman. We have all known instances of this ; yet if Romeo had killed him- self for Juliet's aunt, or Juliet's duenna, or Juliet's grandmother, it is very doubtful whether the audience would not have been quite as much inclined to laugh at him for a consummate fool as to weep for him as a romantic lover. It is the grace, the beauty, the tender years of Juliet — it is this which makes us feel all the passion, and comprehend all the despair of the Italian youth. The wonderful art of Shakspeare is, that with- out distorting a character into a caricature, he always takes care that it produces in us a right ejETect. We view Richard III. with horror, and yet he is a great captain — a wise and provident monarch — valiant — in- telligent. The deformities of the usurper are not exaggerated, his merits are allowed: but still in spite of the admiration we feel for his gallantry as a soldier, for his sagacity as a prince, we despise him as a hypocrite, and hate him as an assassin. JM. V. Hugo would have made us love him in spite of his hump, in spite of his murders, in spite of his dissembling, in spite of all these defects and a hundred others if he had them ; nay, on account of these very defects themselves, he would have selected him just 27 190 DRAMA. as the person that we should love, that we must love, and this for some peculiar virtue, the very last we should have suspected him of. If M. V. Hugo were to wish to inspire you with terror, reader, he would try to frighten you with a sheep ; if he were to wish to give you an idea of swiftness, he would prefer doing it by a tortoise. Lucrece Borgia met with very deserved success, but this was in spite of the principle it was written upon, and not on account of it ; it was on account of the vivid colouring, the passionate energy, the quick succession of action, the force and the magnificence of two or three dramatic situations, and in spite of the sentimental whining of an Italian mercenary after an unknown mother who had abandoned him, and the ridiculous and puling affection of such a woman as Lucrece Borgia for her incestuous offspring, that this piece succeeded. I remember a story, told in some learned nursery book, of a contest between the archers of King Rich- ard and those of Robin Hood. The archers of King Richard, rather too confident perhaps in their skill, pre- ferred showing it by shooting at the moon, while the shrewder archers of Robin Hood shot at the target. It is hardly necessary to say that the archers of Robin Hood carried off all the prizes. This is just the dif- ference between M. Victor Hugo and M. Dumas. The one aims at attainable, the other at unattainable objects. The one looks to the success he is to obtain, the other at the theory through which he is determined to obtain it. For strength and poesy of language, for force and magnificence of conception, there can be no comparison between M. V. Hugo and M. Dumas. The first has nobler and loftier elements for the composition of a dramatic poet, the second pro- duces a more perfect effect from inferior materials. M. V. Hugo never steps out of the sublime without falling at once into the absurd — however triumphant the piece you are listening to may be in a particular passage, you never feel sure that it will succeed as a whole— some word, some phrase surprises and shocks DRAMA. 191 you when you least expect it. From the moment that the curtain is lilted, until the moment it falls, the author is in a perpetual struggle with his audience — now you are inclined to smile, and he suddenly forces you to admire, — now you are inclined to admire, and again you are involuntarily compelled to laugh. In nothing is M. V. Hugo consistent : careless of applause, as you would suppose, and might really be- lieve, from the plan he pursues — at times he testifies the most vulgar desire for a cheer — and a lady declares to the pit at the Porte St. Martin, that there is some- thing finer than being the Countess of Shrewsbury, viz. being the wife of a cutler's apprentice ! ! Recondite in his research after costume and scenery, this writer despises and confounds, in the most painful manner, historical facts. In Marie Tudor,* Mary of England, whose chastity, poor woman, was * It is very difficult to make the plan of Marie Tudor intelligible, more especially since the author has not succeeded in doing so. Marie Tudor, just before her marriage with Philip, has for paramour an Italian adventurer, Fabiani. This Italian adventurer seduces a young woman betrothed to a cutler's apprentice, who appears to be in tiie lowest state of life, but who is in reality a Talbot, a Countess of Shrewsbury, and the Lord knows what besides. The queen, dis- covering this intrigue, is determined to be avenged, and in order to be so, she asks the apprentice, as the reward for her recognising the rights of the new Countess of Shrewsbury, to pretend to stab her (the queen), and accuse Fabiani of having bribed him to do it, in which case he and Fabiani will both be disposed of by the execu- tioner. Gilbert, the apprentice, accordingly does this, and he and the Italian are condemned to death in a fashion in which neither Eng- lishman nor Italian have, either before or since, been condemned to death in Great Britain. Two great changes at this time take place in the two ladies' feel- ings : — Marie is all agony to save Fabiani, whom she has taken such pains to have beheaded ; and the Countess of Shrewsbury discovers that she never Uked Fabiani, but the apprentice, whom she had always before regretted she could not love. The interest of the play now turns on one of the prisoners having escaped, and each lady believing that it is her lover ; and there is a fine scene, where Lon- don is shown joyful and illuminated on account of the execution, which the two ladies are both watching with intense anxiety from the Tower. Fabiani is beheaded, and Gilbert saved. The follies of this play, the queen's solemn interview with .fack Ketch, the mysterious promenadings of a Spanish ambassador, the luxurious loves of poor chaste Marie Tudor herself^all these it is iinpossibie to say any thing of here, and it would be difficult in vol- fuues to say enough of their grotesque and original absurdity. 192 DRAMA. her only virtue, is brought on the stage with an Italian musician for her lover, in the character of Mary Queen of Scots, with whom it is impossible to believe that M. Hugo really confounded her.* Monsieur Dumas is not quite so prodigal of these defects. The drama of Henry III. is almost perfect in its keeping with the times of that prince's court. The gallantry, the frivolity, the confusion, the super- stition of that epoch, all find a place there. The char- acter of Henry III., crafty, courageous, weak, ener- vated, effeminate, sunk in vice, pleasure, and devotion — the character of Catherine de Medicis, reading, per- chance believing, the stars — but not trusting to them — man in her ambition, woman in her ways — daring every thing, and daring nothing openly — meeting the rebellious plans of the Due de Guise by a counter- plot against his marriage bed — advising her son to put down the League by declaring himself its head — these two characters of Henry and his mother are as perfect historical portraits, as the melancholy, interesting, and high and stern-minded St. Megrim is a perfect imagina- tive picture. Set Henry III. by the side of Lucrece Borgia — there is no one part in Henry Ill.f to be compared with the last act — the supper in the Negroni Palace, in Lucrece Bor- gia. There is no one part in Henry III. in which such splendid and gay and dark images are so massed toge- ther — where such terror and such luxury, such gayety * " Rien n'y contredit I'histoire bien que beaucoup de choses y soyent ajoutees; rien n'y est violento par les inconunodites de la representation, ni par I'unit^ de Jour, ni par celle de lieu." In what Corneille said of Cinna, M. V. Hugo may find a lesson. t Henry III. has been so well translated, and is so well known in Catherine of Cleves, that 1 only refer to it. The plot consists in the fact I have alluded to. Catherine de Medicis, in order to occupy the Due de Guise, foments a passion between the duchesse and one of Henry's favourites, St. Megrim. The due discovers the intrigue, entraps St. Megi im, and has him slain. The whole play turns, as I have said in an early part of this work, on a lost podut-handkerchief, which occasioned the lines I then quoted — " Messieurs et mesdames— cette pi^ce est morale EUe prouve aujourd'hui sans laire de scandale Que chez un amant, lorsqu'on va le soir, On peut oublier tout— except^ son mouchoir." DRAMA. 193 and such horror, are thrust in vivid contrast at once upon you. But the play of M. Dumas, though it does not strike you as the product of so powerful a talent as that of M. Hugo, satisfies you better as the work of a more natural talent. Its a<:tion seems to you more easily animated, more unalfectedly developed. It does not startle you so much at different passages, but it Keeps your attention more continually alive — it does not agitate you at times so terribly during the perform- ance, but it leaves a more full and complete impression upon your mind when the curtain drops. Between Henry III. and the other pieces of M. A. Dumas, there appears to me, however, no comparison. There is in that piece a grace, a dignity, a truth, which one seeks in vain, as it appears to me, in the subse- quent productions which crowded audiences have de- clared equally successful. Antony is the play, perhaps, in which the public have seen most to admire. The plot is simple, the action rapid, the divisions decided — each act contains an event, and each event develops the character and tends to the catastrophe of the piece. Antony is an illegitimate child, brought up by charity, and who never knew his parents. He is rich, however, and in love with Adele (a young lady of good fortune and family), to whom he does not venture to propose on account of the mystery of his birth* — a mystery with which the young lady, and Antony's acquaintance in general, it would seem, are strangely unacquainted. Adele, attached to Antony, but piqued and offended at his conduct, for he had left her suddenly, at the mo- ment when she supposed him likely to claim her hand, marries a Col. Hervey. It is three years after this marriage, I think, that the play begins. Antony then returns and rei^uests, as a friend, an interview with Adele, which she determines to avoid, and getting into her carriage, leaves her sister to re- * One of the absurdities of this play, as a pictiire of French man- ners, is this extraordinary disgrace which the author has attached to illegitimacy in a capital where there is bom more than one illegiti- mate child to every two legitimate ones. 194 DRAMA. ceive the visiter. The horses, however, run away with her, and by one of those old and convenient acci- dents which authors have not yet dispensed with, An- ton) stops them, saves her life, gets injured in the chivalrous enterprise, and is carried by the physician's order to Madame d'Hervey's house. Here he soon finds an opportunity to tell his misfortune, his despair, the passion he feels, and the reasons why he did not declare it sooner — and Adele, after hearing all this, thinks it safer to make the best of her way after her husband, who is at Frankfort. She starts, her voyage is nearly over, when she ar- rives at a little inn, where she is obliged to stop, on account of another convenient accident— a want of post-hoi;ses. Here the following scene will explain what takes place. SCENE vn. Hostess, Adele. Hostess {^from without). Coming ! coming ! — {entering.) — Was it madame who called ? Adele. I wish to go. Are the horses returned % Hostess. They were hardly gone when madame arrived, and I don't expect them before two or three hours. Would madame repose herself T Adele. Where ? Hostess. In this cabinet, there's a bed. Adele. Your cabinet does not shut. Hostess. The two doors of this room shut inside. Adele. True. 1 need not be alarmed here. DRAMA. 195 Hostess {bringing a light into the cabinet). What could madame be alarmed at 1 Adele. This is silly. — [Hostess goes out of the cabinet) — Come, for Heaven's sake, and tell me as soon as the horses are returned. Hostess. The very instant, madame. Adele (going into the cabinet). No accident can happen in this hotel 1 Hostess. None. If madame wishes it, I will order some on© to sit up. Adele {at the entry of the cabinet). No, no — indeed — excuse me — leave me. {She goes into the cabinet and shuts the door. (Antony appears on the balcony behind the window^ breaks a glass, pushes his arm through, ppens the window, enters quickly, and bolts the door which the Hostess just ivent out at). Adele {coming out of the cabinet). A noise — a man — oh ! Antony. Silence ! — {taking her in his arms and putting a handker- chief to her mouth) — It's I — 1 — Antony. {He carries her into the cabinet.) Thus ends Act III, Some months have passed away. Antony and his mistress are then at Paris, and Col. d'Hervey still (this is again convenient) remains at Frankfort, where An- tony has sent a faithful servant, who is to watch over the movements of the unfortunate husband, and ride to Paris with the news, if he should take it into his head to return. You are now taken to a ball ; and here Adele gets insulted by a lady for her supposed weakness in favour of Antony — the weakness, as yet, is only supposed. Antony consoles his mistress for this insult, which one 12 196 DRAMA. does not. quite see why she received, since her friend, the hostess and queen of the ball, has already changed her lover two or three tunes during the piece. Mis- fortunes, says the proverb, never come singly, and hardly can Adele have got home, when the servant who had been stationed at Frankfort arrives, and an- nounces that Col. d'Hervey will be at Paris almost as soon as himself. Antony hurries to his mistress's house, and endeav- ours to persuade her to elope with him immediately. ACT V. SCENE III. Antony. Well, thou seest remaining here, there is no hope in heaven . . . Listen, I am free — my fortune will follow me — besides, if it failed, I could supply it easily. A carriage is below. Listen and consider, there is no other course. If a heart devoted — if the whole exist- ence of a man cast at thy feet, suffice thee, say " Yes." Italy, England, Germany, offer us an asylum. 1 tear thee from thy family, from thy country — well, I will be to thee family — country. A change of name will dis- guise us from the world. No one will know who we were till we are dead. We'll live alone — thou shalt be my fortune, my God, my Ufe. I'll have no will but thine, no happiness but thine. Come, come, we are enough for each other to forget the world. Adele. Yes, yes — but one word to Clara. Antony. We have not a minute to lose. Adele. My child, my daughter — I must embrace my girl— seest thou — this is a last adieu, an eternal farewell ! Antony. Well, yes ! — go, go. — {He pushes her,) O my God ! What ails thee ? DRAMA. IS? Adele. Antony. Adele. My daughter! — leave my daughter! — my daughter, who will be reproached one day with the crime of her mother, who will still live, perhaps, though not for her. My girl ! my poor child ! who will expect to be presented to the world as innocent, and who will be presented to it as dishonoured as her mother, and dishonoured by her mother's fault. Antony. O my God ! Adele. Is it not so ■? A blot once fallen upon a name is not effaced — it eats into it — it preys upon it — it destroys it. Oh my daughter, my daughter ! Antony. Well ! — we'll take her with us : let her come with us. But yesterday, I should have thought it impossible to love her — the daughter of another — of thee. Well ! she shall be my daughter, my adopted child. But come — take her then; every instant is death. What dost thou consider about "? — he is coming, he is coming ! — he is yonder ! Adele. Wretch that I am become ! Where am I? and where hast thou conducted mel and all this in three months. An honourable man confides his name to me — places his happiness in me — trusts his daughter to me ! I adore her — She is his hope, his old age, the being in whom he hopes to survive. Thou comest — it is but three months. My smothered love awakes — I dishonour the name in- trusted to me — I destroy the happiness reposed on me ; and this is not all — no, this is not enough — I carry away from him the daughter of his heart. I disinherit his old days of his child's caresses, and in exchange of his love I give him shame, sorrow, solitude ! Tell me, Antony, is not this infamy '^ Antony. What wouldst the a do then? 17* 1 98 DRAMA. Adele. Stay— Antony. And when he shall have discovered every thing — Adele. He'll kill me. Antony proposes they should die together — " Blessed he God," he says, — Blessed be God, who made my life for unity ! Blessed be God that 1 can quit life without drawing a tear from eyes that love me. Blessed be God for having allowed me, in the age of hope, to have known and been fatigued with every thing . . . One bond alone attached me to this world . . . Thou wert that bond — it breaks — I am content to die, but I would with thee ... I wish the last beatings of our hearts to respond — our last sighs to mingle. Dost thou understand T ... A death as soft as sleep — a death happier than our life. . . . Then — who knows ?- from pity, perhaps, they'll throw our bodies into the same tomb. Adele. Oh! yes! That would be heaven, if my memory could die with me — but if I die thus, the world will say- to my child — " Your mother thought to escape shame by- death . . . and she died in the arms of the man who had dishonoured her" — and if my poor girl say " No," they will lift up the stone that covers our grave, and say, " There, see them !" Antony. Oh ! we are indeed damned, neither to live nor die ! Adele. Yes, yes. I ought to die — I alone — thou seest it- ... Go then, in the name of heaven — go ! Antony. Go ! . . . quit thee ! . . . when he comes ... to have had thee, and to have lost thee ! . . . hell ! . . . And were he not to kill thee . . . were he to pardon thee . . . To have been guilty of rape, violence, adultery — to have possessed thee — and can I hesitate at anew crime, that is, to keep thee ?— What ! lose my soul for so Httle ! Satan would iaugh. Thou art foolish. No, no ! Thou DRAMA. 199 art mine as man is misfortune's (seizing her in his arms.) Thou must live for me. ... I carry thee away. — Evil be on the head of him who would prevent me ! . Adele. Oh! oh! Antony. Cries, tears, it matters not ! Adele. My daughter ! my daughter ! Antony. She's a child, and will laugh to-morrow. (They are just on the point of going outy when a doU' ble knock is heard at the street door. Adele (bursting from Antonyms arms). Oh ! it's he. . . . Oh ! my God ! my God ! Have pity on me ! pardon, pardon ! Antony. Come, it is over now ! Adele. Somebody's coming up stairs . . . somebody rings — (It must be remembered this is a French house, and the knock was at the outer door.) — It's my husband — fly, fly ! Antony (fastening the door). Not I — I fly not . . . Listen! . . . You said just now that you did not fear death. Adele. No, no ... Oh ! kill me, for pity's sake ! Antony. A death that would save thy reputation, that of thy child? Adele. I'll beg for it on my knees. (A voice from without; " Open, open! break open the door!") Antony. And in thy last breath thou wilt not curse thy assassin ? 200 DRAMA. Adele. I'll bless him — but be quick . . . that door. Antony. Fear nothing ! death shall be here before any one. But reflect on it well — death ! Adele. I beg it — wish it — implore it {throwing herself into his arms) — I come to seek it. Antony {kissing her). Well then, die ! {He stabs her with a poniard. Adele {falling into afauteuil). Ah! {At the same moment the door is forced open. Col. d'Hervey rushes on to the stage. SCENE IV. Col. d'Hervey^ Antony, Adele, and different servants. Col. d'Hervey. Wretch '.—What do I see 1— Adele ! Antony. Dead, yes, dead ! — she resisted me, and I assassinated her. {He throws his dagger at the ColoneVs feet. DRAMA. 201 CHAPTER V. The merits of M. Dumas—" Ang^le"— " Darlington"—" Teresa"— '* Tour de Nesle"— Description of the effect produced by " Tour de Nesle" — The characters of a time should be in the character of the time — M. Dumas dresses up the nineteenth century in a hvery of heroism, turned up with assassination and incest. There is enough, I think, even in the short and im- perfect translation I have just given from Antony, to show considerable energy and talent, and that kind of passion and movement which hurries away an audi- ence. Indeed, the productions of M. Dumas, which lose much of their effect in reading, afford, in acting, a thou- sand proofs of this author's having taken every pains to study and to succeed in the arts of the stage. There is a line in " Angele," wonderful in its exemplification of his knowledge and his study of these arts. Angele,* a young lady, unhappily seduced, is desir- ous of confessing her misfortune to her motlier — she says she has something to say — the mother inquires tenderly what it is — Angele weeps — the mother takes her hand, endeavours to sooth and encourage her; Angele still weeps. " Is it something so very bad, then ?" says the mother, not suspecting her daughter's innocence. The daughter fixes her eyes upon her * Angele is a young lady, seduced by an adventurer who intends marrying her on a speculation, but on finding the mother a better affair, he engages himself to her. Angele, however, after being con- fined (which she is, one may say, on the stage), confesses the story to her mamma just before the marriage takes place, D'Alvimar, the adventurer, is for making off', but is stopped by a Doctor MuUer, a young physician, who, having long loved Angele, had accidentally deUvered her of her child, and now delivers her of her false-hearted lover, whom (by a most unmedical mode of destruc- tion) he shoots, then marries Angele, adopts her child, and (in order to make her quite happy and comfortable, I suppose) assures her he must die witmn the year of a pulmonary complaint. 13 202 DRAMA. mother, sobs, struggles to speak — the audience is all attention. But how make the confession ? " Ah, si j'avais mon enfant je-le mettrais a vos pieds." A more enthusiastic burst than followed this exclama- tion (I saw the piece the first night of the representa- tion) it is impossible to describe.* M. Dumas has written Henry III., Antony, Angele, Darlington,t Teresa,| and also claims a share in the Tour de Nesle.§ The Tour de Nesle is the most powerful of these performances, and, thrown back into a dark century, is excusable in its ghastly ac- cumulation of midnight horrors. This tower, the Tour de Nesle, built in the twelfth century, on the site now occupied by the college " Mazarin," tall, round, and casting its gloomy shadow on the Seine, was the spot sacred to many of the old popular superstitions, * I remember another instance, in the " Tour de Nesle :" imme- diately after the murder of Phihppe Daulnay and all the abominations of Marguerite and her sisters, the guardian of the night is heard with- out — " II est trois heures ; tout est tranquille — Parisians, dormez !" t Darlington is the illegitimate son of a hangman (this is in England), who is determined to make his fortune. To do this, nothing is so easy (N.B. these were the days of unreformed parliaments) as to be returned M.P. for the County of Northumberland and the Borough of Darlington (both meaning the same thing). Darlington, then, is soon an M. P. ; and he now makes a good speech, on which he is instantly sent for by the minister, and offered at once, by the king in person, a secretary- ship of state, an earldom, and an immense estate, with the only con- dition of his forsaking his principles and marrying a second wife, his own wife being yet living ; this he of course comphes with. But his wife is more difficult to be got rid of than his principles, and in his attempt to carry the good lady abroad, he is stopped by his moral, and virtuous, and indignant father, the hangman. Here ends the piece — finis coronal apus. t Teresa is married to an officer older than herself, and who, in- deed, has a daughter, Amelia, of nearly her age, Teresa is in love with a young man, Arthur, who marries Amelia and then intrigues with Teresa. Ameha gets possession of Teresa's letters, without knowing whose letters they are, but suspecting some intrigue, places them in her father's hands, and her father finds his wife and his son- in-law to be httle better than they should be. He satisfies himself, however, with hurrying daughter and son-in-law off on a fonugn mis- sion (in all M. Dumas's plays there is a foreign mission — no one has such interest in the diplomacy), and Teresa thereupon destioys her- self, as will be seen in a note a httle further on. ^ See note on page 203 DRAMA. 203 among which was a kind of Blue-beard story of a Queen of France, who, according to Brantome, so tenait la d'ordinaire, laquelle fesant le guet aux pas- sants et ceux qui lui revenaient et a greaient le plus, de quelque sorte de gens que ce fussent, les fesait ap- peler et venir a soy et apres avoir tire ce qu'elle en voulait les fesait precipiter du haut de la tour en bas en I'eau, et les fesait noyer. The name of this queen seems a matter much disputed, but Marguerite de Bourgoyne, wife of Louis X., who, together with her two sisters, was convicted of practices something sim- ilar, furnishes the author of the piece with his heroine, and the plot turns on her intrigue with two brothers, whose parentage she was ignorant of, but who prove to be her own sons, by an adventurer " Buridan." One of these sons is murdered by the mother's order, an- other by the father's contrivance — there is hardly any crime to be found in the " causes celebres" which is not ingeniously crowded into the five acts of this drama.* There is hardly any horrible or terrible po- * The main plot (for there are several other minor intrigues) of the " Tour de Nesle" is this. There are two brothers, orphans and ignorant of their parents, Philippe Daulnay and Gaultier Daulnay. Gaultier Daulnay is in the queen's guard, and is beloved by the queen. Philippe Daulnay, coming to see him, is seduced to the Tour de Nesle, and after having partaken of the queen's revels, is murdered, accord- ing to her usual orders. Buridan, who as page to the Due de Bur- goyne had formerly been the lover of Marguerite in early youth, be- fore her marriage, and at her suggestion had murdered her father, Robert II., visits Paris, in order to take advantage of this secret, and finally insists on being made prime minister, and governing France in conjunction with the queen. Marguerite apparently consents, but determines to contrive his death ; while Buridan also begins to think her death necessary for the security of his fortunes. They make a love-appointment at the Tour de Nesle, each intending that it should end in the death of the other. Marguerite posts assassins in the chamber through which Buridan is to pass, and gives them orders to despatch the first man who enters. Buridan informs Gaultier Daul- nay of his rendezvous, excites his jealousy, and gives him the key that will admit him into the tower m his (Buridan's) place, while in the mean time he gives the captain of the guard an order in the king's own hand to enter the Tour de Nesle at the hour when he expected Marguerite and Gaultier would be there, and to sj-ize whomsoever, without exception, he might find, as perpetrators of the horrid mur- ders for whicli the place was famous. Hardly, however, has Gaul- tier left Buridan, before the latter learns that Philippe Daulnay, 204 DRAMA. sition of which the stage affords an example, into which the author has not contrived to place his heroine or heroes — there are some events (the sudden nomina- tion, for instance, of Buridan to he prime minister) too improbable for even the necessities of the scene to jus- tify ; but there are no flagrant violations of history such as those in Marie Tudor — nor is there any wanton at- tempt to interest you in crime. You are not told that you should feel as M. V. Hugo would have told you that you should feel — the deepest interest for the lady who had been strangling her lovers all her life, because she felt some compunction at having accidentally strangled her son at last. Your feelings are allowed to run on in their ordinary course, and your breast is dark from every gleam of pity when the guard leads off the queen and her paramour, caught in their own snares, to ex- ecution. If you choose to judge the Tour de Nesle by the ordinary rules of criticism, it is a melo-dramatic mon- strosity ; but if you think that to seize, to excite, to sus- pend, to transport the feelings of an audience, to hush them into the deepest silence, to wring out from them the loudest applause — to keep them with an eye eager, an ear awake, an attention unflagged from the first scene to the last — if you think that to do this is to be a dramatist — that to have done this is to have written a drama — bow down to M. Dumas, or M. Gaillardet — already slain by Marguerite, and Gaultier Daulnay, whose death he has just been contriving, are the offspring of his early loves with the queen. He hastens then to the tower to save Gaultier, and entering the chamber by the window, avoids the assassins. But he only cornes in time to hear his son's cries under their hands ; and as Gaultier, covered with wounds, totters into the chamber and dies at the feet of his parents, the king's guards enter. The captain of the guard ad- vancing — You are my prisoners. Marg. and BuRi. Your prisoners ! Marg. I — the queen ! BuRi. I — the prime minister ! Capt. of the Gctard. There are here neither queen nor prime minister ; there is a dead body, two assassins, and an order, signed by the king's hand, to arrest this night whoever I should find in the Tom de Nesle. DRAMA. 206 to the author of the Tour de Nesle, whoever he be — that man is a dramatist, the piece he has written is a drama. And yet, powerful as this play is, it wants poesy ; there are no glorious passages, no magnificent situations, — written in prose, its prose is strong, ner- vous, but strictly prosaic. I should find it impossible to sum up an opinion of this performance, by calling it bad or good — Go, reader, to see it ! There is great art, great defects, great nature, great improbabilities, all massed and mingled up together in the rapid rush of terrible things, which pour upon you, press upon you, keep you fixed to your seat, breathless, motion- less. And then a pause comes — the piece is over — you shake your head, you stretch your limbs, you still feel shocked, bewildered, and walk home as if awaked from a terrible nightmare. Such is the effect of the « Tour de Nesle." I have said that the drear and distant times from which this tragedy is brought forth excuse its atroci- ties. These atrocities are part of the dark shadows of that haunted age. The crimes of Atreus, the pun- ishment of Prometheus, the horrors and the passions of Medea were allowed on the Greek stage, because they also were sanctified by long superstition. But one does not expect a Buridan in every shopboy, or a Marguerite in every sempstress. The general colour- ing of modern days is too pale and commonplace for these strange startling figures. They exist, they are in nature, but they are not in theatrical nature. The individual case which startles you in the newspaper is not the case to bring upon the stage. There the characters of a time should be in keeping with, the char- acter of the time. The personages you can fancy in the dark and nar- row streets, passing by the gaunt buttresses, and paus- ing under the dim archways of ancient Paris, you cannot fancy (though they may be found) strolling in the guingettes, or dancing on the Boulevards of Paris at the present day. The Lara of an unknown land, corsair, captain, whose tall shadow shoots along the 18 206 DRAMA. wall of his old ancestral castle, is not the kind of gen- lleman whom you expect to shake hands with at a banker's ball ;* nor can you think that the footman who announced you at the door has got a dagger in one pocket, and a bowl of poison in the other.f M. Dumas, having divined the costume of the dark and gloomy times of Louis X., and the gay and chival- ric and superstitious times of Henry III., appears (to me at all events) to have mistaken or misrepresented that of his own. As M. V. Hugo claps a republican cap on the sixteenth century, so M. Dumas dresses up the nineteenth century in a livery of heroism, turned up with assassination and incest. He parades before you a parcel of doctors, and adventurers, and fine gentlemen, all scowling, and plotting, and folding their arms. The stage is Burlington Arcade, on an August evening, crowded with those mysterious shop- keepers, who wear moustaches when their customers are out of town, and fold a mantle about their shoul- ders to keep out the heat, and look at every lady of Covent Garden saloon as if they expected to find a nouvelle Heloise.;): But let us now pass from the authors of the new drama to that drama itself. * As Antony. t In " Teresa" the lady rings for her footman : — Teresa. Paulo, when we left Italy, you must have thought that vou would fall into some misfortune you would not survive ? Paulo. Yes. Ter. And against such a misfortune have you no resource ? Paulo. Two. Ter. What? Paulo. This poison and this dagger t X Such gentlemen are capital characters for a comedy ; no author need seek a better ; but it is too bad to give them as heroes, and modela of heroism, in sober earnest DRAMA. 207 CHAPTER VI. The modem French drama naturally changed from the ancient one — The person you meet in the streets of Paris not dressed as he was in the time of Louis XIV. — How expect the drama to remain the same — What you should allow for — What you should expect. For years England disputed with France, and France with herself, the true principles of the dramatic art ; for there were some to contend that, though the governments and the feelings of mankind are for ever changing, the rules which goveni the expression of those feelings were not to change. These critics would have declared that the gorgeous and kingly verse of Virgil ought to have been the mo- del on which the abrupt, the stern, and supernatural genius of Milton should have framed its periods. They would have said that the spirit of the bold age which solemnly adjudged a monarch to the death in the full gaze of Europe was not to vary in its style from that of the time in which one man had gathered to himself the ancient majesty of free Rome. Is the person you meet in the streets of Paris dressed as you would have found him in the reign of Louis XIV., and can you expect the stage to appear in the old costume ? When a rigid order reigned over the arts, it reigned also over the world of action ; and the stage was only subject to the same spirit which regulated real life. Society was a machine, in which every thing had a certain place, and moved in a certain way, by a certain law. The smallest atom had its appropriate sphere, beyond which it was impossible to soar. But when men rose daily to the highest ranks from the lowest, rapid and extraordinary in their own career, they soon lost all sympathy with the stiff-jointed transitions of 208 DRAMA. the poet. The slow proprieties of the world were broken through. What, then, were these proprieties on the stage ? The events which had created a new public created necessarily a new theatre. A change in the one, tardy in following, was still sure to follow the other. The movement which had taken place in the material world passed to the intellectual — the arts were subjected to the influences which had remoulded society. A perfectly new style arose. . . . Racine over-purified and polished his language, as Pope too symmetrically modulated ours. In England, the steril but bold and hardy genius of Gray founded a new, a more daring and energetic style of composi- tion ; but the author of " Ruin seize thee, ruthless king !" burst from the chains of the sing-song heroic with no less dignity than courage. There was as much elegance as force in the rhythm of his couplets, and to the old expressions, and to the rich and glow- ing epithets which he revived and coined, a purity was breathed which set the accusation of quaintness or extravagance at defiance. It is almost curious indeed to find in Gray's correspondence with Mr. West the trembling foot which he put forward to new regions, and the anxiety which he showed to give each more daring syllable the authority of a forgotten usage. But Gray lived under the same governinent, in the same state of society as Pope. No vast deluge had swept over England during his time, destroying one set of things, quickening and producing another. The parent of our modern style, it was rather by the musings over a by-gone day, than by any inspiration drawn from what was passing around him, that he refreshed and invigo- rated his language, and caught a tone of simplicity and chivalry which was not that of the society in which he lived. In France, on the contrary, though the stir and rush of later times have been in sympathy with the stern and active genius of the middle ages, it has been the feel- ings of the present that have inspired a passion for the DRAMA. 209 past, and not a study of the past that has breathed its influence over the present. The literature of the mo- ment is native to the moment. But the different English articles that I have seen on the state of the French drama have been written without notice of the circumstances which have pro- duced its peculiarities ; and while the absurdities and the atrocities of the French dramatists have been ridi culed and condemned, their merits have not been seen nor their faults accounted for. The difficulty is in separating what is peculiar to the author himself from the time and the public for which he writes. I don't blame an author for suiting himself to the period and to the people he addresses ; he must be understood by his audience ; but then he should ele- vate his audience. If he live in a time when exaggera- tion is to be expected, you hope to see that exaggera- tion softened by his skill and ennobled by his art. You hope to see him true to nature, though you know it must be the nature of his particular period. You hope to see him keeping to the ancient costume of his- tory, though you know that that costume will be col- oured by the spirit of a new time. You hope to see him seize and concentrate the vaguer sentiments that are abroad, and deduce from them some kind of order which will give a character to his epoch. You hope to see him give force and clearness, rather than add pomp and paradox to what he finds. This you hope ; and above all, you hope that he will awake and excite the better feelings, and make you forget or loathe the more mean and pernicious passions of your soul. How has the modern French dramatists satisfied the hopes and the expectations that we had a right to form? 18* 210 DRAMA. CHAPTER VII. How far the horrid subjects chosen for the French stage are allow- able, and in what their oflFence consists. The first consideration which opens upon us in relation with the present French drama is, the horrid nature of its subjects, and the manner in which those subjects are handled and introduced. 1 shall now, therefore, proceed to inquire. How far those subjects are in themselves allowable, or how much they depend on the manner in which they are treated. A subject is not allowable on the stage either be- cause it offends the rules of art, or because it oifends the still more important rules of morality. Now, I say here, as I said in speaking of the Tour de Nesle, no subject, as it appears to me, offends the rules of art which is in harmony with the character, or with our general ideas of the character, of the time in which it is introduced. The offence against the rules of art in bringing " bloody Queen Mary" on the stage is in not making " bloody Queen Mary" bloody enough. The offence against the rules of art in bringing Darlington on the stage is in making Darling- ton a much greater political profligate than he could possibly have been. I do not, then, I confess, join in the usual cant which denounces as an abomination the mere bringing Lucrece Borgia and Marguerite of Burgoyne on the stage. I see no reason, as a question of art, why any person, why any passion, why any subject should be prohibited the author that his audience does not forbid ; but I do see every reason, as a question of art, why the persons he creates should be in the image of the DRAMA. 211 times in which he creates them — why the persons, for whom he is indebted to history, should stand forth in their historical characters — why the countries of which he speaks should be spoken of with a knowledge of their manners — why the events that take place in the drama should not be wholly unnatural in their com- parison with the events of real life. It is in these, the finer parts of their pursuit, that the present dramatic writers of France are universally defective. If M. V. Hugo and M. Dumas were school- boys, and told to write about English historj^ in the time of Marie Tudor, or English manners and laws at the present time, they would have been whipped for the ridiculous faults that they have both committed. These are not faults of genius ; they are purely and entirely faults of negligence or ignorance. I turn, then, from this first inquiry to the second — viz. how far these subjects offend, what every drama- tist is most bound to protect, the laws and the interests of morality. King Lear is a horrid subject — Macbeth is a horrid subject. Do they offend the morals of an audience? It is of the rules of morality as of the rules of art : it is not the horrid nature of a subject that offends either the one or the other ; it is in the manner in which that subject is treated that its beauty as a piece of composition, or its value as a lesson of virtue, depends. The immorality of M. V. Hugo and of M. Dumas is, not in having brought Marion de Lorme and Antony upon the stage, but in affecting to breathe a mawkish interest over the infamy of the prostitute, and attaching a romantic heroism to the adulterous seducer of female honour. The inverted philosophy of M. Hugo appears to me, as I have frankly said, a kind of unphilosophic madness, with which I have no sympathy, for which I think there is no ex- cuse ; and what I say of the intentional follies of M. V. Hugo, I say of the wild and whining vice of M. Dumas. And why is this ? Why, M. Dumas, instead of at- tempting to breathe a false poesy into the grovelling 212 DRAMA. amours of a Parisian salon, or holding up for imita- tion a political profligacy — which, thank God, is yet mitrue — in the public men, and the parliament of Great Britain, — why have you sought for no truer, no better, no brighter models for the emulation of those ardent youths who admire your talent and worship your career ? Are there no characters you can take from the heroes of July, or the enthusiasts of June ? Are there no models of female heroism and devotion you can draw from the revolution of 1789, and the restoration of 1815? Have Madame Roland and Ma- dame Lavalette lived in vain ? Have you had no men in France who have been disinterested and brave ? Have you had no women in France who have been noble and virtuous ? Must you fill your stage with sickly-faced apothecaries in the frontispiece attitude of Lord Byron, and fourth-rate fine ladies vulgarly imitating the vices and the ton of Mde. de Mirepoix 1 Why should you invent imaginary personages in the representation of your age who are exceptions to your age ? Why should you make as the heroes and he- roines of your drama the creatures whom it would sicken you to meet in the commerce of daily life ? And you, M. V. Hugo ! — you, the promise of whose youth was so generous — in whose odes breathed a spirit no less remarkable for its purity than its poesy — you, who seemed by instinct to have caught the chivalry and the grace of the old knightly time, with the popular language that goes to the heart of the pres- ent day — have you no better mode of elevating your countrywomen than by teaching them to be good mo- thers by the example of Lucrece Borgia, or devoted mistresses by the example of Marion de Lorme ? What ! have you found no cleverer mode of elevating the people in their own esteem than by telling every miwashed apprentice that a countess wishes to marry him — not because he is a good man, and a steady ap- prentice — Oh, no ! simply because he is an appren- tice, because he is a working man ? Is not this stuff! Is not this prostrate and dust-lick- DRAMA. 213 ing flattery ! Can you talk of the ringing of a courtier to his monarch, when you bow thus slavishly before the meanest of your mob 1 Nor is my praise or cen- sure indiflerent to you — if I, a foreigner, far away from all your petty jealousies and rival cliques — if I, who not even as a man of letters, a title to which I have not the honour to pretend — if I, who neither as a coun- tryman, nor even as a literary man, can possibly have any rivalry with you — if I, who honour your talents, love your country, and approve of many of your prin- ciples — if I, who, if any wish were stirring in my mind, can only have the wish to propitiate your friends, to obtain and enjoy the pleasure and honour of your acquaintance — if I have allowed words to be wrung out from me, words of reproach, strong words, words expressive of more than my regret at the manner in which you have allowed ignorance, and prejudice, and adulation, and negligence, and indifference, and immo- rality to obscure and to tarnish the lustre of talents for which such a country, and such a time, as that in which you live, opened so great, and so noble, and so heart-cheering a path to fame — if I have had language such as that which I have used, unwillingly, I declare, extorted from me — is it not possible, that far away from that feeble chorus of easily-enchanted friends, who, like the bird in the Arabian Nights, pass their lives in repeating " there is but one poesy, and Dumas and Victor Hugo are its true prophets !" — is it not pos- sible, I say, that, far away from these sicklied sounds, there is an opinion rising, gathering, swelling — an opinion which shall be the opinion of Europe, the opin- ion of posterity — an opinion which might have raised you in a new time to such pedestals as those of the old time occupy — an opinion which shall break as busts of clay what you might have made statues of stone and of marble — an opinion v/hich shall leave you the lions of a drawing-room, and which might have made you the landmarks of an epoch t But I pass from this. And now, having expressed an opinion in respect to the present French drama. 214 DRAMA. let me come to a yet more interesting consideration, and inquire what the present French drama proves in respect to the present French public. Does it follow as a matter of course, that if greater atrocities than formerly were exhibited on the French stage, the French people would be more atrocious ? Doee it follow as a matter of course, that because there is less delicacy than formerly used in mentioning, and less ceremony than formerly used in manifesting, on the stage all the possible circumstances connected with adultery and seduction, there are, really more cases of adultery and seduction ? At first sight there is, I admit, a strong coincidence between the number of murders, the number of rapes, the number of suicides, the number of natural children in France, and various scenes which are represented on the stage. But the connection is not so easily es- tablished, nor so easily traced, as we may at once be induced to imagine ; for the representations of the stage are far less influenced by the morals of a people than by their manners. A refined audience will do many things that it will not bear to see represented ; a vulgar audience will see a great many things represented that it would not do. The people of Athens, who were a dissolute people, would have been shocked at the spectacles of the Lace- daemonian people, Avho were a sober people. The courtier of Louis XV., who would have shud- dered at poor Mademoiselle Angele's being brought to bed upon the stage, would have been far more likely to seduce her than the bourgeois of Louis Philippe, who smiles in very decent complacency at this inter- esting spectacle. The English, who tolerated all the stabbings and the poison-takings of Shakspcare on their stage, committed hardly any crimes during the fervour of that civil war which let loose all the political and religious passions of two hostile parties. The French would have been horror-struck at a drop of blood the- atrically spilt at the moment that they were sending fifty of their fellow-citizens every day to the guillotine DRAMA. 215 We should be the more cautious in forming wrong and hasty conclusions upon this subject, since it was from conclusions exactly similar that the French did us for many years the honour to very seriously believe that we were little better than a set of barbarians, whose nature, as Fielding says, rendered acts of blood and murdePs duels and assassinations, a sort of neces- sary amusement. But what renders it more clear than any thing which I might yet continue to say, that the scenes of the present French stage do not prove a great increase of atrocious crimes in real life, is — the fact, which every public document gives us, that crimes of this nature, in France, are very much on the decrease.* But, indeed, notwithstanding all that has been said, it is not in their subjects themselves that the great dif- ference between the old and the new drama exists. We shall find, on referring to the old and classic French theatre, that at times it represented the same things, or things even more shocking than any represented now — the great difference being in the manner — the more delicate and less shocking manner in which these things were represented. What was the subject of Phsedre and of (Edipe, that the chaste imagination of the critic should repudiate the loves where, by-the- way the incest is unintentional, of Queen Marguerite and her sons ? " Our tragedy," says Rousseau, " pre- sents us with such monstrous characters, that neither is the example of their vices contagious, nor that of their virtues instructive."! This is what Rousseau said of the stage in his time, and so far I agree with Rous- seau, that the exhibition of those terrible passions which seldom visit us are less likely to have an influ- ence upon our character, because they enter less into the relations of our life, than others of a more ordinary and household nature. But mark ! The very subjects * There are some curious documents that prove how long even sui- cides have been prevalent among the French people, contrary to th« vulgar belief. t Rousseau Lettre a D'Alembert. 216 DRAMA. which Rousseau condemns, because they do not affect human actions, are those very subjects which modern critics have condemned with the greatest fury, as most likely to affect national morals. From what we see of the French stage, and what succeeds on the French stage, we are fairly justified in saying that the audience has become less refined than formerly, but there is nothing that can induce us to say that it is more immoral ; in fact, the same causes that have given more energy and life to history have given more force, and extravagance, and coarseness to the stage. The same mass that go to history for in- formation go to the theatre for amusement ; but to one they go singly, to the other collectively. The histo- rian speaks to each, the dramatist speaks to all.* "There are a thousand images of the grotesque, and only one of the beautiful," says an author 1 have largely quoted from.f The French were ever a nation devoted to effect. The ancient courtier was satisfied with the painter who drew a god in the attitude of a dancing-master ; and the modern mob admire the author whose hero is writhed into the grotesque contortions of a devil. The old drama was calculated for effect — the new drama is * The same man who is merely animated and picturesque in con- versation is apt to become bombastic and extravagant before a popu- lar assembly. t M. Victor Hugo says this, when he prefers the first to the last ; I. e. the grotesque to the beautiful. The beautiful — regular, chaste, symmetrical in its proportions, growing into magnificence as you gaze upon it, rather than startling you into admiration at a first g;lance— the beautiful, such as the classic and dreamy days of an- tiquity have bequeathed it to us, and which always wanted for its admiration a quiet and a repose of disposition ill suited to the artificial and ostentatious character of the French — the beautiful certainly is little calculated for the restless, agitated, adventurous, and vulgar crowd, that expects to be startled at once, and cannot afford the time to have its feelings gradually and quietly developed. The unity of the beautiful is the consequence of its perfection; but the round and graceful dome of a Greek temple, the full image of which swells out, as it were, over your mind while you examine it, neither surprises nor arrests your attention like the thousand and one figures of a Gothic cathedral, which strike you as much by their variety as their horror. DRAMA. 217 calculated for effect. The old drama was calculated for effect in the reign of Louis XIV the new drama is calculated for effect in the reign of Louis Philippe. The writer, as I began by saying, is not to blame lUf writing differently to a different audience — the audience is not to blame, because, derived from different habits, different pursuits, different educations, it has different feelings. I do not blame the audience, then, for being less refined in its taste ; I do not even blame the writer for being violent in the energy and ostentatious in the colouring of his piece. The milliner on Ludgate-hill does not make up the same goods for her customers as the milliner near Berkeley-square. I blame the dramatic author in France, not for the materials he uses, but — I return to the accusation — for the use he makes of those materials. I blame him, because with the same energy of action, with the same Acridity of colouring, he might be moral and magnificent where he is immoral and extravagant ; he might elevate his au- dience where he abases it ; he might instruct his audi- ence where he misleads it. I blame him for saying, that, " as the political revolution of 1789 must have had its scaffolds, so the literary revolution of the pres- ent day must have its nightmares."* I blame him for saying this, because I believe that the one was no more necessary to public liberty than the other to dramatic excellence. But do we not see here, and in all I have just been saying, the effects of that diffusion of property of which I spoke before ? Do we not see that it is this which has removed the critics who governed the state from the stage ? Do we not see that it is this which has made the persons to please, who were formerly a small set, more easily shocked by errors than struck by beauties, a great crowd, composed of that class who in every country are most struck by the marvellous, and most inclined to mistake the extraordinary for the sublime t Do we not see that it is this which has taken away the few who criticised to leave the many who applaud ? * M. Victor Hugfo. 218 DKAMA. When the energy which had been born of a new epoch, and the equality which was based, not merely (»K t.}ie statute, but on the soil — when that energy and Hiat equality were drawn into the armies of the empire, those armies, whatever the character of their chief, were inspired by popular passions, and formed and con- ducted upon popular principles. It is the passions and the principles which animated the armies of France that animate her drama — the same persons who are to have the honours and enjoyments of the one that had the honours and the dangers of the other. You must look at every thing in modern France with the recol- lection, that it is for no polished or privileged class, but for an immense plebeian public. You must look at every thing in modern France with the remembrance that almost every Frenchman has some interest in the property of France, and expects to have some influence in her honours, emoluments, and amusements. " But how is this ?" I can fancy my reader saying ; "you have shown us the advantages that the division of property has had upon one branch of literature, and now you point out to us the defects as well as the beauties — the extravagance as well as the force that it has given to another ! I thought, at all events, when you entered upon the subject, that you had some start- ling theory to develop, and that you would prove that this division of property produced every evil or every good." This is not what I believe ; and, indeed, my object was to show not so much how this great and per- vading cause had affected the modern French litera- ture as to show that it had affected that literature ; for if it has affected the literature, it has still more deeply affected the philosophy, the religion, the society, the agriculture, the industry, the government of France ; and it is only when I have traced it through all these, and balanced its various advantages and disadvantages together, that I can be justified in giving an opinion upon one of the most important problems that modern society has to solve. I wished to have shown in this book the literature of DRAMA. 219 the day in all its branches — ^history, the drama, and lighter works. I wished to have shown here, as some day I yet hope to show, in the journalism, in the phi- losophy, in the religion of France, in ail these produc- tions of human intellect, in all these manifestations of existing opinions, and in all the changes which each has undergone, that great change — the change in the distribution of property. I wished to have shown how this revolution has been the real revolution in France — not in destroying, but in blending itself with the old character, the old history, and the old influences of the French people — and it is on this union, it is on this amalgamation of property and opinion — of what is moral and material in a country — that its present re- poses and its future depends. A vast field opens before me ; a field in which I see institutions that we may compare with our own, and which we can compare with advantage, when we have seen how they are blended, with a character, and a history, and influences, and a state of property, en- tirely dissimilar from ours. I do not, then, bid farewell to you, gentle reader. I hope one day to resume my task ; and let me venture to promise, if I do pursue the subject I have before me, you will find at every page new proofs of that truth which, borrowing the words of the great Roman states- man, I took for the commencement of this book, and now take for its conclusion — "Est admirabilis QUiE- DAM CONTINUATIO SERIESQUE RERUM, UT ALIA EX ALIA NEXA ET OMNES INTER SE APT^, COLLIGAT^EQUE VI- DEANTUR. K2 APPENDIX Vol. II. page 13. These reports are too long to find their room in the appendix ; bat they are most interesting to any one wishing to know the state of parties at that time in France, and the causes which, gradually developing themselves, produced the revolution of July. They are to be found in the History of the Restoration, to which I have once or twice referred ; a book very unequally written, and far too long for the matter it contains, but still presenting, in a collected form, more information of the time it treats of than can elsewhere be met with. M. Lacretelle's work is also worth attending to. Vol II. page 29. The address first expressed the consent of the Cham- ber to the views taken by his majesty relative to the negotiations that were opened for the reconciliation of the princes of the House of Braganza ; the commission expressed the wish that a termination should be put to the evils under which Portugal was groaning. " Sans porter atteinte au principe sacre de la l^gitimite, inviolable pour les rois non moins que pour les peuples. " Cependant, sire, au milieu des sentimens unanimes de respect et d'affection done votre peuple vous entoure, il se manifeste dans les esprits une vive inquietude qui trouble la securite dont la France avait commence a jouir, altere les sources de sa prosperite, et pourrait, si elle se prolongeait, devenir funeste a son repos. Notre conscience, notre honneur, la fidelite que nous vous avons juree, et que nous vous garderons toujours, nous imposent le devoir de vous en devoiler la cause. La 19* 222 APPENDIX. charte que nous devons a la sagesse de votre auguste predecesseur, et dont votre majeste a la ferme volonte de consolider le bienfait, consacre comme un droit I'-in- tervention du pays dans la deliberation des interets publics. " Cette intervention devait etre, elle est, en efFet indi- recte, sagement mesuree, circonscrite dans des limites exactement tracees, et que nous ne souffrirons jamais que Ton ose tenter de franchir ; mais elle est positive dans son resultat, car elle fait du concours permanent des vues politiques de votre gouvernement avec les voeux de votre peuple, la condition indispensable de la marche reguliere des affaires publiques. Sire, notre loyaute, notre devouement, nous condamnent a vous dire que ce concours n'existe pas. Une defiance injuste des entimens et de la raison de la France est aujourd'hui la pensee fondamentale de Fadministration : votre peuple en afflige parcequ'elle est injurieuse pour lui, il s'en inquiete parcequ'elle est menacante pour ses libertes. Cette defiance ne saurait approcner de votre noble coeur. Non, sire, la France ne veut pas plus de I'anarchie que vous ne voulez du despotisme ; elle est digne que vous ayez foi dans sa loyaute comme elle a foi dans vos pro- messes. Entre ceux, qui meconnaissent une nation si calme, si fidele, et nous qui, avec une conviction pro- fonde, venons deposer dans votre sein les douleur de tout un peuple jaloux de I'estime et de la confiance de son roi, que la haute sagesse de votre majeste prononce ! Ses royales prerogatives ont place dans ses mains les moyens d'assurer entre les pouvoirs de I'etat cette har- monic constitutionelle, premiere et necessaire condition de la force du trone et de la grandeur de la France." Vol IL page 72. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CHARTA OF FRANCE. As given June 4th, 1814, As accepted Aug. 9th, by Louis XVIII., born King 1830, by Louis Philippe L, by the grace of God. elected King by the choice of the nation. Article L All Frenchmen are equal in the eye of the law, what- soever be their titles or ranks. APPENDIX. 223 II. They are to contribute indiscriminately, according to their several fortunes, to the support of the state. III. They are all equally admissible to all civil and mili- tary employments. IV. Their individual liberty is equally assured; no one can be prosecuted or arrested but in cases provided for by the law, and according to its prescribed forms. V. Every person may with equal liberty profess his re- ligion, and obtain for his creed the same protection. VI. Nevertheless, the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman re- ligion is the established religion of the state. — Sup- pressed. VII. VI. The mmisters of the The ministers of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion, and those Roman religion, as pro- of other Christian sects, fessed by the bulk of the may alone receive salaries French nation, and those from the royal treasury. of other Christian sects, may alone receive salaries from the public treasury. VIII. VII. Frenchmen have the Frenchmen have the right to publish and to right to publish or cause cause to be printed their to be printed their opin- opinions, conformable to ions, conformable to the the laws enacted for the laws. The censor can suppression of any abuse never be re-estabUshed. of the said liberty. IX. All property is inviolable, without any exception for that which is termed national, the law knowing no dis- tinction between them. 224 APPENDIX. X. The state can demand the sacrnlce of a property legally proved to be for the public weal, but with a pre- vious iiideniniiication. XI. All inquiry as to opinions and votes previous to the restoration is forbidden ; also all judicial pursuits for the same to drop. XII. The conscription is abolished ; the recruiting for the army and navy is provided for by law. XIII. The King's person is inviolable and sacred ; his ministers are responsible. The King alone is invested with the executive power. XIV. The King is the head of the state ; he commands the forces of the land and the forces of the sea, de- clares war, forms treaties of peace, of alliance, and of commerce ; appoints to all offices of public admin- istration, and frames all rules and regulations for the just enforcement of the laws and the security of the state. XV. The legislative authority to be jointly administered by the King, the Chamber of Peers, and the Chamber of Deputies of the depart- ments. XVI. The King proposes the law. XIII. The King is, &c. for the just enforcement of the laws, without ever be- ing able to put aside the laws themselves, or sus- pend their execution. No foreign troops shall ever be admitted into the ser- vice of the state but by virtue of an especial law. XIV. The same, with the ex- ception of the word de- partments. XV. The proposing of laws belongs to the King, to the APPENDIX. 226 XVII. Chamber of Peers, and to The proposition of the the Chamber of Deputies, law is submitted, with the Nevertheless, all taxes consent of the King, to the ought to be first voted by Chamber of Peers or to ^^^ Chamber of Deputies, that of the Deputies, with the exception of the taxes, which ought first to be submitted to the Chamber of Deputies. XVIII. Every law ought to be freely discussed and voted by the majority of both the Chambers. XIX. The Chambers have the right to request the King to propose a law for any object, and to suggest the best mode of framing the law they wish him to propose. XX. This demand can be made by either of the Chambers ; but, after having passed a special committee, it shall not be forwarded to the other Chamber under the space of ten days. (Articles XIX. and XX. are suppressed in the new charter.) XXI. XVII. If a proposition is adopted If the proposition of a by the other Chamber, it law has been rejected by will be submitted to the either of the three powers. King ; if it is rejected, it it cannot be again pre- cannot agam be brought sented during the same forward the same sessions, sessions. XXII. The King ratifies and promulgates the laws. XXIII. The civil list is fixed for the whole reign by the first legislative sitting that is held after the accession. XXIV. The Chamber of Peers is an essential portion of the legislative power. K3 226 APPENDIX XXV. It is convoked by the King conjointly with the Chamber of Deputies. The session of both begins and ends at the same time. XXVI. Any sittings of the Cham- ber of Peers, after the closing of the session of the Chamber of Deputies, or which have not been especially convoked by the King, shall be held null and void. XXII. Any sittings, &c., null and void, excepting when assembled on the trials, and then it can only exer- cise judicial power. XXVII. The creation of Peers of France belongs exclusively to the King. Their number is unlimited ; he can make them either for life or hereditary. XXVIII. Peers can take their seats in the Chamber at twenty- five years of age, but cannot speak or discuss until thirty years of age. XXIX. The Chamber of Peers has for president the Chan- cellor of France ; during his absence by a Peer appointed by the King. XXVI. The princes of the blood are Peers of France by right of birth ; they rank immediately after the pre- sident. XXX. Members and princes of the blood-royal are Peers by right of birth, and rank immediately after the president, but have no voice in the Chamber be- fore the age of twenty-five years. XXXI. The princes cannot take their seats in the Chamber but by order of the King, given for each session by a message, under pain of rendering null and void all that may have been passed in their presence. — Suppressed. APPENDIX. 227 XXXII. XXVII. The discussions in the The sittings of the Chamber of Peers are Chamber of Peers are secret. public, like those of the Deputies. XXXIII. To the Chamber of Peers belongs the right of prose- cution for high- treason, or for state-offences, according to law. XXXIV. No Peer can be arrested but by order of the Chamber, and be judged by the same in criminal matters. XXXV. The Chamber of Deputies to be elected by the elec- toral colleges, which shall be organized according to the law. XXXVI Each department to have the same number of Depu- ties that it has had until the present time. — Suppressed. XXXVII. XXXI. The Deputies to be The Deputies are elected elected for five years, and for the space of five years, in such a manner that the Chamber be reinforced a fifth every year.* XXXVIII. XXXII. No Deputy can take his No Deputy can take his seat in the Chamber if he seat in the Chamber if he is under forty years of age, is under thirty years of and if he does not pay di- age, and if he does not rect taxes to the amount unite all the other requi- of 1000 fr. sitions acconiling to the law. XXXIX. XXXIIl. If, nevertheless, there If, nevertheless, there * The Chamber sits seven years, unless dissolved by the King. — Law of the 9th of June, 1824. 228 APPENDIX. should not be found in the department fifty individ- uals of the prescribed age, and paying direct taxes of 1000 fr., their number may be completed by the next highest taxed below the 1000 francs, and these can be elected with the con- currence of the first. XL. Electors have no right to vote for the election of Deputies if they pay less than 300 francs direct taxes, and are under thirty years of age. XLI. Presidents of the " Col- leges electoraux" to be named by the King, and be by right a member of the college. XLII. Half at least of the Deputies to be chosen from among the eligibles who have their political dwelling m the department. should not be found in the department fifty individ- uals of the prescribed age and eligibility, according to law, their number may be completed by the next high- est taxed below them, &c. XXXIV. No person is an elector under twenty-five years of age, and uniting all other requisites fixed by the law. XXXV. Presidents of the " Col- leges electoraux" shall be chosen by the electors. XLIII. The President of the Chamber of Deputies to be chosen by the King from a list of five members pres- ented by the Chamber. XXXVII. The President of the Chamber of Deputies to be elected by the Chamber at the commencement of each session. XLIV. The sittings of the Chamber shall be public ; but the demand of five members suflEices to form it into a secret committee. XLV. The Chamber divides itself into sections, in order to discuss the propositions made by the King. APP£fiDIX. 229 XLVI. No alteration can be made in a law, if such has not been proposed or agreed to by the King, and if it has not been sent to and discussed by the sections. — Sup- pressed. XLVII. The Chamber of Deputies receives all proposals for taxes ; it is not until they have been passed that they can 6e carried to the Chamber of Peers. — Suppressed. XLVIII. No tax can be imposed or enforced without the con- sent of both the Chambers and the sanction of the King. XLIX. The manorial tax is to be granted only for a year Indirect taxes can be imposed for several years. L. The King convokes the Chambers every year; he prorogues them, and can dissolve the Chamber of Deputies; but in such a case he must call another within the space of three months. LI. A member of the Chamber cannot be arrested during the sittings, or six weeks before and after the sittings. LII. A member of the Chamber cannot be arrested for any criminal offence during the sittings, unless it be of a flagrant nature, and then only with the consent of the Chamber. LIU Any petition to either of the Chambers must be made in and presented in writing ; the law forbids any peti- tion being presented personally at the bar of the Chamber. LIV. Ministers can be members of either Chamber ; they have the right to enter both the Chambers, and be heard when they demand it. 20 230 APPENDIX. LV. The Chamber of Deputies has the right to impeach the ministers, and to have them tried by the Chamber of Peers, which alone has the privilege of judging. LVI. They can only be impeached for high-treason or em- bezzlement. Special laws are provided for the prose- cution of such crimes. — Suppressed. Articles LVII. to LXII. the same as Articles XLVHI. to LIII. LIV There cannot, in conse quence, be appointed any special commissions or special sittings of Courts of Law, under any title or pretence whatever. LXIII. There cannot, conse- quently, be appointed any commissions and " tribu- naux extraordinaire," But the naming of the provost's jurisdiction is not included under this denomination — if their re-establishment is deemed necessary. Articles LXIV. to LXXII. the same as Articles LV. to LXIIL LXXIII. The Colonies to be governed by special laws and regulations. LXXIV. The King and his suc- cessors at their coronation shall swear faithfully to observe the present con- stitutional Charter. LXV. The King and his suc- cessors on their accession shall swear before the united Chambers to faith- fully observe the constitu- tional Charter. LXXV. The Deputies of France, after a dissolution, to retain their seats until they are replaced. — Suppressed. LXXVL The first renewal of a fifteenth of the Chamber to date not earlier than the year 1816. — Suppressed. APPENDIX. 231 The following belong to the New Charta only. LXVI. The present Charta and its privileges are confided to the patriotism and courage of the national guards, and the citizens of France. LXVII France reassumes her colours, and for the future no other cockade shall be worn than the tri-coloured cockade. Special Provisions. LXVIII. All appointments and creation of Peers made during the reign of Charles X. declared to be null and void. LXIX. Separate laws, to be provided for the following objects with as little delay as possible : — 1. Use of Jury to crimes of the press, and political offences. 2. The responsibility of ministers and other agents of power. 3. The re-election of Deputies and public functiona- ries who receive salaries. 4. Annual vote for the contingencies of the army. 5. Organization of the national guards, with the inter- vention of the said guards in the choice of their officers. 6. Arrangements which shall establish by law the state of officers of all ranks in the army and the navy. 7. Municipal provincial institutions founded on an elective system. 8. Public instruction, and liberty to teach. 9. Abolition of the double vote, and fixing conditions as to election and eligibility. LXX. All laws and ordonnances contrary to the present re- form of the Charter are from the present declared null and void. Vol. II. page 131. Mr. T. Detray, in his list of cities and towns in France (those of the department of the Seine excepted), gives — 196 cities and towns possessing public libraries. 232 APPENDIX. containing between two to three millions of volumes, which, on a population of 32,000,000 souls, gives a pro- portion of one volume to every fifteen inhabitants. Paris, on the contrary, as I have said, has five public libraries, containing 1,378,000 volumes, or three volumes to every two inhabitants, the capital containing 774,000 souls. The number of works published in 1833 may be thus divided, i. e. — Poems, songs, incidental pieces, and irregular verse, 275. Science, medicine, law, natural history in all its va- rieties, political economy, 532. Novels, tales, translated novels, fabulous legends, and traditions, works of imagination, 355. History, facts, private and local narratives, disputa- tions, sketches of history, 213. Philosophy, metaphysics, morals, theories, 102. Fine arts, travels and voyages, 170. Devotion, theology, mystical history, 235. Theatre : pieces in verse and prose, performed or not performed, 179. Lastly, pamphlets, libels, prospectuses, legal claims, pleadings, speeches, flights of fancy, unstamped publi- cations, 4346. Total number of works published, 7011. There are in Paris seventy-six newspapers and peri- odicals connected with literature ; and in this number are not included the manuals published by the different professions. List of the various literary establishments in Paris, having for their object the diffusion of knowledge of several kinds among the different classes of SOCIETY. Bibliothcques. — Royale ; de I'Arsenal ; Mazarine ; Saint Genevieve. Museum^ d'Histoire naturelles Jardin des plantes. Composition des Tableaux et dessin ; au Louvre pour les auteurs decedes ; au Luxembourg pour les auteurs vivans. Musees, des Antiques ; de I'Artillerie ; cours d'Archio- logie ; Conservatoire de rausique ; Societe des amis des Arts. Ecolesy des laiigues Orientales vivantes, annexee au APPENDIX. 233 college par Louis le Grand des Chartes ; Poly technique ; Militaire; speciale de Pharmacie des Longitudes; de Theologie ; de Droit ; de Medicine, des sciences et des lettres ; Normale (for the instruction of professors) des Mines-des Ponts et chaussees ; de Peinture ; de Dessin, de Architecture ; Nation ; de I'Equitation ; Trois spe- ciales du Commerce ; centrale des Arts et Manufa^^ture ; de Commerce et des arts industriels ; Academic Royale de Medecine. Colleges. — Britanniques, Irlandaisse, Ecossaise, et Anglaise (founded in Paris for young Catholics, of the three kingdoms, who wished to be educated in France) ; de France ; Bourbon, 700 in-door pupils ; Charlemagne, 8 to 900 out-door pupils ; Henry IV., 772 in and out- door pupils ; Louis le Grand, 924 in and out-door pupils ; Saint Louis, 850 in and out-door pupils; de Flndustrie; Stanislas et Rollin, 550 in-door pupils (both of these are private) ; Concours d'Agregation (no one can be ap- pointed a professor to any Royal College without hav- ing first obtained the title of '* Agrege" at the Concours) ; cours Normal. Societies. — Universelle de la civilissation ; libre des beaux Arts ; Geologique de France ; Nationelle pour I'Eraancipation intellectuelle ; des Sciences Physique, Chimique, et Arts ; Agricole et industriele de Medicine pratique ; de Medicine de Paris ; de Pharmacie ; de Geographie ; pour I'Instruction elementaire, Grammati- cale ; des Bons livres ; de Statistique Universelle ; de la Morale Chretienne ; Medico Philantropique ; Medicale d'Emulation ; de Chimie Medicale ; d'Encouragement pour rindustrie Nationale ; des Antiquaires de France ; Phrenologique ; Athenee des Arts ; de Medicine de Paris ; I'Athenee ; Conservatoire ; des Arts et des Metiers ; Exposition des produites de Tlndustrie ; Asso- ciation libre pour I'Education du Peuple. THE END. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. Rt — NAY- 24 'BbliRGO MAY1819676 REr^n M^y^ '67-10 AM LOAN DEPT. JUL 2 7 1967 2 6 W yaoa. irt I '17 42 M t.OA£i Dfrk'"^' NOV 5 1968 I RECEIVFO OCT 2^'P^ -K) FEB ^ 6 1982 fM STAC JAN 2 6 1982 RtT'D FEB 1 7 1982 m T Tk oi A «rv,^ 1 r> 'Rr; General Library ?F?7fi^«l 0T476B University of California (F7763£l0j^426B. Berkeley 3sl01476B LOAN DEPT. Geo? Uoi^e^grkeley «^jg£ro