manifesto of the communist party by karl marx and frederick engels authorized english translation edited and annotated by frederick engels _price cents_ new york published by the new york labor news co., city hall place preface the "manifesto" was published as the platform of the "communist league," a workingmen's association, first exclusively german, later on international, and, under the political conditions of the continent before , unavoidably a secret society. at a congress of the league, held in london in november, , marx and engels were commissioned to prepare for publication a complete theoretical and practical party programme. drawn up in german, in january, , the manuscript was sent to the printer in london a few weeks before the french revolution of february . a french translation was brought out in paris, shortly before the insurrection of june, . the first english translation, by miss helen macfarlane, appeared in george julian harney's "red republican," london, . a danish and a polish edition had also been published. the defeat of the parisian insurrection of june, --the first great battle between proletariat and bourgeoisie--drove again into the background, for a time, the social and political aspirations of the european working class. thenceforth, the struggle for supremacy was again, as it had been before the revolution of february, solely between the different sections of the propertied class; the working class was reduced to a fight for political elbow-room, and to the position of extreme wing of the middle-class radicals. wherever independent proletarian movements continued to show signs of life, they were ruthlessly hunted down. thus the prussian police hunted out the central board of the communist league, then located in cologne. the members were arrested, and, after eighteen months' imprisonment, they were tried in october, . this celebrated "cologne communist trial" lasted from october till november ; seven of the prisoners were sentenced to terms of imprisonment in a fortress, varying from three to six years. immediately after the sentence the league was formally dissolved by the remaining members. as to the "manifesto," it seemed thenceforth to be doomed to oblivion. when the european working class had recovered sufficient strength for another attack on the ruling classes, the international workingmen's association sprang up. but this association, formed with the express aim of welding into one body the whole militant proletariat of europe and america, could not at once proclaim the principles laid down in the "manifesto." the international was bound to have a programme broad enough to be acceptable to the english trades' unions, to the followers of proudhon in france, belgium, italy and spain, and to the lassalleans(a) in germany. marx, who drew up this programme to the satisfaction of all parties, entirely trusted to the intellectual development of the working class, which was sure to result from combined action and mutual discussion. the very events and vicissitudes of the struggle against capital, the defeats even more than the victories, could not help bringing home to men's minds the insufficiency of their various favorite nostrums, and preparing the way for a more complete insight into the true conditions of working-class emancipation. and marx was right. the international, on its breaking up in , left the workers quite different men from what it had found them in . proudhonism in france, lassalleanism in germany, were dying out, and even the conservative english trades' unions, though most of them had long since severed their connection with the international, were gradually advancing towards that point at which, last year at swansea, their president could say in their name, "continental socialism has lost its terrors for us." in fact, the principles of the "manifesto" had made considerable headway among the workingmen of all countries. the manifesto itself thus came to the front again. the german text had been, since , reprinted several times in switzerland, england and america. in it was translated into english in new york, where the translation was published in "woodhull and claflin's weekly." from this english version a french one was made in "le socialiste" of new york. since then at least two more english translations, more or less mutilated, have been brought out in america, and one of them has been reprinted in england. the first russian translation, made by bakounine, was published at herzen's "kolokol" office in geneva, about ; a second one, by the heroic vera zasulitch, also in geneva, . a new danish edition is to be found in "socialdemokratisk bibliothek," copenhagen, ; a fresh french translation in "le socialiste," paris, . from this latter a spanish version was prepared and published in madrid, . the german reprints are not to be counted; there have been twelve altogether at the least. an armenian translation, which was to be published in constantinople some months ago, did not see the light, i am told, because the publisher was afraid of bringing out a book with the name of marx on it, while the translator declined to call it his own production. of further translations into other languages i have heard, but have not seen them. thus the history of the manifesto reflects, to a great extent, the history of the modern working class movement; at present it is undoubtedly the most widespread, the most international production of all socialist literature, the common platform acknowledged by millions of workingmen from siberia to california. yet, when it was written, we could not have called it a _socialist_ manifesto. by socialists, in , were understood, on the one hand, the adherents of the various utopian systems: owenites in england, fourierists in france, both of them already reduced to the position of mere sects, and gradually dying out; on the other hand, the most multifarious social quacks, who, by all manners of tinkering, professed to redress, without any danger to capital and profit, all sorts of social grievances; in both cases men outside the working class movement and looking rather to the "educated" classes for support. whatever portion of the working classes had become convinced of the insufficiency of mere political revolutions, and had proclaimed the necessity of a total social change, that portion, then, called itself communist. it was a crude, rough-hewn, purely instinctive sort of communism; still it touched the cardinal point and was powerful enough among the working class to produce the utopian communism, in france of cabet, and in germany of weitling. thus, socialism was, in , a middle class movement, communism a working class movement. socialism was, on the continent at least, "respectable"; communism was the very opposite. and as our notion, from the very beginning was, that "the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself," there could be no doubt as to which of the two names we must take. moreover, we have ever since been far from repudiating it. the "manifesto" being our joint production, i consider myself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus belongs to marx. that proposition is: that in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolution in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and the oppressed class--the proletariat--cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class--the bourgeoisie--without, at the same time, and once for all, emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles. this proposition, which, in my opinion, is destined to do for history what darwin's theory has done for biology, we, both of us, had been gradually approaching for some years before . how far i had independently progressed toward it, is best shown by my "condition of the working class in england."(b) but when i again met marx at brussels in the spring of , he had it ready worked out, and put it before me, in terms almost as clear as those in which i have stated it here. from our joint preface to the german edition of , i quote the following: "however much the state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in this manifesto are, on the whole, as correct to-day as ever. here and there some detail might be improved. the practical application of the principles will depend, as the manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and for that reason no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of section ii. that passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded to-day. in view of the gigantic strides of modern industry since , and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of the working class; in view of the practical experience gained, first in the february revolution, and then, still more, in the paris commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details become antiquated. one thing especially was proved by the commune, viz., that 'the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.' (see 'the civil war in france; address of the general council of the international workingmen's association,' london, truelove, , p. , where this point is further developed.) further, it is self-evident that the criticism of socialist literature is deficient in relation to the present time, because it comes down only to ; also, that the remarks on the relation of the communists to the various opposition parties (section iv.), although in principle still correct, yet in practice are antiquated, because the political situation has been entirely changed, and the progress of history has swept from off the earth the greater portion of the political parties there enumerated. "but, then, the manifesto has become a historical document which we have no longer any right to alter." the present translation is by mr. samuel moore, the translator of the greater portion of marx's "capital." we have revised it and i have added a few notes explanatory of historical allusions. frederick engels. london, january , . (a) lassalle personally, to us, always acknowledged himself to be a disciple of marx, and, as such, stood on the ground of the "manifesto." but in his public agitation, - , he did not go beyond demanding co-operative workshops supported by state credit. (b) the condition of the working class in england in . by frederick engels. translated by florence k. wischnewetzky. to be had from the n. y. labor news co., city hall place, new york. manifesto of the communist party. by karl marx and frederick engels. a specter is haunting europe--the specter of communism. all the powers of old europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter; pope and czar, metternich and guizot, french radicals and german police spies. where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? where the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries? two things result from this fact. i. communism is already acknowledged by all european powers to be in itself a power. ii. it is high time that communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the specter of communism with a manifesto of the party itself. to this end the communists of various nationalities have assembled in london, and sketched the following manifesto to be published in the english, french, german, italian, flemish and danish languages. i. bourgeois and proletarians.(a) the history of all hitherto existing society(b) is the history of class struggles. freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster(c) and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. in the earlier epochs of history we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. in ancient rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the middle ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations. the modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society, has not done away with class antagonisms. it has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeois, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: bourgeoisie and proletariat. from the serfs of the middle ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. from these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed. the discovery of america, the rounding of the cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. the east indian and chinese markets, the colonization of america, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development. the feudal system of industry, under which industrial production was monopolized by close guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. the manufacturing system took its place. the guild masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class; division of labor between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labor in each single workshop. meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. even manufacture no longer sufficed. thereupon steam and machinery revolutionized industrial production. the place of manufacture was taken by the giant, modern industry, the place of the industrial middle class, by industrial millionaires, the leaders of whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois. modern industry has established the world's market, for which the discovery of america paved the way. the market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. this development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation and railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the middle ages. we see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange. each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class. an oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing association in the medieval commune(d), here independent urban republic (as in italy and germany), there taxable "third estate" of the monarchy (as in france), afterwards, in the period of manufacture proper, serving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, corner-stone of the great monarchies in general, the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of modern industry and of the world's market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative state, exclusive political sway. the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. the bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part. the bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. it has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors," and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, callous "cash payment." it has drowned the most heavenly ecstacies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. it has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom--free trade. in one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation. the bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. it has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers. the bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation. the bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigor in the middle ages, which reactionists so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. it has been the first to show what man's activity can bring about. it has accomplished wonders far surpassing egyptian pyramids, roman aqueducts, and gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former exoduses of nations and crusades. the bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered forms, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation, distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. all fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away; all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life and his relations with his kind. the need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. it must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere. the bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world's market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. to the great chagrin of reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. all old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. they are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones, industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. in place of the old wants, satisfied by the productions of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. in place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. and as in material, so also in intellectual production. the intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. national one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature. the bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. the cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. it compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, _i.e._, to become bourgeois themselves. in one word, it creates a world after its own image. the bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. it has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilized ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the east on the west. the bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. it has agglomerated population, centralized means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. the necessary consequence of this was political centralization. independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class interest, one frontier, and one customs tariff. the bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. subjection of nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground--what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor? we see then: the means of production and of exchange on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. at a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organization of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property, became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. they had to be burst asunder. into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted to it, and by the economical and political sway of the bourgeois class. a similar movement is going on before our own eyes. modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange, and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. for many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie and of its rule. it is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put on its trial, each time more threateningly, the existence of the bourgeois society. in these crises a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, is periodically destroyed. in these crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity--the epidemic of overproduction. society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? because there is too much civilization, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. the productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. the conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. and how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? on the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. that is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented. the weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself. but not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons--the modern working class--the proletarians. in proportion as the bourgeoisie, _i.e._, capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed; a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases capital. these laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market. owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labor, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. he becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted almost entirely to the means of subsistence that he requires for his maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. but the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labor, is equal, in the long run, to its cost of production. in proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. nay, more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labor increase, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by increase of the work exacted in a given time, or by increased speed of the machinery, etc. modern industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. masses of laborers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers. as privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois state, they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the over-seer, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. the more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is. the less skill and exertion of strength is implied in manual labor, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labor of men superseded by that of women. differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. all are instruments of labor, more or less expensive to use, according to age and sex. no sooner is the exploitation of the laborer by the manufacturer so far at an end that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc. the lower strata of the middle class--the small trades-people, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants--all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which modern industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population. the proletariat goes through various stages of development. with its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. at first the contest is carried on by individual laborers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the operatives of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. they direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labor, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the middle ages. at this stage the laborers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. if anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do so. at this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, and land owners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeoisie. thus the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie. but with the development of industry the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows and it feels that strength more. the various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalized, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labor, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. the growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. the unceasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workman and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes. thereupon the workers begin to form combinations (trades' unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. here and there the contest breaks out into riots. now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. the real fruit of their battles lies not in the immediate result but in the ever improved means of communication that are created in modern industry and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. it was just this contact that was needed to centralize the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes. but every class struggle is a political struggle. and that union, to attain which the burghers of the middle ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarians, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years. this organization of the proletarians into a class and consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. but it ever rises up again; stronger, firmer, mightier. it compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. thus the ten-hours' bill in england was carried. altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further, in many ways, the course of the development of the proletariat. the bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. at first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all times with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. in all these countries it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for its help, and thus to drag it into the political arena. the bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie. further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling classes are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are at least threatened in their conditions of existence. these also supply the proletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and progress. finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the process of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole. of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie to-day, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. the other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of modern industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product. the lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. they are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. nay, more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. if by chance they are revolutionary, they are so only in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat. the "dangerous class," the social scum, that passively rotting class thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue. in the conditions of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped. the proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industrial labor, modern subjection to capital, the same in england as in france, in america as in germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. all the preceding classes that got the upper hand sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. the proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. they have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property. all previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. the proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. the proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole super-incumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air. though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. the proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie. in depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat. hitherto every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. but in order to oppress a class certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. the serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. the modern laborer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. he becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. and here it becomes evident that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. it is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state that it has to feed him instead of being fed by him. society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie; in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society. the essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labor. wage-labor rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. the advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. the development of modern industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. what the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers. its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable. (a) by bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage-labor. by proletariat, the class of modern wage-laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor-power in order to live. (b) that is, all written history. in , the pre-history of society, the social organization existing previous to recorded history, was all but unknown. since then, haxthausen discovered common ownership of land in russia, maurer proved it to be the social foundation from which all teutonic races started in history, and by and by village communities were found to be, or to have been the primitive form of society everywhere from india to ireland. the inner organization of this primitive communistic society was laid bare, in its typical form, by morgan's crowning discovery of the true nature of the gens and its relation to the tribe. with the dissolution of these primaeval communities society begins to be differentiated into separate and finally antagonistic classes. i have attempted to retrace this process of dissolution in: "der ursprung der familie, des privateigenthums und des staats," nd edit., stuttgart, . (c) guildmaster, that is a full member of a guild, a master within, not a head of a guild. (d) "commune" was the name taken, in france, by the nascent towns even before they had conquered from their feudal lords and masters, local self-government and political rights as the "third estate." generally speaking, for the economical development of the bourgeoisie, england is here taken as the typical country; for its political development, france. ii. proletarians and communists. in what relation do the communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? the communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working class parties. they have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. they do not set up any sectarian principles of their own by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement. the communists are distinguished from the other working class parties by this only: . in the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. . in the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole. the communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement. the immediate aim of the communists is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat. the theoretical conclusions of the communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer. they merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes. the abolition of existing property relations is not at all a distinctive feature of communism. all property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change, consequent upon the change in historical conditions. the french revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favor of bourgeois property. the distinguishing feature of communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. but modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few. in this sense the theory of the communists may be summed up in the single sentence: abolition of private property. we communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man's own labor, which property is alleged to be the ground work of all personal freedom, activity and independence. hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! do you mean the property of the petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? there is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily. or do you mean modern bourgeois private property? but does wage labor create any property for the laborer? not a bit. it creates capital, _i.e._, that kind of property which exploits wage-labor, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labor for fresh exploitation. property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labor. let us examine both sides of this antagonism. to be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion. capital is therefore not a personal, it is a social power. when, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. it is only the social character of the property that is changed. it loses its class character. let us now take wage-labor. the average price of wage-labor is the minimum wage, _i.e._, that quantum of the means of subsistence, which is absolutely requisite to keep the laborer in bare existence as a laborer. what, therefore, the wage-laborer appropriates by means of his labor, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. we by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labor, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labor of others. all that we want to do away with, is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the laborer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it. in bourgeois society living labor is but a means to increase accumulated labor. in communist society accumulated labor is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the laborer. in bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in communist society, the present dominates the past. in bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality. and the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois: abolition of individuality and freedom! and rightly so. the abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at. by freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying. but if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying disappears also. this talk about free selling and buying, and all the other "brave words" of our bourgeoisie about freedom in general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the middle ages, but have no meaning when opposed to the communistic abolition of buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself. you are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. but in your existing society private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. you reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society. in one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. precisely so: that is just what we intend. from the moment when labor can no longer be converted into capital, money, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolized, _i.e._, from the moment when individual property can no longer be transformed into bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment, you say, individuality vanishes! you must, therefore, confess that by "individual" you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle class owner of property. this person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible. communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society: all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriation. it has been objected, that upon the abolition of private property all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us. according to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything, do not work. the whole of this objection is but another expression of tautology, that there can no longer be any wage-labor when there is no longer any capital. all objections against the communistic mode of producing and appropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urged against the communistic modes of producing and appropriating intellectual products. just as, to the bourgeois the disappearance of class property is the disappearance of production itself, so the disappearance of class culture is to him identical with the disappearance of all culture. that culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormous majority, a mere training to act as a machine. but don't wrangle with us so long as you apply to our intended abolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notions of freedom, culture, law, etc. your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will, whose essential character and direction are determined by the economical conditions of existence of your class. the selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your present mode of production and form of property--historical relations that rise and disappear in the progress of production--the misconception you share with every ruling class that has preceded you. what you see clearly in the case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of your own bourgeois form of property. abolition of the family! even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the communists. on what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? on capital, on private gain. in its completely developed form this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. but this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution. the bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital. do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? to this crime we plead guilty. but, you will say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social. and your education! is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention, direct or indirect, of society by means of schools, etc.? the communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class. the bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parent and child become all the more disgusting, as, by the action of modern industry, all family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labor. but you communists would introduce community of women, screams the whole bourgeoisie in chorus. the bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production. he hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women. he has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production. for the rest nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established by the communists. the communists have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial. our bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other's wives. bourgeois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common, and thus, at the most, what the communists might possibly be reproached with, is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalized community of women. for the rest it is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, _i.e._, of prostitution both public and private. the communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality. the workingmen have no country. we cannot take from them what they have not got. since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is, so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word. national differences and antagonisms between peoples are daily more and more vanishing; owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world's market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto. the supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. united action, of the leading civilized countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat. in proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another is put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. in proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end. the charges against communism made from a religious, a philosophical, and, generally, from an ideological standpoint are not deserving of serious examination. does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man's ideas, views, and conceptions, in one word, man's consciousness changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life? what else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is changed? the ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class. when people speak of ideas that revolutionize society they do but express the fact that within the old society the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence. when the ancient world was in its last throes the ancient religions were overcome by christianity. when christian ideas succumbed in the eighteenth century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. the ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge. "undoubtedly," it will be said, "religious, moral, philosophical and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of historical development. but religion, morality, philosophy, political science, and law, constantly survived this change. "there are besides, eternal truths, such as freedom, justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. but communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience." what does this accusation reduce itself to? the history of all past society has consisted in the development of class antagonisms, antagonisms that assumed different forms at different epochs. but whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all past ages, viz., they exploitation of one part of society by the other. no wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages, despite all the multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within certain common forms, or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish except with the total disappearance of class antagonisms. the communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations; no wonder that its development involves the most radical rupture with traditional ideas. but let us have done with the bourgeois objections to communism. we have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class; to win the battle of democracy. the proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie; to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, _i.e._, of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible. of course, in the beginning this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production. these measures will, of course, be different in different countries. nevertheless in the most advanced countries the following will be pretty generally applicable: . abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. . a heavy progressive or graduated income tax. . abolition of all right of inheritance. . confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. . centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. . centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state. . extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. . equal liability of all to labor. establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. . combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries: gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country. . free education for all children in public schools. abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. combination of education with industrial production, etc., etc. when, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. if the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms, and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class. in place of the old bourgeois society with its classes and class antagonisms we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. iii. socialist and communist literature. i. reactionary socialism. (_a_) _feudal socialism_. owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of the aristocracies of france and england to write pamphlets against modern bourgeois society. in the french revolution of july, , and in the english reform agitation, these aristocracies again succumbed to the hateful upstart. thenceforth, a serious political contest was altogether out of question. a literary battle alone remained possible. but even in the domain of literature the old cries of the restoration period(a) had become impossible. in order to arouse sympathy, the aristocracy were obliged to lose sight, apparently, of their own interests, and to formulate their indictment against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited working class alone. thus the aristocracy took their revenge by singing lampoons on their new master, and whispering in his ears sinister prophecies of coming catastrophe. in this way arose feudal socialism; half lamentation, half lampoon; half echo of the past, half menace of the future, at times by its bitter, witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart's core, but always ludicrous in its effects, through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history. the aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the proletarian alms-bag in front for a banner. but the people, so often as it joined them, saw on their hindquarters the old feudal coats of arms and deserted with loud and irreverent laughter. one section of the french legitimists, and "young england," exhibited this spectacle. in pointing out that their mode of exploitation was different from that of the bourgeoisie, the feudalists forget that they exploited under circumstances and conditions that were quite different and that are now antiquated. in showing that under their rule the modern proletariat never existed they forget that the modern bourgeoisie is the necessary offspring of their own form of society. for the rest, so little do they conceal the reactionary character of their criticism, that their chief accusation against the bourgeoisie amounts to this: that under the bourgeois _regime_ a class is being developed, which is destined to cut up root and branch the old order of society. what they upbraid the bourgeoisie with is not so much that it creates a proletariat, as that it creates a revolutionary proletariat. in political practice, therefore, they join in all coercive measures against the working class; and in ordinary life, despite their high falutin phrases, they stoop to pick up the golden apples dropped from the tree of industry, and to barter truth, love, and honor for traffic in wool, beet-root sugar and potato spirit(b). as the parson has ever gone hand in hand with the landlord, so has clerical socialism with feudal socialism. nothing is easier than to give christian asceticism a socialist tinge. has not christianity declaimed against private property, against marriages, against the state? has it not preached in the place of these charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and mother church? christian socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat. (_b_) _petty bourgeois socialism_. the feudal aristocracy was not the only class that was ruined by the bourgeoisie, not the only class whose conditions of existence pined and perished in the atmosphere of modern bourgeois society. the medieval burgesses and the small peasant proprietors were the precursors of the modern bourgeoisie. in those countries which are but little developed, industrially and commercially these two classes still vegetate side by side with the rising bourgeoisie. in countries where modern civilization has become fully developed, a new class of petty bourgeois has been formed, fluctuating between proletariat and bourgeoisie, and ever renewing itself as a supplementary part of bourgeois society. the individual members of this class, however, are being constantly hurled down into the proletariat by the action of competition and as modern industry develops, they even see the moment approaching when they will completely disappear as an independent section of modern society to be replaced in manufactures, agriculture and commerce, by overlookers, bailiffs and shopmen. in countries like france, where the peasants constitute far more than half of the population, it was natural that writers who sided with the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, should use in their criticism of the bourgeois _regime_, the standard of the peasant and petty bourgeois, and from the standpoint of these intermediate classes should take up the cudgels for the working class. thus arose petty bourgeois socialism. sismondi was the head of this school, not only in france but also in england. this school of socialism dissected with great acuteness the contradictions in the conditions of modern production. it laid bare the hypocritical apologies of economists. it proved incontrovertibly the disastrous effects of machinery and division of labor; the concentration of capital and land in a few hands; overproduction and crises; it pointed out the inevitable ruin of the petty bourgeois and peasant, the misery of the proletariat, the anarchy in production, the crying inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the industrial war of extermination between nations, the dissolution of old moral bonds, of the old family relations, of the old nationalities. in its positive aims, however, this form of socialism aspires either to restoring the old means of production and of exchange, and with them the old property relations and the old society, or to cramping the modern means of production and of exchange, within the frame work of the old property relations that have been and were bound to be exploded by those means. in either case, it is both reactionary and utopian. its last words are: corporate guilds for manufacture; patriarchal relations in agriculture. ultimately, when stubborn historical facts had dispersed all intoxicating effects of self-deception, this form of socialism ended in a miserable fit of the blues. (_c_) _german or "true" socialism_. the socialist and communist literature of france, a literature that originated under the pressure of a bourgeoisie in power, and that was the expression of the struggle against this power, was introduced into germany at a time when the bourgeoisie in that country had just begun its contest with feudal absolutism. german philosophers,--would-be philosophers and _beaux esprits_,--eagerly seized on this literature, only forgetting that when these writings immigrated from france into germany, french social conditions had not immigrated along with them. in contact with german social conditions, this french literature lost all its immediate practical significance, and assumed a purely literary aspect. thus, to the german philosophers of the eighteenth century, the demands of the first french revolution were nothing more than the demands of "practical reason" in general, and the utterances of the will of the revolutionary french bourgeoisie signified in their eyes the laws of pure will, of will as it was bound to be, of true human will generally. the work of the german _literati_ consisted solely in bringing the new french ideas into harmony with their ancient philosophical conscience, or rather, in annexing the french ideas without deserting their own philosophic point of view. this annexation took place in the same way in which a foreign language is appropriated, namely, by translation. it is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of catholic saints over the manuscripts on which the classical works of ancient heathendom had been written. the german _literati_ reversed this process with the profane french literature. they wrote their philosophical nonsense beneath the french original. for instance, beneath the french criticism of the economic functions of money they wrote "alienation of humanity," and beneath the french criticism of the bourgeois state they wrote "dethronement of the category of the general," and so forth. the introduction of these philosophical phrases at the back of the french historical criticisms they dubbed "philosophy of action," "true socialism," "german science of socialism," "philosophical foundation of socialism," and so on. the french socialist and communist literature was thus completely emasculated. and, since it ceased in the hands of the german to express the struggle of one class with the other, he felt conscious of having overcome "french one-sidedness" and of representing not true requirements but the requirements of truth, not the interests of the proletariat, but the interests of human nature, of man in general, who belongs to no class, has no reality, and exists only in the misty realm of philosophical phantasy. this german socialism, which took its school-boy task so seriously and solemnly, and extolled its poor stock in trade in such mountebank fashion, meanwhile gradually lost its pedantic innocence. the fight of the german, and especially of the prussian bourgeoisie, against feudal aristocracy and absolute monarchy, in other words, the liberal movement, became more earnest. by this, the long wished-for opportunity was offered to "true socialism" of confronting the political movement with the socialist demands, of hurling the traditional anathemas against liberalism, against representative government, against bourgeois competition, bourgeois freedom of the press, bourgeois legislation, bourgeois liberty and equality, and of preaching to the masses that they had nothing to gain and everything to lose by this bourgeois movement. german socialism forgot, in the nick of time, that the french criticism, whose silly echo it was, presupposed the existence of modern bourgeois society, with its corresponding economic conditions of existence, and the political constitution adapted thereto, the very things whose attainment was the object of the pending struggle in germany. to the absolute governments, with their following of parsons, professors, country squires and officials, it served as a welcome scarecrow against the threatening bourgeoisie. it was a sweet finish after the bitter pills of floggings and bullets with which these same governments, just at that time, dosed the german working-class risings. while this "true" socialism thus served the government as a weapon for fighting the german bourgeoisie, it, at the same time, directly represented a reactionary interest, the interest of the german philistines. in germany the _petty bourgeois_ class, a relique of the th century and since then constantly cropping up again under various forms, is the real social basis of the existing state of things. to preserve this class, is to preserve the existing state of things in germany. the industrial and political supremacy of the bourgeoisie threatens it with certain destruction; on the one hand, from the concentration of capital; on the other, from the rise of a revolutionary proletariat. "true" socialism appeared to kill these two birds with one stone. it spread like an epidemic. the robe of speculative cobwebs, embroidered with flowers of rhetoric, steeped in the dew of sickly sentiment, this transcendental robe in which the german socialists wrapped their sorry "eternal truths" all skin and bone, served to wonderfully increase the sale of their goods amongst such a public. and on its part, german socialism recognized more and more its own calling as the bombastic representative of the petty bourgeois philistine. it proclaimed the german nation to be the model nation, and the german petty philistine to be the typical man. to every villainous meanness of this model man it gave a hidden, higher, socialistic interpretation, the exact contrary of its real character. it went to the extreme length of directly opposing the "brutally destructive" tendency of communism, and of proclaiming its supreme and impartial contempt of all class-struggles. with very few exceptions, all the so-called socialist and communist publications that now ( ) circulate in germany belong to the domain of this foul and enervating literature. . conservative or bourgeois socialism. a part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances, in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society. to this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of the condition of the working class, organizers of charity, members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole and corner reformers of every imaginable kind. this form of socialism has, moreover, been worked out into complete systems. we may cite proudhon's _philosophie de la misère_ as an example of this form. the socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social conditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. they desire the existing state of society minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements. they wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat. the bourgeoisie naturally conceives the world in which it is supreme to be the best; and bourgeois socialism develops this comfortable conception into various more or less complete systems. in requiring the proletariat to carry out such a system, and thereby to march straightway into the social new jerusalem, it but requires in reality, that the proletariat should remain within the bounds of existing society, but should cast away all its hateful ideas concerning the bourgeosie. a second and more practical, but less systematic form of this socialism sought to depreciate every revolutionary movement in the eyes of the working class, by showing that no mere political reform but a change in the material conditions of existence in economical relations could be of any advantage to them. by changes in the material conditions of existence this form of socialism, however, by no means understands abolition of the bourgeois relations of production,--an abolition that can be effected only by a revolution--but administrative reforms, based on the continued existence of these relations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations between capital and labor, but, at the best, lessen the cost and simplify the administrative work of bourgeois government. bourgeois socialism attains adequate expression, when, and only when, it becomes a mere figure of speech. free trade: for the benefit of the working class. protective duties: for the benefit of the working class. prison reform: for the benefit of the working class. this is the last word and the only seriously meant word of bourgeois socialism. it is summed up in the phrase: the bourgeois is a bourgeois--for the benefit of the working class. . critical-utopian socialism and communism. we do not here refer to that literature which, in every great modern revolution, has always given voice to the demands of the proletariat, such as the writings of baboeuf and others. the first direct attempts of the proletariat to attain its own ends, made in times of universal excitement, when feudal society was being overthrown, these attempts necessarily failed, owing to the then undeveloped state of the proletariat, as well as to the absence of the economic conditions for its emancipation, conditions that had yet to be produced, and could be produced by the impending bourgeois epoch alone. the revolutionary literature that accompanied these first movements of the proletariat had necessarily a reactionary character. it inculcated universal asceticism and social levelling in its crudest form. the socialist and communist systems properly so called, those of st. simon, fourier, owen and others, spring into existence in the early undeveloped period, described above, of the struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie (see: section i., bourgeoisie and proletariat.) the founders of these systems see, indeed, the class antagonisms as well as the action of the decomposing elements in the prevailing form of society. but the proletariat, as yet in its infancy, offers to them the spectacle of a class without any historical initiative or any independent political movement. since the development of class antagonism keeps even pace with the development of industry, the economic situation, as they find it, does not as yet offer to them the material conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat. they therefore search after a new social science, after new social laws, that are to create these conditions. historical action is to yield to their personal inventive action, historically created conditions of emancipation to phantastic ones, and the gradual, spontaneous class organization of the proletariat to an organization of society specially contrived by these inventors. future history resolves itself, in their eyes, into the propaganda and the practical carrying out of their social plans. in the formation of their plans they are conscious of caring chiefly for the interest of the working class, as being the most suffering class. only from the point of view of being the most suffering class does the proletariat exist for them. the undeveloped state of the class struggle as well as their own surroundings cause socialists of this kind to consider themselves far superior to all class antagonisms. they want to improve the condition of every member of society, even that of the most favored. hence they habitually appeal to society at large, without distinction of class; nay, by preference to the ruling class. for how can people, when once they understand their system, fail to see in it the best possible plan of the best possible state of society? hence they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and endeavor, by small experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the way for the new social gospel. such phantastic pictures of future society, painted at a time when the proletariat is still in a very undeveloped state and has but a phantastic conception of its own position, correspond with the first instinctive yearnings of that class for a general reconstruction of society. but these socialist and communist publications contain also a critical element. they attack every principle of existing society. hence they are full of the most valuable materials for the enlightenment of the working class. the practical measures proposed in them, such as the abolition of the distinction between town and country, of the family, of the carrying on of industries for the account of private individuals, and of the wage system, the proclamation of social harmony, the conversion of the functions of the state into a mere superintendence of production, all these proposals point solely to the disappearance of class antagonisms which were, at that time, only just cropping up, and which, in these publications, are recognized under their earliest, indistinct and undefined forms only. these proposals, therefore, are of a purely utopian character. the significance of critical-utopian socialism and communism bears an inverse relation to historical development. in proportion as the modern class struggle develops and takes definite shape, this phantastic standing apart from the contest, these phantastic attacks on it lose all practical value and all theoretical justification. therefore, although the originators of these systems were, in many respects, revolutionary, their disciples have in every case formed mere reactionary sects. they hold fast by the original views of their masters, in opposition to the progressive historical development of the proletariat. they, therefore, endeavor, and that consistently, to deaden the class struggle and to reconcile the class antagonisms. they still dream of experimental realization of their social utopias, of founding isolated "phalansteres," of establishing "home colonies," of setting up a "little icaria"(c)--duodecimo editions of the new jerusalem, and to realize all these castles in the air, they are compelled to appeal to the feelings and purses of the bourgeois. by degrees they sink into the category of the reactionary conservative socialists depicted above, differing from these only by more systematic pedantry, and by their fanatical and superstitious belief in the miraculous effects of their social science. they, therefore, violently oppose all political action on the part of the working class; such action, according to them, can only result from blind unbelief in the new gospel. the owenites in england, and the fourierists in france, respectively, oppose the chartists and the "réformistes." (a) not the english restoration to , but the french restoration to . (b) this applies chiefly to germany where the landed aristocracy and squirearchy have large portions of their estates cultivated for their own account by stewards, and are moreover, extensive beet-root sugar manufacturers and distillers of potato spirits. the wealthier british aristocracy are, as yet, rather above that; but they, too, know how to make up for declining rents by lending their names to floaters of more or less shady joint-stock companies. (c) phalansteres were socialist colonies on the plan of charles fourier; icaria was the name given by cabet to his utopia and, later on, to his american communist colony. iv. position of the communists in relation to the various existing opposition parties. section ii. has made clear the relations of the communists to the existing working class parties, such as the chartists in england and the agrarian reformers in america. the communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement. in france the communists ally themselves with the social-democrats(a), against the conservative and radical bourgeoisie, reserving, however, the right to take up a critical position in regard to phrases and illusions traditionally handed down from the great revolution. in switzerland they support the radicals, without losing sight of the fact that this party consists of antagonistic elements, partly of democratic socialists, in the french sense, partly of radical bourgeois. in poland they support the party that insists on an agrarian revolution, as the prime condition for national emancipation, that party which fomented the insurrection of cracow in . in germany they fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a revolutionary way against the absolute monarchy, the feudal squirearchy, and the petty bourgeoisie. but they never cease, for a single instant, to instil into the working class the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat, in order that the german workers may straightway use, as so many weapons against the bourgeoisie, the social and political conditions that the bourgeoisie must necessarily introduce along with its supremacy, and in order that, after the fall of the reactionary classes in germany, the fight against the bourgeoisie itself may immediately begin. the communists turn their attention chiefly to germany, because that country is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution that is bound to be carried out under more advanced conditions of european civilization, and with a much more developed proletariat, than that of england was in the seventeenth, and of france in the eighteenth century, and because the bourgeois revolution in germany will be but the prelude to an immediately following proletarian revolution. in short, the communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. in all these movements they bring, to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time. finally, they labor everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries. the communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. they openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution. the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. they have a world to win. workingmen of all countries unite! (a) the party then represented in parliament by ledru-rollin, in literature by louis blanc, in the daily press by the reforme. the name of social-democracy signified, with these its inventors, a section of the democratic or republican party more or less tinged with socialism. the end. the preamble of the industrial workers of the world an address delivered at minneapolis, minn, by daniel de leon the organization of the industrial workers of the world, at chicago, july , , marked an epoch in the history of the labor movement in america, for the reason that, as the preamble to the constitution declares, there can be no peace between the exploited working class and the exploiting capitalist class; the i. w. w. organized on that basis--the recognition of the class struggle. a -page pamphlet, cents send all orders to .... new york labor news co. city hall place new york what means this strike? by daniel de leon "what means this strike?" is an address delivered before the striking textile workers of new bedford, mass. it is the best thing extant with which to begin the study of socialism. the strike is used as an object lesson to show the nature of capitalist society. the development of the capitalist is clearly given, showing why it is that the capitalist class is able to live in idleness and luxury while the working class rots in poverty and toil. contents.--whence do wages come, and whence profits--the capitalist system of production--nature of the "work" performed by the capitalist--mechanism of stock corporation--nature of the "work" performed by the "directors" of stock corporations--"original accumulation"--how the capitalist in general gets his capital--how levi p. morton got his capital--the class struggle--nature of the conflict between the working class and the capitalist class--development of capitalist society--development of the strike--how the capitalists rob inventors--how the capitalist uses machinery to rob and subjugate the working class--why the modern strike is usually a failure--principles of the organization the working class must have to fight successfully the capitalist class--weaknesses of "pure and simple" trade unions--career of samuel gompers--there will be no safety for the working class until it wrenches the government from the capitalist class, abolishes the wages system of slavery, and unfurls the banner of the socialist republic. single copies, cents; copies, literature. leaflets, in english, per thousand .......................... $ . leaflets, in german, " " .......................... . leaflets, in italian, " " .......................... . leaflets, in french, " " .......................... . leaflets, in slavonic, " " .......................... . leaflets, in croatian, " " .......................... . leaflets, in spanish, " " .......................... . leaflets, in polish, " " .......................... . leaflets, in finnish, " " .......................... . leaflets, in swedish, " " .......................... . note.---the requisite amount of each must accompany each order. all supplies sent by the general office have the postage or express charges paid in advance. new york labor news co. city hall place, new york value, price, and profit by karl marx. edited by his daughter eleanor marx aveling. with an introduction and annotations by lucien sanial. this book is especially timely, like everything else that marx wrote. written a couple of years before his "capital" appeared, it is an address to workingmen, and covers in popular form many of the subjects later scientifically expanded in "capital." lucien sanial says of it: "it is universally considered as the best epitome we have of the first volume of 'capital,' and as such, is invaluable to the beginner in economics. it places him squarely on his feet at the threshold of his inquiry; that is, in a position where his perceptive faculties cannot be deceived and his reasoning power vitiated by the very use of his eyesight; whereas, by the very nature of his capitalist surroundings, he now stands on his head and sees all things inverted." special interest attaches to what marx says relative to strikes. were the working class thoroughly acquainted with the subject matter of this little work, we should hear no more of the "common ground" on which capital and labor might meet to settle their differences. the thousand and one schemes that are daily being flaunted in the faces of the working class by the lieutenants of the capitalists show the necessity there is on the part of the working class for a comprehensive understanding of the matter of wages, the relation of the worker to the employer, the source of profits, and the relation between profits and wages. these and other subjects are here presented, and so clearly does marx present them that all he has to say can be understood by any person willing to pay close attention to his words. cloth, cents. paper, cents. new york labor news company, city hall place, new york. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- from a mechanical standpoint it is the first one marx's works published in america that can be looked upon as a careful piece of publishing. it is to be hoped that this excellent volume is the forerunner of other volumes of marx, and that america will have the honor of publishing an edition that is accurate as to text, thorough in annotations, convenient in size, and presentable in every way. the present book will delight the lover of marx, and every socialist will desire a copy of it.--n. y. daily people. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- the eighteenth brumaire of louis bonaparte by karl marx translator's preface "the eighteenth brumaire of louis bonaparte" is one of karl marx' most profound and most brilliant monographs. it may be considered the best work extant on the philosophy of history, with an eye especially upon the history of the movement of the proletariat, together with the bourgeois and other manifestations that accompany the same, and the tactics that such conditions dictate. the recent populist uprising; the more recent "debs movement"; the thousand and one utopian and chimerical notions that are flaring up; the capitalist maneuvers; the hopeless, helpless grasping after straws, that characterize the conduct of the bulk of the working class; all of these, together with the empty-headed, ominous figures that are springing into notoriety for a time and have their day, mark the present period of the labor movement in the nation a critical one. the best information acquirable, the best mental training obtainable are requisite to steer through the existing chaos that the death-tainted social system of today creates all around us. to aid in this needed information and mental training, this instructive work is now made accessible to english readers, and is commended to the serious study of the serious. the teachings contained in this work are hung on an episode in recent french history. with some this fact may detract of its value. a pedantic, supercilious notion is extensively abroad among us that we are an "anglo saxon" nation; and an equally pedantic, supercilious habit causes many to look to england for inspiration, as from a racial birthplace nevertheless, for weal or for woe, there is no such thing extant as "anglo-saxon"--of all nations, said to be "anglo-saxon," in the united states least. what we still have from england, much as appearances may seem to point the other way, is not of our bone-and-marrow, so to speak, but rather partakes of the nature of "importations." we are no more english on account of them than we are chinese because we all drink tea. of all european nations, france is the on to which we come nearest. besides its republican form of government--the directness of its history, the unity of its actions, the sharpness that marks its internal development, are all characteristics that find their parallel her best, and vice versa. in all essentials the study of modern french history, particularly when sketched by such a master hand as marx', is the most valuable one for the acquisition of that historic, social and biologic insight that our country stands particularly in need of, and that will be inestimable during the approaching critical days. for the assistance of those who, unfamiliar with the history of france, may be confused by some of the terms used by marx, the following explanations may prove aidful: on the th brumaire (nov. th), the post-revolutionary development of affairs in france enabled the first napoleon to take a step that led with inevitable certainty to the imperial throne. the circumstance that fifty and odd years later similar events aided his nephew, louis bonaparte, to take a similar step with a similar result, gives the name to this work--"the eighteenth brumaire of louis bonaparte." as to the other terms and allusions that occur, the following sketch will suffice: upon the overthrow of the first napoleon came the restoration of the bourbon throne (louis xviii, succeeded by charles x). in july, , an uprising of the upper tier of the bourgeoisie, or capitalist class--the aristocracy of finance--overthrew the bourbon throne, or landed aristocracy, and set up the throne of orleans, a younger branch of the house of bourbon, with louis philippe as king. from the month in which this revolution occurred, louis philippe's monarchy is called the "july monarchy." in february, , a revolt of a lower tier of the capitalist class--the industrial bourgeoisie--against the aristocracy of finance, in turn dethroned louis philippe. the affair, also named from the month in which it took place, is the "february revolution". "the eighteenth brumaire" starts with that event. despite the inapplicableness to our affairs of the political names and political leadership herein described, both these names and leaderships are to such an extent the products of an economic-social development that has here too taken place with even greater sharpens, and they have their present or threatened counterparts here so completely, that, by the light of this work of marx', we are best enabled to understand our own history, to know whence we came, and whither we are going and how to conduct ourselves. d.d.l. new york, sept. , the eighteenth brumaire of louis bonaparte i hegel says somewhere that that great historic facts and personages recur twice. he forgot to add: "once as tragedy, and again as farce." caussidiere for danton, louis blanc for robespierre, the "mountain" of - for the "mountain" of - , the nephew for the uncle. the identical caricature marks also the conditions under which the second edition of the eighteenth brumaire is issued. man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth; he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such as he finds close at hand. the tradition of all past generations weighs like an alp upon the brain of the living. at the very time when men appear engaged in revolutionizing things and themselves, in bringing about what never was before, at such very epochs of revolutionary crisis do they anxiously conjure up into their service the spirits of the past, assume their names, their battle cries, their costumes to enact a new historic scene in such time-honored disguise and with such borrowed language thus did luther masquerade as the apostle paul; thus did the revolution of - drape itself alternately as roman republic and as roman empire; nor did the revolution of know what better to do than to parody at one time the year , at another the revolutionary traditions of - thus does the beginner, who has acquired a new language, keep on translating it back into his own mother tongue; only then has he grasped the spirit of the new language and is able freely to express himself therewith when he moves in it without recollections of the old, and has forgotten in its use his own hereditary tongue. when these historic configurations of the dead past are closely observed a striking difference is forthwith noticeable. camille desmoulins, danton, robespierre, st. juste, napoleon, the heroes as well as the parties and the masses of the old french revolution, achieved in roman costumes and with roman phrases the task of their time: the emancipation and the establishment of modern bourgeois society. one set knocked to pieces the old feudal groundwork and mowed down the feudal heads that had grown upon it; napoleon brought about, within france, the conditions under which alone free competition could develop, the partitioned lands be exploited the nation's unshackled powers of industrial production be utilized; while, beyond the french frontier, he swept away everywhere the establishments of feudality, so far as requisite, to furnish the bourgeois social system of france with fit surroundings of the european continent, and such as were in keeping with the times. once the new social establishment was set on foot, the antediluvian giants vanished, and, along with them, the resuscitated roman world--the brutuses, gracchi, publicolas, the tribunes, the senators, and caesar himself. in its sober reality, bourgeois society had produced its own true interpretation in the says, cousins, royer-collards, benjamin constants and guizots; its real generals sat behind the office desks; and the mutton-head of louis xviii was its political lead. wholly absorbed in the production of wealth and in the peaceful fight of competition, this society could no longer understand that the ghosts of the days of rome had watched over its cradle. and yet, lacking in heroism as bourgeois society is, it nevertheless had stood in need of heroism, of self-sacrifice, of terror, of civil war, and of bloody battle fields to bring it into the world. its gladiators found in the stern classic traditions of the roman republic the ideals and the form, the self-deceptions, that they needed in order to conceal from themselves the narrow bourgeois substance of their own struggles, and to keep their passion up to the height of a great historic tragedy. thus, at another stage of development a century before, did cromwell and the english people draw from the old testament the language, passions and illusions for their own bourgeois revolution. when the real goal was reached, when the remodeling of english society was accomplished, locke supplanted habakuk. accordingly, the reviving of the dead in those revolutions served the purpose of glorifying the new struggles, not of parodying the old; it served the purpose of exaggerating to the imagination the given task, not to recoil before its practical solution; it served the purpose of rekindling the revolutionary spirit, not to trot out its ghost. in - only the ghost of the old revolution wandered about, from marrast the "republicain en gaunts jaunes," [# silk-stocking republican] who disguised himself in old bailly, down to the adventurer, who hid his repulsively trivial features under the iron death mask of napoleon. a whole people, that imagines it has imparted to itself accelerated powers of motion through a revolution, suddenly finds itself transferred back to a dead epoch, and, lest there be any mistake possible on this head, the old dates turn up again; the old calendars; the old names; the old edicts, which long since had sunk to the level of the antiquarian's learning; even the old bailiffs, who had long seemed mouldering with decay. the nation takes on the appearance of that crazy englishman in bedlam, who imagines he is living in the days of the pharaohs, and daily laments the hard work that he must do in the ethiopian mines as gold digger, immured in a subterranean prison, with a dim lamp fastened on his head, behind him the slave overseer with a long whip, and, at the mouths of the mine a mob of barbarous camp servants who understand neither the convicts in the mines nor one another, because they do not speak a common language. "and all this," cries the crazy englishman, "is demanded of me, the free-born englishman, in order to make gold for old pharaoh." "in order to pay off the debts of the bonaparte family"--sobs the french nation. the englishman, so long as he was in his senses, could not rid himself of the rooted thought making gold. the frenchmen, so long as they were busy with a revolution, could not rid then selves of the napoleonic memory, as the election of december th proved. they longed to escape from the dangers of revolution back to the flesh pots of egypt; the d of december, was the answer. they have not merely the character of the old napoleon, but the old napoleon himself-caricatured as he needs must appear in the middle of the nineteenth century. the social revolution of the nineteenth century can not draw its poetry from the past, it can draw that only from the future. it cannot start upon its work before it has stricken off all superstition concerning the past. former revolutions require historic reminiscences in order to intoxicate themselves with their own issues. the revolution of the nineteenth century must let the dead bury their dead in order to reach its issue. with the former, the phrase surpasses the substance; with this one, the substance surpasses the phrase. the february revolution was a surprisal; old society was taken unawares; and the people proclaimed this political stroke a great historic act whereby the new era was opened. on the d of december, the february revolution is jockeyed by the trick of a false player, and what is seer to be overthrown is no longer the monarchy, but the liberal concessions which had been wrung from it by centuries of struggles. instead of society itself having conquered a new point, only the state appears to have returned to its oldest form, to the simply brazen rule of the sword and the club. thus, upon the "coup de main" of february, , comes the response of the "coup de tete" december, . so won, so lost. meanwhile, the interval did not go by unutilized. during the years - , french society retrieved in abbreviated, because revolutionary, method the lessons and teachings, which--if it was to be more than a disturbance of the surface-should have preceded the february revolution, had it developed in regular order, by rule, so to say. now french society seems to have receded behind its point of departure; in fact, however, it was compelled to first produce its own revolutionary point of departure, the situation, circumstances, conditions, under which alone the modern revolution is in earnest. bourgeois revolutions, like those of the eighteenth century, rush onward rapidly from success to success, their stage effects outbid one another, men and things seem to be set in flaming brilliants, ecstasy is the prevailing spirit; but they are short-lived, they reach their climax speedily, then society relapses into a long fit of nervous reaction before it learns how to appropriate the fruits of its period of feverish excitement. proletarian revolutions, on the contrary, such as those of the nineteenth century, criticize themselves constantly; constantly interrupt themselves in their own course; come back to what seems to have been accomplished, in order to start over anew; scorn with cruel thoroughness the half measures, weaknesses and meannesses of their first attempts; seem to throw down their adversary only in order to enable him to draw fresh strength from the earth, and again, to rise up against them in more gigantic stature; constantly recoil in fear before the undefined monster magnitude of their own objects--until finally that situation is created which renders all retreat impossible, and the conditions themselves cry out: "hic rhodus, hic salta!" [# here is rhodes, leap here! an allusion to aesop's fables.] every observer of average intelligence; even if he failed to follow step by step the course of french development, must have anticipated that an unheard of fiasco was in store for the revolution. it was enough to hear the self-satisfied yelpings of victory wherewith the messieurs democrats mutually congratulated one another upon the pardons of may d, . indeed, may d had become a fixed idea in their heads; it had become a dogma with them--something like the day on which christ was to reappear and the millennium to begin had formed in the heads of the chiliasts. weakness had, as it ever does, taken refuge in the wonderful; it believed the enemy was overcome if, in its imagination, it hocus-pocused him away; and it lost all sense of the present in the imaginary apotheosis of the future, that was at hand, and of the deeds, that it had "in petto," but which it did not yet want to bring to the scratch. the heroes, who ever seek to refute their established incompetence by mutually bestowing their sympathy upon one another and by pulling together, had packed their satchels, taken their laurels in advance payments and were just engaged in the work of getting discounted "in partibus," on the stock exchange, the republics for which, in the silence of their unassuming dispositions, they had carefully organized the government personnel. the d of december struck them like a bolt from a clear sky; and the 'peoples, who, in periods of timid despondency, gladly allow their hidden fears to be drowned by the loudest screamers, will perhaps have become convinced that the days are gone by when the cackling of geese could save the capitol. the constitution, the national assembly, the dynastic parties, the blue and the red republicans, the heroes from africa, the thunder from the tribune, the flash-lightnings from the daily press, the whole literature, the political names and the intellectual celebrities, the civil and the criminal law, the "liberte', egalite', fraternite'," together with the d of may --all vanished like a phantasmagoria before the ban of one man, whom his enemies themselves do not pronounce an adept at witchcraft. universal suffrage seems to have survived only for a moment, to the end that, before the eyes of the whole world, it should make its own testament with its own hands, and, in the name of the people, declare: "all that exists deserves to perish." it is not enough to say, as the frenchmen do, that their nation was taken by surprise. a nation, no more than a woman, is excused for the unguarded hour when the first adventurer who comes along can do violence to her. the riddle is not solved by such shifts, it is only formulated in other words. there remains to be explained how a nation of thirty-six millions can be surprised by three swindlers, and taken to prison without resistance. let us recapitulate in general outlines the phases which the french revolution of' february th, , to december, , ran through. three main periods are unmistakable: first--the february period; second--the period of constituting the republic, or of the constitutive national assembly (may , , to may th, ); third--the period of the constitutional republic, or of the legislative national assembly (may , , to december , ). the first period, from february , or the downfall of louis philippe, to may , , the date of the assembling of the constitutive assembly--the february period proper--may be designated as the prologue of the revolution. it officially expressed its' own character in this, that the government which it improvised declared itself "provisional;" and, like the government, everything that was broached, attempted, or uttered, pronounced itself provisional. nobody and nothing dared to assume the right of permanent existence and of an actual fact. all the elements that had prepared or determined the revolution--dynastic opposition, republican bourgeoisie, democratic-republican small traders' class, social-democratic labor element-all found "provisionally" their place in the february government. it could not be otherwise. the february days contemplated originally a reform of the suffrage laws, whereby the area of the politically privileged among the property-holding class was to be extended, while the exclusive rule of the aristocracy of finance was to be overthrown. when however, it came to a real conflict, when the people mounted the barricades, when the national guard stood passive, when the army offered no serious resistance, and the kingdom ran away, then the republic seemed self-understood. each party interpreted it in its own sense. won, arms in hand, by the proletariat, they put upon it the stamp of their own class, and proclaimed the social republic. thus the general purpose of modern revolutions was indicated, a purpose, however, that stood in most singular contradiction to every thing that, with the material at hand, with the stage of enlightenment that the masses had reached, and under existing circumstances and conditions, could be immediately used. on the other hand, the claims of all the other elements, that had cooperated in the revolution of february, were recognized by the lion's share that they received in the government. hence, in no period do we find a more motley mixture of high-sounding phrases together with actual doubt and helplessness; of more enthusiastic reform aspirations, together with a more slavish adherence to the old routine; more seeming harmony permeating the whole of society together with a deeper alienation of its several elements. while the parisian proletariat was still gloating over the sight of the great perspective that had disclosed itself to their view, and was indulging in seriously meant discussions over the social problems, the old powers of society had groomed themselves, had gathered together, had deliberated and found an unexpected support in the mass of the nation--the peasants and small traders--all of whom threw themselves on a sudden upon the political stage, after the barriers of the july monarchy had fallen down. the second period, from may , , to the end of may, , is the period of the constitution, of the founding of the bourgeois republic immediately after the february days, not only was the dynastic opposition surprised by the republicans, and the republicans by the socialists, but all france was surprised by paris. the national assembly, that met on may , , to frame a constitution, was the outcome of the national elections; it represented the nation. it was a living protest against the assumption of the february days, and it was intended to bring the results of the revolution back to the bourgeois measure. in vain did the proletariat of paris, which forthwith understood the character of this national assembly, endeavor, a few days after its meeting; on may , to deny its existence by force, to dissolve it, to disperse the organic apparition, in which the reacting spirit of the nation was threatening them, and thus reduce it back to its separate component parts. as is known, the th of may had no other result than that of removing blanqui and his associates, i.e. the real leaders of the proletarian party, from the public scene for the whole period of the cycle which we are here considering. upon the bourgeois monarchy of louis philippe, only the bourgeois republic could follow; that is to say, a limited portion of the bourgeoisie having ruled under the name of the king, now the whole bourgeoisie was to rule under the name of the people. the demands of the parisian proletariat are utopian tom-fooleries that have to be done away with. to this declaration of the constitutional national assembly, the paris proletariat answers with the june insurrection, the most colossal event in the history of european civil wars. the bourgeois republic won. on its side stood the aristocracy of finance, the industrial bourgeoisie; the middle class; the small traders' class; the army; the slums, organized as guarde mobile; the intellectual celebrities, the parsons' class, and the rural population. on the side of the parisian proletariat stood none but itself. over , insurgents were massacred, after the victory , were transported without trial. with this defeat, the proletariat steps to the background on the revolutionary stage. it always seeks to crowd forward, so soon as the movement seems to acquire new impetus, but with ever weaker effort and ever smaller results; so soon as any of the above lying layers of society gets into revolutionary fermentation, it enters into alliance therewith and thus shares all the defeats which the several parties successively suffer. but these succeeding blows become ever weaker the more generally they are distributed over the whole surface of society. the more important leaders of the proletariat, in its councils, and the press, fall one after another victims of the courts, and ever more questionable figures step to the front. it partly throws itself it upon doctrinaire experiments, "co-operative banking" and "labor exchange" schemes; in other words, movements, in which it goes into movements in which it gives up the task of revolutionizing the old world with its own large collective weapons and on the contrary, seeks to bring about its emancipation, behind the back of society, in private ways, within the narrow bounds of its own class conditions, and, consequently, inevitably fails. the proletariat seems to be able neither to find again the revolutionary magnitude within itself nor to draw new energy from the newly formed alliances until all the classes, with whom it contended in june, shall lie prostrate along with itself. but in all these defeats, the proletariat succumbs at least with the honor that attaches to great historic struggles; not france alone, all europe trembles before the june earthquake, while the successive defeats inflicted upon the higher classes are bought so easily that they need the brazen exaggeration of the victorious party itself to be at all able to pass muster as an event; and these defeats become more disgraceful the further removed the defeated party stands from the proletariat. true enough, the defeat of the june insurgents prepared, leveled the ground, upon which the bourgeois republic could be founded and erected; but it, at the same time, showed that there are in europe other issues besides that of "republic or monarchy." it revealed the fact that here the bourgeois republic meant the unbridled despotism of one class over another. it proved that, with nations enjoying an older civilization, having developed class distinctions, modern conditions of production, an intellectual consciousness, wherein all traditions of old have been dissolved through the work of centuries, that with such countries the republic means only the political revolutionary form of bourgeois society, not its conservative form of existence, as is the case in the united states of america, where, true enough, the classes already exist, but have not yet acquired permanent character, are in constant flux and reflux, constantly changing their elements and yielding them up to one another where the modern means of production, instead of coinciding with a stagnant population, rather compensate for the relative scarcity of heads and hands; and, finally, where the feverishly youthful life of material production, which has to appropriate a new world to itself, has so far left neither time nor opportunity to abolish the illusions of old. [# this was written at the beginning of .] all classes and parties joined hands in the june days in a "party of order" against the class of the proletariat, which was designated as the "party of anarchy," of socialism, of communism. they claimed to have "saved" society against the "enemies of society." they gave out the slogans of the old social order--"property, family, religion, order"--as the passwords for their army, and cried out to the counter-revolutionary crusaders: "in this sign thou wilt conquer!" from that moment on, so soon as any of the numerous parties, which had marshaled themselves under this sign against the june insurgents, tries, in turn, to take the revolutionary field in the interest of its own class, it goes down in its turn before the cry: "property, family, religion, order." thus it happens that "society is saved" as often as the circle of its ruling class is narrowed, as often as a more exclusive interest asserts itself over the general. every demand for the most simple bourgeois financial reform, for the most ordinary liberalism, for the most commonplace republicanism, for the flattest democracy, is forthwith punished as an "assault upon society," and is branded as "socialism." finally the high priests of "religion and order" themselves are kicked off their tripods; are fetched out of their beds in the dark; hurried into patrol wagons, thrust into jail or sent into exile; their temple is razed to the ground, their mouths are sealed, their pen is broken, their law torn to pieces in the name of religion, of family, of property, and of order. bourgeois, fanatic on the point of "order," are shot down on their own balconies by drunken soldiers, forfeit their family property, and their houses are bombarded for pastime--all in the name of property, of family, of religion, and of order. finally, the refuse of bourgeois society constitutes the "holy phalanx of order," and the hero crapulinsky makes his entry into the tuileries as the "savior of society." ii let us resume the thread of events. the history of the constitutional national assembly from the june days on, is the history of the supremacy and dissolution of the republican bourgeois party, the party which is known under several names of "tricolor republican," "true republican," "political republican," "formal republican," etc., etc. under the bourgeois monarchy of louis philippe, this party had constituted the official republican opposition, and consequently had been a recognized element in the then political world. it had its representatives in the chambers, and commanded considerable influence in the press. its parisian organ, the "national," passed, in its way, for as respectable a paper as the "journal des debats." this position in the constitutional monarchy corresponded to its character. the party was not a fraction of the bourgeoisie, held together by great and common interests, and marked by special business requirements. it was a coterie of bourgeois with republican ideas-writers, lawyers, officers and civil employees, whose influence rested upon the personal antipathies of the country for louis philippe, upon reminiscences of the old republic, upon the republican faith of a number of enthusiasts, and, above all, upon the spirit of french patriotism, whose hatred of the treaties of vienna and of the alliance with england kept them perpetually on the alert. the "national" owed a large portion of its following under louis philippe to this covert imperialism, that, later under the republic, could stand up against it as a deadly competitor in the person of louis bonaparte. the fought the aristocracy of finance just the same as did the rest of the bourgeois opposition. the polemic against the budget, which in france, was closely connected with the opposition to the aristocracy of finance, furnished too cheap a popularity and too rich a material for puritanical leading articles, not to be exploited. the industrial bourgeoisie was thankful to it for its servile defense of the french tariff system, which, however, the paper had taken up, more out of patriotic than economic reasons the whole bourgeois class was thankful to it for its vicious denunciations of communism and socialism for the rest, the party of the "national" was purely republican, i.e. it demanded a republican instead of a monarchic form of bourgeois government; above all, it demanded for the bourgeoisie the lion's share of the government. as to how this transformation was to be accomplished, the party was far from being clear. what, however, was clear as day to it and was openly declared at the reform banquets during the last days of louis philippe's reign, was its unpopularity with the democratic middle class, especially with the revolutionary proletariat. these pure republicans, as pure republicans go, were at first on the very point of contenting themselves with the regency of the duchess of orleans, when the february revolution broke out, and when it gave their best known representatives a place in the provisional government. of course, they enjoyed from the start the confidence of the bourgeoisie and of the majority of the constitutional national assembly. the socialist elements of the provisional government were promptly excluded from the executive committee which the assembly had elected upon its convening, and the party of the "national" subsequently utilized the outbreak of the june insurrection to dismiss this executive committee also, and thus rid itself of its nearest rivals--the small traders' class or democratic republicans (ledru-rollin, etc.). cavaignac, the general of the bourgeois republican party, who command at the battle of june, stepped into the place of the executive committee with a sort of dictatorial power. marrast, former editor-in-chief of the "national", became permanent president of the constitutional national assembly, and the secretaryship of state, together with all the other important posts, devolved upon the pure republicans. the republican bourgeois party, which since long had looked upon itself as the legitimate heir of the july monarchy, thus found itself surpassed in its own ideal; but it cam to power, not as it had dreamed under louis philippe, through a liberal revolt of the bourgeoisie against the throne, but through a grape-shot-and-canistered mutiny of the proletariat against capital. that which it imagined to be the most revolutionary, came about as the most counter-revolutionary event. the fruit fell into its lap, but it fell from the tree of knowledge, not from the tree of life. the exclusive power of the bourgeois republic lasted only from june to the th of december, . it is summed up in the framing of a republican constitution and in the state of siege of paris. the new constitution was in substance only a republicanized edition of the constitutional charter of . the limited suffrage of the july monarchy, which excluded even a large portion of the bourgeoisie from political power, was irreconcilable with the existence of the bourgeois republic. the february revolution had forthwith proclaimed direct and universal suffrage in place of the old law. the bourgeois republic could not annul this act. they had to content themselves with tacking to it the limitation a six months' residence. the old organization of the administrative law, of municipal government, of court procedures of the army, etc., remained untouched, or, where the constitution did change them, the change affected their index, not their subject; their name, not their substance. the inevitable "general staff" of the "freedoms" of --personal freedom, freedom of the press, of speech, of association and of assemblage, freedom of instruction, of religion, etc.--received a constitutional uniform that rendered them invulnerable. each of these freedoms is proclaimed the absolute right of the french citizen, but always with the gloss that it is unlimited in so far only as it be not curtailed by the "equal rights of others," and by the "public safety," or by the "laws," which are intended to effect this harmony. for instance: "citizens have the right of association, of peaceful and unarmed assemblage, of petitioning, and of expressing their opinions through the press or otherwise. the enjoyment of these rights has no limitation other than the equal rights of others and the public safety." (chap. ii. of the french constitution, section .) "education is free. the freedom of education shall be enjoyed under the conditions provided by law, and under the supervision of the state." (section .) "the domicile of the citizen is inviolable, except under the forms prescribed by law." (chap. i., section ), etc., etc. the constitution, it will be noticed, constantly alludes to future organic laws, that are to carry out the glosses, and are intended to regulate the enjoyment of these unabridged freedoms, to the end that they collide neither with one another nor with the public safety. later on, the organic laws are called into existence by the "friends of order," and all the above named freedoms are so regulated that, in their enjoyment, the bourgeoisie encounter no opposition from the like rights of the other classes. wherever the bourgeoisie wholly interdicted these rights to "others," or allowed them their enjoyment under conditions that were but so many police snares, it was always done only in the interest of the "public safety," i. e., of the bourgeoisie, as required by the constitution. hence it comes that both sides-the "friends of order," who abolished all those freedoms, as, well as the democrats, who had demanded them all--appeal with full right to the constitution: each paragraph of the constitution contains its own antithesis, its own upper and lower house-freedom as a generalization, the abolition of freedom as a specification. accordingly, so long as the name of freedom was respected, and only its real enforcement was prevented in a legal way, of course the constitutional existence of freedom remained uninjured, untouched, however completely its common existence might be extinguished. this constitution, so ingeniously made invulnerable, was, however, like achilles, vulnerable at one point: not in its heel, but in its head, or rather, in the two heads into which it ran out-the legislative assembly, on the one hand, and the president on the other. run through the constitution and it will be found that only those paragraphs wherein the relation of the president to the legislative assembly is defined, are absolute, positive, uncontradictory, undistortable. here the bourgeois republicans were concerned in securing their own position. articles - of the constitution are so framed that the national assembly can constitutionally remove the president, but the president can set aside the national assembly only unconstitutionally, he can set it aside only by setting aside the constitution itself. accordingly, by these provisions, the national assembly challenges its own violent destruction. it not only consecrates, like the character of , the division of powers, but it extends this feature to an unbearably contradictory extreme. the "play of constitutional powers," as guizot styled the clapper-clawings between the legislative and the executive powers, plays permanent "vabanque" in the constitution of . on the one side, representatives of the people, elected and qualified for re-election by universal suffrage, who constitute an uncontrollable, indissoluble, indivisible national assembly, a national assembly that enjoys legislative omnipotence, that decides in the last instance over war, peace and commercial treaties, that alone has the power to grant amnesties, and that, through its perpetuity, continually maintains the foreground on the stage; on the other, a president, clad with all the attributes of royalty, with the right to appoint and remove his ministers independently from the national assembly, holding in his hands all the means of executive power, the dispenser of all posts, and thereby the arbiter of at least one and a half million existences in france, so many being dependent upon the , civil employees and upon the officers of all grades. he has the whole armed power behind him. he enjoys the privilege of granting pardons to individual criminals; suspending the national guards; of removing with the consent of the council of state the general, cantonal and municipal councilmen, elected by the citizens themselves. the initiative and direction of all negotiations with foreign countries are reserved to him. while the assembly itself is constantly acting upon the stage, and is exposed to the critically vulgar light of day, he leads a hidden life in the elysian fields, only with article of the constitution before his eyes and in his heart daily calling out to him, "frere, il faut mourir!" [# brother, you must die!] your power expires on the second sunday of the beautiful month of may, in the fourth year after your election! the glory is then at an end; the play is not performed twice; and, if you have any debts, see to it betimes that you pay them off with the , francs that the constitution has set aside for you, unless, perchance, you should prefer traveling to clichy [# the debtors' prison.] on the second monday of the beautiful month of may. while the constitution thus clothes the president with actual power, it seeks to secure the moral power to the national assembly. apart from the circumstance that it is impossible to create a moral power through legislative paragraphs, the constitution again neutralizes itself in that it causes the president to be chosen by all the frenchmen through direct suffrage. while the votes of france are splintered to pieces upon the members of the national assembly they are here, on the contrary, concentrated upon one individual. while each separate representative represents only this or that party, this or that city, this or that dunghill, or possibly only the necessity of electing some one seven-hundred-and-fiftieth or other, with whom neither the issue nor the man is closely considered, that one, the president, on the contrary, is the elect of the nation, and the act of his election is the trump card, that, the sovereign people plays out once every four years. the elected national assembly stands in a metaphysical, but the elected president in a personal, relation to the nation. true enough, the national assembly presents in its several representatives the various sides of the national spirit, but, in the president, this spirit is incarnated. as against the national assembly, the president possesses a sort of divine right, he is by the grace of the people. thetis, the sea-goddess, had prophesied to achilles that he would die in the bloom of youth. the constitution, which had its weak spot, like achilles, had also, like achilles, the presentiment that it would depart by premature death. it was enough for the pure republicans, engaged at the work of framing a constitution, to cast a glance from the misty heights of their ideal republic down upon the profane world in order to realize how the arrogance of the royalists, of the bonapartists, of the democrats, of the communists, rose daily, together with their own discredit, and in the same measure as they approached the completion of their legislative work of art, without thetis having for this purpose to leave the sea and impart the secret to them. they ought to outwit fate by means of constitutional artifice, through section of the constitution, according to which every motion to revise the constitution had to be discussed three successive times between each of which a full month was to elapse and required at least a three-fourths majority, with the additional proviso that not less than members of the national assembly voted. they thereby only made the impotent attempt, still to exercise as a parliamentary minority, to which in their mind's eye they prophetically saw themselves reduced, a power, that, at this very time, when they still disposed over the parliamentary majority and over all the machinery of government, was daily slipping from their weak hands. finally, the constitution entrusts itself for safe keeping, in a melodramatic paragraph, "to the watchfulness and patriotism of the whole french people, and of each individual frenchman," after having just before, in another paragraph entrusted the "watchful" and the "patriotic" themselves to the tender, inquisitorial attention of the high court, instituted by itself. that was the constitution of , which on, the d of december, , was not overthrown by one head, but tumbled down at the touch of a mere hat; though, true enough, that hat was a three-cornered napoleon hat. while the bourgeois' republicans were engaged in the assembly with the work of splicing this constitution, of discussing and voting, cavaignac, on the outside, maintained the state of siege of paris. the state of siege of paris was the midwife of the constitutional assembly, during its republican pains of travail. when the constitution is later on swept off the earth by the bayonet, it should not be forgotten that it was by the bayonet, likewise--and the bayonet turned against the people, at that--that it had to be protected in its mother's womb, and that by the bayonet it had to be planted on earth. the ancestors of these "honest republicans" had caused their symbol, the tricolor, to make the tour of europe. these, in their turn also made a discovery, which all of itself, found its way over the whole continent, but, with ever renewed love, came back to france, until, by this time, if had acquired the right of citizenship in one-half of her departments--the state of siege. a wondrous discovery this was, periodically applied at each succeeding crisis in the course of the french revolution. but the barrack and the bivouac, thus periodically laid on the head of french society, to compress her brain and reduce her to quiet; the sabre and the musket, periodically made to perform the functions of judges and of administrators, of guardians and of censors, of police officers and of watchmen; the military moustache and the soldier's jacket, periodically heralded as the highest wisdom and guiding stars of society;--were not all of these, the barrack and the bivouac, the sabre and the musket, the moustache and the soldier's jacket bound, in the end, to hit upon the idea that they might as well save, society once for all, by proclaiming their own regime as supreme, and relieve bourgeois society wholly of the care of ruling itself? the barrack and the bivouac, the sabre and the musket, the moustache and the soldier's jacket were all the more bound to hit upon this idea, seeing that they could then also expect better cash payment for their increased deserts, while at the merely periodic states of siege and the transitory savings of society at the behest of this or that bourgeois faction, very little solid matter fell to them except some dead and wounded, besides some friendly bourgeois grimaces. should not the military, finally, in and for its own interest, play the game of "state of siege," and simultaneously besiege the bourgeois exchanges? moreover, it must not be forgotten, and be it observed in passing, that col. bernard, the same president of the military committee, who, under cavaignac, helped to deport , insurgents without trial, moves at this period again at the head of the military committees now active in paris. although the honest, the pure republicans built with the state of siege the nursery in which the praetorian guards of december , , were to be reared, they, on the other hand, deserve praise in that, instead of exaggerating the feeling of patriotism, as under louis philippe, now; they themselves are in command of the national power, they crawl before foreign powers; instead of making italy free, they allow her to be reconquered by austrians and neapolitans. the election of louis bonaparte for president on december , , put an end to the dictatorship of cavaignac and to the constitutional assembly. in article of the constitution it is said "the president of the french republic must never have lost his status as a french citizen." the first president of the french republic, l. n. bonaparte, had not only lost his status as a french citizen, had not only been an english special constable, but was even a naturalized swiss citizen. in the previous chapter i have explained the meaning of the election of december . i shall not here return to it. suffice it here to say that it was a reaction of the farmers' class, who had been expected to pay the costs of the february revolution, against the other classes of the nation: it was a reaction of the country against the city. it met with great favor among the soldiers, to whom the republicans of the "national" had brought neither fame nor funds; among the great bourgeoisie, who hailed bonaparte as a bridge to the monarchy; and among the proletarians and small traders, who hailed him as a scourge to cavaignac. i shall later have occasion to enter closer into the relation of the farmers to the french revolution. the epoch between december , , and the dissolution of the constitutional assembly in may, , embraces the history of the downfall of the bourgeois republicans. after they had founded a republic for the bourgeoisie, had driven the revolutionary proletariat from the field and had meanwhile silenced the democratic middle class, they are themselves shoved aside by the mass of the bourgeoisie who justly appropriate this republic as their property. this bourgeois mass was royalist, however. a part thereof, the large landed proprietors, had ruled under the restoration, hence, was legitimist; the other part, the aristocrats of finance and the large industrial capitalists, had ruled under the july monarchy, hence, was orleanist. the high functionaries of the army, of the university, of the church, in the civil service, of the academy and of the press, divided themselves on both sides, although in unequal parts. here, in the bourgeois republic, that bore neither the name of bourbon, nor of orleans, but the name of capital, they had found the form of government under which they could all rule in common. already the june insurrection had united them all into a "party of order." the next thing to do was to remove the bourgeois republicans who still held the seats in the national assembly. as brutally as these pure republicans had abused their own physical power against the people, so cowardly, low-spirited, disheartened, broken, powerless did they yield, now when the issue was the maintenance of their own republicanism and their own legislative rights against the executive power and the royalists i need not here narrate the shameful history of their dissolution. it was not a downfall, it was extinction. their history is at an end for all time. in the period that follows, they figure, whether within or without the assembly, only as memories--memories that seem again to come to life so soon as the question is again only the word "republic," and as often as the revolutionary conflict threatens to sink down to the lowest level. in passing, i might observe that the journal which gave to this party its name, the "national," goes over to socialism during the following period. before we close this period, we must look back upon the two powers, one of destroys the other on december , , while, from december , , down to the departure of the constitutional assembly, they live marital relations. we mean louis bonaparte, on the-one hand, on the other, the party of the allied royalists; of order, and of the large bourgeoisie. at the inauguration of his presidency, bonaparte forthwith framed a ministry out of the party of order, at whose head he placed odillon barrot, be it noted, the old leader of the liberal wing of the parliamentary bourgeoisie. mr. barrot had finally hunted down a seat in the ministry, the spook of which had been pursuing him since ; and what is more, he had the chairmanship in this ministry, although not, as he had imagined under louis philippe, the promoted leader of the parliamentary opposition, but with the commission to kill a parliament, and, moreover, as an ally of all his arch enemies, the jesuits and the legitimists. finally he leads the bride home, but only after she has been prostituted. as to bonaparte, he seemed to eclipse himself completely. the party of order acted for him. immediately at the first session of the ministry the expedition to rome was decided upon, which it was there agreed, was to be carried out behind i the back of the national assembly, and the funds for which, it was equally agreed, were to be wrung from the assembly under false pretences. thus the start was made with a swindle on the national assembly, together with a secret conspiracy with the absolute foreign powers against the revolutionary roman republic. in the same way, and with a similar maneuver, did bonaparte prepare his stroke of december against the royalist legislature and its constitutional republic. let it not be forgotten that the same party, which, on december , , constituted bonaparte's ministry, constituted also, on december , , the majority of the legislative national assembly. in august the constitutive assembly decided not to dissolve until it had prepared and promulgated a whole series of organic laws, intended to supplement the constitution. the party of order proposed to the assembly, through representative rateau, on january , , to let the organic laws go, and rather to order its own dissolution. not the ministry alone, with mr. odillon barrot at its head, but all the royalist members of the national assembly were also at this time hectoring to it that its dissolution was necessary for the restoration of the public credit, for the consolidation of order, to put an end to the existing uncertain and provisional, and establish a definite state of things; they claimed that its continued existence hindered the effectiveness of the new government, that it sought to prolong its life out of pure malice, and that the country was tired of it. bonaparte took notice of all these invectives hurled at the legislative power, he learned them by heart, and, on december , , he showed the parliamentary royalists that he had learned from them. he repeated their own slogans against themselves. the barrot ministry and the party of order went further. they called all over france for petitions to the national assembly in which that body was politely requested to disappear. thus they led the people's unorganic masses to the fray against the national assembly, i.e., the constitutionally organized expression of people itself. they taught bonaparte, to appeal from the parliamentary body to the people. finally, on january , , the day arrived when the constitutional assembly was to decide about its own dissolution. on that day the body found its building occupied by the military; changarnier, the general of the party of order, in whose hands was joined the supreme command of both the national guards and the regulars, held that day a great military review, as though a battle were imminent; and the coalized royalists declared threateningly to the constitutional assembly that force would be applied if it did not act willingly. it was willing, and chaffered only for a very short respite. what else was the th of january, , than the "coup d'etat" of december , , only executed by the royalists with napoleon's aid against the republican national assembly? these gentlemen did not notice, or did not want to notice, that napoleon utilized the th of january, , to cause a part of the troops to file before him in front of the tuileries, and that he seized with avidity this very first open exercise of the military against the parliamentary power in order to hint at caligula. the allied royalists saw only their own changarnier. another reason that particularly moved the party of order forcibly to shorten the term of the constitutional assembly were the organic laws, the laws that were to supplement the constitution, as, for instance, the laws on education, on religion, etc. the allied royalists had every interest in framing these laws themselves, and not allowing them to be framed by the already suspicious republicans. among these organic laws, there was, however, one on the responsibility of the president of the republic. in the legislature was just engaged in framing such a law when bonaparte forestalled that political stroke by his own of december . what all would not the coalized royalists have given in their winter parliamentary campaign of , had they but found this "responsibility law" ready made, and framed at that, by the suspicious, the vicious republican assembly! after, on january , , the constitutive assembly had itself broken its last weapon, the barrot ministry and the "friends of order" harassed it to death, left nothing undone to humiliate it, and wrung from its weakness, despairing of itself, laws that cost it the last vestige of respect with the public. bonaparte, occupied with his own fixed napoleonic idea, was audacious enough openly to exploit this degradation of the parliamentary power: when the national assembly, on may , , passed a vote of censure upon the ministry on account of the occupation of civita-vecchia by oudinot, and ordered that the roman expedition be brought back to its alleged purpose, bonaparte published that same evening in the "moniteur" a letter to oudinot, in which he congratulated him on his heroic feats, and already, in contrast with the quill-pushing parliamentarians, posed as the generous protector of the army. the royalists smiled at this. they took him simply for their dupe. finally, as marrast, the president of the constitutional assembly, believed on a certain occasion the safety of the body to be in danger, and, resting on the constitution, made a requisition upon a colonel, together with his regiment, the colonel refused obedience, took refuge behind the "discipline," and referred marrast to changarnier, who scornfully sent him off with the remark that he did not like "bayonettes intelligentes." [# intelligent bayonets] in november, , as the coalized royalists wanted to begin the decisive struggle with bonaparte, they sought, by means of their notorious "questors bill," to enforce the principle of the right of the president of the national assembly to issue direct requisitions for troops. one of their generals, leflo, supported the motion. in vain did changarnier vote for it, or did thiers render homage to the cautious wisdom of the late constitutional assembly. the minister of war, st. arnaud, answered him as changarnier had answered marrast--and he did so amidst the plaudits of the mountain. thus did the party of order itself, when as yet it was not the national assembly, when as yet it was only a ministry, brand the parliamentary regime. and yet this party objects vociferously when the d of december, , banishes that regime from france! we wish it a happy journey. iii on may , , the legislative national assembly convened. on december , , it was broken up. this period embraces the term of the constitutional or parliamentary public. in the first french revolution, upon the reign of the constitutionalists succeeds that of the girondins; and upon the reign of the girondins follows that of the jacobins. each of these parties in succession rests upon its more advanced element. so soon as it has carried the revolution far enough not to be able to keep pace with, much less march ahead of it, it is shoved aside by its more daring allies, who stand behind it, and it is sent to the guillotine. thus the revolution moves along an upward line. just the reverse in . the proletarian party appears as an appendage to the small traders' or democratic party; it is betrayed by the latter and allowed to fall on april , may , and in the june days. in its turn, the democratic party leans upon the shoulders of the bourgeois republicans; barely do the bourgeois republicans believe themselves firmly in power, than they shake off these troublesome associates for the purpose of themselves leaning upon the shoulders of the party of order. the party of order draws in its shoulders, lets the bourgeois republicans tumble down heels over head, and throws itself upon the shoulders of the armed power. finally, still of the mind that it is sustained by the shoulders of the armed power, the party of order notices one fine morning that these shoulders have turned into bayonets. each party kicks backward at those that are pushing forward, and leans forward upon those that are crowding backward; no wonder that, in this ludicrous posture, each loses its balance, and, after having cut the unavoidable grimaces, breaks down amid singular somersaults. accordingly, the revolution moves along a downward line. it finds itself in this retreating motion before the last february-barricade is cleared away, and the first governmental authority of the revolution has been constituted. the period we now have before us embraces the motliest jumble of crying contradictions: constitutionalists, who openly conspire against the constitution; revolutionists, who admittedly are constitutional; a national assembly that wishes to be omnipotent yet remains parliamentary; a mountain, that finds its occupation in submission, that parries its present defeats with prophecies of future victories; royalists, who constitute the "patres conscripti" of the republic, and are compelled by the situation to uphold abroad the hostile monarchic houses, whose adherents they are, while in france they support the republic that they hate; an executive power that finds its strength in its very weakness, and its dignity in the contempt that it inspires; a republic, that is nothing else than the combined infamy of two monarchies--the restoration and the july monarchy--with an imperial label; unions, whose first clause is disunion; struggles, whose first law is in-decision; in the name of peace, barren and hollow agitation; in the name of the revolution, solemn sermonizings on peace; passions without truth; truths without passion; heroes without heroism; history without events; development, whose only moving force seems to be the calendar, and tiresome by the constant reiteration of the same tensions and relaxes; contrasts, that seem to intensify themselves periodically, only in order to wear themselves off and collapse without a solution; pretentious efforts made for show, and bourgeois frights at the danger of the destruction of the world, simultaneous with the carrying on of the pettiest intrigues and the performance of court comedies by the world's saviours, who, in their "laisser aller," recall the day of judgment not so much as the days of the fronde; the official collective genius of france brought to shame by the artful stupidity of a single individual; the collective will of the nation, as often as it speaks through the general suffrage, seeking its true expression in the prescriptive enemies of the public interests until it finally finds it in the arbitrary will of a filibuster. if ever a slice from history is drawn black upon black, it is this. men and events appear as reversed "schlemihls," [# the hero in chamisso's "peter schiemihi," who loses his own shadow.] as shadows, the bodies of which have been lost. the revolution itself paralyzes its own apostles, and equips only its adversaries with passionate violence. when the "red spectre," constantly conjured up and exorcised by the counter-revolutionists finally does appear, it does not appear with the anarchist phrygian cap on its head, but in the uniform of order, in the red breeches of the french soldier. we saw that the ministry, which bonaparte installed on december , , the day of his "ascension," was a ministry of the party of order, of the legitimist and orleanist coalition. the barrot-falloux ministry had weathered the republican constitutive convention, whose term of life it had shortened with more or less violence, and found itself still at the helm. changamier, the general of the allied royalists continued to unite in his person the command-in-chief of the first military division and of the parisian national guard. finally, the general elections had secured the large majority in the national assembly to the party of order. here the deputies and peers of louis phillipe met a saintly crowd of legitimists, for whose benefit numerous ballots of the nation had been converted into admission tickets to the political stage. the bonapartist representatives were too thinly sowed to be able to build an independent parliamentary party. they appeared only as "mauvaise queue" [# practical joke] played upon the party of order. thus the party of order was in possession of the government, of the army, and of the legislative body, in short, of the total power of the state, morally strengthened by the general elections, that caused their sovereignty to appear as the will of the people, and by the simultaneous victory of the counter-revolution on the whole continent of europe. never did party open its campaign with larger means at its disposal and under more favorable auspices. the shipwrecked pure republicans found themselves in the legislative national assembly melted down to a clique of fifty men, with the african generals cavaignac, lamorciere and bedeau at its head. the great opposition party was, however, formed by the mountain. this parliamentary baptismal name was given to itself by the social democratic party. it disposed of more than two hundred votes out of the seven hundred and fifty in the national assembly, and, hence, was at least just as powerful as any one of the three factions of the party of order. its relative minority to the total royalist coalition seemed counterbalanced by special circumstances. not only did the departmental election returns show that it had gained a considerable following among the rural population, but, furthermore, it numbered almost all the paris deputies in its camp; the army had, by the election of three under-officers, made a confession of democratic faith; and the leader of the mountain, ledru-rollin had in contrast to all the representatives of the party of order, been raised to the rank of the "parliamentary nobility" by five departments, who combined their suffrages upon him. accordingly, in view of the inevitable collisions of the royalists among themselves, on the one hand, and of the whole party of order with bonaparte, on the other, the mountain seemed on may , , to have before it all the elements of success. a fortnight later, it had lost everything, its honor included. before we follow this parliamentary history any further, a few observations are necessary, in order to avoid certain common deceptions concerning the whole character of the epoch that lies before us. according to the view of the democrats, the issue, during the period of the legislative national assembly, was, the same as during the period of the constitutive assembly, simply the struggle between republicans and royalists; the movement itself was summed up by them in the catch-word reaction--night, in which all cats are grey, and allows them to drawl out their drowsy commonplaces. indeed, at first sight, the party of order presents the appearance of a tangle of royalist factions, that, not only intrigue against each other, each aiming to raise its own pretender to the throne, and exclude the pretender of the opposite party, but also are all united in a common hatred for and common attacks against the "republic." on its side, the mountain appears, in counter-distinction to the royalist conspiracy, as the representative of the "republic." the party of order seems constantly engaged in a "reaction," which, neither more nor less than in prussia, is directed against the press, the right of association and the like, and is enforced by brutal police interventions on the part of the bureaucracy, the police and the public prosecutor--just as in prussia; the mountain on the contrary, is engaged with equal assiduity in parrying these attacks, and thus in defending the "eternal rights of man"--as every so-called people's party has more or less done for the last hundred and fifty years. at a closer inspection, however, of the situation and of the parties, this superficial appearance, which veils the class struggle, together with the peculiar physiognomy of this period, vanishes wholly. legitimists and orleanists constituted, as said before, the two large factions of the party of order. what held these two factions to their respective pretenders, and inversely kept them apart from each other, what else was it but the lily and the tricolor, the house of bourbon and the house of orleans, different shades of royalty? under the bourbons, large landed property ruled together with its parsons and lackeys; under the orleanist, it was the high finance, large industry, large commerce, i.e., capital, with its retinue of lawyers, professors and orators. the legitimate kingdom was but the political expression for the hereditary rule of the landlords, as the july monarchy was bur the political expression for the usurped rule of the bourgeois upstarts. what, accordingly, kept these two factions apart was no so-called set of principles, it was their material conditions for life--two different sorts of property--; it was the old antagonism of the city and the country, the rivalry between capital and landed property. that simultaneously old recollections; personal animosities, fears and hopes; prejudices and illusions; sympathies and antipathies; convictions, faith and principles bound these factions to one house or the other, who denies it? upon the several forms of property, upon the social conditions of existence, a whole superstructure is reared of various and peculiarly shaped feelings, illusions, habits of thought and conceptions of life. the whole class produces and shapes these out of its material foundation and out of the corresponding social conditions. the individual unit to whom they flow through tradition and education, may fancy that they constitute the true reasons for and premises of his conduct. although orleanists and legitimists, each of these factions, sought to make itself and the other believe that what kept the two apart was the attachment of each to its respective royal house; nevertheless, facts proved later that it rather was their divided interest that forbade the union of the two royal houses. as, in private life, the distinction is made between what a man thinks of himself and says, and that which he really is and does, so, all the more, must the phrases and notions of parties in historic struggles be distinguished from the real organism, and their real interests, their notions and their reality. orleanists and legitimists found themselves in the republic beside each other with equal claims. each side wishing, in opposition to the other, to carry out the restoration of its own royal house, meant nothing else than that each of the two great interests into which the bourgeoisie is divided--land and capital--sought to restore its own supremacy and the subordinacy of the other. we speak of two bourgeois interests because large landed property, despite its feudal coquetry and pride of race, has become completely bourgeois through the development of modern society. thus did the tories of england long fancy that they were enthusiastic for the kingdom, the church and the beauties of the old english constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the admission that their enthusiasm was only for ground rent. the coalized royalists carried on their intrigues against each other in the press, in ems, in clarmont--outside of the parliament. behind the scenes, they don again their old orleanist and legitimist liveries, and conduct their old tourneys; on the public stage, however, in their public acts, as a great parliamentary party, they dispose of their respective royal houses with mere courtesies, adjourn "in infinitum" the restoration of the monarchy. their real business is transacted as party of order, i. e., under a social, not a political title; as representatives of the bourgeois social system; not as knights of traveling princesses, but as the bourgeois class against the other classes; not as royalists against republicans. indeed, as party of order they exercised a more unlimited and harder dominion over the other classes of society than ever before either under the restoration or the july monarchy-a thing possible only under the form of a parliamentary republic, because under this form alone could the two large divisions of the french bourgeoisie be united; in other words, only under this form could they place on the order of business the sovereignty of their class, in lieu of the regime of a privileged faction of the same. if, this notwithstanding, they are seen as the party of order to insult the republic and express their antipathy for it, it happened not out of royalist traditions only: instinct taught them that while, indeed, the republic completes their authority, it at the same time undermined their social foundation, in that, without intermediary, without the mask of the crown, without being able to turn aside the national interest by means of its subordinate struggles among its own conflicting elements and with the crown, the republic is compelled to stand up sharp against the subjugated classes, and wrestle with them. it was a sense of weakness that caused them to recoil before the unqualified demands of their own class rule, and to retreat to the less complete, less developed, and, for that very reason, less dangerous forms of the same. as often, on the contrary, as the allied royalists come into conflict with the pretender who stands before them--with bonaparte--, as often as they believe their parliamentary omnipotence to be endangered by the executive, in other words, as often as they must trot out the political title of their authority, they step up as republicans, not as royalists--and this is done from the orleanist thiers, who warns the national assembly that the republic divides them least, down to legitimist berryer, who, on december , , the scarf of the tricolor around him, harangues the people assembled before the mayor's building of the tenth arrondissement, as a tribune in the name of the republic; the echo, however, derisively answering back to him: "henry v.! henry v!" [# the candidate of the bourbons, or legitimists, for the throne.] however, against the allied bourgeois, a coalition was made between the small traders and the workingmen--the so-called social democratic party. the small traders found themselves ill rewarded after the june days of ; they saw their material interests endangered, and the democratic guarantees, that were to uphold their interests, made doubtful. hence, they drew closer to the workingmen. on the other hand, their parliamentary representatives--the mountain--, after being shoved aside during the dictatorship of the bourgeois republicans, had, during the last half of the term of the constitutive convention, regained their lost popularity through the struggle with bonaparte and the royalist ministers. they had made an alliance with the socialist leaders. during february, , reconciliation banquets were held. a common program was drafted, joint election committees were empanelled, and fusion candidates were set up. the revolutionary point was thereby broken off from the social demands of the proletariat and a democratic turn given to them; while, from the democratic claims of the small traders' class, the mere political form was rubbed off and the socialist point was pushed forward. thus came the social democracy about. the new mountain, the result of this combination, contained, with the exception of some figures from the working class and some socialist sectarians, the identical elements of the old mountain, only numerically stronger. in the course of events it had, however, changed, together with the class that it represented. the peculiar character of the social democracy is summed up in this that democratic-republican institutions are demanded as the means, not to remove the two extremes--capital and wage-slavery--, but in order to weaken their antagonism and transform them into a harmonious whole. however different the methods may be that are proposed for the accomplishment of this object, however much the object itself may be festooned with more or less revolutionary fancies, the substance remains the same. this substance is the transformation of society upon democratic lines, but a transformation within the boundaries of the small traders' class. no one must run away with the narrow notion that the small traders' class means on principle to enforce a selfish class interest. it believes rather that the special conditions for its own emancipation are the general conditions under which alone modern society can be saved and the class struggle avoided. likewise must we avoid running away with the notion that the democratic representatives are all "shopkeepers," or enthuse for these. they may--by education and individual standing--be as distant from them as heaven is from earth. that which makes them representatives of the small traders' class is that they do not intellectually leap the bounds which that class itself does not leap in practical life; that, consequently, they are theoretically driven to the same problems and solutions, to which material interests and social standing practically drive the latter. such, in fact, is at all times the relation of the "political" and the "literary" representatives of a class to the class they represent. after the foregoing explanations, it goes with-out saying that, while the mountain is constantly wrestling for the republic and the so-called "rights of man," neither the republic nor the "rights of man" is its real goal, as little as an army, whose weapons it is sought to deprive it of and that defends itself, steps on the field of battle simply in order to remain in possession of implements of warfare. the party of order provoked the mountain immediately upon the convening of the assembly. the bourgeoisie now felt the necessity of disposing of the democratic small traders' class, just as a year before it had understood the necessity of putting an end to the revolutionary proletariat. but the position of the foe had changed. the strength of the proletarian party was on the streets; that of the small traders' class was in the national assembly itself. the point was, accordingly, to wheedle them out of the national assembly into the street, and to have them break their parliamentary power themselves, before time and opportunity could consolidate them. the mountain jumped with loose reins into the trap. the bombardment of rome by the french troops was the bait thrown at the mountain. it violated article v. of the constitution, which forbade the french republic to use its forces against the liberties of other nations; besides, article iv. forbade all declaration of war by the executive without the consent of the national assembly; furthermore, the constitutive assembly had censured the roman expedition by its resolution of may . upon these grounds, ledru-rollin submitted on june , , a motion impeaching bonaparte and his ministers. instigated by the wasp-stings of thiers, he even allowed himself to be carried away to the point of threatening to defend the constitution by all means, even arms in hand. the mountain rose as one man, and repeated the challenge. on june , the national assembly rejected the notion to impeach, and the mountain left the parliament. the events of june are known: the proclamation by a part of the mountain pronouncing napoleon and his ministers "outside the pale of the constitution"; the street parades of the democratic national guards, who, unarmed as they were, flew apart at contact with the troops of changarnier; etc., etc. part of the mountain fled abroad, another part was assigned to the high court of bourges, and a parliamentary regulation placed the rest under the school-master supervision of the president of the national assembly. paris was again put under a state of siege; and the democratic portion of the national guards was disbanded. thus the influence of the mountain in parliament was broken, together with the power; of the small traders' class in paris. lyons, where the th of june had given the signal to a bloody labor uprising, was, together with the five surrounding departments, likewise pronounced in state of siege, a condition that continues down to this moment. [# january, ] the bulk of the mountain had left its vanguard in the lurch by refusing their signatures to the proclamation; the press had deserted: only two papers dared to publish the pronunciamento; the small traders had betrayed their representatives: the national guards stayed away, or, where they did turn up, hindered the raising of barricades; the representatives had duped the small traders: nowhere were the alleged affiliated members from the army to be seen; finally, instead of gathering strength from them, the democratic party had infected the proletariat with its own weakness, and, as usual with democratic feats, the leaders had the satisfaction of charging "their people" with desertion, and the people had the satisfaction of charging their leaders with fraud. seldom was an act announced with greater noise than the campaign contemplated by the mountain; seldom was an event trumpeted ahead with more certainty and longer beforehand than the "inevitable victory of the democracy." this is evident: the democrats believe in the trombones before whose blasts the walls of jericho fall together; as often as they stand before the walls of despotism, they seek to imitate the miracle. if the mountain wished to win in parliament, it should not appeal to arms; if it called to arms in parliament, it should not conduct itself parliamentarily on the street; if the friendly demonstration was meant seriously, it was silly not to foresee that it would meet with a warlike reception; if it was intended for actual war, it was rather original to lay aside the weapons with which war had to be conducted. but the revolutionary threats of the middle class and of their democratic representatives are mere attempts to frighten an adversary; when they have run themselves into a blind alley, when they have sufficiently compromised themselves and are compelled to execute their threats, the thing is done in a hesitating manner that avoids nothing so much as the means to the end, and catches at pretexts to succumb. the bray of the overture, that announces the fray, is lost in a timid growl so soon as this is to start; the actors cease to take themselves seriously, and the performance falls flat like an inflated balloon that is pricked with a needle. no party exaggerates to itself the means at its disposal more than the democratic, none deceives itself with greater heedlessness on the situation. a part of the army voted for it, thereupon the mountain is of the opinion that the army would revolt in its favor. and by what occasion? by an occasion, that, from the standpoint of the troops, meant nothing else than that the revolutionary soldiers should take the part of the soldiers of rome against french soldiers. on the other hand, the memory of june, , was still too fresh not to keep alive a deep aversion on the part of the proletariat towards the national guard, and a strong feeling of mistrust on the part of the leaders of the secret societies for the democratic leaders. in order to balance these differences, great common interests at stake were needed. the violation of an abstract constitutional paragraph could not supply such interests. had not the constitution been repeatedly violated, according to the assurances of the democrats themselves? had not the most popular papers branded them as a counter-revolutionary artifice? but the democrat--by reason of his representing the middle class, that is to say, a transition class, in which the interests of two other classes are mutually dulled--, imagines himself above all class contrast. the democrats grant that opposed to them stands a privileged class, but they, together with the whole remaining mass of the nation, constitute the "people." what they represent is the "people's rights"; their interests are the "people's interests." hence, they do not consider that, at an impending struggle, they need to examine the interests and attitude of the different classes. they need not too seriously weigh their own means. all they have to do is to give the signal in order to have the "people" fall upon the "oppressors" with all its inexhaustible resources. if, thereupon, in the execution, their interests turn out to be uninteresting, and their power to be impotence, it is ascribed either to depraved sophists, who split up the "undivisible people" into several hostile camps; or to the army being too far brutalized and blinded to appreciate the pure aims of the democracy as its own best; or to some detail in the execution that wrecks the whole plan; or, finally, to an unforeseen accident that spoiled the game this time. at all events, the democrat comes out of the disgraceful defeat as immaculate as he went innocently into it, and with the refreshed conviction that he must win; not that he himself and his party must give up their old standpoint, but that, on the contrary, conditions must come to his aid. for all this, one must not picture to himself the decimated, broken, and, by the new parliamentary regulation, humbled mountain altogether too unhappy. if june removed its leaders, it, on the other hand, made room for new ones of inferior capacity, who are flattered by their new position. if their impotence in parliament could no longer be doubted, they were now justified to limit their activity to outbursts of moral indignation. if the party of order pretended to see in them, as the last official representatives of the revolution, all the horrors of anarchy incarnated, they were free to appear all the more flat and modest in reality. over june they consoled themselves with the profound expression: "if they but dare to assail universal suffrage . . . then . . . then we will show who we are!" nous verrons. [# we shall see.] as to the "mountaineers," who had fled abroad, it suffices here to say that ledru-rollin--he having accomplished the feat of hopelessly ruining, in barely a fortnight, the powerful party at whose head he stood--, found himself called upon to build up a french government "in partibus;" that his figure, at a distance, removed from the field of action, seemed to gain in size in the measure that the level of the revolution sank and the official prominences of official france became more and more dwarfish; that he could figure as republican pretender for , and periodically issued to the wallachians and other peoples circulars in which "despot of the continent" is threatened with the feats that he and his allies had in contemplation. was proudhon wholly wrong when he cried out to these gentlemen: "vous n'etes que des blaqueurs"? [# you are nothing but fakirs.] the party of order had, on june , not only broken up the mountain, it had also established the subordination of the constitution to the majority decisions of the national assembly. so, indeed, did the republic understand it, to--wit, that the bourgeois ruled here in parliamentary form, without, as in the monarchy, finding a check in the veto of the executive power, or the liability of parliament to dissolution. it was a "parliamentary republic," as thiers styled it. but if, on june , the bourgeoisie secured its omnipotence within the parliament building, did it not also strike the parliament itself, as against the executive and the people, with incurable weakness by excluding its most popular part? by giving up numerous deputies, without further ceremony to the mercies of the public prosecutor, it abolished its own parliamentary inviolability. the humiliating regulation, that it subjected the mountain to, raised the president of the republic in the same measure that it lowered the individual representatives of the people. by branding an insurrection in defense of the constitution as anarchy, and as a deed looking to the overthrow of society, it interdicted to itself all appeal to insurrection whenever the executive should violate the constitution against it. and, indeed, the irony of history wills it that the very general, who by order of bonaparte bombarded rome, and thus gave the immediate occasion to the constitutional riot of june , that oudinot, on december , , is the one imploringly and vainly to be offered to the people by the party of order as the general of the constitution. another hero of june , vieyra, who earned praise from the tribune of the national assembly for the brutalities that he had committed in the democratic newspaper offices at the head of a gang of national guards in the hire of the high finance--this identical vieyra was initiated in the conspiracy of bonaparte, and contributed materially in cutting off all protection that could come to the national assembly, in the hour of its agony, from the side of the national guard. june had still another meaning. the mountain had wanted to place bonaparte under charges. their defeat was, accordingly, a direct victory of bonaparte; it was his personal triumph over his democratic enemies. the party of order fought for the victory, bonaparte needed only to pocket it. he did so. on june , a proclamation was to be read on the walls of paris wherein the president, as it were, without his connivance, against his will, driven by the mere force of circumstances, steps forward from his cloisterly seclusion like misjudged virtue, complains of the calumnies of his antagonists, and, while seeming to identify his own person with the cause of order, rather identifies the cause of order with his own person. besides this, the national assembly had subsequently approved the expedition against rome; bonaparte, however, had taken the initiative in the affair. after he had led the high priest samuel back into the vatican, he could hope as king david to occupy the tuileries. he had won the parson-interests over to himself. the riot of june limited itself, as we have seen, to a peaceful street procession. there were, consequently, no laurels to be won from it. nevertheless, in these days, poor in heroes and events, the party of order converted this bloodless battle into a second austerlitz. tribune and press lauded the army as the power of order against the popular multitude, and the impotence of anarchy; and changarnier as the "bulwark of society"--a mystification that he finally believed in himself. underhand, however, the corps that seemed doubtful were removed from paris; the regiments whose suffrage had turned out most democratic were banished from france to algiers the restless heads among the troops were consigned to penal quarters; finally, the shutting out of the press from the barracks, and of the barracks from contact with the citizens was systematically carried out. we stand here at the critical turning point in the history of the french national guard. in , it had decided the downfall of the restoration. under louis philippe, every riot failed, at which the national guard stood on the side of the troops. when, in the february days of , it showed itself passive against the uprising and doubtful toward louis philippe himself, he gave himself up for lost. thus the conviction cast root that a revolution could not win without, nor the army against the national guard. this was the superstitious faith of the army in bourgeois omnipotence. the june days of , when the whole national guard, jointly with the regular troops, threw down the insurrection, had confirmed the superstition. after the inauguration of bonaparte's administration, the position of the national guard sank somewhat through the unconstitutional joining of their command with the command of the first military division in the person of changarnier. as the command of the national guard appeared here merely an attribute of the military commander-in-chief, so did the guard itself appear only as an appendage of the regular troops. finally, on june , the national guard was broken up, not through its partial dissolution only, that from that date forward was periodically repeated at all points of france, leaving only wrecks of its former self behind. the demonstration of june was, above all, a demonstration of the national guards. true, they had not carried their arms, but they had carried their uniforms against the army--and the talisman lay just in these uniforms. the army then learned that this uniform was but a woolen rag, like any other. the spell was broken. in the june days of , bourgeoisie and small traders were united as national guard with the army against the proletariat; on june , , the bourgeoisie had the small traders' national guard broken up; on december , , the national guard of the bourgeoisie itself vanished, and bonaparte attested the fact when he subsequently signed the decree for its disbandment. thus the bourgeoisie had itself broken its last weapon against the army, from the moment when the small traders' class no longer stood as a vassal behind, but as a rebel before it; indeed, it was bound to do so, as it was bound to destroy with its own hand all its means of defence against absolutism, so soon as itself was absolute. in the meantime, the party of order celebrated the recovery of a power that seemed lost in only in order that, freed from its trammels in , it be found again through invectives against the republic and the constitution; through the malediction of all future, present and past revolutions, that one included which its own leaders had made; and, finally, in laws by which the press was gagged, the right of association destroyed, and the stage of siege regulated as an organic institution. the national assembly then adjourned from the middle of august to the middle of october, after it had appointed a permanent committee for the period of its absence. during these vacations, the legitimists intrigued with ems; the orleanists with claremont; bonaparte through princely excursions; the departmental councilmen in conferences over the revision of the constitution;--occurrences, all of which recurred regularly at the periodical vacations of the national assembly, and upon which i shall not enter until they have matured into events. be it here only observed that the national assembly was impolitic in vanishing from the stage for long intervals, and leaving in view, at the head of the republic, only one, however sorry, figure--louis bonaparte's--, while, to the public scandal, the party of order broke up into its own royalist component parts, that pursued their conflicting aspirations after the restoration. as often as, during these vacations the confusing noise of the parliament was hushed, and its body was dissolved in the nation, it was unmistakably shown that only one thing was still wanting to complete the true figure of the republic: to make the vacation of the national assembly permanent, and substitute its inscription--"liberty, equality, fraternity"--by the unequivocal words, "infantry, cavalry, artillery". iv the national assembly reconvened in the middle of october. on november , bonaparte surprised it with a message, in which he announced the dismissal of the barrot-falloux ministry, and the framing of a new. never have lackeys been chased from service with less ceremony than bonaparte did his ministers. the kicks, that were eventually destined for the national assembly, barrot & company received in the meantime. the barrot ministry was, as we have seen, composed of legitimists and orleanists; it was a ministry of the party of order. bonaparte needed that ministry in order to dissolve the republican constituent assembly, to effect the expedition against rome, and to break up the democratic party. he had seemingly eclipsed himself behind this ministry, yielded the reins to the hands of the party of order, and assumed the modest mask, which, under louis philippe, had been worn by the responsible overseer of the newspapers--the mask of "homme de paille." [# man of straw] now he threw off the mask, it being no longer the light curtain behind which he could conceal, but the iron mask, which prevented him from revealing his own physiognomy. he had instituted the barrot ministry in order to break up the republican national assembly in the name of the party of order; he now dismissed it in order to declare his own name independent of the parliament of the party of order. there was no want of plausible pretexts for this dismissal. the barrot ministry had neglected even the forms of decency that would have allowed the president of the republic to appear as a power along with the national assembly. for instance, during the vacation of the national assembly, bonaparte published a letter to edgar ney, in which he seemed to disapprove the liberal attitude of the pope, just as, in opposition to the constitutive assembly, he had published a letter, in which he praised oudinot for his attack upon the roman republic; when the national assembly came to vote on the budget for the roman expedition, victor hugo, out of pretended liberalism, brought up that letter for discussion; the party of order drowned this notion of bonaparte's under exclamations of contempt and incredulity as though notions of bonaparte could not possibly have any political weight;--and none of the ministers took up the gauntlet for him. on another occasion, barrot, with his well-known hollow pathos, dropped, from the speakers' tribune in the assembly, words of indignation upon the "abominable machinations," which, according to him, went on in the immediate vicinity of the president. finally, while the ministry obtained from the national assembly a widow's pension for the duchess of orleans, it denied every motion to raise the presidential civil list;--and, in bonaparte, be it always remembered, the imperial pretender was so closely blended with the impecunious adventurer, that the great idea of his being destined to restore the empire was ever supplemented by that other, to-wit, that the french people was destined to pay his debts. the barrot-falloux ministry was the first and last parliamentary ministry that bonaparte called into life. its dismissal marks, accordingly, a decisive period. with the ministry, the party of order lost, never to regain, an indispensable post to the maintenance of the parliamentary regime,--the handle to the executive power. it is readily understood that, in a country like france, where the executive disposes over an army of more than half a million office-holders, and, consequently, keeps permanently a large mass of interests and existences in the completest dependence upon itself; where the government surrounds, controls, regulates, supervises and guards society, from its mightiest acts of national life, down to its most insignificant motions; from its common life, down to the private life of each individual; where, due to such extraordinary centralization, this body of parasites acquires a ubiquity and omniscience, a quickened capacity for motion and rapidity that finds an analogue only in the helpless lack of self-reliance, in the unstrung weakness of the body social itself;--that in such a country the national assembly lost, with the control of the ministerial posts, all real influence; unless it simultaneously simplified the administration; if possible, reduced the army of office-holders; and, finally, allowed society and public opinion to establish its own organs, independent of government censorship. but the material interest of the french bourgeoisie is most intimately bound up in maintenance of just such a large and extensively ramified governmental machine. there the bourgeoisie provides for its own superfluous membership; and supplies, in the shape of government salaries, what it can not pocket in the form of profit, interest, rent and fees. on the other hand, its political interests daily compel it to increase the power of repression, i.e., the means and the personnel of the government; it is at the same time forced to conduct an uninterrupted warfare against public opinion, and, full of suspicion, to hamstring and lame the independent organs of society--whenever it does not succeed in amputating them wholly. thus the bourgeoisie of france was forced by its own class attitude, on the one hand, to destroy the conditions for all parliamentary power, its own included, and, on the other, to render irresistible the executive power that stood hostile to it. the new ministry was called the d'hautpoul ministry. not that general d'hautpoul had gained the rank of ministerial president. along with barrot, bonaparte abolished this dignity, which, it must be granted, condemned the president of the republic to the legal nothingness of a constitutional kind, of a constitutional king at that, without throne and crown, without sceptre and without sword, without irresponsibility, without the imperishable possession of the highest dignity in the state, and, what was most untoward of all--without a civil list. the d'hautpoul ministry numbered only one man of parliamentary reputation, the jew fould, one of the most notorious members of the high finance. to him fell the portfolio of finance. turn to the paris stock quotations, and it will be found that from november , , french stocks fall and rise with the falling and rising of the bonapartist shares. while bonaparte had thus found his ally in the bourse, he at the same time took possession of the police through the appointment of carlier as prefect of police. but the consequences of the change of ministry could reveal themselves only in the course of events. so far, bonaparte had taken only one step forward, to be all the more glaringly driven back. upon his harsh message, followed the most servile declarations of submissiveness to the national assembly. as often as the ministers made timid attempts to introduce his own personal hobbies as bills, they themselves seemed unwilling and compelled only by their position to run the comic errands, of whose futility they were convinced in advance. as often as bonaparte blabbed out his plans behind the backs of his ministers, and sported his "idees napoleoniennes," [# napoleonic ideas.] his own ministers disavowed him from the speakers' tribune in the national assembly. his aspirations after usurpation seemed to become audible only to the end that the ironical laughter of his adversaries should not die out. he deported himself like an unappreciated genius, whom the world takes for a simpleton. never did lie enjoy in fuller measure the contempt of all classes than at this period. never did the bourgeoisie rule more absolutely; never did it more boastfully display the insignia of sovereignty. it is not here my purpose to write the history of its legislative activity, which is summed up in two laws passed during this period: the law reestablishing the duty on wine, and the laws on education, to suppress infidelity. while the drinking of wine was made difficult to the frenchmen, all the more bounteously was the water of pure life poured out to them. although in the law on the duty on wine the bourgeoisie declares the old hated french tariff system to be inviolable, it sought, by means of the laws on education, to secure the old good will of the masses that made the former bearable. one wonders to see the orleanists, the liberal bourgeois, these old apostles of voltarianism and of eclectic philosophy, entrusting the supervision of the french intellect to their hereditary enemies, the jesuits. but, while orleanists and legitimists could part company on the question of the pretender to the crown, they understood full well that their joint reign dictated the joining of the means of oppression of two distinct epochs; that the means of subjugation of the july monarchy had to be supplemented with and strengthened by the means of subjugation of the restoration. the farmers, deceived in all their expectations, more than ever ground down by the law scale of the price of corn, on the one hand, and, on the other, by the growing load of taxation and mortgages, began to stir in the departments. they were answered by the systematic baiting of the school masters, whom the government subjected to the clergy; by the systematic baiting of the mayors, whom it subjected to the prefects; and by a system of espionage to which all were subjected. in paris and the large towns, the reaction itself carries the physiognomy of its own epoch; it irritates more than it cows; in the country, it becomes low, moan, petty, tiresome, vexatious,--in a word, it becomes "gensdarme." it is easily understood how three years of the gensdarme regime, sanctified by the regime of the clergyman, was bound to demoralize unripe masses. whatever the mass of passion and declamation, that the party of order expended from the speakers' tribune in the national assembly against the minority, its speech remained monosyllabic, like that of the christian, whose speech was to be "aye, aye; nay, nay." it was monosyllabic, whether from the tribune or the press; dull as a conundrum, whose solution is known beforehand. whether the question was the right of petition or the duty on wine, the liberty of the press or free trade, clubs or municipal laws, protection of individual freedom or the regulation of national economy, the slogan returns ever again, the theme is monotonously the same, the verdict is ever ready and unchanged: socialism! even bourgeois liberalism is pronounced socialistic; socialistic, alike, is pronounced popular education; and, likewise, socialistic national financial reform. it was socialistic to build a railroad where already a canal was; and it was socialistic to defend oneself with a stick when attacked with a sword. this was not a mere form of speech, a fashion, nor yet party tactics. the bourgeoisie perceives correctly that all the weapons, which it forged against feudalism, turn their edges against itself; that all the means of education, which it brought forth, rebel against its own civilization; that all the gods, which it made, have fallen away from it. it understands that all its so-called citizens' rights and progressive organs assail and menace its class rule, both in its social foundation and its political superstructure--consequently, have become "socialistic." it justly scents in this menace and assault the secret of socialism, whose meaning and tendency it estimates more correctly than the spurious, so-called socialism, is capable of estimating itself, and which, consequently, is unable to understand how it is that the bourgeoisie obdurately shuts up its ears to it, alike whether it sentimentally whines about the sufferings of humanity; or announces in christian style the millennium and universal brotherhood; or twaddles humanistically about the soul, culture and freedom; or doctrinally matches out a system of harmony and wellbeing for all classes. what, however, the bourgeoisie does not understand is the consequence that its own parliamentary regime, its own political reign, is also of necessity bound to fall under the general ban of "socialistic." so long as the rule of the bourgeoisie is not fully organized, has not acquired its purely political character, the contrast with the other classes cannot come into view in all its sharpness; and, where it does come into view, it cannot take that dangerous turn that converts every conflict with the government into a conflict with capital. when, however, the french bourgeoisie began to realize in every pulsation of society a menace to "peace," how could it, at the head of society, pretend to uphold the regime of unrest, its own regime, the parliamentary regime, which, according to the expression of one of its own orators, lives in struggle, and through struggle? the parliamentary regime lives on discussion,--how can it forbid discussion? every single interest, every single social institution is there converted into general thoughts, is treated as a thought,--how could any interest or institution claim to be above thought, and impose itself as an article of faith? the orators' conflict in the tribune calls forth the conflict of the rowdies in the press the debating club in parliament is necessarily supplemented by debating clubs in the salons and the barrooms; the representatives, who are constantly appealing to popular opinion, justify popular opinion in expressing its real opinion in petitions. the parliamentary regime leaves everything to the decision of majorities,--how can the large majorities beyond parliament be expected not to wish to decide? if, from above, they hear the fiddle screeching, what else is to be expected than that those below should dance? accordingly, by now persecuting as socialist what formerly it had celebrated as liberal, the bourgeoisie admits that its own interest orders it to raise itself above the danger of self government; that, in order to restore rest to the land, its own bourgeois parliament must, before all, be brought to rest; that, in order to preserve its social power unhurt, its political power must be broken; that the private bourgeois can continue to exploit the other classes and rejoice in "property," "family," "religion" and "order" only under the condition that his own class be condemned to the same political nullity of the other classes, that, in order to save their purse, the crown must be knocked off their heads, and the sword that was to shield them, must at the same time be hung over their heads as a sword of damocles. in the domain of general bourgeois interests, the national assembly proved itself so barren, that, for instance, the discussion over the paris-avignon railroad, opened in the winter of , was not yet ripe for a vote on december , . wherever it did not oppress or was reactionary, the bourgeoisie was smitten with incurable barrenness. while bonaparte's ministry either sought to take the initiative of laws in the spirit of the party of order, or even exaggerated their severity in their enforcement and administration, he, on his part, sought to win popularity by means of childishly silly propositions, to exhibit the contrast between himself and the national assembly, and to hint at a secret plan, held in reserve and only through circumstances temporarily prevented from disclosing its hidden treasures to the french people. of this nature was the proposition to decree a daily extra pay of four sous to the under-officers; so, likewise, the proposition for a "word of honor" loan bank for working-men. to have money given and money borrowed--that was the perspective that he hoped to cajole the masses with. presents and loans--to that was limited the financial wisdom of the slums, the high as well as the low; to that were limited the springs which bonaparte knew how to set in motion. never did pretender speculate more dully upon the dullness of the masses. again and again did the national assembly fly into a passion at these unmistakable attempts to win popularity at its expense, and at the growing danger that this adventurer, lashed on by debts and unrestrained by reputation, might venture upon some desperate act. the strained relations between the party of order and the president had taken on a threatening aspect, when an unforeseen event threw him back, rueful into its arms. we mean the supplementary elections of march, . these elections took place to fill the vacancies created in the national assembly, after june , by imprisonment and exile. paris elected only social-democratic candidates; it even united the largest vote upon one of the insurgents of june, ,--deflotte. in this way the small traders' world of paris, now allied with the proletariat, revenged itself for the defeat of june , . it seemed to have disappeared from the field of battle at the hour of danger only to step on it again at a more favorable opportunity, with increased forces for the fray, and with a bolder war cry. a circumstance seemed to heighten the danger of this electoral victory. the army voted in paris for a june insurgent against lahitte, a minister of bonaparte's, and, in the departments, mostly for the candidates of the mountain, who, there also, although not as decisively as in paris, maintained the upper hand over their adversaries. bonaparte suddenly saw himself again face to face with the revolution. as on january , , as on june , , on may , , he vanished again behind the party of order. he bent low; he timidly apologized; he offered to appoint any ministry whatever at the behest of the parliamentary majority; he even implored the orleanist and legitimist party leaders--the thiers, berryers, broglies, moles, in short, the so-called burgraves--to take hold of the helm of state in person. the party of order did not know how to utilize this opportunity, that was never to return. instead of boldly taking possession of the proffered power, it did not even force bonaparte to restore the ministry dismissed on november ; it contented itself with humiliating him with its pardon, and with affiliating mr. baroche to the d'hautpoul ministry. this baroche had, as public prosecutor, stormed before the high court at bourges, once against the revolutionists of may , another time against the democrats of june , both times on the charge of "attentats" against the national assembly. none of bonaparte's ministers contributed later more towards the degradation of the national assembly; and, after december , , we meet him again as the comfortably stalled and dearly paid vice-president of the senate. he had spat into the soup of the revolutionists for bonaparte to eat it. on its part, the social democratic party seemed only to look for pretexts in order to make its own victory doubtful, and to dull its edge. vidal, one of the newly elected paris representatives, was returned for strassburg also. he was induced to decline the seat for paris and accept the one for strassburg. thus, instead of giving a definite character to their victory at the hustings, and thereby compelling the party of order forthwith to contest it in parliament; instead of thus driving the foe to battle at the season of popular enthusiasm and of a favorable temper in the army, the democratic party tired out paris with a new campaign during the months of march and april; it allowed the excited popular passions to wear themselves out in this second provisional electoral play it allowed the revolutionary vigor to satiate itself with constitutional successes, and lose its breath in petty intrigues, hollow declamation and sham moves; it gave the bourgeoisie time to collect itself and make its preparations finally, it allowed the significance of the march elections to find a sentimentally weakening commentary at the subsequent april election in the victory of eugene sue. in one word, it turned the th of march into an april fool. the parliamentary majority perceived the weakness of its adversary. its seventeen burgraves--bonaparte had left to it the direction of and responsibility for the attack--, framed a new election law, the moving of which was entrusted to mr. faucher, who had applied for the honor. on may , he introduced the new law whereby universal suffrage was abolished; a three years residence in the election district imposed as a condition for voting; and, finally, the proof of this residence made dependent, for the working-man, upon the testimony of his employer. as revolutionarily as the democrats had agitated and stormed during the constitutional struggles, so constitutionally did they, now, when it was imperative to attest, arms in hand, the earnestness of their late electoral victories, preach order, "majestic calmness," lawful conduct, i. e., blind submission to the will of the counter-revolution, which revealed itself as law. during the debate, the mountain put the party of order to shame by maintaining the passionless attitude of the law-abiding burger, who upholds the principle of law against revolutionary passions; and by twitting the party of order with the fearful reproach of proceeding in a revolutionary manner. even the newly elected deputies took pains to prove by their decent and thoughtful deportment what an act of misjudgment it was to decry them as anarchists, or explain their election as a victory of the revolution. the new election law was passed on may . the mountain contented itself with smuggling a protest into the pockets of the president of the assembly. to the election law followed a new press law, whereby the revolutionary press was completely done away with. it had deserved its fate. the "national" and the "presse," two bourgeois organs, remained after this deluge the extreme outposts of the revolution. we have seen how, during march and april, the democratic leaders did everything to involve the people of paris in a sham battle, and how, after may , they did everything to keep it away from a real battle. we may not here forget that the year was one of the most brilliant years of industrial and commercial prosperity; consequently, that the parisian proletariat was completely employed. but the election law of may , excluded them from all participation in political power; it cut the field of battle itself from under them; it threw the workingmen back into the state of pariahs, which they had occupied before the february revolution. in allowing themselves, in sight of such an occurrence, to be led by the democrats, and in forgetting the revolutionary interests of their class through temporary comfort, the workingmen abdicated the honor of being a conquering power; they submitted to their fate; they proved that the defeat of june, , had incapacitated them from resistance for many a year to come finally, that the historic process must again, for the time being, proceed over their heads. as to the small traders' democracy, which, on june , had cried out: "if they but dare to assail universal suffrage . . . then . . . then we will show who we are!"--they now consoled themselves with the thought that the counter-revolutionary blow, which had struck them, was no blow at all, and that the law of may was no law. on may , , according to them, every frenchman would appear at the hustings, in one hand the ballot, in the other the sword. with this prophecy they set their hearts at ease. finally, the army was punished by its superiors for the elections of may and april, , as it was punished for the election of may , . this time, however, it said to itself determinately: "the revolution shall not cheat us a third time." the law of may , , was the "coup d'etat" of the bourgeoisie. all its previous conquests over the revolution had only a temporary character: they became uncertain the moment the national assembly stepped off the stage; they depended upon the accident of general elections, and the history of the elections since proved irrefutably that, in the same measure as the actual reign of the bourgeoisie gathered strength, its moral reign over the masses wore off. universal suffrage pronounced itself on may pointedly against the reign of the bourgeoisie; the bourgeoisie answered with the banishment of universal suffrage. the law of may was, accordingly, one of the necessities of the class struggle. on the other hand, the constitution required a minimum of two million votes for the valid ejection of the president of the republic. if none of the presidential candidates polled this minimum, then the national assembly was to elect the president out of the three candidates polling the highest votes. at the time that the constitutive body made this law, ten million voters were registered on the election rolls. in its opinion, accordingly, one-fifth of the qualified voters sufficed to make a choice for president valid. the law of may struck at least three million voters off the rolls, reduced the number of qualified voters to seven millions, and yet, not withstanding, it kept the lawful minimum at two millions for the election of a president. accordingly, it raised the lawful minimum from a fifth to almost a third of the qualified voters, i.e., it did all it could to smuggle the presidential election out of the hands of the people into those of the national assembly. thus, by the election law of may , the party of order seemed to have doubly secured its empire, in that it placed the election of both the national assembly and the president of the republic in the keeping of the stable portion of society. v the strife immediately broke out again between the national assembly and bonaparte, so soon as the revolutionary crisis was weathered, and universal suffrage was abolished. the constitution had fixed the salary of bonaparte at , francs. barely half a year after his installation, he succeeded in raising this sum to its double: odillon barrot had wrung from the constitutive assembly a yearly allowance of , francs for so-called representation expenses. after june , bonaparte hinted at similar solicitations, to which, however, barrot then turned a deaf ear. now, after may , he forthwith utilized the favorable moment, and caused his ministers to move a civil list of three millions in the national assembly. a long adventurous, vagabond career had gifted him with the best developed antennae for feeling out the weak moments when he could venture upon squeezing money from his bourgeois. he carried on regular blackmail. the national assembly had maimed the sovereignty of the people with his aid and his knowledge: he now threatened to denounce its crime to the tribunal of the people, if it did not pull out its purse and buy his silence with three millions annually. it had robbed three million frenchmen of the suffrage: for every frenchman thrown "out of circulation," he demanded a franc "in circulation." he, the elect of six million, demanded indemnity for the votes he had been subsequently cheated of. the committee of the national assembly turned the importunate fellow away. the bonapartist press threatened: could the national assembly break with the president of the republic at a time when it had broken definitely and on principle with the mass of the nation? it rejected the annual civil list, but granted, for this once, an allowance of , , francs. thus it made itself guilty of the double weakness of granting the money, and, at the same time, showing by its anger that it did so only unwillingly. we shall presently see to what use bonaparte put the money. after this aggravating after-play, that followed upon the heels of the abolition of universal suffrage, and in which bonaparte exchanged his humble attitude of the days of the crisis of march and april for one of defiant impudence towards the usurping parliament, the national assembly adjourned for three months, from august , to november . it left behind in its place a permanent committee of members that contained no bonapartist, but did contain a few moderate republicans. the permanent committee of the year had numbered only men of order and bonapartists. at that time, however, the party of order declared itself in permanence against the revolution; now the parliamentary republic declared itself in permanence against the president. after the law of may , only this rival still confronted the party of order. when the national assembly reconvened in november, , instead of its former petty skirmishes with the president, a great headlong struggle, a struggle for life between the two powers, seemed to have become inevitable. as in the year , the party of order had during this year's vacation, dissolved into its two separate factions, each occupied with its own restoration intrigues, which had received new impetus from the death of louis philippe. the legitimist king, henry v, had even appointed a regular ministry, that resided in paris, and in which sat members of the permanent committee. hence, bonaparte was, on his part, justified in making tours through the french departments, and--according to the disposition of the towns that he happened to be gladdening with his presence--some times covertly, other times more openly blabbing out his own restoration plans, and gaining votes for himself on these excursions, which the large official "moniteur" and the small private "moniteurs" of bonaparte were, of course, bound to celebrate as triumphal marches, he was constantly accompanied by affiliated members of the "society of december " this society dated from the year . under the pretext of founding a benevolent association, the slum-proletariat of paris was organized into secret sections, each section led by bonapartist agents, with a bonapartist general at the head of all. along with ruined roues of questionable means of support and questionable antecedents, along with the foul and adventures-seeking dregs of the bourgeoisie, there were vagabonds, dismissed soldiers, discharged convicts, runaway galley slaves, sharpers, jugglers, lazzaroni, pickpockets, sleight-of-hand performers, gamblers, procurers, keepers of disorderly houses, porters, literati, organ grinders, rag pickers, scissors grinders, tinkers, beggars--in short, that whole undefined, dissolute, kicked-about mass that the frenchmen style "la boheme" with this kindred element, bonaparte formed the stock of the "society of december ," a "benevolent association" in so far as, like bonaparte himself, all its members felt the need of being benevolent to themselves at the expense of the toiling nation. the bonaparte, who here constitutes himself chief of the slum-proletariat; who only here finds again in plenteous form the interests which he personally pursues; who, in this refuse, offal and wreck of all classes, recognizes the only class upon which he can depend unconditionally;--this is the real bonaparte, the bonaparte without qualification. an old and crafty roue, he looks upon the historic life of nations, upon their great and public acts, as comedies in the ordinary sense, as a carnival, where the great costumes, words and postures serve only as masks for the pettiest chicaneries. so, on the occasion of his expedition against strassburg when a trained swiss vulture impersonated the napoleonic eagle; so, again, on the occasion of his raid upon boulogne, when he struck a few london lackeys into french uniform: they impersonated the army; [# under the reign of louis philippe, bonaparte made two attempts to restore the throne of napoleon: one in october, , in an expedition from switzerland upon strassburg and one in august, , in an expedition from england upon boulogne.] and so now, in his "society of december ," he collects , loafers who are to impersonate the people as snug the joiner does the lion. at a period when the bourgeoisie itself is playing the sheerest comedy, but in the most solemn manner in the world, without doing violence to any of the pedantic requirements of french dramatic etiquette, and is itself partly deceived by, partly convinced of, the solemnity of its own public acts, the adventurer, who took the comedy for simple comedy, was bound to win. only after he has removed his solemn opponent, when he himself takes seriously his own role of emperor, and, with the napoleonic mask on, imagines he impersonates the real napoleon, only then does he become the victim of his own peculiar conception of history--the serious clown, who no longer takes history for a comedy, but a comedy for history. what the national work-shops were to the socialist workingmen, what the "gardes mobiles" were to the bourgeois republicans, that was to bonaparte the "society of december ,"--a force for partisan warfare peculiar to himself. on his journeys, the divisions of the society, packed away on the railroads, improvised an audience for him, performed public enthusiasm, shouted "vive l'empereur," insulted and clubbed the republicans,--all, of course, under the protection of the police. on his return stages to paris, this rabble constituted his vanguard, it forestalled or dispersed counter-demonstrations. the "society of december " belonged to him, it was his own handiwork, his own thought. whatever else he appropriates, the power of circumstances places in his hands; whatever else he does, either circumstances do for him, or he is content to copy from the deeds of others, but he posing before the citizens with the official phrases about "order," "religion," "family," "property," and, behind him, the secret society of skipjacks and picaroons, the society of disorder, of prostitution, and of theft,--that is bonaparte himself as the original author; and the history of the "society of december " is his own history. now, then, it happened that representatives belonging to the party of order occasionally got under the clubs of the decembrists. nay, more. police commissioner yon, who had been assigned to the national assembly, and was charged with the guardianship of its safety, reported to the permanent committee upon the testimony of one alais, that a section of the decembrists had decided on the murder of general changarnier and of dupin, the president of the national assembly, and had already settled upon the men to execute the decree. one can imagine the fright of mr. dupin. a parliamentary inquest over the "society of december ," i. e., the profanation of the bonapartist secret world now seemed inevitable. just before the reconvening of the national assembly, bonaparte circumspectly dissolved his society, of course, on paper only. as late as the end of , police prefect carlier vainly sought, in an exhaustive memorial, to move him to the real dissolution of the decembrists. the "society of december " was to remain the private army of bonaparte until he should have succeeded in converting the public army into a "society of december ." bonaparte made the first attempt in this direction shortly after the adjournment of the national assembly, and he did so with the money which he had just wrung from it. as a fatalist, he lives devoted to the conviction that there are certain higher powers, whom man, particularly the soldier, cannot resist. first among these powers he numbers cigars and champagne, cold poultry and garlic-sausage. accordingly, in the apartments of the elysee, he treated first the officers and under-officers to cigars and champagne, to cold poultry and garlic-sausage. on october , he repeats this manoeuvre with the rank and file of the troops by the review of st. maur; and, on october , the same manoeuvre again, upon a larger scale, at the army parade of satory. the uncle bore in remembrance the campaigns of alexander in asia: the nephew bore in remembrance the triumphal marches of bacchus in the same country. alexander was, indeed, a demigod; but bacchus was a full-fledged god, and the patron deity, at that, of the "society of december ." after the review of october , the permanent committee summoned the minister of war, d'hautpoul, before it. he promised that such breaches of discipline should not recur. we have seen how, on october th, bonaparte kept d'hautpoul's word. at both reviews changarnier had commanded as commander-in-chief of the army of paris. he, at once member of the permanent committee, chief of the national guard, the "savior" of january , and june , the "bulwark of society," candidate of the party of order for the office of president, the suspected monk of two monarchies,--he had never acknowledged his subordination to the minister of war, had ever openly scoffed at the republican constitution, and had pursued bonaparte with a protection that was ambiguously distinguished. now he became zealous for the discipline in opposition to bonaparte. while, on october , a part of the cavalry cried: "vive napoleon! vivent les saucissons;" [# long live napoleon! long live the sausages!] changarnier saw to it that at least the infantry, which filed by under the command of his friend neumeyer, should observe an icy silence. in punishment, the minister of war, at the instigation of bonaparte, deposed general neumeyer from his post in paris, under the pretext of providing for him as commander-in-chief of the fourteenth and fifteenth military divisions. neumeyer declined the exchange, and had, in consequence, to give his resignation. on his part, changarnier published on november , an order, wherein he forbade the troops to indulge, while under arms, in any sort of political cries or demonstrations. the papers devoted to the elysee interests attacked changarnier; the papers of the party of order attacked bonaparte; the permanent committee held frequent secret sessions, at which it was repeatedly proposed to declare the fatherland in danger; the army seemed divided into two hostile camps, with two hostile staffs; one at the elysee, where bonaparte, the other at the tuileries, where changarnier resided. all that seemed wanting for the signal of battle to sound was the convening of the national assembly. the french public looked upon the friction between bonaparte and changarnier in the light of the english journalist, who characterized it in these words: "the political servant girls of france are mopping away the glowing lava of the revolution with old mops, and they scold each other while doing their work." meanwhile, bonaparte hastened to depose the minister of war, d'hautpoul; to expedite him heels over head to algiers; and to appoint in his place general schramm as minister of war. on november , he sent to the national assembly a message of american excursiveness, overloaded with details, redolent of order, athirst for conciliation, resignful to the constitution, dealing with all and everything, only not with the burning questions of the moment. as if in passing he dropped the words that according to the express provisions of the constitution, the president alone disposes over the army. the message closed with the following high-sounding protestations: "france demands, above all things, peace . . . alone bound by an oath, i shall keep myself within the narrow bounds marked out by it to me . . . as to me, elected by the people, and owing my power to it alone, i shall always submit to its lawfully expressed will. should you at this session decide upon the revision of the constitution, a constitutional convention will regulate the position of the executive power. if you do not, then, the people will, in , solemnly announce its decision. but, whatever the solution may be that the future has in store, let us arrive at an understanding to the end that never may passion, surprise or violence decide over the fate of a great nation. . . . that which, above all, bespeaks my attention is, not who will, in , rule over france, but to so devote the time at my disposal that the interval may pass by with-out agitation and disturbance. i have straightforwardly opened my heart to you, you will answer my frankness with your confidence, my good efforts with your co-operation. god will do the rest." the honnete, hypocritically temperate, commonplace-virtuous language of the bourgeoisie reveals its deep meaning in the mouth of the self-appointed ruler of the "society of december ," and of the picnic-hero of st. maur and satory. the burgraves of the party of order did not for a moment deceive themselves on the confidence that this unbosoming deserved. they were long blase on oaths; they numbered among themselves veterans and virtuosi of perjury. the passage about the army did not, however, escape them. they observed with annoyance that the message, despite its prolix enumeration of the lately enacted laws, passed, with affected silence, over the most important of all, the election law, and, moreover, in case no revision of the constitution was held, left the choice of the president, in , with the people. the election law was the ball-and-chain to the feet of the party of order, that hindered them from walking, and now assuredly from storming. furthermore, by the official disbandment of the "society of december ," and the dismissal of the minister of war, d'hautpoul, bonaparte had, with his own hands, sacrificed the scapegoats on the altar of the fatherland. he had turned off the expected collision. finally, the party of order itself anxiously sought to avoid every decisive conflict with the executive, to weaken and to blur it over. fearing to lose its conquests over the revolution, it let its rival gather the fruits thereof. "france demands, above all things, peace," with this language had the party of order been apostrophizing the revolution, since february; with this language did bonaparte's message now apostrophize the party of order: "france demands, above all things, peace." bonaparte committed acts that aimed at usurpation, but the party of order committed a "disturbance of the peace," if it raised the hue and cry, and explained them hypochrondriacally. the sausages of satory were mouse-still when nobody talked about them;--france demands, above all things, "peace." accordingly, bonaparte demanded that he be let alone; and the parliamentary party was lamed with a double fear: the fear of re-conjuring up the revolutionary disturbance of the peace, and the fear of itself appearing as the disturber of the peace in the eyes of its own class, of the bourgeosie. seeing that, above all things, france demanded peace, the party of order did not dare, after bonaparte had said "peace" in his message, to answer "war." the public, who had promised to itself the pleasure of seeing great scenes of scandal at the opening of the national assembly, was cheated out of its expectations. the opposition deputies, who demanded the submission of the minutes of the permanent committee over the october occurrences, were outvoted. all debate that might excite was fled from on principle. the labors of the national assembly during november and december, , were without interest. finally, toward the end of december, began a guerilla warfare about certain prerogatives of the parliament. the movement sank into the mire of petty chicaneries on the prerogative of the two powers, since, with the abolition of universal suffrage, the bourgeoisie had done away with the class struggle. a judgment for debt had been secured against mauguin, one of the representatives. upon inquiry by the president of the court, the minister of justice, rouher, declared that an order of arrest should be made out without delay. manguin was, accordingly, cast into the debtors' prison. the national assembly bristled up when it heard of the "attentat." it not only ordered his immediate release, but had him forcibly taken out of clichy the same evening by its own greffier. in order, nevertheless, to shield its belief in the "sacredness of private property," and also with the ulterior thought of opening, in case of need, an asylum for troublesome mountainers, it declared the imprisonment of a representative for debt to be permissible upon its previous consent. it forgot to decree that the president also could be locked up for debt. by its act, it wiped out the last semblance of inviolability that surrounded the members of its own body. it will be remembered that, upon the testimony of one allais, police commissioner yon had charged a section of decembrists with a plan to murder dupin and changarnier. with an eye upon that, the questors proposed at the very first session, that the parliament organize a police force of its own, paid for out of the private budget of the national assembly itself, and wholly independent of the police prefects. the minister of the interior, baroche, protested against this trespass on his preserves. a miserable compromise followed, according to which the police commissioner of the assembly was to be paid out of its own private budget and was to be subject to the appointment and dismissal of its own questors, but only upon previous agreement with the minister of the interior. in the meantime allais had been prosecuted by the government. it was an easy thing in court, to present his testimony in the light of a mystification, and, through the mouth of the public prosecutor, to throw dupin, changarnier, yon, together with the whole national assembly, into a ridiculous light. thereupon, on december , minister baroche writes a letter to dupin, in which he demands the dismissal of yon. the committee of the national assembly decides to keep yon in office; nevertheless, the national assembly, frightened by its own violence in the affair of mauguin, and accustomed, every time it has shied a blow at the executive, to receive back from it two in exchange, does not sanction this decision. it dismisses yon in reward for his zeal in office, and robs itself of a parliamentary prerogative, indispensable against a person who does not decide by night to execute by day, but decides by day and executes by night. we have seen how, during the months of november and december, under great and severe provocations, the national assembly evaded and refused the combat with the executive power. now we see it compelled to accept it on the smallest occasions. in the affair of mauguin, it confirms in principle the liability of a representative to imprisonment for debt, but to itself reserves the power of allowing the principle to be applied only to the representatives whom it dislikes,-and for this infamous privilege we see it wrangling with the minister of justice. instead of utilizing the alleged murder plan to the end of fastening an inquest upon the "society of december ," and of exposing bonaparte beyond redemption before france and his true figure, as the head of the slum-proletariat of paris, it allows the collision to sink to a point where the only issue between itself and the minister of the interior is. who has jurisdiction over the appointment and dismissal of a police commissioner? thus we see the party of order, during this whole period, compelled by its ambiguous position to wear out and fritter away its conflict with the executive power in small quarrels about jurisdiction, in chicaneries, in pettifogging, in boundary disputes, and to turn the stalest questions of form into the very substance of its activity. it dares not accept the collision at the moment when it involves a principle, when the executive power has really given itself a blank, and when the cause of the national assembly would be the cause of the nation. it would thereby have issued to the nation an order of march; and it feared nothing so much as that the nation should move. hence, on these occasions, it rejects the motions of the mountain, and proceeds to the order of the day. after the issue has in this way lost all magnitude, the executive power quietly awaits the moment when it can take it up again upon small and insignificant occasions; when, so to say, the issue offers only a parliamentary local interest. then does the repressed valor of the party of order break forth, then it tears away the curtain from the scene, then it denounces the president, then it declares the republic to be in danger,--but then all its pathos appears stale, and the occasion for the quarrel a hypocritical pretext, or not at all worth the effort. the parliamentary tempest becomes a tempest in a tea-pot, the struggle an intrigue, the collision a scandal. while the revolutionary classes gloat with sardonic laughter over the humiliation of the national assembly--they, of course, being as enthusiastic for the prerogatives of the parliament as that body is for public freedom--the bourgeoisie, outside of the parliament, does not understand how the bourgeoisie, inside of the parliament, can squander its time with such petty bickerings, and can endanger peace by such wretched rivalries with the president. it is puzzled at a strategy that makes peace the very moment when everybody expects battles, and that attacks the very moment everybody believes peace has been concluded. on december , pascal duprat interpellated the minister of the interior on the "goldbar lottery." this lottery was a "daughter from elysium"; bonaparte, together with his faithful, had given her birth; and police prefect carlier had placed her under his official protection, although the french law forbade all lotteries, with the exception of games for benevolent purposes. seven million tickets, a franc a piece, and the profit ostensibly destined to the shipping of parisian vagabonds to california. golden dreams were to displace the socialist dreams of the parisian proletariat; the tempting prospect of a prize was to displace the doctrinal right to labor. of course, the workingmen of paris did not recognize in the lustre of the california gold bars the lack-lustre francs that had been wheedled out of their pockets. in the main, however, the scheme was an unmitigated swindle. the vagabonds, who meant to open california gold mines without taking the pains to leave paris, were bonaparte himself and his round table of desperate insolvents. the three millions granted by the national assembly were rioted away; the treasury had to be refilled somehow or another. in vain did bonaparte open a national subscription, at the head of which he himself figured with a large sum, for the establishment of so-called "cites ouvrieres." [# work cities.] the hard-hearted bourgeois waited, distrustful, for the payment of his own shares; and, as this, of course, never took place, the speculation in socialist castles in the air fell flat. the gold bars drew better. bonaparte and his associates did not content themselves with putting into their own pockets part of the surplus of the seven millions over and above the bars that were to be drawn; they manufactured false tickets; they sold, of number alone, fifteen to twenty lots--a financial operation fully in the spirit of the "society of december "! the national assembly did not here have before it the fictitious president of the republic, but bonaparte himself in flesh and blood. here it could catch him in the act, not in conflict with the constitution, but with the penal code. when, upon duprat's interpellation, the national assembly went over to the order of the day, this did not happen simply because girardin's motion to declare itself "satisfied" reminded the party of order of its own systematic corruption: the bourgeois, above all the bourgeois who has been inflated into a statesman, supplements his practical meanness with theoretical pompousness. as statesman, he becomes, like the government facing him, a superior being, who can be fought only in a higher, more exalted manner. bonaparte-who, for the very reason of his being a "bohemian," a princely slum-proletarian, had over the scampish bourgeois the advantage that he could carry on the fight after the assembly itself had carried him with its own hands over the slippery ground of the military banquets, of the reviews, of the "society of december ," and, finally, of the penal code-now saw that the moment had arrived when he could move from the seemingly defensive to the offensive. he was but little troubled by the intermediate and trifling defeats of the minister of justice, of the minister of war, of the minister of the navy, of the minister of finance, whereby the national assembly indicated its growling displeasure. not only did he prevent the ministers from resigning, and thus recognizing the subordination of the executive power to the parliament; he could now accomplish what during the vacation of the national assembly he had commenced, the separation of the military power from the assembly--the deposition of changarnier. an elysee paper published an order, issued during the month of may, ostensibly to the first military division, and, hence, proceeding from changarnier, wherein the officers were recommended, in case of an uprising, to give no quarter to the traitors in their own ranks, to shoot them down on the spot, and to refuse troops to the national assembly, should it make a requisition for such. on january , , the cabinet was interpellated on this order. the cabinet demands for the examination of the affair at first three months, then one week, finally only twenty-four hours' time. the assembly orders an immediate explanation changarnier rises and declares that this order never existed; he adds that he would ever hasten to respond to the calls of the national assembly, and that, in case of a collision, they could count upon him. the assembly receives his utterances with inexpressible applause, and decrees a vote of confidence to him. it thereby resign its own powers; it decrees its own impotence and the omnipotence of the army by committing itself to the private protection of a general. but the general, in turn, deceives himself when he places at the assembly's disposal and against bonaparte a power that he holds only as a fief from that same bonaparte, and when, on his part, he expects protection from this parliament, from his protege', itself needful of protection. but changarnier has faith in the mysterious power with which since january, , he had been clad by the bourgeoisie. he takes himself for the third power, standing beside the other powers of government. he shares the faith of all the other heroes, or rather saints, of this epoch, whose greatness consists but in the interested good opinion that their own party holds of them, and who shrink into every-day figures so soon as circumstances invite them to perform miracles. infidelity is, indeed, the deadly enemy of these supposed heroes and real saints. hence their virtuously proud indignation at the unenthusiastic wits and scoffers. that same evening the ministers were summoned to the elysee; bonaparte presses the removal of changarnier; five ministers refuse to sign the order; the "moniteur" announces a ministerial crisis; and the party of order threatens the formation of a parliamentary army under the command of changarnier. the party of order had the constitutional power hereto. it needed only to elect changarnier president of the national assembly in order to make a requisition for whatever military forces it needed for its own safety. it could do this all the more safely, seeing that changarnier still stood at the head of the army and of the parisian national guard, and only lay in wait to be summoned, together with the army. the bonapartist press did not even dare to question the right of the national assembly to issue a direct requisition for troops;--a legal scruple, that, under the given circumstances, did not promise success. that the army would have obeyed the orders of the national assembly is probable, when it is considered that bonaparte had to look eight days all over paris to find two generals--baraguay d'hilliers and st. jean d'angley--who declared themselves ready to countersign the order cashiering changamier. that, however, the party of order would have found in its own ranks and in the parliament the requisite vote for such a decision is more than doubtful, when it is considered that, eight days later, votes pulled away from it, and that, as late as december, , at the last decisive hour, the mountain rejected a similar proposition. nevertheless, the burgraves might still have succeeded in driving the mass of their party to an act of heroism, consisting in feeling safe behind a forest of bayonets, and in accepting the services of the army, which found itself deserted in its camp. instead of this, the messieurs burgraves betook themselves to the elysee on the evening of january , with the view of inducing bonaparte, by means of politic words and considerations, to drop the removal of changarnier. him whom we must convince we recognize as the master of the situation. bonaparte, made to feel secure by this step, appoints on january a new ministry, in which the leaders of the old, fould and baroche, are retained. st jean d'angley becomes minister of war; the "moniteur" announces the decree cashiering changarnier; his command is divided up between baraguay d'hilliers, who receives the first division, and perrot, who is placed over the national guard. the "bulwark of society" is turned down; and, although no dog barks over the event, in the bourses the stock quotations rise. by repelling the army, that, in changarnier's person, put itself at its disposal, and thus irrevocably stood up against the president, the party of order declares that the bourgeoisie has lost its vocation to reign. already there was no parliamentary ministry. by losing, furthermore, the handle to the army and to the national guard, what instrument of force was there left to the national assembly in order to maintain both the usurped power of the parliament over the people, and its constitutional power over the president? none. all that was left to it was the appeal to peaceful principles, that itself had always explained as "general rules" merely, to be prescribed to third parties, and only in order to enable itself to move all the more freely. with the removal of changarnier, with the transfer of the military power to bonaparte, closes the first part of the period that we are considering, the period of the struggle between the party of order and the executive power. the war between the two powers is now openly declared; it is conducted openly; but only after the party of order has lost both arms and soldier. with-out a ministry, without any army, without a people, without the support of public opinion; since its election law of may , no longer the representative of the sovereign nation sans eyes, sans ears, sans teeth, sans everything, the national assembly had gradually converted itself into a french parliament of olden days, that must leave all action to the government, and content itself with growling remonstrances "post festum." [# after the act is done; after the fact.] the party of order receives the new ministry with a storm of indignation. general bedeau calls to mind the mildness of the permanent committee during the vacation, and the excessive prudence with which it had renounced the privilege of disclosing its minutes. now, the minister of the interior himself insists upon the disclosure of these minutes, that have now, of course, become dull as stagnant waters, reveal no new facts, and fall without making the slightest effect upon the blase public. upon remusat's proposition, the national assembly retreats into its committees, and appoints a "committee on extraordinary measures." paris steps all the less out of the ruts of its daily routine, seeing that business is prosperous at the time, the manufactories busy, the prices of cereals low, provisions abundant, the savings banks receiving daily new deposits. the "extraordinary measures," that the parliament so noisily announced fizzle out on january in a vote of lack of confidence against the ministry, without general changarnier's name being even mentioned. the party of order was forced to frame its motion in that way so as to secure the votes of the republicans, because, of all the acts of the ministry, changarnier's dismissal only was the very one they approved, while the party of order cannot in fact, condemn the other ministerial acts which it had itself dictated. the january vote of lack of confidence was decided by ayes against nays. it was, accordingly put through by a coalition of the uncompromising legitimists and orleanists with the pure republicans and the mountain. thus it revealed the fact that, in its conflicts with bonaparte, not only the ministry, not only the army, but also its independent parliamentary majority; that a troop of representatives had deserted its camp out of a fanatic zeal for harmony, out of fear of fight, out of lassitude, out of family considerations for the salaries of relatives in office, out of speculations on vacancies in the ministry (odillon barrot), or out of that unmitigated selfishness that causes the average bourgeois to be ever inclined to sacrifice the interests of his class to this or that private motive. the bonapartist representatives belonged from the start to the party of order only in the struggle against the revolution. the leader of the catholic party, montalembert, already then threw his influence in the scale of bonaparte, since he despaired of the vitality of the parliamentary party. finally, the leaders of this party itself, thiers and berryer--the orleanist and the legitimist--were compelled to proclaim themselves openly as republicans; to admit that their heart favored royalty, but their head the republic; that their parliamentary republic was the only possible form for the rule of the bourgeoisie thus were they compelled to brand, before the eyes of the bourgeois class itself, as an intrigue--as dangerous as it was senseless--the restoration plans, which they continued to pursue indefatigably behind the back of the parliament. the january vote of lack of confidence struck the ministers, not the president. but it was not the ministry, it was the president who had deposed changarnier. should the party of order place bonaparte himself under charges? on account of his restoration hankerings? these only supplemented their own. on account of his conspiracy at the military reviews and of the "society of december "? they had long since buried these subjects under simple orders of business. on account of the discharge of the hero of january and june , of the man who, in may, , threatened, in case of riot, to set paris on fire at all its four corners? their allies of the mountain and cavaignac did not even allow them to console the fallen "bulwark of society" with an official testimony of their sympathy. they themselves could not deny the constitutional right of the president to remove a general. they stormed only because he made an unparliamentary use of his constitutional right. had they not themselves constantly made an unconstitutional use of their parliamentary prerogative, notably by the abolition of universal suffrage? consequently they were reminded to move exclusively within parliamentary bounds. indeed, it required that peculiar disease, a disease that, since , has raged over the whole continent, "parliamentary idiocy,"--that fetters those whom it infects to an imaginary world, and robs them of all sense, all remembrance, all understanding of the rude outside world;--it required this "parliamentary idiocy" in order that the party of order, which had, with its own hands, destroyed all the conditions for parliamentary power, and, in its struggle with the other classes, was obliged to destroy them, still should consider its parliamentary victories as victories, and imagine it hit the president by striking his ministers. they only afforded him an opportunity to humble the national assembly anew in the eyes of the nation. on january , the "moniteur" announced that the whole the dismissal of the whole ministry was accepted. under the pretext that none of the parliamentary parties had any longer the majority--as proved by the january vote, that fruit of the coalition between mountain and royalists--, and, in order to await the re-formation of a majority, bonaparte appointed a so-called transition ministry, of whom no member belonged to the parliament-altogether wholly unknown and insignificant individuals; a ministry of mere clerks and secretaries. the party of order could now wear itself out in the game with these puppets; the executive power no longer considered it worth the while to be seriously represented in the national assembly. by this act bonaparte concentrated the whole executive power all the more securely in his own person; he had all the freer elbow-room to exploit the same to his own ends, the more his ministers became mere supernumeraries. the party of order, now allied with the mountain, revenged itself by rejecting the presidential endowment project of , . francs, which the chief of the "society of december " had compelled his ministerial clerks to present to the assembly. this time a majority of only votes carried the day accordingly since january , more votes had fallen off: the dissolution of the party of order was making progress. lest any one might for a moment be deceived touching the meaning of its coalition with the mountain, the party of order simultaneously scorned even to consider a motion, signed by members of the mountain, for a general amnesty to political criminals. it was enough that the minister of the interior, one baisse, declared that the national tranquility was only in appearance, in secret there reigned deep agitation, in secret, ubiquitous societies were organized, the democratic papers were preparing to reappear, the reports from the departments were unfavorable, the fugitives of geneva conducted a conspiracy via lyons through the whole of southern france, france stood on the verge of an industrial and commercial crisis, the manufacturers of roubaix were working shorter hours, the prisoners of belle isle had mutinied;--it was enough that even a mere baisse should conjure up the "red spectre" for the party of order to reject without discussion a motion that would have gained for the national assembly a tremendous popularity, and thrown bonaparte back into its arms. instead of allowing itself to be intimidated by the executive power with the perspective of fresh disturbances, the party of order should rather have allowed a little elbow-room to the class struggle, in order to secure the dependence of the executive upon itself. but it did not feel itself equal to the task of playing with fire. meanwhile, the so-called transition ministry vegetated along until the middle of april. bonaparte tired out and fooled the national assembly with constantly new ministerial combinations. now he seemed to intend constructing a republican ministry with lamartine and billault; then, a parliamentary one with the inevitable odillon barrot, whose name must never be absent when a dupe is needed; then again, a legitimist, with batismenil and lenoist d'azy; and yet again, an orleansist, with malleville. while thus throwing the several factions of the party of order into strained relations with one another, and alarming them all with the prospect of a republican ministry, together with the there-upon inevitable restoration of universal suffrage, bonaparte simultaneously raises in the bourgeoisie the conviction that his sincere efforts for a parliamentary ministry are wrecked upon the irreconcilable antagonism of the royalist factions. all the while the bourgeoisie was clamoring louder and louder for a "strong government," and was finding it less and less pardonable to leave france "without an administration," in proportion as a general commercial crisis seemed to be under way and making recruits for socialism in the cities, as did the ruinously low price of grain in the rural districts. trade became daily duller; the unemployed hands increased perceptibly; in paris, at least , workingmen were without bread; in rouen, muehlhausen, lyons, roubaix, tourcoign, st. etienue, elbeuf, etc., numerous factories stood idle. under these circumstances bonaparte could venture to restore, on april , the ministry of january ; messieurs rouher, fould, baroche, etc., reinforced by mr. leon faucher, whom the constitutive assembly had, during its last days, unanimously, with the exception of five ministerial votes, branded with a vote of censure for circulating false telegraphic dispatches. accordingly, the national assembly had won a victory on january over the ministry, it had, for the period of three months, been battling with bonaparte, and all this merely to the end that, on april , fould and baroche should be able to take up the puritan faucher as third in their ministerial league. in november, , bonaparte had satisfied himself with an unparliamentary, in january, , with an extra-parliamentary, on april , he felt strong enough to form an anti-parliamentary ministry, that harmoniously combined within itself the votes of lack of confidence of both assemblies-the constitutive and the legislative, the republican and the royalist. this ministerial progression was a thermometer by which the parliament could measure the ebbing temperature of its own life. this had sunk so low by the end of april that, at a personal interview, persigny could invite changarnier to go over to the camp of the president. bonaparte, he assured changarnier, considered the influence of the national assembly to be wholly annihilated, and already the proclamation was ready, that was to be published after the steadily contemplated, but again accidentally postponed "coup d'etat." changarnier communicated this announcement of its death to the leaders of the party of order; but who was there to believe a bed-bug bite could kill? the parliament, however beaten, however dissolved, however death-tainted it was, could not persuade itself to see, in the duel with the grotesque chief of the "society of december ," anything but a duel with a bed-bug. but bonaparte answered the party of order as agesilaus did king agis: "i seem to you an ant; but shall one day be a lion." vi the coalition with the mountain and the pure republicans, to which the party of order found itself condemned in its fruitless efforts to keep possession of the military and to reconquer supreme control over the executive power, proved conclusively that it had forfeited its independent parliamentary majority. the calendar and clock merely gave, on may , the signal for its complete dissolution. with may commenced the last year of the life of the national assembly. it now had to decide for the unchanged continuance or the revision of the constitution. but a revision of the constitution meant not only the definitive supremacy of either the bourgeoisie of the small traders' democracy, of either democracy or proletarian anarchy, of either a parliamentary republic or bonaparte, it meant also either orleans or bourbon! thus fell into the very midst of the parliament the apple of discord, around which the conflict of interests, that cut up the party of order into hostile factions, was to kindle into an open conflagration. the party of order was a combination of heterogeneous social substances. the question of revision raised a political temperature, in which the product was reduced to its original components. the interest of the bonapartists in the revision was simple: they were above all concerned in the abolition of article , which forbade bonaparte's reelection and the prolongation of his term. not less simple seemed to be the position of the republicans; they rejected all revision, seeing in that only a general conspiracy against the republic; as they disposed over more than one-fourth of the votes in the national assembly, and, according to the constitution, a three-fourths majority was requisite to revise and to call a revisory convention, they needed only to count their own votes to be certain of victory. indeed, they were certain of it. over and against these clear-cut positions, the party of order found itself tangled in inextricable contradictions. if it voted against the revision, it endangered the "status quo," by leaving to bonaparte only one expedient--that of violence and handing france over, on may , , at the very time of election, a prey to revolutionary anarchy, with a president whose authority was at an end; with a parliament that the party had long ceased to own, and with a people that it meant to re-conquer. if it voted constitutionally for a revision, it knew that it voted in vain and would constitutionally have to go under before the veto of the republicans. if, unconstitutionally, it pronounced a simple majority binding, it could hope to control the revolution only in case it surrendered unconditionally to the domination of the executive power: it then made bonaparte master of the constitution, of the revision and of itself. a merely partial revision, prolonging the term of the president, opened the way to imperial usurpation; a general revision, shortening the existence of the republic, threw the dynastic claims into an inevitable conflict: the conditions for a bourbon and those for an orleanist restoration were not only different, they mutually excluded each other. the parliamentary republic was more than a neutral ground on which the two factions of the french bourgeoisie--legitimists and orleanists, large landed property and manufacture--could lodge together with equal rights. it was the indispensable condition for their common reign, the only form of government in which their common class interest could dominate both the claims of their separate factions and all the other classes of society. as royalists, they relapsed into their old antagonism into the struggle for the overlordship of either landed property or of money; and the highest expression of this antagonism, its personification, were the two kings themselves, their dynasties. hence the resistance of the party of order to the recall of the bourbons. the orleanist representative creton moved periodically in , and the repeal of the decree of banishment against the royal families; as periodically did the parliament present the spectacle of an assembly of royalists who stubbornly shut to their banished kings the door through which they could return home. richard iii murdered henry vi, with the remark that he was too good for this world, and belonged in heaven. they declared france too bad to have her kings back again. forced by the power of circumstances, they had become republicans, and repeatedly sanctioned the popular mandate that exiled their kings from france. the revision of the constitution, and circumstances compelled its consideration, at once made uncertain not only the republic itself, but also the joint reign of the two bourgeois factions; and it revived, with the possibility of the monarchy, both the rivalry of interests which these two factions had alternately allowed to preponderate, and the struggle for the supremacy of the one over the other. the diplomats of the party of order believed they could allay the struggle by a combination of the two dynasties through a so-called fusion of the royalist parties and their respective royal houses. the true fusion of the restoration and the july monarchy was, however, the parliamentary republic, in which the orleanist and legitimist colors were dissolved, and the bourgeois species vanished in the plain bourgeois, in the bourgeois genus. now however, the plan was to turn the orleanist legitimist and the legitimist orleanist. the kingship, in which their antagonism was personified, was to incarnate their unity, the expression of their exclusive faction interests was to become the expression of their common class interest; the monarchy was to accomplish what only the abolition of two monarchies--the republic could and did accomplish. this was the philosopher's stone, for the finding of which the doctors of the party of order were breaking their heads. as though the legitimate monarchy ever could be the monarchy of the industrial bourgeoisie, or the bourgeois monarchy the monarchy of the hereditary landed aristocracy! as though landed property and industry could fraternize under one crown, where the crown could fall only upon one head, the head of the older or the younger brother! as though industry could at all deal upon a footing of equality with landed property, so long as landed property did not decide itself to become industrial. if henry v were to die tomorrow, the count of paris would not, therefore, become the king of the legitimists, unless he ceased to be the king of the orleanists. nevertheless, the fusion philosophers, who became louder in the measure that the question of revision stepped to the fore, who had provided themselves with a daily organ in the "assemblee nationale," who, even at this very moment (february, ) are again at work, explained the whole difficulty by the opposition and rivalries of the two dynasties. the attempts to reconcile the family of orleans with henry v., begun since the death of louis philippe, but, as all these dynastic intrigues carried on only during the vacation of the national assembly, between acts, behind the scenes, more as a sentimental coquetry with the old superstition than as a serious affair, were now raised by the party of order to the dignity of a great state question, and were conducted upon the public stage, instead of, as heretofore in the amateurs' theater. couriers flew from paris to venice, from venice to claremont, from claremont to paris. the duke of chambord issues a manifesto in which he announces not his own, but the "national" restoration, "with the aid of all the members of his family." the oleanist salvandy throws himself at the feet of henry v. the legitimist leaders berryer, benoit d'azy, st. priest travel to claremont, to persuade the orleans; but in vain. the fusionists learn too late that the interests of the two bourgeois factions neither lose in exclusiveness nor gain in pliancy where they sharpen to a point in the form of family interests, of the interests of the two royal houses. when henry v. recognized the count of paris as his successor--the only success that the fusion could at best score--the house of orleans acquired no claim that the childlessness of henry v. had not already secured to it; but, on the other hand, it lost all the claims that it had conquered by the july revolution. it renounced its original claims, all the title, that, during a struggle nearly one hundred years long, it had wrested from the older branch of the bourbons; it bartered away its historic prerogative, the prerogative of its family-tree. fusion, accordingly, amounted to nothing else than the resignation of the house of orleans, its legitimist resignation, a repentful return from the protestant state church into the catholic;--a return, at that, that did not even place it on the throne that it had lost, but on the steps of the throne on which it was born. the old orleanist ministers guizot, duchatel, etc., who likewise hastened to claremont, to advocate the fusion, represented in fact only the nervous reaction of the july monarchy; despair, both in the citizen kingdom and the kingdom of citizens; the superstitious belief in legitimacy as the last amulet against anarchy. mediators, in their imagination, between orleans and bourbon, they were in reality but apostate orleanists, and as such were they received by the prince of joinville. the virile, bellicose part of the orleanists, on the contrary--thiers, baze, etc.--, persuaded the family of louis philippe all the easier that, seeing every plan for the immediate restoration of the monarchy presupposed the fusion of the two dynasties, and every plan for fusion the resignation of the house of orleans, it corresponded, on the contrary, wholly with the tradition of its ancestors to recognize the republic for the time being, and to wait until circumstances permitted i the conversion of the presidential chair into a throne. joinville's candidacy was set afloat as a rumor, public curiosity was held in suspense, and a few months later, after the revision was rejected, openly proclaimed in september. accordingly, the essay of a royalist fusion between orleanists and legitimists did not miscarry only, it broke up their parliamentary fusion, the republican form that they had adopted in common, and it decomposed the party of order into its original components. but the wider the breach became between venice and claremont, the further they drifted away from each i other, and the greater the progress made by the joinville agitation, all the more active and earnest became the negotiations between faucher, the minister of bonaparte, and the legitimists. the dissolution of the party of order went beyond its original elements. each of the two large factions fell in turn into new fragments. it was as if all the old political shades, that formerly fought and crowded one another within each of the two circles--be it that of the legitimists or that of the orleanists--, had been thawed out like dried infusoria by contact with water; as if they had recovered enough vitality to build their own groups and assert their own antagonisms. the legitimists dreamed they were back amidst the quarrels between the tuileries and the pavilion marsan, between villele and polignac; the orleanists lived anew through the golden period of the tourneys between guizot, mole, broglie, thiers, and odillon barrot. that portion of the party of order--eager for a revision of the constitution but disagreed upon the extent of revision--made up of the legitimists under berryer and falloux and of those under laroche jacquelein, together with the tired-out orleanists under mole, broglie, montalembert and odillon barrot, united with the bonapartist representatives in the following indefinite and loosely drawn motion: "the undersigned representatives, with the end in view of restoring to the nation the full exercise of her sovereignty, move that the constitution be revised." at the same time, however, they unanimously declared through their spokesman, tocqueville, that the national assembly had not the right to move the abolition of the republic, that right being vested only in a constitutional convention. for the rest, the constitution could be revised only in a "legal" way, that is to say, only in case a three-fourths majority decided in favor of revision, as prescribed by the constitution. after a six days' stormy debate, the revision was rejected on july , as was to be foreseen. in its favor votes were cast, against it . the resolute oleanists, thiers, changarnier, etc., voted with the republicans and the mountain. thus the majority of the parliament pronounced itself against the constitution, while the constitution itself pronounced itself for the minority, and its decision binding. but had not the party of order on may , , had it not on june , , subordinated the constitution to the parliamentary majority? did not the whole republic they had been hitherto having rest upon the subordination of the constitutional clauses to the majority decisions of the parliament? had they not left to the democrats the old testament superstitious belief in the letter of the law, and had they not chastised the democrats therefor? at this moment, however, revision meant nothing else than the continuance of the presidential power, as the continuance of the constitution meant nothing else than the deposition of bonaparte. the parliament had pronounced itself for him, but the constitution pronounced itself against the parliament. accordingly, he acted both in the sense of the parliament when he tore up the constitution, and in the sense of the constitution when he chased away the parliament. the parliament pronounced the constitution, and, thereby, also, its own reign, "outside of the pale of the majority"; by its decision, it repealed the constitution, and continued the presidential power, and it at once declared that neither could the one live nor the other die so long as itself existed. the feet of those who were to bury it stood at the door. while it was debating the subject of revision, bonaparte removed general baraguay d'hilliers, who showed himself irresolute, from the command of the first military division, and appointed in his place general magnan, the conqueror of lyon; the hero of the december days, one of his own creatures, who already under louis philippe, on the occasion of the boulogne expedition, had somewhat compromised himself in his favor. by its decision on the revision, the party of order proved that it knew neither how to rule nor how to obey; neither how to live nor how to die; neither how to bear with the republic nor how to overthrow it; neither how to maintain the constitution nor how to throw it overboard; neither how to co-operate with the president nor how to break with him. from what quarter did it then, look to for the solution of all the existing perplexities? from the calendar, from the course of events. it ceased to assume the control of events. it, accordingly, invited events to don its authority and also the power to which in its struggle with the people, it had yielded one attribute after another until it finally stood powerless before the same. to the end that the executive be able all the more freely to formulate his plan of campaign against it, strengthen his means of attack, choose his tools, fortify his positions, the party of order decided, in the very midst of this critical moment, to step off the stage, and adjourn for three months, from august to november . not only was the parliamentary party dissolved into its two great factions, not only was each of these dissolved within itself, but the party of order, inside of the parliament, was at odds with the party of order, outside of the parliament. the learned speakers and writers of the bourgeoisie, their tribunes and their press, in short, the ideologists of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie itself, the representatives and the represented, stood estranged from, and no longer understood one another. the legitimists in the provinces, with their cramped horizon and their boundless enthusiasm, charged their parliamentary leaders berryer and falloux with desertion to the bonapartist camp, and with apostacy from henry v. their lilymind [# an allusion to the lilies of the bourbon coat-of-arms] believed in the fall of man, but not in diplomacy. more fatal and completer, though different, was the breach between the commercial bourgeoisie and its politicians. it twitted them, not as the legitimists did theirs, with having apostatized from their principle, but, on the contrary, with adhering to principles that had become useless. i have already indicated that, since the entry of fould in the ministry, that portion of the commercial bourgeoisie that had enjoyed the lion's share in louis philippe's reign, to-wit, the aristocracy of finance, had become bonapartist. fould not only represented bonaparte's interests at the bourse, he represented also the interests of the bourse with bonaparte. a passage from the london "economist," the european organ of the aristocracy of finance, described most strikingly the attitude of this class. in its issue of february , , its paris correspondent writes: "now we have it stated from numerous quarters that france wishes above all things for repose. the president declares it in his message to the legislative assembly; it is echoed from the tribune; it is asserted in the journals; it is announced from the pulpit; it is demonstrated by the sensitiveness of the public funds at the least prospect of disturbance, and their firmness the instant it is made manifest that the executive is far superior in wisdom and power to the factious ex-officials of all former governments." in its issue of november , , the "economist" declares editorially: "the president is now recognized as the guardian of order on every stock exchange of europe." accordingly, the aristocracy of finance condemned the parliamentary strife of the party of order with the executive as a "disturbance of order," and hailed every victory of the president over its reputed representatives as a "victory of order." under "aristocracy of finance" must not, however, be understood merely the large bond negotiators and speculators in government securities, of whom it may be readily understood that their interests and the interests of the government coincide. the whole modern money trade, the whole banking industry, is most intimately interwoven with the public credit. part of their business capital requires to be invested in interest-bearing government securities that are promptly convertible into money; their deposits, i. e., the capital placed at their disposal and by them distributed among merchants and industrial establishments, flow partly out of the dividends on government securities. the whole money market, together with the priests of this market, is part and parcel of this "aristocracy of finance" at every epoch when the stability of the government is to them synonymous with "moses and his prophets." this is so even before things have reached the present stage when every deluge threatens to carry away the old governments themselves. but the industrial bourgeoisie also, in its fanaticism for order, was annoyed at the quarrels of the parliamentary party of order with the executive. thiers, anglas, sainte beuve, etc., received, after their vote of january , on the occasion of the discharge of changarnier, public reprimands from their constituencies, located in the industrial districts, branding their coalition with the mountain as an act of high treason to the cause of order. although, true enough, the boastful, vexatious and petty intrigues, through which the struggle of the party of order with the president manifested itself, deserved no better reception, yet notwithstanding, this bourgeois party, that expects of its representatives to allow the military power to pass without resistance out of the hands of their own parliament into those of an adventurous pretender, is not worth even the intrigues that were wasted in its behalf. it showed that the struggle for the maintenance of their public interests, of their class interests, of their political power only incommoded and displeased them, as a disturbance of their private business. the bourgeois dignitaries of the provincial towns, the magistrates, commercial judges, etc., with hardly any exception, received bonaparte everywhere on his excursions in the most servile manner, even when, as in dijon, he attacked the national assembly and especially the party of order without reserve. business being brisk, as still at the beginning of , the commercial bourgeoisie stormed against every parliamentary strife, lest business be put out of temper. business being dull, as from the end of february, , on, the bourgeoisie accused the parliamentary strifes as the cause of the stand-still, and clamored for quiet in order that business may revive. the debates on revision fell just in the bad times. seeing the question now was the to be or not to be of the existing form of government, the bourgeoisie felt itself all the more justified in demanding of its representatives that they put an end to this tormenting provisional status, and preserve the "status quo." this was no contradiction. by putting an end to the provisional status, it understood its continuance, the indefinite putting off of the moment when a final decision had to be arrived at. the "status quo" could be preserved in only one of two ways: either by the prolongation of bonaparte's term of office or by his constitutional withdrawal and the election of cavaignac. a part of the bourgeoisie preferred the latter solution, and knew no better advice to give their representatives than to be silent, to avoid the burning point. if their representatives did not speak, so argued they, bonaparte would not act. they desired an ostrich parliament that would hide its head, in order not to be seen. another part of the bourgeoisie preferred that bonaparte, being once in the presidential chair, be left in the presidential chair, in order that everything might continue to run in the old ruts. they felt indignant that their parliament did not openly break the constitution and resign without further ado. the general councils of the departments, these provisional representative bodies of the large bourgeoisie, who had adjourned during the vacation of the national assembly since august , pronounced almost unanimously for revision, that is to say, against the parliament and for bonaparte. still more unequivocally than in its falling out with its parliamentary representatives, did the bourgeoisie exhibit its wrath at its literary representatives, its own press. the verdicts of the bourgeois juries, inflicting excessive fines and shameless sentences of imprisonment for every attack of the bourgeois press upon the usurping aspirations of bonaparte, for every attempt of the press to defend the political rights of the bourgeoisie against the executive power, threw, not france alone, but all europe into amazement. while on the one hand, as i have indicated, the parliamentary party of order ordered itself to keep the peace by screaming for peace; and while it pronounced the political rule of the bourgeoisie irreconcilable with the safety and the existence of the bourgeoisie, by destroying with its own hands in its struggle with the other classes of society all the conditions for its own, the parliamentary regime; on the other hand, the mass of the bourgeoisie, outside of the parliament, urged bonaparte--by its servility towards the president, by its insults to the parliament, by the brutal treatment of its own press--to suppress and annihilate its speaking and writing organs, its politicians and its literati, its orators' tribune and its press, to the end that, under the protection of a strong and unhampered government, it might ply its own private pursuits in safety. it declared unmistakably that it longed to be rid of its own political rule, in order to escape the troubles and dangers of ruling. and this bourgeoisie, that had rebelled against even the parliamentary and literary contest for the supremacy of its own class, that had betrayed its leaders in this contest, it now has the effrontery to blame the proletariat for not having risen in its defence in a bloody struggle, in a struggle for life! those bourgeois, who at every turn sacrificed their common class interests to narrow and dirty private interests, and who demanded a similar sacrifice from their own representatives, now whine that the proletariat has sacrificed their idea-political to its own material interests! this bourgeois class now strikes the attitude of a pure soul, misunderstood and abandoned, at a critical moment, by the proletariat, that has been misled by the socialists. and its cry finds a general echo in the bourgeois world. of course, i do not refer to german crossroad politicians and kindred blockheads. i refer, for instance, to the "economist," which, as late as november , , that is to say, four days before the "coup d'etat" pronounced bonaparte the "guardian of order" and thiers and berryer "anarchists," and as early as december , , after bonaparte had silenced those very anarchists, cries out about the treason committed by "the ignorant, untrained and stupid proletaires against the skill, knowledge, discipline, mental influence, intellectual resources an moral weight of the middle and upper ranks." the stupid, ignorant and contemptible mass was none other than the bourgeoisie itself. france had, indeed; experienced a sort of commercial crisis in . at the end of february, there was a falling off of exports as compared with ; in march, business languished and factories shut down; in april, the condition of the industrial departments seemed as desperate as after the february days; in may, business did not yet pick up; as late as june , the reports of the bank of france revealed through a tremendous increase of deposits and an equal decrease of loans on exchange notes, the standstill of production; not until the middle of october did a steady improvement of business set in. the french bourgeoisie accounted for this stagnation of business with purely political reasons; it imputed the dull times to the strife between the parliament and the executive power, to the uncertainty of a provisional form of government, to the alarming prospects of may , . i shall not deny that all these causes did depress some branches of industry in paris and in the departments. at any rate, this effect of political circumstances was only local and trifling. is there any other proof needed than that the improvement in business set in at the very time when the political situation was growing worse, when the political horizon was growing darker, and when at every moment a stroke of lightning was expected out of the elysee--in the middle of october? the french bourgeois, whose "skill, knowledge, mental influence and intellectual resources," reach no further than his nose, could, moreover, during the whole period of the industrial exposition in london, have struck with his nose the cause of his own business misery. at the same time that, in france, the factories were being closed, commercial failures broke out in england. while the industrial panic reached its height during april and may in france, in england the commercial panic reached its height in april and may. the same as the french, the english woolen industries suffered, and, as the french, so did the english silk manufacture. though the english cotton factories went on working, it, nevertheless, was not with the same old profit of and . the only difference was this: that in france, the crisis was an industrial, in england it was a commercial one; that while in france the factories stood still, they spread themselves in england, but under less favorable circumstances than they had done the years just previous; that, in france, the export, in england, the import trade suffered the heaviest blows. the common cause, which, as a matter of fact, is not to be looked for with-in the bounds of the french political horizon, was obvious. the years and were years of the greatest material prosperity, and of an overproduction that did not manifest itself until . this was especially promoted at the beginning of by the prospect of the industrial exposition; and, as special causes, there were added, first, the failure of the cotton crop of and ; second, the certainty of a larger cotton crop than was expected: first, the rise, then the sudden drop; in short, the oscillations of the cotton market. the crop of raw silk in france had been below the average. finally, the manufacture of woolen goods had received such an increment since , that the production of wool could not keep step with it, and the price of the raw material rose greatly out of proportion to the price of the manufactured goods. accordingly, we have here in the raw material of three staple articles a threefold material for a commercial crisis. apart from these special circumstances, the seeming crisis of the year was, after all, nothing but the halt that overproduction and overspeculation make regularly in the course of the industrial cycle, before pulling all their forces together in order to rush feverishly over the last stretch, and arrive again at their point of departure--the general commercial crisis. at such intervals in the history of trade, commercial failures break out in england, while, in france, industry itself is stopped, partly because it is compelled to retreat through the competition of the english, that, at such times becomes resistless in all markets, and partly because, as an industry of luxuries, it is affected with preference by every stoppage of trade. thus, besides the general crisis, france experiences her own national crises, which, how-ever, are determined by and conditioned upon the general state of the world's market much more than by local french influences. it will not be devoid of interest to contrast the prejudgment of the french bourgeois with the judgment of the english bourgeois. one of the largest liverpool firms writes in its yearly report of trade for : "few years have more completely disappointed the expectations entertained at their beginning than the year that has just passed; instead of the great prosperity, that was unanimously looked forward to, it proved itself one of the most discouraging years during the last quarter of a century. this applies, of course, only to the mercantile, not to the industrial classes. and yet, surely there were grounds at the beginning of the year from which to draw a contrary conclusion; the stock of products was scanty, capital was abundant, provisions cheap, a rich autumn was assured, there was uninterrupted peace on the continent and no political and financial disturbances at home; indeed, never were the wings of trade more unshackled. . . . what is this unfavorable result to be ascribed to? we believe to excessive trade in imports as well as exports. if our merchants do not themselves rein in their activity, nothing can keep us going, except a panic every three years." imagine now the french bourgeois, in the midst of this business panic, having his trade-sick brain tortured, buzzed at and deafened with rumors of a "coup d'etat" and the restoration of universal suffrage; with the struggle between the legislature and the executive; with the fronde warfare between orleanists and legitimists; with communistic conspiracies in southern france; with alleged jacqueries [# peasant revolts] in the departments of nievre and cher; with the advertisements of the several candidates for president; with "social solutions" huckstered about by the journals; with the threats of the republicans to uphold, arms in hand, the constitution and universal suffrage; with the gospels, according to the emigrant heroes "in partibus," who announced the destruction of the world for may ,--imagine that, and one can understand how the bourgeois, in this unspeakable and noisy confusion of fusion, revision, prorogation, constitution, conspiracy, coalition, emigration, usurpation and revolution, blurts out at his parliamentary republic: "rather an end with fright, than a fright without end." bonaparte understood this cry. his perspicacity was sharpened by the growing anxiety of the creditors' class, who, with every sunset, that brought nearer the day of payment, the d of may, , saw in the motion of the stars a protest against their earthly drafts. they had become regular astrologers the national assembly had cut off bonaparte's hope of a constitutional prolongation of his term; the candidature of the prince of joinville tolerated no further vacillation. if ever an event cast its shadow before it long before its occurrence, it was bonaparte's "coup d'etat." already on january , , barely a month after his election, he had made to changarnier a proposition to that effect. his own prime minister. odillon barrot, had covertly, in , and thiers openly in the winter of , revealed the scheme of the "coup d'etat." in may, , persigny had again sought to win changarnier over to the "coup," and the "miessager de l'assemblee" newspaper had published this conversation. at every parliamentary storm, the bonapartist papers threatened a "coup," and the nearer the crisis approached, all the louder grew their tone. at the orgies, that bonaparte celebrated every night with a swell mob of males and females, every time the hour of midnight drew nigh and plenteous libations had loosened the tongues and heated the minds of the revelers, the "coup" was resolved upon for the next morning. swords were then drawn, glasses clinked, the representatives were thrown out at the windows, the imperial mantle fell upon the shoulders of bonaparte, until the next morning again drove away the spook, and astonished paris learned, from not very reserved vestals and indiscreet paladins, the danger it had once more escaped. during the months of september and october, the rumors of a "coup d'etat" tumbled close upon one another's heels. at the same time the shadow gathered color, like a confused daguerreotype. follow the issues of the european daily press for the months of september and october, and items like this will be found literally: "rumors of a 'coup' fill paris. the capital, it is said, is to be filled with troops by night and the next morning decrees are to be issued dissolving the national assembly, placing the department of the seine in state of siege restoring universal suffrage, and appealing to the people. bonaparte is rumored to be looking for ministers to execute these illegal decrees." the newspaper correspondence that brought this news always close ominously with "postponed." the "coup" was ever the fixed idea of bonaparte. with this idea he had stepped again upon french soil. it had such full possession of him that he was constantly betraying and blabbing it out. he was so weak that he was as constantly giving it up again. the shadow of the "coup" had become so familiar a spectre to the parisians, that they refused to believe it when it finally did appear in flesh and blood. consequently, it was neither the reticent backwardness of the chief of the "society of december ," nor an unthought of surprise of the national assembly that caused the success of the "coup." when it succeeded, it did so despite his indiscretion and with its anticipation--a necessary, unavoidable result of the development that had preceded. on october , bonaparte announced to his ministers his decision to restore universal suffrage; on the th day they handed in their resignations; on the th paris learned of the formation of the thorigny ministry. the prefect of police, carlier, was simultaneously replaced by maupas; and the chief of the first military division magnan, concentrated the most reliable regiments in the capital. on november , the national assembly re-opened its sessions. there was nothing left for it to do but to repeat, in short recapitulation, the course it had traversed, and to prove that it had been buried only after it had expired. the first post that it had forfeited in the struggle with the executive was the ministry. it had solemnly to admit this loss by accepting as genuine the thorigny ministry, which was but a pretence. the permanent committee had received mr. giraud with laughter when he introduced himself in the name of the new ministers. so weak a ministry for so strong a measure as the restoration of universal suffrage! the question, however, then was to do nothing in, everything against the parliament. on the very day of its re-opening, the national assembly received the message from bonaparte demanding the restoration of universal suffrage and the repeal of the law of may , . on the same day, his ministers introduced a decree to that effect. the assembly promptly rejected the motion of urgency made by the ministers, but repealed the law itself, on november , by a vote of against . thus it once more tore to pieces its own mandate, once more certified to the fact that it had transformed itself from a freely chosen representative body of the nation into the usurpatory parliament of a class; it once more admitted that it had itself severed the muscles that connected the parliamentary head with the body of the nation. while the executive power appealed from the national assembly to the people by its motion for the restoration of universal suffrage, the legislative power appealed from the people to the army by its "questors' bill." this bill was to establish its right to immediate requisitions for troops, to build up a parliamentary army. by thus appointing the army umpire between itself and the people, between itself and bonaparte; by thus recognizing the army as the decisive power in the state, the national assembly was constrained to admit that it had long given up all claim to supremacy. by debating the right to make requisitions for troops, instead of forthwith collecting them, it betrayed its own doubts touching its own power. by thus subsequently rejecting the "questors' bill," it publicly confessed it impotence. the bill fell through with a minority of votes; the mountain had, accordingly, thrown the casting vote it now found itself in the predicament of buridan's donkey, not, indeed, between two sacks of hay, forced to decide which of the two was the more attractive, but between two showers of blows, forced to decide which of the two was the harder; fear of changarnier, on one side, fear of bonaparte, on the other. it must be admitted the position was not a heroic one. on november , an amendment was moved to the act, passed by the party of order, on municipal elections to the effect that, instead of three years, a domicile of one year should suffice. the amendment was lost by a single vote--but this vote, it soon transpired, was a mistake. owing to the divisions within its own hostile factions, the party of order had long since forfeited its independent parliamentary majority. it was now plain that there was no longer any majority in the parliament. the national assembly had become impotent even to decide. its atomic parts were no longer held together by any cohesive power; it had expended its last breath, it was dead. finally, the mass of the bourgeoisie outside of the parliament was once more solemnly to confirm its rupture with the bourgeoisie inside of the parliament a few days before the catastrophe. thiers, as a parliamentary hero conspicuously smitten by that incurable disease--parliamentary idiocy--, had hatched out jointly with the council of state, after the death of the parliament, a new parliamentary intrigue in the shape of a "responsibility law," that was intended to lock up the president within the walls of the constitution. the same as, on september , bonaparte bewitched the fishwives, like a second massaniello, on the occasion of laying the corner-stone for the market of paris,--though, it must be admitted, one fishwife was equal to seventeen burgraves in real power--; the same as, after the introduction of the "questors' bill," he enthused the lieutenants, who were being treated at the elysee;--so, likewise, did he now, on november , carry away with him the industrial bourgeoisie, assembled at the circus, to receive from his hands the prize-medals that had been awarded at the london industrial exposition. i here reproduce the typical part of his speech, from the "journal des debats": "with such unhoped for successes, i am justified to repeat how great the french republic would be if she were only allowed to pursue her real interests, and reform her institutions, instead of being constantly disturbed in this by demagogues, on one side, and, on the other, by monarchic hallucinations. (loud, stormy and continued applause from all parts of the amphitheater). the monarchic hallucinations hamper all progress and all serious departments of industry. instead of progress, we have struggle only. men, formerly the most zealous supporters of royal authority and prerogative, become the partisans of a convention that has no purpose other than to weaken an authority that is born of universal suffrage. (loud and prolonged applause). we see men, who have suffered most from the revolution and complained bitterest of it, provoking a new one for the sole purpose of putting fetters on the will of the nation. . . . i promise you peace for the future." (bravo! bravo! stormy bravos.) thus the industrial bourgeoisie shouts its servile "bravo!" to the "coup d'etat" of december , to the destruction of the parliament, to the downfall of their own reign, to the dictatorship of bonaparte. the rear of the applause of november was responded to by the roar of cannon on december , and the house of mr. sallandrouze, who had been loudest in applauding, was the one demolished by most of the bombs. cromwell, when he dissolved the long parliament, walked alone into its midst, pulled out his watch in order that the body should not continue to exist one minute beyond the term fixed for it by him, and drove out each individual member with gay and humorous invectives. napoleon, smaller than his prototype, at least went on the th brumaire into the legislative body, and, though in a tremulous voice, read to it its sentence of death. the second bonaparte, who, moreover, found himself in possession of an executive power very different from that of either cromwell or napoleon, did not look for his model in the annals of universal history, but in the annals of the "society of december ," in the annals of criminal jurisprudence. he robs the bank of france of twenty-five million francs; buys general magnan with one million and the soldiers with fifteen francs and a drink to each; comes secretly together with his accomplices like a thief by night; has the houses of the most dangerous leaders in the parliament broken into; cavalignac, lamorciere, leflo, changarnier, charras, thiers, baze, etc., taken out of their beds; the principal places of paris, the building of the parliament included, occupied with troops; and, early the next morning, loud-sounding placards posted on all the walls proclaiming the dissolution of the national assembly and of the council of state, the restoration of universal suffrage, and the placing of the department of the seine under the state of siege. in the same way he shortly after sneaked into the "moniateur" a false document, according to which influential parliamentary names had grouped themselves round him in a committee of the nation. amidst cries of "long live the republic!", the rump-parliament, assembled at the mayor's building of the tenth arrondissement, and composed mainly of legitimists and orleanists, resolves to depose bonaparte; it harangues in vain the gaping mass gathered before the building, and is finally dragged first, under the escort of african sharpshooters, to the barracks of orsay, and then bundled into convicts' wagons and transported to the prisons of mazas, ham and vincennes. thus ended the party of order, the legislative assembly and the february revolution. before hastening to the end, let us sum up shortly the plan of its history: i.--first period. from february to may , . february period. prologue. universal fraternity swindle. ii.--second period. period in which the republic is constituted, and of the constitutive national assembly. . may to june , . struggle of all the classes against the house of mr. proletariat. defeat of the proletariat in the june days. . june to december , . dictatorship of the pure bourgeois republicans. drafting of the constitution. the state of siege hangs over paris. the bourgeois dictatorship set aside on december by the election of bonaparte as president. . december , , to may , . struggle of the constitutive assembly with bonaparte and with the united party of order. death of the constitutive assembly. downfall of the republican bourgeoisie. iii.--third period. period of the constitutional republic and of the legislative national assembly. . may to june , . struggle of the small traders', middle class with the bourgeoisie and with bonaparte. defeat of the small traders' democracy. . june , , to may, . parliamentary dictatorship of the party of order. completes its reign by the abolition of universal suffrage, but loses the parliamentary ministry. . may , , to december , . struggle between the parliamentary bourgeoisie and bonaparte. a. may , , to january , . the parliament loses the supreme command over the army. b. january to april , . the parliament succumbs in the attempts to regain possession of the administrative power. the party of order loses its independent parliamentary majority. its coalition with the republicans and the mountain. c. april to october , . attempts at revision, fusion and prorogation. the party of order dissolves into its component parts. the breach between the bourgeois parliament and the bourgeois press, on the one hand, and the bourgeois mass, on the other, becomes permanent. d. october to december , . open breach between the parliament and the executive power. it draws up its own decree of death, and goes under, left in the lurch by its own class, by the army, and by all the other classes. downfall of the parliamentary regime and of the reign of the bourgeoisie. bonaparte's triumph. parody of the imperialist restoration. vii the social republic appeared as a mere phrase, as a prophecy on the threshold of the february revolution; it was smothered in the blood of the parisian proletariat during the days of but it stalks about as a spectre throughout the following acts of the drama. the democratic republic next makes its bow; it goes out in a fizzle on june , , with its runaway small traders; but, on fleeing, it scatters behind it all the more bragging announcements of what it means do to. the parliamentary republic, together with the bourgeoisie, then appropriates the whole stage; it lives its life to the full extent of its being; but the d of december, , buries it under the terror-stricken cry of the allied royalists: "long live the republic!" the french bourgeoisie reared up against the reign of the working proletariat;--it brought to power the slum-proletariat, with the chief of the "society of december " at its head. it kept france in breathless fear over the prospective terror of "red anarchy;"--bonaparte discounted the prospect when, on december , he had the leading citizens of the boulevard montmartre and the boulevard des italiens shot down from their windows by the grog-inspired "army of order." it made the apotheosis of the sabre; now the sabre rules it. it destroyed the revolutionary press;--now its own press is annihilated. it placed public meetings under police surveillance;--now its own salons are subject to police inspection. it disbanded the democratic national guards;--now its own national guard is disbanded. it instituted the state of siege;--now itself is made subject thereto. it supplanted the jury by military commissions;--now military commissions supplant its own juries. it subjected the education of the people to the parsons' interests;--the parsons' interests now subject it to their own systems. it ordered transportations without trial;--now itself is transported without trial. it suppressed every movement of society with physical force;--now every movement of its own class is suppressed by physical force. out of enthusiasm for the gold bag, it rebelled against its own political leaders and writers;--now, its political leaders and writers are set aside, but the gold hag is plundered, after the mouth of the bourgeoisie has been gagged and its pen broken. the bourgeoisie tirelessly shouted to the revolution, in the language of st. orsenius to the christians: "fuge, tace, quiesce!"--flee, be silent, submit!--; bonaparte shouts to the bourgeoisie: "fuge, tace, oniesce!"--flee, be silent, submit! the french bourgeoisie had long since solved napoleon's dilemma: "dans cinquante ans l'europe sera republicaine ou cosaque." [# within fifty years europe will be either republican or cossack.] it found the solution in the "republique cosaque." [# cossack republic.] no circe distorted with wicked charms the work of art of the bourgeois republic into a monstrosity. that republic lost nothing but the appearance of decency. the france of to-day was ready-made within the womb of the parliamentary republic. all that was wanted was a bayonet thrust, in order that the bubble burst, and the monster leap forth to sight. why did not the parisian proletariat rise after the d of december? the downfall of the bourgeoisie was as yet merely decreed; the decree was not yet executed. any earnest uprising of the proletariat would have forthwith revived this bourgeoisie, would have brought on its reconciliation with the army, and would have insured a second june rout to the workingmen. on december , the proletariat was incited to fight by messrs. bourgeois & small-trader. on the evening of that day, several legions of the national guard promised to appear armed and uniformed on the place of battle. this arose from the circumstance that messrs. bourgeois & small-trader had got wind that, in one of his decrees of december , bonaparte abolished the secret ballot, and ordered them to enter the words "yes" and "no" after their names in the official register. bonaparte took alarm at the stand taken on december . during the night he caused placards to be posted on all the street corners of paris, announcing the restoration of the secret ballot. messrs. bourgeois & small-trader believed they had gained their point. the absentees, the next morning, were messieurs. bourgeois & small-trader. during the night of december and , the parisian proletariat was robbed of its leaders and chiefs of barricades by a raid of bonaparte's. an army without officers, disinclined by the recollections of june, and , and may, , to fight under the banner of the montagnards, it left to its vanguard, the secret societies, the work of saving the insurrectionary honor of paris, which the bourgeoisie had yielded to the soldiery so submissively that bonaparte was later justified in disarming the national guard upon the scornful ground that he feared their arms would be used against themselves by the anarchists! "c'est ic triomphe complet et definitif du socialism!"' thus did guizot characterize the d of december. but, although the downfall of the parliamentary republic carries with it the germ of the triumph of the proletarian revolution, its immediate and tangible result was the triumph of bonaparte over parliament, of the executive over the legislative power, of force without phrases over the force of phrases. in the parliament, the nation raised its collective will to the dignity of law, i.e., it raised the law of the ruling class to the dignity of its collective will. before the executive power, the nation abdicates all will of its own, and submits to the orders of an outsider of authority. in contrast with the legislative, the executive power expresses the heteronomy of the nation in contrast with its autonomy. accordingly, france seems to have escaped the despotism of a class only in order to fall under the despotism of an individual, under the authority, at that of an individual without authority the struggle seems to settle down to the point where all classes drop down on their knees, equally impotent and equally dumb. all the same, the revolution is thoroughgoing. it still is on its passage through purgatory. it does its work methodically: down to december , , it had fulfilled one-half of its programme, it now fulfils the other half. it first ripens the power of the legislature into fullest maturity in order to be able to overthrow it. now that it has accomplished that, the revolution proceeds to ripen the power of the executive into equal maturity; it reduces this power to its purest expression; isolates it; places it before itself as the sole subject for reproof in order to concentrate against it all the revolutionary forces of destruction. when the revolution shall have accomplished this second part of its preliminary programme, europe will jump up from her seat to exclaim: "well hast thou grubbed, old mole!" the executive power, with its tremendous bureaucratic and military organization; with its wide-spreading and artificial machinery of government--an army of office-holders, half a million strong, together with a military force of another million men--; this fearful body of parasites, that coils itself like a snake around french society, stopping all its pores, originated at the time of the absolute monarchy, along with the decline of feudalism, which it helped to hasten. the princely privileges of the landed proprietors and cities were transformed into so many at-tributes of the executive power; the feudal dignitaries into paid office-holders; and the confusing design of conflicting medieval seigniories, into the well regulated plan of a government, work is subdivided and centralized as in the factory. the first french revolution, having as a mission to sweep away all local, territorial, urban and provincial special privileges, with the object of establishing the civic unity of the nation, was hound to develop what the absolute monarchy had begun--the work of centralization, together with the range, the attributes and the menials of government. napoleon completed this governmental machinery. the legitimist and the july monarchy contribute nothing thereto, except a greater subdivision of labor, that grew in the same measure as the division and subdivision of labor within bourgeois society raised new groups and interests, i.e., new material for the administration of government. each common interest was in turn forthwith removed from society, set up against it as a higher collective interest, wrested from the individual activity of the members of society, and turned into a subject for governmental administration, from the bridges, the school house and the communal property of a village community, up to the railroads, the national wealth and the national university of france. finally, the parliamentary republic found itself, in its struggle against the revolution, compelled, with its repressive measures, to strengthen the means and the centralization of the government. each overturn, instead of breaking up, carried this machine to higher perfection. the parties, that alternately wrestled for supremacy, looked upon the possession of this tremendous governmental structure as the principal spoils of their victory. nevertheless, under the absolute monarchy, was only the means whereby the first revolution, and under napoleon, to prepare the class rule of the bourgeoisie; under the restoration, under louis philippe, and under the parliamentary republic, it was the instrument of the ruling class, however eagerly this class strained after autocracy. not before the advent of the second bonaparte does the government seem to have made itself fully independent. the machinery of government has by this time so thoroughly fortified itself against society, that the chief of the "society of december " is thought good enough to be at its head; a fortune-hunter, run in from abroad, is raised on its shield by a drunken soldiery, bought by himself with liquor and sausages, and whom he is forced ever again to throw sops to. hence the timid despair, the sense of crushing humiliation and degradation that oppresses the breast of france and makes her to choke. she feels dishonored. and yet the french government does not float in the air. bonaparte represents an economic class, and that the most numerous in the commonweal of france--the allotment farmer. [# the first french revolution distributed the bulk of the territory of france, held at the time by the feudal lords, in small patches among the cultivators of the soil. this allotment of lands created the french farmer class.] as the bourbons are the dynasty of large landed property, as the orleans are the dynasty of money, so are the bonapartes the dynasty of the farmer, i.e. of the french masses. not the bonaparte, who threw himself at the feet of the bourgeois parliament, but the bonaparte, who swept away the bourgeois parliament, is the elect of this farmer class. for three years the cities had succeeded in falsifying the meaning of the election of december , and in cheating the farmer out of the restoration of the empire. the election of december , , is not carried out until the "coup d'etat" of december , . the allotment farmers are an immense mass, whose individual members live in identical conditions, without, however, entering into manifold relations with one another. their method of production isolates them from one another, instead of drawing them into mutual intercourse. this isolation is promoted by the poor means of communication in france, together with the poverty of the farmers themselves. their field of production, the small allotment of land that each cultivates, allows no room for a division of labor, and no opportunity for the application of science; in other words, it shuts out manifoldness of development, diversity of talent, and the luxury of social relations. every single farmer family is almost self-sufficient; itself produces directly the greater part of what it consumes; and it earns its livelihood more by means of an interchange with nature than by intercourse with society. we have the allotted patch of land, the farmer and his family; alongside of that another allotted patch of land, another farmer and another family. a bunch of these makes up a village; a bunch of villages makes up a department. thus the large mass of the french nation is constituted by the simple addition of equal magnitudes--much as a bag with potatoes constitutes a potato-bag. in so far as millions of families live under economic conditions that separate their mode of life, their interests and their culture from those of the other classes, and that place them in an attitude hostile toward the latter, they constitute a class; in so far as there exists only a local connection among these farmers, a connection which the individuality and exclusiveness of their interests prevent from generating among them any unity of interest, national connections, and political organization, they do not constitute a class. consequently, they are unable to assert their class interests in their own name, be it by a parliament or by convention. they can not represent one another, they must themselves be represented. their representative must at the same time appear as their master, as an authority over them, as an unlimited governmental power, that protects them from above, bestows rain and sunshine upon them. accordingly, the political influence of the allotment farmer finds its ultimate expression in an executive power that subjugates the commonweal to its own autocratic will. historic tradition has given birth to the superstition among the french farmers that a man named napoleon would restore to them all manner of glory. now, then, an individual turns i up, who gives himself out as that man because, obedient to the "code napoleon," which provides that "la recherche de la paternite est interdite," [# the inquiry into paternity is forbidden.] he carries the name of napoleon. [# l. n. bonaparte is said to have been an illegitimate son.] after a vagabondage of twenty years, and a series of grotesque adventures, the myth is verified, and that man becomes the emperor of the french. the rooted thought of the nephew becomes a reality because it coincided with the rooted thought of the most numerous class among the french. "but," i shall be objected to, "what about the farmers' uprisings over half france, the raids of the army upon the farmers, the wholesale imprisonment and transportation of farmers?" indeed, since louis xiv., france has not experienced such persecutions of the farmer on the ground of his demagogic machinations. but this should be well understood: the bonaparte dynasty does not represent the revolutionary, it represents the conservative farmer; it does not represent the farmer, who presses beyond his own economic conditions, his little allotment of land it represents him rather who would confirm these conditions; it does not represent the rural population, that, thanks to its own inherent energy, wishes, jointly with the cities to overthrow the old order, it represents, on the contrary, the rural population that, hide-bound in the old order, seeks to see itself, together with its allotments, saved and favored by the ghost of the empire; it represents, not the intelligence, but the superstition of the farmer; not his judgment, but his bias; not his future, but his past; not his modern cevennes; [# the cevennes were the theater of the most numerous revolutionary uprisings of the farmer class.] but his modern vendee. [# la vendee was the theater of protracted reactionary uprisings of the farmer class under the first revolution.] the three years' severe rule of the parliamentary republic had freed a part of the french farmers from the napoleonic illusion, and, though even only superficially; had revolutionized them the bourgeoisie threw them, however, violently back every time that they set themselves in motion. under the parliamentary republic, the modern wrestled with the traditional consciousness of the french farmer. the process went on in the form of a continuous struggle between the school teachers and the parsons;--the bourgeoisie knocked the school teachers down. for the first time, the farmer made an effort to take an independent stand in the government of the country; this manifested itself in the prolonged conflicts of the mayors with the prefects;--the bourgeoisie deposed the mayors. finally, during period of the parliamentary republic, the farmers of several localities rose against their own product, the army;--the bourgeoisie punished them with states of siege and executions. and this is the identical bourgeoisie, that now howls over the "stupidity of the masses," over the "vile multitude," which, it claims, betrayed it to bonaparte. itself has violently fortified the imperialism of the farmer class; it firmly maintained the conditions that constitute the birth-place of this farmer-religion. indeed, the bourgeoisie has every reason to fear the stupidity of the masses--so long as they remain conservative; and their intelligence--so soon as they become revolutionary. in the revolts that took place after the "coup d'etat" a part of the french farmers protested, arms in hand, against their own vote of december , . the school house had, since , sharpened their wits. but they had bound themselves over to the nether world of history, and history kept them to their word. moreover, the majority of this population was still so full of prejudices that, just in the "reddest" departments, it voted openly for bonaparte. the national assembly prevented, as it thought, this population from walking; the farmers now snapped the fetters which the cities had struck upon the will of the country districts. in some places they even indulged the grotesque hallucination of a "convention together with a napoleon." after the first revolution had converted the serf farmers into freeholders, napoleon fixed and regulated the conditions under which, unmolested, they could exploit the soil of france, that had just fallen into their hands, and expiate the youthful passion for property. but that which now bears the french farmer down is that very allotment of land, it is the partition of the soil, the form of ownership, which napoleon had consolidated. these are the material condition that turned french feudal peasant into a small or allotment farmer, and napoleon into an emperor. two generations have sufficed to produce the inevitable result the progressive deterioration of agriculture, and the progressive encumbering of the agriculturist the "napoleonic" form of ownership, which, at the beginning of the nineteenth century was the condition for the emancipation and enrichment of the french rural population, has, in the course of the century, developed into the law of their enslavement and pauperism. now, then, this very law is the first of the "idees napoleoniennes," which the second bonaparte must uphold. if he still shares with the farmers the illusion of seeking, not in the system of the small allotment itself, but outside of that system, in the influence of secondary conditions, the cause of their ruin, his experiments are bound to burst like soap-bubbles against the modern system of production. the economic development of the allotment system has turned bottom upward the relation of the farmer to the other classes of society. under napoleon, the parceling out of the agricultural lands into small allotments supplemented in the country the free competition and the incipient large production of the cities. the farmer class was the ubiquitous protest against the aristocracy of land, just then overthrown. the roots that the system of small allotments cast into the soil of france, deprived feudalism of all nutriment. its boundary-posts constituted the natural buttress of the bourgeoisie against every stroke of the old overlords. but in the course of the nineteenth century, the city usurer stepped into the shoes of the feudal lord, the mortgage substituted the feudal duties formerly yielded by the soil, bourgeois capital took the place of the aristocracy of landed property. the former allotments are now only a pretext that allows the capitalist class to draw profit, interest and rent from agricultural lands, and to leave to the farmer himself the task of seeing to it that he knock out his wages. the mortgage indebtedness that burdens the soil of france imposes upon the french farmer class they payment of an interest as great as the annual interest on the whole british national debt. in this slavery of capital, whither its development drives it irresistibly, the allotment system has transformed the mass of the french nation into troglodytes. sixteen million farmers (women and children included), house in hovels most of which have only one opening, some two, and the few most favored ones three. windows are to a house what the five senses are to the head. the bourgeois social order, which, at the beginning of the century, placed the state as a sentinel before the newly instituted allotment, and that manured this with laurels, has become a vampire that sucks out its heart-blood and its very brain, and throws it into the alchemist's pot of capital. the "code napoleon" is now but the codex of execution, of sheriff's sales and of intensified taxation. to the four million (children, etc., included) official paupers, vagabonds, criminals and prostitutes, that france numbers, must be added five million souls who hover over the precipice of life, and either sojourn in the country itself, or float with their rags and their children from the country to the cities, and from the cities back to the country. accordingly, the interests of the farmers are no longer, as under napoleon, in harmony but in conflict with the interests of the bourgeoisie, i.e., with capital; they find their natural allies and leaders among the urban proletariat, whose mission is the overthrow of the bourgeois social order. but the "strong and unlimited government"--and this is the second of the "idees napoleoniennes," which the second napoleon has to carried out--, has for its mission the forcible defence of this very "material" social order, a "material order" that furnishes the slogan in bonaparte's proclamations against the farmers in revolt. along with the mortgage, imposed by capital upon the farmer's allotment, this is burdened by taxation. taxation is the fountain of life to the bureaucracy, the army, the parsons and the court, in short to the whole apparatus of the executive power. a strong government, and heavy taxes are identical. the system of ownership, involved in the system of allotments lends itself by nature for the groundwork of a powerful and numerous bureaucracy: it produces an even level of conditions and of persons over the whole surface of the country; it, therefore, allows the exercise of an even influence upon all parts of this even mass from a high central point downwards: it annihilates the aristocratic gradations between the popular masses and the government; it, consequently, calls from all sides for the direct intervention of the government and for the intervention of the latter's immediate organs; and, finally, it produces an unemployed excess of population, that finds no room either in the country or in the cities, that, consequently, snatches after public office as a sort of dignified alms, and provokes the creation of further offices. with the new markets, which he opened at the point of the bayonet, and with the plunder of the continent, napoleon returned to the farmer class with interest the taxes wrung from them. these taxes were then a goad to the industry of the farmer, while now, on the contrary, they rob his industry of its last source of support, and completely sap his power to resist poverty. indeed, an enormous bureaucracy, richly gallooned and well fed is that "idee napoleonienne" that above all others suits the requirements of the second bonaparte. how else should it be, seeing he is forced to raise alongside of the actual classes of society, an artificial class, to which the maintenance of his own regime must be a knife-and-fork question? one of his first financial operations was, accordingly, the raising of the salaries of the government employees to their former standard and the creation of new sinecures. another "idee napoleonienne" is the rule of the parsons as an instrument of government. but while the new-born allotment, in harmony with society, in its dependence upon the powers of nature, and in its subordination to the authority that protected it from above, was naturally religious, the debt-broken allotment, on the contrary, at odds with society and authority, and driven beyond its own narrow bounds, becomes as naturally irreligious. heaven was quite a pretty gift thrown in with the narrow strip of land that had just been won, all the more as it makes the weather; it, however, becomes an insult from the moment it is forced upon the farmer as a substitute for his allotment. then the parson appears merely as the anointed blood-hound of the earthly police,--yet another "idee napoleonienne." the expedition against rome will next time take place in france, but in a reverse sense from that of m. de montalembert. finally, the culminating point of the "idees napoleoniennes" is the preponderance of the army. the army was the "point of honor" with the allotment farmers: it was themselves turned into masters, defending abroad their newly established property, glorifying their recently conquered nationality, plundering and revolutionizing the world. the uniform was their state costume; war was their poetry; the allotment, expanded and rounded up in their phantasy, was the fatherland; and patriotism became the ideal form of property. but the foe, against whom the french farmer must now defend his property, are not the cossacks, they are the sheriffs and the tax collectors. the allotment no longer lies in the so-called fatherland, but in the register of mortgages. the army itself no longer is the flower of the youth of the farmers, it is the swamp-blossom of the slum-proletariat of the farmer class. it consists of "remplacants," substitutes, just as the second bonaparte himself is but a "remplacant," a substitute, for napoleon. its feats of heroism are now performed in raids instituted against farmers and in the service of the police;--and when the internal contradictions of his own system shall drive the chief of the "society of december " across the french frontier, that army will, after a few bandit-raids, gather no laurels but only hard knocks. it is evident that all the "idees napoleoniennes" are the ideas of the undeveloped and youthfully fresh allotment; they are an absurdity for the allotment that now survives. they are only the hallucinations of its death struggle; words turned to hollow phrases, spirits turned to spooks. but this parody of the empire was requisite in order to free the mass of the french nation from the weight of tradition, and to elaborate sharply the contrast between government and society. along with the progressive decay of the allotment, the governmental structure, reared upon it, breaks down. the centralization of government, required by modern society, rises only upon the ruins of the military and bureaucratic governmental machinery that was forged in contrast to feudalism. the conditions of the french farmers' class solve to us the riddle of the general elections of december and , that led the second bonaparte to the top of sinai, not to receive, but to decree laws. the bourgeoisie had now, manifestly, no choice but to elect bonaparte. when at the council of constance, the puritans complained of the sinful life of the popes, and moaned about the need of a reform in morals, cardinal d'ailly thundered into their faces: "only the devil in his own person can now save the catholic church, and you demand angels." so, likewise, did the french bourgeoisie cry out after the "coup d'etat": "only the chief of the 'society of december ' can now save bourgeois society, only theft can save property, only perjury religion, only bastardy the family, only disorder order!" bonaparte, as autocratic executive power, fulfills his mission to secure "bourgeois order." but the strength of this bourgeois order lies in the middle class. he feels himself the representative of the middle class, and issues his decrees in that sense. nevertheless, he is something only because he has broken the political power of this class, and daily breaks it anew. hence he feels himself the adversary of the political and the literary power of the middle class. but, by protecting their material, he nourishes anew their political power. consequently, the cause must be kept alive, but the result, wherever it manifests itself, swept out of existence. but this procedure is impossible without slight mistakings of causes and effects, seeing that both, in their mutual action and reaction, lose their distinctive marks. thereupon, new decrees, that blur the line of distinction. bonaparte, furthermore, feels himself, as against the bourgeoisie, the representative of the farmer and the people in general, who, within bourgeois society, is to render the lower classes of society happy. to this end, new decrees, intended to exploit the "true socialists," together with their governmental wisdom. but, above all, bonaparte feels himself the chief of the "society of december ," the representative of the slum-proletariat, to which he himself, his immediate surroundings, his government, and his army alike belong, the main object with all of whom is to be good to themselves, and draw californian tickets out of the national treasury. an he affirms his chieftainship of the "society of december " with decrees, without decrees, and despite decrees. this contradictory mission of the man explains the contradictions of his own government, and that confused groping about, that now seeks to win, then to humiliate now this class and then that, and finishes by arraying against itself all the classes; whose actual insecurity constitutes a highly comical contrast with the imperious, categoric style of the government acts, copied closely from the uncle. industry and commerce, i.e., the business of the middle class, are to be made to blossom in hot-house style under the "strong government." loans for a number of railroad grants. but the bonapartist slum-proletariat is to enrich itself. peculation is carried on with railroad concessions on the bourse by the initiated; but no capital is forthcoming for the railroads. the bank then pledges itself to make advances upon railroad stock; but the bank is itself to be exploited; hence, it must be cajoled; it is released of the obligation to publish its reports weekly. then follows a leonine treaty between the bank and the government. the people are to be occupied: public works are ordered; but the public works raise the tax rates upon the people; thereupon the taxes are reduced by an attack upon the national bond-holders through the conversion of the five per cent "rentes" [# the name of the french national bonds.] into four-and-halves. yet the middle class must again be tipped: to this end, the tax on wine is doubled for the people, who buy it at retail, and is reduced to one-half for the middle class, that drink it at wholesale. genuine labor organizations are dissolved, but promises are made of future wonders to accrue from organization. the farmers are to be helped: mortgage-banks are set up that must promote the indebtedness; of the farmer and the concentration of property but again, these banks are to be utilized especially to the end of squeezing money out of the confiscated estates of the house of orleans; no capitalist will listen to this scheme, which, moreover, is not mentioned in the decree; the mortgage bank remains a mere decree, etc., etc. bonaparte would like to appear as the patriarchal benefactor of all classes; but he can give to none without taking from the others. as was said of the duke of guise, at the time of the fronde, that he was the most obliging man in france because he had converted all his estates into bonds upon himself for his parisians, so would napoleon like to be the most obliging man in france and convert all property and all labor of france into a personal bond upon himself. he would like to steal the whole of france to make a present thereof to france, or rather to be able to purchase france back again with french money;--as chief of the "society of december ," he must purchase that which is to be his. all the state institutions, the senate, the council of state, the legislature, the legion of honor, the soldiers' decorations, the public baths, the public buildings, the railroads, the general staff of the national guard, exclusive of the rank and file, the confiscated estates of the house of orleans,--all are converted into institutions for purchase and sale. every place in the army and the machinery of government becomes a purchasing power. the most important thing, however, in this process, whereby france is taken to be given back to herself, are the percentages that, in the transfer, drop into the hands of the chief and the members of the "society of december ." the witticisms with which the countess of l., the mistress of de morny, characterized the confiscations of the orleanist estates: "c'est le premier vol de l'aigle," [# "it is the first flight of the eagle" the french word "vol" means theft as well as flight.] fits every fight of the eagle that is rather a crow. he himself and his followers daily call out to themselves, like the italian carthusian monk in the legend does to the miser, who displayfully counted the goods on which he could live for many years to come: "tu fai conto sopra i beni, bisogna prima far il conto sopra gli anni." [# "you count your property you should rather count the years left to you."] in order not to make a mistake in the years, they count by minutes. a crowd of fellows, of the best among whom all that can be said is that one knows not whence he comes--a noisy, restless "boheme," greedy after plunder, that crawls about in gallooned frocks with the same grotesque dignity as soulonque's [# soulonque was the negro emperor of the short-lived negro empire of hayti.] imperial dignitaries--, thronged the court crowded the ministries, and pressed upon the head of the government and of the army. one can picture to himself this upper crust of the "society of december " by considering that veron crevel [# crevel is a character of balzac, drawn after dr. veron, the proprietor of the "constitutional" newspaper, as a type of the dissolute parisian philistine.] is their preacher of morality, and granier de cassagnac their thinker. when guizot, at the time he was minister, employed this granier on an obscure sheet against the dynastic opposition, he used to praise him with the term: "c'est le roi des droles." [# "he is the king of the clowns."] it were a mistake to recall the days of the regency or of louis xv. by the court and the kit of louis bonaparte's: "often did france have a mistress-administration, but never yet an administration of kept men." [# madame de girardin.] harassed by the contradictory demands of his situation, and compelled, like a sleight-of-hands performer, to keep, by means of constant surprises, the eyes of the public riveted upon himself as the substitute of napoleon, compelled, consequently, everyday to accomplish a sort of "coup" on a small scale, bonaparte throws the whole bourgeois social system into disorder; he broaches everything that seemed unbroachable by the revolution of ; he makes one set people patient under the revolution and another anxious for it; he produces anarchy itself in the name of order by rubbing off from the whole machinery of government the veneer of sanctity, by profaning it, by rendering it at once nauseating and laughable. he rehearses in paris the cult of the sacred coat of trier with the cult of the napoleonic imperial mantle. but when the imperial mantle shall have finally fallen upon the shoulders of louis bonaparte, then will also the iron statue of napoleon drop down from the top of the vendome column. [# a prophecy that a few years later, after bonaparte's coronation as emperor, was literally fulfilled. by order of emperor louis napoleon, the military statue of the napoleon that originally surmounted the vendome was taken down and replaced by one of first napoleon in imperial robes.] secret diplomatic history of the eighteenth century * * * * * _demy vo, pp._ , xvi. _s._ _d._ the eastern question. letters written - dealing with the events of the crimean war. by karl marx. edited by eleanor marx aveling and edward aveling. opinions of the press. "with all marx's faults and his extravagant abuse of high political personages, one cannot but admire the man's strength of mind, the courage of his opinions, and his scorn and contempt for everything small, petty, and mean. although many and great changes have taken place since these papers appeared, they are still valuable not only for the elucidation of the past, but also for throwing a clearer light upon the present as also upon the future."--_westminster review._ "all that marx's hand set itself to do, it did with all its might, and in this volume, as in the rest of his work, we see the indefatigable energy, the wonderful grasp of detail, and the keen and marvellous foresight of a master mind."--_justice._ "a very masterly analysis of the condition, political, economic and social, of the turkish empire, which is as true to-day as when it was written."--_daily chronicle._ "the letters contain an enormous amount of well-digested information, and display great critical acumen, amounting in some cases almost to prevision. the biographical interest of the volume is also pronounced, for prominent men of that period are dissected and analysed with a vigour and freedom which are as refreshing to readers as they would be disconcerting to their subjects were they alive. a perusal of the book must greatly tend to a clearer perception of the later eastern issues, which are now engaging the attention and testing the diplomatic talents of the ambassadors at constantinople."--_liverpool post._ london: swan sonnenschein & co., limited. * * * * * secret diplomatic history of the eighteenth century by karl marx edited by his daughter eleanor marx aveling [illustration: logo] london swan sonnenschein & co., limited paternoster square * * * * * butler & tanner, the selwood printing works, frome, and london. * * * * * publisher's preface in the preface to "the eastern question," by karl marx, published in , the editors, eleanor marx aveling and edward aveling, referred to two series of papers entitled "the story of the life of lord palmerston," and "secret diplomatic history of the eighteenth century," which they promised to publish at an early date. mrs. aveling did not live long enough to see these papers through the press, but she left them in such a forward state, and we have had so many inquiries about them since, that we venture to issue them without mrs. aveling's final revision in two shilling pamphlets. the publishers. secret diplomatic history of the eighteenth century chapter i no. . mr. rondeau to horace walpole. "petersburg, _ th august, _.[ ] " ... i heartily wish ... that the turks could be brought to condescend to make the first step, for this court seems resolved to hearken to nothing till that is done, to mortify the porte, that has on all occasions spoken of the russians with the greatest contempt, which the czarina and her present ministers cannot bear. instead of being obliged to sir everard fawkner and mr. thalman (the former the british, the latter the dutch ambassador at constantinople), for informing them of the good dispositions of the turks, count oestermann will not be persuaded that the porte is sincere, and seemed very much surprised that they had written to them (the russian cabinet) without order of the king and the states-general, or without being desired by the grand vizier, and that their letter had not been concerted with the emperor's minister at constantinople.... i have shown count biron and count oestermann the two letters the grand vizier has written to the king, and at the same time told these gentlemen that as there was in them several hard reflections on this court, i should not have communicated them if they had not been so desirous to see them. count biron said that was nothing, for they were used to be treated in this manner by the turks. i desired their excellencies not to let the porte know that they had seen these letters, which would sooner aggravate matters than contribute to make them up...." no. . sir george macartney to the earl of sandwich. "st. petersburg, _ st ( th) march, _. "most secret.[ ] " ... yesterday m. panin[ ] and the vice-chancellor, together with m. osten, the danish minister, signed a treaty of alliance between this court and that of copenhagen. by one of the articles, a war with turkey is made a _casus foederis_; and whenever that event happens, denmark binds herself to pay russia a subsidy of , roubles per annum, by quarterly payments. denmark also, by a most secret article, promises to disengage herself from all french connections, demanding only a limited time to endeavour to obtain the arrears due to her by the court of france. at all events, she is immediately to enter into all the views of russia in sweden, and to act entirely, though not openly, with her in that kingdom. either i am deceived or m. gross[ ] has misunderstood his instructions, when he told your lordship that russia intended to stop short, and leave all the burden of sweden upon england. however desirous this court may be that we should pay a large proportion of every pecuniary engagement, yet, i am assured, she will always choose to take the lead at stockholm. her design, her ardent wish, is to make a common cause with england and denmark, for the total annihilation of the french interest there. this certainly cannot be done without a considerable expense; but russia, at present, does not seem unreasonable enough to expect that we should pay the whole. it has been hinted to me that £ , per annum, on our part, would be sufficient to support our interest, and absolutely prevent the french from ever getting at stockholm again. "the swedes, highly sensible of, and very much mortified at, the dependent situation they have been in for many years, are extremely jealous of every power that intermeddles in their affairs, and particularly so of their neighbours the russians. this is the reason assigned to me for this court's desiring that we and they should act upon separate bottoms, still preserving between our respective ministers a confidence without reserve. that our first care should be, not to establish a faction under the name of a russian or of an english faction; but, as even the wisest men are imposed upon by a mere name, to endeavour to have our friends distinguished as the friends of liberty and independence. at present we have a superiority, and the generality of the nation is persuaded how very ruinous their french connections have been, and, if continued, how very destructive they will be of their true interests. m. panin does by no means desire that the smallest change should be made in the constitution of sweden.[ ] he wishes that the royal authority might be preserved without being augmented, and that the privileges of the people should be continued without violation. he was not, however, without his fears of the ambitious and intriguing spirit of the queen, but the great ministerial vigilance of count oestermann has now entirely quieted his apprehensions on that head. "by this new alliance with denmark, and by the success in sweden, which this court has no doubt of, if properly seconded, m. panin will, in some measure, have brought to bear his grand scheme of uniting the powers of the north.[ ] nothing, then, will be wanted to render it entirely perfect, but the conclusion of a treaty alliance with great britain. i am persuaded this court desires it most ardently. the empress has expressed herself more than once, in terms that marked it strongly. her ambition is to form, by such an union, a certain counterpoise to the family compact,[ ] and to disappoint, as much as possible, all the views of the courts of vienna and versailles, against which she is irritated with uncommon resentment. i am not, however, to conceal from your lordship that we can have no hope of any such alliance, unless we agree, by some secret article, to pay a subsidy in case of a turkish war, for no money will be desired from us, except upon an emergency of that nature. i flatter myself i have persuaded this court of the unreasonableness of expecting any subsidy in time of peace, and that an alliance upon an equal footing will be more safe and more honourable for both nations. i can assure your lordship that a turkish war's being a _casus foederis_, inserted either in the body of the treaty or in a secret article, will be a _sine quâ non_ in every negotiation we may have to open with this court. the obstinacy of m. panin upon that point is owing to the accident i am going to mention. when the treaty between the emperor and the king of prussia was in agitation, the count bestoucheff, who is a mortal enemy to the latter, proposed the turkish clause, persuaded that the king of prussia would never submit to it, and flattering himself with the hopes of blowing up that negotiation by his refusal. but this old politician, it seemed, was mistaken in his conjecture, for his majesty immediately consented to the proposal on condition that russia should make no alliance with any other power but on the same terms.[ ] this is the real fact, and to confirm it, a few days since, count solme, the prussian minister, came to visit me, and told me that if this court had any intention of concluding an alliance with ours without such a clause, he had orders to oppose it in the strongest manner. hints have been given me that if great britain were less inflexible in that article, russia will be less inflexible in the article of export duties in the treaty of commerce, which m. gross told your lordship this court would never depart from. i was assured at the same time, by a person in the highest degree of confidence with m. panin, that if we entered upon the treaty of alliance the treaty of commerce would go on with it _passibus æquis_; that then the latter would be entirely taken out of the hands of the college of trade, where so many cavils and altercations had been made, and would be settled only between the minister and myself, and that he was sure it would be concluded to our satisfaction, provided the turkish clause was admitted into the treaty of alliance. i was told, also, that in case the spaniards attacked portugal, we might have , russians in our pay to send upon that service. i must entreat your lordship on no account to mention to m. gross the secret article of the danish treaty.... that gentleman, i am afraid, is no well-wisher to england."[ ] no. .--sir james harris to lord grantham. "petersburg, ( august), . "(private.) " ... on my arrival here i found the court very different from what it had been described to me. so far from any partiality to england, its bearings were entirely french. the king of prussia (then in possession of the empress' ear) was exerting his influence against us. count panin assisted him powerfully; lacy and corberon, the bourbon ministers, were artful and intriguing; prince potemkin had been wrought upon by them; and the whole tribe which surrounded the empress--the schuwaloffs, stroganoffs, and chernicheffs--were what they still are, _garçons perruquiers de paris_. events seconded their endeavours. the assistance the french affected to afford russia in settling its disputes with the porte, and the two courts being immediately after united as mediators at the peace of teschen, contributed not a little to reconcile them to each other. i was, therefore, not surprised that all my negotiations with count panin, _from february, , to july, _, should be unsuccessful, as he meant to prevent, not to promote, an alliance. it was in vain we made concessions to obtain it. he ever started fresh difficulties; had ever fresh obstacles ready. a very serious evil resulted, in the meanwhile, from my apparent confidence in him. he availed himself of it to convey in his reports to the empress, not the language i employed, and the sentiments i actually expressed, but the language and sentiments he wished i should employ and express. he was equally careful to conceal her opinions and feelings from me; and while he described england to her as obstinate, and overbearing, and reserved, he described the empress to me as displeased, disgusted, and indifferent to our concerns; and he was so convinced that, by this double misrepresentation, he had shut up every avenue of success that, at the time when i presented to him the spanish declaration, he ventured to say to me, ministerially, '_that great britain had, by its own haughty conduct, brought down all its misfortunes on itself; that they were now at their height; that we must consent to any concession to obtain peace; and that we could expect neither assistance from our friends nor forbearance from our enemies._' i had temper enough not to give way to my feelings on this occasion.... i applied, without loss of time, to prince potemkin, and, by his means, the empress _condescended_ to see me alone at peterhoff. i was so fortunate in this interview, as not only to efface all bad impressions she had against us, but by stating in its true light, our situation, and the inseparable interests of great britain and russia, to raise in her mind a decided resolution to assist us. _this resolution she declared to me in express words._ when this transpired--and count panin was the first who knew it--he became my implacable and inveterate enemy. he not only thwarted by falsehoods and by a most undue exertion of his influence my public negotiations, but employed every means the lowest and most vindictive malice could suggest to depreciate and injure me personally; and from the very infamous accusations with which he charged me, had i been prone to fear, i might have apprehended the most infamous attacks at his hands. this relentless persecution still continues; it has outlived his ministry. _notwithstanding the positive assurances i had received from the empress herself_, he found means, first to stagger, and afterwards to alter her resolutions. he was, indeed, very officiously assisted by his prussian majesty, who, at the time, was as much bent on oversetting our interest as he now seems eager to restore it. i was not, however, disheartened by this first disappointment, and, by redoubling my efforts, _i have twice more, during the course of my mission, brought the empress to the verge_ (!) _of standing forth our professed friend_, and, each time, my _expectations were grounded on assurances from her own mouth_. the first was when _our enemies conjured up the armed_ neutrality;[ ] the other when minorca was offered her. although, on the first of these occasions, i found the same opposition from the same quarter i had experienced before, yet i am compelled to say that the principal cause of my failure was attributable to the very awkward manner in which we replied to the famous neutral declaration of february, . as i well knew from what quarter the blow would come, i was prepared to parry it. _my opinion was: 'if england feels itself strong enough to do without russia, let it reject at once these new-fangled doctrines; but if its situation is such as to want assistance, let it yield to the necessity of the hour, recognise them as far as they relate to_ russia alone, _and by a well-timed act of complaisance insure itself a powerful friend._'[ ] my opinion was _not_ received; an ambiguous and trimming answer was given; _we seemed equally afraid to accept or dismiss them. i was instructed secretly to oppose, but avowedly to acquiesce in them_, and some unguarded expressions of one of its then confidential servants, made use of in speaking to mr. simolin, in direct contradiction to the temperate and cordial language that minister had heard from lord stormont, _irritated_ the empress to the last degree, and completed the _dislike_ and _bad opinion_ she entertained of that administration.[ ] our enemies took advantage of these _circumstances_.... i suggested the idea of giving up minorca to the empress, _because, as it was evident to me we should at the peace be compelled to make sacrifices, it seemed to me wiser to make them to our friends than to our enemies_. the idea was adopted at home in its whole extent,[ ] _and nothing could be more perfectly calculated to the meridian of this court than the judicious instructions i received on this occasion from lord stormont. why_ this project failed i am still at a loss to learn. _i never knew the empress incline so strongly to any one measure as she did to this, before i had my full powers to treat, nor was i ever more astonished than when i found her shrink from her purpose when they arrived._ i imputed it at the same time, in my own mind, to the _rooted aversion she had for our ministry_, and her _total want of confidence in them_; but i since am more strongly disposed to believe that she consulted the emperor (of austria) on the subject, and that he not only prevailed on her to decline the offer, but betrayed the secret to france, and that it thus became public. i cannot otherwise account for this rapid _change of sentiment in the empress_, particularly as _prince potemkin_ (whatever he might be in other transactions) was certainly in this _cordial and sincere_ in his support, and both from what i saw at the time, and from what has since come to my knowledge, _had its success at heart as much as myself_. you will observe, my lord, that _the idea of bringing the empress forward as a friendly mediatrix went hand-in-hand with the proposed cession of minorca_. as this idea has given rise to what has since followed, and involved us in all the dilemmas of the present mediation, it will be necessary for me to explain what my views then were, and to exculpate myself from the blame of having placed my court in so embarrassing a situation, _my wish and intention was that she should be sole mediatrix without an adjoint_; if you have perused what passed between her and me, in december, , your lordship will readily perceive how very potent reasons i had to imagine she would be a friendly and even a partial one.[ ] i knew, indeed, she was unequal to the task; but i knew, too, how greatly _her vanity_ would be flattered by this distinction, and was well aware that when once engaged she would persist, and be inevitably involved in our quarrel, particularly when it should appear (and appear it would) that we had _gratified_ her with minorca. the annexing to the mediation the other (austrian) imperial court entirely overthrew this plan. it not only afforded her a pretence for not keeping her word, but piqued and mortified her; and it was under this impression that she made over the whole business to the colleague we had given her, and ordered her minister at vienna to subscribe implicitly to whatever the court proposed. hence all the evils which have since arisen, and hence those we at this moment experience. i myself could never be brought to believe that the court of vienna, as long as prince kaunitz directs its measures, can mean england any good or france any harm. it was not with that view that i endeavoured to promote its influence here, but because _i found that of prussia in constant opposition to me_; and because i thought that if i could by any means smite this, i should get rid of my greatest obstacle. i was mistaken, and, by a singular fatality, the courts of vienna and berlin seem never to have agreed in anything but in the disposition to prejudice us here by turns.[ ] the proposal relative to minorca was the last attempt i made to induce the empress to stand forth. i had exhausted my strength and resources; the freedom with which i had spoken in my last interview with her, though respectful, had _displeased_; and _from this period to the removal of the late administration_, i have been reduced to act on the defensive.... i have had more difficulty in preventing the empress from doing harm than i ever had in attempting to engage her to do us good. it was to prevent evil, that i inclined strongly for the acceptation of _her single mediation between us and holland, when her imperial majesty first offered it_. the _extreme dissatisfaction_ she expressed _at our refusal_ justified my opinion; and i took upon me, when it was proposed a second time, _to urge the necessity of its being agreed to_ (although i knew it to be in contradiction of the sentiments of my principal), since i firmly believed, had we again declined it, the empress would, in a _moment of anger_, have joined the dutch against us. as it is, _all has gone on well_; our _judicious_ conduct has transferred to them the _ill-humour_ she originally was in with us, and she now is as partial to our cause as she was before partial to theirs. _since the new ministry in england, my road has been made smoother_; the great and new path struck out by _your predecessor,[ ] and which you, my lord, pursue_, has operated a most advantageous change in our favour upon the continent. nothing, indeed, but events which come home to her, will, i believe, ever induce her imperial majesty to take an active part; but there is now a _strong glow of friendship_ in our favour; she approves our measures; she _trusts_ our ministry, and _she gives way to that predilection she certainly has for our nation_. our enemies know and feel this; it keeps them in awe. this is a succinct but accurate sketch of what has passed at this court from the day of my arrival at petersburg to the present hour. several inferences may be deduced from it.[ ] that the empress is led by her passions, not by reason and argument; that her prejudices are very strong, easily acquired, and, when once fixed, irremovable; while, on the contrary, there is no sure road to her good opinion; that even when obtained, it is subject to perpetual fluctuation, and liable to be biassed by the most trifling incidents; that till she is fairly embarked in a plan, no assurances can be depended on; but that when once fairly embarked, she never retracts, and may be carried any length; that with very bright parts, an elevated mind, an uncommon sagacity, she wants _judgment_, _precision of idea_, _reflection_, _and_ l'esprit de combinaison(!!) that her ministers are either ignorant of, or indifferent to, the welfare of the state, and act from a passive submission to her will, or from motives of party and private interests."[ ] . (manuscript) account of russia during the commencement of the reign of the emperor paul, drawn up by the rev. l. k. pitt, chaplain to the factory of st. petersburg, and a near relative of william pitt.[ ] _extract._ "there can scarcely exist a doubt concerning the real sentiments of the late empress of russia on the great points which have, within the last few years, convulsed the whole system of european politics. she certainly felt from the beginning the fatal tendency of the new principles, but was not, perhaps, displeased to see every european power exhausting itself in a struggle which raised, in proportion to its violence, her own importance. it is more than probable that the state of the newly acquired provinces in poland was likewise a point which had considerable influence over the political conduct of catherine. the fatal effects resulting from an apprehension of revolt in the late seat of conquest seem to have been felt in a very great degree by the combined powers, who in the early period of the revolution were so near reinstating the regular government in france. the same dread of revolt in poland, which divided the attention of the combined powers and hastened their retreat, deterred likewise the late empress of russia from entering on the great theatre of war, until a combination of circumstances rendered the progress of the french armies a more dangerous evil than any which could possibly result to the russian empire from active operations.... the last words which the empress was known to utter were addressed to her secretary when she dismissed him on the morning on which she was seized: 'tell prince' (zuboff), she said, 'to come to me at twelve, and to remind me of signing the treaty of alliance with england.'" having entered into ample considerations on the emperor paul's acts and extravagances, the rev. mr. pitt continues as follows: "when these considerations are impressed on the mind, the nature of the late secession from the coalition, and of the incalculable indignities offered to the government of great britain, can alone be fairly estimated.... but the ties which bind her (great britain) to the russian empire are formed by nature, and inviolable. united, these nations might almost brave the united world; divided, the strength and importance of each is fundamentally impaired. england has reason to regret with russia that the imperial sceptre should be thus inconsistently wielded, but it is the sovereign of russia alone who divides the empires." the reverend gentleman concludes his account by the words: "as far as human foresight can at this moment penetrate, the despair of an enraged individual seems a more probable means to terminate the present scene of oppression than any more systematic combination of measures to restore the throne of russia to its dignity and importance." footnotes: [ ] this letter relates to the war against turkey, commenced by the empress ann in . the british diplomatist at st. petersburg is reporting about his endeavours to induce russia to conclude peace with the turks. the passages omitted are irrelevant. [ ] england was at that time negotiating a commercial treaty with russia. [ ] to this time it has remained among historians a point of controversy, whether or not panin was in the pay of frederick ii. of prussia, and whether he was so behind the back of catherine, or at her bidding. there can exist no doubt that catherine ii., in order to identify foreign courts with russian ministers, allowed russian ministers ostensibly to identify themselves with foreign courts. as to panin in particular, the question is, however, decided by an authentic document which we believe has never been published. it proves that, having once become the man of frederick ii., he was forced to remain so at the risk of his honour, fortune and life. [ ] the russian minister at london. [ ] the oligarchic constitution set up by the senate after the death of charles xii. [ ] thus we learn from sir george macartney that what is commonly known as lord chatham's "grand conception of the northern alliance," was, in fact, panin's "grand scheme of uniting the powers of the north." chatham was duped into fathering the muscovite plan. [ ] the compact between the bourbons of france and spain concluded at paris on august, . [ ] this was a subterfuge on the part of frederick ii. the manner in which frederick was forced into the arms of the russian alliance is plainly told by m. koch, the french professor of diplomacy and teacher of talleyrand. "frederick ii.," he says, "having been abandoned by the cabinet of london, could not but attach himself to russia." (see his _history of the revolutions in europe_.) [ ] horace walpole characterises his epoch by the words--"_it was the mode of the times to be paid by one favour for receiving another._" at all events, it will be seen from the text that such was the mode of russia in transacting business with england. the earl of sandwich, to whom sir george macartney could dare to address the above despatch, distinguished himself, ten years later, in , as first lord of the admiralty, in the north administration, by the vehement opposition he made to lord chatham's motion for an equitable _adjustment of the american difficulties_. "he could not believe it (chatham's motion) _the production of a british peer_; it appeared to him rather _the work of some american_." in , we find sandwich again blustering: "he would hazard every drop of blood, as well as the last shilling of the national treasure, rather than allow great britain to be defied, bullied, and dictated to, by her disobedient and rebellious subjects." foremost as the earl of sandwich was in entangling england in war with her north american colonies, with france, spain, and holland, we behold him constantly accused in parliament by fox, burke, pitt, etc., "of keeping the naval force inadequate to the defence of the country; of intentionally opposing small english forces where he knew the enemy to have concentrated large ones; of utter mismanagement of the service in all its departments," etc. (see debates of the house of commons of th march, ; st march, ; february, ; fox's motion of censure on lord sandwich; th april, , address to the king for the dismissal of lord sandwich from his service, on account of misconduct in service; th february, , fox's motion that there had been gross mismanagement in the administration of naval affairs during the year .) on this occasion pitt imputed to lord sandwich "all our naval disasters and disgraces." the ministerial majority against the motion amounted to only in a house of . on the nd february, , a similar motion against lord sandwich was only negatived by a majority of in a house of . such, indeed, was the character of the earl of sandwich's administration that more than thirty distinguished officers quitted the naval service, or declared they could not act under the existing system. in point of fact, during his whole tenure of office, serious apprehensions were entertained of the consequences of the dissensions then prevalent in the navy. besides, the earl of sandwich was openly accused, and, as far as circumstantial evidence goes, convicted of peculation. (see debates of the house of lords, st march, ; th april, , and _seq._) when the motion for his removal from office was negatived on april th , thirty-nine peers entered their protest. [ ] sir james harris affects to believe that catherine ii. was not the author of, but a convert to, the armed neutrality of . it is one of the grand stratagems of the court of st. petersburg to give to its own schemes the form of proposals suggested to and pressed on itself by foreign courts. russian diplomacy delights in those _quæ pro quo_. thus the court of florida bianca was made the responsible editor of the armed neutrality, and, from a report that vain-glorious spaniard addressed to carlos iii., one may see how immensely he felt flattered at the idea of having not only hatched the armed neutrality but allured russia into abetting it. [ ] this same sir james harris, perhaps more familiar to the reader under the name of the earl of malmesbury, is extolled by english historians as the man who prevented england from surrendering the right of search in the peace negotiations of - . [ ] it might be inferred from this passage and similar ones occurring in the text, that catherine ii. had caught a real tartar in lord north, whose administration sir james harris is pointing at. any such delusion will disappear before the simple statement that the first partition of poland took place under lord north's administration, without any protest on his part. in catherine's war against turkey still continuing, and her conflicts with sweden growing serious, france made preparations to send a powerful fleet into the baltic. d'aiguillon, the french minister of foreign affairs, communicated this plan to lord stormont, the then english ambassador at paris. in a long conversation, d'aiguillon dwelt largely on the ambitious designs of russia, and the common interest that ought to blend france and england into a joint resistance against them. in answer to this confidential communication, he was informed by the english ambassador that, "if france sent her ships into the baltic, they would instantly be followed by a british fleet; that the presence of two fleets would have no more effect than a neutrality; and however the british court might desire to preserve the harmony now subsisting between england and france, it was impossible to foresee the contingencies that might arise from accidental collision." in consequence of these representations, d'aiguillon countermanded the squadron at brest, but gave new orders for the equipment of an armament at toulon. "on receiving intelligence of these renewed preparations, the british cabinet made instant and vigorous demonstrations of resistance; lord stormont was ordered to declare that every argument used respecting the baltic applied equally to the mediterranean. a memorial also was presented to the french minister, accompanied by a demand that it should be laid before the king and council. this produced the desired effect; the armament was countermanded, the sailors disbanded, and the chances of an extensive warfare avoided." "_lord north_," says the complacent writer from whom we have borrowed the last lines, "_thus effectually served the cause of his ally_ (catherine ii.), _and facilitated the treaty of peace_ (of kutchuk-kainardji) _between russia and the porte_." catherine ii. rewarded lord north's good services, first by withholding the aid she had promised him in case of a war between england and the north american colonies, and in the second place, by conjuring up and leading the armed neutrality against england. lord north dared not _repay, as he was advised by sir james harris_, this treacherous breach of faith by giving up to russia, and to _russia alone_, the maritime rights of great britain. hence the irritation in the nervous system of the czarina; the hysterical fancy she caught all at once of "entertaining a bad opinion" of lord north, of "disliking" him, of feeling a "rooted aversion" against him, of being afflicted with "a total want of confidence," etc. in order to give the shelburne administration a warning example, sir james harris draws up a minute psychological picture of the feelings of the czarina, and the disgrace incurred by the north administration, for having wounded these same feelings. his prescription is very simple: surrender to russia, as our friend, everything for asking which we would consider every other power our enemy. [ ] it is then a fact that the english government, not satisfied with having made russia a baltic power, strove hard to make her a mediterranean power too. the offer of the surrender of minorca appears to have been made to catherine ii. at the end of , or the beginning of , shortly after lord stormont's entrance into the north cabinet--the same lord stormont we have seen thwarting the french attempts at resistance against russia, and whom even sir james harris cannot deny the merit of having written "_instructions perfectly calculated to the meridian of the court of st. petersburg_." while lord north's cabinet, at the suggestion of sir james harris, offered minorca to the _muscovites_, the english commoners and people were still trembling for fear lest the _hanoverians_ (?) should wrest out of their hands "one of the keys of the mediterranean." on the th of october, , the king, in his opening speech, had informed parliament, amongst other things, that he had sir james graham's own words, when asked why they should not have kept up some blockade pending the settlement of the "plan," "_they did not take that responsibility upon themselves._" the responsibility of executing their orders! the despatch we have quoted is the only despatch read, except one of a later date. the despatch, said to be sent on the th of april, in which "the admiral is ordered to use the _largest discretionary power_ in blockading the russian ports in the black sea," is not read, nor any replies from admiral dundas. the admiralty sent _hanoverian_ troops to gibraltar and port mahon (minorca), to replace such british regiments as should be drawn from those garrisons for service in america. an amendment to the address was proposed by lord john cavendish, strongly condemning "the confiding _such important fortresses as gibraltar and port mahon to foreigners_." after very stormy debates, in which the measure of entrusting gibraltar and minorca, "_the keys of the mediterranean_," as they were called, to _foreigners_, was furiously attacked; lord north, acknowledging himself the adviser of the measure, felt obliged to bring in a _bill of indemnity_. however, these foreigners, these hanoverians, were the english king's own subjects. having virtually surrendered minorca to russia in , lord north was, of course, quite justified in treating, on november , , in the house of commons, "with utter scorn the insinuation that _ministers were in the pay of france_." let us remark, _en passant_, that lord north, one of the most base and mischievous ministers england can boast of, perfectly mastered the art of keeping the house in perpetual laughter. so had lord sunderland. so has lord palmerston. [ ] lord north having been supplanted by the rockingham administration, on march , , the celebrated fox forwarded peace proposals to holland through the mediation of the _russian_ minister. now what were the consequences of the _russian mediation_ so much vaunted by this sir james harris, the servile account keeper of the czarina's sentiments, humours, and feelings? while preliminary articles of peace had been convened with france, spain, and the american states, it was found impossible to arrive at any such preliminary agreement with holland. nothing but a simple cessation of hostilities was to be obtained from it. so powerful proved the _russian mediation_, that on the nd september, , just one day before the conclusion of _definitive treaties_ with america, france, and spain, holland condescended to accede to _preliminaries of peace_, and this not in consequence of the _russian mediation_, but through the influence of _france_. [ ] how much was england not prejudiced by the courts of vienna and paris thwarting the plan of the british cabinet of ceding minorca to russia, and by frederick of prussia's resistance against the great chatham's scheme of a northern alliance under muscovite auspices. [ ] the predecessor is fox. sir james harris establishes a complete scale of british administrations, according to the degree in which they enjoyed the favour of his almighty czarina. in spite of lord stormont, the earl of sandwich, lord north, and sir james harris himself; in spite of the partition of poland, the bullying of d'aiguillon, the treaty of kutchuk-kainardji, and the intended cession of minorca--lord north's administration is relegated to the bottom of the heavenly ladder; far above it has climbed the rockingham administration, whose soul was fox, notorious for his subsequent intrigues with catherine; but at the top we behold the shelburne administration, whose chancellor of the exchequer was the celebrated william pitt. as to lord shelburne himself, burke exclaimed in the house of commons, that "if he was not a catalina or borgia in morals, it must not be ascribed to anything but his understanding." [ ] sir james harris forgets deducing the main inference, that the ambassador of england is the agent of russia. [ ] in the th century, english diplomatists' despatches, bearing on their front the sacramental inscription, "private," are despatches to be withheld from the king by the minister to whom they are addressed. that such was the case may be seen from lord mahon's _history of england_. [ ] "to be burnt after my death." such are the words prefixed to the manuscript by the gentleman whom it was addressed to. chapter ii the documents published in the first chapter extend from the reign of the empress ann to the commencement of the reign of the emperor paul, thus encompassing the greater part of the th century. at the end of that century it had become, as stated by the rev. mr. pitt, the openly professed and orthodox dogma of english diplomacy, "_that the ties which bind great britain to the russian empire are formed by nature, and inviolable_." in perusing these documents, there is something that startles us even more than their contents--viz., their form. all these letters are "confidential," "private," "secret," "most secret"; but in spite of secrecy, privacy, and confidence, the english statesmen converse among each other about russia and her rulers in a tone of awful reserve, abject servility, and cynical submission, which would strike us even in the public despatches of russian statesmen. to conceal intrigues against foreign nations secrecy is recurred to by russian diplomatists. the same method is adopted by english diplomatists freely to express their devotion to a foreign court. the secret despatches of russian diplomatists are fumigated with some equivocal perfume. it is one part the _fumée de fausseté_, as the duke of st. simon has it, and the other part that coquettish display of one's own superiority and cunning which stamps upon the reports of the french secret police their indelible character. even the master despatches of pozzo di borgo are tainted with this common blot of the _litérature de mauvais lieu_. in this point the english secret despatches prove much superior. they do not affect superiority but silliness. for instance, can there be anything more silly than mr. rondeau informing horace walpole that he has betrayed to the russian minister the letters addressed by the turkish grand vizier to the king of england, but that he had told "at the same time those gentlemen that as there were several hard reflections on the russian court he should not have communicated them, _if they had not been so anxious to see them_," and then told their excellencies not to tell the porte that they had seen them (those letters)! at first view the infamy of the act is drowned in the silliness of the man. or, take sir george macartney. can there be anything more silly than his happiness that russia seemed "reasonable" enough not to expect that england "should pay the whole expenses" for russia's "choosing to take the lead at stockholm"; or his "flattering himself" that he had "persuaded the russian court" not to be so "unreasonable" as to ask from england, in a time of peace, subsidies for a time of war against turkey (then the ally of england); or his warning the earl of sandwich "not to mention" to the russian ambassador at london the secrets mentioned to himself by the russian chancellor at st. petersburg? or can there be anything more silly than sir james harris confidentially whispering into the ear of lord grantham that catherine ii. was devoid of "judgment, precision of idea, reflection, and _l'esprit de combinaison_"?[ ] on the other hand, take the cool impudence with which sir george macartney informs his minister that because the swedes were extremely jealous of, and mortified at, their dependence on russia, england was directed by the court of st. petersburg to do its work at stockholm, under the british colours of liberty and independence! or sir james harris advising england to surrender to russia minorca and the right of search, and the monopoly of mediation in the affairs of the world--not in order to gain any material advantage, or even a formal engagement on the part of russia, but only "a strong glow of friendship" from the empress, and the transfer to france of her "ill humour." the secret russian despatches proceed on the very plain line that russia knows herself to have no common interests whatever with other nations, but that every nation must be persuaded separately to have common interests with russia to the exclusion of every other nation. the english despatches, on the contrary, never dare so much as hint that russia has common interests with england, but only endeavour to convince england that she has russian interests. the english diplomatists themselves tell us that this was the single argument they pleaded, when placed face to face with russian potentates. if the english despatches we have laid before the public were addressed to private friends, they would only brand with infamy the ambassadors who wrote them. secretly addressed as they are to the british government itself, they nail it for ever to the pillory of history; and, instinctively, this seems to have been felt, even by whig writers, because none has dared to publish them. the question naturally arises from which epoch this russian character of english diplomacy, become traditionary in the course of the th century, does date its origin. to clear up this point we must go back to the time of peter the great, which, consequently, will form the principal subject of our researches. we propose to enter upon this task by reprinting some english pamphlets, written at the time of peter i., and which have either escaped the attention of modern historians, or appeared to them to merit none. however, they will suffice for refuting the prejudice common to continental and english writers, that the designs of russia were not understood or suspected in england until at a later, and too late, epoch; that the diplomatic relations between england and russia were but the natural offspring of the mutual material interests of the two countries; and that, therefore, in accusing the british statesmen of the th century of russianism we should commit an unpardonable hysteron-proteron. if we have shown by the english despatches that, at the time of the empress ann, england already betrayed her own allies to russia, it will be seen from the pamphlets we are now about to reprint that, even before the epoch of ann, at the very epoch of russian ascendency in europe, springing up at the time of peter i., the plans of russia were understood, and the connivance of british statesmen at these plans was denounced by english writers. the first pamphlet we lay before the public is called _the northern crisis_. it was printed in london in , and relates to the intended dano-anglo-russian _invasion of skana_ (schonen). during the year a northern alliance for the partition, not of sweden proper, but of what we may call the swedish empire, had been concluded between russia, denmark, poland, prussia, and hanover. that partition forms the first grand act of modern diplomacy--the logical premiss to the partition of poland. the partition treaties relating to spain have engrossed the interest of posterity because they were the forerunners of the war of succession, and the partition of poland drew even a larger audience because its last act was played upon a contemporary stage. however, it cannot be denied that it was the partition of the swedish empire which inaugurated the modern era of international policy. the partition treaty not even pretended to have a pretext, save the misfortune of its intended victim. for the first time in europe the violation of all treaties was not only made, but proclaimed the common basis of a new treaty. poland herself, in the drag of russia, and personated by that commonplace of immorality, augustus ii., elector of saxony and king of poland, was pushed into the foreground of the conspiracy, thus signing her own death-warrant, and not even enjoying the privilege reserved by polyphemus to odysseus--to be last eaten. charles xii. predicted her fate in the manifesto flung against king augustus and the czar, from his voluntary exile at bender. the manifesto is dated january , . the participation in this partition treaty threw england within the orbit of russia, towards whom, since the days of the "glorious revolution," she had more and more gravitated. george i., as king of england, was bound to a defensive alliance with sweden by the treaty of . not only as king of england, but as elector of hanover, he was one of the guarantees, and even of the direct parties to the treaty of travendal, which secured to sweden what the partition treaty intended stripping her of. even his german electoral dignity he partly owed to that treaty. however, as elector of hanover he declared war against sweden, which he waged as king of england. in the confederates had divested sweden of her german provinces, and to effect that end introduced the muscovite on the german soil. in they agreed to invade sweden proper--to attempt an armed descent upon schonen--the southern extremity of sweden now constituting the districts of malmoe and christianstadt. consequently peter of russia brought with him from germany a muscovite army, which was scattered over zealand, thence to be conveyed to schonen, under the protection of the english and dutch fleets sent into the baltic, on the false pretext of protecting trade and navigation. already in , when charles xii. was besieged in stralsund, eight english men-of-war, lent by england to hanover, and by hanover to denmark, had openly reinforced the danish navy, and even hoisted the danish flag. in the british navy was commanded by his czarish majesty in person. everything being ready for the invasion of schonen, there arose a difficulty from a side where it was least expected. although the treaty stipulated only for , muscovites, peter, in his magnanimity, had landed , on zealand; but now that he was to send them on the errand to schonen, he all at once discovered that out of the , he could spare but , . this declaration not only paralysed the military plan of the confederates, it seemed to threaten the security of denmark and of frederick iv., its king, as great part of the muscovite army, supported by the russian fleet, occupied copenhagen. one of the generals of frederick proposed suddenly to fall with the danish cavalry upon the muscovites and to exterminate them, while the english men-of-war should burn the russian fleet. averse to any perfidy which required some greatness of will, some force of character, and some contempt of personal danger, frederick iv. rejected the bold proposal, and limited himself to assuming an attitude of defence. he then wrote a begging letter to the czar, intimating that he had given up his schonen fancy, and requested the czar to do the same and find his way home: a request the latter could not but comply with. when peter at last left denmark with his army, the danish court thought fit to communicate to the courts of europe a public account of the incidents and transactions which had frustrated the intended descent upon schonen--and this document forms the starting point of _the northern crisis_. in a letter addressed to baron görtz, dated from london, january , , by count gyllenborg, there occur some passages in which the latter, the then swedish ambassador at the court of st. james's, seems to profess himself the author of _the northern crisis_, the title of which he does not, however, quote. yet any idea of his having written that powerful pamphlet will disappear before the slightest perusal of the count's authenticated writings, such as his letters to görtz. "the northern crisis; or impartial reflections on the policies of the czar; occasioned by mynheer von stocken's reasons for delaying the descent upon schonen. a true copy of which is prefixed, verbally translated after the tenor of that in the german secretary's office in copenhagen, october , . london, . .--_preface_---- ... 'tis (the present pamphlet) not fit for lawyers' clerks, but it is highly convenient to be read by those who are proper students in the laws of nations; 'twill be but lost time for any stock-jobbing, trifling dealer in exchange-alley to look beyond the preface on't, but every merchant in england (more especially those who trade to the baltic) will find his account in it. the dutch (as the courants and postboys have more than once told us) are about to mend their hands, if they can, in several articles of trade with the czar, and they have been a long time about it to little purpose. inasmuch as they are such a frugal people, they are good examples for the imitation of our traders; but if we can outdo them for once, in the means of projecting a better and more expeditious footing to go upon, for the emolument of us both, let us, for once, be wise enough to set the example, and let them, for once, be our imitators. this little treatise will show a pretty plain way how we may do it, as to our trade in the baltic, at this juncture. i desire no little _coffee-house politician_ to meddle with it; but to give him even a disrelish for my company. i must let him know that he is not fit for mine. those who are even proficients in state science, will find in it matter highly fit to employ all their powers of speculation, which they ever before past negligently by, and thought (too cursorily) were not worth the regarding. no outrageous party-man will find it at all for his purpose; but every _honest whig_ and every _honest tory_ may each of them read it, not only without either of their disgusts, but with the satisfaction of them both.... 'tis not fit, in fine, for a mad, hectoring, presbyterian whig, or a raving, fretful, dissatisfied, jacobite tory." .--the reasons handed about by mynheer von stocken for delaying the descent upon schonen. "there being no doubt, but most courts will be surprised that the descent upon schonen has not been put into execution, notwithstanding the great preparations made for that purpose; and that all his czarish majesty's troops, who were in germany, were transported to zealand, not without great trouble and danger, partly by his own gallies, and partly by his danish majesty's and other vessels; and that the said descent is deferred till another time. his danish majesty hath therefore, in order to clear himself of all imputation and reproach, thought fit to order, that the following true account of this affair should be given to all impartial persons. since the swedes were entirely driven out of their _german_ dominions, there was, according to all the rules of policy, and reasons of war, no other way left, than vigorously to attack the still obstinate king of sweden, in the very heart of his country; thereby, with god's assistance, to force him to a lasting, good and advantageous peace for the allies. the king of denmark and his czarish majesty were both of this opinion, and did, in order to put so good a design in execution, agree upon an interview, which at last (notwithstanding his danish majesty's presence, upon the account of norway's being invaded, was most necessary in his own capital, and that the muscovite ambassador, m. dolgorouky, had given quite other assurances) was held at ham and horn, near hamburgh, after his danish majesty had stayed there six weeks for the czar. in this conference it was, on the rd of june, agreed between both their majesties, after several debates, that the descent upon schonen should positively be undertaken this year, and everything relating to the forwarding the same was entirely consented to. hereupon his danish majesty made all haste for his return to his dominions, and gave orders to work day and night to get his fleet ready to put to sea. the transport ships were also gathered from all parts of his dominions, both with inexpressible charges and great prejudice to his subjects' trade. thus, his majesty (as the czar himself upon his arrival at copenhagen owned) did his utmost to provide all necessaries, and to forward the descent, upon whose success everything depended. it happened, however, in the meanwhile, and before the descent was agreed upon in the conference at ham and horn, that his danish majesty was obliged to secure his invaded and much oppressed kingdom of norway, by sending thither a considerable squadron out of his fleet, under the command of vice-admiral gabel, which squadron could not be recalled before the enemy had left that kingdom, without endangering a great part thereof; so that out of necessity the said vice-admiral was forced to tarry there till the th of july, when his danish majesty sent him express orders to return with all possible speed, wind and weather permitting; but this blowing for some time contrary, he was detained.... the swedes were all the while powerful at sea, and his czarish majesty himself did not think it advisable that the remainder of the danish, in conjunction with the men-of-war then at copenhagen, should go to convoy the russian troops from rostock, before the above-mentioned squadron under vice-admiral gabel was arrived. this happening at last in the month of august, the confederate fleet put to sea; and the transporting of the said troops hither to zealand was put in execution, though with a great deal of trouble and danger, but it took up so much time that the descent could not be ready till september following. now, when all these preparations, as well for the descent as the embarking the armies, were entirely ready, his danish majesty assured himself that the descent should be made within a few days, at farthest by the st of september. the russian generals and ministers first raised some difficulties to those of denmark, and afterwards, on the th september, declared in an appointed conference, that his czarish majesty, considering the present situation of affairs, was of opinion that neither forage nor provision could be had in schonen, and that consequently the descent was not advisable to be attempted this year, but ought to be put off till next spring. it may easily be imagined how much his danish majesty was surprised at this; especially seeing the czar, if he had altered his opinion, as to this design so solemnly concerted, might have declared it sooner, and thereby saved his danish majesty several tons of gold, spent upon the necessary preparations. his danish majesty did, however, in a letter dated the th of september, amply represent to the czar, that although the season was very much advanced, the descent might, nevertheless, easily be undertaken with such a superior force, as to get a footing in schonen, where being assured there had been a very plentiful harvest, he did not doubt but subsistence might be found; besides, that having an open communication with his own countries, it might easily be transported from thence. his danish majesty alleged also several weighty reasons why the descent was either to be made this year, or the thoughts of making it next spring entirely be laid aside. _nor did he alone make these moving remonstrances to the czar_; but his british majesty's minister residing here, as well as admiral norris, _seconded the same also in a very pressing manner_; and by express order of the king, their master, _endeavoured to bring the czar into their opinion, and to persuade him to go on with the descent_; but his czarish majesty declared by his answer, that he would adhere to the resolution that he had once taken concerning this delay of making the descent; but if his danish majesty was resolved to venture on the descent, that he then, according to the treaty made near straelsund, would assist him only with the battalions and , horse therein stipulated; that next spring he would comply with everything else, and neither could or would declare himself farther in this affair. since then, his danish majesty could not, without running so great a hazard, undertake so great a work alone with his own army and the said battalions; he desired, in another letter of the rd september, his czarish majesty would be pleased to add battalions of his troops, in which case his danish majesty would still this year attempt the descent; but even this could not be obtained from his czarish majesty, who absolutely refused it by his ambassador on the th ditto: whereupon his danish majesty, in his letter of the th, declared to the czar, that since things stood thus, he desired none of his troops, but that they might be all speedily transported out of his dominions; that so the transport, whose freight stood him in , rix dollars per month, might be discharged, and his subjects eased of the intolerable contributions they now underwent. this he could not do less than agree to; and accordingly, all the russian troops are already embarked, and intend for certain to go from here with the first favourable wind. it must be left to providence and time, to discover what may have induced the czar to a resolution so prejudicial to the northern alliance, and most advantageous to the common enemy. if we would take a true survey of men, and lay them open in a proper light to the eye of our intellects, _we must_ first _consider their natures_ and then _their ends_; and by this method of examination, though their conduct is, seemingly, full of intricate mazes and perplexities, and winding round with infinite meanders of state-craft, we shall be able to dive into the deepest recesses, make our way through the most puzzling labyrinths, and at length come to the most abstruse means of bringing about the master secrets of their minds, and to unriddle their utmost mysteries.... the czar ... is, by nature, of a great and enterprising spirit, and of a genius thoroughly politic; and as for his ends, the manner of his own government, where he sways arbitrary lord over the estates and honours of his people, must make him, if all the policies in the world could by far-distant aims promise him accession and accumulation of empire and wealth, be everlastingly laying schemes for the achieving of both with the extremest cupidity and ambition. whatever ends an insatiate desire of opulency, and a boundless thirst for dominion, can ever put him upon, to satisfy their craving and voracious appetites, those must, most undoubtedly, be his. the next questions we are to put to ourselves are these three: . by what means can he gain these ends? . how far from him, and in what place, can these ends be best obtained? . and by what time, using all proper methods and succeeding in them, may he obtain these ends? the possessions of the czar were prodigious, vast in extent; the people all at his nod, all his downright arrant slaves, and all the wealth of the country his own at a word's command. but then the country, though large in ground, was not quite so in produce. every vassal had his gun, and was to be a soldier upon call; but there was never a soldier among them, nor a man that understood the calling; and though he had all their wealth, they had no commerce of consequence, and little ready money; and consequently his treasury, when he had amassed all he could, very bare and empty. he was then but in an indifferent condition to satisfy those two natural appetites, when he had neither wealth to support a soldiery, nor a soldiery trained in the art of war. the first token this prince gave of an aspiring genius, and of an ambition that is noble and necessary in a monarch who has a mind to flourish, was to believe none of his subjects more wise than himself, or more fit to govern. he did so, and looked upon his own proper person as the most fit to travel out among the other realms of the world and study politics for the advancing of his dominions. he then seldom pretended to any warlike dispositions against those who were instructed in the science of arms; his military dealings lay mostly with the turks and tartars, who, as they had numbers as well as he, had them likewise composed, as well as his, of a rude, uncultivated mob, and they appeared in the field like a raw, undisciplined militia. in this his christian neighbours liked him well, insomuch as he was a kind of stay or stopgap to the infidels. but when he came to look into the more polished parts of the christian world, he set out towards it, from the very threshold, like a natural-born politician. he was not for learning the game by trying chances and venturing losses in the field so soon; no, he went upon the maxim _that it was, at that time of day, expedient and necessary for him to carry, like samson, his strength in his head, and not in his arms_. he had then, he knew, but very few commodious places for commerce of his own, and those all situated in the _white sea_, too remote, frozen up the most part of the year, and not at all fit for a fleet of men-of-war; but he knew of many more commodious ones of his neighbours in the baltic, and within his reach whenever he could strengthen his hands to lay hold of them. he had a longing eye towards them; but with prudence seemingly turned his head another way, and secretly entertained the pleasant thought that he should come at them all in good time. not to give any jealousy, he endeavours for no help from his neighbours to instruct his men in arms. that was like asking a skilful person, one intended to fight a duel with, to teach him first how to fence. _he went over to great britain_, where he knew that potent kingdom could, as yet, have no jealousies of his growth of power, and in the eye of which his vast extent of nation lay neglected and unconsidered and overlooked, as i am afraid it is to this very day. he was present at all our exercises, looked into all our laws, inspected our military, civil, and ecclesiastical regimen of affairs; yet this was the least he then wanted; this was the slightest part of his errand. but by degrees, when he grew familiar with our people, he visited our docks, pretending not to have any prospect of profit, but only to take a huge delight (the effect of curiosity only) to see our manner of building ships. he kept his court, as one may say, in our shipyard, so industrious was he in affording them his continual czarish presence, and to his immortal glory for art and industry be it spoken, that the great czar, by stooping often to the employ, could handle an axe with the best artificer of them all; and the monarch having a good mathematical head of his own, grew in some time a very expert royal shipwright. a ship or two for his diversion made and sent him, and then two or three more, and after that two or three more, would signify just nothing at all, if they were granted to be sold to him by the _maritime powers_, that could, at will, lord it over the sea. it would be a puny inconsiderable matter, and not worth the regarding. well, but then, over and above this, he had artfully insinuated himself into the goodwill of many of our best workmen, and won their hearts by his good-natured familiarities and condescension among them. to turn this to his service, he offered many very large premiums and advantages to go and settle in his country, which they gladly accepted of. a little after he sends over some private ministers and officers to negotiate for more workmen, for land officers, and likewise for picked and chosen good seamen, who might be advanced and promoted to offices by going there. nay, even to this day, any expert seaman that is upon our traffic to the port of archangel, if he has the least spark of ambition and any ardent desire to be in office, he need but offer himself to the sea-service of the czar, and he is a lieutenant immediately. over and above this, that prince has even found the way to take by force into his service out of our merchant ships as many of their ablest seamen as he pleased, giving the masters the same number of raw muscovites in their place, whom they afterwards were forced in their own defence to make fit for their own use. neither is this all; he had, during the last war, many hundreds of his subjects, both noblemen and common sailors, on board _ours, the french and the dutch fleets_; and he has all along maintained, and still maintains numbers of them in _ours and the dutch yards_. but seeing he looked all along upon all these endeavours towards improving himself and his subjects as superfluous, whilst a seaport was wanting, where he might build a fleet of his own, and from whence he might himself export the products of his country, and import those of others; and finding the king of sweden possessed of the most convenient ones, i mean narva and revel, which he knew that prince never could nor would amicably part with, he at last resolved to wrest them out of his hands by force. his _swedish_ majesty's tender youth seemed the fittest time for this enterprise, but even then he would not run the hazard alone. he drew in other princes to divide the spoil with him. and the _kings of denmark and poland_ were weak enough to serve as instruments to forward the great and ambitious views of the czar. it is true, he met with a mighty hard rub at his very first setting out; his whole army being entirely defeated by a handful of swedes at narva. but it was his good luck that his swedish majesty, instead of improving so great a victory against him, turned immediately his arms against the king of poland, against whom he was personally piqued, and that so much the more, inasmuch as he had taken that prince for one of his best friends, and was just upon the point of concluding with him the strictest alliance when he unexpectedly invaded the swedish livonia, and besieged riga. this was, in all respects, what the czar could most have wished for; and foreseeing that the longer the war in poland lasted, the more time should he have both to retrieve his first loss, and to gain narva, he took care it should be spun out to as great a length as possible; for which end he never sent the king of poland succour enough to make him too strong for the king of sweden; who, on the other hand, though he gained one signal victory after the other, yet never could subdue his enemy as long as he received continual reinforcements from his hereditary country. and had not his swedish majesty, contrary to most people's expectations, marched directly into saxony itself, and thereby forced the king of poland to peace, the czar would have had leisure enough in all conscience to bring his designs to greater maturity. this peace was one of the greatest disappointments the czar ever met with, whereby he became singly engaged in the war. he had, however, the comfort of having beforehand taken _narva_, and laid a foundation to his favourite town _petersburg_, and to the seaport, the docks, and the vast magazines there; all which works, to what perfection they are now brought, let them tell who, with surprise, have seen them. he (peter) used all endeavours to bring matters to an accommodation. he proffered very advantageous conditions; _petersburg_ only, a trifle as he pretended, which he had set his heart upon, he would retain; and even for that he was willing some other way to give satisfaction. but the king of sweden was too well acquainted with the importance of that place to leave it in the hands of an ambitious prince, and thereby to give him an inlet into the baltic. this was the only time since the defeat at narva that the czar's arms had no other end than that of self-defence. they might, perhaps, even have fallen short therein, had not the king of sweden (through whose persuasion is still a mystery), instead of marching the shortest way to novgorod and to moscow, turned towards ukrain, where his army, after great losses and sufferings, was at last entirely defeated at pultowa. as this was a fatal period to the swedish successes, so how great a deliverance it was to the muscovites, may be gathered from the czar's celebrating every year, with great solemnity, the anniversary of that day, from which his ambitious thoughts began to soar still higher. the whole of _livonia_, _estland_, and the best and greatest part of _finland_ was now what he demanded, after which, though he might for the present condescend to give peace to the remaining part of sweden, he knew he could easily even add that to his conquests whenever he pleased. the only obstacle he had to fear in these his projects was from his northern neighbours; but as the _maritime powers_, and even the neighbouring princes in germany, were then so intent upon their war against france, that they seemed entirely neglectful of that of the north, so there remained only denmark and poland to be jealous of. the former of these kingdoms had, ever since king william, of glorious memory, compelled it to make peace with holstein and, consequently, with sweden, enjoyed an uninterrupted tranquillity, during which it had time, by a free trade and considerable subsidies from the maritime powers to enrich itself, and was in a condition, by joining itself to sweden, as it was its interest to do, to stop the czar's progresses, and timely to prevent its own danger from them. the other, i mean poland, was now quietly under the government of king stanislaus, who, owing in a manner his crown to the king of sweden, could not, out of gratitude, as well as real concern for the interest of his country, fail opposing the designs of a too aspiring neighbour. the czar was too cunning not to find out a remedy for all this: he represented to the king of denmark how low the king of sweden was now brought, and how fair an opportunity he had, during that prince's long absence, to clip entirely his wings, and to aggrandize himself at his expense. in king augustus he raised the long-hid resentment for the loss of the polish crown, which he told him he might now recover without the least difficulty. thus both these princes were immediately caught. the danes declared war against sweden without so much as a tolerable pretence, and made a descent upon schonen, where they were soundly beaten for their pains. king augustus re-entered poland, where everything has ever since continued in the greatest disorder, and _that in a great measure owing to muscovite intrigues_. it happened, indeed, that these new confederates, whom the czar had only drawn in to serve his ambition, became at first more necessary to his preservation than he had thought; for the turks having declared a war against him, they hindered the swedish arms from joining with them to attack him; but that storm being soon over, through the czar's wise behaviour and the avarice and folly of the grand vizier, he then made the intended use both of these his friends, as well as of them he afterwards, through hopes of gain, persuaded into his alliance, which was to lay all the burthen and hazard of the war upon them, in order entirely to weaken them, together with sweden, whilst _he was preparing himself to swallow the one after the other_. he has put them on one difficult attempt after the other; their armies have been considerably lessened by battles and long sieges, whilst his own were either employed in easier conquests, and more profitable to him, or kept at the vast expense of neutral princes--near enough at hand to come up to demand a share of the booty without having struck a blow in getting it. his behaviour has been as cunning at sea, where his fleet has always kept out of harm's way and at a great distance whenever there was any likelihood of an engagement between the danes and the swedes. he hoped that when these two nations had ruined one another's fleets, his might then ride master in the baltic. all this while he had taken care to make his men improve, by the example of foreigners and under their command, in the art of war.... his fleets will soon considerably outnumber the swedish and the danish ones joined together. he need not fear their being a hindrance from his giving a finishing stroke to this great and glorious undertaking. which done, _let us look to ourselves; he will then most certainly become our rival, and as dangerous to us as he is now neglected_. we then may, perhaps, though too late, call to mind what our own ministers and merchants have told us of his designs of carrying on alone all the northern trade, and of getting all that from turkey and persia into his hands through the rivers which he is joining and making navigable from the caspian, or the black sea, to his petersburg. _we shall then wonder at our blindness that we did not suspect his designs_ when we heard the prodigious works he has done at petersburg and revel; of which last place, the _daily courant_, dated november , says: "hague, _nov. _. "the captains of the men-of-war of the states, who have been at revel, advise that the czar has put that port and the fortifications of the place into such a condition of defence that it may pass for one of the most considerable fortresses, not only of the baltic, but even of europe." leave we him now, as to his sea affairs, commerce and manufactures, and other works both of his policy and power, and let us view him in regard to his proceedings in this last campaign, especially as to that so much talked of descent, he, in conjunction with his allies, was to make upon schonen, and we shall find that even therein he has acted with his usual cunning. there is no doubt but the king of denmark was the first that proposed this descent. he found that nothing but a speedy end to a war he had so rashly and unjustly begun, could save his country from ruin and from the bold attempts of the king of sweden, either against norway, or against zealand and copenhagen. to treat separately with that prince was a thing he could not do, as foreseeing that he would not part with an inch of ground to so unfair an enemy; and he was afraid that a congress for a general place, supposing the king of sweden would consent to it upon the terms proposed by his enemies, would draw the negotiations out beyond what the situation of his affairs could bear. he invites, therefore, all his confederates to make a home thrust at the king of sweden, by a descent into his country, where, having defeated him, as by the superiority of the forces to be employed in that design he hoped they should, they might force him to an immediate peace on such terms as they themselves pleased. i don't know how far the rest of his confederates came into that project; but neither the _prussian_ nor the _hanoverian_ court appeared _openly_ in that project, _and how far our english fleet, under sir john norris, was to have forwarded it, i have nothing to say, but leave others to judge out of the king of denmark's own declaration_: but the czar came readily into it. he got thereby a new pretence to carry the war one campaign more at other people's expense; to march his troops into the empire again, and to have them quartered and maintained, first in mecklenburg and then in zealand. in the meantime he had his eyes upon _wismar_, and upon a swedish island called _gotland_. if, by surprise, he could get the first out of the hands of his confederates, he then had a good seaport, whither to transport his troops when he pleased into _germany_, without asking the king of _prussia's_ leave for a free passage through his territories; and if, by a sudden descent, he could dislodge the _swedes_ out of the other, he then became master of the best port in the baltic. he miscarried, however, in both these projects; for wismar was too well guarded to be surprised; and he found his confederates would not give him a helping hand towards conquering gotland. after this he began to look with another eye upon the descent to be made upon schonen. he found it equally contrary to his interest, whether it succeeded or not. for if he did, and the king was thereby forced to a general peace, he knew his interests therein would be least regarded; having already notice enough of his confederates being ready to sacrifice them, provided they got their own terms. if he did not succeed, then, besides the loss of the flower of an army he had trained and disciplined with so much care, as he very well foresaw that the english fleet would hinder the king of sweden from attempting anything against denmark; so he justly feared the whole shock would fall upon him, and he be thereby forced to surrender all he had taken from sweden. these considerations made him entirely resolved not to make one of the descent; but he did not care to declare it till as late as possible: first, that he might the longer have his troops maintained at the danish expense; secondly, that it might be too late for the king of denmark to demand the necessary troops from his other confederates, and to make the descent without him; and, lastly, that by putting the dane to a vast expense in making necessary preparations, he might still weaken him more, and, therefore, make him now the more dependent on him, and hereafter a more easy prey. thus he very carefully dissembles his real thoughts, till just when the descent was to be made, and then he, all of a sudden, refuses joining it, and defers it till next spring, with this averment, _that he will then be as good as his word_. but mark him, as some of our newspapers tell us, under this restriction, _unless he can get an advantageous peace of sweden_. this passage, together with the common report we now have of his treating a separate peace with the king of sweden, is a new instance of his cunning and policy. he has there two strings to his bow, of which one must serve his turn. there is no doubt but the czar knows that an accommodation between him and the king of sweden must be very difficult to bring about. for as he, on the one side, should never consent to part with those seaports, for the getting of which he began this war, and which are absolutely necessary towards carrying on his great and vast designs; so the king of sweden would look upon it as directly contrary to his interest to yield up these same seaports, if possibly he could hinder it. but then again, the czar is so well acquainted with the great and heroic spirit of his swedish majesty, that he does not question his yielding, rather in point of interest than nicety of honour. from hence it is, he rightly judges, that his swedish majesty must be less exasperated against him who, though he began an unjust war, has very often paid dearly for it, and carried it on all along through various successes than against some confederates; that taking an opportunity of his swedish majesty's misfortunes, fell upon him in an ungenerous manner, and made a partition treaty of his provinces. the czar, still more to accommodate himself to the genius of his great enemy, unlike his confederates, who, upon all occasions, spared no reflections and even very unbecoming ones (bullying memorials and hectoring manifestoes), spoke all along with the utmost civility of his brother charles as he calls him, maintains him to be the greatest general in europe, and even publicly avers, he will more trust a word from him than the greatest assurances, oaths, nay, even treaties with his confederates. these kind of civilities may, perhaps, make a deeper impression upon the noble mind of the king of sweden, and he be persuaded rather to sacrifice a real interest to a generous enemy, than to gratify, in things of less moment, those by whom he has been ill, and even inhumanly used. but if this should not succeed, the czar is still a gainer by having made his confederates uneasy at these his separate negotiations; and as we find by the newspapers, the more solicitous to keep him ready to their confederacy, which must cost them very large proffers and promises. in the meantime he leaves the dane and the swede securely bound up together in war, and weakening one another as fast as they can, and he turns towards the empire and views the protestant princes there; and, under many specious pretences, not only marches and counter-marches about their several territories his troops that came back from denmark, but makes also slowly advance towards germany those whom he has kept this great while in poland, under pretence to help the king against his dissatisfied subjects, whose commotions all the while he was the greatest fomenter of. he considers the emperor is in war with the turks, and therefore has found, by too successful experience, how little his imperial majesty is able to show his authority in protecting the members of the empire. his troops remain in mecklenburg, notwithstanding their departure is highly insisted upon. his replies to all the demands on that subject are filled with such reasons as if he would give new laws to the empire. now let us suppose that the king of sweden should think it more honourable to make a peace with the czar, and to carry the force of his resentment against his less generous enemies, what a stand will then the princes of the empire, even those that unadvisedly drew in , muscovites, to secure the tranquillity of that empire against , or , swedes,--i say what stand will they be able to make against him while the emperor is already engaged in war with the turks? and the poles, when they are once in peace among themselves (if after the miseries of so long a war they are in a condition to undertake anything) are by treaty obliged to join their aids against that common enemy of christianity. some will say i make great and sudden rises from very small beginnings. my answer is, that i would have such an objector look back and reflect why i show him, from such a speck of entity, at his first origin, growing, through more improbable and almost insuperable difficulties, to such a bulk as he has already attained to, and _whereby, as his advocates, the dutch themselves own, he is grown too formidable for the repose, not only of his neighbours, but of europe in general_. but then, again, they will say he has no pretence either to make a peace with the swede separately from the dane or to make war upon other princes, some of whom he is bound in alliance with. whoever thinks these objections not answered must have considered the czar neither as to his nature or to his ends. the dutch own further, _that he made war against sweden without any specious pretence_. he that made war without any specious pretence may make a peace without any specious pretence, and make a new war without any specious pretence for it too. his imperial majesty (of austria), like a wise prince, when he was obliged to make war with the ottomans, made it, as in policy, he should, powerfully. but, in the meantime, may not the czar, who is a wise and potent prince too, follow the example upon the neighbouring princes round him that are protestants? if he should, i tremble to speak it, it is not impossible, but in this age of christianity _the protestant religion should, in a great measure, be abolished_; and that among the christians, the _greeks_ and _romans_ may once more come to be the only pretenders for universal empire. the pure possibility carries with it warning enough for the maritime powers, and all the other protestant princes, to mediate a peace for sweden, and strengthen his arms again, without which no preparations can put them sufficiently upon their guard; and this must be done early and betimes, _before the king of sweden, either out of despair or revenge, throws himself into the czar's hands_. for 'tis a certain maxim (which all princes ought, and the czar seems at this time to observe too much for the repose of christendom) that a wise man must not stand for ceremony, and only _turn_ with opportunities. no, he must even _run_ with them. for the czar's part, i will venture to say so much in his commendation, that he will hardly suffer himself to be overtaken that way. he seems to act just as the tide serves. there is nothing which contributes more to the making our undertakings prosperous than the taking of times and opportunities; for time carrieth with it the seasons of opportunities of business. if you let them slip, all your designs are rendered unsuccessful. in short, things seem now come to that _crisis_ that peace should as soon as possible be procured to the swede, with such advantageous articles as are consistent with the nicety of his honour to accept, and with the safety of the protestant interest, that he should have offered to him, which can be scarce less than all the possessions which he formerly had in the empire. as in all other things, so in politics, a long-tried certainty must be preferred before an uncertainty, tho' grounded on ever so probable suppositions. now can there be anything more certain, than that the provinces sweden has had in the empire, were given to it to make it the nearer at hand and the better able to secure the protestant interest, which, together with the liberties of the empire it just then had saved? can there be anything more certain than that that kingdom has, by those means, upon all occasions, secured that said interest now near fourscore years? can there be anything more certain than, as to his present swedish majesty, that i may use the words of a letter her late majesty, queen anne, wrote to him (charles xii.), and _in the time of a whig ministry too_, viz.: "that, as a true prince, hero and christian, the chief end of his endeavours has been the promotion of the fear of god among men: and that without insisting on his own particular interest." on the other hand, is it not very uncertain whether those princes, who, by sharing among them the swedish provinces in the empire, are now going to set up as protectors of the protestant interests there, exclusive of the swedes, will be able to do it? _denmark_ is already so low, and will in all appearance be so much lower still before the end of the war, that very little assistance can be expected from it in a great many years. in _saxony_, the prospect is but too dismal under a popish prince, so that there remain only the two illustrious houses of hanover and brandenburg of all the protestant princes, powerful enough to lead the rest. let us therefore only make a parallel between what now happens in the duchy of mecklenburg, and what may happen to the protestant interest, and we shall soon find how we may be mistaken in our reckoning. that said poor duchy has been most miserably ruined by the muscovite troops, and it is still so; the electors of brandenburg and hanover are obliged, both as directors of the circle of lower saxony, as neighbours, and protestant princes, to rescue a fellow state of the empire, and a protestant country, from so cruel an oppression of a foreign power. but, pray, what have they done? the elector of brandenburg, cautious lest the muscovites might on one side invade his electorate, and on the other side from livonia and poland, his kingdom of prussia; and the elector of hanover having the same wise caution as to his hereditary countries, have not upon this, though very pressing occasion, thought it for their interest, to use any other means than representations. but pray with what success? the muscovites are still in mecklenburg, and if at last they march out of it, it will be when the country is so ruined that they cannot there subsist any longer. it seems the king of sweden should be restored to all that he has lost on the side of the czar; and this appears the _joint interest of both the maritime powers_. this may they please to undertake: _holland_, because it is a maxim there "that the czar grows too great, and must not be suffered to settle in the baltic, and that sweden must not be abandoned"; _great britain_, because, if the czar compasses his vast and prodigious views, he will, by the ruin and conquest of sweden, become our nearer and more dreadful neighbour. besides, we are bound to it by a treaty concluded in the year , between king william and the present king of sweden, by virtue of which king william assisted the king of sweden, when in more powerful circumstances, with all that he desired, with great sums of money, several hundred pieces of cloth, and considerable quantities of gunpowder. but _some politicians (whom nothing can make jealous of the growing strength and abilities of the czar) though they are even foxes and vulpones in the art, either will not see_ or _pretend they cannot see_ how the czar can ever be able to make so great a progress in power as to hurt us here in our island. to them it is easy to repeat the same answer a hundred times over, if they would be so kind as to take it at last, viz., _that what has been may be again_; and that they did not see how he could reach the height of power, which he has already arrived at, after, i must confess, a very incredible manner. let those _incredulous_ people look narrowly into the _nature_ and the _ends_ and the _designs_ of this great monarch; they will find that they are laid very deep, and that his plans carry in them a prodigious deal of prudence and foresight, and his ends are at the long run brought about by a kind of magic in policy; and will they not after that own that we ought to fear everything from him? as he desires that the designs with which he labours may not prove abortive, so he does not assign them a certain day of their birth, but leaves them to the natural productions of fit times and occasions, like those curious artists in china, who temper the mould this day of which a vessel may be made a hundred years hence. there is another sort of short-sighted politicians among us, who have more of cunning court intrigue and immediate statecraft in them than of true policy and concern for their country's interest. these gentlemen pin entirely their faith upon other people's sleeves; ask as to everything that is proposed to them, how it is liked at court? what the opinion of their party is concerning it? and if the contrary party is for or against it? hereby they rule their judgment, and it is enough for their cunning leaders to brand anything with _whiggism_ or _jacobitism_, for to make these people, without any further inquiry into the matter, blindly espouse it or oppose it. this, it seems, is at present the case of the subject we are upon. anything said or written in favour of sweden and the king thereof, is immediately said to come from a _jacobite_ pen, and thus reviled and rejected, without being read or considered. nay, i have heard gentlemen go so far as to maintain publicly, and with all the vehemence in the world, that the king of sweden was a roman catholic, and that the czar was a good protestant. this, indeed, is one of the greatest misfortunes our country labours under, and till we begin to see with our own eyes, and inquire ourselves into the truth of things, we shall be led away, god knows whither, at last. the serving of sweden according to our treaties and real interest has nothing to do with our party causes. instead of seeking for and taking hold of any pretence to undo sweden, we ought openly to assist it. could our protestant succession have a better friend or a bolder champion? i shall conclude this by thus shortly recapitulating what i have said. that since the czar has not only replied to the king of denmark entreating the contrary, but also answered our admiral norris, that he would persist in his resolution to delay the descent upon schonen, and is said by other newspapers to resolve not to make it then, if he can have peace with sweden; every prince, and we more particularly, ought to be jealous of his having some such design as i mention in view, and consult how to prevent them, and to clip, in time, his too aspiring wings, which cannot be effectually done, first, without the maritime powers please to begin to keep him in some check and awe, and 'tis to be hoped a certain potent nation, that has helped him forward, can, in some measure, bring him back, and may then speak to this great enterpriser in the language of a countryman in spain, who coming to an image enshrined, the first making whereof he could well remember, and not finding all the respectful usage he expected,--"you need not," quoth he, "be so proud, for we have known you from a plum-tree." the next only way is to restore, by a peace, to the king of sweden what he has lost; that checks his (the czar's) power immediately, and on that side nothing else can. i wish it may not at last be found true, that those who have been fighting against that king have, in the main, been fighting against themselves. if the swede ever has his dominions again, and lowers the high spirit of the czar, still he may say by his neighbours, as an old greek hero did, whom his countrymen constantly sent into exile whenever he had done them a service, but were forced to call him back to their aid, whenever they wanted success. "these people," quoth he, "are always using me like the palm-tree. they will be breaking my branches continually, and yet, if there comes a storm, they run to me, and can't find a better place for shelter." but if he has them not, i shall only exclaim a phrase out of terence's "andria": "hoccine credibile est aut memorabile tanta vecordia innata cuiquam ut siet, ut malis gaudeant?" . postscript.--i flatter myself that this little history is of that curious nature, and on matters hitherto so unobserved, that i consider it, with pride, as a valuable new year's gift to the present world; and that posterity will accept it, as the like, for many years after, and read it over on that anniversary, and call it their _warning piece_. i must have my _exegi-monumentum_ as well as others. footnote: [ ] or, to follow this affectation of silliness into more recent times, is there anything in diplomatic history that could match lord palmerston's proposal made to marshal soult (in ), to storm the dardanelles, in order to afford the sultan the support of the anglo-french fleet against russia? chapter iii to understand a limited historical epoch, we must step beyond its limits, and compare it with other historical epochs. to judge governments and their acts, we must measure them by their own times and the conscience of their contemporaries. nobody will condemn a british statesman of the th century for acting on a belief in witchcraft, if he find bacon himself ranging demonology in the catalogue of science. on the other hand, if the stanhopes, the walpoles, the townshends, etc., were suspected, opposed, and denounced in their own country by their own contemporaries as tools or accomplices of russia, it will no longer do to shelter their policy behind the convenient screen of prejudice and ignorance common to their time. at the head of the historical evidence we have to sift, we place, therefore, long-forgotten english pamphlets printed at the very time of peter i. these preliminary _pièces des procès_ we shall, however, limit to three pamphlets, which, from three different points of view, illustrate the conduct of england towards sweden. the first, the _northern crisis_ (given in chapter ii.), revealing the general system of russia, and the dangers accruing to england from the russification of sweden; the second, called _the defensive treaty_, judging the acts of england by the treaty of ; and the third, entitled _truth is but truth, however it is timed_, proving that the new-fangled schemes which magnified russia into the paramount power of the baltic were in flagrant opposition to the traditionary policy england had pursued during the course of a whole century. the pamphlet called _the defensive treaty_ bears no date of publication. yet in one passage it states that, for reinforcing the danish fleet, eight english men-of-war were left at copenhagen "_the year before the last_," and in another passage alludes to the assembling of the confederate fleet for the schonen expedition as having occurred "_last summer_." as the former event took place in , and the latter towards the end of the summer of , it is evident that the pamphlet was written and published in the earlier part of the year . the defensive treaty between england and sweden, the single articles of which the pamphlet comments upon in the form of queries, was concluded in between william iii. and charles xii., and was not to expire before . yet, during almost the whole of this period, we find england continually assisting russia and waging war against sweden, either by secret intrigue or open force, although the treaty was never rescinded nor war ever declared. this fact is, perhaps, even less strange than the _conspiration de silence_ under which modern historians have succeeded in burying it, and among them historians by no means sparing of censure against the british government of that time, for having, without any previous declaration of war, destroyed the spanish fleet in the sicilian waters. but then, at least, england was not bound to spain by a defensive treaty. how, then, are we to explain this contrary treatment of similar cases? the piracy committed against spain was one of the weapons which the whig ministers, seceding from the cabinet in , caught hold of to harass their remaining colleagues. when the latter stepped forward in , and urged parliament to declare war against spain, sir robert walpole rose from his seat in the commons, and in a most virulent speech denounced the late ministerial acts "as contrary to the laws of nations, and a breach of solemn treaties." "giving sanction to them in the manner proposed," he said, "could have no other view than to screen ministers, who were conscious of having done something amiss, and who, having begun a war against spain, would now make it the parliament's war." the treachery against sweden and the connivance at the plans of russia, never happening to afford the ostensible pretext for a family quarrel amongst the whig rulers (they being rather unanimous on these points), never obtained the honours of historical criticism so lavishly spent upon the spanish incident. how apt modern historians generally are to receive their cue from the official tricksters themselves, is best shown by their reflections on the commercial interests of england with respect to russia and sweden. nothing has been more exaggerated than the dimensions of the trade opened to great britain by the huge market of the russia of peter the great, and his immediate successors. statements bearing not the slightest touch of criticism have been allowed to creep from one book-shelf to another, till they became at last historical household furniture, to be inherited by every successive historian, without even the _beneficium inventarii_. some incontrovertible statistical figures will suffice to blot out these hoary common-places. british commerce from - . £ export to russia , import from russia , --------- total , export to sweden , import from sweden , --------- total , during the same period the total £ export of england amounted to , , import , , --------- total , , in , after all the swedish provinces in the baltic, and on the gulfs of finland and bothnia, had fallen into the hands of peter i., the £ export to russia was , import from russia , -------- total , export to sweden , import from sweden , -------- total , at the same time, the total of english exports and imports together reached about £ , , . it will be seen from these figures, when compared with those of - , that the increase in the russian trade is balanced by the decrease in the swedish trade, and that what was added to the one was subtracted from the other. in , the £ export to russia was , import from russia , -------- total , fifteen years, then, after the consolidation in the meanwhile of the muscovite settlement on the baltic, the british trade with russia had fallen off by £ , . the general trade of england reaching in the sum of £ , , , the russian trade amounted not yet to / rd of its total value. again, thirty years later, in , the account between great britain and russia stands thus: £ import from russia (in ) , export to russia , -------- total £ , while the general trade of england amounted to £ , , . comparing these figures with those of , we find that the total of the russian commerce, after nearly half a century, has increased by the trifling sum of only £ , . that england suffered positive loss by her new commercial relations with russia under peter i. and catherine i. becomes evident on comparing, on the one side, the export and import figures, and on the other, the sums expended on the frequent naval expeditions to the baltic which england undertook during the lifetime of charles xii., in order to break down his resistance to russia, and, after his death, on the professed necessity of checking the maritime encroachments of russia. another glance at the statistical data given for the years , , , , and , will show that the british _export_ trade to russia was continually falling off, save in , when russia engrossed the whole swedish trade on the eastern coast of the baltic and the gulf of bothnia, and had not yet found the opportunity of subjecting it to her own regulations. from £ , , at which the british exports to russia stood during - , when russia was still precluded from the baltic, they had sunk to £ , in , and to £ , in , showing a decrease of £ , , or about / rd of their original amount in . if, then, since, the absorption of the swedish provinces by russia, the british market proved expanding for russia raw produce, the russian market, on its side, proved straitening for british manufacturers, a feature of that trade which could hardly recommend it at a time when the balance of trade doctrine ruled supreme. to trace the circumstances which produced the increase of the anglo-russian trade under catherine ii. would lead us too far from the period we are considering. on the whole, then, we arrive at the following conclusions: during the first sixty years of the eighteenth century the total anglo-russian trade formed but a very diminutive fraction of the general trade of england, say less than / th. its sudden increase during the earliest years of peter's sway over the baltic did not at all affect the general balance of british trade, as it was a simple transfer from its swedish account to its russian account. in the later times of peter i., as well as under his immediate successors, catherine i. and anne, the anglo-russian trade was positively declining; during the whole epoch, dating from the final settlement of russia in the baltic provinces, the export of british manufactures to russia was continually falling off, so that at its end it stood one-third lower than at its beginning, when that trade was still confined to the port of archangel. neither the contemporaries of peter i., nor the next british generation reaped any benefit from the advancement of russia to the baltic. in general the baltic trade of great britain was at that time trifling in regard of the capital involved, but important in regard of its character. it afforded england the raw produce for its maritime stores. that from the latter point of view the baltic was in safer keeping in the hands of sweden than in those of russia, was not only proved by the pamphlets we are reprinting, but fully understood by the british ministers themselves. stanhope writing, for instance, to townshend on october th, : "it is certain that if the czar be let alone three years, he will be absolute master in those seas."[ ] if, then, neither the navigation nor the general commerce of england was interested in the treacherous support given to russia against sweden, there existed, indeed, one small fraction of british merchants whose interests were identical with the russian ones--the russian trade company. it was this gentry that raised a cry against sweden. see, for instance: "several grievances of the english merchants in their trade into the dominions of the king of sweden, whereby it does appear how dangerous it may be for the english nation to depend on sweden only for the supply of the naval stores, when they might be amply furnished with the like stores from the dominions of the emperor of russia." "the case of the merchants trading to russia" (a petition to parliament), etc. it was they who in the years , , and , regularly assembled twice a week before the opening of parliament, to draw up in public meetings the complaints of the british merchantmen against sweden. on this small fraction the ministers relied; they were even busy in getting up its demonstrations, as may be seen from the letters addressed by count gyllenborg to baron görtz, dated th of november and th of december, , wanting, as they did, but the shadow of a pretext to drive their "mercenary parliament," as gyllenborg calls it, where they liked. the influence of these british merchants trading to russia was again exhibited in the year , and our own times have witnessed the working for his interest, of a russian merchant at the head of the board of trade, and of a chancellor of the exchequer in the interest of a cousin engaged in the archangel trade. the oligarchy which, after the "glorious revolution," usurped wealth and power at the cost of the mass of the british people, was, of course, forced to look out for allies, not only abroad, but also at home. the latter they found in what the french would call _la haute bourgeoisie_, as represented by the bank of england, the money-lenders, state creditors, east india and other trading corporations, the great manufacturers, etc. how tenderly they managed the material interests of that class may be learned from the whole of their domestic legislation--bank acts, protectionist enactments, poor regulations, etc. as to their _foreign policy_, they wanted to give it the appearance at least of being altogether regulated by the mercantile interest, an appearance the more easily to be produced, as the exclusive interest of one or the other small fraction of that class would, of course, be always identified with this or that ministerial measure. the interested fraction then raised the commerce and navigation cry, which the nation stupidly re-echoed. at that time, then, there devolved on the cabinet, at least, the _onus_ of inventing _mercantile pretexts_, however futile, for their measures of foreign policy. in our own epoch, british ministers have thrown this burden on foreign nations, leaving to the french, the germans, etc., the irksome task of discovering the _secret_ and _hidden_ mercantile springs of their actions. lord palmerston, for instance, takes a step apparently the most damaging to the material interests of great britain. up starts a state philosopher, on the other side of the atlantic, or of the channel, or in the heart of germany, who puts his head to the rack to dig out the mysteries of the mercantile machiavelism of "perfide albion," of which palmerston is supposed the unscrupulous and unflinching executor. we will, _en passant_, show, by a few modern instances, what desperate shifts those foreigners have been driven to, who feel themselves obliged to interpret palmerston's acts by what they imagine to be the english commercial policy. in his valuable _histoire politique et sociale des principautés danubiennes_, m. elias regnault, startled by the russian conduct, before and during the years - of mr. colquhoun, the british consul at bucharest, suspects that england has some secret material interest in keeping down the trade of the principalities. the late dr. cunibert, private physician of old milosh, in his most interesting account of the russian intrigues in servia, gives a curious relation of the manner in which lord palmerston, through the instrumentality of colonel hodges, betrayed milosh to russia by feigning to support him against her. fully believing in the personal integrity of hodges, and the patriotic zeal of palmerston, dr. cunibert is found to go a step further than m. elias regnault. he suspects england of being interested in putting down turkish commerce generally. general mieroslawski, in his last work on poland, is not very far from intimating that mercantile machiavelism instigated england to sacrifice her own _prestige_ in asia minor, by the surrender of kars. as a last instance may serve the present lucubrations of the paris papers, hunting after the secret springs of commercial jealousy, which induce palmerston to oppose the cutting of the isthmus of suez canal. to return to our subject. the mercantile pretext hit upon by the townshends, stanhopes, etc., for the hostile demonstrations against sweden, was the following. towards the end of , peter i. had ordered all the hemp and other produce of his dominions, destined for export, to be carried to st. petersburg instead of archangel. then the swedish regency, during the absence of charles xii., and charles xii. himself, after his return from bender, declared all the baltic ports, occupied by the russians, to be blockaded. consequently, english ships, breaking through the blockade, were confiscated. the english ministry then asserted that british merchantmen had the right of trading to those ports according to article xvii. of the defensive treaty of , by which english commerce, with the exception of contraband of war, was allowed to go on with ports of the enemy. the absurdity and falsehood of this pretext being fully exposed in the pamphlet we are about to reprint, we will only remark that the case had been more than once decided against commercial nations, not bound, like england, by treaty to defend the integrity of the swedish empire. in the year , when the russians took narva, and laboured hard to establish their commerce there, the hanse towns, chiefly lübeck, tried to possess themselves of this traffic. eric xiv., then king of sweden, resisted their pretensions. the city of lübeck represented this resistance as altogether new, as they had carried on their commerce with the russians time out of mind, and pleaded the common right of nations to navigate in the baltic, provided their vessels carried no contraband of war. the king replied that he did not dispute the hanse towns the liberty of trading with russia, but only with narva, which was no russian port. in the year again, the russians having broken the suspension of arms with sweden, the danes likewise claimed the navigation to narva, by virtue of their treaty, but king john was as firm in maintaining the contrary, as was his brother eric. in her open demonstrations of hostility against the king of sweden, as well as in the false pretence on which they were founded, england seemed only to follow in the track of holland, which declaring the confiscation of its ships to be piracy, had issued two proclamations against sweden in . in one respect, the case of the states-general was the same as that of england. king william had concluded the defensive treaty as well for holland as for england. besides, article xvi., in the treaty of commerce, concluded between holland and sweden in , expressly stipulated that no navigation ought to be allowed to the ports blocked up by either of the confederates. the then common dutch cant that "there was no hindering traders from carrying their merchandise where they will," was the more impudent as, during the war, ending with the peace of ryswick, the dutch republic had declared all france to be blocked up, forbidden the neutral powers all trade with that kingdom, and caused all their ships that went there or came thence to be brought up without any regard to the nature of their cargoes. in another respect, the situation of holland was different from that of england. fallen from its commercial and maritime grandeur, holland had then already entered upon its epoch of decline. like genoa and venice, when new roads of commerce had dispossessed them of their old mercantile supremacy, it was forced to lend out to other nations its capital, grown too large for the vessels of its own commerce. its fatherland had begun to lie there where the best interest for its capital was paid. russia, therefore, proved an immense market, less for the commerce than for the outlay of capital and men. to this moment holland has remained the banker of russia. at the time of peter they supplied russia with ships, officers, arms, and money, so that his fleet, as a contemporary writer remarks, ought to have been called a dutch rather than a muscovite one. they gloried in having sent the first european merchant ship to st. petersburg, and returned the commercial privileges they had obtained from peter, or hoped to obtain from him, by that fawning meanness which characterizes their intercourse with japan. here, then, was quite another solid foundation than in england for the russianism of statesmen, whom peter i. had entrapped during his stay at amsterdam, and the hague in , whom he afterwards directed by his ambassadors, and with whom he renewed his personal influence during his renewed stay at amsterdam in - . yet, if the paramount influence england exercised over holland during the first _decennia_ of the th century be considered, there can remain no doubt that the proclamations against sweden by the states-general would never have been issued, if not with the previous consent and at the instigation of england. the intimate connection between the english and dutch governments served more than once the former to put up precedents in the name of holland, which they were resolved to act upon in the name of england. on the other hand, it is no less certain that the dutch statesmen were employed by the czar to influence the british ones. thus horace walpole, the brother of the "father of corruption," the brother-in-law of the minister, townshend, and the british ambassador at the hague during - , was evidently inveigled into the russian interest by his dutch friends. thus, as we shall see by-and-by, theyls, the secretary to the dutch embassy at constantinople, at the most critical period of the deadly struggle between charles xii. and peter i., managed affairs at the same time for the embassies of england and holland at the sublime porte. this theylls, in a print of his, openly claims it as a merit with his nation to have been the devoted and rewarded agent of russian intrigue. footnote: [ ] in the year , when the courts of denmark and brandenburg intended engaging the muscovites to fall upon sweden, they instructed their minister so to manage the affair that the czar might by no means get any footing in the baltic, because "they did not know what to do with so troublesome a neighbour." (see puffendorf's _history of brandenburg_.) chapter iv "_the defensive treaty concluded in the year , between his late majesty, king william, of ever-glorious memory, and his present swedish majesty, king charles xii. published at the earnest desire of several members of both houses of parliament._ 'nec rumpite foedera pacis, nec regnis præferte fidem.' --silius, _lip._ ii. "_article i._ establishes between the kings of sweden and england 'a sincere and constant friendship for ever, a league and good correspondence, so that they shall never mutually or separately molest one another's kingdoms, provinces, colonies, or subjects, wheresoever situated, _nor shall they suffer or agree that this should be done by others, etc._' "_article ii._ 'moreover, each of the allies, his heirs and successors, shall be obliged to take care of, and promote, as much as in him lies, the profit and honour of the other, to detect and give notice to his other ally (as soon as it shall come to his own knowledge) of all imminent dangers, conspiracies, and hostile designs formed against him, to withstand them as much as possible, and to prevent them both by advice and assistance; and therefore _it shall not be lawful for either of the allies, either by themselves or any other whatsoever, to act, treat, or endeavour anything to the prejudice or loss of the other_, his lands or dominions whatsoever or wheresoever, whether by land or sea; that one shall in no wise favour the other's foes, either rebels or enemies, to the prejudice of his ally,' etc. "_query i._ how the words marked in italics agree with our present conduct, when our fleet acts in conjunction with the enemies of sweden, _the czar commands our fleet, our admiral enters into councils of war, and is not only privy to all their designs, but together with our own minister at copenhagen_ (as the king of denmark has himself owned it in a public declaration), _pushed on the northern confederates to an enterprise entirely destructive to our ally sweden, i mean the descent designed last summer upon schonen_? "_query ii._ in what manner we also must explain that passage in the first article by which it is stipulated that one ally shall not either by themselves or any other whatsoever, act, treat, or endeavour anything to the loss of the other's lands and dominions; to justify in particular our leaving in the year , even when the season was so far advanced as no longer to admit of our usual pretence of conveying and protecting our trade, which was then got already safe home, eight men-of-war in the baltic, with orders to join in one line of battle with the danes, whereby we made them so much superior in number to the swedish fleet, that it could not come to the relief of straelsund, and whereby _we chiefly occasioned sweden's entirely losing its german provinces_, and even the _extreme danger his swedish majesty ran in his own person_, in crossing the sea, before the surrender of the town. "_article iii._ by a special defensive treaty, the kings of sweden and england mutually oblige themselves, 'in a strict alliance, to defend one another mutually, as well as their kingdoms, territories, provinces, states, subjects, possessions, as their rights and liberties of navigation and commerce, as well in the northern, deucalidonian, western, and britannic sea, commonly called the channel, the baltic, the sound; as also of the privileges and prerogatives of each of the allies belonging to them, by virtue of treaties and agreements, as well as by received customs, the laws of nations, hereditary right, against any aggressors or invaders and molesters in europe by sea or land, etc.' "_query._ it being by the law of nations an indisputable right and prerogative of any king or people, in case of a great necessity or threatening ruin, to use all such means they themselves shall judge most necessary for their preservation; it having moreover been a constant prerogative and practice of the swedes, for these several hundred years, in case of a war with their most dreadful enemies the muscovites, to hinder all trade with them in the baltic; and since it is also stipulated in this article that amongst other things, _one ally ought to defend the prerogatives belonging to the other, even by received customs, and the law of nations_: how come we now, the king of sweden stands more than ever in need of using that prerogative, not only to dispute it, but also to take thereof a pretence for an open hostility against him? "_articles iv., v., vi., and vii._ fix the strength of the auxiliary forces england and sweden are to send each other in case the territory of either of these powers should be invaded, or its navigation 'molested or hindered' in one of the seas enumerated in article iii. the invasion of the _german_ provinces of sweden is expressly included as a _casus foederis_. "_article viii._ stipulates that that ally who is not attacked shall first act the part of a pacific mediator; but, the mediation having proved a failure, 'the aforesaid forces shall be sent without delay; nor shall the confederates desist before the injured party shall be satisfied in all things.' "_article ix._ that ally that requires the stipulated 'help, has to choose whether he will have the above-named army either all or any, either in soldiers, ships, ammunition, or money.' "_article x._ ships and armies serve under 'the command of him that required them.' "_article xi._ 'but if it should happen that the above-mentioned forces should not be proportionable to the danger, as supposing that perhaps the aggressor should be assisted by the forces of some other confederates of his, then one of the allies, after previous request, shall be obliged to help the other that is injured, with greater forces, such as he shall be able to raise with safety and convenience, both by sea and land....' "_article xii._ 'it shall be lawful for either of the allies and their subjects to bring their men-of-war into one another's harbours, and to winter there.' peculiar negotiations about this point shall take place at stockholm, but 'in the meanwhile, the articles of treaty concluded at london, , relating to the navigation and commerce shall remain, in their full force, as much as if they were inserted here word for word.' "_article xiii._ ' ... the subjects of either of the allies ... shall no way, either by sea or land, serve them (the enemies of either of the allies), either as mariners or soldiers, and therefore it shall be forbid them upon severe penalty.' "_article xiv._ 'if it happens that either of the confederate kings ... should be engaged in a war against a common enemy, or be molested by any other neighbouring king ... in his own kingdoms or provinces ... to the hindering of which, he that requires help may by the force of this treaty himself be obliged to send help: then that ally so molested shall not be obliged to send the promised help....' "_query i._ whether in our conscience we don't think the king of sweden most unjustly attacked by all his enemies; whether consequently we are not convinced that we owe him the assistance stipulated in these articles; whether he has not demanded the same from us, and why it has hitherto been refused him? "_query ii._ these articles, setting forth in the most expressing terms, in what manner great britain and sweden ought to assist one another, can either of these two allies take upon him to prescribe to the other who requires his assistance a way of lending him it not expressed in the treaty; and if that other ally does not think it for his interest to accept of the same, but still insists upon the performance of the treaty, can he from thence take a pretence, not only to withhold the stipulated assistance, but also to use his ally in a hostile way, and to join with his enemies against him? if this is not justifiable, as even common sense tells us it is not, how can the reason stand good, which we allege amongst others, for using the king of sweden as we do, _id est_, that demanding a literal performance of his alliance with us, _he would not accept the treaty of neutrality for his german provinces_, which we proposed to him some years ago, a treaty which, not to mention its partiality in favour of the enemies of sweden, and that it was calculated only for our own interest, and for to prevent all disturbance in the empire, whilst we were engaged in a war against france, the king of sweden had so much less reason to rely upon, as he was to conclude it with those very enemies, that had every one of them broken several treaties in beginning the present war against him, and as it was to be guaranteed by those powers, who were also every one of them guarantees of the broken treaties, without having performed their guarantee? "_query iii._ how can we make the words in the th article, _that in assisting our injured ally we shall not desist before he shall be satisfied in all things_, agree with our endeavouring, to the contrary, to help the enemies of that prince, though all unjust aggressors, not only to take one province after the other from him, but also to remain undisturbed possessors thereof, blaming all along the king of sweden for not tamely submitting thereunto? "_query iv._ the treaty concluded in the year , between great britain and sweden, being in the th article confirmed, and the said treaty forbidding expressly one of the confederates _either himself or his subjects to lend or to sell to the other's enemies, men-of-war or ships of defence_; the th article of this present treaty forbidding also expressly the subjects of either of the allies _to help anyways the enemies of the other, to the inconvenience and loss of such an ally_; should we not have accused the swedes of the most notorious breach of this treaty, had they, during our late war with the french, lent them their own fleet, the better to execute any design of theirs against us, or had they, notwithstanding our representations to the contrary, suffered their subjects to furnish the french with ships of , , and guns! now, if we turn the tables, and remember upon how many occasions our fleet has of late been entirely subservient to the designs of the enemies of sweden, even in most critical times, and that _the czar of muscovy has actually above a dozen english-built ships_ in his fleet, will it not be very difficult for us to excuse in ourselves what we should most certainly have blamed, if done by others? "_article xvii._ the obligation shall not be so far extended as that all friendship and mutual commerce with the enemies of that ally (that requires the help) shall be taken away; for supposing that one of the confederates should send his auxiliaries, and should not be engaged in the war himself, it shall then be lawful for the subjects to trade and commerce with that enemy of that ally that is engaged in the war, also directly and safely to merchandise with such enemies, for all goods not expressly forbid and called contraband, as in a special treaty of commerce hereafter shall be appointed. "_query i._ this article being the only one out of twenty-two whose performance we have now occasion to insist upon from the swedes, the question will be whether we ourselves, in regard to sweden, have performed all the other articles as it was our part to do, and whether in demanding of the king of sweden the executing of this article, we have promised that we would also do our duty as to all the rest; if not, may not the swedes say that we complain unjustly of the breach of one single article, when we ourselves may perhaps be found guilty of having in the most material points either not executed or even acted against the whole treaty? "_query ii._ whether the liberty of commerce one ally is, by virtue of this article, to enjoy with the other's enemies, ought to have no limitation at all, neither as to time nor place; in short, whether it ought even to be extended so far as to destroy the very end of this treaty, which is the promoting the safety and security of one another's kingdoms? "_query iii._ whether in case the french had in the late wars made themselves masters of ireland or scotland, and either in new-made seaports, or the old ones, endeavoured by trade still more firmly to establish themselves in their new conquest, we, in such a case, should have thought the swedes our true allies and friends, had they insisted upon this article to trade with the french in the said seaports taken from us, and to furnish them there with several necessaries of war, nay, even with armed ships, whereby the french might the easier have annoyed us here in england? "_query iv._ whether, if we had gone about to hinder a trade so prejudicial to us, and in order thereunto brought up all swedish ships going to the said seaports, we should not highly have exclaimed against the swedes, had they taken from thence a pretence to join their fleet with the french, to occasion the losing of any of our dominions, and even to encourage the invasion upon us, have their fleet at hand to promote the same? "_query v._ whether upon an impartial examination this would not have been a case exactly parallel to that we insist upon, as to a free trade to the seaports the czar has taken from sweden, and to our present behaviour, upon the king of sweden's hindering the same? "_query vi._ whether we have not ever since oliver cromwell's time till , in all our wars with france and holland, without any urgent necessity at all, brought up and confiscated swedish ships, though not going to any prohibited ports, and that to a far greater number and value, than all those the swedes have now taken from us, and whether the swedes have ever taken a pretence from thence to join with our enemies, and to send whole squadrons of ships to their assistance? "_query vii._ whether, if we inquire narrowly into the state of commerce, as it has been carried on for these many years, we shall not find that the trade of the above-mentioned places was not so very necessary to us, at least not so far as to be put into the balance with the preservation of a protestant confederate nation, much less to give us a just reason _to make war against that nation, which, though not declared, has done it more harm than the united efforts of all its enemies_? "_query viii._ whether, if it happened two years ago, that this trade became something more necessary to us than formerly, it is not easily proved, that it was occasioned only by the czar's forcing us out of our old channel of trade to archangel, and bringing us to petersburg, and our complying therewith. so that all the inconveniences we laboured under upon that account ought to have been laid to the czar's door, and not to the king of sweden's? "_query ix._ whether the czar did not in the very beginning of again permit us to trade our old way to archangel, and whether our ministers had not notice thereof a great while before our fleet was sent that year to protect our _trade to petersburg_, which by this alteration in the czar's resolution was become as unnecessary for us as before? "_query x._ whether the king of sweden had not declared, that if we would forbear trading to _petersburg_, etc., which he looked upon as ruinous to his kingdom, he would in no manner disturb our trade, neither in the baltic nor anywhere else; but that in case we would not give him this slight proof of our friendship, he should be excused if the innocent came to suffer with the guilty? "_query xi._ whether, by our insisting upon the trade to the ports prohibited by the king of sweden, which besides it being unnecessary to us, hardly makes one part in ten of that we carry on in the baltic, we have not drawn upon us the hazards that our trade has run all this while, been ourselves the occasion of our great expenses in fitting out fleets for its protection, and by our joining with the enemies of sweden, fully justified his swedish majesty's resentment; had it ever gone so far as to seize and confiscate without distinction all our ships and effects, wheresoever he found them, either within or without his kingdoms? "_query xii._ if we were so tender of our trade to the northern ports in general, ought we not in policy rather to have considered the hazard that trade runs by the approaching ruin of sweden, and _by the czar's becoming the whole and sole master of the baltic, and all the naval stores we want from thence_? have we not also suffered greater hardships and losses in the said trade from the czar, than that amounting only to sixty odd thousand pounds (whereof, by the way, two parts in three may perhaps be disputable), which provoked us first to send twenty men-of-war in the baltic with order to attack the swedes wherever they met them? and yet, did not this very czar, this very aspiring and dangerous prince, _last summer command the whole confederate fleet_, as it was called, _of which our men-of-war made the most considerable part? the first instance that ever was of a foreign potentate having the command given him of the english fleet, the bulwark of our nation_; and did not our said men-of-war afterwards convey his (the czar's) transport ships and troops on board of them, in their return from zealand, _protecting them from the swedish fleet_, which else would have made a considerable havoc amongst them? "_query xiii._ suppose now, we had, on the contrary, taken hold of the great and many complaints our merchants have made of the ill-usage they meet from the czar, to have sent our fleet to show our resentment against that prince, to prevent his great and pernicious designs even to us, _to assist sweden pursuant to this treaty_, and effectually to restore the peace in the north, would not that have been more for our interest, more necessary, more honourable and just, and more according to our treaty; and would not the several , pounds these our northern expeditions have cost the nation, have been thus better employed? "_query xiv._ if the preserving and securing our trade against the swedes has been the only and real object of all our measures, as to the northern affairs, how came we the year before the last to leave eight men-of-war in the baltic and at copenhagen, when we had no more trade there to protect, and how came admiral norris last summer, although he and the dutch together made up the number of twenty-six men-of-war, and consequently were too strong for the swedes, to attempt anything against our trade under their convoy; yet to lay above two whole months of the best season in the sound, without convoying our and the dutch merchantmen to the several ports they were bound for, whereby they were kept in the baltic so late that their return could not but be very hazardous, as it even proved, both to them and our men-of-war themselves? will not the world be apt to think that the hopes of forcing the king of sweden to an inglorious and disadvantageous peace, by which the duchies of bremen and verden ought to be added to the hanover dominions, or that some other such view, foreign, if not contrary, to the true and old interest of great britain, had then a greater influence upon all these our proceedings than _the pretended care of our trade_? "_article xviii._ for as much as it seems convenient for the preservation of the liberty of navigation and commerce in the baltic sea, that a firm and exact friendship should be kept between the kings of sweden and denmark; and whereas the former kings of sweden and denmark did oblige themselves mutually, not only by the public articles of peace made in the camp of copenhagen, on the th of may, , and by the ratifications of the agreement interchanged on both sides, sacredly and inviolably to observe all and every one of the clauses comprehended in the said agreement, but also declared together to ... charles ii., king of great britain ... a little before the treaty concluded between england and sweden in the year , that they would stand sincerely ... to all ... of the articles of the said peace ... whereupon charles ii., with the approbation and consent of both the forementioned kings of sweden and denmark, took upon himself a little after the treaty concluded between england and sweden, st march, , to wit th october, , guarantee of the same agreements.... whereas an instrument of peace between ... the kings of sweden and denmark happened to be soon after these concluded at lunden in schonen, in , which contains an express transaction, and repetition and confirmation of the treaties concluded at roskild, copenhagen, and westphalia; therefore ... the king of great britain binds himself by the force of this treaty ... that if either of the kings of sweden and denmark shall consent to the violation, either of all the agreements, or of one or more articles comprehended in them, and consequently if either of the kings shall to the prejudice of the person, provinces, territories, islands, goods, dominions and rights of the other, which by the force of the agreements so often repeated, and made in the camp of copenhagen, on the th of may, , as also of those made in the ... peace at lunden in schonen in , were attributed to every one that was interested and comprehended in the words of the peace, should either by himself or by others, presume, or secretly design or attempt, or by open molestations, or by any injury, or by any violence of arms, attempt anything; that then the ... king of great britain ... shall first of all, by his interposition, perform all the offices of a friend and princely ally, which may serve towards the keeping inviolable all the frequently mentioned agreements, and of every article comprehended in them, and consequently towards the preservation of peace between both kings; that afterwards if the king, who is the beginner of such prejudice, or any molestation or injury, contrary to all agreements, and contrary to any articles comprehended in them, shall refuse after being admonished ... then the king of great britain ... shall ... assist him that is injured as by the present agreements between the kings of great britain and sweden in such cases is determined and agreed. "_query._ does not this article expressly tell us how to remedy the disturbances our trade in the baltic might suffer, in case of a misunderstanding betwixt the kings of sweden and denmark, by obliging both these princes to keep all the treaties of peace that have been concluded between them from - , and in case either of them should in an hostile manner act against the said treaties, by assisting the other against the aggressor? how comes it then that we don't make use of so just a remedy against an evil we are so great sufferers by? can anybody, though ever so partial, deny but the king of denmark, though seemingly a sincere friend to the king of sweden, from the peace of travendahl till he went out of saxony against the muscovites, fell very unjustly upon him immediately after, taking ungenerously advantage of the fatal battle of pultava? is not then the king of denmark the violator of all the above-mentioned treaties, and consequently the true author of the disturbances our trade meets with in the baltic? why in god's name don't we, according to this article, assist sweden against him, and why do we, on the contrary, declare openly against the injured king of sweden, send hectoring and threatening memorials to him, upon the least advantage he has over his enemies, as we did last summer upon his entering norway, and even order our fleets to act openly against him in conjunction with the danes? "_article xix._ there shall be 'stricter confederacy and union between the above-mentioned kings of great britain and sweden, for the future, _for the defence and preservation of the protestant, evangelic, and reformed religion_.' "_query i._ how do we, according to this article, join with sweden to _assert, protect, and preserve the protestant religion_? don't we suffer that nation, which has always been a bulwark to the said religion, most unmercifully to be torn to pieces?... _don't we ourselves give a helping hand towards its destruction?_ and why all this? because our merchants have lost their ships to the value of sixty odd thousand pounds. _for this loss, and nothing else, was the pretended reason why, in the year , we sent our fleet in the baltic, at the expense of £ , _; and as to what our merchants have suffered since, suppose we attribute it to our threatening memorials as well as open hostilities against the king of sweden, must we not even then own that that prince's resentment has been very moderate? "_query ii._ how can other princes, and especially our fellow protestants, think us sincere in what we have made them believe as to our zeal in spending millions of lives and money for to secure the protestant interest only in one single branch of it, _i mean the protestant succession here_, when they see that that succession has hardly taken place, before we, only for sixty odd thousand pounds, (for let us always remember that this paltry sum was the first pretence for our quarrelling with sweden) go about to undermine the very foundation of that interest in general, by helping, as we do, entirely to sacrifice sweden, the old and sincere protector of the protestants, to its neighbours, of which some are professed papists, some worse, and some, at least, but lukewarm protestants? "_article xx._ therefore, that a reciprocal faith of the allies and their perseverance in this agreement may appear ... both the fore-mentioned kings mutually oblige themselves, and declare that ... they will not depart a tittle from the genuine and common sense of all and every article of this treaty under any pretences of friendship, profit, former treaty, agreement, and promise, or upon any colour whatsoever: but that they will most fully and readily, either by themselves, or ministers, or subjects, put in execution whatsoever they have promised in this treaty ... without any hesitation, exception, or excuse.... "_query i._ inasmuch as this article sets forth that, at the time of concluding of the treaty, we were under no engagement contrary to it, and that it were highly unjust should we afterwards, and while this treaty is in force, which is eighteen years after the day it was signed, have entered into any such engagements, how can we justify to the world our late proceedings against the king of sweden, which naturally seem the consequences of a treaty either of our own making with the enemies of that prince, _or of some court or other that at present influences our measures_? "_query ii._ the words in this article ... how in the name of honour, faith, and justice, do they agree with the _little and pitiful pretences_ we now make use of, not only for not assisting sweden, pursuant to this treaty, _but even for going about so heartily as we do to destroy it_? "_article xxi._ this defensive treaty shall last for eighteen years, before the end of which the confederate kings may ... again treat. "_ratification of the abovesaid treaty._ we, having seen and considered this treaty, have approved and confirmed the same in all and every particular article and clause as by the present. we do approve the same for us, our heirs, and successors; assuring and promising our princely word that we shall perform and observe sincerely and in good earnest all those things that are therein contained, for the better confirmation whereof we have ordered our great seal of england to be put to these presents, which were given at our palace of kensington, th of february, in the year of our lord , and in the th year of our reign (gulielmus rex).[ ] "_query._ how can any of us that declares himself for the late happy revolution, and that is a true and grateful lover of king william's for ever-glorious memory ... yet bear with the least patience, that the said treaty should (that i may again use the words of the th article) be _departed from, under any pretence of profit, or upon any colour whatsoever_, especially so insignificant and trifling a one as that which has been made use of for two years together to employ our ships, our men, and our money, _to accomplish the ruin of sweden_, that same sweden whose defence and preservation this great and wise monarch of ours has so solemnly promised, and which he always looked upon to be of the utmost necessity for to secure the protestant interest in europe?" footnote: [ ] the treaty was concluded at the hague on the th and th january, , and ratified by william iii. on february th, . chapter v before entering upon an analysis of the pamphlet headed, "_truth is but truth, as it is timed_," with which we shall conclude the _introduction_ to the diplomatic revelations, some preliminary remarks on the general history of russian politics appear opportune. the overwhelming influence of russia has taken europe at different epochs by surprise, startled the peoples of the west, and been submitted to as a fatality, or resisted only by convulsions. but alongside the fascination exercised by russia, there runs an ever-reviving scepticism, dogging her like a shadow, growing with her growth, mingling shrill notes of irony with the cries of agonising peoples, and mocking her very grandeur as a histrionic attitude taken up to dazzle and to cheat. other empires have met with similar doubts in their infancy; russia has become a colossus without outliving them. she affords the only instance in history of an immense empire, the very existence of whose power, even after world-wide achievements, has never ceased to be treated like a matter of faith rather than like a matter of fact. from the outset of the eighteenth century to our days, no author, whether he intended to exalt or to check russia, thought it possible to dispense with first proving her existence. but whether we be spiritualists or materialists with respect to russia--whether we consider her power as a palpable fact, or as the mere vision of the guilt-stricken consciences of the european peoples--the question remains the same: "how did this power, or this phantom of a power, contrive to assume such dimensions as to rouse on the one side the passionate assertion, and on the other the angry denial of its threatening the world with a rehearsal of universal monarchy?" at the beginning of the eighteenth century russia was regarded as a mushroom creation extemporised by the genius of peter the great. schloezer thought it a discovery to have found out that she possessed a past; and in modern times, writers, like fallmerayer, unconsciously following in the track beaten by russian historians, have deliberately asserted that the northern spectre which frightens the europe of the nineteenth century already overshadowed the europe of the ninth century. with them the policy of russia begins with the first ruriks, and has, with some interruptions indeed, been systematically continued to the present hour. ancient maps of russia are unfolded before us, displaying even larger european dimensions than she can boast of now: her perpetual movement of aggrandizement from the ninth to the eleventh century is anxiously pointed out; we are shown oleg launching , men against byzantium, fixing his shield as a trophy on the gate of that capital, and dictating an ignominious treaty to the lower empire; igor making it tributary; sviataslaff glorying, "the greeks supply me with gold, costly stuffs, rice, fruits and wine; hungary furnishes cattle and horses; from russia i draw honey, wax, furs, and men"; vladimir conquering the crimea and livonia, extorting a daughter from the greek emperor, as napoleon did from the german emperor, blending the military sway of a northern conqueror with the theocratic despotism of the porphyro-geniti, and becoming at once the master of his subjects on earth, and their protector in heaven. yet, in spite of the plausible parallelism suggested by these reminiscences, the policy of the first ruriks differs fundamentally from that of modern russia. it was nothing more nor less than the policy of the german barbarians inundating europe--the history of the modern nations beginning only after the deluge has passed away. the gothic period of russia in particular forms but a chapter of the norman conquests. as the empire of charlemagne precedes the foundation of modern france, germany, and italy, so the empire of the ruriks precedes the foundation of poland, lithuania, the baltic settlements, turkey, and muscovy itself. the rapid movement of aggrandizement was not the result of deep-laid schemes, but the natural offspring of the primitive organization of norman conquest--vassalship without fiefs, or fiefs consisting only in tributes--the necessity of fresh conquests being kept alive by the uninterrupted influx of new varangian adventurers, panting for glory and plunder. the chiefs, becoming anxious for repose, were compelled by the faithful band to move on, and in russian, as in french normandy, there arrived the moment when the chiefs despatched on new predatory excursions their uncontrollable and insatiable companions-in-arms with the single view to get rid of them. warfare and organization of conquest on the part of the first ruriks differ in no point from those of the normans in the rest of europe. if slavonian tribes were subjected not only by the sword, but also by mutual convention, this singularity is due to the exceptional position of those tribes, placed between a northern and eastern invasion, and embracing the former as a protection from the latter. the same magic charm which attracted other northern barbarians to the rome of the west attracted the varangians to the rome of the east. the very migration of the russian capital--rurik fixing it at novgorod, oleg removing it to kiev, and sviataslaff attempting to establish it in bulgaria--proves beyond doubt that the invader was only feeling his way, and considered russia as a mere halting-place from which to wander on in search of an empire in the south. if modern russia covets the possession of constantinople to establish her dominion over the world, the ruriks were, on the contrary, forced by the resistance of byzantium, under zimiskes, definitively to establish their dominion in russia. it may be objected that victors and vanquished amalgamated more quickly in russia than in any other conquest of the northern barbarians, that the chiefs soon commingled themselves with the slavonians--as shown by their marriages and their names. but then, it should be recollected that the faithful band, which formed at once their guard and their privy council, remained exclusively composed of varangians; that vladimir, who marks the summit, and yaroslav, who marks the commencing decline of gothic russia, were seated on her throne by the arms of the varangians. if any slavonian influence is to be acknowledged in this epoch, it is that of novgorod, a slavonian state, the traditions, policy, and tendencies of which were so antagonistic to those of modern russia that the one could found her existence only on the ruins of the other. under yaroslav the supremacy of the varangians is broken, but simultaneously with it disappears the conquering tendency of the first period, and the decline of gothic russia begins. the history of that decline, more still than that of the conquest and formation, proves the exclusively gothic character of the empire of the ruriks. the incongruous, unwieldy, and precocious empire heaped together by the ruriks, like the other empires of similar growth, is broken up into appanages, divided and subdivided among the descendants of the conquerors, dilacerated by feudal wars, rent to pieces by the intervention of foreign peoples. the paramount authority of the grand prince vanishes before the rival claims of seventy princes of the blood. the attempt of andrew of susdal at recomposing some large limbs of the empire by the removal of the capital from kiev to vladimir proves successful only in propagating the decomposition from the south to the centre. andrew's third successor resigns even the last shadow of supremacy, the title of grand prince, and the merely nominal homage still offered him. the appanages to the south and to the west become by turns lithuanian, polish, hungarian, livonian, swedish. kiev itself, the ancient capital, follows destinies of its own, after having dwindled down from a seat of the grand princedom to the territory of a city. thus, the russia of the normans completely disappears from the stage, and the few weak reminiscences in which it still outlived itself, dissolve before the terrible apparition of genghis khan. the bloody mire of mongolian slavery, not the rude glory of the norman epoch, forms the cradle of muscovy, and modern russia is but a metamorphosis of muscovy. the tartar yoke lasted from to --more than two centuries; a yoke not only crushing, but dishonouring and withering the very soul of the people that fell its prey. the mongol tartars established a rule of systematic terror, devastation and wholesale massacre forming its institutions. their numbers being scanty in proportion to their enormous conquests, they wanted to magnify them by a halo of consternation, and to thin, by wholesale slaughter, the populations which might rise in their rear. in their creations of desert they were, besides, led by the same economical principle which has depopulated the highlands of scotland and the campagna di roma--the conversion of men into sheep, and of fertile lands and populous abodes into pasturage. the tartar yoke had already lasted a hundred years before muscovy emerged from its obscurity. to entertain discord among the russian princes, and secure their servile submission, the mongols had restored the dignity of the grand princedom. the strife among the russian princes for this dignity was, as a modern author has it, "an abject strife--the strife of slaves, whose chief weapon was calumny, and who were always ready to denounce each other to their cruel rulers; wrangling for a degraded throne, whence they could not move but with plundering, parricidal hands--hands filled with gold and stained with gore; which they dared not ascend without grovelling, nor retain but on their knees, prostrate and trembling beneath the scimitar of a tartar, always ready to roll under his feet those servile crowns, and the heads by which they were worn." it was in this infamous strife that the moscow branch won at last the race. in the crown of the grand princedom, wrested from the branch of tver by dint of denunciation and assassination, was picked up at the feet of usbeck khan by yury, the elder brother of ivan kalita. ivan i. kalita, and ivan iii., surnamed the great, personate muscovy rising by means of the tartar yoke, and muscovy getting an independent power by the disappearance of the tartar rule. the whole policy of muscovy, from its first entrance into the historical arena, is resumed in the history of these two individuals. the policy of ivan kalita was simply this: to play the abject tool of the khan, thus to borrow his power, and then to turn it round upon his princely rivals and his own subjects. to attain this end, he had to insinuate himself with the tartars by dint of cynical adulation, by frequent journeys to the golden horde, by humble prayers for the hand of mongol princesses, by a display of unbounded zeal for the khan's interest, by the unscrupulous execution of his orders, by atrocious calumnies against his own kinsfolk, by blending in himself the characters of the tartar's hangman, sycophant, and slave-in-chief. he perplexed the khan by continuous revelations of secret plots. whenever the branch of tver betrayed a velleité of national independence, he hurried to the horde to denounce it. wherever he met with resistance, he introduced the tartar to trample it down. but it was not sufficient to act a character; to make it acceptable, gold was required. perpetual bribery of the khan and his grandees was the only sure foundation upon which to raise his fabric of deception and usurpation. but how was the slave to get the money wherewith to bribe the master? he persuaded the khan to instal him his tax-gatherer throughout all the russian appanages. once invested with this function, he extorted money under false pretences. the wealth accumulated by the dread held out of the tartar name, he used to corrupt the tartars themselves. by a bribe he induced the primate to transfer his episcopal seat from vladimir to moscow, thus making the latter the capital of the empire, because the religious capital, and coupling the power of the church with that of his throne. by a bribe he allured the boyards of the rival princes into treason against their chiefs, and attracted them to himself as their centre. by the joint influence of the mahometan tartar, the greek church, and the boyards, he unites the princes holding appanages into a crusade against the most dangerous of them--the prince of tver; and then having driven his recent allies by bold attempts at usurpation into resistance against himself, into a war for the public good, he draws not the sword but hurries to the khan. by bribes and delusion again, he seduces him into assassinating his kindred rivals under the most cruel torments. it was the traditional policy of the tartar to check the russian princes the one by the other, to feed their dissensions, to cause their forces to equiponderate, and to allow none to consolidate himself. ivan kalita converts the khan into the tool by which he rids himself of his most dangerous competitors, and weighs down every obstacle to his own usurping march. he does not conquer the appanages, but surreptitiously turns the rights of the tartar conquest to his exclusive profit. he secures the succession of his son through the same means by which he had raised the grand princedom of muscovy, that strange compound of princedom and serfdom. during his whole reign he swerves not once from the line of policy he had traced to himself; clinging to it with a tenacious firmness, and executing it with methodical boldness. thus he becomes the founder of the muscovite power, and characteristically his people call him kalita--that is, the purse, because it was the purse and not the sword with which he cut his way. the very period of his reign witnesses the sudden growth of the lithuanian power which dismembers the russian appanages from the west, while the tartar squeezes them into one mass from the east. ivan, while he dared not repulse the one disgrace, seemed anxious to exaggerate the other. he was not to be seduced from following up his ends by the allurements of glory, the pangs of conscience, or the lassitude of humiliation. his whole system may be expressed in a few words: the machiavelism of the usurping slave. his own weakness--his slavery--he turned into the mainspring of his strength. the policy traced by ivan i. kalita is that of his successors; they had only to enlarge the circle of its application. they followed it up laboriously, gradually, inflexibly. from ivan i. kalita, we may, therefore, pass at once to ivan iii., surnamed the great. at the commencement of his reign ( - ) ivan iii. was still a tributary to the tartars; his authority was still contested by the princes holding appanages; novgorod, the head of the russian republics, reigned over the north of russia; poland-lithuania was striving for the conquest of muscovy; lastly, the livonian knights were not yet disarmed. at the end of his reign we behold ivan iii. seated on an independent throne, at his side the daughter of the last emperor of byzantium, at his feet kasan, and the remnant of the golden horde flocking to his court; novgorod and the other russian republics enslaved--lithuania diminished, and its king a tool in ivan's hands--the livonian knights vanquished. astonished europe, at the commencement of ivan's reign, hardly aware of the existence of muscovy, hemmed in between the tartar and the lithuanian, was dazzled by the sudden appearance of an immense empire on its eastern confines, and sultan bajazet himself, before whom europe trembled, heard for the first time the haughty language of the muscovite. how, then, did ivan accomplish these high deeds? was he a hero? the russian historians themselves show him up a confessed coward. let us shortly survey his principal contests, in the sequence in which he undertook and concluded them--his contests with the tartars, with novgorod, with the princes holding appanages, and lastly with lithuania-poland. ivan rescued muscovy from the tartar yoke, not by one bold stroke, but by the patient labour of about twenty years. he did not break the yoke, but disengaged himself by stealth. its overthrow, accordingly, has more the look of the work of nature than the deed of man. when the tartar monster expired at last, ivan appeared at its deathbed like a physician, who prognosticated and speculated on death rather than like a warrior who imparted it. the character of every people enlarges with its enfranchisement from a foreign yoke; that of muscovy in the hands of ivan seems to diminish. compare only spain in its struggles against the arabs with muscovy in its struggles against the tartars. at the period of ivan's accession to the throne, the golden horde had long since been weakened, internally by fierce feuds, externally by the separation from them of the nogay tartars, the eruption of timour tamerlane, the rise of the cossacks, and the hostility of the crimean tartars. muscovy, on the contrary, by steadily pursuing the policy traced by ivan kalita, had grown to a mighty mass, crushed, but at the same time compactly united by the tartar chain. the khans, as if struck by a charm, had continued to remain instruments of muscovite aggrandizement and concentration. by calculation they had added to the power of the greek church, which, in the hand of the muscovite grand princes, proved the deadliest weapon against them. in rising against the horde, the muscovite had not to invent but only to imitate the tartars themselves. but ivan did not rise. he humbly acknowledged himself a slave of the golden horde. by bribing a tartar woman he seduced the khan into commanding the withdrawal from muscovy of the mongol residents. by similar and imperceptible and surreptitious steps he duped the khan into successive concessions, all ruinous to his sway. he thus did not conquer, but filch strength. he does not drive, but manoeuvre his enemy out of his strongholds. still continuing to prostrate himself before the khan's envoys, and to proclaim himself his tributary, he eludes the payment of the tribute under false pretences, employing all the stratagems of a fugitive slave who dare not front his owner, but only steal out of his reach. at last the mongol awakes from his torpor, and the hour of battle sounds. ivan, trembling at the mere semblance of an armed encounter, attempts to hide himself behind his own fear, and to disarm the fury of his enemy by withdrawing the object upon which to wreak his vengeance. he is only saved by the intervention of the crimean tartars, his allies. against a second invasion of the horde, he ostentatiously gathers together such disproportionate forces that the mere rumour of their number parries the attack. at the third invasion, from the midst of , men, he absconds a disgraced deserter. reluctantly dragged back, he attempts to haggle for conditions of slavery, and at last, pouring into his army his own servile fear, he involves it in a general and disorderly flight. muscovy was then anxiously awaiting its irretrievable doom, when it suddenly hears that by an attack on their capital made by the crimean khan, the golden horde has been forced to withdraw, and has, on its retreat, been destroyed by the cossacks and nogay tartars. thus defeat was turned into success, and ivan had overthrown the golden horde, not by fighting it himself, but by challenging it through a feigned desire of combat into offensive movements, which exhausted its remnants of vitality and exposed it to the fatal blows of the tribes of its own race whom he had managed to turn into his allies. he caught one tartar with another tartar. as the immense danger he had himself summoned proved unable to betray him into one single trait of manhood, so his miraculous triumph did not infatuate him even for one moment. with cautious circumspection he dared not incorporate kasan with muscovy, but made it over to sovereigns belonging to the family of menghi-ghirei, his crimean ally, to hold it, as it were, in trust for muscovy. with the spoils of the vanquished tartar, he enchained the victorious tartar. but if too prudent to assume, with the eye-witnesses of his disgrace, the airs of a conqueror, this impostor did fully understand how the downfall of the tartar empire must dazzle at a distance--with what halo of glory it would encircle him, and how it would facilitate a magnificent entry among the european powers. accordingly he assumed abroad the theatrical attitude of the conqueror, and, indeed, succeeded in hiding under a mask of proud susceptibility and irritable haughtiness the obtrusiveness of the mongol serf, who still remembered kissing the stirrup of the khan's meanest envoy. he aped in more subdued tone the voice of his old masters, which terrified his soul. some standing phrases of modern russian diplomacy, such as the magnanimity, the wounded dignity of the master, are borrowed from the diplomatic instructions of ivan iii. after the surrender of kasan, he set out on a long-planned expedition against novgorod, the head of the russian republics. if the overthrow of the tartar yoke was, in his eyes, the first condition of muscovite greatness, the overthrow of russian freedom was the second. as the republic of viatka had declared itself neutral between muscovy and the horde, and the republic of tskof, with its twelve cities, had shown symptoms of disaffection, ivan flattered the latter and affected to forget the former, meanwhile concentrating all his forces against novgorod the great, with the doom of which he knew the fate of the rest of the russian republics to be sealed. by the prospect of sharing in this rich booty, he drew after him the princes holding appanages, while he inveigled the boyards by working upon their blind hatred of novgorodian democracy. thus he contrived to march three armies upon novgorod and to overwhelm it by disproportionate force. but then, in order not to keep his word to the princes, not to forfeit his immutable "vos non vobis," at the same time apprehensive, lest novgorod should not yet have become digestible from the want of preparatory treatment, he thought fit to exhibit a sudden moderation; to content himself with a ransom and the acknowledgment of his suzerainty; but into the act of submission of the republic he smuggled some ambiguous words which made him its supreme judge and legislator. then he fomented the dissensions between the patricians and plebeians raging as well in novgorod as at florence. of some complaints of the plebeians he took occasion to introduce himself again into the city, to have its nobles, whom he knew to be hostile to himself, sent to moscow loaded with chains, and to break the ancient law of the republic that "none of its citizens should ever be tried or punished out of the limits of its own territory." from that moment he became supreme arbiter. "never," say the annalists, "never since rurik had such an event happened; never had the grand princes of kiev and vladimir seen the novgorodians come and submit to them as their judges. ivan alone could reduce novgorod to that degree of humiliation." seven years were employed by ivan to corrupt the republic by the exercise of his judicial authority. then, when he found its strength worn out, he thought the moment ripe for declaring himself. to doff his own mask of moderation, he wanted, on the part of novgorod, a breach of the peace. as he had simulated calm endurance, so he simulated now a sudden burst of passion. having bribed an envoy of the republic to address him during a public audience with the name of sovereign, he claimed, at once, all the rights of a despot--the self-annihilation of the republic. chapter vi one feature characteristic of the slavonic race must strike every observer. almost everywhere it confined itself to an inland country, leaving the sea-borders to non-slavonic tribes. finno-tartaric tribes held the shores of the black sea, lithuanians and fins those of the baltic and white sea. wherever they touched the sea-board, as in the adriatic and part of the baltic, the slavonians had soon to submit to foreign rule. the russian people shared this common fate of the slavonian race. their home, at the time they first appear in history, was the country about the sources and upper course of the volga and its tributaries, the dnieper, don, and northern dwina. nowhere did their territory touch the sea except at the extremity of the gulf of finland. nor had they before peter the great proved able to conquer any maritime outlet beside that of the white sea, which, during three-fourths of the year, is itself enchained and immovable. the spot where petersburg now stands had been for a thousand years past contested ground between fins, swedes, and russians. all the remaining extent of coast from polangen, near memel, to torrea, the whole coast of the black sea, from akerman to redut kaleh, has been conquered later on. and, as if to witness the anti-maritime peculiarity of the slavonic race, of all this line of coast, no portion of the baltic coast has really adopted russian nationality. nor has the circassian and mingrelian east coast of the black sea. it is only the coast of the white sea, as far as it was worth cultivating, some portion of the northern coast of the black sea, and part of the coast of the sea of azof, that have really been peopled with russian inhabitants, who, however, despite the new circumstances in which they are placed, still refrain from taking to the sea, and obstinately stick to the land-lopers' traditions of their ancestors. from the very outset, peter the great broke through all the traditions of the slavonic race. "it is water that russia wants." these words he addressed as a rebuke to prince cantemir are inscribed on the title-page of his life. the conquest of the sea of azof was aimed at in his first war with turkey, the conquest of the baltic in his war against sweden, the conquest of the black sea in his second war against the porte, and the conquest of the caspian sea in his fraudulent intervention in persia. for a system of local encroachment, land was sufficient; for a system of universal aggression, water had become indispensable. it was but by the conversion of muscovy from a country wholly of land into a sea-bordering empire, that the traditional limits of the muscovite policy could be superseded and merged into that bold synthesis which, blending the encroaching method of the mongol slave with the world-conquering tendencies of the mongol master, forms the life-spring of modern russian diplomacy. it has been said that no great nation has ever existed, or been able to exist, in such an inland position as that of the original empire of peter the great; that none has ever submitted thus to see its coasts and the mouths of its rivers torn away from it; that russia could no more leave the mouth of the neva, the natural outlet for the produce of northern russia, in the hands of the swedes, than the mouths of the don, dnieper, and bug, and the straits of kertch, in the hands of nomadic and plundering tartars; that the baltic provinces, from their very geographical configuration, are naturally a corollary to whichever nation holds the country behind them; that, in one word, peter, in this quarter, at least, but took hold of what was absolutely necessary for the natural development of his country. from this point of view, peter the great intended, by his war against sweden, only rearing a russian liverpool, and endowing it with its indispensable strip of coast. but then, one great fact is slighted over, the _tour de force_ by which he transferred the capital of the empire from the inland centre to the maritime extremity, the characteristic boldness with which he erected the new capital on the first strip of baltic coast he conquered, almost within gunshot of the frontier, thus deliberately giving his dominions an _eccentric centre_. to transfer the throne of the czars from moscow to petersburg was to place it in a position where it could not be safe, even from insult, until the whole coast from libau to tornea was subdued--a work not completed till , by the conquest of finland. "st. petersburg is the window from which russia can overlook europe," said algarotti. it was from the first a defiance to the europeans, an incentive to further conquest to the russians. the fortifications in our own days of russian poland are only a further step in the execution of the same idea. modlin, warsaw, ivangorod, are more than citadels to keep a rebellious country in check. they are the same menace to the west which petersburg, in its immediate bearing, was a hundred years ago to the north. they are to transform russia into panslavonia, as the baltic provinces were to transform muscovy into russia. petersburg, the _eccentric centre_ of the empire, pointed at once to a periphery still to be drawn. it is, then, not the mere conquest of the baltic provinces which separates the policy of peter the great from that of his ancestors, but it is the transfer of the capital which reveals the true meaning of his baltic conquests. petersburg was not like muscovy, the centre of a race, but the seat of a government; not the slow work of a people, but the instantaneous creation of a man; not the medium from which the peculiarities of an inland people radiate, but the maritime extremity where they are lost; not the traditionary nucleus of a national development, but the deliberately chosen abode of a cosmopolitan intrigue. by the transfer of the capital, peter cut off the natural ligaments which bound up the encroaching system of the old muscovite czars with the natural abilities and aspirations of the great russian race. by planting his capital on the margin of a sea, he put to open defiance the anti-maritime instincts of that race, and degraded it to a mere weight in his political mechanism. since the th century muscovy had made no important acquisitions but on the side of siberia, and to the th century the dubious conquests made towards the west and the south were only brought about by direct agency on the east. by the transfer of the capital, peter proclaimed that he, on the contrary, intended working on the east and the immediately neighbouring countries through the agency of the west. if the agency through the east was narrowly circumscribed by the stationary character and the limited relations of asiatic peoples, the agency through the west became at once illimited and universal from the movable character and the all-sided relations of western europe. the transfer of the capital denoted this intended change of agency, which the conquest of the baltic provinces afforded the means of achieving, by securing at once to russia the supremacy among the neighbouring northern states; by putting it into immediate and constant contact with all points of europe; by laying the basis of a material bond with the maritime powers, which by this conquest became dependent on russia for their naval stores; a dependence not existing as long as muscovy, the country that produced the great bulk of the naval stores, had got no outlets of its own; while sweden, the power that held these outlets, had not got the country lying behind them. if the muscovite czars, who worked their encroachments by the agency principally of the tartar khans, were obliged to _tartarize_ muscovy, peter the great, who resolved upon working through the agency of the west, was obliged to _civilize_ russia. in grasping upon the baltic provinces, he seized at once the tools necessary for this process. they afforded him not only the diplomatists and the generals, the brains with which to execute his system of political and military action on the west, they yielded him, at the same time, a crop of bureaucrats, schoolmasters, and drill-sergeants, who were to drill russians into that varnish of civilization that adapts them to the technical appliances of the western peoples, without imbuing them with their ideas. neither the sea of azof, nor the black sea, nor the caspian sea, could open to peter this direct passage to europe. besides, during his lifetime still taganrog, azof, the black sea, with its new-formed russian fleets, ports, and dockyards, were again abandoned or given up to the turk. the persian conquest, too, proved a premature enterprise. of the four wars which fill the military life of peter the great, his first war, that against turkey, the fruits of which were lost in a second turkish war, continued in one respect the traditionary struggle with the tartars. in another respect, it was but the prelude to the war against sweden, of which the second turkish war forms an episode and the persian war an epilogue. thus the war against sweden, lasting during twenty-one years, almost absorbs the military life of peter the great. whether we consider its purpose, its results, or its endurance, we may justly call it _the_ war of peter the great. his whole creation hinges upon the conquest of the baltic coast. now, suppose we were altogether ignorant of the details of his operations, military and diplomatic. the mere fact that the conversion of muscovy into russia was brought about by its transformation from a half-asiatic inland country into the paramount maritime power of the baltic, would it not enforce upon us the conclusion that england, the greatest maritime power of that epoch--a maritime power lying, too, at the very gates of the baltic, where, since the middle of the th century, she had maintained the attitude of supreme arbiter--that england must have had her hand in this great change, that she must have proved the main prop or the main impediment of the plans of peter the great, that during the long protracted and deadly struggle between sweden and russia she must have turned the balance, that if we do not find her straining every nerve in order to save the swede we may be sure of her having employed all the means at her disposal for furthering the muscovite? and yet, in what is commonly called history, england does hardly appear on the plan of this grand drama, and is represented as a spectator rather than as an actor. real history will show that the khans of the golden horde were no more instrumental in realizing the plans of ivan iii. and his predecessors than the rulers of england were in realizing the plans of peter i. and his successors. the pamphlets which we have reprinted, written as they were by english contemporaries of peter the great, are far from concurring in the common delusions of later historians. they emphatically denounce england as the mightiest tool of russia. the same position is taken up by the pamphlet of which we shall now give a short analysis, and with which we shall conclude the introduction to the diplomatic revelations. it is entitled, "_truth is but truth as it is timed; or, our ministry's present measures against the muscovite vindicated_, etc., etc. humbly dedicated to the house of c., london, ." the former pamphlets we have reprinted, were written at, or shortly after, the time when, to use the words of a modern admirer of russia, "peter traversed the baltic sea as master at the head of the combined squadrons of all the northern powers, england included, which gloried in sailing under his orders." in , however, when _truth is but truth_ was published, the face of affairs seemed altogether changed. charles xii. was dead, and the english government now pretended to side with sweden, and to wage war against russia. there are other circumstances connected with this anonymous pamphlet which claim particular notice. it purports to be an extract from a relation, which, on his return from muscovy, in august, , its author, by order of george i., drew up and handed over to viscount townshend, then secretary of state. "it happens," says he, "to be an advantage that at present i may own to have been the first so happy to foresee, or honest to forewarn our court here, of the absolute necessity of our then breaking with the czar, and shutting him out again of the baltic." "my relation discovered his aim as to other states, and even to the german empire, to which, although an inland power, he had offered to annex livonia as an electorate, so that he could but be admitted as an elector. it drew attention to the czar's then contemplated assumption of the title of autocrator. being head of the greek church he would be owned by the other potentates as head of the greek empire. i am not to say how reluctant we would be to acknowledge that title, since we have already made an ambassador treat him with the title of imperial majesty, which the swede has never yet condescended to." for some time attached to the british embassy in muscovy, our author, as he states, was later on "_dismissed the service, because the czar desired it_," having made sure that "i had given our court such light into his affairs as is contained in this paper; for which i beg leave to appeal to the king, and to vouch the viscount townshend, who heard his majesty give that vindication." "and yet, notwithstanding all this, i have been for these five years past kept soliciting for a very long arrear still due, and whereof i contracted the greatest part in executing a commission for her late majesty." the anti-muscovite attitude, suddenly assumed by the stanhope cabinet, our author looks to in rather a sceptic mood. "i do not pretend to foreclose, by this paper, the ministry of that applause due to them from the public, when they shall satisfy us as to what the motives were which made them, till but yesterday, straiten the swede in everything, although then our ally as much as now; or strengthen, by all the ways they could, the czar, although under no tie, but barely that of amity with great britain.... at the minute i write this i learn that the gentleman who brought the muscovites, not yet three years ago, as a royal navy, not under our protection, on their first appearance in the baltic, is again authorized by the persons now in power, to give the czar a second meeting in these seas. for what reason or to what good end?" the gentleman hinted at is admiral norris, whose baltic campaign against peter i. seems, indeed, to be the original pattern upon which the recent naval campaigns of admirals napier and dundas were cut out. the restoration to sweden of the baltic provinces is required by the commercial as well as the political interest of great britain. such is the pith of our author's argument: "trade is become the very life of our state; and what food is to life, naval stores are to a fleet. the whole trade we drive with all the other nations of the earth, at best, is but lucrative; this, of the north, is indispensably needful, and may not be improperly termed the _sacra embole_ of great britain, as being its chiefest foreign vent, for the support of all our trade, and our safety at home. as woollen manufactures and minerals are the staple commodities of great britain, so are likewise naval stores those of muscovy, as also of all those very provinces in the baltic which the czar has so lately wrested from the crown of sweden. since those provinces have been in the czar's possession, pernan is entirely waste. at revel we have not one british merchant left, and all the trade which was formerly at narwa is now brought to petersburg.... the swede could never possibly engross the trade of our subjects, because those seaports in his hands were but so many thoroughfares from whence these commodities were uttered, the places of their produce or manufacture lying behind those ports, in the dominions of the czar. but, if left to the czar, these baltic ports are no more thoroughfares, but peculiar magazines from the inland countries of the czar's own dominions. having already archangel in the white sea, to leave him but any seaport in the baltic were to put no less in his hands than the _two keys of the general magazines of all the naval stores of europe_; it being known that danes, swedes, poles, and prussians have but single and distinct branches of those commodities in their several dominions. if the czar should thus engross 'the supply of what we cannot do without,' where then is our fleet? or, indeed, where is the security for all our trade to any part of the earth besides?" if, then, the interest of british commerce requires to exclude the czar from the baltic, the interest of our state ought to be no less a spur to quicken us to that attempt. by the interest of our state i would be understood to mean neither the party measures of a ministry, nor any foreign motives of a court, but precisely what is, and ever must be, the immediate concern, either for the safety, ease, dignity, or emolument of the crown, as well as the common weal of great britain. with respect to the baltic, it has "from the earliest period of our naval power" always been considered a fundamental interest of our state: first, to prevent the rise there of any new maritime power; and, secondly, to maintain the balance of power between denmark and sweden. "one instance of the wisdom and foresight of our _then truly british statesmen_ is the peace at stalboa, in the year . james the first was the mediator of that treaty, by which the muscovite was obliged to give up all the provinces which he then was possessed of in the baltic, and to be barely an inland power on this side of europe." the same policy of preventing a new maritime power from starting in the baltic was acted upon by sweden and denmark. "who knows not that the emperor's attempt to get a seaport in pomerania weighed no less with the great gustavus than any other motive for carrying his arms even into the bowels of the house of austria? what befel, at the times of charles gustavus, the crown of poland itself, who, besides it being in those days by far the mightiest of any of the northern powers, had then a long stretch of coast on, and some ports in, the baltic? the danes, though then in alliance with poland, would never allow them, even for their assistance against the swedes, to have a fleet in the baltic, but destroyed the polish ships wherever they could meet them." as to the maintenance of the balance of power between the established maritime states of the baltic, the tradition of british policy is no less clear. "when the swedish power gave us some uneasiness there by threatening to crush denmark," the honour of our country was kept up by retrieving the then inequality of the balance of power. the commonwealth of england sent in a squadron to the baltic which brought on the treaty of roskild ( ), afterwards confirmed at copenhagen ( ). the fire of straw kindled by the danes in the times of king william iii. was as speedily quenched by george rock in the treaty of copenhagen. such was the hereditary british policy. "it never entered into the mind of the politicians of those times in order to bring the scale again to rights, to find out the happy _expedient of raising a third naval power_ for framing a juster balance in the baltic.... who has taken this counsel against tyre, the crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourables of the earth? _ego autem neminem nomino, quare irasci mihi nemo poterit, nisi qui ante de se noluerit confiteri._ posterity will be under some difficulty to believe that this could be the _work of any of the persons now in power_ ... that _we_ have opened; _st. petersburg to the czar solely at our own expense, and without any risk to him_...." the safest line of policy would be to return to the treaty of itolbowa, and to suffer the muscovite no longer "to nestle in the baltic." yet, it may be said, that in "the present state of affairs" it would be "difficult to retrieve the advantage we have lost by not curbing, when it was more easy, the growth of the muscovite power." a middle course may be thought more convenient. "if we should find it consistent with the welfare of our state that the muscovite have an inlet into the baltic, as having, of all the princes of europe, a country that can be made most beneficial to its prince, by uttering its produce to foreign markets. in this case, it were but reasonable to expect, on the other hand, that in return for our complying so far with his interest, for the improvement of his country, his czarish majesty, on his part, should demand nothing that may tend to the disturbance of another; and, therefore, contenting himself with ships of trade, should demand none of war." "we should thus preclude his hopes of being ever more than an inland power," but "obviate every objection of using the czar worse than any sovereign prince may expect. i shall not for this give an instance of a republic of genoa, or another in the baltic itself, of the duke of courland; but will assign poland and prussia, who, though both now crowned heads, have ever contented themselves with the freedom of an open traffic, without insisting on a fleet. or the treaty of falczin, between the turk and muscovite, by which peter was forced not only to restore asoph, and to part with all his men-of-war in those parts, but also to content himself with the bare freedom of traffic in the black sea. even an inlet in the baltic for trade is much beyond what he could morally have promised himself not yet so long ago on the issue of his war with sweden." if the czar refuse to agree to such "a healing temperament," we shall have "nothing to regret but the time we lost to exert all the means that heaven has made us master of, to reduce him to a peace advantageous to great britain." war would become inevitable. in that case "it ought no less to animate our ministry to pursue their present measures, than fire with indignation the breast of every honest briton that a czar of muscovy, who owes his naval skill to our instructions, and his grandeur to our forbearance, should so soon deny to great britain the terms which so few years ago he was fain to take up with from the sublime porte." "'tis every way our interest to have the swede restored to those provinces which the muscovite has wrested from that crown in the baltic. _great britain can no longer hold the balance in that sea_," since she "_has raised the muscovite to be a maritime power there_.... had we performed the articles of our alliance made by king william with the crown of sweden, that gallant nation would ever have been a bar strong enough against the czar coming into the baltic.... time must confirm us, that the muscovite's _expulsion from the baltic_ is _now_ the principal end of our ministry." butler & tanner. the selwood printing works, frome, and london.