A YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS. 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX CONTAINING 
 
 THE REVOLUTIONARY EVENTS OF 1849. 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE CAUSES OF 
 
 THE THIRD FRENCH REVOLUTION, 
 
 BY WILLIAM S. "CHASE 
 
 
 ] HARTFORD: 
 HENRY E. ROBINS & CO, 
 
 NEW YORK! 
 HUNTINGTON & SAVAGE. 
 
 1850. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, 
 
 By HENRY E. ROBINS & CO., 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Connecticut. 
 
 f 
 
 F. G. RICHARDS, 
 
 PRINTER. 
 
CONTENT 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FRANCE. PA.GB 
 
 The Eve of a Revolution— The Three Days— The Abdi- 
 cation and Flight of Louis Philippe »• ...... . 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 From the Rejection of the Orleans Dynasty to the Open- 
 ing of the National Assembly 45 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 From the Appointment of the Executive Committee to 
 
 the Insurrection of June 66 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 From the Appointment of General Cavaignac as Presi- 
 dent of the Council to the Election of the first Presi- 
 dent of the Republic 92 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 The Constitutions — Austrian Assassinations in Lombardy 116 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 The War in Lombardy 128 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 The Republic of Venice — Projected Federation of the 
 Italian States — Royal Villany in Naples — The War 
 between Sicily and Naples — Revolution in Rome .... 143 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 All the States Revolutionized — The Central Parliament of 
 
 Germany created — Installation of the Regent 165 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AUSTRIA. PAGE 
 
 The Emperor's first Flight from Vienna — Bohemia — 
 
 Hungary and Croatia 183 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 AUSTRIA. 
 
 The Civil War in Hungary — Murder of Count Lamberg 198 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 AUSTRIA. 
 
 Insurrection and Bombardment of Vienna 210 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AUSTRIA. 
 
 Abdication of the Emperor Ferdinand — Principles of the 
 new Administration — Invasion of Hungary by the 
 Imperial Forces 223 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PRUSSIA. 
 
 From the Convocation of the Constituent Assembly to its 
 
 Dissolution and the Grant of a Constitution 234 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 The New Empire — Its Pretensions and its Performances 260 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 DENMARK. 
 
 The War in Schleswig-Holstein 269 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 SREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 
 
 The Invasion Panic — The Chartist Movements — The 
 Irish Rebellion — The Session of Parliament — Com- 
 mercial Vicissitudes — Foreign Relations 277 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The year 1848 was remarkably eventful. To 
 this country it brought the termination of our 
 war of conquest in Mexico, a change of 
 administration which elevated General Taylor 
 to the Presidency and the Whig Party to 
 power, and, finally, the discovery of the Gold 
 Regions in California, a discovery realizing 
 dreams of the fabled Dorado of the past, and 
 pregnant with mighty consequences for the 
 future. 
 
 In Europe, 1848 was emphatically a year of 
 Revolutions. " The social and political con- 
 vulsions which marked its course, the tottering 
 of thrones and dynasties, the irruption of 
 armed democracy into the council -chambers of 
 kings, the uprisings of oppressed and dormant 
 nationalities, and the consequent ruin of the 
 cumbrous fabrics raised over them by diplo- 
 macy, are incidents of that eventful year, 
 which have been watched by contemporary 
 spectators with the lively emotions due to such 
 vast dramatic spectacles, and to which inquiry 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 will, for many a generation to come, revert as 
 to the starting points of current history." 
 
 The foregoing passage is taken from the pre- 
 face to Mr. Walter K. Kelly's " History of the 
 Year 1848," the work from which, chiefly, the 
 present volume is abridged. Mr. Kelly has 
 been quite successful in the attempt to depict 
 the main features of the period from which his 
 book takes its title, and to lay before the reader 
 a succinct and digested narrative of its great 
 political events and perturbations. " The 
 utility of such a retrospect," he says, " if 
 executed with due care, fidelity, and discretion, 
 will be at once admitted. The most assiduous 
 reader of the public journals must often have 
 felt himself bewildered by the unparalleled 
 multiplicity and complexity of the movements 
 recorded by them during the past year, and 
 must have confessed the necessity of correcting 
 his first vague impressions and questionable 
 conclusions by a reconsideration of the m; 
 facts from which they were derived." 
 
 The French Revolution properly claim! 
 largest space in this work. Although 
 event was so sudden and unexpected as to 
 seem premature, the explosive forces which 
 resulted in it had been long accumulating. 
 A condensed account of the causes which 
 led to it has been thought appropriate. The 
 
 : main 
 
 as* the 
 1 that 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 Reign of Louis Philippe embraced those 
 causes ; and the reader is therefore invited, 
 before entering upon the narrative of their 
 consequences, to take as complete a survey of 
 that reign as our brief limits will allow us to 
 offer. 
 
 This volume, it will be seen, traces the 
 stream of events only to the close of the year 
 1848. It would be interesting to follow its 
 course beyond that point, but the prescribed 
 size of the book forbids. Interesting as it 
 might be, however, it would, in many respects, 
 be painful to record the subsequent history of 
 those revolutionary movements which, last 
 year, inspired the friends of liberal principles, 
 in Europe and throughout the world, with 
 enthusiasm and hope. To say nothing of the 
 sore grief inflicted on our hearts by that latest 
 blow of misfortune beneath which Hungary 
 has fallen, who could behold the present atti- 
 tude of France without mingled emotions of 
 «e, indignation, and alarm ? Look for one 
 3nt at her condition as depicted by 
 a las Jerrold : — " All is calm as the shel- 
 tered lake on a summer eve. But there is a 
 fearful tempest gathering. The audacious 
 designs of Legitimists and Monarchists — the 
 infamous expedition to Rome — the state of 
 siege — the suspended and muzzled press — the 
 
Viii PREFACE 
 
 violation of individual liberty — the sweeping 
 away of every political privilege won at the 
 barricades of February — the imprisonment 
 and exile of Republicans — the insolent disre- 
 gard of the people's wishes — the deplorable 
 state of the public treasury — the impending 
 national bankruptcy — all these are slowly 
 gathering and festering, and will soon break 
 forth with violence so terrific that no human 
 power will be able to check it. And God 
 alone can tell the consequence." The colors, 
 although dark, are not too dark, in this gloomy 
 picture of the worst spectacle of " reaction " 
 in Europe. France, with all her fine qualities 
 of head and heart, is subject to fits of mad- 
 ness. France is a maniac now, and the 
 brighter and more exquisite are her faculties, 
 the more melancholy is their eclipse. 
 
 It is only an eclipse. It will pass like a 
 shadow. France will yet be a light to the 
 nations. Heavy as are the clouds of darkness 
 that seem to be enveloping the European C^fe 
 tinent, the word of promise is sure, that " d9 
 ness cometh before day." 
 
 Whatever may be the immediate effects of 
 the convulsions of 1848, their tendency and 
 their ultimate results cannot fail to be good. 
 One thing, at least, has been already gained. 
 It is thus indicated by President Wayland, in 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 his eloquent discourse on the Recent Revolu- 
 tions in Europe : — " The rights of man, as an 
 intelligent and responsible being, have been 
 definitely expressed ; and the expression must 
 meet a response from every human heart. 
 Truths like these stand in no need of support 
 from argument; they appeal to every man's 
 consciousness, and they cannot be obliterated 
 from his recollection. Hence, whether sooner 
 or later, they must work out their necessary 
 result. The mist of ages has cleared away, 
 and the haven has been discovered; and 
 though the horizon may again be overcast, and 
 progress for the time be arrested, yet hence- 
 forth every movement will be in the right 
 direction, until the nations repose in the enjoy- 
 ment of peace and soul-liberty." 
 
 The following extract, from the same dis- 
 course, is at once so admirable and so perti- 
 nent to our subject, that it shall conclude this 
 preface. " Important social revolutions rarely 
 advance in straight lines. Obstructions turn 
 the movement, after it has commenced, some- 
 times to the one side, and sometimes to the 
 other. The course may thus be varied, but 
 the tendency remains the same ; it gains 
 strength by delay, and accumulates momentum 
 by assimilating with itself every analogous 
 impulse, until, having overcome every obstacle, 
 
 1* 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 it exerts its rightful power over the character 
 of man. There may be, in the case before us, 
 much to obstruct the cause of free opinion. 
 The selfishness of the human heart may engen- 
 der fierce collision. Ignorance of the princi- 
 ples of our social nature may construct 
 many a system utterly subversive of human 
 happiness. Many things may retard the re- 
 sult which we hope for, but they cannot 
 change the tendency which God himself has 
 impressed on our nature. Thus, when a 
 mighty river issues from its source, the law of 
 gravitation must bring it inevitably to the level 
 of the ocean. It will flow for a thousand miles 
 at the base of the mountains which arrest its 
 course, collecting strength from the streams 
 which are nourished in the summits of the bar- 
 rier itself, until, swollen to irresistible force, it 
 overcomes every obstacle, and sweeps its 
 triumphant way through a multitude of nations; 
 at last, gathering volume as it proceeds, at the 
 spot marked out by the laws of its being, it 
 pours itself into the ocean bay, bearing on its 
 waters the riches of a continent, and inviting 
 mighty navies to repose upon its bosom." 
 
CAUSES OF THE 
 
 THIED FKENCH KEYOLUTION, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 FRANCE. 
 
 THE EVE OF A REVOLUTION — THE THREE DAYS — THE ABDICATION 
 AND FLIGHT OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 
 
 The causes of the Revolution of 1848 may be 
 traced back to the Revolution of 1830. The latter 
 was effected by two means — by the organized conspi- 
 racy of the republicans, and by the spontaneous indig- 
 nation of the middle classes at the despotic policy 
 pursued by the Government of the Restoration. 
 Through the influence of the agents whom the wealth 
 of the Duke of Orleans enabled him to secure in the 
 committees of the Carbonari and other secret societies, 
 and through his own cunning management of the good, 
 but too credulous Lafayette, the French people were 
 induced to accept Louis Philippe as their King. They 
 were deluded by the specious title under which this 
 monarchy was offered as " the best of republics." But 
 scarcely had that prince ascended the throne which he 
 promised to surround with republican institutions, when 
 he began, cautiously at first, but with increasing bold- 
 
 11 
 
12 FRANCE. 
 
 ness that at length became outright rashness, the 
 traitorous work of rendering it despotic and absolute. 
 The reaction against him, at least in the minds of the 
 republicans, dates from the moment when he took his 
 seat upon a throne which they had fought to destroy. 
 They looked on themselves as deceived, tricked, and 
 ignominiously vanquished. 
 
 After a few abortive attempts at revolution on the 
 part of some of the more impatient republicans, their 
 party abandoned for a time the system of physical 
 force, and relied for ultimate victory upon the influence 
 of the pen (that surest of all instruments in the warfare 
 of opinions), and also upon the self-destructive tendencies 
 of the errors of government. 
 
 The republicans were not wrong in anticipating 
 errors in the course of government. For a while, in- 
 deed, so long as the spirit of insurrection was yet alive, 
 Louis Philippe affected the bearing as well as the title 
 of a citizen king ; but no sooner was this crushed, than 
 he entered upon a series of errors which were sure to 
 prove in the end as ruinous to himself as to the nation. 
 The personal pronoun he is here intentionally used, 
 because the phrase so often applied to Louis Philippe, 
 by way of justification or excuse, — the phrase, le roi 
 regne et ne gouverne pas, — the king reigns, not governs, 
 — is so well known to have involved an idle distinction, 
 that it is not unjust to throw a large share of the 
 responsibility attached to his administration, upon 
 the ex-king himself. His attacks upon the liberty 
 of the press and the right of meeting ; his short-sighted 
 encouragement of financial speculations which would 
 inevitably plunge the nation sooner or later into bank- 
 ruptcy ; his connivance at a corrupt political system 
 which ruled France by purchased majorities ; his 
 alleged readiness, for the sake of alliance with despotic 
 powers, to sacrifice the national honor, and the interests 
 of liberty, in those countries which looked to France for 
 
SELFISH POLICY OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 13 
 
 sympathy and aid in their resistance to tyranny ; in 
 fine, the apparent avidity with which, throughout his 
 whole policy, domestic and foreign, he sought to enrich 
 and aggrandize himself and his family, tended to hasten 
 the hour which should put a period to his sway. 
 
 It may be well to indicate somewhat more particu- 
 larly, the errors — to call them by so mild a name — 
 which have been summed up in the preceding para- 
 graph.- 
 
 Louis Philippe, during his reign, followed, at home 
 and abroad, a selfish policy. At home, all his efforts, 
 were designed to increase the material prosperity of the 
 middle classes, in such a way as to interest a powerful 
 and influential party in his favor, by making them feel 
 that their riches were derived from him. His efforts 
 were for a long time successful. No government can 
 last long at Paris without the support of the National 
 Guard, which is composed principally of citizens belong- 
 ing to the middle classes. So long as the National 
 Guard remains faithful to the existing power, the army 
 remains faithful: the moment the civic force wavers, 
 then the line gives way. Now for many years the 
 National Guard remained firmly faithful to a king who 
 gave them peace and prosperity, and under whose 
 reign commerce, trade, and the useful arts, made rapid 
 progress. It has been observed that no greater proof 
 is wanting of the blind adherence of the middle classes 
 to the policy of Louis Philippe, than the large sums 
 they allowed him to expend in fortifications, the vast 
 increase of taxation to which they submitted unmur- 
 muringly, and their readiness to second everything like 
 democratic or republican change. Encouraged by im- 
 punity, Louis Philippe appeared to forget how far the 
 people had been instrumental in placing him on the 
 throne, and to become wholly intent upon diverting to 
 his own advantage the power with which he had been 
 intrusted. His enormous extension of the civil list, his 
 
14 FRANCE. 
 
 notorious abuse of permission to cut wood in the nation- 
 al forests, his exorbitant demands for marriage portions 
 in favor of his children, his system of creating numerous 
 unnecessary offices in order to buy votes, and, in short, 
 his grasping at almost every conceivable mode of 
 draining money from the nation, had imposed so crush- 
 ing a weight upon taxation, that it extorted complaints 
 from all classes of society. What with direct imposi- 
 tions, loans, and floating debt, the taxes in France were 
 much heavier under the reign of Louis Philippe than 
 dming the wars of Napoleon. The evils of this exces- 
 sive taxation were aggravated by scarcity in 1847, when 
 commerce was at a low ebb, every trade languished, 
 labor was extremely ill-paid, and the whole country 
 groaned under the burden of an oppressive and selfish 
 system. The middle classes themselves had gradually 
 been changed from staunch supporters of the king into 
 lukewarm friends or direct enemies, and, consequently, 
 the National Guard was no longer an impregnable 
 tower of strength. 
 
 The foreign policy of Louis Philippe was no less 
 selfish than his domestic policy. The very first act of 
 his ministry was the disavowal of all the insurrectionary 
 tendencies, awakened by the example of France, in the 
 rest of Europe. The design was to conciliate the vari- 
 ous reigning powers by this ominous token of the in- 
 tention of government to deny those principles, as the 
 exponent of which it had been raised to authority. 
 But even after its recognition, Austria and Prussia but 
 coolly received its representatives, and Russia did not 
 hesitate to make the residence of a French ambassador 
 at her court as unpleasant as want of consideration and 
 personal disrespect could render it. England is with- 
 out doubt, therefore, indebted less to the personal pre- 
 dilections of Louis Philippe than to the necessities of 
 his position, for the apparent good feeling evinced 
 towards her during the earlier portion of his reign. 
 
FOREIGN POLICY OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 15 
 
 In spite of his frequent professions of personal attach- 
 ment to the Royal Family of England, and of his 
 wish to maintain the entente coi'diale, as it has been 
 called, " a good understanding," between France and 
 Great Britain, it is now clear that his chief desire was 
 to strengthen his throne by alliance with the more 
 absolute monarchies, rather than by promoting sympa- 
 thies founded on resemblance in the fundamental and 
 constitutional elements of national government. The 
 fear of coming to a positive difference with England 
 before his throne was firmly enough established to sus- 
 tain the shock, was probably the constraining reason 
 that he did not accept the crown of Belgium for his 
 son the Duke of Nemours. And afterwards, a sense 
 of the necessity of still preserving the English alliance 
 unbroken, was the secret of that peace policy (over- 
 praised in this country because its motives were mis- 
 taken or unknown) which transferred the reins of 
 administration from Thiers to Guizot, in consequence 
 of the deception practised by the latter in such a way 
 as to encourage both monarch and minister to play, 
 for their own purposes, into the hands of the war 
 party, at the period when the conflicting interests of 
 Turkey and Egypt in Syria had given reason for an 
 intervention of the greater powers, France was then 
 chagrined to find herself suddenly isolated from the 
 rest of Europe by the decision of England, Russia, 
 Austria, and Prussia, to settle the question without 
 their assistance. Among the various movements to 
 which the subsiding agitation of the Three Days gave 
 an impulse, the Belgian Revolution was the only one 
 in which France took a prominent part. The reluctant 
 occupation of Ancona, counteracted as it was by the 
 attitude preserved by the French government, was 
 almost valueless in its results. It did not hinder Italy 
 from falling back to her old position, hopeless" of 
 liberty, and cursing the .delusion by which she had 
 
16 FRANCE. 
 
 been tempted to trust to French support. In concert 
 with Guizot, Louis Philippe had aimed by his defence 
 of the Gallician massacres, by his proffer of support to 
 the Jesuits in Switzerland, to the Sonderbund, and by 
 his refusal of sympathy and aid to the promoters of 
 liberal principles in Italy, to secure the forgiveness of 
 Austria for her sins against legitimacy. He. had 
 sought to reconcile. Russia by his abandonment of the 
 interests of Poland. Confident of the alliance of these 
 Northern powers, he at length ventured to cut the ties 
 by which he had hitherto been bound to England. 
 He had already commenced and carried on a system 
 of nepotism, of family aggrandizement, which had 
 allotted to one son, the Duke de Nemours, the dignity 
 of Regent in case of his own death ; which had 
 appointed another son, the Duke d' Aumale, Governor- 
 General of Algeria ; another, the Prince de Joinville, 
 Admiral of the Navy; and evinced an intention to 
 create for still another, the Duke de Montpensier, the 
 title of Grand Master of the Artillery, — thus violating 
 the spirit of the French military -system that permits 
 every common soldier to aspire to the rank of Marshal ; 
 which, in fine, had seated one daughter of the House 
 of Orleans on the throne of Belgium, and given to one 
 son a royal bride and a vice-royalty : This system of 
 nepotism he now resolved to consummate by wedding 
 another son, in spite of the opposition of Great Britain, 
 with an heiress presumptive to the throne of Spain. 
 This alliance, prompted by a purely dynastic motive, 
 severed the alliance with England which the French 
 nation had supported impatiently, but still supported, 
 on account of the great interests of humanity, the free- 
 dom of the seas, commerce, and industry ; but when it 
 was thus suddenly thrown to the winds for the sake of 
 family aggrandizement, France perceived that there 
 was nothing sincere but ambition in the condescension 
 until then shown by Louis Philippe to England. From 
 
POLITICAL CORRUPTION. 17 
 
 that day, says Larnartine, who predicted the fata, 
 results of the ambitious and impolitic marriage of the 
 Duke de Montpensier, — from that day, the King, 
 rendered unpopular with the republican party by his 
 throne, and unpopular with the legitimist party by his 
 usurpation, was rendered unpopular with the pacific 
 and government party, by the war with which the 
 Spanish marriage menaced France. Such was the 
 effect of the selfish foreign policy pursued by the King 
 of the French. 
 
 Louis Philippe, however, thought himself invincible, 
 because he still retained a ministry, eloquent in parlia- 
 ment and ngreeable at court, and two strong majorities 
 in the chambers. But the very remnant of strength 
 to which he trusted became his destruction. The 
 corrupt means employed in obtaining and holding it 
 began justly to excite popular indignation. Out of a 
 population of 35,400,486 only a few more than 
 200,000 enjoyed the privileges of electors. The cen- 
 tralization which existed in France left at the disposal 
 of Government more than four hundred thousand 
 offices, great and small. These, with crosses of the 
 Legion of Honor, roads, concessions of mines, loans to 
 companies, and direct purchase of votes by cash, ena- 
 bled the Guizot administration to ensure itself a major- 
 ity. But even this majority must needs be secured 
 by making it interested. Out of four hundred and 
 fifty members, therefore, two hundred and four were 
 made placemen, and the chamber was thus crowded 
 by salaried functionaries of Government. The popular 
 complaints of corruption were ratified by judicial 
 decisions, in processes , instituted against public officers 
 and men who had sat on the same benches with Guizot, 
 for the sale of places. The trial of Teste and his asso- 
 ciates revealed to an alarming extent the justice of 
 those complaints. 
 
 The example of servility and selfishness in high 
 
18 FRANCE. 
 
 places became the source of wide-spread contagion. 
 Ministers who sold concessions and bargained for tlie 
 price of a law, were imitated by clerks in government 
 offices. Men shamelessly offered their services to 
 government at a fixed price, and ■ cases were not un- 
 known where offices were obtained at the expense of a 
 wife's dishonor. The management of theatres was 
 sold to the highest bidder. In fact, corruption infected 
 every department of public service, and even, at length, 
 the walks of private life. " It would seem," observed, 
 in September, 1847, a French writer (whose survey of 
 the subject, from a strictly religious point of view, is 
 entitled to peculiar consideration) — " it would seem as 
 though our rulers had sought systematically to stifle 
 honorable sentiments, and to excite in men's hearts an 
 immoderate, an insatiable love of money. They have 
 adopted this line of conduct as a means of extinguish- 
 ing public spirit, of preventing all serious opposition, 
 and of everywhere forming docile instruments. They 
 have preached with effrontery in their journals, and 
 from the parliamentary tribune, the religion of mate- 
 rial interests, alleging that it is the great object of 
 human life, and the essential end of society. Alas ! 
 our rulers have been but too successful in this new 
 kind of proselytism. Citizens of all ranks have rushed 
 with phrensied eagerness on the bait so imprudently 
 offered to their avarice. ' Money ! money at any price !' 
 Such has appeared to be the cry alike of the highest 
 and of the lowest in the social scale ; and, amidst the 
 universal ruins of religion and virtue, cupidity has re- 
 mained standing like a mighty giant !" The records 
 of the French courts of justice during the year 1847, 
 expose the political corruption of ex-ministers like Teste 
 and Cubieres, the licentiousness of many popular au- 
 thors and journalists, the horrors of the Praslin tragedy 
 (in which government is more than suspected of having 
 connived at the suicide of the Duke de Praslin), the self 
 
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTIONS. 19 
 
 murders and crazy attempts at murder on the part of 
 certain diplomatic officers of high rank, like the Counts 
 de Bresson and Mortier ; and are full of other hideous 
 developments of sin and madness in private and public 
 life. They also testify to the religious persecutions 
 endured by the Baptists in the Department of l'Aisne, 
 whose persistence in exercising the right of meeting, 
 guaranteed to them in common with all Frenchmen 
 by the charter, was visited by trials, fines, and impri- 
 sonment. M. Odillon Barrot, a principal promoter of 
 the Reform Banquets of 1847, cordially accepted an 
 invitation to become the legal adviser of the Baptists. 
 On one occasion, at a trial where his engagements 
 prevented him from being present as their advocate, 
 his place was supplied by M. Henri Lutteroth, the able 
 conductor of Le Semeur, a leading Parisian journal, 
 who, although not agreeing with their denominational 
 peculiarities, was deeply interested in the principle at 
 stake, and in the constancy with which these humble 
 Christians suffered in order to maintain it. The case 
 was decided against them by the higher courts to 
 which it was successively carried. It was still pending 
 When the Revolution broke forth, the immediate con- 
 sequence of a struggle for the same principle involved 
 in their case, a struggle provoked by the same absolute 
 law which had been revived in order to interfere with 
 their right of meeting. Thus the heroic resistance of a 
 few obscure Baptists to an odious law, was among the 
 proximate causes of hastening an event which other 
 causes had already rendered inevitable. 
 
 That this event had become inevitable, that it was 
 becoming imminent, was indicated by signs that daily 
 multiplied. The circumstance that in the winter of 
 1847 thousands of spectators were attracted to one of 
 the theatres in Paris by a play entitled la Revolution 
 Frangaise, the French Revolution, caused the writer 
 of these pages (then residing at Paris) to pen the fol- 
 
20 FRANCE. 
 
 lowing paragraph : " The Parisians at present content 
 themselves with being amused by minute representa- 
 tions of scenes which were stern and stirring realities 
 for their fathers. In the faubourg St. Antoine, how- 
 ever, slumber fires yet unquenched that will surely 
 burst forth with all their fury in the next French 
 Revolution. For why should there not be another ? 
 The king, with all his tact and his decision of character, 
 cannot live for ever ; and even before the firm hand 
 which now wields the sceptre is palsied in death, the 
 prestige of Louis Philippe's name may have vanished, 
 and scores of contingent causes may excite the ' wliirl- 
 wind and storm.' The only infallible security against 
 political disorder, is a degree of civil right and liberty, 
 and of intellectual and moral development, which the 
 masses are far, very far from having attained. And if 
 a revolution should arise, its most fearful element 
 would be, as of old, the rage of the people. Before 
 this terrible power, the monied aristocracy which 
 sixteen years of golden peace have created, would flee 
 as speedily as the nobility and even the royalty of a 
 former day." It may be allowable to have repeated 
 this partial prediction, now that it has since been 
 signally fulfilled. 
 
 During the interval, in 1847, between the proroga- 
 tion of the Chamber of Deputies in July, and its re- 
 assembling in December, much more significant exhibi- 
 tions of public feeling than those which attended the 
 play alluded to, were made at various political dinners, 
 held throughout the provinces. Many of these assem- 
 blies were under the direction of M. Duvergier (de 
 Hauranne), a deputy, who, since he cast off allegiance 
 to M. Guizot in 1S39, had been assiduous in his 
 endeavors to promote by speeches and publications, the 
 cause of electoral reform. At all of these Reform 
 Banquets, as they were called — about sixty in number, 
 — the custom universal in monarchical countries of 
 
SOCIALISTIC DOCTRINES. 21 
 
 drinking to the sovereign's health, was invariably 
 omitted, for the purpose of testifying the displeasure of 
 the people whose temporary favor had elevated Louis 
 Philippe to the throne. The Banquets were attended 
 by most of the prominent members of the different 
 parties of the opposition ; and the freedom with which 
 the subject of electoral reform was discussed, resulted 
 in a healthy agitation of public sentiment that boded 
 well for the rational progress of constitutional liberty in 
 France. 
 
 The steady opposition maintained at these Reform 
 Banquets, at the parliamentary tribune, and through 
 the press, against the selfish policy of Louis Philippe, 
 co-operated with the vices and errors of government, 
 and with the accumulating forces of public opinion, to 
 produce the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 Among the forces of public opinion which have just 
 been mentioned, one of the most effectual and impor- 
 tant was that communicated by the impulse of what 
 usually pass under the name of Socialistic doctrines. 
 Although this name covers the utmost variety of views, 
 held by as great a variety of parties, yet those who 
 entertain them are often quite indiscriminately classed 
 together as Socialists, whether they are disciples of 
 Saint Simon or Fourier, admirers of Pierre Leroux, of 
 Considerant, or of Proudhon, or belong to the nume- 
 rous subdivisions under the title of Communistes- 
 £r/alitaires, Communionistes, Communitaires, Commu- 
 nistes-materialistes, CommunauUstes, etc., etc., which 
 compose the party of Communists. Now, the intellec- 
 tual activity of France had been nowhere more vigor- 
 ously exercised during late years, than in discussing 
 great Social questions. An incredible number of books 
 and pamphlets had been occasioned by almost eveiy 
 known or alleged evil, and by almost every proposed 
 reform. Texts had alternately been furnished by 
 prison discipline, colonial slavery, legislative and finau- 
 
22 FRANCE. 
 
 cial arrangements, pauperism, public education, and 
 especially by that all-absorbing question from which no 
 political thinker can longer avert his attention — the im- 
 provement of the existing relations between what is 
 designated as the laboring portion of the community 
 and their employers, the question known on the Euro- 
 pean continent under the technical name of the 
 Organization of Labor. The discussion of these great 
 questions had long occupied an increasing number of 
 Socialists of every party and of no party in France. The 
 writer has elsewhere had occasion to say that the 
 French Socialists " have raised many problems which 
 await future solution. They have sown in the public 
 mind many ideas, which, amidst tares, will yet yield 
 good grain. Without admiring some of the motley 
 peculiarities by which they are distinguished, it is right 
 to recognise in their ranks not a few of the most earnest 
 and devoted friends of humanity. Even the dreams of 
 those among them who are not utterly lost in the dark- 
 ness of infidelity, reflect, however dimly, the light of the 
 purest and highest truth. The beauty of their best 
 conceptions is, as the Germans might call it, a certain 
 after-shine (iiachskehi) of Christianity/' To introduce 
 the briefest possible explanation of their views, it may 
 be said that they added a new to the old revolutionary 
 principle. The old principle includes the right of self- 
 government and civil and religious liberty — the prin- 
 ciples, in feet, that in the first French revolution were 
 so wisely advocated by Vergniaud, Bailey, Eoland, 
 Brissot, and the other Girondins ; and so ferociously 
 contended for by Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Marat, 
 Robespierre, Hebert, and Chaumette ; and which, in 
 the revolution of 1830, found illustrious advocates in 
 Lafayette, Constant, and Lafitte. The o/d principle is 
 only a political principle, and attempts to realize what 
 our own American people have realized under a Re- 
 public. Louis Philippe invaded this principle, and he 
 
THE REFORM BANQUETS. 23 
 
 fell. But his overthrow was aided by a new principle, 
 which adopts the old one, but goes much further. It 
 insists not only upon civil and religious liberty, and a 
 share in the government through suffrage, for the 
 whole adult population, but also upon the establishment 
 of new Social relations between capital and labor. By 
 a new distribution of wealth, and by the destruction, or 
 at least the modification of individualism, it would show 
 to the world that every man might have more than 
 enough for his wants, and poverty and crime be alto- 
 gether banished from society. This new principle had 
 gained numerous converts among the uneducated as 
 well as the educated classes. Many of its most active 
 recruits were drawn from the ranks of the workingmen 
 of Paris, large numbers of whom had accepted Louis 
 Blanc as their apostle, as their master and guide in the 
 investigation of the industrial problem. It was these 
 men, in reality, whose strong arms overthrew the 
 monarchy. For a moment the new and the old revo- 
 lutionary principle struggled together, and struggled 
 successfully against the despotic tendencies of the sys- 
 tem of Louis Philippe. To show here how soon and 
 how unfortunately the respective adherents of the two 
 principles began to war against each other, would be to 
 anticipate the course of our narrative. Let us re- 
 turn to the immediate consequences of the Reform 
 Banquets. Here we may enter upon Mr. Kelly's ac- 
 count. 
 
 " On the 28th of December, 184*7, the last session of 
 the French Parliament as constituted by the Charter 
 of 1830, was opened by Louis Philippe in person. 
 The interest of the royal speech centred almost wholly 
 on one passage ; it was that in which allusion was 
 made to the numerous banquets that had been held all 
 over the kingdom, in furtherance of the pressing de- 
 mand for parliamentary reform. These banquets were 
 characterized by the King as the result of an "agitation 
 
24 FRANCE. 
 
 fomented by blind and hostile passions." Such language 
 could not fail to be vehemently resented by a conside- 
 rable minority in the Chamber, as an insolent and 
 unconstitutional censure ; and out of doors it was re- 
 peated with astonishment, indignation, alarm, or mali- 
 cious exultation, according as each man feared or 
 desired the convulsion it portended. The funds fell 
 on the publication of the royal speech. The debate in 
 the Chamber of Peers, on the address in answer to the 
 speech, passed off, as was to be expected, in a manner 
 quite satisfactory to ministers. It was far otherwise in 
 the Chamber of Deputies, where the debate was pro- 
 tracted through no fewer tnan nineteen sittings. The 
 paragraph relating to the Reform banquets came under 
 discussion on the 7th of February, previously to which 
 day the angry feelings of the Opposition had been 
 exasperated by a fresh provocation on the part of 
 ministers. 
 
 The twelfth arrondissement of Paris having resolved 
 to hold on the 19 th of January, a public banquet, at 
 which it was expected that a large body of the Oppo- 
 sition Deputies would be present, the stewards received 
 notice from the prefecture of police that the requisite 
 permission would not be granted them. The stewards 
 replied that they had neither asked, nor thought of 
 asking, a permission of which they stood in no need ; 
 and that, as the laws directed against associations were 
 of no force against these meetings, they should treat 
 the interference of the police with contempt. The 
 banquet, however, was postponed. On the 24th the 
 stewards published a notice that the meeting should 
 positively be held, and they emphatically pledged 
 themselves to bring the question of law to an issue. 
 The banquet was subsequently announced for the 20th 
 of February, but again postponed to the 2 2d. So 
 threatening did the aspect of the capital become, in 
 consequence of the fermentation of popular feeling, 
 
CONDUCT OF THE OPPOSITION. 25 
 
 during the interval, that ministers seem to have felt 
 the necessity of tempering their firmness with all pos- 
 sible show of moderation and deference for established 
 law. Accordingly, they intimated, in the course of the 
 debate on the address in the Chamber of Deputies, that 
 they would only offer a formal opposition to the ban- 
 quet, with a view to bring the disputed question to a 
 legal arbitrament. A single commissary of police was 
 to be stationed at the door of the banqueting-hall, and 
 after warning those present of the illegality of the pro- 
 ceedings, he was to take down the names of such as 
 insisted on entering, and then withdraw. On the 11th 
 the Chamber voted the passage of the address echoing- 
 the obnoxious passage in the royal speech. On the 
 12th, the several paragraphs of the address having 
 been voted, a division took place on the whole collect- 
 ively. The Opposition members abstained from voting, 
 and ministers had a majority of 241 votes in a house 
 of 244. The Opposition, to the number of more than 
 a hundred, met the next day, and resolved unanimously 
 that they would all attend the banquet, and that no. 
 member of their party, even if chosen by lot, should 
 go up with the deputation which was to present the 
 address to the King. Several of the Opposition mem- 
 bers had, before this, talked of resigning, and appealing 
 to the country — a course which Einile de Girardin, the 
 able editor of La Presse, a leading Parisian journal, 
 strongly, recommended and enforced by his example ; 
 but the majority decided that it was their duty to 
 remain at their posts as watchful guardians of the 
 public rights. 
 
 Thus far we see the two hostile parties appealing to 
 the law for the justification of their conduct, and pro- 
 fessing to act strictly in accordance with their several 
 interpretations of certain ambiguous enactments ; but 
 the next movement of the Opposition deputies car- 
 ried them out of the pale of the law, and exposed 
 2 
 
26 FRANCE. 
 
 them to be taken in the flank by their antagonists. 
 " The general committee appointed to organize the 
 banquet," published in the papers on Sunday evening 
 and Monday morning, the 20th and 21st, " a manifesto, 
 prescribing the mode of assemblage and the order in 
 which the procession was to reach the place of rendez- 
 vous. The National Guard were specially invited to 
 attend, in order to accomplish the double duty of de- 
 fending liberty by joining the demonstration, and pro- 
 tecting order and preventing all collision by their pre- 
 sence." They were to line the streets through which 
 the procession passed, and to form in columns in the 
 numerical order of their respective legions, with their 
 officers at their head ; but they were to present them- 
 selves without arms. 
 
 Eagerly seizing the advantage thus afforded it, the 
 Government issued three proclamations on Monday, 
 absolutely prohibiting the banquet, on the ground that 
 the summons addressed to the National Guard by the 
 banquet committee was a flagrant violation of the law 
 and the constitution, and tantamount to setting up an 
 imperium in imperio, an empire within an empire. 
 In point of law, the ministers were clearly in the 
 right, but they had put themselves in a false position, 
 from which they were not to be extricated by the most 
 dexterous use of any error in tactics committed by 
 their opponents. A question was at issue involving 
 principles of the highest order, and an attempt to 
 shirk it upon a by-plea was pitiably out of place. 
 The crisis was one that demanded for its pacific solu- 
 tion the genius of a great statesman; the ministry 
 had nothing better to apply to it than the clever sub- 
 terfuges of men versed in the chicanery of party. 
 
 Meanwhile they had been long making military pre- 
 parations on a scale sufficient, as they thought, to 
 render all resistance hopeless. The garrison of Paris 
 had been increased to the number of nearly 100,000 
 
27 
 
 men, and supplied with axes, pickaxes, shovels, and 
 other implements for demolishing barricades, with 
 fifty ball-cartridges and provisions for four days. The 
 cannon at Vincennes were put in requisition for active 
 service, and the streets of the capital resounded by 
 night with the heavy rolling of wagons conveying 
 ammunition. But far from being dismayed by this 
 vast array of physical force, the enemies of the mo- 
 narchy seem to have beheld in it a sure prognostic of 
 their own approaching triumph. M. Goudchaux, one 
 of the Republican ministers, has deposed, that " some 
 days before the Revolution " a provisional government 
 was actually nominated by a committee sitting in his 
 house. Many other conclaves, similarly engaged, were 
 held nightly in various quarters of the town. 
 
 The prohibition of the Metropolitan Reform banquet 
 sealed the doom of Louis Philippe. His fall, which 
 was now inevitable, involved that of Guizot, who, al- 
 though he had at first opposed, yet afterwards con- 
 sented to the act, and thus shared its responsibility and 
 its fatal consequences. In this last instance of subject- 
 ing his high intellect to the exigency and dictation of 
 a meaner one, the minister filled to the brim the mea- 
 sure of his previous political errors. He thus com- 
 pleted the forfeiture of that fame as a statesman, 
 which, until he was tricked into becoming the tool of a 
 royal master, the gravity of his character, so unusual 
 among Frenchmen, his profound learning, impressive 
 eloquence, and acknowledged integrity, had won for 
 him, shedding additional lustre upon his fame as an his- 
 torian. Guizot may have imagined that the interests 
 of France depended on strengthening the ties which 
 bound the Orleans dynasty to it. But his mistaken, if 
 not criminal confidence in the wily son of Philippe 
 Egalite, led him to serve his king better than his 
 country. He was destined to reap his reward. With- 
 in a few hours from the date of his latest act of sub* 
 
28 FRANCE. 
 
 serviency to the will of the monarch, and of haughty 
 opposition to the will of the people, he was to be 
 hurled from his elevated place of power. His emo- 
 tions upon this sudden reverse of power might have 
 been expressed by him in the language which Shak- 
 speare, his familiar poet, puts in the mouth of another 
 fallen courtier : — 
 
 Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness ! 
 ****** I have ventured 
 This many summers in a sea of glory ; 
 But, far beyond my depth, my high-blown pride 
 At length broke under me, and now has left me, 
 Weary, and old with service, to the mercy 
 Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me. 
 ****** O how wretched 
 Is that poor man that hangs on prince's favors ! 
 * * , When he falls, he falls, like Lucifer, 
 Never to hope again. 
 
 The monarch whose influence over his ministers had 
 been so unfortunate for both, richly merited, as a politi- 
 cian and as a prince, the disgrace which awaited him. 
 As an individual, the history of his early vicissitudes is 
 peculiarly interesting : a sincere respect may be che- 
 rished for his private virtues as a son, a brother, a hus- 
 band, a father ; for his urbanity of manners, for the 
 wonderful variety and extent of his knowledge, and for 
 his superior talents ; but neither admiration of his ex- 
 cellent personal qualities, nor sympathy with the trials 
 of his youth, can or ought to alter in the least the con- 
 viction forced upon every impartial mind, that his heart 
 had long been false to his original profession of those 
 liberal principles which for years it seems to have been 
 his object to subvert. 
 
 Louis Philippe and Guizot, by their final act of blind 
 and insane resistance to the popular and liberal princi- 
 ple, hastened an inevitable crisis. They forgot, in 
 their infatuation, how deeply, how fully they were in- 
 
SINGULAR COINCIDENCES. 29 
 
 debted to that very principl, for the power which they 
 possessed. Nor could they have chosen a more unfa- 
 vorable moment for this arrogant abuse of their power, 
 than at a period when the entire political aspect of Eu- 
 rope — with a revolution in Sicily — a revolution in 
 Naples — a Constitution granted to the Tuscans — and 
 great concessions made to the Piedmontese — might 
 have revealed to them the folly and danger of attempt- 
 ing to enslave France, whose favorite boast is its claim 
 to be a pioneer in the path of progressive liberty on the 
 Continent. 
 
 Near the tumultuous close of one of the debates in 
 the Chamber on that paragraph in the royal speech 
 relating to the Reform banquets, Odillon Barrot succeed- 
 ed in making his voice heard above the uproar, and 
 exclaimed, " I call on you to hear me, and to weigh well 
 my words : Ministers of the Revolution of July, you 
 violate a law respected even by the Restoration at the 
 very moment of its fall. I tell you that you do not 
 respect even what was respected by Polignac." It was 
 Polignac whose fatal support of Charles X. in his un- 
 conditional measures, led to the outbreak in 1830, which 
 drove that sovereign into exile. The bold reproof of 
 the orator should have alarmed the Court like a voice 
 of prophecy ; but it was unheeded, and Louis Philippe 
 and Guizot paid the penalty for failing to profit by the 
 fate of Charles X. and Polignac. 
 
 It is a singular coincidence that the downfall of the 
 successive monarchies was preceded by events in Alge- 
 ria, which, under different circumstances, would have 
 been highly fortunate. On the first day of the year 
 1848, the surrender of Abd-el-Kader was made known 
 in Paris. That modern Jugurtha had scarcely set foot, 
 however, on the soil of those who had defeated and 
 duped him, when he beheld the end of a reign, the be- 
 ginning of which his cwn struggle with France had 
 witnessed. While the fall of the Arab chieftain grati- 
 
30 FRANCE. 
 
 fied the martial pride of France, by securing to her the 
 undisputed possession of her conquest, and opportunely 
 closed one huge drain upon her exchequer, it wholly 
 failed of yielding to the dynastic party any accession of 
 popularity. Louis Philippe in 1848, like Charles X. in 
 1830, found in the success achieved in Algeria, not even 
 a momentary abatement of the disaffection which por- 
 tended an approaching crisis. 
 
 The crisis came. The causes which have been indi- 
 cated in this rapid survey of the reign of Louis Philippe 
 at length reached their unavoidable conclusion. Louis 
 Philippe was no longer King of the French — 
 
 " Eighteen years his evil spirit brooded o'er a noble land, 
 
 Eighteen years he lied and cheated ;~found France gold, and 
 made her sand ; 
 
 Fooled whom he could not corrupt ; sundered freemen ; banded 
 slaves ; 
 
 Filled his Africa with butchers ; filled- his France with worser 
 knaves ; 
 
 Stripped the people of their weapons,, gagged them with Sep- 
 tember laws ; 
 
 Girdled Paris with his bastions ; stuffed with shells their mur- 
 derous maws ; 
 
 Picked out one whom God had made good and great and lion- 
 brave, 
 
 Made him evil, and, O marvel ! from a Guizot wrought a 
 slave * 
 
 — And to fall now, beat and baffled, 'neath his burghers' dusty 
 feet, 
 
 Checked by a dozen barricades, felled by the stones that pave 
 the street, 
 
 With his hundred thousand men, with his Bugeaud, with his 
 might — 
 
 Quelled by one million citizens — weak, unarmed — but in the 
 right ! " 
 
 The determination of the Government not to allow 
 the banquet was not known in the Chamber of Depu- 
 ties until a late hour on Monday. A debate on a 
 bank-bill was proceeding languidly in the almost empty 
 
REFORM BANQUET PROHIBITED. 31 
 
 chamber, when at a little before five every bench was 
 filled by a sudden influx of Deputies. An animated 
 dialogue ensued between M. Odillon Barrot, the leader 
 of the Opposition, and M. Duchatel, Minister of the 
 Interior ; after which the Chamber adjourned, and the 
 Opposition Deputies held a meeting to consider what 
 steps they should next take. A minority of eighteen, 
 including Lamartine, Cremieux, and Ledru Rollin, 
 were for proceeding at all risks in the course already 
 announced, but the majority resolved to forego the 
 banquet and impeach ministers. By this decision the 
 members of the dynastic Opposition at once severed 
 the temporary bond that had united them with the 
 ultra-Liberal party. From that moment they fell from 
 their position as leaders, and were contemptuously 
 brushed aside, as useless incumbrances, by men who 
 were ready to brave every chance, b>ut for a higher 
 stake than a mere change of ministry and some specious 
 modification of a thoroughly rotten system. 
 
 It was not until late on Monday night that the news 
 of the prohibition was generally current in Paris, 
 except as a rumor. The principal thoroughfares 
 were filled with anxious crowds impatiently waiting for 
 the evening papers. When they appeared as usual at 
 nine o'clock, the whole impression was instantly scram- 
 bled for and exhausted by purchasers at fifteen or 
 twenty times the ordinary price. Between nine and 
 ten the proclamations against the banquet were sudden- 
 ly placarded on every wall in Paris. Large groups 
 gathered round each of them, while one man read 
 their contents aloud by torch-light. They were then 
 torn down and trampled under foot, and every man 
 whispered his neighbor that next day all Frenchmen 
 should be ready to do their duty. 
 
 The early part of Tuesday morning passed off with- 
 out any unusual display, but about half-past ten a 
 crowd of some five or six thousand persons assembled 
 
32 FRANCE. 
 
 in front of the Chamber of Deputies, and began to 
 force their way into the interior : they were easily dis- 
 persed by the troops which had been concentrated 
 round the building during the night. The crowd 
 retired quietly, singing the Marseillaise, and went to 
 swell with their numbers the dense multitude now 
 collected in the vast area between the Chamber of 
 Deputies and the church of the Madeleine. The popu- 
 lace in this part of the city were unarmed, and as jet 
 exhibited no symptoms of violence. Horse and foot 
 were sent to disperse them, which was effected without 
 any loss of life or other serious casualty, and with a 
 singular display of good humor on both sides, the 
 populace cheering the soldiers of the line ; but wherever 
 the Municipal Guard (police soldiers) appeared, they 
 were hooted and pelted with stones. About noon the 
 Hotel des Affaires Etrangeres was assailed by a large 
 mob, who strove to burst open the gate and inflict 
 summary vengeance on Guizot ; but they were easily 
 repulsed by the strong force posted in and around the 
 building. At one o'clock all the main thoroughfares 
 were clear. 
 
 The lull did not last long. About three o'clock all 
 the shops in the northern part of the metropolis were 
 closed, and alarm generally prevailed. The populace 
 had now begun to act on the offensive ; some small 
 detached posts were carried by them, the soldiers 
 offering no * resistance ; one or two armorers' shops 
 were pillaged, and a few barricades were formed with 
 overturned carts, hackney-coaches, and omnibuses, but 
 were taken by the troops almost as soon as erected. 
 All this while the soldiers of the line and of the police 
 force had alone been employed on the side of the 
 Government, the ministers fearing to call out the Na- 
 tional Guard, whose peculiar duty it was to act in 
 similar emergencies. About five o'clock, however, the 
 Executive, yielding to the entreaties of many leading 
 
PARIS INSURGENT. 33 
 
 men, suffered the rappel to be beaten, and the manner 
 in which it was done was curious and significant. The 
 drummers were preceded and followed by detachments 
 of the National Guard, and the rear was brought up 
 by some hundreds of young fellows in blouses, armed 
 with long sticks, and roaring out the favorite cries and 
 songs of the day. It was evident the populace re- 
 garded the civic soldiers as their own trusty allies. 
 But few of the latter responded to the call to arms : 
 out of its 8000 men, the 2d legion mustered only 544, 
 and those who obeyed the summons were left wholly 
 unprovided with ammunition, with the sole exception 
 of the 1st legion belonging to the district of the 
 palaces, and numbering in its ranks many court trades- 
 men and other staunch Orleanists. 
 
 The Chamber of Deputies had met as usual at one 
 o'clock, and proceeded very methodically to discuss — 
 the Bordeaux bank-bill ! M. Guizot arrived early, 
 looking pale but undaunted. At three o'clock the 
 Opposition members entered the chamber, and M. de 
 Hauranne handed the President a paper containing a 
 proposition for the impeachment of ministers. The 
 President passed it to M. Guizot, who, after perusing 
 it, laughed immoderately. Still the Chamber went on 
 discussing the Bordeaux Bank-bill, and about five 
 o'clock the President was about to leave his seat, when 
 M. Barrot reminded him that a formal proposition had 
 been deposited, and requested it might be read. The 
 President replied that it must first be examined in 
 committee, after which it would be brought up on 
 Thursday. When that Thursday came, where was 
 the Chamber of Deputies ? 
 
 The Government and its partisans beheld in the 
 events of the day only matter to justify their own con- 
 temptuous security. Scarcely had one weapon to a 
 thousand men been seen in the hands of the mob, who 
 had thought to terrify by their brawling a ministry 
 c * 2* 
 
34 FRANCE. 
 
 defended by 100,000 bayonets. As the night drew 
 in, the whole western district of Paris was cleared of 
 the rioters, and occupied by the military, who bivou- 
 acked round huge camp-fires in the broad streets and 
 square's. The skirmishing continued to a late hour in 
 the quarters St. Denis, Bonne Nouvelle, St. Martin, and 
 the Marais, where several barricades were erected ; but 
 as the people had little ammunition, they were not 
 warmly defended, and about one o'clock all was still. 
 
 The aspect of things was materially changed on 
 Wednesday morning. Barricades sprang up rapidly 
 in the narrow and intricate streets between the inner 
 boulevards, the Rue St. Martin, and the river. The 
 troops attacked them at an early hour, but the warm 
 fire with which they were met snowed that the people 
 had by this time procured a considerable stock of arms. 
 At many barricades the troops were repulsed, and only 
 succeeded in capturing them after a third or a fourth 
 charge. Two-and-twenty soldiers fell in one of these 
 attacks in the Rue Quincampoix. 
 
 It was no longer a riot, but a vast insurrection, that 
 was raging in the streets of the capital ; the issue de- 
 pended entirely on the conduct which the National 
 Guard would pursue. If any considerable portion of 
 them sided with the Government, or if they even stood 
 aloof, the soldiers of the line would fight to the last ex- 
 tremity ; but the event proved that they would not 
 turn their weapons against the civic force. At seven 
 in the morning the generate was beaten for the National 
 Guard, who now obeyed the summons with alacrity ; 
 at the same time declaring that their purpose was not 
 to protect the ministry, but to stop the effusion of 
 blood. The legions, as they formed, shouted, " Vive la 
 Reforme /" " Down with Guizot !" " Down with the 
 Ministers !" The colonel of the 10th legion threw up 
 his command upon the refusal of his soldiers to arrest 
 a gentleman in plain clothes who had uttered the popu- 
 
35 
 
 lar cry. The colonels of the 2d and 3d legions went 
 and informed the King, through the Duke de Nemours 
 and General Jacqueinenot, that if the required conces- 
 sions were not made to public opinion, they could no 
 longer answer for the men under their command. Re- 
 peatedly during the course of this day the National 
 Guard interposed between the populace and the sol- 
 diers who were about to charge them. The command- 
 ing officers of the two corps would then hold a brief 
 parley, after which the troops of the line would shoul- 
 der their arms and march off, followed by the acclama- 
 tions of the people. 
 
 Immediately after the opening of the Chamber of 
 Deputies on Wednesday, M. Vavin, one of the deputies 
 for Paris, called upon the Minister of the Interior to 
 account for the scenes then passing in the capital, and 
 to explain why the National Guard had not been called 
 out from the beginning. M. Guizot, on the part of his 
 colleagues, declined answering these questions, but 
 stated that the King had sent for Count Mole, and 
 empowered him to form a ministry. After the com- 
 motion produced by this announcement had subsided, 
 Odillon Barrot moved the adjournment of the proposi- 
 tion for an impeachment. He was seconded by M. 
 Dupin, who observed that, until their successors were 
 in office, the out-going ministry were responsible for 
 the conduct of the public affairs, and he knew not how 
 they could attend at the same time to the re-establish- 
 ment of order and to the care of their own safety. 
 Nothing could be more reasonable ; but M. Guizot dis- 
 dained to accept any voluntary concession at the 
 hands of his antagonists. " As long as the cabinet is 
 upon these benches," he said, " no business need re- 
 main suspended." In these, the last words of his offi- 
 cial life, was embodied the whole concentrated force of 
 his indomitable pride, — " Pride," says De Cormenin, " of 
 which his soul is too full to leave room for any other 
 
36 FRANCE. 
 
 sentiment. He might be thrust head-foremost into 
 the ocean, and he would not admit that he was 
 drowning, so violent and desperate is the faith with 
 which he believes in his own infallibility." The Con- 
 servative majority voted to a man against the adjourn- 
 ment, and the Chamber broke up in clamorous con- 
 fusion. 
 
 As the report of the fall of the Guizot cabinet spread 
 through Paris, it was followed by an immediate cessa- 
 tion of hostilities. By seven o'clock the general aspect 
 of the capital was peaceable ; the people were in high 
 glee, and readily gave up the prisoners they had made 
 during the day. Still the defenders of the barricades 
 between the Portes St. Denis and St. Martin were not 
 content to accept a Mole administration as satisfaction 
 in full for the popular demands. They doubted the 
 good faith of the court, and in these sentiments they 
 were confirmed by many ardent Republicans of the 
 better classes, who had mingled among them with 
 blouses drawn over their clothes. Sentinels, therefore, 
 were posted at every issue, and the malcontents passed 
 the night within their fortified camp. 
 
 Elsewhere all was joy and good humor, except in 
 the hearts of the disappointed Republicans, who bitter- 
 ly bewailed the easy credulity of the people. After 
 dark there was a general illumination, and the streets 
 were thronged with curious spectators of all ages, sexes, 
 and conditions. Here and there a few unlighted 
 houses, black specks amid the general brightness, typi- 
 fied the sullen temper of their inmates ; but they, too, 
 were forced by the populace to do like their neighbors, 
 and not a house at the court end remained unillumi- 
 nated, except the official residence of M. Hebert, and 
 that of M. Guizot, on the Boulevard des Capucines. 
 The latter continued to be as strongly guarded as 
 ever, both within and without, although the troops had 
 elsewhere been gradually withdrawn after the announce- 
 
MASSACRE OF THE BOULEVARD DES CAPUCINES. 37 
 
 ment of tke change of ministry. The strong display 
 of military force outside the building was now quite 
 superfluous, and therefore highly impolitic ; for it is a 
 maxim, which the greatest military authority of mo- 
 dern times has constantly enforced, both by precept 
 and example, that in civil commotions the soldiery 
 should be kept invisible, except at the precise moment 
 when there is need of their active services. From the 
 violation of this sound principle in the present instance 
 ensued a catastrophe that sealed the doom of the Or- 
 leans dynasty. 
 
 A crowd of casual spectators had stopped, about ten- 
 o'clock, near M. Guizot's house, attracted by the shouts of 
 a few men and boys who wanted the inmates to light 
 up. Just then a dense column of students and artisans 
 came down the Boulevards — singing and shouting in 
 honor of the popular victory. They were unarmed, 
 showed no disposition to outrage, and, so far from 
 appearing to entertain any revolutionary projects, many 
 of them cried out " Vive Louis Philippe /" as lustily as 
 they vented their execrations on his late minister. At 
 the moment they had come within a few yards of the 
 soldiers of the 14th Regiment, stationed before the 
 hotel, a shot was heard. Instantly the whole line 
 fired without warning along the Boulevards, making 
 frightful carnage among the throng. More than a 
 hundred persons, who saw the soldiers level, threw 
 themselves on the ground in time to save their lives, 
 but sixty-two men, women, and lads, belonging to 
 every class of society, lay weltering in their blood. A 
 squadron of Cuirassiers then charged, sword in hand, 
 over the dead and wounded. The survivors fled in all 
 directions to carry the frightful tidings to the most 
 distant parts of the city. By and bye, ashamed of 
 what they had done, the soldiers allowed the dead and 
 dying to be removed. Seventeen unclaimed bodies 
 were laid in a large cart f and, with torches flaming over 
 
38 FRANCE. 
 
 the ghastly spectacle, the cart was dragged through 
 the streets by a multitude raging and howling for 
 revenge. No half-measures now ! No compromise 
 with a detested system ! Nothing but the extinction 
 of the monarchy could expiate the guilt of that 
 treacherous, cold-blooded massacre ! As fast as the 
 procession moved on, the street was closed behind it 
 with barricades. Up rose the blood-red Republi- 
 can flag ; the drums of the National Guard were 
 heard without ceasing the whole night lono; ; the 
 tocsin sounded from the church of St. Sulpice, sum- 
 moning the inhabitants of the faubourgs ; detachments 
 went from house to house asking for arms, which being 
 freely given them, the receipt was notified by an 
 inscription in chalk on the door, — " On a donni des 
 drmesP* Not less than 150,000 men passed the 
 night in preparing for battle. By next morning the 
 streets were intersected by upwards of two thousand 
 barricades, of the most formidable strength and 
 dimensions. 
 
 The explanation given by the repentant officer who 
 had commanded the fatal volley before the Hotel des 
 Affaires Etrangeres^ was that his horse's leg having 
 been broken by the shot fired at the moment the 
 crowd arrived, he thought they were come to attack 
 him, and, in a rash moment, he gave the order to fire. 
 It has never been officially declared by whom the first 
 shot was fired : the story told by the National and 
 repeated by the other Republican journals, was that a 
 musket had gone off by accident in the garden of the 
 hotel ; but it has since been very generally asserted, 
 and without contradiction, so far as we are aware, that 
 the act was deliberately done by Lagrange, the con- 
 demned Lyons conspirator of 1832, afterwards a 
 member of the National Assembly. This man is said 
 
 * " They have given arms,'* 
 
RENEWAL OF HOSTILITIES. 39 
 
 to have avowed, that, finding affairs were likely after 
 all to take a favorable turn for royalty, he adopted this 
 desperate expedient in order to rouse the angry pas- 
 sions of the multitude. 
 
 The attempt to establish a Mole administration 
 having failed, the King sent very late on Wednesday 
 night for M. Thiers, who undertook to form a ministry, 
 on condition that he might associate with him M. 
 Odillon Barrot. The King had previously signed a 
 decree appointing Marshal Bugeaud commander-in- 
 chief of all the forces in Paris, both civic and military ; 
 but, upon the refusal of the new ministry to grant him 
 unlimited powers, the marshal resigned, and was 
 replaced by General Lamorici^re. 
 
 Hostilities were renewed at day-break, on Thursday, 
 and for several hours discharges of musketry were 
 heard in various directions, where the insurgents were 
 contending with small bodies of the Municipal Guard. 
 The troops of the line, too, were partially engaged, but 
 the greater part of that force was already lost to the 
 Government. Exhausted by more than fifty hours of 
 harassing duty; left without rations through- the 
 besotted negligence of the authorities, and saved from 
 the pangs of hunger and thirst only by the bounty of 
 the people; finally, seeing the National Guard now 
 thoroughly identified with the insurgent cause, whole 
 regiments reversed their muskets and gave up their 
 ammunition to the people: several companies even 
 surrendered their arms. 
 
 A little before eight o'clock the new ministers walked 
 down the Boulevards to the Tuileries, passing singly 
 through the narrow openings left at the ends of the 
 huge barricades that obstructed every avenue. They 
 were loudly cheered. Two hours later, Odillon Barrot 
 gave orders in person, in the Rue Richelieu, to a troop 
 of Dragoons and the 21st Regiment of the line, to 
 retire to their barracks. Here again he was favorably 
 
40 FRANCE. 
 
 greeted, but as he proceeded on bis way his reception 
 grew colder. His voice was drowned by shouts of 
 " Down with Louis Philippe !" " Hurrah for the 
 Republic !" and that cry, once begun, was repeated 
 without ceasing from one end of Paris to the other. 
 At eleven o'clock, copies of a proclamation were posted 
 in every street, announcing that orders had been given 
 to cease firing ; they were torn down almost as fast as 
 posted. 
 
 The insurgents, now in undisputed possession of all 
 Paris, except the Palais Royal and the Tuileries, began 
 at twelve o'clock to concentrate their forces on those 
 points. The Palais Royal was taken without a blow, 
 but the little square in front of the main entrance was 
 the scene of an awful conflict. The northern side of 
 the Place du Palais Royal, opposite the facade of the 
 palace, was occupied by the Chateau d'Eau, an oblong 
 stone building of great strength, in which were posted 
 one hundred and thirty-eight soldiers of the 14th 
 Regiment of the line, and some Municipals. Many 
 overtures were made to induce these men to retire ; 
 but no arguments or entreaties could make them 
 swerve from what they deemed the strict line of duty 
 and honor. After much parleying to no purpose, the 
 attack began at half past twelve, and from that hour to 
 half past one the firing was incessant. The loss sus- 
 tained by the assailants was very great, for they fought 
 without cover, exposed to the steady discharges of the 
 besieged at point blank distance. At last a number of 
 carriages, dragged from the royal stables, were run up 
 to the walls of the post, straw mattresses and fagots 
 were heaped over and round them, and the whole 
 were fired. Again the soldiers were entreated to 
 surrender and save their lives ; they answered only 
 with their muskets, wounding General Lamoriciere 
 himself, who, with brave humanity, had gone close up 
 to them and commanded them to desist. The flames 
 
FLIGHT OF LOUIS THILIPPE. 41 
 
 at length laid hold of the building in two places ; but 
 still its defenders continued to pour volley after volley, 
 until the floor was burning beneath their feet. They 
 then tried to rush out at the gate, but were shot down 
 or bayoneted in the attempt, and not a man of them 
 escaped. The firemen who afterwards explored the 
 smouldering ruins of the Chateau d'Eau took out from 
 them the remains of fifty-three bodies. The rest of 
 the garrison must have been wholly consumed, for the 
 statement that some of them had escaped by a back- 
 way is contradicted by the fact that none such existed. 
 From the fall of the Chateau d'Eau to the flight of 
 Louis Philippe scarcely a quarter of an hour elapsed. 
 It was fortunate for him and his family that the 
 insurgents had not at once assailed the Tuileries, instead 
 of allowing themselves to be kept in check for an hour 
 by the little garrison in the Place du Palais Royal. 
 The interval was spent by the ministers, deputies, and 
 others about the King, in urging him to abdicate, as 
 the only means left by which he might save, not only 
 the rights, but the lives of his family. The troops col- 
 lected for the defence of the Tuileries consisted of three 
 or four thousand infantry, with six pieces of cannon, two 
 squadrons of cavalry, and some Municipals. Had this 
 force been well affected, it might have made a formida- 
 ble, but hardly a successful resistance. The King, 
 however, having himself reviewed the troops at eleven 
 o'clock that morning, had been enabled to judge from 
 the jaded looks of the men, and from the spiritless 
 tone in which they uttered the customary cry of " Vive 
 le Roi /"* how little they were to be depended on. 
 The arguments in favor of an abdication derived ter- 
 rible cogency from the loud and increasing roar of 
 musketry within gunshot of the palace, and wrung a 
 tardy assent from the infatuated monarch. He signed 
 
 * " Long live the King." 
 
42 FRANCE. 
 
 the act transferring the crown to his grandson, under 
 the regency of the Duchess of Orleans ; yet still, as if 
 loath to quit the scene of his vanished greatness, he 
 lingered idly in the palace until he could no longer 
 remain without imminent peril of life. The troops 
 were retreating from the palace-yard, by order of the 
 Duke de Nemours, and columns of combatants from the 
 Chateau d'Eau were already rushing into the Place 
 du Carrousel, when Louis Philippe and the Queen 
 made their exit on foot from the palace, by the door 
 opening on the gardens. They had reached the very 
 spot where Louis XVI. perished on the scaffold, when 
 they were hemmed in and compelled to halt by a sud- 
 den pressure of the crowd. Louis Philippe turned 
 round quickly, held up his hat in the air, and uttered 
 some words which were inaudible amid the uproar. 
 An officer, seeing the danger, cried out, " Messieurs, 
 spare the King !" To which a stentorian voice replied, 
 " We are not assassins — let him go !" " Aye, aye, let 
 him go !" became the general cry. The fugitives then 
 hurried to a spot where stood two low one-horse car- 
 riages ; the King and Queen stepped into one of them, 
 and drove off at full gallop towards St. Cloud, 
 escorted by about two hundred cavalry. 
 
 The populace were too busy to pursue them, if, 
 indeed, the thought of shedding uselessly the blood of 
 the utterly fallen monarch ever crossed the mind of 
 any among his victors The ex-King might go un- 
 scathed, while the people were ransacking the still 
 warm lair from which he had been routed. They 
 scampered in grotesque triumph through the gorgeous 
 rooms, lolled on the soft chairs and sofas, and seated 
 themselves by turns on the throne, each impersonating 
 for a moment his own most dignified conception of the 
 sovereignty of the people. This ceremony ended, the 
 covering of the throne, and the splendid banners and 
 awnings that overhung it, were torn into shreds, which 
 
FLIGHT OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 43 
 
 were distributed as relics among* the invaders, and the 
 dismantled seat of extinct royalty was carried in long 
 procession to the site of the old Bastile, and there 
 smashed to atoms and burnt at the foot of the Column 
 of July. Meanwhile, both in the Tuileries and the 
 Palais Royal, every scrap of the King's personal pro- 
 perty, every vestige of his individual existence — por- 
 traits, pictures, busts, statues, &c, were ruthlessly 
 demolished, and flung* out of the windows to feed the 
 bonfires blazing below ; whilst in the apartments of 
 the widowed Duchess of Orleans and of the Prince de 
 Joinville, a tender and respectful feeling* arrested the 
 hands of the spoilers, and nothing was injured, or even 
 displaced, except a half-eaten breakfast laid out on the 
 Duchess's table, which was clean devoured by the 
 famishing* people. For the rest, the words ProprUtt 
 nationale* chalked on the walls or the floor, were suf- 
 ficient to protect the contents of the rooms thus placed 
 under the safeguard of the commonwealth. No pecu- 
 lation was tolerated. Every man as he left the build- 
 ing was narrowly searched by guards stationed round 
 it by the people themselves, and instant death was the 
 invariable doom of the detected thief. A sum of 
 331,000 francs, found in the strong-box of the Civil 
 List, the crown diamonds, a large quantity of plate 
 and jewels, and other articles of great value, were 
 conveyed in safety to the Bank of France, by men 
 who probably had not so many sous\ among* them as 
 would have bought each of them a meal of bread. 
 
 So abrupt was the flight of the ex-King and Queen, 
 that they were indebted for the means of continuing* it 
 to a contribution of 200 francs made by the officers at 
 Trianon ; but a further supply was secretly sent them on 
 the following day by the Provisional Government. They 
 
 * " National property." 
 
 t The sou is a copper coin somewhat less than a cent in 
 value, 
 
44 FRANCE. 
 
 arrived the same night at Dreux, where they were har- 
 bored by a trusty farmer ; and having disguised them- 
 selves in mean attire — the King without wig or whiskers, 
 his features concealed under a red woollen comforter, and 
 green spectacles — they travelled through byways, and 
 by night to the coast, where an English steamer was 
 waiting to receive them. Stormy weather prevented 
 their embarkation for two days ; but on Thursday 
 evening, March 2, they left the shores of France, and 
 landed at noon next day at Newhaveu. The Dukes 
 de Nemours and Montpensier, and their wives, had 
 previously arrived in England, after various adventures 
 in their scattered flight ; and the Prince de Joinville 
 and the Duke d'Aumale came some weeks afterwards 
 from Algeria. 
 
CLOSING SCENE IN THE CHAMBER. 45 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 FRANCE. 
 
 FROM THE REJECTION OF THE ORLEANS DYNASTY TO THE OPEN- 
 ING OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. 
 
 The Chamber of Deputies assembled on the 24th 
 February, to receive the King's abdication, and ratify 
 the appointment of the Regent. About half-past one 
 o'clock the Duchess of Orleans entered with her two 
 sons, and the Dukes of Nemours and Montpensier. 
 Their presence excited some threatening murmurs in 
 the crowd that surrounded the building, but the feel- 
 ings manifested within doors were generally those of 
 respect and sympathy. When M. Dupin announced 
 that the King had abdicated in favor of his grandson, 
 and had appointed the Duchess of Orleans to be 
 Regent, the intimation was received with mingled cries 
 of approbation and displeasure, the former greatly pre- 
 dominating ; but clear above the din was heard one 
 sonorous voice proclaiming the fatal sentence — " It is 
 too late!" 
 
 When some degree of quiet was restored, M. Marie 
 was heard urging the necessity of appointing a Pro- 
 visional Government, on the ground that it was not 
 competent to the Chamber to repeal the law by which 
 the Regency had been already conferred on the Duke 
 of Nemours. M. Cremieux spoke to the same effect, 
 and warned the Chamber not to follow the disastrous 
 example of the Chamber of 1830, which had usurped 
 
46 FRANCE. 
 
 the powers of a constituent assembly. "Odillon Barrot 
 advocated the claims of the Duchess of Orleans and 
 her son, in language that seemed in unison with the 
 feelings of the larger portion of the Deputies. M. de 
 la Rochejaquelin, the leader of the Legitimists, insisted 
 that the choice of a new Government belonged of right 
 to the nation itself, and not to the Chamber ; but he 
 had not uttered many sentences when a vast crowd of 
 armed men rushed in tumultuously, and occupied the 
 floor, the Deputies' benches, and the tribune, shouting 
 out, " No King !" " Vive la R£publique /" 
 
 The President having put on his hat, in token of the 
 suspension of the proceedings, the uproar became still 
 more violent. " Off with the hat !" resounded on all 
 sides ; muskets were pointed at the President's head, 
 and for some moments a general massacre appeared 
 inevitable. In the midst of the confusion several Depu- 
 ties and National Guards threw themselves between 
 the mob and the Duchess of Orleans, and hurried her 
 off by a private door. The Duke de Nemours jumped 
 out of a window into the garden, where he exchanged 
 his lieutenant-general's uniform for that of a private in 
 the National Guard.* 
 
 The President still retained his seat, notwithstanding 
 the imminent peril to which he was exposed ; and the 
 debate was renewed in the wildest disorder, deputies 
 and strangers shouting together to obtain a hearing, 
 the mob bellowing, and flourishing their weapons. 
 Ledru Rollin having presented himself at the tribune, 
 there was some abatement of the clamor, and he was ena- 
 bled to inveigh against the project of a Regency, and to 
 demand a Provisional Government, — not named by 
 the Chamber, but by the people. Lamartine was then 
 
 * The Duchess of Orleans passed the night at the Hotel des 
 Invalides, and did not leave Paris until the following Wednes- 
 day ; when she departed for Germany, escorted to the frontier 
 by M. Marrast, Member of the Provisional Government. 
 
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT. 47 
 
 called for on all sides, and listened to with unanimous 
 approbation whilst he insisted on a direct appeal to the 
 decision of the nation, and deprecated, in allusion to 
 the mistake committed in 1830, any recourse "to those 
 subterfuges — to those surprises — to those emotions of 
 which, as you perceive, a country sooner or later re- 
 pents, in order to maintain one of those fictions which 
 have no stability, and which leave no solid traces be- 
 hind them." He was proceeding in this strain when 
 a furious knocking was heard at the door of one of the 
 galleries. In a moment more it was battered down, 
 and a multitude of armed men rushed in, shouting 
 " Down with the Chamber ! down with the Deputies !" 
 and levelling their muskets at the persons in the body 
 of the chamber. One man pointed his musket at the 
 tribune, but was immediately checked by cries of " Do 
 not fire ! it is M. de Lamartine who is speaking." The 
 President now declared the Chamber adjourned, and 
 withdrew. So ended the last sitting of the Chamber 
 of Deputies. 
 
 The miscellaneous concourse that now thronged the 
 hall carried the veteran Radical, Dupont de l'Eure, to 
 the chair, and the form of proposing and voting the 
 names of the members who should constitute the Pro- 
 visional Government was gone through in the midst of 
 indescribable noise and confusion. The names pro- 
 claimed were those of Dupont de l'Eure, Arago, Lamar- 
 tine, Ledru Rollin, Gamier Pages, Marie, and Cremieux. 
 A procession was then formed to conduct the Provi- 
 sional Government, with Lamartine at its head, to the 
 Hotel de Ville, and the chamber was gradually evacu- 
 ated. But before the crowd dispersed, Louis Philippe 
 was shot in efhgy by a workman, who sent the contents 
 of a double-barrelled fowling-piece through a large 
 picture representing the Citizen King in the act of 
 swearing fidelity to the Charter. 
 
 When Lamartine and his colleagues arrived at the 
 
48 FRANCE. 
 
 Hotel de Ville, they found it already occupied by a 
 Provisional Government which had been nominated in 
 the offices of the Rtforme and the National newspa- 
 pers, and which claimed supreme authority by the 
 very same title as its rival, namely, the suffrages of an 
 indefinite multitude of the armed people. Three names, 
 those of Arago, Lamartine, and Ledru Rollin, were 
 common to both lists. A contest between the other 
 claimants would have been followed by consequences 
 incalculably disastrous ; it was therefore wisely resolved 
 that the two embryo governments should coalesce, and 
 accordingly Marrast, Flocon, Louis Blanc, and Albert, 
 were added to the Provisional Government, first as 
 Secretaries, and afterwards as ordinary members. 
 
 The scenes which followed the installation of the 
 Provisional Government at the Hotel de Ville were no 
 less turbulent than that in which the Chamber of 
 Deputies had been swept away. The mob poured into 
 every part of the building, clamorously intruding even 
 into the council-room of their elected rulers, and leav- 
 ing them scarce breathing space for their deliberations. 
 Still the Provisional Government pursued its labors, 
 not always judiciously, but with a prompt and compre- 
 hensive attention to the various exigencies of the 
 moment, which was marvellous in men so harassed in 
 body and mind. For sixty hours the members sat 
 continually, drawing up decrees and proclamations, and 
 issuing orders for the furtherance of every branch of 
 the public service, whilst often in the midst of these 
 prodigious exertions \hey had to hurry out and answer 
 for their lives to the questioning of fresh hosts of pas- 
 sionate and suspicious inquirers. Among their earliest 
 measures the following may be mentioned as pregnant 
 with the most important consequences : — The abolition 
 of the penalty of death for political offences ; the re- 
 adoption of the tricolor, which had been for a while 
 supplanted by the ill-omened red flag ; the creation of 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 49 
 
 National Workshops ; the appointment of a Govern- 
 ment Commission for Workmen, under the presidency 
 of Louis Blanc and Albert ; and the creation of twenty- 
 four battalions of the Garde Mobile. The soldiers of 
 this new force, receiving the high pay of thirty sous a 
 day, four times as much as the soldiers of the line, all 
 belonged to that singular class the gamins de Paris, 
 genuine tiger-monkeys, delighting in the smell of gun- 
 powder, foremost in every fray, and ready for every 
 kind of mischief, from mere exuberance of animal 
 spirits and want of better occupation. How wisely 
 Lamartine acted in enlisting these brave lads on the 
 side of order was proved on many trying occasions : to 
 them chiefly did Paris and France owe their salvation 
 on the dreadful days of June. 
 
 The Republic was at once proclaimed, and was ac- 
 cepted by all classes with an unanimity for which there 
 is hardly a parallel in history. Not a voice was raised 
 in behalf of the fallen dynasty ; a week after the revo- 
 lution, Louis Philippe was no more talked of than 
 Hugh Capet. Never until the fall of the Citizen 
 King had reversed all precedents, never could it have 
 been believed that the worst of monarchs could be 
 deposed without leaving behind him some party to 
 work openly or in secret for his restoration ; but the 
 day after Louis Philippe was shuffled off the throne 
 there was not even the nucleus of an Orleanist party 
 in France. Was there ever a more eloquent apology 
 than was pleaded by this fact in behalf of the Revolu- 
 tion of February ? 
 
 Previously to February the Republican Party was 
 but a small minority. It was not, therefore, by reason 
 of any strong predilection felt for that form of govern- 
 ment by the nation at large, that the Republic was 
 accepted unanimously and without hesitation ; but 
 because it was instinctively perceived that nothing but 
 a Republic was possible under existing circumstances. 
 D 3 
 
50 FRANCE. 
 
 No better foundation could rational men have desired 
 for the new institutions than this favorable disposition, 
 this dispassionate conviction, entertained by the whole 
 nation ; but it did not satisfy tl^e imperious zeal of a 
 handful of political fanatics and schemers, who, arro- 
 gating to themselves and their partisans the exclusive 
 title of true Republicans, insisted on coercing all the 
 rest of the population. Resentment and reaction were 
 the natural and inevitable results, and France lost, for 
 the consolidation of her Republic, an opportunity 
 unique in the annals of the world. 
 
 There were three distinct parties in the Provisional 
 Government, — Moderates : Lamartine, Arago, Marie, 
 Marrast, Dupont de l'Eure, Gamier Pages, Cremieux. 
 Ultras : Ledru Rollin, Flocon. Socialists : Louis 
 Blanc, Albert. Strong as was the majority on the 
 Moderate side, it was often compelled by the inevitable 
 force of circumstances to make dangerous concessions 
 to the minority. For a long while the Provisional 
 Government was quite unsupported by any armed 
 force : the troops of the line had been removed from 
 Paris : the National Guard was undergoing a vast 
 process of reconstruction, and existed only as a disor-. 
 ganized mass ; the Garde Mobile was an infant institu- 
 tion ; in fine, the people were more masters of the 
 Government than the Government of the people. 
 
 The Socialists were the most dangerous section of 
 the Government minority. The affair of the red flag 
 was the first on which they displayed their pernicious 
 tendencies. On the 24th of February a man, " insti- 
 gated," says M. Goudchaux, " by Louis Blanc, proposed 
 the red flag ; Lamartine resisted the proposal, and it 
 was rejected. Next day, when Louis Blanc came to 
 the council, a red flag was produced, and generally ac- 
 cepted at his instance ; but M. Goudchaux vehemently 
 declared that it should not be so, and he laid down his 
 portfolio. Louis Blanc said there would be bloodshed, 
 
THE RED FLAG. 51 
 
 and that M. Goudchaux would have to answer for it 
 with his head ; he accepted that responsibility." To 
 Lamartine France owes the suppression of that horrid 
 emblem, the admission of which would have been a 
 virtual surrender of the Republic into the hands of men 
 who would have established a new reign of terror. 
 Five times on the 25th of February he confronted as 
 many furious mobs that broke into the Hotel de Ville, 
 threatening the members of the Provisional Govern- 
 ment with instant death if the colors of '92 were not 
 adopted. Lamartine spoke, and all held their breath 
 to listen, spell-bound in the very whirlwind of their 
 passions by Ins genius and intrepidity. Never did elo- 
 quence win a nobler victory than his, when, with swords 
 brandished round him, and muskets levelled at his 
 head, he uttered these touching words, — " Never will I 
 adopt the red flag ; for the tricolor has gone the round 
 of the world with the Republic and the Empire, with 
 your liberties and your glories, whilst the red flag has 
 only gone the round of the Champ de Mars, trailed 
 through the blood of the people." The effect of this 
 imagery was electrical ; the fierce multitude were af- 
 .fected to tears, and left the place vowing to live and die 
 under the tricolor flag, and filled with love and vene- 
 ration for its high-souled defender. 
 
 Defeated in the affair of the red flag, the Socialists 
 next demanded the immediate appointment of a Minis- 
 ter of Labor, whose business it should be to realize 
 Louis Blanc's visionary theories. The Government 
 refused to decree ' the " Organization of Labor," de- 
 claring by the mouth of Lamartine that the doctrine so 
 called was to them incomprehensible, and that as honest 
 men they could not enter into an engagement with 
 the people which they had no hope of fulfilling. By 
 way of compromise, however, and perhaps with the in- 
 tention of relieving themselves from the constant pre- 
 sence of two of their least desirable members, the 
 
52 FRANCE. 
 
 Government instituted, on the 28th of February, the 
 Workman's Commission. This new parliament, sitting 
 in the palace of the Luxembourg, became at once a 
 despotic trades' union, armed with legislative powers, 
 and a normal school for the propagation of principles 
 subversive of the rights both of labor and of capital. 
 M. Louis Blanc's scheme for the organization of labor 
 was briefly this : 1. The Government was to found 
 social factories, workshops, &c, and gradually to be- 
 come the sole employer of all the artisans in the land ; 
 2. thereby abolishing competition. 3. All persons 
 employed in these workshops were to receive equal 
 wages, without regard to their respective skill and assi- 
 duity. 4. All profits on capital, beyond legal interest, 
 were to be extinguished. • 
 
 The positive enactments issued from the Luxem- 
 bourg were such as might have been expected from 
 the above programme. On the 1st and 2d of March 
 decrees were signed by Louis Blanc and Albert, fixing 
 the duration of a day's labor at ten hours, and abolish- 
 ing marchandage ; that is, the customary interposition 
 of sub-contractors between the capitalist and the work- 
 man, without which the two latter would in most cases 
 be left to seek each other in vain. The Commission 
 also took upon itself to regulate the amount of wages 
 in several trades, always, of course, to the apparent 
 advantage of the workmen. The natural result was 
 speedily seen in the closing of many establishments, 
 and the discharge of all the hands employed in them. 
 Meanwhile the unfortunate dupes of the Blanc system 
 of economy were laboring with might and main still 
 further to annihilate the means by which they lived. 
 A rigorous proscription was declared against all foreign 
 workmen, especially the English, who were hunted out 
 of the country without time being allowed them to ob- 
 tain the arrears of wages due to them, or to dispose of 
 their household effects. Under the reign of Liberty, 
 
THE ATELIERS NATION AUX. 53 
 
 Fraternity, and Equality, French Republicans repeated 
 the cruel and stupid blunder committed by the bigoted 
 Spaniard of the seventeenth century, in the expulsion 
 of the Moors, and with consequences no less disastrous 
 to themselves. 
 
 The creation of the Ateliers nationaux* founded 
 about the same time as the Luxembourg Commission, 
 has been erroneously imputed to Louis Blanc. These 
 crude substitutes for a poor-law were forced upon M. 
 Marie, the Minister of Public Works, by the pressing 
 exigencies of the times. The stoppage of trade caused 
 by the revolution had deprived thousands of workmen 
 of bread ; to leave them to hunger and despair would 
 have been no less impolitic than inhuman : accordingly 
 the Ateliers nationaux were established upon the plan 
 submitted by M. Emile Thomas to the assembled 
 mayors of Paris. Had the problem been to create an 
 army of mercenary mutineers, it could not have been 
 more successfully solved than by that gentleman. The 
 recruits were enrolled in squads, brigades, companies, 
 battalions, services, and arrondissements. Each squad 
 consisted of ten men and a chef d'escouade^ Five 
 squads formed a brigade, commanded by a brigadier ; 
 four brigades a company, commanded by a lieutenant ; 
 four companies a battalion, commanded by a chef de 
 bataillon ; three battalions a service, commanded by a 
 chef de service. At the head of each of the twelve 
 arrondissements of Paris there was a field officer, having 
 under him a variable number of services. The central 
 board of management, installed at Monceaux, alone 
 employed two hundred and fifty clerks and other func- 
 tionaries, and yet the accounts were kept in the most 
 slovenly manner. The system of payment was so ill- 
 contrived, that in many instances the same man ob- 
 
 * National Workshops. 
 
 t Commander of the Detachment. 
 
54 FRANCE. 
 
 tainecl pay in two, three, or four different squads ; and 
 the officers, both chief and subaltern, could easily em- 
 bezzle indefinite sums.. A census, taken on the 7th of 
 June, showed only an effective force of 105,000 men, 
 and even this was perhaps an exaggerated estimate, 
 whereas the pretended number for whom the state had 
 paid up to that day was 119,000. Furthermore, a 
 very large per centage of the actual number necessarily 
 consisted of criminals of various degrees, from the petty 
 thief to the monster of wickedness, sent forth from the 
 bagnios of- Brest or Toulon. These men could not fail 
 to obtain that ascendency over their comrades which, 
 in all undisciplined gatherings, belongs to the most 
 audacious and unscrupulous. They became the leading- 
 spirits of the ateliers, and under their guidance it is 
 easy to conceive how rapidly the moral character of 
 the honest workmen must have deteriorated. 
 
 The chief employment found for the men of the 
 Ateliers nationaux was earthwork — almost literally 
 digging holes and filling them up again — at an expense 
 of eight francs per cubic metre, which should have cost 
 only as many sous. There never was real work for 
 more than 2000 men. Upon this 8000 men were 
 nominally employed, at the rate of 1 4 francs a week ; 
 all the rest were paid eight francs, in return for which 
 nothing was required of them but that they should take 
 the trouble to attend daily and receive their money. 
 With this slight restriction they were free to spend 
 their whole time in planning mischief in their clubs, 
 and practising it by means of more or less riotous 
 " demonstrations." If, says M. Panisse, instead of 
 creating the Ateliers nationaux, in which work was a 
 fiction, the Government had lent its aid to the large 
 industrial establishments, it would not nave thrown 
 every trade into confusion, and thus unconsciously pro- 
 duced one of the chief causes of the insurrection of 
 June. If half the sum that was lost upon unproductive 
 
THE CLUBS OF PARIS. 55 
 
 works had been lent to the great firms, the workmen 
 would then have been profitably employed each in his 
 proper place ; order would have been maintained ; the 
 rich would have recovered confidence; and business 
 would have returned to its ordinary course. 
 
 Immediately after the downfall of the monarchy had 
 given the Parisians unlimited freedom of meeting to- 
 gether, political clubs sprang up in all quarters of the 
 city. Then number, which at one time exceeded 140, 
 fluctuated considerably ; but we may reckon an average 
 of a hundred clubs with a thousand members each, sit- 
 ting nightly during the first months of the Republic to 
 discuss the social and political questions of the day, take 
 measures for the approaching elections, examine the 
 candidates, and decide upon their respective merits. 
 In the ultra-Republican clubs the candidates for the 
 grade of field officer in the National Guards were in- 
 variably tried by one touchstone : they were required 
 to answer categorically this question, — " If the Assembly 
 be not republican in the fullest acceptation of the word, 
 will you march against it ?" The most dangerous of 
 all the clubs were those respectively presided over by 
 Blanqui and Barbes, the Central Club of the Society 
 of the Rights of Man, and the Club of Clubs, — all of 
 them armed confederations. 
 
 The Society of the Rights of Man had existed for 
 many years ; it numbered 20,000 members in Paris, 
 14,000 in the department of the Seine, and was essen- 
 tially a permanent conspiracy. Its constitution, like 
 that of the Jesuits, imposed on every member " the 
 absolute abnegation of his individuality for the service 
 of the Society ; in return for which the Society pledges 
 itself to stand up bodily to defend him if there be yet 
 time, to avenge him if he be no more. * * The 
 constitution of the Society being altogether military, 
 the members must all hold themselves in constant 
 readiness for service, whether in arms or otherwise, 
 
56 FRANCE. 
 
 whenever the Central Committee shall have so' decreed. 
 If any one fail to obey the call, he shall not be allowed 
 to 'plead in excuse either family ties or his personal 
 affairs," &c. 
 
 The Club of Clubs was a central institution composed 
 of delegates from the other clubs, three from each. It 
 particularly applied itself to secure the return of ultra- 
 Kepublicans in the elections for the National Assembly, 
 to which end it employed five or six hundred emissa- 
 ries, who were sent to every town, village, and hamlet 
 in France, and were paid each ten francs a day out of 
 funds supplied by the Ministry of the Interior. This 
 club was founded by Sobrier, and was held in his house, 
 No. 16 Rue Rivoli, which he had converted into an 
 arsenal. The Provisional Government having, on the 
 24th of February, appointed Caussidiere to the Pre- 
 fecture of Police, an office which Sobrier had destined 
 for himself, the latter, with the consent of his successful 
 rival, established a free corps, in nominal connexion 
 with the regular police, but really independent of all 
 authority but his own. 
 
 As far as regarded the repression of crimes against 
 person and property, Caussidiere's administration was 
 the most efficient ever known in Paris. Never had the 
 capital enjoyed such an immunity from the ordinary 
 kinds of offences incident to great cities as during the 
 two months and a half subsequent to the 24th of Feb- 
 ruary. Caussidiere's Republican Guard, and especially 
 that favorite portion of it which he called his Montag- 
 nards, were a terror to all the thieves of Paris, and the 
 more so because the prefect acted on the adage, " Set a 
 thief to catch a thief;" or, to use his own expression, 
 he made it his business to work out order through dis- 
 order. Unfortunately he pursued the same system in 
 political matters, playing the part of a faction leader 
 rather than of a magistrate, and acting upon *his own 
 individual views, without regard to those of the Govern- 
 
MARC CAUSSIDIERE. 57 
 
 ment, often too in direct opposition to them. " Up to 
 the 15th of May," says M. Pagnerre, Secretary-general, 
 " the Government had really no police, either in the 
 Ministry of the Interior or in the Prefecture itself." The 
 inveterate habits of the conspirator clung to the police 
 minister, and a natural and mutual sympathy always 
 subsisted between him and those who conspired against 
 the Government under which he held office. Cunning, 
 close, and secret, yet with an air of blunt, cordial sin- 
 cerity, that disarmed suspicion ; treated with indulgence 
 by his superiors from necessity, as well as in consider- 
 ation of his long services and sufferings for the Re- 
 publican cause ; beloved by the lower classes for his 
 courage and soldierly bearing, his energy of character, 
 his homely goodnature, his easy plebeian eloquence 
 and rough motherwit ; Caussidiere was a man whom 
 the Provisional Government could not have provoked 
 without great danger, yet whom it was almost fatal to 
 trust. 
 
 The evil effects of the Luxembourg Commission, the 
 Ateliers nationaux, and the Clubs, were immensely 
 aggravated by the reciprocal action of those pernicious 
 institutions ; and all three combined to inflict deadly 
 injury on public and private credit, beggaring the na- 
 tional exchequer, annihilating the value of vast 
 amounts of property, and destroying the main springs 
 of industry. For the first fortnight after the 24th of 
 February, the feeling of the Provisional Government 
 as to the finances of the country, or at least the lan- 
 guage they held, was that of high confidence, inso- 
 much that they began paying in advance on the 6 th 
 of March the dividends due on the 2 2d. They had 
 found a large balance in the Treasury — 135,000,000 
 francs in specie, and 55,000,000 in securities. On 
 the *7th of March the minister issued a proclamation, 
 expressing no diminution of confidence, but recom- 
 mending that the taxes should be paid in advance, as 
 3* 
 
58 FRANCE. 
 
 a measure quite sufficient " to meet all the financial 
 difficulties, to provide against which was an imperious 
 dictate of prudence." But two days more brought a 
 woeful change. A decree of the 9th of March sus- 
 pended the payments of the Savings' Bank, the de- 
 posits in which amounted to 14,000,000 sterling. 
 On the 15th, the bank of France suspended cash 
 payments ; and on the next day the treasury bonds, in 
 circulation to the amount of nearly 11,000,000 sterling, 
 were declared payable only in five per cent, stock at par, 
 the price being then 69. Meanwhile bank after bank 
 was failing, commercial paper ceased to be negotiable, 
 gold and silver were hoarded or sent out of the country, 
 and there was an end to all kinds of trade except in 
 the merest necessaries of life. To add to the perplexi- 
 ties of the Treasury, the contractors of the loan agreed 
 for in November with the fallen Government threw 
 up their contract, choosing rather to pay the stipulated 
 forfeit of 1,000,000 sterling than to advance the 
 10,720,000/. that remained due on account of the 
 loan. Finally, the Provisional Government were driven 
 to the melancholy expedient of decreeing an addition 
 of 45 per cent, to the direct taxes. 
 
 With Ledru Rollin for Minister of the Interior, the 
 vast influence of that department was entirely in the 
 hands of the party that invented the distinction be- 
 tween Republicans of the Eve and Republicans of the 
 Morrow — de la veille et du lendemain ; thus dividing 
 the French into two hostile camps, or rather into 
 a small dominant class on the one side, and on 
 the other a subject class, comprising the great bulk of 
 the nation. One of Ledru Rollin's first official acts 
 was to despatch commissaries to every department and 
 chief town of France, with carte blanche * to precipi- 
 tate the work of the revolution in their respective cuV 
 
 * « Full power." 
 
CIRCULARS AND COMMISSARIES. 59 
 
 tricts. With the culpable negligence that marked his 
 whole administrative career, the minister exercised no 
 sort of previous inquiry into the merits of the persons 
 whom he appointed to these important offices. The 
 consequence was that, with a few honorable excep- 
 tions, the commissaries did their utmost to disgust and 
 exasperate all honest men. In many towns the in- 
 habitants were goaded into insurrection by their intole- 
 rable tyranny and knavery. The commissary for 
 Havre was a criminal who had served out his time as 
 a galley-slave. 
 
 M. Ledru Rollin's first circular to his commissaries 
 was made public early in March. A single line from 
 this lengthy document will be sufficient to account for 
 the storm of indignation it excited. " What are your 
 powers ? — They are unlimited." It was worth while 
 to have made a revolution, at an incalculable cost 
 of public and private suffering, in order to pass 
 under the unlimited powers of a M. Sauriac, or of 
 his honorable colleague the ex-galley slave, commissary 
 for Havre. It is true that Ledru Rollin was not the 
 author of the outrageous circulars bearing his name, 
 nor of the Bulletin de la Rtyublique, a sort of placard 
 newspaper, issued from the Ministry of the Interior, 
 and which did almost as much mischief as the circu- 
 lars. Jules Favre wrote the latter ; the most offensive 
 of the bulletins were the work of George Sand (Mme. 
 Dudevant). These facts have been pleaded in apology 
 for Ledru Rollin ; to us they appear most damnatory, 
 for the}?- argue levity, negligence, and foolhardiness. 
 Why did he delegate his own work to unfit hands, or 
 to any hands but his own ? Lamartine did not do so, 
 though far more heavily tasked than his colleague. 
 Why did he not even revise the documents he suffered 
 to be published with his official sanction ? 
 
 The indignation excited by the first circular was so 
 great that Ledru Rollin would have been forced to re- 
 
60 FRANCE. 
 
 tire, but for an incident that turned the current of 
 opinion altogether in his favor. This was a foolish 
 and singularly ill-tirned proceeding on the part of the 
 ex-grenadiers and voltio-eurs of the National Guard. 
 These men belonged to the wealthier classes, were dis- 
 tinguished by certain badges, such as a bearskin 
 cap, yellow epaulettes, &c, and claimed the right 
 of selecting those who should be admitted into 
 their ranks. These exclusive and aristocratic pre- 
 tensions being clearly incompatible with the new 
 order of things, it was decreed that, in the reconstruc- 
 tion of the civic force, the select companies should be 
 broken up and fused with the general mass. The 
 companies insisted on retaining their privileges, marched 
 to the Hotel de Ville, and preferred their demands to 
 that effect in peremptory terms. They also mixed up 
 the great political question of the circulars with 
 their own paltry affair of yellow worsted, and con- 
 cluded by stating that, if their wishes were not 
 complied with, they would come armed the next day, 
 March 16, to enforce them. They kept their promise, 
 but found themselves anticipated and immensely out- 
 numbered by their democratic comrades ; and, after 
 being sharply reprimanded by the Government, and 
 hooted and jeered by the populace, they were glad 
 enough to slink away with whole skins. 
 
 The first example of open sedition thus set by the 
 bourgeoisie* was quickly imitated by their antagonists. 
 On the 17th an assemblage of nearly 200,000 men 
 marched in orderly procession to the Hotel de Ville, 
 for the purpose, as they said, of encouraging the Go- 
 vernment in its resistance to aristocratic dictation. In 
 reality it was a demonstration planned by Caussidiere, 
 in concert with the leaders of the anarchical clubs, in 
 
 * This term is applied in France to the classes intermediate 
 between the nobility and the laboring population. 
 
the 17th of march. 61 
 
 order to overawe the moderate members of the Go- 
 vernment. A deputation of about forty clubbists was 
 received by the Provisional Government, and demand- 
 ed that the elections for the National Guard and the 
 Assembly should be postponed to a distant date. To 
 prolong- the interregnum was the constant policy of the 
 anarchists, whilst Lamartine, and those who thought with 
 him, were desirous to resign their provisional dictatorship 
 as soon as possible into the hands of a regularly consti- 
 tuted authority. The members of the Government, 
 not excepting Louis Blanc and Ledru Rollin, all spoke 
 in firm and becoming language on this critical occa- 
 sion, refusing to give any answer whatever to demands 
 backed by a display of force. The crowd below was 
 not yet fully ripe for mischief; some members of the 
 deputation spoke in support of the Government, and 
 the machinations of the anarchists were for that time 
 defeated. Eventually the opening of the Assembly 
 was postponed for a fortnight longer, in order to give 
 time previously for the complete organization of the Na- 
 tional Guard. The 15th of May showed that this was 
 no superfluous precaution. 
 
 The foreign policy of the French Republic, as enun- 
 ciated by Lamartine in his circular of the 4th of March, 
 was dignified and pacific. ♦ His declarations were in 
 substance as follows : — France sincerely desires peace : 
 if war must come, she at least will not have been the 
 aggressor. She regards the treaties of 1815 as no 
 longer existing de jure, but she admits the territorial 
 limitations fixed by them as existing de facto, and as 
 matters to be modified hereafter by common accord. 
 She will not attack her unoffending neighbors, " nor 
 exercise an underhand or incendiary propaganda among 
 them ;" she will not obtrude her aid where it is not de- 
 sired ; but she holds an army of observation in readi- 
 ness to cross the Alps, upon the first cry for succor ad- 
 dressed to her by Switzerland or Italy. 
 
62 FRANCE. 
 
 All the cabinets of Europe have acknowledged the 
 good faith of the Provisional Government in its for- 
 eign relations. Though it could not prevent the inva- 
 sion of Belgium, Germany, and Savoy, by armed refu- 
 gees from those countries, aided by some refractory 
 Frenchmen ; yet on all such occasions it did its utmost 
 to preserve the neutrality of the French territory, and 
 hinder the abuse of its hospitality. In pursuing this 
 honorable line of conduct, the Minister of Foreign Af- 
 fairs had to contend sometimes, as in the case of the 
 Poles, against his own sympathies and those of his 
 nation ; sometimes, as in the Belgian affair, against 
 the indiscretion of a colleague. Fifteen hundred Bel- 
 gians set out from Paris about the end of March, to 
 revolutionize their own country. The purpose of the 
 expedition having been made known to M. Ledru Rol- 
 lin by some pupils of the Ecole Polytechnique, who ac- 
 companied it, he said that, as a minister, he could not 
 have a hand in the affair, though, individually, he ap- 
 proved of it : but he supplied the young men with 
 money and a letter to the Government commissioner 
 at Lille, and that functionary armed the legion with 
 muskets surreptitiously procured from the arsenal, 
 under pretence of arming the National Guard. Mean- 
 while, the Government, b<?ing informed of what was 
 doing, gave warning to the Belgian authorities, and 
 ordered back the Polytechnique students. The le- 
 gion crossed the frontier, was met by a military 
 force at Risquons-tout, and routed with considerable 
 loss. 
 
 For a month after the dangerous crisis of the 1*7 th 
 of March, the Provisional Government was left to the 
 enjoyment of comparative quiet, whilst the Parisians 
 were occupied with the election of officers of the Na- 
 tional Guard, or giving vent to their redundant vivacity 
 in planting whole groves of poplars all over Paris, 
 firing feux-de-joie, and compelling the inhabitants to il- 
 
THE 16TH OF APRIL. 63 
 
 luminate in honor of the plantation and baptism of 
 these " Trees of Liberty.' ' But the conspirators of the 
 clubs were not idle ; they matured a plot to overthrow 
 the moderate section of the Provisional Government, 
 and substitute for it a so-called Committee of Safety. 
 Two vast meetings were to be held on the 16th of April, 
 one in the Champ de Mars, for the election of fourteen 
 field-officers of the National Guard, and another in the 
 Hippodrome, consisting of the men belonging to the 
 Ateliers nationaux. The conspirators determined to 
 avail themselves of the materials of insurrection thus 
 collected, and march both bodies against the Hotel de 
 Ville. 
 
 But the Government had timely information of their 
 designs. At six o'clock in the morning Lamartine 
 sent messengers all over town to collect the National 
 Guard, and such of the workmen as were well affected 
 to the Government. At eleven o'clock Ledru Rollin, 
 who indignantly repudiated all connexion with the con- 
 spiracy, called on Lamartine, and at his request instant- 
 ly gave orders to beat the rappel. The other members 
 of the Government were, meanwhile, taking such mea- 
 sures in their respective quarters as the exigency de- 
 manded ; all except Louis Blanc and Albert, who have 
 never accounted for their mysterious absence on that 
 day from the post of duty. The call of the Govern- 
 ment was responded to by 150,000 men of the Na- 
 tional Guard, the Garde Mobile, the schools, the Fau- 
 bourg St. Antoine, <fcc. The Hotel de Ville was sur- 
 rounded by an army of defence, the bridges were in- 
 vested, and when the columns from the Champ de 
 Mars, bearing on their banners incendiary mottoes dic- 
 tated by Louis Blanc, had reached the Pont Neuf, they 
 found the passage intercepted. At last a portion of 
 them, being allowed to pass under good guard, presented 
 themselves to the Provisional Government, protested 
 their innocence of any hostile intention, and stated that 
 
64 FRANCE. 
 
 the purpose of demonstration was only to make an of- 
 fering of money for the public service. The plot was 
 crushed without a blow. When all was over, Louis 
 Blanc made his appearance at the Hotel de Ville. 
 
 Fortified by its bloodless victory of the 16th, the 
 Provisional Government was now enabled to bring 
 back the troops of the line to Paris, with the cordial 
 approbation of the National Guard. On Thursday, 
 April 20, was celebrated the grand Fete of Fraternity, 
 in which eight regiments of cavalry, thirteen of infantry, 
 three of artillery, and all the civic soldiers of Paris and 
 the banlieue, defiled before the Provisional Government ; 
 and not a single instance of angry feeling disturbed the 
 harmony of the day. 
 
 On the 23d all France was called to exercise the 
 newly-acquired right of Universal Suffrage, in the elec- 
 tion of 900 members of the National Constituent 
 Assembly. The vast operation of receiving, classifying, 
 counting, and reporting, the votes of nearly 10,000,000 
 electors, was completed within less than a week, and 
 with a general quiet, facility, and precision, to which 
 there were but few and unimportant exceptions. The 
 result of the elections was highly favorable to the Mo- 
 derate party, and totally at variance with the predic- 
 tions of those theorists who held that violence must be 
 the prevailing tone of a house elected by universal suf- 
 frage, and that its members would, for the most part, 
 belong to the same class of society as the majority of 
 the electors. Of 34 members returned for Paris and its 
 department, 1 only were ultras, and among these the 
 only Socialists were Louis Blanc and Albert. Lamartine 
 headed the poll with 259,000 votes ; the 24th and27th 
 on the list wereLedru Rollin (131,587) and Louis Blanc 
 (120,140). Lamartine was returned for ten several 
 departments by an aggregate of 2,000,000 of votes. 
 
 When the result of the elections was known, the 
 anarchical faction flew to arms in Nantes, Amiens, 
 
OPENING OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. 65 
 
 Marseilles, Rouen, and in one or two other towns ; but 
 in all except the last named, they were put down with 
 more or less facility. The insurrection of Rouen was 
 not subdued without much bloodshed and two days' 
 hard fighting (April 26 and 27), in which grape and 
 cannot-shot were copiously used by the troops. The 
 clubs of Paris took fire at this news, and issued inflam- 
 matory placards, denouncing the National Guards of 
 Rouen as assassins, the Government as hostile to the 
 people, and the elections as reactionary. In the coun- 
 cil-room of the Government Louis Blanc moved that 
 the two generals in command at Rouen should be 
 arrested. The ferment continued to increase daily, and 
 it was feared that the meeting of the representatives 
 would be the signal for civil war. 
 
 Nevertheless, on the 4th of May, the National Con- 
 stituent Assembly was installed under the most flattering 
 auspices ; and the Provisional Government, in resigning 
 its dictatorship, was enabled to declare, by the mouth 
 of Lamartine : — 
 
 " We have passed forty-five days without any other 
 executive force than that wholly unarmed moral author- 
 ity which the nation was pleased to acknowledge in us. 
 % * * "\y e nave traversed more than two months 
 of crisis, of suspended employment, of distress, of ele- 
 ments of political agitation and social anguish, accumu- 
 lated immeasurably in a capital of a million and a half 
 of inhabitants ; we have traversed all this without 
 having to grieve over property violated, or one life 
 sacrificed to passion, or one proscription, one political 
 imprisonment, one drop of blood shed in our name in 
 Paris ! Descending from this long dictatorship, we can 
 go out and mingle with the people in the public streets, 
 without fearing that any one shall call us to account in 
 the name of a single citizen, and say to us, ' What have 
 you done with him ? ' " 
 
FRANCE. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 FRANCE. 
 
 FROM THE APPOINTMENT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE TO THE 
 INSURRECTION OF JUNE. 
 
 Lamartine stood then in one of the loftiest positions 
 of moral grandeur and well-earned popularity that ever 
 rewarded the generous ambition of a patriotic statesman. 
 The general voice of the country, and the wishes of a 
 majority of the Assembly, designated him as the chief 
 to whose hands should be committed the executive 
 pow r er of the Republic. He refused to accept the sole 
 direction of the Government, and from that moment his 
 popularity declined continually, until he descended 
 to the rank of a mere representative. The vilest slan- 
 ders were heaped upon him with unsparing assidu- 
 ity ; it was a labor of love for his malignant detractors, 
 and many of his former admirers lent themselves 
 too easily to the base work, betrayed by those vulgar 
 impulses that oscillate between boundless admiration and 
 unmeasured obloquy. Happily, no efforts of lying ma- 
 lice could long obscure the brightness of a fame as pure, 
 if not as radiant with success, as that of Washington. 
 It was a sight to make the angels weep, when a man 
 like Lamartine, stifling the agony of shame and grief 
 that rent his noble heart, sat down to clear himself of 
 the charge of theft and corruption, and to show, by a 
 detailed exposure of his pecuniary affairs, that he had 
 
THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 67 
 
 not served his country for lucre, but voluntarily sacri- 
 ficed to the Republic, 26,000/. of his private fortune. 
 
 Not only did La^nartine refuse to become President 
 ad interim of the Republic, but he declared that he 
 would not belong to any executive commission from 
 which Ledru Rollin should be excluded. This deter- 
 mination was very embarrassing to the Moderate party, 
 and led them to entertain with some complacency the 
 very objectionable scheme of having the ministers 
 nominated directly by the Assembly. A committee 
 reported in favor of this plan, and Odillon Barrot sup- 
 ported it. Now it is curious to observe how, in their 
 fear and dislike of Ledru Rollin, these Moderates 
 sought protection against him and his followers in the 
 very system afterwards propounded by that individual 
 himself on ultra-democratic principles. Ledru Rollin 
 is of opinion that the Republic ought not to have any 
 President, and that the President of the Council 
 of Ministers should be the head of the Executive. 
 Lamartine strenuously resisted the proposal made by 
 the Committee, and his views were adopted by a ma- 
 jority of 28. Next day, May 10th, the following 
 Executive Committee of five was appointed by ballot, 
 the number of voters being 794 : — 
 
 Arago 725 
 
 Gamier Pages .715 
 
 Marie . 702 
 
 Lamartine . . . . , , . .645 
 Ledru Rollin 458 
 
 These figures are significant ; they mark the dissatis- 
 faction with which the Assembly assented to a coalition 
 between the party of the majority and that of the 
 ultra-Republicans. As for the Socialists, they were 
 entirely excluded from the new Government; Louis 
 Blanc and Albert sank down to the ordinary level of 
 representatives, whilst ail their colleagues in the late 
 
68 FRANCE. 
 
 Provisional Government took office, either as members 
 of the Executive Commission, or as ministers under 
 that body. t 
 
 The policy adopted by Lamartine on this, occasion 
 was of such cardinal importance, that we must explain 
 his motives in some detail. 
 
 Good as well as evil resulted from the heterogeneous 
 character of the Provisional Government. All the 
 leading forms of public opinion had their representa- 
 tives in that body ; and this, says M. Marie, " appears 
 to me one of the causes that made it possible to main- 
 tain a Government until the opening of the National 
 Assembly." Lamartine was of opinion that the infant 
 Republic was not yet strong enough to emancipate 
 itself with safety from the same condition of existence. 
 He knew that, with all Ledru Rollin's errors, the in- 
 temperance of his language far outran that of his acts ; 
 that he was a man with whom it was possible for an 
 earnest but discreet Republican to live in tolerable 
 official harmony ; that he repudiated all secret con- 
 spiracies ; and, above all, that he had actually saved 
 the country from a Socialist revolution on the 16th of 
 April, by the promptitude with which he had given 
 orders to beat the rappel. 
 
 " To take the Government upon myself alone," says 
 Lamartine, "to the exclusion of all my Republican 
 colleagues of the 24th of February, would have been 
 to create on the instant in the National Assembly a 
 majority and a minority rancorously opposed to each 
 other, — to form two parties on the very first day, when 
 I wished to blend them together, for a while at least, 
 though it were but in appearance, in a patriotic and 
 republican unity of action ; it would have been to give 
 leaders to those parties, and armies to those leaders. 
 Intestine war in the head of the Republic could not 
 fail to produce convulsions in the limbs. Once the 
 majority and the minority had been sharply defined in 
 
THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 69 
 
 the Assembly, every discussion would have been a 
 storm, and every storm wOuld have had its echo and 
 its repercussion out of doors. To divide the Assembly 
 was to divide the Republic ; to divide it when it had 
 but just begun to exist would have been to ruin it or 
 plunge it into blood. For, in fine, I, as the Govern- 
 ment, should have been obliged to choose between the 
 majority and the minorit}^. I, a newcomer of February, 
 should have been obliged to rely exclusively on the 
 party of the Morrow against the exasperated party of 
 the Eve. The Republic in my hands would forthwith 
 have fallen under the suspicions of the Republicans of 
 February. They would have entered into conflict with 
 her, backed by the tribune, the press, the clubs, the 
 recently dismissed delegates of the Luxembourg, the 
 army of 100,000 men of the Ateliers nationaucc, the 
 Bonapartists, the Terrorists, and the subversive Social- 
 ists — all recruited under their hands into one opposi- 
 tion phalanx. The National Assembly would have 
 given battle to all these disciplined forces of disorder 
 together. True : but vanquished, it would have been 
 dissolved and replaced by an anarchical tyranny ; vic- 
 torious, it would have been compelled to become vio- 
 lent, and to retrograde to the system of the Convention. 
 In either way, the pacific, constitutional, and almost 
 unanimous Republic, which we all desire, would have 
 been lost, and my inconsiderate ambition would have 
 been the cause of its ruin. ** * * * 
 
 " But, it is objected, ' You might at least have ab- 
 stained from entering into the Executive Commission, 
 and remained free and invulnerable in your isolation.' 
 
 " That is true ; every selfish consideration tended 
 that way : I should have grown in the public eye by 
 standing aloof; my popularity would have remained 
 entire, and I should have taken the easiest means to 
 promote my own success as a candidate for any office. 
 But what would have signified, the most promising 
 
70 FRANCE. 
 
 candidateship when tlie Republic was no more ? Now 
 to me it is evident, that had I withheld my name, 
 which was then significant and a bond between parties, 
 from the composition of the Executive Commission, 
 the National Assembly would have formed a Govern- 
 ment of a single color, taken exclusively from among 
 the men unjustly suspected of resentment against the 
 Republic. It is evident, too, that such a Government 
 would instantly have created in the Assembly that 
 very antagonism and those very ruptures which, in my 
 opinion, would destroy or ensanguine the Republic. 
 I did not hearken to the counsels of selfishness ; I con- 
 sented, with a heavy heart, to annihilate myself, in 
 order to combine in the Government every pledge of 
 conciliation between the' admissible statesmen of the 
 various great parties of the Revolution. 
 
 " ' That is what has done all the mischief !' I hear 
 people exclaim. ' That is what has done all the good, 
 too !' say I. That is what has effected that the fac- 
 tions have been, not destroyed, but decapitated and 
 disunited ; and that instead of your having to tight 
 them in one compact mass before the hour of your 
 strength, they have beset you with isolated and impo- 
 tent attempts, over which the Republic has triumphed 
 with you. That is what has effected that we have still 
 the unanimity of the National Assembly in all vital 
 questions for the preservation of society, property, and 
 our native land. That is what has effected that we 
 shall have it still for a long time to come ; that we 
 shall yet again become reconciled together in patriotic 
 feeling on every day of danger ; and that we shall ex- 
 tinguish with one common accord the sparks of dis- 
 sension that are cast among us from without, but which 
 we will not accept." 
 
 One of those isolated and abortive attempts against 
 the Assembly, to which Lamartine alludes in the abova 
 
THE 15th of may. 71 
 
 extract, was made on Monday, May 15. On that day 
 an immense multitude marched to the palace of the 
 National Assembly, for the ostensible purpose of pre- 
 senting a petition for immediate intervention in the 
 cause of Poland. Orders had been given, in anticipa- 
 tion of this movement, to occupy all the approaches to 
 the palace with strong bodies of the civic troops ; but 
 these orders were grossly violated by General Courtais, 
 who had been specially appointed on the preceding 
 day, and at his own request, Commander-in-chief of all 
 the forces in Paris. Instead of barring the way over 
 the bridge (Pont de la Concorde), he made the troops 
 form two parallel lines on the footpaths. The crowd 
 passed over without hindrance, and Courtais then gave 
 orders in person to the Garde Mobile on duty within 
 the walls of the palace to sheathe their bayonets, and 
 drop their ramrods into the barrels of their muskets to 
 show that they were not loaded. Meanwhile he had 
 opened the gate to admit the bearers of the petition. 
 He has himself acknowledged this fact, but alleged in 
 excuse that he was deceived by a promise that only 
 twenty-five persons should enter. The court of the 
 building was immediately filled, and about three or 
 four hundred of the mob rushed into the interior, 
 shouting and waving flags, striding over the benches 
 on which the Deputies were seated, and scuffling with 
 them for possession of the tribune. At length Raspail 
 was seen standing there with the petition in his hand, 
 but could not obtain a hearing, until Louis Blanc, with 
 the formal permission of the President, spoke a few 
 words, entreating silence, " that the petition might be 
 read ; that the right of petition might be consecrated ; 
 and that it might not be said that, on entering within 
 those walls, the people had by its clamors violated its 
 own sovereignty." 
 
 Raspail then began : a Citizens, we come in the 
 name of 200,000 citizens, who are waiting at your 
 
1 2 FRANCE. 
 
 doors " Here his voice was again overpowered 
 
 by the outcries of the indignant representatives ; the 
 mob retorted with threats to turn out those who inter- 
 rupted their spokesman ; Louis Blanc again interposed 
 as a moderator, and the petition was read in dumb 
 show. The President then requested the people to 
 withdraw, in order that their petition might be taken 
 into consideration, and Barbes, as a member of the 
 Assembly, joined in this recommendation. Blanqui, 
 however, insisted on making a speech ; and not con- 
 fining himself to the subject of Poland, he harangued 
 on the merciless butcheries in Rouen, and on the suf- 
 ferings of the working classes. " Give us a Ministry 
 of Labor, with Louis Blanc at its head !" shouted the 
 mob. Ledru Rollin endeavored to soothe them, and 
 induce them to depart. " The people," he said, " had 
 made known their wishes with regard to Poland ; they 
 should be attended to, and their Polish brethren as- 
 sisted." He then begged they would withdraw, and 
 allow the Assembly to deliberate. " You must not 
 deliberate ; you must vote !" was their reply. 
 
 Whilst Blanqui was making his inflammatory speech 
 within doors, his rival, Barbes, was addressing the mob 
 outside from a balcony, with Albert by his side, and 
 telling them that the doors should be thrown open, and 
 the people should defile before the Assembly. Louis 
 Blanc was then called for. He spoke with great ani- 
 mation ; and then the three friends, with their arms 
 twined round each other, and one large flag forming a 
 drapeiy for the group, remained for ten minutes before 
 the applauding spectators, forming what a witness calls 
 a sort of " pose academique." 
 
 Soon afterwards the multitude swarmed into the 
 building, and the noise and confusion were terrific. 
 The President and the representatives kept their seats, 
 though threatened, insulted, and, in some instances, 
 personally maltreated ; for the similar scene of Febru- 
 
THE 15th of may. 73 
 
 ary 24 was fresh in their recollection, and forbade them 
 to stir. As soon as Barbes could obtain silence, he 
 moved that a law should be passed imposing an extra- 
 ordinary contribution of forty millions sterling on the 
 rich for the benefit of the laboring classes. The mob 
 having confirmed this motion by acclamation, next 
 resolved that Louis Blanc should be created Minister 
 of Labor, and carried him round the hall in triumph, 
 in spite, as it appears, of his entreaties that they would 
 desist. At last word was brought that the drums of 
 the National Guard were beating to arms. Barbes 
 called on the Assembly to decree that the people of 
 Paris had deserved well of the country, and that who- 
 ever should order the rappel to be beaten should be 
 declared a traitor ; and the President, M. Buchez, was 
 compelled, under fear of an immediate massacre of the 
 representatives, to sign several notes countermanding 
 the beating of the drums. Huber then ascended the 
 tribune, and in the name of the people declared the 
 National Assembly dissolved. Thereupon, at four 
 o'clock, the President put on his hat and left the hall, 
 followed by the rest of the members. Barbes and 
 Sobrier were raised on the arms of the multitude, and, 
 with loud vivats for the Democratic and Social Repub- 
 lic, the leading conspirators and a mass of their follow- 
 ers departed for the Hotel de Ville. 
 
 Meanwhile the troops, paralysed by the defection of 
 General Courtais, left without orders, and uncertain 
 how to act, were still further dispirited by the news of 
 the dissolution of the Assembly. M. Arago, however, 
 went among them, and reassured them ; and M. Du- 
 clerc, the Minister of Finance, putting himself at the 
 head of a battalion of the Garde Nation ale and the 
 Garde Mobile, drove out the intruders from the palace 
 of the Assembly. General Courtais was taken prisoner, 
 and his epaulettes were torn off and flung in his face 
 by some of the men lately under his command. The 
 4 
 
74 FRANCE. 
 
 representatives returned to their places, and after a 
 brief address from Lamartine, who had been carried to 
 the tribune by the soldiers, he and Ledru Rollin 
 mounted their horses, and rode to the Hotel de Ville at 
 the head of a column of troops, to attack the pseudo- 
 Provisional Government. They entered without resist- 
 ance, and in the identical room in which Robespierre 
 and his associates were seized, they found Barbes, 
 Albert, and other directors of the Social and Demo- 
 cratic Republic, in the act of issuing decrees. Sobrier 
 was arrested in a cafe, after an ineffectual attempt upon 
 the Ministry of the Interior, whither he had repaired 
 with 100 of his armed Montagnards to instal himself as 
 minister. His house was ransacked by the National 
 Guard, and 300 muskets and a large quantity of am- 
 munition were seized in it, besides seven draft decrees 
 of the intended Committee of Safety. All the prison- 
 ers we have named, with about 130 of less note, were 
 sent to Vincennes. Blanqui was not taken until the 
 26th. Huber, after being arrested, was allowed to 
 escape altogether. 
 
 The criminal attempt of the 15th of May was com- 
 mitted almost without premeditation, except on the 
 part of a very few ringleaders. Even Barbes does not 
 appear to have been an accessory before the fact, but 
 to have been carried away by a sudden impulse of 
 jealousy when he saw himself about to be supplanted 
 as chief demagogue by Blanqui, whom he detested. 
 Of the multitude that formed the first procession to the 
 Assembly a great majority were really actuated by no 
 other feeling than sympathy for the Poles ; a conside- 
 rable number — among whom Raspail is, probably, to 
 be included — sought only a pretext for enforcing the 
 right of the people to present their petitions directly at 
 the bar of the Assembly, as was customary under the 
 Convention, and so bringing the national representatives 
 under complete subjection to the clubs ; but the ulti- 
 
THE 15th of may. Y5 
 
 mate design of overthrowing the Government was the 
 secret of a few, and was not divulged until the work 
 was half done. Blanqui, Sobrier, and Huber were the 
 chief promoters of the plot. Caussidiere, Courtais, and 
 others, lent it, at least, their passive assistance. Ledru 
 Rollin's strong opposition to it is unquestionable, though 
 even in remonstrating with the invaders of the Assem- 
 bly he could not quite forego his inveterate habit of 
 flattering the delusions and the unruly impulses of the 
 multitude. Louis Blanc was guilty of the same fault 
 in a far greater degree, but not, we believe, to the ex- 
 tent of actual treason. The evidence respecting him, 
 published by the Commission of Inquiry on the affairs 
 of May and June, is, in some respects, very conflicting. 
 Three facts, however, it clearly establishes, namely, that 
 when the mob rushed out of the palace to proceed to 
 the Hotel de Ville, his first care was to escape from the 
 human torrent in which he was swept along ; that he 
 did not go to the Hotel de Ville, though he expressed 
 great anxiety about his friends there ; and that no sub- 
 sequent act of his that day betrayed the least compli- 
 city with the pseudo-Provisional Government. 
 
 On the day following, Caussidiere offered the Assem- 
 bly an explanation of his conduct ; but it was deemed 
 so unsatisfactory that he resigned, not only his office, 
 but also his seat as a representative. The whole con- 
 duct of his Republican Guard was unequivocally hostile 
 to the Government. "Vive Barbisf Vive Blanqm 7" 
 they shouted in the hearing of their Prefect ; and it 
 was evident, that had the insurrection been successful 
 the Montagnards would have formed its first corps 
 (Tarmee. The Government dissolved the Republican 
 Guard, but immediately reconstructed it with little alte- 
 ration, except an increase of its numbers, and the addi- 
 tion of the word " Parisian " to its name. 
 
 It was not long before fresh commotions were occa- 
 
76 FRANCE. 
 
 sioned in Paris by the election of eleven representatives 
 in lieu of those who had resigned, or who, having been 
 doubly returned, had chosen to sit for some other 
 department. The ballot took place on Sunday, the 4 th 
 of June, without much excitement, and the result was 
 made known on the 8 th. The names of the successful 
 candidates made up a list of the most motley com- 
 plexion, betokenhig the confusion into which public 
 opinion had fallen. First stood Caussidiere ; then came 
 Moreau, Goudchaux, and Changarnier, moderate Re- 
 publicans ; Thiers, dreaded as the ablest representative 
 of the old system, was fifth. The next two were 
 Pierre Leroux, the dreamy founder of the Humanitarian 
 school, and Victor Hugo, a political cipher, notwith- 
 standing his literary renown. Louis Napoleon Bona- 
 parte was the eighth ; and the list ended with Lagrange, 
 who had provoked the massacre of the Boulevard des 
 Capucines ; Boissel, the projector of the February ban- 
 quet ; and Proudhon, a subtle propounder of social 
 paradoxes, one of whose maxims is, " that property is 
 robbery." 
 
 Among the names that had been put forward was 
 that of the Prince de Joinville ; and it was known that 
 a large number of votes would be recorded in his favor. 
 To prevent this unpleasant contingency, the Executive 
 Commission took care to have a law passed on the 
 26 th of May, banishing the whole Orleans branch of 
 the House of Bourbon, and rendering its members inca- 
 pable of serving France in any capacity. 
 
 Louis Napoleon occasioned the Government much 
 more serious uneasiness. The law of banishment against 
 the Bonaparte family had been repealed ; three of its 
 members already held seats in the National Assembly ; 
 and the emperor's heir, elected by four different depart- 
 ments, including that of the capital, could only be ex- 
 cluded by a special act of ostracism. On the 12th, 
 Lamartine gave notice of a motion to that effect, and 
 
REFORM OF THE ATELIERS NATIONAUX. 77 
 
 the whole Assembly rose and testified their approval in 
 a shout of " Vive la Republique ! '" This was done 
 uuder a false impression that shots had been fired at 
 the National Guard by persons who cried " Vive 
 VEmpereur ! " It was true that riots were committed, 
 seditious cries uttered, and incendiary proclamations 
 put forth by the prince's partisans ; but the only blood 
 drawn was that of an awkward civic soldier, who 
 wounded himself by the accidental discharge of his 
 own pistol. The real facts being* known, the Assembly 
 voted on the 13th, by a vast majority, for the admission 
 of the citizen Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. On the 15th 
 they showed every disposition to rescind that vote, in 
 their indignation at a letter from the Prince, received 
 that day by the President. The passage which gave 
 so much offence was the following: — If the people 
 impose duties on me, I shall know how to fulfil them; 
 but I disavow all those who have made use of my name 
 to excite disturbance." But all was made good again 
 by another letter, dated London, June loth, in which 
 Bonaparte tendered his resignation rather than be the 
 involuntary cause of disorder. 
 
 From the moment there existed a regularly consti- 
 tuted sovereign Assembly, the Executive was bent on 
 eradicating those noxious institutions and usages which 
 the weakness of a provisional authority had been com- 
 pelled to tolerate. On the 12th of May, it was resolv- 
 ed that the lists of the Ateliers nationaux should be 
 closed, and no more workmen admitted ; that the men 
 belonging to such private workshops as had been re- 
 opened should return to them ; and that the unmarried 
 men, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, 
 should have their choice, either to be drafted into the 
 army or dismissed. Arrangements were made for send- 
 ing bodies of men to work in the provinces. An at- 
 tempt to introduce the system of task-work was also 
 
*/8 FRANCE. 
 
 made, but, unfortunately, in fixing the rate of pay, the 
 performance of the weakest hands, such as painters 
 and printers, was taken as a standard, so that it was 
 easy for the more robust to earn fifteen or sixteen francs 
 a day. 
 
 The endeavors to reduce the number of hands on 
 the Ateliers nationaux were strenuously counteracted 
 by Emile Thomas, the manager of the institution, who 
 hoped to be elected to the Assembly by the votes of 
 his. 100,000 men. The Government removed him by 
 stratagem, hurrying him off under pretence of a special 
 mission to Bordeaux, and there keeping him in arrest 
 until his successor had been installed in office. The 
 men of the ateliers mutinied, and began to hold riotous 
 assemblages in the streets ; but the Executive Com- 
 mission put in force a law it had procured against 
 such gatherings, and 800 rioters were arrested in one 
 night. 
 
 The Executive Commission, and especially Lamartine, 
 have been most unjustly accused of not foreseeing and 
 providing against the outbreak of June. Lamartine 
 distinctly foretold what was coming, and was inde- 
 fatigable in his efforts to prevent the impending cala- 
 mity. The means he proposed were twofold : — to con- 
 centrate a large military force in and round Paris, and 
 to disperse the workmen through the provinces in small 
 bodies, provided with steady employment of a useful 
 kind. His anxiety to accomplish this last object ap- 
 pears to have blinded him to the iniquity of the scheme 
 for the appropriation of all the railways by the State. 
 He was most earnest in recommending that measure as 
 the only hopeful means of avoiding a bloody conflict, 
 not considering that it wanted two conditions, with- 
 out which it could only be an act of arbitrary 
 spoliation. The price at which the railways were to be 
 taken out of the hands of their proprietors was to be 
 fixed, not by an impartial jury, but by the Govern- 
 
PRECAUTION AGAINST INSURRECTION. *79 
 
 ment itself, and the shareholders were not to be paid in 
 cash, but to be forced to sell on credit to an almost 
 bankrupt State. 
 
 On the 20th of May, the Government decreed that 
 the garrison of Paris should consist of 20,000 men of 
 the line, 15,000 of the Garde Mobile, 2600 Republican 
 Guards, and 2850 Gardiens de Paris, besides 15,000 
 of the line in the various posts within a few hours' 
 march of the capital ; in all, 54,650 bayonets. It was 
 further ordered, that in case of serious danger the 
 Minister of War, General Cavaignac, should take the 
 command of the forces of every kind in Paris. Again, 
 on the 8th of June, Lamartine used these remarkable 
 words in council, — " We are approaching a crisis. It 
 will not be a riot, or a battle, but a campaign of several 
 days, and of several factions combined. The National 
 Assembly may, perhaps, be forced for a while to quit 
 Paris. We must provide for these contingencies with 
 the energy of a republican power. The 55,000 men 
 sufficient for Paris would not suffice to bring back the 
 national representation into the capital. I demand, 
 besides a series of decrees of public security, that the 
 Minister of War immediately order up to Paris 20,000 
 men more." This proposal was unanimously adopted : 
 and thus, a fortnight before the insurrection broke out, 
 the Government had made arrangements to bring 
 75,000 bayonets to the support of the National Guard 
 of 190,000 men. General Cavaignac carried the orders 
 of the Government into effect as fast as quarters could 
 be provided. Lamartine every day inquired as to the 
 arrival of the troops, and was told, " The orders have 
 been given, and the troops are in movement." Taking 
 into account the effective strength of the Garde Mobile, 
 the Garde Republicaine, and the Gardiens de Paris, 
 the effective number of the garrison in and around 
 the capital at the end of June was 45,000 men. 
 
 Meanwhile the thunder-clouds were visibly gathering, 
 
80 FRANCE. 
 
 but it was not expected that the storm would burst be- 
 fore the 14th of July. On that day, the anniversary 
 of the taking of the Bastile, the Red Republicans had 
 arranged to hold a banquet, tickets for which were to 
 be issued at the price of five sous each. By this 
 means it was calculated that at least 150,000 men 
 would be brought together, and that, whether they 
 dined or not, they would not separate without fighting. 
 Disconcerted, however, by the active measures taken 
 by the Government to break up the Ateliers nation- 
 aux, certain of the conspirators resolved, suddenly and 
 prematurely, on the 2 2d of June, to begin the action 
 on the following day. 
 
 On Thursday, the eve of the insurrection, at ten 
 o'clock in the morning, M. Marie instructed M. Recurt, 
 Minister of the Interior, to arrest fifty-six delegates of 
 the Ateliers nationaux, who were then in the Jardin 
 des Plantes. These men, and the chiefs of the Society 
 of the Rights of Man, were the actual leaders of the 
 insurrection. The delegates were allowed to walk 
 about openly all day, and the writs against them were 
 not put into the hands of the Prefect of Police until 
 noon on the 23d, when they were already behind the 
 barricades. That functionary has formally deposed, that 
 had he been authorized to arrest the delegates and the 
 chiefs of the club, " he would undoubtedly have pre- 
 vented the insurrection." 
 
 Two plans for putting down the expected outbreak 
 were severally proposed. The Executive Committee 
 was for spreading the troops over the capital, and pre- 
 venting the erection of barricades. General Cavaig- 
 nac's system was the reverse of this, and consisted in 
 concentrating his forces at certain points, and bringing 
 them into action in large masses. The insurrections 
 of July, 1830, and February, 1848, had been treated 
 by the existing governments as a sort of larger street 
 riots, to be quelled in a police fashion. He treated 
 
INSURRECTION - OF JUNE. 81 
 
 that of June as an outbreak of civil war, and met it in 
 true order of battle. Those two examples proved to 
 him, he said, " the necessity of not spreading the 
 troops through the streets, but of advancing them in 
 compact bodies, and in such numbers that the insur- 
 rection should always be forced to give way before them. 
 In such affairs the least check is fatal to an army. 
 Above all things, to keep inviolate the honor of the 
 flag was the sure pledge of final success. The event 
 has confirmed the correctness of these views." General 
 Cavaignac consulted his comrades, Lamoriciere, Bedeau, 
 and Foucher, on this plan, and finding that they fully 
 approve;! of it, he determined to act strictly upon it, but 
 without disclosing it to the Executive Committee. " He 
 was not sure that they, in their ignorance of military 
 matters, would have approved of it ; or, if they had, 
 they might have taken it on themselves to carry it out, 
 and perhaps failed." 
 
 It was a necessary consequence of this system of tac- 
 tics that the insurgents had ample time to choose their 
 ground and fortify it. Their manner of doing this display- 
 ed, in a remarkable degree, that proficiency in the art 
 of defence to which the Parisian populace had attained 
 by long practice in street fighting. For the basis of 
 their operations they had four main positions, two on 
 the northern or right bank of the river, namely, the 
 Clos St. Lazare, a little north of the Porte St. Denis, 
 and the Place de la Bastile ; and on the left bank they 
 had the church of St. Severin and the Pantheon. An 
 imaginary line, running in a direction nearly north and 
 south through the Clos St. Lazare and the Pantheon, 
 and bisecting the old island city of Paris, represents 
 very nearly the demarcation between the insurgent and 
 the governmental moieties of the capital. All east of that 
 line, with the exception of the Hotel de Ville and its 
 precincts, was a net-work of barricades, and every inch 
 
 F 
 
 4* 
 
82 FRANCE. 
 
 of the ground was disputed with desperate courage and 
 pertinacity. 
 
 It was twelve o'clock on Friday, the 23 d, before 'the 
 first shot was fired. The battle was begun by the Na- 
 tional Guard at the Portes St. Denis and St. Martin, 
 from which the barricaders were repulsed, after consi- 
 derable loss on both sides. The fighting continued all 
 day on both sides of the river, with great slaughter but 
 little practical result, the insurgents being only driven 
 from their more advanced positions to rally again 
 in other places. About five o'clock General Cavaignac, 
 accompanied by Lamartine, Pierre Bonaparte, and other 
 representatives, led an attack in person against the Fau- 
 bourg du Temple. For three hours the barricades 
 withstood the fire of four pieces of cannon ; and two 
 generals and 400 soldiers were killed or wounded in 
 the conflict. The troops behaved with admirable steadi- 
 ness throughout the day, and the young soldiers of the 
 Garde Mobile especially distinguished themselves. But 
 the want of a sufficient number of troops occasioned 
 loud and general complaints ; and accusations of imbe- 
 cility, supineness, and treachery, were freely cast on the 
 Executive Commission and the Commander-in-chief. 
 The proneness of the French to indulge in calumnious 
 suspicions, and to find in enormous perfidy a key to 
 whatever remains unexplained in the conduct of their 
 public men, is one of the ugliest defects in the national 
 character. 
 
 At four o'clock on Saturday morning the battle be- 
 gan again, and raged with intense vehemence on both 
 sides of the river. Both parties had been reinforced 
 during the night. National Guards had arrived from 
 the departments, a regiment of the line from Orleans, 
 other troops from the adjacent garrisons, and cannon 
 from Vincennes. The insurgents had also gained great- 
 ly in numbers, in the strength of their positions, and 
 
INSURRECTION OF JUNE.- 83 
 
 in the quantity of arms and ammunition. Barricades, 
 ten or twelve feet high, and of great strength, crossed 
 the streets at every dozen paces ; the houses too were, 
 for the most part, in the possession of the insurgents, 
 and covered with mattresses, bags of sand, and other 
 protections against musketry, from behind which 
 showers of missiles were poured down on the assail- 
 ants. Besides this, they had eleven pieces of can- 
 non ; but they do not appear to have made much 
 use of them. 
 
 At eleven o'clock the National Assembly passed a 
 resolution declaring Paris in a state of siege, and ap- 
 pointing General Cavaignac Dictator, with unlimited 
 powers, civil and military. The Executive Committee 
 instantly resigned. Orders were then issued that the 
 National Guard should occupy the streets, prevent the 
 assemblage of crowds, and watch over the safety of pri- 
 vate property. The rest of the inhabitants were to re- 
 main at home, and keep their windows closed as a secu- 
 rity to the soldiers in the streets that they should not 
 be fired on from the houses. Every person out of uni- 
 form who was found abroad without a written pass was 
 searched, and either taken prisoner or led by a National 
 Guard to his own door. In pursuance of this judicious 
 plan many persons were arrested in the act of convey- 
 ing ammunition and other aid to the insurgents. At 
 noon General Cavaignac sent a flag of truce to the in- 
 surgents, offering a general amnesty if they would 
 yield before two o'clock. The offer was^ rejected with- 
 out hesitation, or a moment's interruption of the fir- 
 ing. 
 
 During the earlier part of the day the fight raged 
 chiefly in the city and on the southern bank of the 
 river. To get possession of the Hotel de Ville and the 
 Prefecture of Police was a cardinal point with the in- 
 surgents. Occupying the church of St. Gervais and its 
 precincts, close to the Municipal palace, and half the 
 
84 FRANCE. 
 
 bridges and buildings in the Isle du Palais, the least 
 success in that quarter would have enabled them to 
 close in on all sides, and completely invest the city. In 
 Parisian warfare, the loss of the Hotel de Ville is what 
 the loss of its colors is to a regiment in the field ; it 
 was therefore a matter of primary importance to the 
 Government to pierce the enemy's lines at that central 
 point, towards which all his efforts converged. The 
 church of St. Gervais was taken after a heavy cannonade ; 
 next the bridges were carried with great slaughter, and 
 thus the means of communication between the insur- 
 gents of the two banks was completely cut off. Pursu- 
 ing their success, the troops possessed themselves of 
 the church of St. Severin, the head-quarters of the 
 insurgents on that side. Their stronghold, the Pantheon, 
 was carried at one o'clock at the point of the bayonet, 
 after the great iron doors and railings had been broken 
 by cannon. By four o'clock the Government was 
 master of the whole left bank of the river. 
 
 On the northern side the troops were hotly engaged 
 all day in assailing the strong outworks of the insurgents 
 in the Faubourgs Poissonniere and St. Denis, which 
 were not carried till a late hour, and with great cost 
 of life. Their defenders retreated to their central posi- 
 tions in the Clos St. Lazare, the Marais, and the Fau- 
 bourg St. Antome, which were so strong as to with- 
 stand every effort made against them by General 
 Lamoriciere, who commanded in the northern districts. 
 
 The Clos St. Lazare is a wide, elevated plateau, 
 covered with building materials and half-built houses. 
 In the middle stood a new hospital, not yet finished, 
 which the insurgents made their citadel, whilst the 
 Church of St. Vincent de Pa ule and the Customs Ware- 
 houses served them as outposts. Behind them they had 
 the outer boulevards, strongly barricaded, and the city- 
 wall, which they had loop-hooled, and from behind 
 which a number of men fired, in complete security, on 
 
INSURRECTION OF JUNE. 85 
 
 tlie troops. The church was taken early on Sunday 
 morning. At one o'clock General Lamoriciere stormed 
 the Customs Depot, after breaching it with cannon. 
 Howitzers then swept the Clos St. Lazare, and the troops 
 marching through divided the insurgents into two parts, 
 which they drove before them in different directions. 
 By four o'clock the troops of the Republic were masters 
 of this quarter, and General Lamoriciere was now able 
 to effect a junction in the Place de la Bastile with the 
 troops that had meanwhile been sweeping the ground 
 up 10 that point from the Hotel de Ville. This latter 
 was a service of extreme difficulty, and could hardly 
 have been effected at all without the aid of the sappers 
 and pompiers to turn the barricades by cutting passages 
 through the houses, and sometimes by blowing them 
 up. Cannon was almost useless in the narrow and tor- 
 tuous streets of this quarter. The insurgents had pos- 
 session of nearly all the houses, and had opened interior 
 communications between them, so that they could pass 
 to and fro as in covered ways. The whole neighbor- 
 hood was in fact one immense fortress, which it 
 was necessary to demolish stone by stone. The 
 besiegers paid a heavy price of blood for their 
 victory. 
 
 A desperate struggle, continued to a late hour at 
 night in the Faubourg du Temple, concluded the opera- 
 tions of this most bloody day. On Monday morning the 
 insurgents made their last stand in the Faubourg St. 
 Antoine, beyond the Canal St. Martin. An armistice 
 took place, and they sent a deputation to propose a 
 surrender, on condition that they should be allowed to 
 retain their arms. General Cavaignac would accept 
 nothing less than an unconditional surrender, and he 
 allowed the insurgents until ten o'clock to deliberate. 
 At that hour it was thought that the terms prescribed 
 were agreed to, and some of the troops having got 
 within the lines of the insurgents were fired on, and a 
 
86 FRANCE. 
 
 great number of them killed. Hostilities were imme- 
 diately renewed, and by one o'clock they terminated in 
 the total discomfiture of the insurgents. 
 
 In the above rapid sketch we have confined ourselves 
 as much as possible to mere outline, and avoided the 
 introduction of details which might distract the reader's 
 attention and hinder him from obtaining a clear, con- 
 nected view of the plan and course of the contest. 
 Some of these details may now be added, but the pic- 
 ture will still remain but a faint and imperfect copy of 
 the terrible original. Let the reader imagine, if he can 
 — what no description can portray — the horrors of a 
 capital given up for four days to universal battle, waged 
 on both sides with furious bravery and merciless hatred 
 and vengeance. So vast a massacre, so immense a 
 desolation, wrought in the heart of a city by the hands 
 of her own citizens, never before occurred even in the 
 annals of civil warfare or of Parisian revolutions. 
 
 The number of killed and wounded on both sides, as 
 ascertained by actual reckoning, exceeded 8,000 ; but, 
 besides these, many perished of whom no accurate 
 account could be taken. Multitudes of dead bodies 
 were cast into the Seine before they were yet cold. 
 The remains of others were found by the reapers in the 
 fields around Paris. Nearly 14,000 prisoners were 
 made by the Government, and of these more than a 
 thousand died of gaol-fever. 
 
 Of eleven generals who commanded, two were killed, 
 viz. Generals Negrier and Brea ; and six were wounded, 
 five of them mortally. These were, Duvier, Damesme, 
 Korte, Lafontaine, Fouche, and Bedeau, the last and 
 only surviving one of whom suffered amputation o f the 
 thigh. Generals Lamoriciere, Lebreton, and Perrot, 
 escaped unhurt. The former had two horses killed 
 under him. Old soldiers declare, that never in the bat- 
 tles of the Empire was the proportion of generals killed 
 
INSURRECTION OF JUNE. 87 
 
 and wounded so considerable, and that never were so 
 many men killed at the attack of forts and redoubts 
 as at the barricades of Paris in the terrible affair of 
 June. 
 
 Nor were the victims in this hideous carnage such 
 only as belonged to the guilty party, or to that of 
 their armed opponents, and to a class whose profession 
 it is to brave the chance of a violent death ; but men 
 of peace were struck down in the performance of their 
 generous mission to bring the misguided insurgents to 
 reason, and to offer them promises of mercy. One 
 member of the National Assembly, M. Bixio, was 
 severely wounded while thus charitably employed ; 
 and two others, MM. Domes and Charbonnel, received 
 wounds of which they died. But the death that pro- 
 duced the saddest and most profound impression, ap- 
 palling even the host of his slayers, and filling their 
 hearts with shame and contrition, was that of Denis 
 August Affre, the good Archbishop of Paris. Desirous 
 of putting an end to the horrors of the insurrection, he 
 went, on the second day, among the insurgents, accom- 
 panied by two of his vicars. The firing from the bar- 
 ricades ceased at the sight of a green branch which 
 was carried before him. Some misunderstanding, 
 however, caused a musket to be discharged, which led 
 to a resumption of the firing on both sides, just at the 
 moment when the Archbishop and his attendants were 
 about to ascend a barricade. Uninjured, however, by 
 the fire, he descended into the midst of the insurgents ; 
 but while he was addressing them he was struck in the 
 groin by a ball fired from a window. The Arch- 
 bishop's servant Pierre, who accompanied his master, 
 was mortally wounded at the same barricade ; the two 
 vicars who were with him escaped unhurt, but the 
 Archbishop expired on the 27th. The good shepherd 
 had given his life for his sheep. 
 
 Treachery and cruelty characterized the warfare 
 
88 FRANCE. 
 
 carried on by the insurgents. Seldom did the}?- give 
 quarter, and in many instances they butchered their 
 prisoners with the atrocity of savages. The boy 
 soldiers of the Garde Mobile were the special objects 
 of their barbarous rage ; the mutilated body of one of 
 those lads was seen on the principal barricade of 
 the Faubourg St. Antoine, impaled on a stake ; the 
 bodies of five others were found in the Pantheon, hung 
 up by the wrists, and hacked with sabres and bayonets. 
 A woman, who was taken prisoner, confessed, with the 
 most savage joy, that she had decapitated five officers 
 of the Garde Mobile with a table knife. It is not true, 
 however, as was at first given out, that the insurgents 
 carried their cruelty to such a pitch of refinement as to 
 use poisoned, or hacked, or jagged balls. The eri- 
 dence of the surgeons who had care of the wounded 
 completely refutes that story ; the only apparent 
 grounds for which were, that the insurgents sometimes 
 used balls that were defective in shape from the haste 
 with which they were made, and that sometimes they 
 used zinc and copper when lead failed them. To sup- 
 ply themselves with the latter metal they went down 
 into the vaults under the Column of July, and carried 
 away the leaden coffins, after throwing out the re- 
 mains of the victims of 1830, and of February, 1848. 
 The insurgents made several attempts to set houses 
 on fire by pumping spirits of turpentine upon them. 
 In several places vitriol was thrown from the windows 
 on the troops. 
 
 General Brea having summoned the barricaders at 
 the Barriere de Fontainebleau to surrender, four men 
 stepped out from behind it, and made friendly pro- 
 posals to the General that he should enter their lines 
 and parley. He imprudently complied,, and went be- 
 hind the barricade, accompanied by his aide-de-camp 
 and two other officers. Instantly 2000 men started 
 up, and threatened to kill the four hostages if the 
 
INSURRECTION OF JUNE. 89 
 
 troops before them did not lay down their arms. 
 Two hours were spent in parleying, during which 
 time Brea wrote five notes to Colonel Thomas, who 
 commanded the Gardes Mobiles before the barricade. 
 The colonel sent to General Cavaignac for instructions. 
 His reply was, that the safety of the country must be 
 thought of before that of individuals, and, therefore, 
 the barricade must be attacked. The Order was 
 executed, the barricade w r as carried, and in the guard- 
 house near it were found the dead bodies of General 
 Brea and his aide-de-camp. They had been both 
 shot in cold blood, and their dead bodies mu- 
 tilated. The two other officers secreted themselves 
 and escaped. 
 
 After carrying a barricade in the Faubourg St. 
 Antoine, the 48th Regiment made a number of 
 prisoners, one of whom they were about to put 
 to death, when Colonel Regnault came forward and 
 saved the man. "Thank you, colonel," said the in- 
 surgent, advancing towards him ; and, drawing a 
 pistol from beneath his blouse, he shot his preserver 
 dead. 
 
 The insurgents had abundance of arms, furnished 
 them from the arsenals of the State. They had 
 foundries for casting balls, and chemists were im- 
 pressed to make gunpowder for them. Every species 
 of artifice was employed to convey ammunition. Milk- 
 pails, the baskets carried by well-dressed women, 
 the litters of the wounded, and even hearses, were 
 found filled with gunpowder and cartridges. Large 
 sums of money, embezzled from the ateliers, were 
 discovered on the persons of men apparently in ex- 
 treme poverty. The women of Paris took a most 
 active part in* the struggle. They conveyed signals 
 and orders through the hottest fire. They carried off 
 the wounded. Some of them perished on the bar- 
 ricades, or fired from the houses on the soldiers, whilst 
 
90 FRANCE. 
 
 some are even reported to have inflicted the most re- 
 fined barbarities upon their wretched fellow-citizens 
 who had fallen prisoners into their hands. 
 
 Infuriated by the cruel deeds of the insurgents, the 
 National Guard and the Garde Mobile could hardly be 
 restrained from killing all who fell into their hands. 
 In repeated instances they shot their prisoners by 
 scores and fifties, and tins carnage was continued even 
 after the defeat of the insurrection. On the nights of 
 the 26 th and 27tli of June, the streets were still lined 
 with vast bodies of armed guardians ; every win- 
 dow was illuminated, not in token of joy over the 
 dismal victory, but as a measure of safety ; and every 
 five minutes the ear was struck by the sharp, warning 
 cry, — Sentinelle, garde a vous ! * which was repeated 
 from man to man throughout the whole line of 
 sentries, until it died away in the far distance. Some- 
 times the more awful sound of musketry in volley told 
 the fate of some unhappy body of prisoners. 
 
 Assassinations were frequent for many days after the 
 open fighting had ceased. Many soldiers were shot on 
 their posts ; others were killed with poisoned wine and 
 brandy. Strange accidents occurred to increase the 
 havoc of those bloody days. About midnight, on the 
 26th of June, a body of National Guards from one of 
 the provinces was escorting about sixty prisoners to the 
 Tuileries. Just as they were entering the Carousel 
 they passed a post of National Guards ; the arms were 
 piled, and the men had fallen asleep exhausted by 
 fatigue. The prisoners made a rush, seized some of 
 the weapons, and ran off in various directions, firing at 
 every sentry they met. The guards of both parties 
 fired confusedly, and killed fifty of their own number. 
 Thirty of the prisoners were also shot dead ; some 
 others were mortally wounded ; the rest escaped. 
 
 * Sentinel, be on your guard. 
 
INSURRECTION OF JUNE. 91 
 
 The most minute inquiry has failed to produce the 
 least evidence to connect the insurrection of June with 
 the machinations of any pretender's party — Orleanist, 
 Bonapartist, or Legitimist. It was planned and ex- 
 ecuted by the workmen alone ; the Ateliers nationaux 
 furnished the army, the organization, and the funds ; 
 and the animus and the rallying cry were given by the 
 Luxembourg. The atrocities we have related, and the 
 inscription " Incendie et pillage"* seen on, at least, 
 one banner, are to be attributed to the forgats\ and 
 other known criminals, who mingled largely in the 
 composition of the ateliers. The great mass of the 
 combatants had no thought of direct and open plunder, 
 but wrote " Death to Robbers !" on the walls and shop- 
 fronts, as in the days of February ; though, had they 
 gained the victory, their very first step towards realizing 
 their visionary social republic must have been a univer- 
 sal system of spoliation, to be enforced and expedited by 
 means of the guillotine. The guilt of these men lies 
 at the door of those who filled them with a fanatical 
 faith in schemes conceived in defiance of the laws of 
 human nature and the vital principles of society. For 
 the bulk of the men behind the barricades, the demo- 
 cratic and social republic meant the despotic govern- 
 ment of the country by the working classes of Paris ; 
 for so they interpreted in the vulgar tongue the 
 transcendental doctrines professed in the Luxembourg. 
 
 * Fire and pillage. t Galley slaves. 
 
92 FRANCE. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 FRANCE. 
 
 FROM THE APPOINTMENT OF GENERAL CAVAIGNAC AS PRESIDENT 
 OF THE COUNCIL TO THE ELECTION OF THE FIRST PRESIDENT 
 OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 With the defeat of the' June insurrection began a 
 new phase in the internal affairs of France. On laying- 
 down his temporary dictatorship immediately after the 
 pacification of the capital, General Cavaignac was, by 
 the enthusiastic suffrages of the Assembly, appointed 
 President of the Council, with power to nominate his 
 own ministry. He chose it at first from among the 
 men connected with the National newspaper, the 
 organ of the more reasonable section of pure Republi- 
 cans ; and he afterwards modified it by the admission 
 of M. Dufaure and other members of the old dynastic 
 Opposition ; the Jules Favres, the Flocons, and all the 
 rest of the Reforme coterie, were removed from office, 
 and the Socialists, the Montague, and the Red Republi- 
 cans of every sect, were deprived of the usurped power 
 they had exercised with such insolent tyranny. The 
 temper of the nation and of the Assembly was become 
 strongly Conservative. A disposition even to retro- 
 grade beyond the limits of Conservatism was manifested 
 in many quarters, and the Monarchists of all denomi- 
 nations began to display their renovated hopes with a 
 boldness that scarcely brooked disguise. Fortunately, 
 
SEQUEL OF THE INSURRECTION. 93 
 
 however, the civil sword of France was in a hand that 
 knew how and when to wield it with effect. General 
 Cavaignac held the balance between all parties with firm 
 impartiality ; and he warned the monarchical intriguers, 
 in very emphatic language, that his eye was upon 
 them, and that they should find him ready to crush 
 them upon the first provocation as he had crushed the 
 Red Republicans. 
 
 All requisite measures were taken to secure the 
 peace of the capital and the provinces, and to allay the 
 anxieties that were from time to time excited by 
 rumors of fresh plots. The garrison of Paris was 
 augmented and maintained on a war footing. The 
 National Guard underwent a thorough purification : 
 every man belonging to it who had not responded to 
 the call to arms during the insurrection was disarmed 
 and dismissed the ranks. The 8th, 9th, and 12th 
 legions, comprising the men of the Marais, the Fau- 
 bourg St. Antoine, and the Faubourg St. Marceau, 
 were disarmed and dissolved, and so also were twenty- 
 seven companies of the other nine legions, and two of 
 the suburban legions. The Ateliers nationauz were 
 suppressed ; but, by a decree passed in the midst of 
 the insurrection, three millions of francs were applied 
 tp the relief of the destitute inhabitants of Paris. The 
 state of siege was prolonged until the 20th of October, 
 and during its continuance eleven journals were sus- 
 pended, including La Presse, the editor of which, M. 
 Emile de Girardin, had been arrested on the 24th of 
 June by order of General Cavaignac, and kept in con- 
 finement for eleven days. A law for the regulation of 
 the press was also enacted, and the responsibility of 
 journalists was secured by the exaction of a large 
 amount of caution-money, and by other stringent 
 provisions. Lastly, the legal limitations of the right of 
 association were defined, and those clubs which were 
 not suppressed were made liable to such reasonable re- 
 
i* 
 
 94 FRANCE. 
 
 strictions, as were requisite to the peace and safety of 
 the community. 
 
 The trials of the insurgent prisoners occupied all the 
 rest of the year, and some cases still remained over, 
 notwithstanding that the business was prosecuted be- 
 fore ten military commissions, sitting simultaneously. 
 Transportation was the penalty to which the guilty 
 were made liable, by an ex post facto law passed on the 
 27th of June, and the Marquesas were at first talked 
 of as their place of banishment. This project, how- 
 ever, was abandoned as impracticable ; and the worst 
 offenders were sent to Senegal, the rest to Algeria. 
 The total number of the accused was 10,838, of whom 
 6,237 were set at liberty, 4,346 condemned to trans- 
 portation, and 255 sent before courts-martial. A 
 strange incident occurred during one of the trials. One 
 of the judges, Major Constantine, having pressed hardly 
 upon a prisoner in his examination, the latter exclaimed, 
 "It well becomes you to question me thus, Why 
 you know you were to have been made Minister of War 
 had we succeeded ! You know that you commanded 
 at one of the barricades dressed in a blouse." An in- 
 quiry having been instituted, the result was, that Major 
 Constantine was arrested, tried, and found guilty. He 
 was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, to be 
 cashiered, and to be incapacitated from serving the state 
 either in a military or civil station. 
 
 The task of searching out the causes and instigators 
 of the events of May and June was intrusted to a Com- 
 mittee of Inquiry, presided over by Odillon Barrot. 
 Great was the anxiety with which its Report was re- 
 garded beforehand : " it hung like a heavy cloud upon 
 the whole country ; but it had been so much used and 
 abused by anticipation, that when it exploded it van- 
 ished in smoke." The tone of personal resentment that 
 pervaded it deprived it of all authority. It was a very 
 severe judgment passed upon the chief actors in the 
 
LEDRU ROLLIN S SELF-VINDICATION. 95 
 
 Revolution of February, and upon that revolution, but 
 passed in a manifest spirit of retaliation on the part of 
 Odillon Bavrot and his friends against Ledru Rollin 
 and Lamartine. It was so evidently an act of accusa- 
 tion against the origin of the Republic, that the more 
 wary men of the ex-dynastic party thought it rather 
 imprudent and inopportune ; and Thiers himself disap- 
 proved of it, but too late. 
 
 The Report of the Committee of Inquiry gave rise 
 on the 25th of August to a most animated debate, in 
 which Ledru Rollin boldly defied his accusers ; and if 
 he did not accomplish the impossible feat of rebutting 
 all their charges, he at least succeeded in dealing them 
 some heavy and well merited blows. He began by al- 
 luding to an inquiry set on foot after the affair of Oc- 
 tober, 1 789, which, according to his account, was the 
 sole cause of the sanguinary excesses of 1*798 ; and by 
 analogy he contended that the inquiry of 1848 could 
 only lead to a division among the true Republicans, if 
 not to worse results. He denied that he had occasion 
 to defend himself against any imputations contained in 
 the Report. In June, was he not at his post ? In 
 May, had he not done his duty ? And for the matters 
 in which he had been engaged from the Revolution of 
 February to the meeting of the National Assembly, 
 had he not been absolved from anything that might 
 offend by the vote of the Assembly, that " the Provi- 
 sional Government had merited well of the country ?" 
 He avowed his circulars, and defended the commission- 
 ers on the ground that nothing but a really Republican 
 Assembly could consolidate the Republic. He then 
 alluded to the proposed invasion of Belgium ; with re- 
 spect to which he gave not only absurd but contradic- 
 tory explanations. In the first place, he justified the 
 expedition to Risquons-tout, on the ground, which he 
 knew to be false, that not only was a large body of the 
 ministers of Louis Philippe plotting at Brussels against 
 
96 FRANCE. 
 
 the Republic, but that there were three English men- 
 of-war in the Scheldt, ready on the first movement in 
 Belgium to take possession of Antwerp ; and then, 
 with singular inconsistency, he denied that he had given 
 arms to the expedition : for, according to him, the arms 
 of which the. Belgian Republicans got possession at 
 Lille had been provided, not for them, but for the Na- 
 tional Guards. 
 
 Having got over this aggression on a neighboring 
 state in this bungling way, he made a tremendous, and 
 it must be said successful, onslaught on the Thiers and 
 Odillon'Barrot parties, whom he characterized as "the 
 involuntary authors of the Revolution of 1848." In a 
 strain of powerful invective, he taunted them with their 
 incapacity ; and accused them of acting under the Re- 
 public the same unworthy part that they had done 
 under the Monarchy. They had just ideas enough, 
 he said, to clog the march of Government, but not 
 sufficient to conduct the Government themselves. After 
 eighteen years of opposition, they had contrived, con- 
 trary to their own wishes, to undermine and upset the 
 Monarchy ; and when they had done so, they were 
 completely taken aback by their own success, and had 
 not an idea what they were to substitute. He recom- 
 mended to them not to recommence the factious sys- 
 tem of opposition, which could not succeed, because, 
 "as they had no ideas under the Government of July, 
 neither could they at the present day bring any to bear 
 which would remedy the evils with which the country 
 was besieged." This was the most successful part of 
 M. Ledru Rollin's speech. He afterwards entered on 
 the subject of his own idea of a republic ; but as he 
 defended Socialist ideas in all their pruriency, and ap- 
 peared to cast a slight on the idea of property (the ex- 
 istence of which he went very near to deny), his re- 
 marks were very coldly received. Throughout his speech 
 he dwelt strongly on the necessity of concord, as the 
 
LOUIS BLANC AND CAUSSIDIERE. 97 
 
 first duty of all true friends of the Republic. When 
 he closed, the few cheers he received came exclusively 
 from the Montagnards. 
 
 Louis Blanc then read a written speech of great 
 length and elaborate preparation, wherein he made a 
 general disclaimer of all that was imputed to him as 
 culpable ; but he failed to impress the Assembly, less, 
 perhaps, through the improbability than the feebleness 
 of his address. Caussidiere followed in another written 
 harangue," rough, homely, and incoherent. He dwelt 
 on the order which he had preserved in Paris, a matter 
 of such difficulty in times of revolution ; he boasted of 
 his cosmopolite efforts to reconcile the indigenous 
 hackney-coachmen with their alien fellows ; he dis- 
 claimed Sobrier, and vituperated with no less justice 
 than force, some of the vagabond witnesses who had 
 deposed against him. 
 
 In the midst of the discussion, the Procureur- 
 General demanded leave to prosecute Louis Blanc for 
 his share in the insurrection of May, and Caussidiere 
 for his share in the insurrections of May and June. This 
 was the second application of the kind that had been 
 made in Louis Blanc's case. The first took place early 
 in June, when the committee to which the question 
 was referred declared by fifteen to three in favor of 
 prosecution ; but when the subject came to be discussed 
 in full Assembly, the decision of the committee was re- 
 versed, after a very stormy debate, by 368 against 337. 
 It was a singular circumstance, that with the exception 
 of M. Bastide, all the ministers voted against the prose- 
 cution, and therefore against their own attorney-general, 
 who thereupon resigned office : so also did Jules 
 Favre, the Red Republican, and author of the circulars ; 
 and M. Cremieux, the Minister of Justice, whose con- 
 duct in voting against the prosecution, which might be 
 considered as having been instituted by himself, oc- 
 casioned no little scandal. 
 
98 FRANCE. 
 
 The second application for leave to prosecute was 
 granted in Louis Blanc's case, by a majority of 504 to 
 252 ; and a similar authority was given as to Caus- 
 sidiere, by 477 votes against 268 : but the motion 
 to proceed against him on account of the events of 
 June was negatived by 458 to 370. With this vote 
 the Assembly closed a debate of eighteen hours' 
 duration ; a length of sitting unprecedented in the 
 French legislature. 
 
 Warrants were forthwith applied for against the in- 
 criminated parties, who meanwhile were making the 
 best of their way to the frontiers. Some formal delays 
 took place — contrived ones, as is alleged — and the fu- 
 gitives arrived safely in England, to the great relief, no 
 doubt, of the French Executive. 
 
 Prince Louis Napoleon, the hHe noire* of the As- 
 sembly, was again let loose upon it by the electors of 
 Corsica ; but again he relieved the fears of that body 
 by a letter of the 8th of July, stating that his election 
 had been without his consent or approval ; but adding, 
 " AVhile I do not, however, renounce the honor of 
 being one day a Representative of the People, I think 
 I ought to wait until the time that my return to 
 France cannot in any way serve as a pretext to the 
 enemies of the Republic. I trust that my disinter- 
 estedness may prove the sincerity of my patriotism, and 
 prove the best reply to those who erroneously accuse 
 me of ambition." 
 
 If the pledges given by a candidate for national 
 honors be not light as lovers' vows, then is the first 
 President of the French Republic rigidly bound in 
 honor and conscience to forego all pretensions to the 
 imperial purple. 
 
 He did wisely in not hastily assuming the rank of a 
 
 * Bite noire is equivalent to the English word Bugbear. 
 
LOUIS NAPOLEON IN THE ASSEMBLY. 99 
 
 representative. Delay answered the double purpose of 
 keeping his name before the public, and of enabling 
 him at least to enter the Assembly with imposing 
 £clat. Elections took place in Paris and in some of 
 the departments in the third week of September. In 
 the capital three vacancies were to be rilled, and about 
 fifty candidates were started. The Government made 
 great exertions to promote the return of its own men ; 
 but they were all distanced. Louis Napoleon was re- 
 turned by an overwhelming majority ; and M. Fould 
 alone made any show of competition with the three 
 Communist candidates who stood next on the poll. In 
 addition, Louis Napoleon was returned for the depart- 
 ments of the Moselle, the Yonne, and the Orne. The 
 numbers polled were : — for Bonaparte, 116,014 ; Fould, 
 the Jew banker, 80,193; Raspail, the Socialist, a 
 prisoner in Vincennes, 67,852 ; Thore and Cabet, 
 Communists, 65,650 and 65,460 ; Roger and Adam, 
 Government candidates, 64,05*7 and 55,904 ; Marshal 
 Bugeaud, 49,411 ; Emile de Girardin only 28,108. 
 
 In the provinces the elections were more satisfactory 
 to the Conservative party. Count Mole, who had 
 pledged bis entire and universal allegiance to the Re- 
 public, was returned for the Gironde ; and M. Rivet, an 
 ex-deputy, defeated M. Raspail at Lyons, but by a very 
 narrow majority. 
 
 The heterogeneous elections of June had presented a 
 striking type of the mental and moral confusion in 
 which Paris was plunged. The September phenomenon 
 was still more extraordinary. The same city sends at 
 once into the Assembly the representatives of both ex- 
 tremes — a Banker and a Communist, a Conservative 
 and a Destructive. Is it possible to conceive a more 
 oddly assorted trio than these three names, — Bonaparte, 
 Fould, Raspail ? that is, military despotism, money aris- 
 tocracy, and agrarian democracy — all coming out at 
 once from the same ballot ! 
 
100 FRANCE. 
 
 A shrewd observer, commenting on these elections, 
 says of the return of Bonaparte, that " if it is a danger 
 for the present Government, for the Republic, for the 
 existing order of things, it is not in any sense the real 
 danger for society itself. The struggle is elsewhere ; it 
 must be looked for in the two other names. There lies 
 the question, To be or not to be ? on that ground are 
 social order and its enemies fighting their deadly fight. 
 The Emperor's nephew represents but a name, and a 
 name which he is unable to bear ; it is something ma- 
 terial : but Socialists represent ideas, doctrines, some- 
 thing intangible. See how strong, how disciplined, how 
 perfectly united they have remained, even after their 
 last battle of June ! They have been dispersed, dis- 
 mantled, transported ; and, like the earth-worm cut 
 into pieces, they have re-united and become one again. 
 Whilst Conservatives of all shades were disseminating 
 and losing their strength upon a dozen names, they set 
 aside all differences and waived all rivalries, and unani- 
 mously adopted three names. They were summoned 
 by their leaders in the name of desolated wives, slain 
 brothers, proscribed children : and to a man they voted 
 the same list. What an example, and what a lesson 
 for the other party ! The Conservatives had the ma- 
 jority in their hands : if you take the total of the votes 
 given to at least twelve candidates, you will arrive at 
 300,000 and more. At all events, though Bonaparte 
 could not have been excluded, the Socialist candidate 
 could. How does the matter stand now ? Both par- 
 ties, I might say both armies, remain under arms ; So- 
 ciety on one side, Socialists on the other. A compro- 
 mise had been attempted; it has miserably tailed. 
 Prudent politicians had tried equilibrium, and a sort of 
 Republican juste-milieu ;* it was rejected on both sides, 
 and, with a kind of centrifugal force, popular feeling 
 
 * Golden mean. 
 
RASPAIL. 101 
 
 rushed at once to both extremities. That means 
 nothing else but war, deadly war, between interests and 
 classes. Fearful and melancholy to say, nothing- has 
 been changed by that terrible battle of June — nothing ! 
 At the last elections, the Socialists were about 80,000 ; 
 this time, they have numbered about 65,000 ; the 
 15,000 missing are the dead or the transported: the 
 mass has remained compact and undivided, ready for 
 another time. On the opposite side you find a ma- 
 jority, but no unity : it appears they still want some 
 cruel lesson to learn discipline ; they require severe 
 drilling. 
 
 " As an additional insult to the Establishment, the 
 Socialists have significantly returned to the House an 
 individual who had invaded and violated that same 
 House, and is now for that very fact a prisoner at 
 Vincennes. That Raspail is one of the strange figures 
 of the times. There is in him an odd mixture of the 
 philosopher and the physician ; he is a medical as well 
 as a social reformer. He has invented a panacea, and 
 pretends to cure all maladies with camphor ; having 
 taken no degrees, he was never allowed to practise; so 
 that he was obliged to spread his remedies like 
 his doctrines, secretly. Amongst low classes he has 
 that sort of influence which physicians and jugglers 
 exercise over savages." 
 
 The quiet and unassuming manner in which Bona- 
 parte made his appearance in the Assembly rather 
 astounded the Parisians, who had speculated on his 
 presenting himself in a much more theatrical, if not 
 martial, fashion. It is certain, however, that the 
 Government had information about some plot going 
 on, and that it entertained serious doubts of the fidelity 
 of the troops : some regiments of the line and some 
 battalions of the Garde Mobile were ordered out of 
 Park. There were men there more Bonapartist than 
 
102 FRANCE. 
 
 the Bonaparte himself. As for M. Raspail, the Assem- 
 bly resolved almost unanimously that his election was 
 valid, but that his imprisonment and the state prosecu- 
 tion against him should both be continued. Ledru 
 Rollin openly voted for the immediate admission of 
 Raspail, the very man who had invaded the Assembly, 
 and endeavored to overthrow the Government of which 
 he, Ledru Rollin, was at the time a prominent mem- 
 ber. But so far was the House from acquiescing in 
 this spirit of amnesty, that it did not even take measures 
 to expedite the trials of Raspail and his fellow-prisoners, 
 Barbes and Albert, so as to enable them to take their 
 seats, if acquitted. The last month of the year elapsed 
 before the judicial preliminaries as to the affair of 
 May 15 were completed. 
 
 Slowly and tediously, week after week and month 
 after month, the Assembly debated the draught of the 
 Constitution. A vehement contest was waged about 
 the clause in the preamble relating to labor. The 
 clause, as originally proposed, pledged the Republic to 
 protect the citizen in his person, family, religion, pro- 
 perty, and labor, and to give subsistence to the neces- 
 sitous. The Socialists and other Red Republicans 
 pressed an amendment recognising the right of u all 
 citizens," whether necessitous - or not, to " instruction, 
 work, and assistance." After three days' hammering 
 of the question, all parties came to a sudden and unex- 
 pected agreement upon the following amendment, pro- 
 posed by M. Dufaure : — " The Republic owes fraternal 
 assistance to necessitous citizens, either in the way of 
 procuring work for them to the extent of its resources, 
 or of giving, in default of family, the means of sub- 
 sistence to those who are unfit to work." This propo- 
 sition evidently involves nothing more than the princi- 
 ple of such a poor-law as was given to England in the 
 
THE CONSTITUTION. 103 
 
 reign of Elizabeth ; nevertheless, the Socialists were 
 pleased to consider it as foreshadowing the realization 
 of their own doctrines. 
 
 The clause relating to taxation gave rise to a debate 
 of some interest. A controversy is maintained among 
 the French economists as to whether taxation should 
 be proportional to a man's income or progressive with 
 it ; a defective terminology, failing to convey the in- 
 tended meaning ; the contest really is, whether taxa- 
 tion should increase at the same rate with or at a more 
 rapid rate than the income of the tax-payer. The Red 
 Republicans advocate the " progressive " doctrine ; the 
 majority support the " proportional " doctrine. The 
 constitution committee timidly refused to adjudge the 
 point, and evaded the question, by laying down in the 
 draught of the Constitution that each citizen should 
 contribute to the taxes en raison de ses faculty et de 
 sa fortune* M. Servieres proposed to substitute the 
 words found in all the previous Constitutions, en pro- 
 portion de sa fortune. \ The debate lasted two days ; 
 ultimately the amendment was carried by an immense 
 majority, and the partisans of progressive taxation 
 were consequently beaten. 
 
 The 20th article of the Constitution declares, that 
 " the French people delegates the legislative power to 
 one Assembly." An amendment, declaring that there 
 should be two Assemblies, was proposed by Duvergier 
 de Hauranne, and supported by Odillon Barrot. The 
 debate was one of the most brilliant in the parliamen- 
 tary annals of France. Lamartine made a most effec- 
 tive speech in favor of the original article. To the 
 argument drawn from the example of England and of 
 the United States of America he replied, that in Eng- 
 land the House of Peers is a suitable representation of 
 
 * Proportional to his faculties and his fortune, 
 t In proportion to his fortune. 
 
104 FRANCE. 
 
 tlie aristocratic element which exists there, but which is 
 no longer tolerated in France ; in America, the Senate 
 represents the federal principle, which is the basis of 
 the union of the independent States. But his grand 
 argument was drawn from the fatal necessity of having 
 always in readiness the means of promptly evoking a 
 dictatorship. Menaced on all sides by the deadliest 
 perils, France would often have need of instantaneous 
 recourse to that ultima ratio of agonized society. But 
 who was to be invested with the arbitrary power of 
 nominating the dictator ? Surely it should not be 
 shared between two Assemblies, often at variance with 
 each other ; the only reasonable hope that the right 
 man would be forthcoming at the right moment de- 
 pended on intrusting his- nomination to one sole 
 authority. How deeply the Assembly felt the force of 
 this melancholy argument was shown by the largeness 
 of the majority — 530 to 289 — that affirmed the prin- 
 ciple of a single Chamber. 
 
 The Constitution was completed at last — no, not 
 completed, for a supplement of " organic laws " was 
 promised, — it was confirmed by the votes of 737 mem- 
 bers to 36, and was proclaimed on the 10th of Novem- 
 ber. It is the twenty-first, twenty-second, or twenty- 
 third — we forget which — that has been set up in 
 France within sixty years, and it is by no means likely 
 to be the last of the series. Its best praise is, that it 
 confers upon the people some practical powers which 
 they are not likely to relinquish, and in the exercise of 
 which they will become capable and desirous of still 
 better things. But so full is it of flaws and imperfec- 
 tions, so obscure, so encumbered with details and 
 excrescences, that it will have to be thoroughly recast, 
 whatever the nominal form of the Government which 
 may hereafter be established in France. 
 
 As regards the Executive, this Constitution goes 
 very near to satisfy Ledru Rollin's postulate, that there 
 
POWERS OF THE PRESIDENT. 105 
 
 should be in the Government no individual represen- 
 tative of the national sovereignty ; but that the Assem- 
 bly should monopolize all the functions of the State. 
 Elected by universal suffrage to the chief office in the 
 Executive, the President of the Republic should be the 
 representative of the sovereign authority ; but he is so 
 hemmed in by checks, that his power is all but neutra- 
 lized. The provisions regulating his position and 
 functions are a jumble of devices, sometimes just 
 enough, but not falling into one intelligent whole, not 
 guided by any master principle. The negative prevails 
 throughout. He is elected for four years; and the 
 first thought is to cut off any chance'of his establishing 
 a family interest, by making him, and all his relations 
 " to the sixth degree inclusive," ineligible for the next 
 term. He disposes of the army, but must not com- 
 mand it in person ; nor can he make war without 
 leave of the Assembly. He negotiates and ratifies 
 treaties, but they must be sanctioned by the Assembly. 
 He presides at national solemnities, receives a salary 
 of $120,000 a year, and is lodged at the cost of the 
 Republic. He chooses his own ministers and dismisses 
 them, but all other acts of his are invalid unless coun- 
 tersigned by a minister. He is himself responsible, as 
 well as every other officer in his department. He may 
 convene the Assembly, but if he dissolve or prorogue 
 it, or hinder its meeting, he is guilty of high treason. 
 He can only perform many important functions with 
 the advice of a Council of State, elected by the Assem- 
 bly ; and, in short, if he strictly observe the letter of 
 the Constitution, it is not easy to see how the Republic 
 can have in him an efficient officer. The probability 
 is, rather, that he will be fretted into a constant state 
 of secret or open conflict with the Assembly, and that 
 his efforts will be continually bent on acquiring for 
 himself a less irksome position and a freer scope of 
 action. 
 
 5* 
 
106 FRANCE. 
 
 The Constitution collects its restrictions and its immu- 
 nities into two separate bundles, assigning the former 
 to the President, the latter to the Assembly. The Depu- 
 ties are exempt from arrest, except taken flagrante de- 
 licto ; and from prosecution, except by leave of the 
 Assembly. A citizen under arrest, elected to the 
 Assembly, is ipso facto freed. The Assembly is per- 
 manent ; the new one is returnable the day after the 
 old one expires ; it cannot be prorogued by the Presi- 
 dent ; if it adjourns, it leaves a committee to reconvoke 
 it on emergency. It makes laws. We have already seen 
 how it controls the Executive. As paid functionaries 
 are to be ineligible to the Assembly, and its members 
 cannot hold office, it can have little sympathy with the 
 Executive. The President must promulgate all laws 
 within a month ; within that term he can call for a 
 new deliberation, but there the shadow of the veto 
 terminates — a further affirmation of the law is defini- 
 tive. Thus the supreme power resides in the seven 
 hundred and fifty Deputies ; and its limits, moreover, 
 are wholly undefined. The Assembly may become as 
 absolute as the Venetian Ten, and the more readily 
 since it is privileged to sit in secret. 
 
 Far more than the merits or demerits of a constitu- 
 tion universally regarded as ephemeral, the question 
 of the Presidential Election occupied for months the 
 minds of Frenchmen of every class. For some time 
 the majority of the Assembly were strongly inclined to 
 assume to themselves the nomination of the President, 
 as the only means of defeating the pretensions of Louis 
 Napoleon ; but they durst not aclopt such a course 
 without some specious pretext to offer to the country. 
 The least explosion of a Bonapartist conspiracy would 
 have been sufficient ; but nothing of the kind occurred ; 
 and it was finally resolved that the contest should be 
 decided by universal suffrage on the 10th of December. 
 
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 107 
 
 Cavaignac was the candidate of tfye moderate and 
 sincere Republicans, for it was not until the last mo- 
 ment that Lamartine consented to be put in nomination ; 
 but the Monarchists of every denomination, and " the 
 involuntary authors of the Revolution of February," 
 the mortified and resentful members of the late dynastic 
 Opposition, all gave their support to Bonaparte. Had 
 the contest been only between these parties, the success 
 of Cavaignac would have been certain ; but beyond 
 them lay the vast, intractable mass of the population, 
 the men who had suffered most deeply by the faults 
 and follies of all parties, and to whom that candidate 
 would be most acceptable who came before them 
 recommended by the hostility of those whose names 
 were identified in the popular apprehension with 
 increased taxes, stinted means of subsistence, oppression, 
 anarchy, and civil war. The Revolution of February 
 had disturbed everything . and settled nothing ; it had 
 not even gratified the national passion for glory. No 
 wonder that the people should have longed for a 
 change, and that the name of the Emperor should 
 have raised them with irresistible strength. It re- 
 minded them of a time when France was united, 
 mighty, and glorious, well ordered at home, and terri- 
 ble abroad. The peasants thought not of the iron 
 pressure of the Imperial despotism, against which their 
 fathers had revolted ; for Time, " the beautifier of the 
 Dead," had already cast a soft, legendary haze over the 
 harsher features of the great man's reign. While 
 crossing the Place Vendome one day, Prince Louis 
 Napoleon is reported to have said, pointing to his 
 uncle on the column, " There is the great elector !" 
 And most true it was. The peasants knew little of the 
 nephew besides the name he bore ; but that name was 
 invoked with a blind, unwavering faith, as possessing a 
 cabalistic power to charm back peace and plenty to the 
 land. The unanimous impulse that possessed the 
 
108 FRANCE. 
 
 country people sprang- from a superstition against 
 which no reasonings could avail. When they came to 
 the balloting-places, those of them who could not read 
 numbered with their ringers the twenty-two letters of 
 Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, printed on their tickets. 
 Some of them had been told, that the votes for Bona- 
 parte would be, by some secret chemical process, con- 
 verted into votes for Cavaignac when once in the ballot- 
 box : they came in whole bodies, with their muskets, 
 to watch over the boxes day and night : and, as a dis- 
 tinctive sign, they had folded their tickets in a triangu- 
 lar shape, meaning the petit chapeau of the Great 
 Emperor. 
 
 The result of the election was as follows : — ■ 
 
 Louis Napoleon Bonaparte . . . .5,534,520 
 
 General Cavaignac 1,448,302 
 
 Ledru Rollin 371,431 
 
 Raspail 36,964 
 
 Lamartine 17,914 
 
 General Changarnier 4,687 
 
 Sundry votes 12,434 
 
 Number of votes actually given . .7,426,252 
 Votes disallowed 23,219 
 
 Number of voters who went to the poll ) ,_ ,, q .,. -. 
 
 in the 86 departments of France ) ' ' ' 
 
 It appears by the official returns that Louis Napoleon 
 had a majority of votes in eighty-four out of eighty-six 
 departments. He had more than 100,000 votes in 
 each of the departments of the Seine, the Charente 
 Inferieure, the Somme, the Yonne, the Nord, the 
 Gironde, the Seine et Marne, and the Pas de Calais. 
 General Cavaignac had the majority in the Finisterre 
 and the Morbihan. The departments which gave him 
 
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 109 
 
 the next most votes were the Seine, the Nord, the Pas 
 de Calais, the He et Vilaine, the Cotes du Nord, the 
 Loire Inferieure, and the Manche. He obtained more 
 than 10,000 votes in the departments of the Seine, the 
 Bouches du Rhone, the Lot et Garonne, the Haute 
 Garonne, the Saone et Loire, the Nord, the Gard, and 
 the C6te d'Or. M. Raspail had more than 1000 votes 
 in the departments of the Seine, the Haute Loire, and 
 the Var solely. M. de Lamartine obtained more than 
 2000 votes in the departments of the Seine and the 
 Saone et Loire: he did not receive even a*thousand 
 votes in any of the others. Among the votes disallowed 
 were 1200 given at Brest for the Prince de Joinville. 
 
 The result of the votes in the three provinces of 
 Algeria is thus stated by the Akhbar : — 
 
 Louis Napoleon Bonaparte 38,314 
 
 General Cavaignac 20,854 
 
 Ledru Rollin 5,403 
 
 Lamartine 3,024 
 
 Raspail 142 
 
 67,737 
 
 It is probable that more than three-fourths of the 
 whole adult male population of France voted on this 
 occasion ; and never in history was so enormous a mass 
 of people put at once in motion with such perfect order. 
 Seven millions and a half of men going to the poll at 
 the same moment, without the least disturbance, was 
 assuredly a grand sight and a great fact. The result, 
 too, very strikingly illustrated one advantage of uni- 
 versal suffrage, for it showed beyond cavil that the newly- 
 elected President was the choice of the people. He 
 had a majority of nearly four to one over his nearest 
 rival, and of more than two to one over all his rivals 
 together. 
 
 There is another way in which we may analyse the 
 
110 FRANCE. 
 
 above lists of votes. Irrespectively of mere political 
 differences, the whole may be divided into two parts : 
 for we mast consider the voters for Bonaparte, Ca- 
 vaignac, Lamartine, and Changarnier, as belonging to 
 so many different sections of one party ; that, namely, 
 which is opposed to the Socialists and the Republicans. 
 Drawing, then, that broad line between the friends and 
 foes of order, we see on the one side, 7,000,000 of men, 
 on the other only 400,000. 
 
 The ceremony of proclaiming the President of the 
 Republic'was suddenly and unexpectedly accomplished 
 on the evening of the 20th of December. It appears 
 that Government had received tidings of a Bonapartist 
 plot to seize the President on his way from the Assem- 
 bly, and to convey him to the Tuileries with shouts of 
 " Vive VEmpereur ! " In order to defeat all such pro- 
 jects, the report was industriously spread that the 
 installation would not take place until after the lapse of 
 some days ; and Paris, on the evening of the 20th, 
 knew only by the cannon of the Invalides that the cere- 
 mony had been actually completed. 
 
 The members of the National Assembly having taken 
 their places, and the report of the Electoral Committee 
 having been read, General Cavaignac rose, and in a brief 
 address, delivered with remarkable dignity, resigned, in 
 his own name and that of his colleagues, the civil 
 authority with which the Assembly had invested them. 
 M. Marrast, the President, put the question of adopting 
 the Report, whereupon the whole Assembly, with the 
 exception of a few on the extreme left, rose and affirmed 
 it by acclamation. M. Marrast then formally proclaimed 
 Citizen Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte President 
 of the French Republic from that day until the second 
 Sunday of May, 1852, and called upon him to take the 
 oath required by the constitution. M. Bonaparte then 
 ascended the tribune ; and the President of the Assem- 
 bly read the form of the oath, as follows : — 
 
THE PRESIDENT'S INAUGURAL SPEECH. Ill 
 
 " In the presence of God, and before the French 
 people, represented by the National Assembly, I swear 
 to remain faithful to the Democratic Republic, and to 
 fulfil all the duties which are imposed upon me by the 
 constitution." 
 
 M. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, raising his hand, said 
 with a loud voice, " I swear it." 
 
 At this moment, a salvo of artillery from the Inva- 
 lides proclaimed the administration of the oath. 
 • President Marrast. — "We call God and men to 
 witness the oath which has been taken. The National 
 Assembly records it, and orders that it shall be tran- 
 scribed in the proceedings, inserted in the Moniteur, 
 published and promulgated in the form of legislative 
 acts." 
 
 The President of the Republic, remaining in the 
 tribune, then delivered the following address : — 
 
 " The suffrages of the people, and the oath which I 
 have taken, prescribe my future conduct : my duty is 
 traced out, and I shall fulfil it as a man of honor. I 
 shall see enemies of the country in all those who shall 
 attempt to change by illegal means that which the 
 whole of France has established. Between you and 
 me, citizen representatives, there cannot be any real 
 difference ; our wishes, our desires are the same. I, 
 like you, wish to replace society on its basis, to confirm 
 its democratic institutions, and seek all proper means 
 for alleviating the sufferings of that generous and 
 intelligent people which has given me so shining a 
 testimony of its confidence. 
 
 " The majority which I have obtained not only fills 
 me with gratitude, but also gives to the new Govern- 
 ment the moral force without which there is no 
 authority. With peace and order, our country can 
 raise itself again, can heal its wounds, bring back those 
 men who have been led astray, and calm their pas- 
 sions. 
 
112 FRANCE. 
 
 " Animated by this spirit of conciliation, I shall call 
 around me men honorable, capable, and devoted to 
 their country ; assured that, rnaugre the diversities of 
 political origin, they will agree in emulating your 
 endeavors for the fulfilment of the constitution, the 
 perfecting of the laws, and the glory of the Republic. 
 
 " The new Administration, in entering upon the 
 conduct of affairs, must thank that which preceded it 
 for the efforts which it made to transmit intact the 
 power of maintaining the public tranquillity. The con- 
 duct of the honorable General Cavaignac has been 
 worthy of the loyalty of his character, and of that 
 sense of duty which is the first quality in the chief of a 
 state. 
 
 " We have, citizen representatives, a great mission to 
 fulfil — it is to found a Republic in the interest of all, 
 and a Government just and firm, which shall be 
 animated by a sincere love of progress, without being 
 either reactionary or Utopian. Let us be men of our 
 country, not men of a party ; and, by the help of God, 
 we shall be able at least to do some good, if we are not 
 able to do great things." 
 
 The speech was received with general marks of ap- 
 probation, the whole Assembly rising with cries of 
 " Vive la Rt'publique /" M. Louis Bonaparte having 
 come down from the tribune, went up to General 
 Cavaignac and shook him cordially by the hand. The 
 new President was then met by M. Odillon Barrot and 
 his friends of the Right, who escorted him from the 
 hall to the Palace of the Elysee National (ci-devant 
 Bourbon), where he took possession of Ms official 
 residence, held a sort of levee, and slept in the bed- 
 chamber last occupied by his uncle, the Emperor, in 
 Paris. 
 
 The following is the ministry that evening gazetted : 
 — Odillon Barrot, President of the Council and Minister 
 of Justice ; Drouyn de Lhuys, Foreign Affairs ; Leon 
 
REVOLUTIONARY CYCLE. 113 
 
 de Maleville, Interior ; Hippolyte Passy, Finance ; 
 Leon Faucher, Public Works ; Bixio, Commerce ; 
 General Rulhieres, War ; De Tracy, Marine. By a 
 decree in the same Gazette, General Changarnier was 
 appointed Commander-in-chief of the National Guard 
 and Garde Mobile of the Seine, and of all the regular 
 troops of the first military division. Another decree 
 named Marshal Bugeaud Commander-in-chief of the 
 Army of the Alps. Among other appointments which 
 followed were those of the ex-King of Westphalia, 
 "the General of Division, Jerome Bonaparte," to be 
 Governor of the Invalides ; and of the President's 
 cousin, M. Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, to be Ambas- 
 sador to England. 
 
 The bourgeoisie now sang Jubilee : Redeunt Satur- 
 nia regno.* The revolutionary cycle was closed, and 
 things had come round to the point from which they 
 started ten months before. On the 24th of February, 
 M. Odillon Barrot was sent for by the King ; on the 
 24th of December, the same M. Barrot was sent for by 
 the President of the Republic. Brush out the memory 
 of all that happened in the interval, and begin again. 
 
 But, behold, there is a check and a stumble on the 
 
 threshold ! 
 
 In his first speech, as Minister of Finance, M. Passy 
 demanded the maintenance of the existing duties on 
 salt till the first of January, 1850, that is to say, for 
 six months longer than had been recommended by the 
 Committee ; and, in support of his demand, he made 
 some general financial statements to the Assembly.f 
 
 He did not for a moment contest the oppressiveness 
 of the duty ; but the state of the finances would not 
 
 * The Golden Age returns. 
 
 t The expenditure for the year 1848 exceeds 72,000,OOOL 
 Under Louis Philippe it averaged 60,000,000/. ; under Charles 
 X., in the last three years of his reign, 36,000,000/. 
 H 
 
114 FRANCE. 
 
 permit them to give up the 23,000,000 which the 
 duty furnishes. His predecessor had, informed them 
 that the whole deficiency in the Treasury at the end of 
 1849 would be 460,000,000. Now, 38,000,000 must 
 be restored to the savings' banks on the 1st of January, 
 1850. The deficiency of the year 1849, after the final 
 settlement of the budget, was put at 91,000,000 ; but 
 facts already known would swell that sum to 166,000,- 
 000 ; and M. Passy recapitulated evidences to show 
 that his predecessor had, in like manner, underrated 
 unforeseen expenses and overrated augmentations of 
 revenues. On the whole, he estimates the deficiency 
 at 100,000,000 francs beyond his predecessor's total of 
 460,000,000 francs. M. Passy would absolutely set 
 his face against any other new imposts at present : it 
 was no time for experiments in new taxes ; but that 
 determination on the part of the Government rendered 
 it the more resolved to maintain those in existence. 
 The ministerial proposal was met by an amendment to 
 the effect that the duty should be reduced to ten francs 
 per 100 kilogrammes, from and after the 1st January, 
 1849, and that it should be completely suppressed on 
 the 1st of January, 1850. The Assembly divided on 
 the first part of this amendment, when it was adopted 
 by a majority of 403 votes to 360. This result created 
 a great degree of agitation. The second part of the 
 amendment was abandoned by M. Anglade ; but it was 
 again brought forward by M. Vezin, and, on a division, 
 rejected by a large majority. Ultimately the ensemble 
 of the bill was carried by 372 votes to 363. 
 
 The result of this debate plainly indicated that little 
 harmony was to be expected between the Assembly 
 and the new Government. The latter would, there- 
 fore, strive eagerly to bring about a dissolution, to 
 which the Assembly had already declared it would not 
 consent until it should have passed the " organic laws." 
 
 Before the week was out there was a dispute between 
 
A HITCH IN THE GOVERNMENT. 115 
 
 tlie President and his Cabinet. The latter tendered 
 their resignation in a body, but the majority withdrew 
 it in compliance with the President's apologetic en- 
 treaties. Two of them, however, M. Leon de Maleville 
 and M. Bixio, refused to hold office any longer. The 
 quarrel began with an angry letter from the President 
 to the Minister of the Interior, complaining that 
 despatches were kept back from him, and desiring that 
 public documents relating to his own escapades at 
 Strasbourg and Boulogne should be sent to him. 
 Some light was thrown on this affair by a curious scene 
 in the Assembly, in which we see M. Sarrut insinuating 
 that the late Minister of the Interior had kept back 
 documents relating to the Boulogne affair, lest it should 
 be discovered that he (M. de Maleville, then Under- 
 secretary in the department of the Interior) was Louis 
 Napoleon's enemy ; M. de Maleville accusing M. Sarrut 
 of having " basely lied ;" M. Dupont de Bussac com- 
 plaining that the Minister had treated the President as 
 a person bent on illegally abstracting public docu- 
 ments ; M. de Maleville again confessing that he had 
 wished to reappoint the same man who was his secret 
 agent of police in 1840, at the time of the Boulogne af- 
 fair ; and that he had resigned because Louis Napoleon's 
 objection to that appointment implied " want of con- 
 fidence," and hurt M. de Maleville's personal dignity. 
 
 All this augured ill for the quiet of the new Pre- 
 sidency. 
 
116 ITALY. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 THE CONSTITUTIONS AUSTRIAN ASSASSINATIONS IN LOMBARDY. 
 
 In Italy, the year 1848 was from the outset marked 
 with important events. First on the list is the massacre 
 of Milan, to which we shall presently revert. On the 
 12th of January, the fete-day of King Ferdinand of 
 Naples, the people of Palermo and all the great towns 
 of Sicily rose simultaneously and drove out the Neapo- 
 litan troops. On the 28th, the Neapolitans received a 
 "Constitution modelled on the French Charter of 1830, 
 but in some respects more liberal. The Sicilians were 
 offered their share of this Constitution, but they refused 
 to accept it. They defeated all the royal troops sent 
 against them ; elected their own parliament, which was 
 opened at Palermo on the 25th of March by Ruggiero 
 Settimo, President of the Provisional Government ; and 
 on the 13th of the following month, the deposition of 
 King Ferdinand and the independence of Sicily were 
 formally decreed. 
 
 In Tuscany, a series of liberal measures was crowned 
 on the 1st of February by the issue of a Constitution 
 better than any of the others granted by the four native 
 princes of Italy to their subjects, and in one capital 
 item superior to that framed for themselves by the 
 Sicilians. The Tuscan Constitution, in its political 
 machinery, resembles the Neapolitan, having a Senate 
 for life and a Chamber of Deputies ; it secures freedom 
 of commerce and toleration of all religions ; whereas 
 
CONSTITUTIONS. 11 7 
 
 under the other four Italian constitutions the only reli- 
 gion recognised and permitted is " the Christian Catholic 
 Apostolical Roman." 
 
 The Sardinian kingdom was the next to obtain its 
 Constitution, which was published on the 5 th of 
 March, and Count Cesare Balbo, a well known writer 
 and statesman, was appointed to form a responsible 
 cabinet. The Piedmontese Constitution is like the 
 Neapolitan in the larger branches of its machinery ; but 
 the King seems to have reserved to himself more pow- 
 er. The cardinal point in the qualification of electors 
 is the payment of taxes of an amount to be determined 
 by an electoral law. The King at the same time 
 reduced the price of salt, a state monopoly. 
 
 The Roman Constitution granted by the Pope was 
 proclaimed on the 15th of March, and on the same day 
 the Jesuits were ordered to withdraw from tlie papal 
 dominions. It cost much pains to render the Roman 
 Constitution as liberal as possible, consistently with the 
 Pope's peculiar spiritual authority ; but a perfect recon- 
 ciliation between these two conflicting conditions is 
 clearly impossible. The most notable provisions of this 
 Constitution are as follows : The existing College of 
 Cardinals is retained. There is also a Senate or high 
 council, and a Council of Deputies. The Senators are 
 appointed for life by the Pope, who will choose them 
 from among the high ecclesiastical officials and lawyers, 
 and those possessing an income of 4000 scudi (about 
 $5000) per annum. The council of deputies is elective 
 in the ratio of one deputy to every 30,000 souls. The 
 qualified electors are the possessors of a capital of 300 
 scudi, or payers of direct taxes to the amount of 12 
 scudi per annum ; and also certain commercial, learned, 
 and legal officers. The qualification of a deputy is a 
 capital to the amount of 100 scudi, or the occupation 
 of certain learned and ecclesiastical offices. The Roman 
 Catholic religion is indispensable in all. The two 
 
118 ITALY. 
 
 councils have the control of secular matters, but they 
 are precluded from interfering in ecclesiastical affairs 
 and in those of a mixed kind, which come under the 
 church canons of discipline, or in the religious and 
 diplomatic relations of the holy see. The taxes are 
 under the control of the council of deputies. Ministers 
 are responsible for affairs within the power of the two 
 councils. The functions of temporal sovereignty during 
 an interregnum are vested in the Sacred College. There 
 is also a Council of State (privy council) to draw up 
 projects of law and advise on administrative affairs 
 in cases of emergency. 
 
 In a preamble to the proclamation incorporating this 
 Constitution, Pius IX. frankly declared the difficulties 
 he had to surmount in reconciling the new secular 
 power of " modern civilization " with the ancient eccle- 
 siastical functions aud usages of his government, and 
 indicated the reasons for certain limitations in the func- 
 tions of the new cliambers, avowing the intention " to 
 maintain entire and intact our authority in matters 
 which are actually connected with religion and catholic 
 morality." 
 
 Towards the close of the year 1847 it occurred to the 
 people of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, that how- 
 ever unable they were to cope in arms with the Aus- 
 trians, there was one channel through which they might 
 wage successful war against them. Accordingly it was 
 resolved by all classes of society to practise a total 
 abstinence from tobacco, snuff, and the lottery, as the 
 most effectual means of damaging the finances of the 
 Imperial Government, which derives, as is well known, 
 a very large revenue from those monopolies ; and the 
 Milanese reminded each other that the Americans had 
 begun their successful struggle for independence by a 
 similar evasion of the duty on tea. 
 
 On the 1st of January no one was to be seen smoking 
 
MASSACRE IN MILAN. 119 
 
 in the streets, except some few Italians who were not 
 yet aware of the resolutions adopted, or those members 
 of the Austrian party and the Imperial forces, who had 
 smoked before from taste, and now smoked the more 
 from loyalty and devotion to their order. Hence it came 
 to pass, as one of our journalists classically remarked, 
 that whereas the Caesars of Rome required the early 
 Christians to burn incense to the idols of a heathen 
 Olympus, so the Caesar of Vienna might test the loyalty 
 or the patriotism of his Italian subjects by requiring 
 them to light a pipe or inhale rappee. The populace, 
 of course, were not slow to manifest their displeasure 
 against those who refused to take the national pledge ; 
 crowds gathered round the smokers, insisting that they 
 should lay aside their cigars, sometimes civilly, some- 
 times with cries and hisses ; quarrels arose, and the 
 soldiers began to act with their usual brutality. Count 
 Casati, the Podesta (Mayor) of Milan, remonstrated 
 with the police and the soldiery on their violence ; pre- 
 tending not to recognise him, they arrested him, and 
 marched him off to the Ministry of Police, where he 
 was kept a prisoner until the Municipal Council attend- 
 ed in a body and demanded his release. 
 
 The 3d of January arrived, and the Austrian authori- 
 ties resolved to carry into effect Radetsky's theory, that 
 " three days of bloodshed yield thirty years of peace." 
 In order to inflame the minds of the soldiery to the 
 necessary degree of rage, recourse was had to a strata- 
 gem like that before employed in Galicia, where the Go- 
 vernment persuaded the peasants that it had for 
 three years abolished forced labor, but that the land- 
 owners continued to levy it illegally, and were contem- 
 plating a massacre to diminish the number of the pea- 
 sants. A report was now spread in the barracks of 
 Milan, that a great conspiracy had been discovered in 
 the city against the military ; and a handbill, full of 
 insults and threats against the soldiery, and purporting 
 
120 ITALY. 
 
 to be clandestinely published by the Milanese, was con- 
 cocted, and printed in the offices of the police. A re- 
 markable exception was made in this case from the 
 usual energy and rigor shown in dealing with violations 
 of the law of the press, for no efforts were made to dis- 
 cover the authors of the offensive handbill. This was 
 a blunder on the part of the police : to be consistent, 
 they ought to have carried the farce so far. 
 
 Six cigars and an ample supply of brandy were 
 served out to each soldier on the morning of the 3d. 
 As the day advanced, they appeared in the streets, a 
 score or two together, half drunk with brandy, and with 
 the rage excited in their breasts by the forged handbill. 
 Each had a cigar in his mouth, and in obedience to 
 their secret orders, they bantered and jeered the Ita- 
 lians, and endeavored by all sorts of insolence to pro- 
 voke them to a breach of the peace. So the day passed. 
 When evening came, the brandy and cigars had pro- 
 duced their full effect upon the soldiers, who, without 
 provocation, drew their swords, and ran a-muck at all 
 who crossed their paths. 
 
 Sixty-one persons were carried to the hospitals, all 
 more or less severely wounded, some of them mortally. 
 Among the latter was the Imperial Councillor Manga- 
 nini, a man in his seventy-fourth year, who had always 
 been the sworn friend of Austria. Before the massa- 
 cre began, orders were sent by the police to the hospi- 
 tals to prepare beds, and means of carriage for the 
 wounded. Some of the sufferers were doomed to im- 
 prisonment, in addition to all they had already endured, 
 and now a new atrocity was perpetrated ; one, says the 
 Marquis d'Azeglio, " which I could not credit, and 
 which I deemed a calumny even on the Austrian po- 
 lice, until I was forced to admit the fact, — the wounds 
 of the prisoners remained undressed. Two among 
 them died of gangrene, and the others lay in danger of 
 their lives." 
 
MASSACRE IN MILAN. 121 
 
 The exasperation produced by these enormities was • 
 not confined to any section of Italian society ; it pro- 
 voked the most strenuous protests, even on the part of 
 men the least prone to resistance against established 
 authority. The parish priest of the cathedral waited 
 on the Viceroy at the head of his clergy, and said that 
 he had witnessed the horrors of war during his long 
 career (he was eighty-five years of age) ; he had seen 
 the Russians and French entering Milan as conquerors ; 
 but he had never beheld such a scene of deliberate 
 murder as that which had just been enacted. On the 
 same day, the Archbishop concluded his discourse from 
 the pulpit of the cathedral with these words : — " Bre- 
 thren, unite with me in prayers to God to inspire our 
 rulers with more justice and humanity." 
 
 Five days after the massacre of Milan, another mili- 
 tary outrage was committed in Pavia. The students 
 of the University were following the corpse of one of 
 their companions to the grave, when they were met by 
 two officers with cigars in their mouths, who, without 
 any provocation, passed in among them, hustling and 
 disordering the procession, uttering insulting words 
 against the students and the priests, and puffing the 
 smoke of their cigars in the faces of those around 
 them. The patience of the young men could not en- 
 dure against such wanton provocation ; they fell upon the 
 officers, who instantly raised an alarm. Help was al- 
 ready at hand, for such encounters were never casual, 
 but planned and prepared beforehand. A body of 
 armed soldiers attacked the students, who suffered 
 severely in the unequal contest ; but one of the offi- 
 cers was killed on the spot, and the other mortally 
 wounded. 
 
 Many other enormities of the same kind were com- 
 mitted in other Austrian garrisons ; but we need not 
 repeat the details ; those we have given will suffice to 
 show the savage spirit of the Austrian rule. Formerly 
 6 
 
122 ITALY. 
 
 the conduct of the Austrian officers had been uniformly 
 marked by politeness and moderation ; they had borne 
 the demonstrations of aversion to which they were ex- 
 posed with a patience and forbearance that excited the 
 astonishment of strangers, and which, according to the 
 usages of military society, were almost excessive. The 
 sudden and complete change in their habits could only 
 be accounted for by a change of orders. Formerly 
 they had been bidden to submit to insult ; their new 
 orders commanded them to disgrace, by their conduct, 
 the standard they followed, and the uniform they wore. 
 Among them, however, there were some whose abhor- 
 rence of the office of the bully was not to be over- 
 come by the strongest sense of discipline. "If you 
 have insults to avenge," said General Walmoden to his 
 soldiers on the 3d of January, "first arm the citizens, 
 and then fight them ; do not turn murderers." 
 
 To quell the spirit of burning hatred their misdeeds 
 had evoked, the Austrian authorities had recourse to 
 their usual nostrums, — brute force, diabolical lies, and 
 pettifogging tyranny. Martial law was proclaimed, 
 and multitudes were visited with fines, imprisonment, 
 or exile, without form of trial. 
 
 The police, among other stratagems, attempted that 
 which had met with so much success in Galicia, viz. 
 to spread among the people a notion that the severi- 
 ties of the Government were caused by the extravagant 
 political claims of the rich and the nobles, who were 
 thus the cause of all the sufferings inflicted on their 
 humbler fellow-countrymen. But the latter saw 
 through the trick and expressed their contempt for it 
 in this pointed sentence : — " The Galician florin (the 
 bloodmoney paid at Tarnow) shall not pass current in 
 Lombardy." 
 
 Indefatigable in their efforts to discover the central 
 committee to w T hose machinations they attributed all 
 then* troubles, the Austrian bureaucrats were fretted 
 
AUSTRIAN STATECRAFT. 123 
 
 into a ludicrous state of rage and perplexity by their 
 inability to seize that imaginary body. Themselves 
 accustomed to the dark and tortuous ways of official 
 conspiracy, and familiar only with the baser impulses 
 of human nature, they could not comprehend, far less 
 make a practical stand against, the wondrous workings 
 of a national enthusiasm. They could not imagine 
 how a whole nation, animated by one common hatred, 
 one hope, one desire, should spontaneously display a 
 unity of thought, word, and action, immeasurably sur- 
 passing that of their own mercenary confederacy. It 
 is worth while to preserve, as a relic of obsolete bar- 
 barism, some record of the pedantic tyranny with 
 which the Governor and police of Milan endeavored to 
 bind down, by rule and schedule, modes of expression 
 as various and uncontrollable as thought itself. In a 
 proclamation issued by Count Spaur, the Governor, on 
 the 2 2d of February, not only were the severest penal- 
 ties denounced against disturbers of the public peace, 
 but gestures, looks, particular colors, special modes of 
 applauding at the theatre, and a long list of equally 
 nonsensical matters, were prohibited, as if it were pos- 
 sible to suppress all marks of recognition among those 
 who share the same political enthusiasm. The Milanese, 
 who would not smoke to benefit the Imperial exche- 
 quer, ate Neapolitan macaroni in the streets, under the 
 noses of the authorities, in token of then joy that 
 their brethren of the south had obtained a constitution. 
 The police prohibited the Calabrian hat and feather, 
 which every one in Milan had assumed in honor of the 
 Sicilian revolt. But what was the result of the prohi- 
 bition ? By one accord the Milanese agreed to express 
 their political sympathy by turning the hat-buckle in 
 front of the hat, and the man who would wear his hat- 
 band in any other fashion, ran as much risk of being 
 insulted by the populace as if he smoked in the street. 
 These are trifles, — ludicrous trifles, and yet they are as 
 
124 ITALY. 
 
 significant as graver facts, both as regards the intense 
 unanimous hostility of the Lombards to their foreign 
 rulers, and as marking the stupid, inquisitorial in- 
 tolerance of the Austrian bureaucrats. 
 
 An attempt has recently been made by some English 
 worshippers of absolutism, and apostles of paradox, to 
 persuade us that the Austrian rule has been a blessing 
 to Lombardy. The argument by which this monstrous 
 fallacy is supported, consists in impudently claiming 
 for Austria the merit of creating that prosperity which 
 she did not, or could not, destroy. It is true that, in 
 spite of all impediments, Lombardy had become the 
 most flourishing kingdom in Europe, and that more 
 wealth and solid comfort were diffused among all 
 classes of her people than in any other country ; but 
 for these advantages she was indebted solely to the 
 prodigious fertility of her soil, the excellence of her 
 agricultural system, her abundant means of internal 
 communication, and the wonderful mechanism of her 
 system of irrigation, both dating from the times of her 
 early freedom, and above all, to those institutions of 
 local self-government which the central authority found 
 it impossible to subvert or neutralize. What was 
 really well done in Lombardy, was done by the people 
 themselves : the Government in no way aided them in 
 farming, manufactures, or commerce ; whatever it 
 touched, it marred ; whatever duties it took upon itself, 
 it performed with the most scandalous incapacity and 
 dishonesty. The praise bestowed on it by its eccentric 
 English eulogists for its support of charitable and edu- 
 cational establishments, is given to an administration 
 that began its charity by confiscating all the charitable 
 funds, appropriating them as a basis for a government 
 stock, and then generously contributing to the charities 
 their own funds ! Its educational activity consisted in 
 jobbing away the professorships in the universities, 
 seizing the schools of Lombardy, regulating the in- 
 
AUSTRIAN RULE IN ITALY. 125 
 
 structions so as to teach obedience to the Emperor, — 
 " such as the slave owes to his master," with a like 
 limitation of every science to the requirements of poli- 
 tical and ecclesiastical absolutism, and then forcing all 
 persons to send their children to those training-places 
 for slaves. Its system of taxation was heavy, vexa- 
 tious, and fearfully demoralizing. Commerce, groan- 
 ing under its fiscal rapacity, and burdened by Govern- 
 ment monopolies, was further restricted to favor the 
 German interests of Austria. Public offices, even judi- 
 cial posts, were filled by foreigners, often ignorant of 
 the native language. The Germans were systemati- 
 cally favored ; the Italians were systematically de- 
 graded. Espionage finished the work of corruption. 
 Even to converse it was necessary to walk out of ear- 
 range of walls. Stand still in the streets, and a soldier 
 came up to question your business. Your correspon- 
 dence was searched. To study, even to think, was a 
 political offence, punishable with perpetual imprison- 
 ment. The wealthy Lombard who would live at peace 
 with the prying Government, had only two courses 
 open to him : either to earn the execration of his coun- 
 trymen by boundless servility to their oppressors, or to 
 play the fool like Brutus at the court of Tarquin. 
 Frivolity and dissipation were, in the eyes of the 
 paternal government, the most precious tokens of good 
 citizenship. But these virtues might be overdone : a 
 dangerous error ! The son of the Marchioness Son- 
 cino was among the persons doomed to exile in 
 February, 1848; when his mother sought to excuse 
 him, affirming that he had never meddled with poli- 
 tics, the Director of Police replied that he spent too 
 much money, and ivas too ptopular. 
 
 Most of the facts here set down are patent to the 
 widest notoriety ; they are all attested by an irresisti- 
 ble mass of evidence of every kind. They are not the 
 less true because the apologists of Austria choose to 
 
126 ITALY. 
 
 deny them. If the old Austrian administration was 
 such a blessing to Lombardy as they tell us it was, 
 surely its beneficial effects must have been still more 
 strongly felt at home ; but its own favored metropoli- 
 tan province rose against it with loathing and execra- 
 tion, and shook it off for ever as an unclean thing. Is 
 it likely that Lombardy was more wisely, justly, and 
 humanely treated by the Imperial Government than 
 Austria Proper ? 
 
 By no law, save that of the strong hand, could the 
 right of self-government be denied to a people such as 
 that of Lombardy, who had become so rich, so pros- 
 perous, and so physically powerful, through the culti- 
 vation of their own native resources, and the exercise 
 of their own inborn energies. Austria's tenure of Lom- 
 bardy and Venice is simply that of forcible possession ; 
 her pretended hereditary title is a baseless figment, 
 that outrages all history. She herself is too well 
 aware of the weakness of that claim which others have 
 set up for her, and she is content to rest her title on 
 the treaty of Vienna, — a treaty which she herself, in 
 common with every great power of Europe, has broken 
 at pleasure, and one to which neither Lombardy nor 
 Venice was a consulted or subscribing party. Iniqui- 
 tous force was the sole foundation of Austria's rule in 
 Italy ; violence and perfidy were its means of action, 
 and its aim and end was spoliation. In comparison 
 with the other provinces of the empire, the taxation 
 of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom bore an inordi- 
 nate ratio to its population. Many millions sterling, 
 extorted from Italian industry, went annually to re- 
 cruit the dilapidated finances of the Viennese exche- 
 quer ; and in order that this system of pillage might 
 be prosecuted with the more ease and safety, that the 
 Imperial prerogative of misgoverning 4,500,000 
 Italians might not be endangered by the appearance 
 of good government in any other part of the Penin- 
 
AUSTRIAN RULE IN ITALY. 127 
 
 sula, the Austrian Emperor for three-and-thirty years 
 absolutely prohibited every extension of liberty and 
 every reform of abuses throughout the states inhabited 
 by the other 18 or 19 millions of Italians. 
 
128 ITALY. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 ITALY. 
 
 THE WAR IN LOMBARDY. 
 
 When the news of the revolution in Vienna reached 
 Milan, the people nocked in great numbers to the 
 Government-house, and demanded the release of all* 
 political prisoners, and the formation of a National 
 Guard. The soldiers on duty at the palace fired a 
 volley over the heads of the crowd, as it is said ; at all 
 events no one was wounded : still . such an impression 
 was made that a second discharge would have sent the 
 people flying ; but just at the moment of wavering, a 
 boy of sixteen drew out a pistol and fired at the 
 soldiery, exclaiming " Viva V Italia!" The shot and 
 the cry had a magical effect ; the crowd rushed for- 
 ward ; the guard was overpowered in a moment ; the 
 vice-governor, O'Donnell, was made prisoner ; and the 
 tri-color banner was planted on the palace. Some 
 Croats afterwards fired on the people and killed five or 
 six of them ; and this became the signal for a general 
 rising. Instead of sending all his force to clear the 
 streets, Radetski hesitated, and withdrew his men 
 within their respective barracks. By the time he had 
 made up his mind to act, the affair was decided, the 
 city was barricaded, and it was impossible to retake it 
 without a bombardment. The events in Vienna suffi- 
 ciently account for the marshal's indecision ; for if he 
 ordered a second massacre of the Milanese, he knew 
 not but that he would have to answer for it with his 
 
REVOLT OF MILAN. 129 
 
 head before a Constitutional Government in the capital. 
 His policy was to gain time for the purpose of commu- 
 nicating, if possible, with Vienna, before he resorted to 
 the last extremity of a bombardment. He acted, 
 therefore, only on the defensive, keeping possession of 
 the citadel, a few wide streets practicable for artillery, 
 and the city walls and gates, so as to hinder the insur- 
 gents from receiving succor from without. The 
 Milanese meanwhile summoned the surrounding people 
 to their aid, in despatches sent by small balloons ; they 
 contested their native streets inch by inch, and really 
 displayed the most exalted valor : but for their success 
 in defeating, without arms and ammunition (they had 
 not more than five or six hundred guns and pistols 
 among them) 12,000 regular troops, well provided 
 with cavalry and artillery, and taking the city out of 
 their hands at a cost of only 100 killed, 250 wounded, 
 and a few houses burned or sacked, the men of Milan 
 were certainly indebted to something else than their 
 own bravery. 
 
 The conflict was kept up day and night until the 
 23d. The great object of the people was to get pos- 
 session of one of the gates, in order that the communi- 
 cation with their friends outside should be opened. It 
 was not until the evening of the 23d that they suc- 
 ceeded at the Porta Tosa. A set of brave young fel- 
 lows made up bundles of fascines, which they rolled 
 before them, firing from the shelter thus afforded, 
 while a flanking fire from the houses on each side 
 covered their advance. In this way, after long efforts, 
 the artillerymen were picked off one by one — the 
 Milanese being sharpshooters of perfect aim — until at 
 last a dash was made, and the gate and the houses 
 covering it were set on fire. Radetski's position was 
 no longer tenable, for Milan is a place of no military 
 strength whatever ; he therefore began at once his re- 
 treat in the direction of Verona. 
 i 6 * 
 
130 ITALY. 
 
 The example of Milan was followed by most of the 
 other cities of Lombardy, and by Venice, which de- 
 clared itself again a Republic. The fate of the Aus- 
 trian rule depended on Mantua and Verona. Had 
 Radetski been shut out from these towns, he must 
 have been forced to capitulate ; but both were preserved 
 for Austria, as well as the two less important fortresses 
 dependent on them, Legnano and Peschiera, by the 
 perfidy of persons in high station. In Mantua the 
 bishop, in Verona some nobleman speaking in the 
 name of the Viceroy, persuaded the people that the 
 panic-stricken Austrian troops desired nothing more 
 than a momentary hah within their walls, while pre- 
 paring finally to evacuate Italy, and that it would be 
 good policy to afford them every facility for their 
 retreat. Deceived by these representations, the towns- 
 people allowed Radetski to secure himself in the 
 military centre of the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom, in 
 fortresses almost impregnable ; and from that moment 
 the independent cause was virtually lost. 
 
 On the very day that Radetski began his retreat, 
 the Piedmontese army under Charles Albert crossed 
 the frontier, and on the 27th its vanguard arrived 
 under the walls . of Milan. The king, however, de- 
 clined to enter the city, " until he should have become 
 worthy of so brave a people, by gaining a victory over 
 the Austrians." But inauy causes prevented the ac- 
 complishment of that purpose, — chiefly his own bad 
 generalship, his selfishness, jealousy, and double deal- 
 ing, and the imbecility of the Provisional Government. 
 
 That Government included Casati, Borromeo, Litta, 
 and other men of worth and talent, who had assumed 
 authority whilst the fight was pending in the streets. 
 Often afterwards did they take credit to themselves for 
 the civic heroism they displayed in thus exposing 
 themselves to the superior danger of such a position ; 
 for, said they, had the Austrians been successful, our 
 
PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF MILAN. 131 
 
 lives would have been the first forfeited. But they 
 were not so brave as they wished themselves to be 
 thought; in fact, their official conduct warrants the 
 belief that their chief care w$s to make themselves 
 safe in any contingency. During the whole struggle 
 they abstained from every kind of measure that could 
 be regarded as seriously imperilling the Austrian inte- 
 rests ; and when the war was over, they might fairly 
 represent themselves to the victor as loyal subjects, 
 who, by appearing to fall in with the popular humor, 
 had been enabled to control it and render its outbreaks 
 harmless. Some of the members of the Provisional 
 Government were Monarchists, others were Republi- 
 cans ; for their mutual convenience they agreed upon 
 a perfectly neutral policy — the bane of all popular en- 
 thusiasm. Their administration was a series of enor- 
 mous blunders in matters of police, finance, military 
 affairs, &c. The direction of the police was committed 
 to a triumvirate that really swayed the whole politi- 
 cal power of the State, and the ablest member of 
 which was the Baron Sopransi, a zealous partisan of 
 Austria, and the brother-in-law of General Welden, by 
 whose orders, and under whose own eyes, seven-ancl- 
 twenty Lombard volunteers were first mutilated and 
 then shot in the town ditch of Trent. 
 
 The parishes of Lombardy are grouped together in 
 districts, over each of which there is a commissary of 
 police, who exercises a dictatorial power like that of the 
 Turkish cadis. The first act of the revolutionary 
 Government should have been to remove these men, 
 yet they were all allowed to remain and plot for the 
 return of their old masters. The country was overrun 
 with vagabonds whom the Austrians let loose from the 
 bagnio of Mantua, and with pretended deserters from 
 the Austrian troops. In many a district chief town 
 the commissary had a little praitorian guard, composed 
 of these and other bad characters ; and by this means 
 
132 ITALY. 
 
 the Austrian^ were regularly informed of all the move- 
 ments of. the Lombards, whilst the latter remained in 
 ignorance of what it most imported them to know. It 
 was also in consequence of this permanent conspiracy, 
 tolerated by the Government, that the provender and 
 other, things intended for the Piedmontese army fell 
 several times into the hands of the enemy ; many 
 villages were burned, and the lives of landowners were 
 threatened by revolted peasants. The great bulk of 
 the rural population took no part in these disorders, 
 but they were afraid to venture on putting them down, 
 for the language of the commissary and his satellites 
 was always this : — " Radetski will soon be back ; of 
 that you may be very certain. Neither he nor his men 
 will ever be driven out of this country ; and when he 
 returns there will be a day of reckoning for all — those 
 that shall have remained true to him will have their 
 share of what shall be taken from the malignants : and 
 as for those who cannot give a good account of them- 
 selves, they will be nailed to their own doors. You 
 know what you have to expect, so act accordingly." 
 
 There is a powder manufactory at Lembrate, a few 
 leagues from Milan. One morning in the beginning 
 of May, when no one dreamed of the possible approach 
 of the Austrians, it became known in the capital that 
 the Lembrate magazine had been attacked during the 
 night by a party of Austrians in disguise. Who then 
 had guided them ? How had they advanced almost 
 to the gates of Milan without any notice being taken of 
 their march ? The mystery remained unsolved ; and 
 the director of the police maintained a disdainful 
 silence. Another day the (jenerole was suddenly beaten, 
 and the National Guard hurried to the city jail, from 
 which five hundred thieves and robbers were in the act 
 of making their escape. These fellows were all armed 
 with muskets, and had their pockets filled with am- 
 munition ; they had seized the keepers of the prison 
 
TRAITORS IN MILAN. 133 
 
 and locked tliern up. After promptly quelling the 
 revolt, and securing all the prisoners, the National 
 Guard handed the keepers over to justice, as guilty of 
 having armed the culprits, and connived at their 
 escape. There was the more ground for such a suspicion, 
 because the prison keepers had not been changed after 
 the Revolution ; and a considerable amount of Austrian 
 coin was found in the pockets of both prisoners and 
 keepers. The matter was nevertheless allowed to drop. 
 
 The finances were not better administered than the 
 police : they were managed on a bad system, and by 
 knavish hands. The most shameful embezzlements 
 were practised in the Ministry of War. The able and 
 earnest Count Litta, who at first held that office, 
 having been forced to resign, he was succeeded by 
 Collegno, an honest, but weak man, whose passive 
 character was more acceptable to the Provisional 
 Government. The Paymaster-general was a merchant 
 notorious for having committed four fraudulent bank- 
 ruptcies. The Lombard army and the free corps 
 wanted shoes, coats, great-coats, and almost every 
 object of prime necessity. The arming of the people 
 was stopped for want of money, and yet the incomes 
 of all the affluent families were poured into the public 
 treasury. Nothing was talked of in the town but the 
 audacious robberies committed by one or another 
 member of the administration. 
 
 The whole population of Lombardy were eager to 
 take up arms in the cause of independence. In twenty- 
 four hours an army of partisans might have been set on 
 foot that would have been a most useful auxiliary to the 
 regular forces. But every man who offered himself in 
 the capacity of a volunteer was treated with indignity 
 by the Piedmontese officers, and by the Lombard 
 Ministry of War, which was entirety subservient to the 
 King of Sardinia, Those volunteers who had been 
 accepted in the first days of the Revolution were left 
 
134 ITALY. 
 
 without pay or provisions, exposed to needless and 
 profitless dangers, and persecuted in every way that 
 low cunning could contrive. The reason of this was 
 that Charles Albert, intent before all things on the 
 acquisition of the iron crown, would rather have had 
 Lombardy remain for ever enthralled to Austria, than 
 that it should owe its freedom to any arms besides his 
 own. Therefore it was that he sedulously deprecated 
 French intervention, rejected the many offers of service 
 made to the national cause by foreign officers and 
 generals, maltreated the Lombard volunteers, and 
 received as ungraciously as possible the soldiers sent to 
 him by the other Italian States. 
 
 Immediately after its installation, the Provisional 
 Government invoked the aid of the other States of 
 Italy. It was not, of course, to be expected that an 
 Austrian Grand Duke of Tuscany, a Roman Pontiff 
 and a Neapolitan Bourbon, should willingly assist the 
 house of Savoy and the revolted population of Milan in 
 driving the Austrians out of the Peninsula, especially 
 when their troops were to be at the command of a man 
 who complacently allowed his flatterers to designate 
 him as the King of Italy. The invitation to those po- 
 tentates was merely an act of courtesy, and meant 
 nothing, except inasmuch as it was addressed to their 
 subjects. The people of the several States did, indeed, 
 respond to the appeal, and large contingents were fur- 
 nished by Parma, Modena, Tuscany, Rome, and Na- 
 ples ; but the arts employed to neutralize the efforts of 
 these troops were, unhappily, too successful. 
 
 When the Piedmontese army reached Milan on the 
 2*7th of March, Radetski was still within a distance of 
 five-and-twenty miles of the city. Had Charles Albert 
 made two or three forced marches, he might easily have 
 prevented the concentration of the Austrian forces, and 
 extinguished the war. Instead of this, he allowed Ra- 
 detski to pursue his march without molestation for a 
 
135 
 
 week, and shut himself up securely in Verona. On the 
 8th of April, Charles Albert forced the Austrian lines 
 on the Mincio in three places between Mantua and Ve- 
 rona. He then crossed the Adige at Pontone to the 
 north of Verona, cutting off Radetski from the valley 
 of the Trent, and from a junction with Nugent, who 
 -was advancing to his aid from the north-east. After 
 some manoeuvring in this direction, the Piedmontese 
 army was obliged to fall back on its former position, 
 and on the 2 2d, Nugent brought Radetski a reinforce- 
 ment of 15,000 men. 
 
 Durando, the commander of the 14,000 Roman 
 auxiliaries, might have prevented this calamity, but evi- 
 dently would not. Durando was a brave officer, of un- 
 blemished reputation, who had served with distinction 
 in the civil wars of Spain ; but the hopes excited by 
 his name were in all respects miserably disappointed. 
 His head-quarters were at Ferrara, from which no en- 
 treaties of the Milanese could induce him to move, until 
 his troops themselves forced him to cross the Po, and 
 march against the enemy. Immediately there appeared 
 a manifesto from Pius IX., announcing that the sole 
 mission of his army was to defend the integrity of the 
 Roman territory, and reiterating the injunction laid 
 upon the general never to assume the offensive against 
 Austria. This manifesto, which was said to have been 
 followed by secret orders to General Durando to fall 
 back upon Ferrara, excited a formidable commotion in 
 Rome and the provinces, and an insurrection seemed 
 imminent. Charles Albert sent word to Durando that, 
 having actually entered upon the theatre of the war, 
 he had thereby become bound to obey no other orders 
 than those of the commander-in-chief, namely, himself, 
 Charles Albert, and must therefore march, without re- 
 gard to any injunction to the contrary which he might 
 receive from other quarters. The Roman army sup- 
 ported the protest of Charles Albert, and the popula- 
 
136 ITALY. 
 
 tion of Rome insisted that the Pope should retract his 
 manifesto. Durando resolved to march, and was some 
 days afterwards authorized to do so by Pius IX. him- 
 self. There is reason to fear, however, that the Pope's 
 secret orders remained still in force. No other suppo- 
 sition can afford a plausible explanation for his gene- 
 ral's subsequent conduct. We cannot acquit them, 
 both ; we must condemn the one or the other. Either 
 the Pope was guilty of duplicity, or Durando of base 
 perfidy. 
 
 After crossing the Po, the Roman general regulated 
 his movements with great exactness by those of Nugent, 
 advancing as the latter retired, retrograding as he £#- 
 vanced, and always studiously shunning an engagement ; 
 whilst the Austrians devastated everything in their 
 way, and seized town after town. At length, having 
 seen Nugent make his unopposed entry into Verona, 
 Durando wheeled round and took up his quarters in 
 Vicenza, which had sustained a bombardment of seve- 
 ral hours by Nugent, and, with the help of some corps 
 of volunteers under General Antonini, had compelled 
 him to raise the siege. 
 
 Meanwhile Charles Albert had laid siege to Pes- 
 chiera on the 18th of May. The Austrians attempted 
 a diversion for its relief, but were foiled and beaten at 
 Goito. Peschiera was taken on the 30th, after two 
 days' fighting, and Charles Albert established his head- 
 quarters there. Whilst he was busy pushing his con- 
 quests further north along the banks of the Lago di 
 Garda, Radetski made an unexpected sortie from Ve- 
 rona, and appeared before Vicenza with 30,000 men. 
 The King of Sardinia, who had just taken Rivoli after 
 a sanguinary battle, sent a courier to Durando to know 
 how long he could hold out. " Six or eight days, at least," 
 was the reply ; and Charles Albert took his measures 
 accordingly to succor the town. No attempt was made 
 to prevent the Austrians from getting possession of the 
 
DURANDO'S EQUIVOCAL CONDUCT. 137 
 
 heights that commanded the town. This was a mis- 
 fortune, but it was not irreparable. General Durando 
 seemed to think otherwise, for the bombardment was 
 no sooner begun than he hoisted the white flag The 
 citizens instantly compelled him to withdraw it and 
 continue the fight; but, in the very midst of the en- 
 gagement, the unlucky white flag again appeared on 
 another side of the town. The enraged inhabitants 
 fired upon it and brought it down; but though the 
 sign of surrender fell, the thing it represented was 
 realized ; the town capitulated after eight hours' fight- 
 ing, with an army within its walls for its defence, and 
 another army at the distance of a few hours' march to 
 succor it. Durando had stipulated that he should be 
 allowed to quit the city with his soldiers and such of 
 the citizens as chose to accompany him, with arms and 
 baggage, and he engaged for himself and his troops 
 not to take up arms against Austria for three months. 
 
 Thinking that the Austrians were still before Vicenza, 
 Charles Albert marched against Verona on the 12th of 
 June ; but already Radetski had returned thither, and 
 the Piedmontese were compelled to retire within their 
 lines. In the subsequent part of the month Radetski 
 captured Padua and Palma Nuova, and made prize of 
 a large quantity of artillery and warlike stores. The 
 road to Vienna and Inspruck now lay open to him, and 
 he was master of the whole Venetian territory, with the 
 exception of the capital. Thither General Pepe, the 
 commander of the Neapolitan contingent, retired. The 
 regular soldiers under his command left him, obeying 
 the order for their recall issued by the King of Naples. 
 A few legions of volunteers alone remained with him ; 
 a third at least of those that had. entered Lombardy 
 had returned home in disgust, and told their country- 
 men who were preparing to march for the seat of war, 
 " They do not wish for us there. Why should we 
 thrust our services upon them against their will V 
 
138 ITALY. 
 
 In the beginning of July we find the Piedmontese 
 army occupying a line of about thirty nriles.in length, 
 — from near Mantua on its right, to Rivoli on its left. 
 The head-quarters, which had been at Peschiera, were 
 removed to Vallegio, and afterwards to Riverbella, and 
 the strength of the army was gradually accumulated on 
 the right wing in order to invest Mantua, whilst the 
 left wing was most imprudently weakened. The lines 
 of Rivoli were not defended by more than 3000 troops, 
 and those of Somma Campagna, extending from Busso- 
 longo on the Upper Adige, to Vallegio on the Mincio, 
 by not more than 5000. 
 
 If the siege of an impregnable place like Mantua 
 served no other purpose, it at least enabled Charles 
 Albert to rid himself of most of his remaining auxiliaries. 
 The students of the University of Pa via, and those of 
 the lyceums and colleges of Milan, formed themselves 
 into battalions, and demanded to be sent forthwith 
 against the enemy. They were ordered to Mantua, 
 where they were encamped directly within range of the 
 Austrian cannons, as if on purpose that they might be 
 cut to pieces. One hundred Swiss volunteers shared 
 the same fate ; two only of them survived, the other 
 ninety-eight were killed, — not in battle, but passively, 
 when at rest in their camp. The indignation expressed 
 by the people of Milan at the intelligence received from 
 the camp before Mantua, was too formidable to be 
 slighted, and the tents were removed to a more suitable 
 position. 
 
 The Tuscan volunteers were made victims to the 
 same diabolical policy. They were employed in the 
 nominal blockade of Mantua, being posted on the 
 marshy side of the town, and in that deadly position 
 they were left without relief for a whole week. The 
 lake, as it is called, that encompasses one half of Man- 
 tua, is a pestilential marsh, extending to the very walls 
 of the town. There the Tuscan soldiers remained, 
 
CHARLES ALBERT OUTGENERALLED. 139 
 
 plunged in the fetid mud and stagnant water, without 
 even the consolation of knowing that their sufferings 
 were of the smallest avail ; for the pretended block- 
 ade of Mantua existed only on the side next the lake, 
 whilst everywhere else there was free ingress and 
 egress. 
 
 Radetski was meanwhile preparing to seize the game 
 which his unskilful antagonist was playing into his 
 hands. Seeing that Charles Albert's whole attention 
 was directed towards the south, he kept him in that 
 disposition by well-contrived feints. A little victory 
 gained by General Bava over 3000 or 4000 Austrians 
 at Governolo, near the junction of the Mincio and the 
 Po, also contributed to the same end, and filled the 
 king and his army with fallacious hopes. But sud- 
 denly, on the 2 2d July, news arrived that the Austrians 
 had been quietly passing the Upper Adige, at the foot 
 of the mountain that overlooks Rivoli, and had already 
 descended on La Corona, driving before them the few 
 Piedmontese that were stationed there. Next day 
 they pushed on from La Corona, and carried the 
 plateau and all the lines of Rivoli ; whilst another 
 Austrian force, 25,000 strong, under General Aspre, 
 assaulted the lines of Somma Campagna. The 5000 
 men that defended them made a gallant resistance; but 
 the force of the assailants was overwhelming, and the 
 Austrians regained the whole territory between the 
 Upper Adige and the Lago di Garda and the Mincio, 
 from the foot of Montebaldo, and from Bussolongo to 
 Vallegio, Peschiera being placed in a state of complete 
 isolation. 
 
 Getting together nearly 30,000 men, Charles Al- 
 bert advanced on the evening of the 25th against the 
 heights between Bussolongo and Vallegio. The 
 decisive battle, which was fought next day, bears the 
 name of Somma Campagna, where the centre of the 
 Austrian force was established. It lasted from five in 
 
140 ITALY. 
 
 the morning* to five in the evening, the Piedmontese 
 fighting with desperate courage, until Radetski came 
 up with a reserve of nearly 20,000 men from 
 Verona, and the Austrians obtained a complete 
 victory. 
 
 On the 27th, Charles Albert began his retreat. In 
 the beginning of the month he is said to have had an 
 army of 80,000 men. The corps with which he 
 marched from the Mincio to the Oglio, scarcely 
 amounted to 20,000 men. He arrived on the 3d of 
 August at Milan, where he idly boasted that he would 
 make a stand beneath its walls. The Milanese took 
 earnest measures for defence ; barricades were raised, 
 and a large amount of property was sacrificed by the 
 burning of all the houses of the suburbs, near the Porta 
 Romana ; but on the 6th Charles Albert began his re- 
 treat to his own dominions, having entered into a capi- 
 tulation with Radetski, and on the following day the 
 Austrian marshal again ruled in Milan. 
 
 Two or three days afterwards an armistice of forty 
 days was published between the Sardinians and the 
 Austrians, It restored the status quo ante helium, and 
 provided for the evacuation not only of Peschiera and 
 Placentia, but of Venice also. A part only of the 
 latter arrangement could be effected ; the Piedmontese 
 troops were withdrawn from Venice; but the city, 
 once more the seat of a republic, regained its indepen- 
 dence. 
 
 On every other point things rapidly returned to their 
 old state. Parma and Modena again adopted the 
 Austrian system, and General Welden even made an 
 incursion into the Legations and occupied Bologna. 
 The inhabitants, however, rose against him and ex- 
 pelled him ; the Pope remonstrated, and Welden was 
 censured and recalled. 
 
 On the morning of the day when the Austrians re- 
 entered Milan, a message was sent from their camp aiv 
 
MILANESE EXILES. 141 
 
 nouncing that all the men between eighteen and forty 
 years of age, who should be found in the city, should 
 be immediately enrolled in the Croat regiments, and 
 sent across the mountains ; those who preferred exile 
 were to be allowed until eight o'clock in the evening to 
 quit the city. The alternative was eagerly seized by 
 the unfortunate population, more than two-thirds of 
 whom, of both sexes, young and old, rich and poor, 
 crowded out of the gate opposite to that through which 
 the victor was to make his entry. Ere the last rising- 
 ground was passed that would shut out the desolated 
 city from their view, the wretched multitude turned 
 with one accord to take their last look of that modern 
 Jerusalem. The sky was red above Milan, and dense 
 volumes of smoke were rising to the clouds. What 
 fire was that ? Was it the conflagration of the 
 suburbs not yet extinguished % Was the Austrian be- 
 ginning his vindictive work of destruction? Or had 
 the flames been lighted by patriot hands, in the 
 desperate resolve to leave nothing to the enemy but 
 smoking ruins ? All was vague conjecture, and to this 
 hour the matter remains involved in impenetrable 
 mystery ; only a great number of mansions half con- 
 sumed by the flames, the ordnance establishment, and 
 the military hospital of St. Ambrose, bear testimony in 
 their ruins to the magnitude of the disaster. 
 
 Order now reigned in Milan, that is to say, Austrian 
 order — order as understood by the men who planned 
 and perpetrated the massacres of January. The con- 
 victs of Porta Nuova were set at liberty, and joined the 
 soldiers in the work of plundering the deserted houses, 
 the churches, and the national museums. Generals 
 Rivaira and Roger, detained in Milan by illness, were 
 condemned to death. Various circumstances rendering 
 the process of confiscation inconvenient to the authori- 
 ties, recourse was had to a more profitable system of 
 forced contributions, the management of which was in- 
 
142 ITALY. 
 
 trusted to a committee, headed by that very Baron 
 Sopransi whom we have spoken of as director of the 
 Milanese police under the Provisional Government. 
 The system was not sparingly or transiently enforced. 
 On the 11 th of November, Iiadetski issued a decree, in 
 which, after a preamble on the imperial clemency, he 
 calls upon some two hundred families, specified by 
 name, to supply him with two millions of livres (say 
 80,000/.), more than half the sum to be extorted from 
 five of the most illustrious, viz. Visconti, Borromeo, 
 Litta, Pio, and Casati. No fear that hatred of Austria 
 will soon die out in Lombardy ! 
 
REPUBLIC OF VENICE. 143 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 ITALY. 
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF VENICE PROJECTED FEDERATION OF THE 
 
 ITALIAN STATES ROYAL VILLANY IN NAPLES THE WAR 
 
 BETWEEN SICILY AND NAPLES REVOLUTION IN ROME. 
 
 Five months had elapsed since Venice, forsaken by- 
 all her allies, had singly maintained her independence. 
 Within that time her sanguine hopes of French inter- 
 vention were disappointed ; the Sardinian fleet and 
 garrison were withdrawn, in conformity with the terms 
 of the armistice ; the blockade was Dressed more 
 closely, until it was broken by the French «. madron, 
 which then withdrew, and the Austrian fleet reappeared; 
 but being again threatened by that of Sardinia, it re- 
 turned to Trieste, and the blockade was only kept up 
 on the land side. 
 
 The revolt of Venice, like that of Milan, immediately 
 followed the news of the revolution in Vienna, which 
 was published by Count Palfy, the Governor, in the 
 theatre, on the evening of the 1 7th of March. Next 
 morning the people congregated in St. Mark's Place, 
 and effected by force the deliverance of their venerated 
 leaders, Manini and Tommaseo, whose civic virtue had 
 been rewarded by Austria according to her wont. As 
 public fun ctionaries they had dared, in December, 1847, 
 to address memorials to the Austrian Government, 
 praying that it would perform its own promises and 
 observe its own laws. For this offence they were 
 
144 ITALY. 
 
 thrown into prison, from which the} T were released by 
 their countrymen to become, one of them President 
 and the other Minister of the resuscitated Republic. 
 The expulsion of the Austrians was effected at Venice 
 with even more surprising facility than at Milan, 
 Marinowich, the Commander of the Arsenal, was slain 
 in the first outbreak, and Count Zichy, the Military 
 Commander, whom seven-and-twenty years' residence 
 in Venice had made more than half Italian in feeling, 
 withdrew his troops without a blow. The Republic 
 of St. Mark was unanimously proclaimed ; but the 
 Venetians were censured as schismatics by the pre- 
 dominant party, which at that time advocated the 
 scheme for one united kingdom of Upper Italy ; Manini 
 was induced to surrender the government to a Sar- 
 dinian commissary ; Charles Albert lent the city a 
 small sum of money and a garrison of 2000 men, and 
 for the first time in the history of Italy the cross of 
 Savoy superseded the winged lion of the Republic. 
 Upon the defeat of the Sardinian army, however, the 
 people '.iuiurew the conditional allegiance they had 
 plighted to a sovereign who merited neither their 
 respect nor their gratitude, and once more they pro- 
 claimed the independent government of their own 
 worthy political chief, Manini. 
 
 Since the occupation of the mainland by the Aus- 
 trian armies, and of the Adriatic by their cruisers, the 
 commerce of Venice has wholly ceased, and not a 
 florin reaches it from abroad. The average monthly 
 expenditure, estimated in July at 88,000/., has since 
 been augmented by the arrival of multitudes of volun- 
 teers from all parts of Italy, who day by day have 
 flocked to that last rampart of Italian independence. 
 To meet the increased demand on her impoverished 
 exchequer, Venice began by applying to all the Italian 
 towns, and to some foreign ones, for a loan ; subscrip- 
 tions were everywhere opened, but they remained 
 
STEADFAST RESISTANCE OF THE VENETIANS. 145 
 
 almost blank. It was then proposed to pawn some of 
 the magnificent objects of art with which Venice 
 abounds, but the administration sternly withstood every 
 proposal of the kind. " These treasures," they said, 
 " do not belong exclusively to the existing generation ; 
 our forefathers have bequeathed to us in these master- 
 pieces something of their genius and their souls which 
 we must transmit to our children. We must and will 
 defend and save our country without despoiling it." 
 Meanwhile the absolute cessation of all trade and 
 employment demanded the most strenuous efforts to 
 succor the poorer classes. The Venetian capitalists 
 promptly responded to the call. The Government 
 issued bills for four millions of florins, the payment of 
 which was guaranteed by the personal liability of 
 twenty of the wealthiest men in Venice ; and such was 
 the confidence placed in the honor of those generous 
 men, that whilst Venice was attacked by sea and land 
 her paper money passed current at par throughout all 
 Italy. According to a recent calculation, the citizens 
 of Venice have contributed to the ' republic in the 
 course of the year, either in cash or in liabilities, a sum 
 of thirty millions of florins. 
 
 Every besieged city must endure sad hardships, but 
 some such there are of which Venice, from her peculiar 
 position, has a melancholy monopoly. Can the in- 
 habitant of London or Paris form any adequate con- 
 ception of what is implied in the word blockade when 
 said of a city built amidst the waters of the sea, with 
 canals for streets and ponds for gardens, and deriving 
 from abroad all its consumable stores, from the least 
 green thing that grows to the very water for drinking ? 
 Nothing but the patient strength for which the soft 
 Venetian temperament has always been remarkable, 
 could have made it possible to prolong resistance under 
 such circumstances. Yet the resistance was cheerful 
 
 K V 
 
146 ITALY. 
 
 and unanimous ; there was no murmuring or railing, 
 and, above all, there was no talk of surrender. 
 
 The means of defence which Venice possesses are as 
 follows. The least distance from the city to the main- 
 land is two English miles, measured along the railway 
 bridge. The line of shore opposite the city is occupied 
 for a length of sixty Italian miles by thirty-six forts, all 
 in perfect condition, and mounted with fourteen hun- 
 dred pieces of artillery. The duty of guarding the 
 coast is performed by a small garrison of fifteen hun- 
 dred men. They are embarked, in crews of fifteen, on 
 board one hundred gunboats, which are incessantly 
 plying up and down along the shore. On the side of 
 the sea the blockade was in December rendered im- 
 practicable by the presence of six French, sixteen 
 Sardinian, and thirteen Venetian vessels. The land 
 army defending. Veuice consists of nearly twenty 
 thousand men, almost all of them volunteers, — Sicilians, 
 Neapolitans, Tuscans, Romans, Lombards, Tyrolese, 
 Hungarians, and Venetians. Many of the legions are 
 commanded by French officers, and the discipline and 
 good conduct of all are excellent. Not one case of 
 desertion occurred during the last six months. 
 
 There have been several encounters between the 
 Austrians and the Venetians, in which the latter have 
 been very successful. For instance, on the 22d of 
 October, the fort of the Cavallino, occupied by about 
 250 Austrians, with three pieces of cannon, was taken, 
 and the Austrians were pursued until they passed the 
 Prave. On the 27th of October, General Pepe led a 
 sortie of 1500 volunteers against the fortified positions 
 of the Austrians at Mestre and Fusino, whom they 
 defeated, killing and wounding 200, and capturing 
 500. 
 
 As soon as the triumph of the Austrian arms in 
 
MEDIATION. 147 
 
 Lombardy was complete, England hastened to offer, in 
 conjunction with France, the mediation which she had 
 refused when solicited by Austria herself in the spring. 
 The tardy proposal was met 'with contemptuous cold- 
 ness ; it was not absolutely rejected, but so well was 
 the diplomatic art of fencing employed to parry it, that 
 the year was gone before a conference was opened, or 
 before it was even determined whether or not there 
 should be any conference at all. Towards the end of 
 June, Austria had offered to negotiate with the Provi- 
 sional Government of Milan on the basis of the entire 
 independence of Lombardy, conditional on its taking 
 upon itself 100,000,000 florins of the Austrian debt. 
 The Milanese Government could not but reject an ac- 
 commodation from the benefit of which Venice was 
 excluded ; but in December it seemed most unlikely 
 that anything but force of arms would ever again extort 
 such an offer from Austria. 
 
 Meanwhile the armistice between Austria and 
 Sardinia was renewed, and Charles Albert employed 
 the interval in diligently recruiting and reorganizing 
 his forces ; whether it was that he seriously contem- 
 plated another campaign, or that the enemy, impressed 
 by his imposing attitude, might adopt so much the 
 more moderate a tone in the approaching conference. 
 To obtain a favorable peace was, perhaps, the sum of 
 his hopes ; but events were ripening both in his own 
 dominions and in the rest of the Peninsula, wdiich 
 portended far different results. Federation and inde- 
 pendence were become the fixed ideas of the Italian 
 mind, and the governments were forced to bow before 
 them. Democratic ministries were established, and the 
 ordinary heading of their proclamations was, " Viva la 
 Costituente Italiana /" 
 
 The celebrated Abbate Gioberti is the author of the 
 following plan of the Costituente. 
 
 The Italian Constituent Assembly is to prepare a 
 
148 ITALY. 
 
 federal compact, which, while it respects the existence 
 of the different states and their respective forms of 
 government, shall tend to insure the liberty, union, and 
 independence of Italy. All the states are to return an 
 equal number of representatives, and the latter, three 
 hundred in number, are to be elected by the respective 
 chambers of deputies. The Assembly to meet at 
 Rome a month after the approval of the present pro- 
 ject by the three Italian parliaments. The deputies of 
 Lombardy are to be chosen by the. Lombard Consulta, 
 and those of the Venetian provinces by the committees 
 and the assembly of Venice. Those of Modena and 
 Reggio are to be elected by the Sardinian chamber of 
 deputies. The Confederation is to consist of the king- 
 dom of Upper Italy, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the 
 pontifical dominions, the kingdom of Naples and the 
 kingdom of Sicily. The Confederation is to have an 
 army, a fleet, a treasury, and a diplomatic representa- 
 tion abroad. Its central authority is to be composed 
 of a legislative congress and a permanent executive 
 power ; the CongTess to consist of two chambers, in one 
 of which each state is to be equally represented, and in 
 the other the representation is to be proportioned to 
 the population. Both are to be elective. The mem- 
 bers of the first chamber are to be elected by the con- 
 stituted powers of each state, and those of the second 
 by the people. The executive power is to be exercised 
 by a responsible president and a council of ministers 
 equally responsible. The president is appointed for a 
 limited period by the legislative council, and the 
 ministers by the president. The Congress is to 
 deliberate on all matters of general interest for the 
 Confederation ; to interfere in case of a collision be* 
 tween confederate states and foreign countries, or of a 
 mutual difference between confederate states, &c. ; all 
 custom duties on goods passing from one state to 
 another to be abolished, and the foreign tariff is to be 
 
INFAMOUS CONDUCT OF THE KINO OF NAPLES. 149 
 
 based on the principle of free trade. The Confedera- 
 tion proclaims liberty of the press, individual liberty, 
 free municipal institutions, the right of association and 
 of petition, civil, political, and religious equality, &c. 
 
 The Grand Duke of Tuscany expressed his hearty 
 adherence to the design of an Italian Confederation ; 
 Charles Albert acquiesced in it with probably much 
 less cordiality ; the Pope had no longer a voice in the 
 matter ; and the King of Naples was bent upon 
 thwarting it by every means in his power. To that 
 base, cruel, and cowardly monarch belongs the distinc- 
 tion of having committed the most appalling crime that 
 stains the revolutionary records of 1848. 
 
 On the 14th of May, the Deputies assembled to de- 
 liberate on the formula of the oath which was to be 
 taken by the King and the members of the Chambers, 
 in the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore. The Deputies 
 were resolved to swear fidelity to the King and to the 
 Constitution of the 29th of January, " without prejudice 
 to the changes which the Chamber might think proper 
 to introduce into it." This latitude was positively given 
 to the Chambers by the decree which promulgated the 
 constitution. Ferdinand demanded that the oath should 
 be taken without restrictions, and several deputations, 
 which waited on him to entreat that he would consent 
 to the formula adopted by the Deputies, received for 
 answer that his resolution could not be shaken. 
 
 The intentions of the King were then clearly appa- 
 rent, and were well in accordance with the presence at 
 the palace of the infamous Del Carretto. Cambosso, 
 his sinister lieutenant, and his associates,, for some days 
 past had been going through the popular quarters of 
 the city to prepare almost openly the horrible reaction 
 which was to fill the city with ruin and blood. The 
 Deputies and National Guards then resolved on resist- 
 ance, and for the first time Naples beheld barricades 
 erected. At ten o'clock in the morning of the 15trj^ 
 
150 ITALY. 
 
 all the principal streets were completely blocked up, 
 and the city presented the most extraordinary appear- 
 ance. The Royal Swiss troops, the body-guard, in- 
 fantry, cavalry, and artillery, with lighted matches, 
 thronged round the palace, and established themselves 
 on different points. 
 
 The bold demeanor of the Liberal party intimidated 
 Ferdinand, and, as usual with him in all critical mo- 
 ments, the subject of his thoughts was how he might 
 take back by stratagem the concessions which he was 
 read}- to make. At eleven o'clock he made known 
 that he was ready to yield to the wishes of the Depu- 
 ties ; he announced that the troops were about to with- 
 draw, and begged the National Guard to remove the 
 barricades and retire. The character of the King, 
 however, was too well known, and the trap too appa- 
 rent. The National Guard replied, that it would not 
 quit the barricades until the decree had been issued, 
 and the Deputies exhorted them to maintain this reso- 
 iHf on. Things were in this state when an accident 
 brought on the conflict. A National Guard having 
 ''alien down, his musket, which was probably cocked, 
 went off. The National Guards placed behind the 
 barricade considered it was an act of aggression on the 
 part of the Swiss, and fired. The latter returned it, and 
 the engagement, once begun, could not be put a stop to. 
 
 The National Guard of Naples amounted to about 
 10,000 men ; among them were nearly 2000 nobles 
 and 6000 employes* These took no part in the affair, 
 so that* the force of the National Guard was reduced 
 to about 2000 men ; to which number may be added 
 about 500 Calabrians, who were at Naples at the time. 
 This little band performed prodigies of valor. At 
 Sainte Brigitte, the Swiss mounted five times to the as- 
 
 * Persons who held places,,, of different grades, under go- 
 vernment. 
 
MASSACRE IN NAPLES. 151 
 
 sault, and five times they were repulsed. But the 
 small quantity of ammunition possessed by the National 
 Guards was soon exhausted, and the defenders of the 
 barricades retired into the houses, whence a shower of 
 projectiles was hurled on the heads of the troops. The 
 artillery then entered the Largo del Castello, and a 
 heavy fire of grape was poured on the barricades which 
 still held out. The Swiss, who had been joined by the 
 •Royal Guard, pursued the National Guard. The 
 houses to which they had retired were entered, the 
 doors broken open, and women, old men, and children 
 were slaughtered, and in many instances their bodies 
 thrown from the windows. Where a door could not 
 be broken open, the cannon were brought to bear upon 
 it, and the inhabitants fell victims to their involuntary 
 hospitality. Robbery and plunder were added to these 
 indescribable scenes of desolation. The Swiss, who were 
 the first to arrive, laid their hands on the money and 
 all such valuables as they thought worth taking. Then 
 came the Royal Guards, who carried off furniture, 
 linen, and other similar movables ; lastly, the Lazza- 
 roni, to whom the refuse was acceptable. Murder was 
 committed under the slightest pretext, such as a simple 
 political imputation, and frequently from no other in- 
 citement than the pillage of a richly-furnished house. 
 
 In the beginning of the affray the lower orders 
 seemed disposed to side with the National Guard, but 
 being offered by the king and the troops the privilege 
 of pillage, they went over to their side. Unheard-of 
 atrocities were perpetrated by the Lazzaroni acid the 
 troops. In one house w r ere shot a father, mother, and 
 four children. Other victims were dragged alive 
 through the streets to be butchered, struck as they 
 went along and insulted by the police and the soldiers, 
 who compelled them to cry " Viva il Re ! " * When 
 
 * " Long live the King." 
 
152 ITALY. 
 
 they refused they were pricked with the points of bay- 
 onets. The Royal Guard murdered two sons of the 
 Marquis Vassatori in his own palace : the father went 
 stark mad. The emissaries of Del Carretto, and, ac- 
 cording to some accounts, Del Carretto himself, were 
 employed in goading on the rabble to these acts of 
 atrocity. 
 
 The massacre lasted eight hours, and might have 
 continued longer but for the indignant interference of 
 the French Admiral Baudin. The law of nations 
 having been violated by the Neapolitan Government, 
 the admiral informed the king, that if the disorder was 
 not stopped within one hour, he would bring up his 
 fleet from Castel-a-Mare and land 9000 men to defend 
 the rights of humanity and of nations. When all 
 was over the National Guard was suppressed, the Cham- 
 ber of Deputies was dissolved, martial law was pro- 
 claimed, and the white Bourbon flag was substituted 
 for the tricolor. 
 
 Who shall blame the Sicilians if they abhor the 
 yoke of such a king as Ferdinand, and yearn to be 
 quit for ever of his incorrigible race ? 
 
 When Sicily rose against her Bourbon tyrant in 
 1847, and again in January, 1848, she claimed her 
 right to the constitution of 1812, guaranteed by Eng- 
 land, and annulled almost as soon as granted, by the 
 vile, faithless court of Naples. That constitution re- 
 cognised the union of Naples and Sicily ; but the lat- 
 ter, in the intoxication of victory, annulled the union ; 
 Sicily was declared independent, and the crown was 
 offered on the 10th of July to the Duke of Genoa, son 
 of the King of Sardinia. The counsels of Lord Minto, 
 who was then on a political mission in Italy, contri- 
 buted not a little in determining this event. The Sici- 
 lians being about to choose their form of government, 
 he advised them to adopt the monarchical rather than 
 the republican, and to select an Italian prince for their 
 
SICILY AND HER ALLIES. 153 
 
 king ; at the same time he signified, in the name of his 
 government, that it would acknowledge any sovereign 
 whom the Sicilians might choose when he was in actual 
 possession of the throne. The offer made to the Duke . 
 of Genoa was not accepted, for Charles Albert was 
 afraid of involving himself in fresh entanglements ; and 
 the throne of Sicily remained vacant. But the vacancy 
 was never acknowledged by the King of Naples, who 
 always regarded himself as the legitimate sovereign of 
 the island, and prepared to regain his rights by force 
 of arms. 
 
 The Neapolitan expedition set sail on the 29th of Au- 
 gust. It consisted of two frigates and twenty steamers, 
 carrying altogether 14,000 men. On the 31st it an- 
 chored off Reggio, south of Messina, and the news of its 
 arrival reached Palermo the same day, and would seem to 
 have taken the Sicilian government by surprise; not 
 that the preparations in which the King of Naples had 
 been engaged for some months had been a secret for 
 any one ; but the Sicilians had rested secure m the 
 belief that the French and English admirals would in 
 no case allow the Neapolitan vessels to pass out of the 
 Bay of Naples. They did allow them, however ; and, 
 in the plenitude of their courtesy, they even permitted 
 the King's fleet to bombard Messina ; but when that 
 ruthless deed of vengeance had been executed, and not 
 until then, the French and English admirals did inter- 
 fere, and put a stop to all further hostilities. Why did 
 they not do so sooner ? Their intervention would 
 have been no less effectual ; and, if justifiable at all, it 
 was as much so before the bombardment as after it. 
 The only explanation offered for this mystery rests upon 
 the supersubtle diplomatic quibble, that there was no 
 intervention in the ordinary sense of the word in this 
 case, for the armistice " was not imposed on the Nea- 
 politan government," although it is owned that " it was 
 called for in a most pressing manner, and in a way tQ 
 l* 
 
154 ITALY. 
 
 admit of no refusal." The King of Naples did not 
 understand this nice distinction, for he protested vehe- 
 mently against the coercion put upon him ; the Sicilians 
 showed themselves no better adepts at hair-splitting : 
 and we cannot blame them if they generally expressed 
 in very strong terms their disgust at the paltering con- 
 duct of their two allies by which they had been so 
 disastrously beguiled. 
 
 The unexpected arrival of the Neapolitan armament 
 before Messina, instead of striking terror into the Sici- 
 lians, stirred all their energies into convulsive activity, 
 and excited to the highest degree their hatred of Naples, 
 and all that belonged to it. The Minister for Foreign 
 Affairs said to the assembled parliament, on laying be- 
 fore it his despatches from Messina, " Gentlemen, we 
 bring you good news." The whole house, members, 
 strangers and all, instantly responded with shouts of 
 joy ; and then the Chamber, with a dignity worthy of 
 the Roman senate, passed disdainfully to the order 
 of the day. At night Palermo was brilliantly illumi- 
 nated, and the people went about hurrahing for the 
 good news, singing warlike and patriotic songs, and 
 heaping curses and abuses on. King Bomba (one 
 of their countless nicknames for Ferdinand). The 
 Government instantly put in vigorous operation the 
 measures most necessary for the defence of the country. 
 The National Guard had been organized and partially 
 armed in the course of the summer ; it was now mobi- 
 lized, that is, made liable to serve in any part of the 
 island ; and it was decreed that lists should be opened 
 for the enrolment of volunteers, and that seven camps 
 should be formed at Milazzo, Taormina, Catania, Syra- 
 cuse, Girgenti, Trapani, and Palermo. The Minister 
 of War was appointed commander-in-chief; an extra- 
 ordinary commission was nominated to go into the 
 provinces and summon the people to arms ; all the 
 horses and mules were put in requisition ; and, as a 
 
BOMBARDMENT OF MESSINA. 155 
 
 temporary expedient for defraying the first expenses, a 
 loan was to be raised on the plate of the churches and 
 convents. 
 
 Meanwhile the telegraph announced the bombard- 
 ment of Messina. Having been repulsed with con- 
 siderable loss in a first attempt to land at Mare Grosso, 
 the Neapolitans kept up a steady fire for four days, not 
 on the forts occupied by the Messinese, but on the 
 town itself; and bombs and rockets were discharged 
 upon it from the citadel, the only point which had 
 remained in the power of the King of Naples. Mes- 
 sina is open towards the sea ; the citizens fought with 
 great bravery, but they were ill-armed and ill-com- 
 manded, and the regular garrison was weak ; so that, 
 as the Neapolitan army was four times more numerous, 
 it might have taken the city at the point of the 
 bayonet without any very extraordinary effort. The 
 four days' bombardment, therefore, was an act of wilful, 
 brutal cruelty, opposed to all the laws of civilized war- 
 fare. When the Neapolitans landed on the beach of 
 La Oontessa, the suburb of that name, all the houses 
 along the road from the sea to the gates of Messina, 
 and a large portion of the beautiful city itself, had 
 ceased to exist. A few Messinese sold their lives 
 dearly behind the smoking ruins of their homes ; 5000 
 families had fled to the mountains, and thousands of 
 women, children, and wounded, sought protection in 
 the three French and English vessels* in the roads. It 
 is not surprising that after such inhuman and disloyal 
 treatment, the Messinese should have cruelly retaliated 
 upon the prisoners who fell into their hands : it is not 
 true, however, that they roasted and ate them, as the 
 Neapolitan journals alleged. At any rate, the con- 
 querors were not backward in making reprisals upon 
 the defenceless inhabitants of the sacked city. 
 
 A victory so dearly won was enough to make 
 General Filangieri think seriously of the resistance he 
 
156 ITALY. 
 
 was likely to encounter in the prosecution of his expe- 
 dition : he, therefore, issued a proclamation offering a 
 general amnesty, suspension of the tax on grist, and 
 the erection of Messina into a free port. These con- 
 cessions were intended as preliminaries to his march on 
 Catania and Syracuse ; but throughout all Sicily an 
 explosion of rage had ensued upon the news of the 
 catastrophe that had befallen Messina. Lanzerotte, the 
 commandant of Syracuse, being suspected of cowardice 
 or treachery, was seized by the populace and torn to 
 pieces ; and the same fate would infallibly have 
 happened to any man who talked of submission. In 
 Palermo, the Government durst not, if it would, have 
 shown the least hesitation ; the word treachery, once 
 uttered amongst the people, would have been a death 
 sentence for the most popular leaders. There was no 
 alternative but to proclaim war to the death, and to 
 push forward with the utmost energy the preparations for 
 a desperate resistance. The Government being short 
 of funds, provisionally suspended the payment of the 
 notes called bank policies, a measure which painfully 
 affected a great number of the humbler classes, and 
 which would, on any other occasion, have produced 
 the worst effects. Vito d'Ondes Reggio, the Minister 
 of the Interior, left Palermo to * arrange a line of de- 
 fence in the eastern part of the island ; and 20,000 
 pikes were prepared to supply the want of muskets. 
 The peasants flo<*ked from all parts of the country to 
 Palermo; and from the mountains of Alcamo and 
 Corleone came 8000 swarthy-visaged descendants of 
 the Moors, in their picturesque garbs, each man with a 
 carbine slung over his stout shoulder. 
 
 But beneath this bold and martial bearing lurked 
 many serious anxieties. The Government, even whilst 
 it declared that the Sicilian nation would perish to the 
 last man rather than submit or enter into any com- 
 promise with Naples, clearly foresaw that the ruin of 
 
ARMISTICE BETWEEN NAPLES AND SICILY. 157 
 
 all the ports in the island was inevitable, and that the 
 only hope of resisting oppression lay in abandoning 
 the whole seaboard, and retiring into the mountains. 
 The people loudly vented their indignation against the 
 inertness of their two allies, and the whole press echoed 
 the popular cry ; but a favorable change was produced 
 in the public mind by the arrival of the French packet 
 Hellespont, and the English corvette Sid on, the former 
 freighted with 2000 muskets and 400 barrels of pow- 
 der, consigned to the Sicilian Government, and the latter 
 bringing news of an agreement for an armistice provi- 
 sionally concluded on the 11th of September, between 
 Captain Nonay of the French ship Hercule and Captain 
 Robb of her Majesty's ship Gladiator, on the one part, 
 and General Filangieri on the other. 
 
 Protected by the English and French fleets, the 
 armistice was respected by both belligerents, and the 
 island enjoyed perfect tranquillity during the remainder 
 of the year. Meanwhile the Sicilians were prevailed 
 on by their friends to abate something of their preten- 
 sions, and consent to treat with Naples for a settlement 
 of their quarrel on the basis of the Constitution of 
 1812. The rights of his crown being no longer con- 
 tested, King Ferdinand accepted, but with undisguised 
 repugnance, the mediation of France and England. 
 The negotiations proceeded very slowly, and just be- 
 fore the close of the year they took a sudden and 
 inauspicious turn. The King, who had apparently 
 acquiesced in most of the propositions submitted to 
 him by the representatives of the mediating powers, 
 took his stand very decidedly against the proposed 
 establishment of a Sicilian army, and insisted on pre- 
 serving the existing amalgamation of the Neapolitan 
 and Sicilian forces. At the same time he transferred 
 the conduct of the negotiations from his foreign minis- 
 ter to his military commander ; announced that Spain, 
 whose reigning family has a reversionary interest in the 
 
158 ITALY. 
 
 Neapolitan succession, demanded to take part in the 
 intervention ; and that he had also invited the co-ope- 
 ration of Russia and Austria as parties to the treaties 
 of 1815. 
 
 The whole question was thus reopened, and the 
 prospect of an amicable settlement became- more doubt- 
 ful than ever. 
 
 The changes of ministry in Sardinia and Tuscany 
 were effected by violence and insurrection, but cost no 
 bloodshed. In Rome the new policy was initiated by 
 the murder of the premier, Count Rossi. The deed 
 appears to have been unpremeditated ; though prompted 
 by political feeling, it was not the act of a party, but of 
 an individual. Unfortunately for the honor of the 
 Romans, there were too many among them who made 
 themselves accessories after the fact, by their ostenta- 
 tious applause of the murderer. Groups - of mingled 
 soldiers and citizens, with lighted torches, were heard 
 singing in chorus along the streets : — 
 
 " Benedetto quella mano 
 Che il tiranno pugnato" 
 
 [Blessed that hand which smote the tyrant] ; a trans- 
 lation of the Greek ditty about Harmodius and Aristo- 
 giton. 
 
 On the 1 5th of November, the Chamber of Deputies 
 was to open at one o'clock, and a large crowd was 
 consequently assembled round the gateway of the Pa- 
 lazzo della Cancellaria. When Rossi appeared they 
 hissed and hooted ; the haughty count confronted them 
 with an expression of scorn and contempt, whereupon 
 a man rushed forward and plunged a dagger in his 
 neck. The dying man was taken up to the rooms 
 occupied by Cardinal Guzzoli, and in five minutes 
 expired. 
 
 M. Rossi will be better remembered for his untimely 
 
CHARACTER OF COUNT ROSSI. 159 
 
 death than for any public achievements of his political 
 career, though he exercised a commanding influence 
 over many of the more conspicuous actors in the history 
 of the last forty years. Born at Carrara, in 1*787, he 
 became an advocate and professor of laws in the Uni- 
 versity of Bologna as early as 1809. In 1815 he acted 
 as civil commissioner during the occupation of the Le- 
 gations by Murat, and was in consequence proscribed. 
 He escaped to Geneva, where the rights of a citizen 
 were conferred on him in time to rescue him from the 
 persecution of the Austrian Government. He occupied 
 for nearly twenty years the chair of Roman Law in the 
 Academy of Geneva, until he was ejected from his 
 professorship, along with his six colleagues, by the 
 present government of that republic. At the invitation 
 of M. Guizot, he removed to Paris, where a chair of 
 Constitutional Law was at once placed at his disposal ; 
 and upon his naturalization in France he rose to fill 
 several important offices, and was eventually called to 
 the Chamber of Peers. Although he never held a 
 ministerial office in France, he lived in the closest inti- 
 macy with the Government, and enjoyed the unreserved 
 confidence of the King. This circumstance caused him 
 to be selected for the important post of French ambas- 
 sador at Rome ; and after an absence of thirty years he 
 returned to his native country as the plenipotentiary of 
 a foreign sovereign. In that capacity he probably Con- 
 tributed in a remarkable degree to place Pio Nono on 
 the papal throne. 
 
 From this biographical sketch, borrowed with some 
 compression from a very laudatory article in " The 
 Times," it may easily be inferred that Rossi was not 
 the man whose ministry could inspire the Roman 
 people with any degree of confidence. The confiden- 
 tial friend and counsellor of Guizot and Louis Philippe 
 could not be a hearty friend of popular power ; he was 
 a bureaucrat of their school, and his ability and auda- 
 
160 ITALY. 
 
 city only rendered him the more offensive to the nation, 
 as an incarnation of the reactionary spirit, and the more 
 dangerous to the sovereign who employed him. The 
 unfortunate man was greedy of unpopularity, and his 
 demeanor was insufferably haughty; for example, — 
 Prince Barberini having been named member of a com- 
 mission created by Rossi, conceived himself obliged to 
 go and thank him for it. He was no sooner announced 
 from the antechamber than the minister said, " Give 
 me the Gazette," and began to read it. After some 
 time the servant returned to inform him that Prince 
 Barberini wished to speak with him. " I am now 
 reading the Gazette," replied he ; " when I have finished 
 the prince may enter." The prince was kept in the 
 antechamber accordingly, and an hour passed before 
 he obtained an audience. 
 
 The death of Rossi was the signal for an insurrection 
 for which Rome was already predisposed. 
 
 At half-past ten a.m. on the 16th, a gathering began 
 in the great Piazza del Popolo, and symptoms of a me- 
 nacing character were perceptible in the leading streets. 
 The Civic Guards and troops of the line, in fragmentary 
 sections, mingled with the people ; and the Carabineers, 
 whose uniform had hitherto been invariably arrayed 
 against the populace, were now for the first time seen 
 to fraternize with the mob. From the terrace of the 
 Pincian Hill the spectator could count nearly 20,000 
 Romans, in threatening groups, and mostly armed. 
 Printed papers were handed eagerly about, all having 
 the same purport, and containing the following " Fun- 
 damental Points : ] . Promulgation and full adoption 
 of Italian nationality. 2. Convocation of a Constituent 
 Assembly and realization of the Federal Pact. 3. Re- 
 alization of the vote for the war of independence given 
 in the Chamber of Deputies. 4. Adoption, in its inte- 
 grity, of the Programme Mamiani, 5th June. 5. 
 Ministers who have public confidence — Mamiani, Ster- 
 
INSURRECTION IN ROME. 161 
 
 bini, Cambello, Saliceti, Fusconi, Lunati, Sereni, Gal- 
 letti." 
 
 Their ostensible object was to proceed to the Cham- 
 ber of Deputies and present these five points in a con- 
 stitutional manner. But the chiefs, finding themselves 
 in such unlooked-for force of numbers* and many of the 
 Deputies being found mixed up with the crowd, the 
 cry was raised to march to the Pope's palace. It was 
 now one o'clock. The members of the Chamber pre- 
 sented themselves as the mouthpiece of the multitude, 
 and transmitted the five points to the Sovereign. In 
 about ten minutes, the President of the late Ministerial 
 Council, Cardinal Soglia, came forth from the private 
 apartment, and informed the deputation that his Holi- 
 ness would reflect on the subject and take it into his 
 best consideration. This message was deemed unsa- 
 tisfactory, and a personal audience was insisted on fo* 
 the deputation. An audience was granted ; Galletti, 
 the former Police Minister (and strange to say for such 
 a functionary, the most popular man in Rome) appeared 
 on the balcony, and stated, that the Pope u would not 
 brook dictation." Matters grew critical. The Swiss 
 Guard was resolute, but it numbered no more than 
 some two dozen men : escape or defence was equally 
 difficult. Suddenly, one of the advanced sentinels was 
 seized by the mob, and disarmed. The Guard in- 
 stantly flung back, closed, and barred the palace-gates, 
 and presented then arms at the mass of the besiegers. 
 The die was now cast. From the back streets men 
 emerged, bearing aloft long ladders wherewith to scale 
 the pontifical abode ; carts and wagons were dragged 
 up and ranged within musket-shot of the windows, to 
 protect the assailants in their determined attack on the 
 palace ; the cry was, " To arms ! To arms !" and mus- 
 .ketry began to bristle in the approaches from every 
 direction. Fagots were produced and piled up against 
 one of the condemned gates of the building, to which 
 
162 ITALY. 
 
 the mob was in the act of setting fire, when a brisk 
 discharge of firelocks scattered the besiegers in that 
 quarter. 
 
 The drums were now beating throughout the city, 
 and groups of regular troops and carabineers reinforced 
 the assailants. Random shots were aimed at the 
 windows and responded to. The outposts, one after 
 another, were taken by the people, the garrison within 
 being too scanty to man the outworks. The belfry of 
 St. Carlino, which commands the palace, was occupied. 
 From behind the equestrian statues of Castor and 
 Pollux a group of sharpshooters plied their rifles; and 
 at about four o'clock, Monsignor Palma, private secre- 
 tary to his Holiness, was killed by a bullet. Two six- 
 pounders were drawn up and pointed at the gates ; but 
 a truce was demanded, and a deputation again entered 
 tjie palace bearing " the people's ultimatum," which was 
 a simple repetition of the "fundamental points" cited 
 above. If those terms were not granted, the palace 
 was to be stormed, and every soul in it put to the 
 sword, " with the sole exception of his Holiness himself." 
 Pius no longer hesitated, but sent for Galletti, with 
 whom he remained in conference from six .till nearly 
 seven, when the following new Ministry was formally 
 proclaimed to the people : — Foreign Affairs, Mamiani ; 
 Home and Police, Galletti ; Finance, Lunati ; Com- 
 merce and Public Works, Sterbini ; War Minister, 
 Cambello; Public Instruction and President of the 
 Council, Rosmim. The last name is the only one 
 which the Pope had selected himself: the others were 
 all named by the people. Sterbini is the leading writer 
 in the " Contemporaneo." The Abbe Count Rosmini 
 declined the task proposed to him by the Pope's 
 selection, and was replaced by Monsignor Carlo Muz- 
 zarelli, a popular and enlightened prelato. 
 
 On receiving intelligence of these events, the English 
 Admiral sent a steamer to Civita Vecchia to receive 
 
the pope's flight. 163 
 
 the Pope, should he be a fugitive ; and the French 
 Government hastily despatched three steam frigates, 
 with a force of 3500 men, to protect the Pontiff. He 
 does not appear, however, to have been exposed to any 
 personal danger ; but being resolved not to give even 
 the implied sanction of his presence to the ministry 
 imposed upon him by the populace, he committed the 
 fatal imprudence of quitting his dominions as a fugitive. 
 His flight was the signal for the dispersion of his cardi- 
 nals. The veteran, Lambruschini, escaped in the 
 uniform of a dragoon ; whilst Pius evaded in the less 
 appropriate guise of a servant to the Bavarian ambas- 
 sador, and, crossing the frontier, arrived at Gaeta, 
 where the King of Naples received him with worship- 
 ful homage. 
 
 Deputations were sent by the Roman ministry to 
 solicit the Pope's return ; but they were not even 
 allowed to cross the Neapolitan frontier. As the Pontiff 
 persisted in declaring the ministry to be illegal, and all 
 its acts null and void, an act was passed by both 
 Chambers, provisionally depriving the Pope of temporal 
 power, and decreeing the election of a " Provisional 
 Supreme Junta," for the purpose of carrying on the 
 government. The act states, that " The Commission 
 shall discontinue its functions on the return of the 
 Sovereign Pontiff, or when he shall himself appoint, 
 according to constitutional forms, a substitute of his 
 own selection." Neither of these conditions being ful- 
 filled, an act was passed, at the instance of the Junta, 
 and in compliance with the demands of the people, 
 convoking a Constituent Assembly for the Roman 
 States. The Chambers were then dissolved on the 
 29 th of December. 
 
 • At sunset that evening, the Castle of St. Angelo, by 
 the consecutive discharge of 101 great guns, announced 
 to this metropolis and the world in general, that the 
 dynasty which had reigned over Rome for 1048 years 
 
164 ITALY. 
 
 had come to a close, and a new government was to be 
 called into being by the mandate of the whole population 
 assembled in a constituent representative body by uni- 
 versal suffrage. The great bell of the Capitol, which only 
 tolls for the death of a Pope, pealed solemnly. It was 
 exactly on the 24th November (the fatal night of the 
 flight of Pio Nono), that, in the year of our Lord 800, 
 Charlemagne arrived in Rome to be crowned on 
 Christmas day of that year by Leo III., and to institute 
 and formally corroborate the donation of Pepin by the 
 erection of the Papal sovereignty. 
 
GERMANY. 165 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 GERMANY. 
 
 ALL THE STATES REVOLUTIONIZED THE CENTRAL PARLIAMENT 
 
 OF GERMANY CREATED — INSTALLATION OF THE REGENCY. 
 
 The shock of the February revolution threw all 
 Germany into commotion, and although it awoke 
 there but little imitative sympathy with France, it 
 yet gave an irresistible impulse to the long-slighted 
 claims of the German people. The time was now 
 come when the promises made by the German sove- 
 reigns, in the season of their distress, could no longer 
 be evaded. The German people asked for no more. 
 The chief points they insisted on were, — A new civil 
 and criminal code for all Germany, ratifying, among 
 other things, freedom of the press ; trial by jury, and 
 publicity in all judicial proceedings ; representative 
 government in the several States, with the right of 
 voting taxes vested in the people alone ; civic equal- 
 ity without distinction of creed ; and lastly, that the 
 people, as well as the princes, should be represented in 
 the Council of the German Confederation. These de- 
 mands were the very same which had been constantly 
 preferred by the Liberal party for three-and-thirty 
 years, and rejected and punished by the princes, with 
 more or less despotic harshness : they were now ex- 
 torted, with more or less violence, in the space of 
 three weeks, from every sovereign in Germany. The 
 $rst act of submission was made by the King of 
 
166 GERMANY. 
 
 Wurtemberg, on the 3d of March, and the example 
 was followed by his brother sovereigns in rapid suc- 
 cession ; those of Bavaria and Hesse Darmstadt abdi- 
 cated, after they had complied with the demands of 
 their subjects. On the 13th the old system perished 
 in its metropolis, Vienna, after a street tumult (for it 
 was not a fight) of three or four hours ; and on the 
 18th the new order of things was established in 
 Berlin, and consecrated by a lavish and gratuitous 
 outpouring of blood. 
 
 The Kins: of Saxonv insisted on retaining the Cen- 
 to . o 
 
 sorship of the press, and would not hear of any " in- 
 sensate projects " for the security of his subjects' 
 rights. His subjects, however, persisted in their de- 
 mands ; the King was " moved to tears," but not to 
 compliance ; on the contrary, he called out his troops, 
 but they refused to act against the people, and the 
 King was constrained to grant everything. 
 
 King Ernest of Hanover, of course, began by re- 
 fusing all concessions. When farther pressed, he 
 talked of abdicating ; but finding his beloved Hano- 
 verians quite unmoved by that threat, he resigned 
 himself to his fate, and even submitted to the mortifi- 
 cation of receiving Sttibe as one of his ministers — a 
 man who had spent many years in prison for his re- 
 sistance to King Ernest's illegal and tyrannical acts. 
 
 A dramatic scene, recorded in a letter from Olden- 
 burg, is curious and significant. A deputation, headed 
 by Baron von Thanne, one of the wealthiest landed 
 proprietors in the duchy, waited on the Grand Duke 
 on the 10 th of March, with a petition for a represent- 
 ative government, and other constitutional grants. 
 The Baron made a speech, in which he expounded 
 the object of the petition in very forcible terms. The 
 Duke, unaccustomed to such language, interrupted 
 the speaker, saying, " Sir, do you mean to threaten 
 me ?" " Such is not my intention, prince L" replied 
 
REVOLUTIONS OF MARCH. VIENNA. 167 
 
 Von Thanne ; " we merely express wishes, but they 
 are the unanimous wishes of the people." " You de- 
 mand a constitution," observed the Duke : " that is 
 a very difficult matter, requiring much time and long 
 meditation ; and, moreover, at a moment like this, we 
 should not be in too great a hurry." " Allow me," 
 said Von Thanne, " to remind your highness, that you 
 made me precisely the same reply seventeen years ago, 
 in 1830, when I had the honor to claim in the name 
 of the people a similar concession !" 
 
 The King of Bavaria's abdication ought, for the ho- 
 nor of royalty, to have taken place sooner. On the 
 19th of February very serious riots, threatening to end 
 in the King's deposition, were caused in Munich 
 by one of the insolent freaks of Louis's mistress, Lola 
 Montez, whom he had created Countess of Lansfeldt. 
 Lola was obliged to quit the city. Having returned 
 to it on the 9th of March, she was again removed by 
 the police, and the King was compelled to annul the 
 letters of naturalization he had conferred on her, and 
 with them her right to the estate from which she de- 
 rived her title. But the sacrifice was too painful to 
 the infatuated old monarch : and his abdication fol- 
 lowed within a week after the decree extorted from 
 him against his fascinating mistress. 
 
 The revolution in Vienna began on the occasion 
 of the opening of the Diet for Lower Austria. The 
 business of the day had not proceeded more than 
 half an hour, when it was interrupted by a mass of 
 people, who forced their way into the hall, clamoring 
 for reform. Count Montecuculi, marshal of the Diet, 
 immediately went to the palace, followed by a crowd 
 of people, to present a petition to the Emperor, pray- 
 ing the same reforms as had been granted in other 
 parts of Germany. The Archduke Ludwig, chief of 
 the Home Department, informed the Count that there 
 was no disposition to make concessions. A cabinet 
 
168 GERMANY. 
 
 council, however, was summoned, and the Marshal of 
 the Diet and those who accompanied him waited 
 in vain for its determination, from twelve to four 
 o'clock. The people became exasperated by this de- 
 lay ; the students harangued them, the tumult con- 
 tinually increased. Suddenly the troops appeared and 
 fired upon the unarmed multitude, killing and wound- 
 ing a great number. Four pieces of cannon were 
 planted on St. Stephen's Platz, and the gunners stood 
 by them with lighted matches. Meanwhile the alarum- 
 drum was beaten ; the Burgher Guard appeared 
 in arms, and were received by the populace with loud 
 acclamations ; but all further conflict was prevented 
 by the announcement that Prince Metternich had re- 
 signed, that the Emperor had acceded to the popu- 
 lar demands, and had confided the city to the keeping 
 of the students and the burghers. A new ministry 
 was formed under the Presidency of Count Kolow- 
 rath, and various measures of grace were announced 
 in rapid succession. An amnesty was declared in fa- 
 vor of all political prisoners in Galicia and the Lorn- 
 bardo-Venetian kingdom. One hundred and fifty 
 Polish and Italian prisoners were dismissed from the 
 fortress of Spielberg, infamous in the annals of Aus- 
 trian despotism. The Secret Court of Police was 
 abolished, and a letter was published from the minis- 
 ter, Baron Pillersdorf, to the police officers of all the 
 Austrian provinces, in which he tells them that a great 
 many of their former functions are now illegal. They 
 are forbidden to. employ spies, " since the free press 
 will not fail to reveal dangerous conspiracies and plots, 
 if any exist." Liberty of the person and a kind of 
 habeas corpus are officially proclaimed in this letter. 
 
 The constitution proclaimed on the 25th of April 
 completed the first stage of the Austrian Revolution. 
 According to this scheme, afterwards abrogated by 
 another revolutionary movement, the Imperial Parlia- 
 
REVOLUTIONS OF MARCH. BERLIN. 169 
 
 • 
 
 ment was to consist of two houses. The Upper House 
 was to comprise about two hundred members, one-fifth 
 of whom were to be nominated by the Emperor. The 
 heads of princely houses were to have seats in this 
 assembly; and the rest of its members were to be 
 elected by landed proprietors paying 1000 florins and 
 upwards of annual taxes. The Lower House was to be 
 constituted on the broadest democratic basis. Every 
 man was to have a vote and be eligible as a representa- 
 tive. The number of members was to be about four 
 hundred. 
 
 The first steps of Prussia in the way of reform were 
 made unnecessarily painful, through the vacillation of 
 her grandiloquent and weak-souled monarch. On the 
 6th of March he closed the sittings of the modern- 
 antique Diet he had called into existence the year 
 before, and he promised that it should thenceforth meet 
 periodically ; as if such an institution was sufficient for 
 the political wants of the Prussian people ! Meanwhile 
 the citizens of every town in the Rhenish provinces had 
 broken out with cries for the largest reforms. Their 
 demands -were echoed by Breslau, Konigsburg, and 
 Berlin. A great open-air meeting, held on the 13th 
 of March in the capital, to petition for reform, ended in 
 a tumult, in which the troops acted with great violence. 
 For nearly a week Berlin was a continued scene of dire 
 disorder. On the 15th, though the people offered little 
 more than passive resistance, ten persons were killed 
 and upwards of a hundred were wounded by the mili- 
 tary. While such was the state of the capital, sangui- 
 nary riots were taking place also in Breslau and Konigs- 
 burg. On the morning of the 18th, a deputation 
 arrived in Berlin from Cologne, and at once waited on 
 the King and presented a petition for reform. Frederick 
 William having promised to accede to their demands, 
 they replied, " We have been so often deceived and put 
 off, that we cannot wait any longer ; we must insist on 
 8 
 
170 GERMANY. 
 
 a proclamation being issued at once, or your majesty 
 will cease to reign over the Rhenish provinces." The 
 King was much hurt, but after some parley submitted. 
 Threatened, on the one hand, with the loss of a part of 
 his dominions ; on the other hand flattered by the 
 prospect of an Imperial crown suddenly dawning upon 
 him, he forthwith published a proclamation of which 
 we subjoin the most important portion : — 
 
 " We, Frederick William, by the grace of God, <fec. 
 When, on the 14th instant, we convoked our faithful 
 States for the 27th of April next, to determine with 
 them on the measures for the regeneration of Germany, 
 which we wished to propose to our allies of the Ger- 
 manic Confederation, and which are so necessary for 
 Prussia, we could not suppose what great events were 
 at the same moment occurring in Vienna, to facilitate 
 essentially, on the one hand, the execution of our pro- 
 jects, and, on the other, to render a hastening of their 
 execution indispensable. Now, in consequence of these 
 important events, we feel bound to declare before all 
 things, not only in presence of Prussia, but in presence 
 of Germany (if such be the will of God), and before the 
 whole united nation, what propositions we have resolved 
 to make to our German confederates. Above all, we 
 demand that Germany be transformed from a Confede- 
 ration of States into a Federal State. We acknowledge 
 that this plan presupposes a re-organization of the 
 federal constitution, which cannot be carried into exe- 
 cution except by a union of princes with the people, 
 and that consequently a temporary federal representa- 
 tion must be formed out of the Chambers of all the 
 German States and convoked immediately. We admit 
 that such a federal representation imperatively demands 
 constitutional institutions in all German States, in order 
 that the members of that representation may sit beside 
 each other on terms of equality. We demand a general 
 military system of defence for Germany, and we will 
 
REVOLUTIONS OF MARCH. BERLIN. 171 
 
 endeavor to form it after that model under which our 
 Prussian armies reaped such unfading laurels in the 
 liberation war. We demand that the German federal 
 army be assembled under one single federal banner, 
 and we hope to see a federal commander-in-chief at its 
 head. We demand a German federal flag ; and we 
 expect that, at a period not far remote, a German fleet 
 will cause the German name to be respected both on 
 neighboring and far-distant seas. We demand a Ger- 
 man federal tribunal for the settlement of all political 
 differences between princes and their States, as well as 
 those arising between the different German Govern- 
 ments. We demand a common law of settlement for 
 all Germany, and an entire right for all Germans to 
 change their abode in every part of our German father- 
 land. 
 
 " We demand that, in future, no barriers of custom- 
 houses shall impede traffic upon German soil, and 
 cripple the industry of its inhabitants. We demand, 
 therefore, a general German union of customs (Zollve- 
 rein), in which the same weights and measures, the 
 same coinage, and the same German laws of commerce, 
 will soon draw closer and closer the bond of material 
 union. We propose the liberty of the press throughout 
 Germany, with the same general guarantees against its 
 abuse." 
 
 The last paragraph fixes the convocation of the 
 United Diet for the 2d of April. 
 
 The first thought that will occur to most men on 
 reading this document will be, — Why was it delayed 
 so long ? Is it possible that an hour can have pos- 
 sessed the mind of the royal writer with projects so 
 vast as are here suggested, and with convictions so 
 strong as seem implied in every line of the proclama- 
 tion ? Be that as it may, the delight with which the 
 people of Berlin received their King's manifesto was 
 unbounded ; an immense crowd, comprising persons 
 
172 GERMANY. 
 
 of all classes, repaired to the palace to express their 
 gratitude. At two o'clock his majesty appeared at a 
 window, and was received with tremendous cheers. 
 Unfortunately, two regiments of dragoons, stationed in 
 the inner court of the palace, on hearing the shouts, 
 supposed that the populace were making an attack ; 
 defiling, therefore, at a slow pace through the gateway, 
 they formed in line, and began to force the people 
 back by bearing on the mass with the chests of their 
 horses. At thi.s moment two shots were fired from a 
 body of infantry ; the discharge was accidental, and no 
 one was wounded, but the consequences were not the 
 less disastrous. The people, imagining that a most 
 treacherous design had been formed to massacre them, 
 immediately rushed to arms. Barricades were thrown 
 up in every street, and riflemen took post at windows 
 and on house-tops, whence they fired upon the soldiery. 
 The latter were by no means reluctant to engage in 
 the fray ; on the contrary, they were animated by the 
 scorn "and hatred which the garrison of Berlin has 
 always professed for the bourgeoisie, and they were 
 further incensed by what they considered the unfair 
 fighting of their opponents. - They looked on the 
 fighters from the windows and house-tops as assassins, 
 and gave them no quarter ; several corner-houses 
 from which the firing was particularly sharp, were 
 taken, and every one within was put to death. 
 Twelve were thus killed in a house in the Fre- 
 dericks strasse, among them a young Pole, who 
 frantically begged the lieutenant to spare his life ; but 
 it was impossible to control the rage of the soldiers : in 
 another house, a cafe, eight men were bayoneted in 
 the billiard-room. The people, on the other hand, 
 fought with no less valor and determination, and for 
 nearly fifteen hours the fight raged with undiminished 
 fury. The firing, which began soon after two p. m. on 
 the 18th, ceased at five in the morning of the 19th, 
 
REVOLUTIONS OF MARCH. BERLIN. 173 
 
 the King voluntarily desisting from the contest without 
 having been actually defeated. He felt, no doubt, that 
 even a victory won after a further continuance of so 
 horrid a strife, might be fatal to his tenure of the 
 crown. 
 
 At seven o'clock on the morning of the 19th, there 
 was published an address to the inhabitants of Berlin 
 by the King, assuring them that the conflict between 
 the people and the soldiery was purely the result of an 
 unfortunate misunderstanding, and entreating mutual 
 forgiveness and oblivion of the past on both sides. 
 The good-natured Berliners responded with alacrity to 
 this appeal, and again they thronged to the palace to 
 ratify the compact proposed to them by their King. 
 At eleven o'clock Frederick William appeared on a 
 balcony, and was received with a cordiality that was 
 certainly surprising under such circumstances ; he 
 afterwards went down into the square, declared his 
 consent to the arming of the people, confided himself 
 to their safeguard, and as a procession passed him 
 bearing the bodies of some of the dead and wounded, 
 he uncovered his head, and uttered words of the deep- 
 est regret and respect for the fallen. A general 
 amnesty was announced ; the military were sent out 
 of the town ; orders were given for the immediate 
 formation of a Burgher Guard, in which the students 
 of the university were to be incorporated ; and a new 
 ministry of a very liberal character was appointed, 
 including Dr. Bornemann and Dr. Camphausen, repre- 
 sentatives of the middle class, whose talents and elo- 
 quence had been conspicuous in the Diet of the pre- 
 ceding year. 
 
 To the honor of the Berliners it deserves to be 
 recorded, that from the moment the fight had ceased 
 they exhibited no spirit of revenge ; they even praised 
 the bravery of the troops, and cheered them as they 
 left the town with flying colors and the music of their 
 
174 GERMANY. 
 
 military bands. Even in the heat of the conflict but 
 few acts of wilful injury to private property were com- 
 mitted. The Royal Foundry and the Artillery barracks 
 were reduced to ashes ; the furniture of Major Preiss, 
 who was believed to have given orders to tire on the 
 unoffending people, was burned, and the house of the 
 Director of Taxes, and the shop of a glover who had 
 given up some Polish students to the soldiers, were 
 both pillaged. No other acts of violence of this kind 
 were committed, and the words, " Respect for the pro- 
 perty of the citizens," were everywhere written by the 
 insurgents themselves on the doors of the houses and 
 shops. The popular feeling was very strong against 
 the Prince of Prussia, and his palace would inevitably 
 have been demolished, had it not been protected by 
 the talismanic inscription, " National Property." The 
 Prince was believed, — we know not on what evidence, 
 — to have counselled the King against making any 
 concessions to the wishes of the nation, and to have 
 made use of very virulent expressions against the 
 people whilst the conflict was pending. To allay the 
 irritation caused by the Prince's presence, it was re- 
 solved that he should quit Prussia with all speed, 
 under pretext of a secret mission to the Queen of. 
 England.* 
 
 The number of those who fell in the deplorable conflict 
 
 * As in Paris, so also in Berlin, comic incidents were not 
 wanting to vary the horrors of a day and night of slaughter. 
 An English writer says : " In one of the barricades carried and 
 cleared away by the troops, the kernel of the mass of beams, 
 casks, furniture, and paling flung hastily together, was found 
 to be a cab with the unfortunate 'fare' still in it. It had 
 been stopped and covered up before he could get out. As soon 
 as it was dragged forth, he put his head to the window and 
 politely begged the door might be opened, as calmly as if he 
 had just driven up in the ordinary course of things. He will, 
 doubtless, figure in Berlin history as an Englishman, for we 
 have a universal reputation for taking things coolly." 
 
REVOLUTIONS OF MARCH. BERLIN. 175 
 
 of tlie 18th of March was very considerable, but much, 
 less than at first it was made to appear by various cir- 
 cumstantial reports, put forth with great pretensions to 
 accuracy. On the popular side the slain may have 
 been about 200, of whom 187 received a public funeral ; 
 as to the wounded, we have not been able to discover 
 any authentic account of their numbers. By an official 
 list of the loss sustained by the military, it appears that 
 those slain on the 1 8th, or who afterwards died of their 
 wounds received that day, were 3 commissioned and 
 17 non-commissioned officers and privates; the list of 
 wounded includes 14 commissioned officers, 14 non- 
 commissioned, 225 rank and file, and 1 surgeon. It 
 has been pretended that the losses of the military were 
 studiously concealed, and that great numbers of their 
 dead were conveyed by night to the fortress of Spandau, 
 and there secretly buried; but a story so glaringly 
 improbable cannot be admitted in face of the document 
 of which we have given the above abstract. The official 
 list gives the name, birth-place, regiment, and battalion 
 of every killed and wounded officer and soldier, so that 
 any suppression of the truth would be liable to imme- 
 diate detection. There is no doubt, therefore, that the 
 above is an exact statement of the loss up to the 12 th 
 of April. 
 
 Frederick William's position after the 1 8th and 1 9th 
 of March was that of a sovereign who had virtually 
 lost a battle against his own subjects, and who was 
 forced to behold the people more masters of his capital 
 than he was himself. Not all the floods of his senti- 
 mental and vainglorious rhetoric could conceal that 
 glaring fact. One means, however, presented itself to 
 him by which he might retrieve his lost dignity in the 
 eyes of Europe, and he seized it with a dexterity which 
 would have been admirable- but for the fault, common 
 to almost all his majesty's boldest acts, of coming just 
 after the opportunity had gone by. On the 21st he 
 
176 GERMANY. 
 
 issued a proclamation, reiterating in still more forcible 
 and explicit terms his declaration that he would head 
 the grand movement for the regeneration of Germany ; 
 and thus, instead of allowing the minds of his subjects 
 to dwell on old grievances, he turned, for a while, the 
 whole torrent of popular excitement to new hopes, and 
 questions of larger import, in winch it appeared to the 
 Prussians that they and their sovereign must act to- 
 gether. 
 
 On the same day the King rode in state through the 
 streets of Berlin. The black and white cockade of 
 Prussia had been stained with blood ; but forthwith his 
 Majesty reappeared with the Imperial colors on his 
 helmet ; that same ancient German tricolor proscribed 
 at the universities, and which waved over the people's 
 barricades at Berlin, was now the hopeful emblem of 
 the Imperial power of united Germany. Immense was 
 the enthusiasm with which the King was everywhere 
 greeted by the dense masses, through which his horse 
 could hardly move. " Long live the Emperor of Ger- 
 many !" cried a voice. " Not so," replied Frederick 
 William ; " that is not my wish — that is not my inten- 
 tion ;" a denial which, we must suppose, meant no more 
 than nolo episcopari. The King of Prussia, seizing the 
 leadership of Germany as soon as Austria seemed dis- 
 abled from contending with him for its possession, was 
 not likely to build up a German empire in order to give 
 himself a master. But his intentions, whatever they 
 were, came to naught ; for already the people of Ger- 
 many had themselves taken in hand the work which 
 Frederick William arrogated to himself. The Duke of 
 Brunswick seems to have been the only prince who 
 publicly declared his adhesion to the King of Prussia's 
 leadership. The people of every state except Prussia 
 looked coldly on the claims of the candidate for empire, 
 or rejected them absolutely, and, in some instances, 
 with scorn. The Wiener Zeitung of March 25th, pub- 
 
ENTHUSIASM IN FAVOR OF POLAND. 1*77 
 
 lished an " answer of the German nation to the King 
 of Prussia," in which it reproaches the King for appeal- 
 ing to the Prussian people, and the German nation, 
 " amidst the thunder of artillery, and the death-groans 
 of murdered citizens ;" it taunts the King with his for- 
 mer want of good faith, and protests that, as (contrary 
 to Frederick William's solemn assertion) Germany is 
 not threatened with any danger whatever, the King 
 had no business to anticipate the decision of the Ger- 
 man Parliament, by assuming the lead of Germany. 
 The King is told that Germany will bear with him as 
 long as Prussia does so, but no longer, and that his 
 majesty's claims to the confidence of the German nation 
 are inadmissible. 
 
 In the first flush of his enthusiasm, and before his 
 pretensions to leadership were thus cruelly snubbed, 
 Frederick William ordered 20,000 of his troops to 
 march against Denmark, in order to wrest the province 
 of Schleswig from its rightful sovereign, and annex it to 
 the German Confederation. 
 
 A sudden enthusiasm in favor of Poland broke out 
 in Germany in the first days of revolutionary fervor. 
 On the 20th of March the doors of the state prison of 
 Berlin were thrown open, and the condemned Poles 
 came forth. An immense crowd accompanied them 
 and filled the air with shouts of joy. The horses were 
 taken from the carriage in which Mieroslawski and his 
 companions were seated, and the people drew the 
 liberated captives to the palace and thence to the uni- 
 versity. White handkerchiefs were waved by the ladies 
 from every window. Mieroslawski stood up in the 
 carriage, holding in his hand the black, red, and golden 
 banner, and acknowledged the enthusiastic applause of 
 the people, who accompanied the carriage in countless 
 masses, by waving his flag. As the procession entered 
 the Schlossplatz, his majesty appeared upon the balcony. 
 
 On the following day a Polish deputation from Posen 
 M 8 * 
 
178 GERMANY. 
 
 arrived in Berlin, and all its demands were conceded. 
 The duchy was to be divided into two moieties, the one 
 Polish, the other German, and each was to have its 
 own local administration. This arrangement was cor- 
 dially approved of by the rest of Germany ; the exiles 
 from Austrian and Prussian Poland were invited to 
 return, and were everywhere greeted with cordial sym- 
 pathy in their passage through the German states. 
 
 The affairs of Posen in 1848 form one of the most 
 melancholy episodes in that year of revolutions. Eight 
 days after Mieroslawski's triumphal procession through 
 the streets of Berlin, civil war broke out in Posen be- 
 tween the German and the Polish races, and for six 
 weeks it was carried on with the most savage cruelty 
 on both sides. The very same Poles who had frater- 
 nized with the German party in Berlin, now butchered, 
 mutilated, disembowelled, or burned all the Germans 
 who fell into their hands. Their antagonists retaliated 
 these barbarities in equal measure ; but as the horrid 
 details of the contest are known to us almost entirely 
 through German statements, we forbear to express any 
 opinion as to which party was the aggressor in the 
 strife, or the more culpable in its prosecution. This, 
 however, we may say, that whatever may have been 
 the provocation they received, the conduct of the Polish 
 party was such as to disgust their best friends, and to 
 give their enemies additional grounds for affirming their 
 total unfitness for the enjoyment of independence. At 
 last the terms of the partition were arranged, the line 
 of demarcation between German and Polish Posen was 
 determined on the 26th of April, and on the 10th of 
 the following month the insurrection was terminated 
 by the capture of Mieroslawski and the defeat of his 
 band, the last outstanding remains of a Polish army 
 of 30,000 men. 
 
 The beginning of the year 1848 found the two lead- 
 
PROPOSED CONGRESS OF SOVEREIGNS. 1*79 
 
 ing powers of Germany busily concerting measures 
 with Russia and France for the forcible extinction of 
 the free spirit that was displaying its strength in some 
 of the minor states of the Continent. Switzerland had 
 brought her civil war to a happy termination, with a 
 rapidity that disconcerted the calculations of the con- 
 federate despots; nevertheless they hoped, by diplo- 
 matic means, to retrieve their lost opportunity, and 
 under the pretext of amicable intervention to undo the 
 settlement of the Helvetic Republic, or at least -to create 
 an excuse for coercing it by force of arms. Italy was 
 also making demonstrations that called for immediate 
 repression, and the more so, because her princes were 
 either passively submitting to the popular impulse, or 
 were actually leading the movement for reform and 
 national independence. To meet the emergency the 
 Holy Alliance was revived, and a compact was entered 
 into between Russia, Prussia, and Austria, by which it 
 was stipulated that the latter should direct her forces 
 against the contumacious Swiss and Italians, while her 
 own discontented provinces should be kept in check by 
 the armies of her two allies. But the French Revolu- 
 tion annihilated these plans, and the contracting parties 
 were compelled to look each to their own safety, and 
 reserve their armies for home service. On the first of 
 March the canton of Neufchatel threw off the Prussian 
 yoke, and was admitted a member of the Swiss Con- 
 federation. Prussia submitted to the loss in silence. 
 
 At the instance of Prussia and Austria, the German 
 sovereigns now agreed to hold a congress at Dresden 
 on the 25th of March, to concert measures against the 
 danger with which they thought themselves threat- 
 ened from beyond the Rhine. But when the ap- 
 pointed day arrived every German state was in the 
 first heyday of Revolution, and the sovereigns were all 
 kept fast within their respective capitals by the fear 
 that, if they departed from them, they might possibly 
 
180 GERMANY. 
 
 not find it an easy matter to gain readmission. Instead, 
 therefore, of a congress of princes, there took place an 
 assemblage of delegates from the people of all Ger- 
 many, with the intent of remodelling the federal 
 organization. The Diet sitting at Frankfort had al- 
 ready manifested its desire to promote that great work, 
 to which end it ha/l invited its seventeen constituents 
 to send to it as many "men of public confidence," 
 to assist in its deliberations. 
 
 On the 31st of March, five hundred deputies from 
 all parts of Germany held their first sitting in Frankfort, 
 as a preliminary assembly for the formation of a na- 
 tional Parliament. Almost the first question they had 
 to decide was, as to what territories should send repre- 
 sentatives to the Central Assembly ; and it was re- 
 solved unanimously, that Schleswig-Holstein should be 
 invited to exercise that privilege, as forming part of the 
 German Confederation. The same was declared with 
 regard to the provinces of East and West Prussia. 
 Some difference of opinion existed with regard to Po- 
 sen, but at last it was agreed that since the retention 
 of that province might impede the re-establishment of 
 the independent kingdom of Poland, which all Germany 
 wished most ardently to see liberated from the bar- 
 barous yoke of Russia, the Assembly would content it- 
 self with declaring that it would endeavor to find 
 means for protecting the 700,000 Germans living 
 in that province. The preliminary assembly (vorjmr- 
 lament) further resolved, in concert with the Diet, that 
 a National Assembly should immediately be elected by 
 universal suffrage, in the proportion of one member 
 for every 50,000 of the population, and that any Ger- 
 man should be eligible thereto for any part of Ger- 
 many. 
 
 Having made these arrangements, the preliminary 
 assembly adjourned, but left behind it a permanent 
 committee of fifty. This committee, with the seventeen 
 
NATIONAL CONGRESS. 181 
 
 " men of confidence," whose voices were paramount in 
 the Diet, constituted from the beginning of April 
 to the middle of May the supreme council that 
 governed Germany. Besides drawing up a project of 
 a constitution for the collective German states, another 
 important part of its labors consisted in directing mi- 
 litary operations against the armed Republican party. 
 The lake district of Baden was the only part of 
 Germany where that party was not decidedly in the 
 minority, and there only the Republican flag was 
 raised. It was hoisted in Constanz and Freiburg, 
 under the protection of a free corps led by Hecker and 
 Struve ; but its defenders were met within a w r eek 
 (April 20), and totally routed by the forces of the 
 Confederation. General von Gagern, the commander 
 of the latter, was treacherously murdered in a parley 
 before the battle began. Hecker escaped ; Struve was 
 taken prisoner, but soon after rescued. Freiburg was 
 stormed on the 24th, Constanz ^is occupied on the 
 same day, and the Republic was brought to an end in 
 both places. Herwegh, the poet and communist, 
 arrived with his free corps from France too late to 
 prevent the catastrophe that had befallen his brethren. 
 His own 900 men were totally routed on the 27th by 
 a single company of Wurtemburg troops, with a 
 loss of 23 killed and 200 taken prisoners. Herwegh, 
 with his wife, who was armed and present in the fight, 
 escaped to Switzerland. 
 
 The German Parliament held its first sitting in 
 Frankfort on the 1 8th of May, and elected as its presi- 
 dent Heinrich von Gagern, an able and judicious man, 
 and almost the only continental statesman who passed 
 through the ordeal of the last eight months of '48 with a 
 steadily rising reputation. On the 28th of June the 
 parliament enacted a law, creating a provisional cen- 
 tral power for the administration of all affairs, civil and 
 military, foreign and domestic, which affect the whole 
 
182 GERMANY. 
 
 of the German nation, that power to be confided to a 
 Regent (reichsverweser), elected by the National As- 
 sembly, and himself irresponsible, but acting through 
 responsible ministers. On the following day the 
 Archduke John of Austria was elected Regent, by 
 a very large majority. He arrived soon after in 
 Frankfort, where he was received with great demon- 
 strations of joy, and was solemnly installed in office on 
 the 12th of July; on which day also the High 
 German Diet, born in 1815, held its seventy-first and 
 last sitting, its power passing into the hands of the 
 Provisional Central Government. 
 
AUSTRIA. 183 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 AUSTRIA. * 
 
 THE EMPEROR'S FIRST FLIGHT FROM VIENNA — BOHEMIA, HUNGARY, 
 AND CROATIA. 
 
 For. two months after the Revolution of March, 
 Vienna remained in a state of precarious, yet uninter- 
 rupted, peace. But the dishonesty of the Emperor's 
 secret advisers on the one hand, and the inflammatory 
 harangues and writings of the demagogues on the 
 other, kept up an angry and turbulent disposition of 
 the public mind, which at last displayed itself in a 
 fresh revolutionary movement on the 15th of May. 
 
 The provisional law for the elections to the National 
 Assembly had given great dissatisfaction to the Liberal 
 party. The aristocratic constitution of the Upper 
 Chamber, and the indirect form of election for the 
 Lower, were specially pointed out as objectionable. 
 The excitement produced by these considerations was 
 further increased by an order of the 13th of May, for 
 the dissolution of the central committee of the National 
 Guard, consisting of about two hundred individuals, 
 organized for political objects, and which, backed as it 
 was by such a large array of physical force, threatened 
 to overawe the constituted authorities. The students 
 of the University took the lead in resisting these unpo- 
 pular measures of the Government, and on the morning 
 of the 15th they preferred the following demands to 
 the Ministry : — 1. That the military, who, during the 
 
184 AUSTRIA. 
 
 preceding night, had bivouacked in large numbers on 
 the glacis, should be withdrawn. 2. That the central 
 committee of the National Guard should not be dis- 
 solved. 3. That the law for the elections should be 
 declared null and void. 
 
 For a whole day the Ministers withstood these 
 demands ; but finding themselves without a sufficient 
 force to resist the armed petitioners, — for the National 
 Guard had joined the students, — they gave up the 
 struggle, and at midnight Pillersdorff, the Minister of 
 the Interior, issued a proclamation conceding all that 
 was asked for. A new revolution was thus ratified, 
 for the constitution of April 25 was superseded, and it 
 was settled that the Diet should consist of but one 
 Chamber. 
 
 On the day following this event, the Emperor and 
 his family absconded from the capital, and fled to 
 Inspruck in the Tyrol. The Ministers and the whole 
 population of Vienna were thrown into consternation, 
 and messengers were despatched with the most press- 
 ing entreaties to recall the fugitives, who obstinately 
 rejected all such overtures. Meanwhile the agents of 
 the camarilla, and the aristocratic party who had coun- 
 selled the Emperor's flight, were taking pains to make 
 that event subservient to their reactionary projects. 
 They caused reports to be spread in the provincial 
 towns that the Viennese had stormed the Imperial 
 palace, dragging the monarch from his bed, and ill- 
 treated his sacred person. Having produced a strong- 
 feeling of pious horror in the provinces by such stories 
 as these, the reactionists prepared to make a coup de 
 main in the capital. 
 
 On the 25th of May it was reported in Vienna, that 
 three regiments were to enter the city at night, and 
 the announcement spread universal alarm. On the 
 following morning the Academical Legion received 
 orders to disband within twenty-four hours. On their 
 
PEACE RESTORED IN VIENNA. 185 
 
 refusal to lay down their arms, the gates of the town 
 were shut and guarded by soldiers.; but the workmen 
 from the suburbs stormed them, and one of the assail- 
 ants, a workman, was killed in the conflict. This be- 
 came the signal for a general insurrection, and once 
 more barricades arose in every street. This state of 
 tilings lasted until the night without further hostilities, 
 and ended in the complete victory of the people, whose 
 conditions were again, as on the 15th, accepted and 
 ratified by the Ministers. These conditions stipulated 
 the continuance of the Academical Legion ; the re- 
 moval of the military to a distance of four leagues from 
 Vienna ; and the return of the Emperor within eight 
 days, or the appointment of one of the princes to repre- 
 sent him. 
 
 Peace was now restored ; the barricades were taken 
 down, and business was resumed. The Viennese were 
 still, indeed, deprived of the presence of their Emperor, 
 who remained ill at Inspruck ; but he appointed his 
 uncle, the Archduke John, to represent him in the 
 capital, and open the x\ssembly in his name. This 
 was accordingly done on the 2 2d of July, in a speech 
 breathing amity and peace towards all the States of 
 the Empire, and all foreign countries. Even of Italy 
 the Archduke said, — " The war in Italy is not directed 
 against the liberties of the people of that country.: its 
 real object is to maintain the honor of the Austrian 
 arms in presence of the Italian Powers, at the same 
 time recognising their nationality, and to support the 
 most important interests of the State." 
 
 The Emperor at last relented, and returned to his 
 capital on the 12 th of August; and thus ended the 
 second phase of the Viennese Revolution. Let us 
 now see what had been the course of events in other 
 parts of the Empire. 
 
 Two days before the first revolutionary movement 
 
186 AUSTRIA. 
 
 in Vienna, a meeting, anonymously convoked, was held 
 in Prague, for the purpose of drawing up an address 
 to the Government. The demands agreed on were as 
 follows : — Equality of the two races (Tchech and Ger- 
 man) ; every public officer to be required to speak 
 both languages ; Union of Bohemia, Moravia, and 
 Silesia, guaranteed by a common diet, which should 
 meet alternately at Prague and Brun ; representative 
 and municipal reform ; publicity of judicial proceed- 
 ings ; absolute liberty of the press ; a responsible 
 chancery sitting in Prague ; the arming of the people ; 
 suppression of feudal rights and jurisdictions ; military 
 service obligatory on all ; security for personal liberty ; 
 equality of all religious denominations. A petition 
 embodying these demands was adopted with cordial 
 unanimity by both Tchechs and Germans, and the 
 inveterate hostility between the two races seemed for 
 the moment extinguished. A deputation carried the 
 petition to Vienna ; at first the popular demands were 
 met with evasive and dilatory compromises, but event- 
 ually, on the 8th of April, the Emperor granted the 
 Bohemians all they desired. Bohemia was restored 
 to the condition of a substantive state, under the vice- 
 royalty of the heir-presumptive of the empire, the 
 young archduke Francis Joseph. 
 
 It was not long before the Germans, lately the 
 dominant race in Bohemia, began to perceive that, by 
 the effect of the imperial rescript of the 8th of 
 April, they had sunk lower than to a level with 
 the Tchechs, since they were left without any peculiar 
 privileges to compensate for their numerical inferiority. 
 They formed only two-fifths of the whole population of 
 Bohemia, the numbers being, Germans, 1,830,000; 
 Tchechs, 2,558,000. Practically, indeed, the Tchechs 
 were at once placed on a footing of more than equality 
 with regard to their Teutonic brethren, in consequence 
 of the rule that all persons employed by the state 
 
THE TCHECHS AND GERMANS. 18*7 
 
 should speak both languages. The obligation former- 
 ly imposed on the Tchechs to learn the German lan- 
 guage, now turned to the disadvantage of the German 
 himself, who had never condescended to acquire any 
 Slavonic tongue. Hence the Germans became in- 
 capacitated for all state employments, and these were 
 filled exclusively by Tchechs, even in districts inhabited 
 altogether by the Teuton stock. The old rancor 
 between the two races broke out as violently as ever, 
 but their relative position was now changed, for the op- 
 pressed had become the oppressors. It was plain that 
 the imperial authorities favored this inversion of the 
 old order of things, and of this they gave a very signifi- 
 cant proof in appointing Count Leo Thun, who, though 
 a German by birth, was recognised as the leader of the 
 Tchechs, to supersede Count Stadion as burgrave. 
 
 "Whatever might be the views of some ultra-Tchechs 
 and panslavists of the Muscovite school, the great bulk 
 of the Austro- Slaves regarded union with Austria as 
 essential to the renovation of their national fortunes. 
 Their ultimate object was to transform the Austrian 
 empire into a Slavonic confederation ; hence they repu- 
 diated all connexion with the Frankfort Assembly, and 
 professed an exclusive allegiance to their own emperor. 
 Now there was nothing the cabinet of Vienna so much 
 dreaded at that moment as to see the independent ex- 
 istence of the Austrian empire merged in German 
 unity ; great, therefore, was the secret satisfaction with 
 which it witnessed the resistance made by Bohemia to 
 the invading spirit of Teutonism. In spite of the 
 orders, entreaties, and menaces of Frankfort, Bohemia 
 remained virtually unrepresented in the German Na- 
 tional Assembly, for instead of ninety deputies, it sent 
 thither hardly more than a dozen, and of these not one 
 was furnished by Prague. 
 
 The next step of the Tchech leaders was to convoke 
 a general Slavonic congress. The idea came, perhaps, 
 
188 AUSTRIA. 
 
 from Croatia, from Louis Stur and Jellachich ; but it 
 could only be realized in Prague. To this end a pro- 
 clamation was circulated, inviting representatives of the 
 race from all the Austrian provinces, and even from fo- 
 reign states, to assemble at Prague on the 31st of May, 
 and concert measures for protecting the independence 
 and nationality of the Slavonic people connected with 
 Austria, which were then in great and imminent peril ; 
 for " the Germans," said the proclamation, " are assem- 
 bling in the Parliament of Frankfort, which is about to 
 take from Austria as much of its sovereignty as is re- 
 quisite to constitute the Germanic unity. The Austrian 
 empire is therefore about to be incorporated with 
 the German empire, and it will carry along with it all 
 the non-German provinces, Hungary excepted." In ac- 
 cordance with this summons three hundred deputies, in 
 costumes of the most distant countries, assembled 
 at the appointed time ; and, as if the more to ex- 
 asperate Germany, the opening of the Slavonic Con- 
 gress was accompanied by the establishment of a Pro- 
 visional Government in Prague, the pretext for which 
 had been furnished by the events of the 26th of 
 May in Vienna. The burgrave, Leo Thun, affecting to 
 consider the Viennese ministry as captives in the hands 
 of insurgents, had created a council of regency in 
 direct correspondence with the emperor. Of the thir- 
 teen members of this Government two only were Ger- 
 mans. 
 
 Opened on the 2d of June, the Congress was 
 abruptly closed- on the 12th ; but even in this brief in- 
 terval enough transpired to show the general nature of 
 the vast revolution which the Slavonians were seeking 
 to effect in Central Europe. The Congress published 
 a manifesto to the nations of Christendom, declar- 
 ing that they were about to form a central federation 
 in Austria ; that they utterly repudiated all thought of 
 Russian panslavism ; that being bent on obtaining full 
 
UNANIMITY OF THE CONGRESS AT PRAGUE. 189 
 
 justice for all Slaves, they would insist on reparation 
 from Russia for the partition of Poland ; and from 
 Prussia, Saxony, Hungary, Austria, and Turkey, for their 
 many aggressions upon the nationality of their Slave 
 subjects ; and that they solicited a European congress 
 in order to the equitable adjustment of these claims. 
 The first and most essential step to the accomplish- 
 ment of these objects was to establish between the 
 Slavonic nations themselves that concord and recipro- 
 city, for want of which they had severally fallen under 
 the yoke of the foreigner. The cordial unanimity that 
 prevailed in the Prague Congress was most remarka- 
 ble. Each branch of the great family freely surren- 
 dered some of its own predilections for the common 
 good. The Illyrians, regardless of Russian patronage, 
 joined in the protest against the partition of Poland. 
 The Poles, abandoning their sympathies with the 
 Hungarians, took part with the Slovacks and Croats ; 
 and they also resolved themselves to do for the Ruthe- 
 nians what they demanded of the Magyars for the 
 Slovacks and Croats. A large part of the countries 
 formerly subject to Poland are inhabited by a Slavonic 
 race, of a different origin and dialect from the Poles. 
 Gallicia, Southern Russia, and parts of Bessarabia and 
 Transylvania, are peopled by Malo-Russians or Ruthe- 
 nians, a race whom the Poles have always treated as 
 of less noble blood than themselves. Hence it was 
 that the agents of Austria so easily succeeded in setting 
 on the peasants of Gallicia to murder the Polish nobles 
 in 1846. Conscious of the fatal errors and omissions 
 of former revolutions, the Polish nobles in the Prague 
 congress resolved to abolish all remains of feudal servi- 
 tude, and to recognise the independence and equality 
 of the two races and tongues in Gallicia. 
 
 The Congress too plainly manifested that its care for 
 the preservation of the Austrian monarchy was but a 
 means to the attainment of a very different object, and 
 
190 AUSTRIA. 
 
 it was animated by a democratic spirit that disappointed 
 and alarmed the Inspruck camarilla. The Viennese 
 ministry could not pardon the slight put upon it by the 
 Provisional Government of Bohemia, and it declared 
 that body to be illegal and its acts null and void. 
 This challenge was answered, as probably it was in- 
 tended that it should be, by an insurrection which 
 raged for five days, ending on the 17th of June; nor 
 was it put down until Prince Windischgratz, the Aus- 
 trian commander, had bombarded the town from the 
 adjacent heights, and laid much of it in ruins. Prague 
 relapsed into its former state of dependence on Vienna ; 
 the Slavonic Congress was dispersed, and even the 
 Bohemian Parliament, which was to have opened on 
 the 1 8th of June, was indefinitely postponed ; but the 
 triumph of Teutonism over Slavism was far from 
 having been consummated. 
 
 The atrocious cruelties committed by the Insurgent 
 Tchechs bore a strong family likeness to the horrors of 
 which the Taborites were guilty, during the Hussite 
 wars. They cut off the noses and ears of the soldiers 
 whom they took alive, and murdered them after having 
 thus tormented them. Twenty-six Hussars were thrown 
 into the Moldau on the 13th, and a National Guard, 
 who had shot two Tchechs in the performance of his 
 duty, was crucified on the door of his own house. 
 
 Almost the first shot fired in the insurrection killed 
 the Princess Windischgratz in her own apartment. 
 The Prince's behavior on this sad occasion stands in 
 honorable contrast with his later deeds. Owing to 
 the Prince's refusal to give cannon and ammunition to 
 the students, a mob gathered round his house on the 
 12th, hooting, yelling, and threatening. The, military 
 on duty having in vain called on them to disperse, and 
 the fatal shot having been fired that deprived the un- 
 fortunate Princess of life, the bereaved husband came 
 
HUNGARIAN DEPUTATION. 191 
 
 out, and with great dignity and calmness thus addressed 
 the rioters : — 
 
 " Gentlemen — If it is your desire to insult me be- 
 cause I am of noble birth, go to my palace, and do there 
 as you may think fit. I will even give you a guard 
 that you may not be disturbed in your amusement. 
 But if you act thus because I am commander of 
 Prague, and purpose making a demonstration in front 
 of this building, I tell you candidly that I shall prevent 
 such a step with every means at my command. My 
 wife now lies a lifeless corpse above stairs, and yet I 
 address you in words of kindness. Gentlemen, do not 
 drive me to severe measures." 
 
 The reply of the mob to this magnanimous speech 
 was to seize the Prince and drag him to the next lamp- 
 post, where a rope was promptly forthcoming ; but the 
 Prince was rescued by his grenadiers, and in five 
 minutes afterwards the artillery swept the streets. The 
 Prince's son was mortally wounded in the affray. 
 
 The day after the Emperor of Austria had become a 
 constitutional monarch, he received' a deputation of a 
 thousand Hungarian gentlemen, headed by the Pala- 
 tine, Archduke Stephen, and bearing an address, voted 
 by the Diet. The demands preferred in that document 
 were, — the nomination of a separate ministry for the 
 kingdom, consisting solely of Hungarians, and respon- 
 sible for all its acts to the Diet ; a new representation 
 of the whole population, without distinction of rank or 
 birth ; the organization of a national guard ; the trans- 
 ference of the Diet from Presburg to Pesth ; and a 
 liberal constitution for all the other states of the em- 
 pire. Furthermore, the address declared it to be the 
 firm intention of Hungary, as well as an essential con- 
 dition of its welfare, to remain indissolubly united to 
 the empire. 
 
192 • AUSTRIA. 
 
 A part of these demands was hardly consistent with 
 the pledge of union that accompanied them. For 
 instance, not content with a distinct administration for 
 the internal affairs of the kingdom, the Hungarians 
 insisted on having their own ministry of foreign affairs, 
 a thing clearly incompatible with any kind of state 
 federation. How is it possible to reconcile with the 
 idea of an imperial unity the existence of separate and 
 perhaps contrary relations with foreign countries ? 
 Nations so situated with respect to each other may 
 severally obey the same sovereign, like Great Britain 
 and Hanover under the Georges, but they cannot form 
 parts of one empire. 
 
 But the Court of Vienna was just then in no condi- 
 tion to be critical. The demands of the Hungarians 
 were granted in their fullest extent, and a new adminis- 
 tration was formed under the presidency of Count 
 Batthiany, the leader of the Opposition in the Chamber 
 of Magnates. The department of finance was occupied 
 by the advocate Kossuth, who had led the extreme 
 section of the Opposition in the Second Chamber. 
 Under his influence the Diet forthwith consummated 
 all those important internal reforms which had been 
 begun by the spontaneous movement of the generous 
 Hungarian nobles, and which had been steadily prose- 
 cuted up to the moment when the European revolution 
 broke out. The last remains of the oppressive feudal 
 system were swept away. The peasants were declared 
 free from all seignorial claims; in other words, the 
 tenants of one half the lands in Hungary were declared 
 possessors of that land, reu$ free, the landlords to be 
 indemnified by the country at large. The peasant and 
 the burgher were at once admitted to all the rights of 
 nobles ; and a new electoral law was passed, conferring 
 the suffrage on all who possessed property to the 
 amount of 300 florins, or thirty pounds sterling. After 
 decreeing these important measures, the Diet was dis- 
 
HUNGARY. 193 
 
 solved, and a new Diet was summoned for the second of 
 July. During the recess the Diet of Transylvania met, 
 and voted the union of that country to Hungary, from 
 which it had been separated for more than two hundred 
 years. 
 
 But now arose new difficulties, the peculiar nature 
 of which demands some preliminary explanations. 
 
 The kingdom of Hungary, like the empire of which 
 it forms part, is a crude agglomeration of various races, 
 between whom there exist, unallayed even by an inci- 
 pient decree of assimilation, the strongest mutual con- 
 trasts in physical character, language, religion, manners, 
 and customs. The Hungarians proper, or Magyars,, 
 are in a minority, their number a little exceeding four 
 out of the ten millions of the population. This Scythian 
 race, which entered the country about a century before 
 the Norman invasion of England, has retained many 
 characteristics of a conquering invasion, and stands, 
 therefore, in the anomalous position of a subject to- 
 wards Austria and an oppressor towards the aboriginal 
 race, the Slavonian, which slightly exceeds its num- 
 bers. The Wallacks, or Romnani, descended from 
 Trajan's legionary colonists, are about a million. The 
 Germans are somewhat less numerous; and the rest 
 of the population is made up of a miscellaneous scat- 
 tering of Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Italians, French, <fec. 
 
 Among the grievances alleged against the Magyars 
 by the other races of Hungary, there was one which 
 seems to have been resented with peculiar acrimony. 
 After long struggles, the Magyars had forced the 
 Austrian Government to discontinue the use of the 
 Latin language, and substitute for it the Magyar in 
 its official intercourse with Hungary. It would be im- 
 possible to exaggerate the passionate eagerness with 
 which the Hungarians had pursued this object, or the 
 exultation with which they hailed a victory so gratify - 
 ing to their national pride. Something, however, was 
 N 9 
 
194 AUSTRIA. 
 
 still wanting ; they had acquired the right of employ- 
 ing their own language in their dealings with Austria ; 
 but in order to make it the common language of Hun- 
 gary, it was necessary to teach it to the other more 
 numerous races of the kingdom, most of whom knew 
 Latin (very badly, no doubt), but not a word of Magyar. 
 And now those very men who had thought it such a 
 hardship that they should be compelled to speak in an 
 alien tongue, did not scruple to impose the same hard 
 terms on others. In every village, by whatever race 
 occupied, .the schoolmaster was obliged to give his 
 lessons and the priest to deliver his sermons in 
 Magyar ; and in the Diet no other language was 
 allowed. It is easy to imagine the intense irritation 
 produced by this arbitrary proscription of the mother- 
 tongue of six millions of people. The resistance was 
 vehement on all hands ; but it was especially in Croatia 
 that the pretensions of the Magyars to be sole repre- 
 sentatives of Hungarian nationality encountered the 
 most sturdy opposition. 
 
 The Croats are a tribe of the Illyrian branch of the 
 great Slavonic stock. Then country occupies the 
 southern portion of Hungary, from the Drave to the 
 point where the Danube, suddenly changing its direc- 
 tion near Belgrade, runs again eastward. Croatia 
 embraces a surface of 950 square miles, and its po- 
 pulation, including the frontier regiments, is about 
 800,000 souls. Under the name of the kingdom of 
 Croatia and Esclavonia, it is ruled by its own peculiar 
 laws, has its separate Diet sitting in Agram, its capital, 
 and may be considered as standing in the same relation 
 to the Government at Pesth as Hungary does to the 
 Austrian Government (regnum in regno).* The Croat 
 Diet was represented in that of Hungary by three de- 
 legates from its own body, and the viceroyalty of the 
 
 * A kingdom within a kingdom. 
 
THE BAN OF CROATIA. 195 
 
 kingdom is exercised by a chief elected by the Diet 
 with the approbation of the Emperor. His title is 
 that of Ban of Croatia, and his office is the third in 
 dignity under the Crown of Hungary, and next to 
 those of the Palatine and the Supreme Judge. 
 
 The aversion with which the Croats always regarded 
 the Hungarians was greatly augmented after the 16th 
 of March ; for they feared, that when the common 
 pressure of Vienna was removed from both countries, 
 Croatia would Ml into subjection to Hungary. The 
 latter had already wrested from the feeble hands of the 
 Imperial Government the control of the military fron- 
 tiers of the kingdom, which had previously belonged 
 to the Aulic Council. The warlike inhabitants of 
 those countries are, for the most part, Croats ; placed 
 at the disposal of the Hungarian Ministry, they were 
 lost for the common defence of the empire, and might 
 be made instrumental in coercing Croatia. Further- 
 more, the Diet of Agram complained that its privi- 
 leges, as regarded the Assembly at Pesth, had been 
 subverted without its own consent. Croatia, as a se- 
 parate kingdom, had a right of veto in certain cases in 
 the Diet ; it was now deprived of that safeguard of its 
 independence by a new arrangement, which augmented 
 indeed the number of its representatives, but reduced 
 the effective value of their votes to that of their nume- 
 rical ratio to the Hungarian and Transylvanian majority. 
 The Croats protested against the usurpation, and no 
 deputy of their nation appeared at the opening of the 
 Diet of Pesth in July. The Hungarian Government 
 took no pains to allay the jealousy of the less favored 
 race : not one Croat was admitted into the Ministry, or 
 into any of the higher offices of state. This inordinate 
 selfishness soon provoked its own punishment. 
 
 The Baron Joseph Jellachich, a colonel in the mili- 
 tary colonies, idolized by his soldiers, had long been 
 looked on with hopeful eyes by the patriots of Agram. 
 
196 AUSTRIA. 
 
 Elected by the unanimous suffrages of his countrymen 
 to be their Ban, he immediately assumed a hostile 
 attitude towards Hungary. There was no need to 
 look for any recondite motives of this policy ; its 
 causes lay plain to sight in the character and circum- 
 stances of Jellachich's nation. The Magyars, however, 
 affected to consider him as the paid lieutenant of 
 Nicholas — a gratuitous supposition, totally at variance 
 with the Ban's proud, frank, and chivalrous nature. It 
 was not alone in districts over which he had sway that 
 the Slaves were arrayed against the usurping race : 
 those of the northern districts rose also in insurrection. 
 The revolution of the 16th of March had only hastened 
 the explosion of their long-gathered resentment. The 
 language of all the Slaves to the Magyars was pre- 
 cisely the same as that which the latter had for twenty 
 years addressed to the Austrian Government ; and the 
 new Hungarian Government replied in words which 
 seemed as though they had been borrowed literally 
 from the old Imperial Government. " Croatia is in 
 revolt ! " said the minister Kossuth, in the sitting of 
 the 11th of July. "The Croats have imagined that, 
 under favor of the revolutionary crisis in Europe, they 
 might put themselves with impunity in open rebellion 
 against the Hungarian monarchy. The new Ban has 
 not presented himself in Pesth, notwithstanding the 
 order conveyed to him to that effect." And then, 
 suddenly possessed with a singular affection for his 
 majesty the King of Hungary, Kossuth concluded his 
 speech with these lofty words, which would not have 
 ill become a loyal chancellor of the realm, — " We 
 will never acknowledge that the Ban Jellachich 
 is upon the same level with the King of Hungary : 
 the King of Hungary may pardon ; the duty of Jella- 
 chich is to obey ! " 
 
 It must be owned that, in thus denouncing Jella- 
 chich as a rebel, Kossuth was warranted by no less 
 
THE BAN DECLARED A REBEL. 197 
 
 an authority than that of the Emperor himself. The 
 Ban had summoned an extraordinary diet of the triple 
 kingdom of Dalmatia, Esclavonia, and Croatia, to meet 
 in Agram, on the 5th of June, and deputies from all the 
 other Austro-Slavonian countries were invited to attend. 
 The Imperial Government declared this Diet illegal ; 
 and Jellachich was summoned to appear before the 
 Emperor at Inspruck, and account for his conduct. 
 He refused to obey the summons. The Diet was held, 
 and he was installed at Agram in his new dignity with 
 unusual pomp and ceremony, the oath* being adminis- 
 tered to him by the G reek bishop of Carlowitz. There- 
 upon the Emperor issued a decree, the execution of 
 which was confided to Count Batthiany, by which the 
 contumacious Ban was declared to be a rebel, and 
 divested of all his offices and powers. All civil and mili- 
 tary functionaries were ordered to refuse him obedience, 
 otherwise they should be considered his accomplices 
 and fellow-rebels. At the same time the Austrian 
 field-marshal Ilrabowsky took the field against the 
 insurgent Croatians. Early in June he bombarded 
 Carlowitz, where the insurgents had mustered about 
 7000 men. The town was completely destroyed ; no 
 trace left of its splendid cathedral and aichducal 
 palace : nothing remained but a smoking heap of ruins. 
 The town of Neusatz, too, bad prepared to withstand a 
 siege, but surrendered on being threatened by Ilra- 
 bowsky with the same treatment he had inflicted on 
 Carlowitz, 
 
198 AUSTRIA. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 AUSTRIA. 
 
 THE CIVIL "WAR IN HUNGARY MURDER OF COUNT LAMBERS. 
 
 At last, however, trie Ban repaired to Inspruck in 
 the beginning of July, and offered such explanations 
 as could leave no doubt respecting his attachment to 
 the Imperial authority. An attempt was then made 
 to smoothe away the difference between the Ban of 
 Croatia and the Hungarian Ministry, and the Arch- 
 duke John was intrusted with the task of mediation. 
 He, however, was soon afterwards appointed Regent 
 of the Empire, and the Ban returned to Agrarn. 
 Some weeks were thus lost ; but at last a conference 
 was opened at Vienna between Jellachich and Count 
 Batthiany. Both were obstinate and arrogant in their 
 pretensions, and the Imperial Government was too 
 weak to exact from them the reciprocal concessions 
 necessary to a peaceful settlement of the dispute. The 
 two plenipotentiaries parted with terms of mutual 
 defiance. " We shall meet again on the Drave " (tjie 
 frontier of Croatia), said Count Batthiany. "No," 
 retorted Jellachich, " but on the Danube." The quar- 
 rel was only to be settled by the arbitrament of arms ; 
 yet to the very last hour efforts were made to resume 
 negotiations; the Palatine was appointed to succeed 
 the Archduke John as mediator, and Count Batthiany 
 had a final interview with the Ban in the very camp 
 of the Croatians. 
 
THE CROATS DENOUNCED. 199 
 
 While Jellachich was strengthening his connexion 
 with Vienna, the Hungarian Government was opening 
 the new Diet at Pesth. The previous assemblies had 
 met at Presburg, a little town on the verge of the 
 Austrian frontier, and consequently placed, as it were, 
 under the hands of the Imperial Government. The 
 Archduke Stephen opened the Diet on the 5th of 
 July, in the name of his majesty, King Ferdinand V. 
 The language in which he condemned the Croat insur- 
 rection was unequivocal. " The King," he said, " after 
 having spontaneously sanctioned the laws voted by the 
 Diet, has seen with grief, that the agitators, especially 
 in Croatia, have excited the inhabitants of different 
 creeds and languages against each other. By harass- 
 ing them with false rumors and idle terrors, they have 
 been driven to resist laws which, they assumed, were 
 not the free expression of his Majesty's will. Some 
 have gone further, and have averred that their resist- 
 ance was made in the interest of the royal house and 
 with the knowledge and consent of his Majesty. His 
 Majesty scorns such insinuations; the King and his 
 royal family will at all times respect the laws and pro- 
 tect the liberties granted to his people." 
 
 In the Chamber of Deputies, Kossuth explained the 
 existing state of things in a speech which could not be 
 denied the merit of great frankness. " You see with 
 your own eyes," he said, " the frightful situation of the 
 country ; the treasury is empty, and the land without 
 an army. Perhaps we are come too late to complete 
 the reforms of the constitution. Justice had been too 
 long delayed, -and the day when its reign was pro- 
 claimed beheld the dissolution of all the bonds that 
 had held the nation together." With respect to the 
 Croatian question, the minister was of opinion, that 
 notwithstanding the evident rights of Hungary, the 
 only means that remained for it to settle its difference 
 with Croatia was, to entreat the king to interfere as 
 
200 AUSTRIA. 
 
 mediator between the two countries. In conclusion, lie 
 asked for an extraordinary contribution of 50,000,000 
 of florins, and a levy of 200,000 men, both for the 
 purpose of terminating the quarrel with Croatia by 
 force of arms, if needful ; and also in order to aid in 
 supporting the cause of the empire in Italy. These 
 proposals were adopted by acclamation, and a decree 
 was issued for the creation of 5,000,000 of paper 
 money. 
 
 Much surprise was felt in Europe at the resolution 
 of the Diet to help in upholding Austrian domination 
 in Italy. Every one would rather have believed that 
 Hungary was inclined to make common cause with the 
 Italians, at least to the extent of withdrawing her 
 troops from Lombardy. But it was not yet generally 
 known how very illiberal the liberalism of Pesth could 
 be. " Some have expressed a desire," said Kossuth, on 
 this occasion, " that we should remove our troops from 
 Italy; but were we to do so, 35,000 Croats would also 
 return to this country, and give us fine work to do." 
 It can scarcely be doubted, that the Hungarian Minis- 
 ter of Finance was already resolved to break with the 
 Austrian Government, at the very moment when he 
 talked most loudly of assisting it with men and money. 
 The pretence of sending fresh regiments to Italy was 
 only adopted in order to sanction with the Emperor's 
 name the levy of troops and contributions, which 
 should remain in the minister's own hands, ready for 
 all contingencies, war with Austria included. 
 
 One of the earliest measures of the new Hungarian 
 Government had been to send a deputy to Paris and 
 another to Frankfort, to establish direct relations with 
 foreign governments, and to solicit the aid of the cen- 
 tral German power. At Frankfort, the deputy Szalay 
 represented that the Austrian army could not be con- 
 sidered as a German military force ; that it was by its 
 very nature dangerous to German freedom ; that it was, 
 
DOUBLE DEALING. 201 
 
 therefore, the interest of Germany to effect, in concert 
 with Hungary, a separation of the various nationalities 
 of which that army consisted ; in other words, to bring- 
 about a dissolution of the Austrian empire. To pre- 
 vent the danger he pointed out, the Hungarian envoy 
 solicited the mediation and succor of the German Par- 
 liament, not onty against Croatia, but, in case of need, 
 against the Imperial Government of Austria. 
 
 These efforts of Hungarian diplomacy were little in 
 accordance with the loyal and affectionate spirit towards 
 Austria which the Diet professed in its initiatory pro- 
 ceedings. Was it the knowledge it had acquired of 
 this hostile policy of the Hungarian ministry, that 
 prompted the Austrian Government to side openly with 
 the Ban of Croatia ? or was the disaffection of the Diet 
 a consequence of its conviction that the Imperial party 
 was secretly abetting the designs of the Croats ? We 
 incline to think that both suppositions must be admit- 
 ted, and that the two Governments were from the first 
 intent on overreaching each other. The convenient 
 morality of the Austrian monarchy would not forbid it 
 to reject whatever opportunities might arise for retract- 
 ing some of the concessions extorted from it. The 
 Hungarian Cabinet, aware of this tendency, would 
 constantly seek to combat it by every possible means, 
 until at last the mutual jealousy of the two parties 
 had entangled them in a quarrel, from which there 
 was no issue but by the sword. This view of the case 
 is confirmed by the language held "by Kossuth, so early 
 as the 11th of July. From the very magnitude of the 
 concessions made by Austria, he argued the folly and 
 danger of relying on her good faith. " Do not deceive 
 yourselves, citizens," he exclaimed ; " the Magyars 
 stand alone in the world against the conspiracy of the 
 sovereigns and nations that surround them. The 
 Emperor of Russia besets us through the Principalities, 
 and everywhere, even in Servia, we detect his hand and 
 9* 
 
202 AUSTRIA. 
 
 his gold. In the north, the armed bands of Slaves are 
 endeavoring to join the rebels of Croatia, and are pre- 
 paring to march against us ; in Vienna, the courtiers 
 and statesmen are calculating the advent of the day 
 when they shall be able again to rivet the chains of 
 their old slaves the Magyars, an undisciplined and 
 rebellious race. O, my fellow-citizens, it is thus that 
 tyrants have ever designated free men. You are alone, 
 I repeat ; are you ready and willing to fight ?" 
 
 During the months of July and August the strife 
 between the Imperial Government and the Hungarians 
 was waged with arms of courtesy ; but by September 
 their mutual acrimony had become uncontrollable. 
 Early in that month the Emperor refused to sanction 
 the decree for the emission of paper money ; and this 
 refusal was met by another decree making it a capital 
 felony to refuse the new assignats. Meanwhile civil 
 war was raging with great atrocity in all the border 
 lands of Hungary ; some troops were assembled on the 
 frontiers of Croatia, under the immediate command of 
 Meszaros, the Hungarian Minister of War ; but they 
 consisted chiefly of Slaves, who showed a great repug- 
 nance to serve against their brethren in language and 
 religion. The second regiment of Transylvania, con- 
 sisting of Wallacks, after arriving by forced marches at 
 Tchegedin, refused to advance further, wheeled round 
 and returned to its old quarters. 
 
 On the 5th of September, Kossuth was carried to the 
 hall of the Diet, enfeebled by illness, but unwilling to 
 flinch from a crisis which might be decisive of his 
 country's welfare. He declared that, looking upon the 
 formidable dangers that surrounded them, the ministers 
 of the Crown might soon have to call upon the House 
 to name a Dictator, invested with unlimited powers, to 
 save the country ; but they w T ere prepared to recom- 
 mend a last appeal to the Imperial Government before 
 they resorted to a measure which might be construed 
 
HUNGARIAN ADDRESS TO THE EMPEROR. 203 
 
 into a declaration of independence. A deputation was 
 accordingly formed, consisting of one hundred and sixty 
 magnates and deputies, who waited on his majesty at 
 Schonbrunn, and addressed him in the name of the 
 Diet in plain and stern language ■ — 
 
 " It is in the name of that fidelity we have shown for 
 centuries to your ancestors that we now come to de- 
 mand of you the maintenance of the rights of the king- 
 dom. Hungary has not been united to your crown as 
 a conquered province but as a free nation, whose privi- 
 leges and independence have been insured by your 
 
 Majesty's coronation oath The wishes of the 
 
 people have been satisfied by the laws enacted by the 
 last Diet ; why are the rights of the nation menaced 
 by an insurrection, the leaders of which declare openly 
 that they are in arms on 3^0111* Majesty's behalf ? Whilst 
 the blood of Hungary is flowing in Italy in defence of 
 the Austrian monarchy, one portion of her children is 
 perfidiously excited against the other, and casts off the 
 obedience due to the legal Government of the country. 
 Insurrection threatens our frontiers, and, under the pre- 
 tence of upholding your authority, it is actually assail- 
 ing the integrity of the kingdom, and our ancient and 
 new liberties ! .... It is in the name of the people 
 we call on your Majesty to order the Hungarian regi- 
 ments to obey the Hungarian ministry, without reserve, 
 and notwithstanding all other orders. We desire that 
 Croatia be freed from military despotism, in order that 
 it may unite fraternally with Hungary. Finally, we 
 demand that your Majesty, discarding the reactionary 
 counsels of those ^ibout you, give your immediate sanc- 
 tion to all the measures voted by the Diet, and come 
 and reside in Pesth among your people, where your 
 royal presence is necessary to save the country. Let 
 your Majesty hasten. The least delay may occasion 
 indescribable calamities." 
 
 To these peremptory demands the Emperor merely 
 
204 AUSTRIA. 
 
 replied, that " The bad state of his health would not 
 allow him to go to Pesth. As for the paper-money 
 bill, which he was asked to sanction, he would give it 
 his candid consideration, but was inclined to reject it ; 
 and as for the Croatian question, he had already ad- 
 dressed a manifesto to the Ban, in order to bring about 
 an amicable and conciliatory settlement." 
 
 The deputation heard the Emperor's reply in silence, 
 and left the presence without uttering a single vivat. 
 The ministers Deak and Batthiany, who were at 
 Vienna, left the capital with them. The Deputies 
 plucked from their caps the plumes of the united colors 
 of Austria and Hungary, replaced them with red 
 feathers, and hoisted a flag of the same color on the 
 steamer in which they returned to Pesth. 
 
 The report of the deputation excited deep resentment 
 in the Hungarian capital ; the debates in the Diet were 
 vehement and stormy, but the advice of the old consti- 
 tutional Opposition prevailed, and it was resolved to 
 make another pacific appeal to the Emperor, through 
 the mediation of the Palatine. Kossuth and his col- 
 leagues resigned, and Count Batthiany undertook to 
 form an administration of a more moderate cast ; but 
 before his cabinet was well completed, Jellachich had 
 begun hostilities, the Diet had suffered another repulse 
 at Vienna, and a reaction in public feeling again carried 
 Kossuth into power. On the 17th of September the 
 Diet had resolved, that a deputation of twenty-five 
 members should proceed to Vienna, put themselves in 
 direct communication with the National Assembly, de- 
 nounce the treacherous conduct of the Central Govern- 
 ment, and apply directly to the representatives of the 
 empire for aid against the Croats. The Viennese As- 
 sembly decided by a majority of 186 votes to 108, 
 against receiving the Deputation. Deeply offended by 
 this insult, the Diet conferred dictatorial powers on 
 Kossuth. The Palatine quitted Hungary on the 25th 
 
JELLACHICH INVADES HUNGARY. 205 
 
 of September, placed his resignation in the Emperor's 
 hands, and retired to his estate in Moravia. 
 
 Jellachich meanwhile had crossed the Drave, the 
 river on the banks of which Batthiany had told him 
 they should soon meet ; and traversing all Southern 
 Hungary without encountering an enemy, he arrived 
 at Stuhlweissenburg, within one day's march of the ca- 
 pital. On crossing the frontier he had issued the fol- 
 lowing proclamation : — 
 
 " To the Hungarian Nation. 
 
 " In setting foot on this land, to which I am attached 
 by the liveliest sympathy, I take Heaven to witness 
 that I do this act only after having exhausted all means 
 of conciliation ; I do it, forced by the plots of a faction 
 of which the Hungarian ministry is only the legal in- 
 strument, and which, pursuing its criminal projects, 
 aims only at debasing the royal majesty, and destroy- 
 ing the sacred alliance that attached Hungary and the 
 united kingdoms to her king and her constitution. 
 
 " It is vain to call by the name of revolt or treason 
 a proceeding which is inspired only by pure love of 
 country and fidelity to our king. And let it not be 
 feared that I wish to retract any of the concessions or 
 privileges lately accorded by the royal word to the 
 Hungarian nation. All that has been done legally shall 
 be upheld : it is not an enemy who invades the plains 
 of Hungary ; it is a friend who comes to the aid of the 
 loyal subjects of the constitutional king. They will 
 hold out to me the hand of brotherhood; and with 
 God's aid we will deliver the country from the yoke of 
 an incapable, odious, and rebel government." 
 
 This proclamation is chiefly important in a historical 
 point of view, as showing that the invasion of Hungary 
 by the Ban was an act done" of -his own sole authority, 
 and that he could not allege in its justification any official 
 order of the Central Government. He presented him- 
 
206 AUSTRIA. 
 
 self as the champion of the Emperor and King ; but he 
 did not even pretend that he possessed a legal commis- 
 sion to act in that capacity. His ostensible character 
 was that of the chief of an insurgent province, whose 
 proceedings had been openly condemned by the Empe- 
 ror himself, and by his viceroy, the Palatine. When, 
 therefore, it was discovered that Jellachich was secretly 
 abetted and encouraged by the Imperial court, his an- 
 tagonists had good reason to inveigh against such foul 
 treachery. The grievances of the Croats were real and 
 serious ; their cause was just, and coincided with the 
 true interests of the empire ; but it was the traditional 
 curse of the Imperial Government to pursue even right- 
 ful ends by crooked and unrighteous ways. 
 
 Encouraged by the Ban's rapid and unresisted 
 march through Hungary, and by the repulse which the 
 Magyars had recently sustained in the National Assem- 
 bly, the Emperor now thought he might act with a lit- 
 tle less disguise. He resolved, therefore, as he said, to 
 put an end to the distractions of Hungary, and to re- 
 establish the peace and freedom of all his subjects in 
 that kingdom, along with the rights of his crown. The 
 device he adopted to that end was singularly infelici- 
 tous. He appointed Count Lamberg to take the com- 
 mand of the whole kingdom and its contending forces ; 
 a step, it has been aptly said, about as hopeful and ju- 
 dicious as if Charles I. of England had appointed a ge- 
 neralissimo over the royal and parliamentary armies of 
 his early wars, in the expectation of stopping the civil 
 conflict by the simple issue of that commission. Count 
 Lamberg arrived in Pesth on the 29th of September, 
 without any escort. He appeal's either to have been 
 unaware of the dangers of his mission, or to have 
 hoped to overbear them by the boldness with which he 
 defied them. The unfortunate man fell a victim to his 
 temerity. Previously to Ins arrival, the Diet had re- 
 solved that the commission by which he was appointed 
 
MURDER OF COUNT LAMBERG. 207 
 
 was illegal, not being countersigned by any minister, 
 and that all troops and officials obeying him would com- 
 mit high treason to Hungary. Thus virtually outlawed, 
 he was immediately beset, in the house he first entered 
 in Pesth, by a furious mob, intent on killing him. He 
 escaped thence, and fled to the commander-in-chief's 
 house in Buda ; tracked thither he attempted to return 
 and claim the protection of the Diet ; he was stopped 
 on the bridge, torn from his carriage, and killed on the 
 spot, and his disfigured body was dragged by the mad- 
 dened people through the streets of the town. 
 
 The very same Imperial decree which nominated 
 Lamberg to his ill-fated mission, imposed an armistice 
 on the two contending parties in Hungary, and ordered 
 the Moravian troops to enter the kingdom for the sup- 
 pression of the Slavonic insurrection. But accident re- 
 vealed the perfidy of these Imperial manifestations. On 
 the 30th of September, letters were intercepted from 
 Jellachich to Count Latour, the Minister of War at Vi- 
 enna, showing that the Croatian Ban had been regu- 
 larly supplied with subsidies from the capital. Thus 
 the Emperor stood convicted of suborning civil war 
 against his own subjects ; and a minister, until then ac- 
 counted respectable, was exposed in the act of lending 
 himself to that wicked treason against the State. Lam- 
 berg was murdered ; and Latour, as we shall see by 
 and by, was murdered with every token of ferocity that 
 could increase the horror of the deed. But far more 
 wicked than the actual perpetrators were the cold- 
 blooded intriguers at Vienna, whose treachery provoked 
 the furious passions of the populace, and brought about 
 those lamentable scenes. They indeed were guilty of 
 the worst crime which man can commit against man, 
 that of destroying the faith which ought to be pre- 
 served, even between enemies ; and thus undermining, 
 far more fatally than any revolution, the very frame- 
 work of society. 
 
208 AUSTRIA. 
 
 In revenge for the murder of Lis commissioner, the 
 Emperor issued a manifesto on the 3d of October, dis- 
 solving the Hungarian Diet, putting Hungary under 
 martial law, and appointing Jellachich Commissary- 
 general for the whole kingdom, with unlimited power, 
 civil and military. The Diet on its part replied to this 
 manifesto, by declaring itself in permanence as a consti- 
 tuent assembly. It appointed a committee of public 
 safety, under the dictatorship of Kossuth ; and the war- 
 like Magyare devoted their whole energies to the de- 
 fence of their capital. Every man took up arms, and 
 even ladies of rank worked in the trenches, 
 
 Pesth, the new capital of Hungary, on the left bank 
 of the Danube, and Buda, the old residence of the 
 Turkish pachas, on the opposite side of the river, are 
 united by a bridge of boats, and form together a city 
 of about a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. 
 Jellachich's march had been too rapid to allow of his 
 bringing up his heavy artillery, without which he could 
 not effectually lay siege to Buda, built as it was on a 
 rock, and defended by an intrepid and desperate popu- 
 lation. He remained, therefore, some days at Stuhl- 
 weissenburg, waiting apparently for reinforcements from 
 Vienna. While he was in this position, he was attacked 
 by an irregular force led by Meszaros, the Hungarian 
 Minister of War, and a portion of his cavalry suffered 
 severely. It was after this engagement that the brothers 
 Zechy, cousins of the Princess Metternich, were hanged 
 as traitors in the Hungarian camp. They are said to 
 have been convicted of entertaining a secret cor- 
 respondence with the Ban, and with the Archduchess 
 Sophia. 
 
 After his partial defeat at Stuhlweissenburg, the 
 Ban withdrew westwards to Raab and Comorn, in 
 which positions he could command the Danube and the 
 road from Vienna to Buda, and effect his junction with 
 the troops he expected from Vienna. This movement 
 
VIENNA SYMPATHIZES WITH HUNGARY. 209 
 
 was very differently interpreted by the Magyars and 
 the Viennese ; the former, flushed with success, affirmed 
 that their enemy was routed, that his retreat to Croatia 
 was cut off, and that he was flying in disorder to seek 
 shelter in the mountains of Styria ; the Viennese, on 
 the other hand, supposed with every appearance of 
 probability, that the Ban was not so much intent on 
 fighting the Magyars as in marching a force upon the 
 metropolis to back the court in their reactionary projects 
 against the constitution. The cause of Pesth became 
 the cause of Vienna; the people loudly murmured 
 against the despatch of troops to coerce the Magyars, 
 and demanded the revocation of the decree appointing 
 Jellachich commissary-general of Hungary. 
 
210 AUSTRIA. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 AUSTRIA. 
 
 INSURRECTION AND BOMBARDMENT OF VIENNA. 
 
 On the morning of October 6th, the German Grena- 
 diers, a regiment favorable to the popular cause, re- 
 ceived orders to march and join the expedition against 
 the Hungarians. Having been forewarned of these 
 orders, the Grenadiers had communicated with the 
 National Guards of the suburb in which their barracks 
 are situated, and with the Academical Legion, both 
 which corps promised that measures would be taken to 
 prevent their departure. 
 
 Parties of the confederates went stealthily by night 
 and broke up the railway to some distance from the 
 station, whilst others erected a barricade on the Tabor- 
 bridge, which the battalions would have to cross in or- 
 der to reach the next station. The Grenadiers were 
 ordered to storm the barricade, but instead of doing so, 
 they went over and joined the National Guards and the 
 Academical Legion, now assembled behind it in con- 
 siderable force. Cavalry, infantry, and artillery, were 
 brought against the insurgents, but were completely 
 routed by the latter, who then marched into the town. 
 The conflict became general, and the Government 
 troops were everywhere defeated. Between five and 
 six o'clock, the Nationals took the War-office by storm. 
 Count Latour, the Minister of War, was found concealed 
 in a wooden box on the fourth story. He was dragged 
 
INSURRECTION OF VIENNA. 211 
 
 out and most cruelly murdered. The mutilated body 
 was thrown out of the window, stripped naked, and 
 hung on a lamp-post, where it remained for a whole 
 day, the mob slashing it with sabres and riddling it 
 with balls. The unfortunate man had been waited 
 upon the night before by a deputation, and urgently 
 cautioned against sending away the Deutschmeister 
 Grenadiers, as a disturbance would be sure to take place. 
 His reply was, "A disturbance was the very thing he 
 wanted ; and he had only waited this opportunity to 
 proclaim martial law in Vienna." 
 
 Some portion of the troops and of the National 
 Guards who sided with the Government still held out 
 in the Arsenal, whence they poured grape and canister 
 on their besiegers. These, at last, had recourse in the 
 middle of the night to Congreve rockets, for the purpose 
 of setting the building on fire. The besieged were seen 
 coming in shoals upon the roof, vainly endeavoring to 
 escape over the adjoining houses. It is impossible to 
 say how many were suffocated by the smoke, or perished 
 in the flames. The remainder surrendered on the 
 morning of the 7th and were imprisoned, and about 
 100,000 muskets fell into the hands of the citizens. 
 The people might have now proclaimed any form of 
 Government, but during the whole fight not a single 
 cry for a republic was heard. On the 8th Vienna was 
 comparatively quiet, the military having wholly evacu- 
 ated the town. 
 
 In the midst of these scenes the Diet assembled on 
 the 6th, and elected Smolka president in place of 
 Strobach, who had refused to convoke the deputies. 
 The Diet declared its sitting permanent, and elected a 
 Committee of Safety, whose "decrees should be signed 
 by the Minister Hornbostel. A deputation was also 
 appointed to carry an address to the Emperor, de- 
 manding the formation of a new and popular cabinet, 
 including DoblhofT and Hornbostel; the removal of 
 
212 AU. STRIA. 
 
 the Ban Jellachich from his governorship of Hungary ; 
 the revocation of the last proclamation against the 
 Hungarians ; and an amnesty for those implicated in 
 the riots of that day. 
 
 The Emperor returned an evasive answer, and left 
 Vienna at four o'clock a.m. on the 7th, with the other 
 members of the Imperial family, leaving behind him a 
 sealed proclamation, which the Minister Kraus read 
 the same morning to the Diet. In this document the 
 Emperor said he had done all that a sovereign could 
 do ; he had renounced the unlimited power he had 
 received from his forefathers ; he had been obliged in 
 May last to leave the castle of his late father ; he had 
 come back without any guarantee, and in full confidence, 
 to his people. A small but audacious party, however, 
 had gone to extremes in Vienna ; murder and rapine 
 had prevailed in that city, and the Minister of War 
 had been assassinated. He trusted in God and his 
 own good right, and he now left the vicinity of his 
 capital in order to find means to bring aid to his 
 oppressed people. Kraus added, that he had refused 
 to countersign this unconstitutional and threatenino- 
 proclamation. 
 
 The Diet now assumed to itself executive as well as 
 deliberative powers, and began, along with the three 
 ministers, to act as a Provisional Government, still 
 carefully observing all constitutional forms, and using 
 the Emperor's name to counteract the Emperor's un- 
 constitutional measures. Deputations were sent one 
 after the other to invite the monarch to return, under 
 the implied peril of forfeiting his throne. Count 
 Auersperg, who was outside Vienna with 20,000 men, 
 was called upon to come and aid in maintaining order 
 within the walls ; that is, in reality, to surrender him- 
 self to the force of the Diet. This he declined, on the 
 plea that he could only act under the instructions of 
 the Minister of War : the orders of the late minister, 
 
SECOND FLIGHT OF THE EMPEROR. 213 
 
 the murdered Latour, did not allow him to enter Vien- 
 na, but he would obey a new Minister of War so soon 
 as any should be duly appointed. The Diet succeeded 
 no better with Jellachich, who was approaching with 
 his Croats. Summoned to retire, he replied bluntly 
 that he was the Emperor's officer, commanding the 
 Emperor's forces, and that he awaited the Imperial 
 orders. The Diet then turned to Jellachich's enemy 
 Kossuth, to request the aid of his Hungarians ; and 
 his majesty's rebels, invited by his majesty's ministers, 
 returned a fallacious promise, that they would invade 
 the metropolitan province and clear it of his majesty's 
 forces. 
 
 At war with his German and Hungarian subjects, 
 the Emperor threw himself into the arms of his be- 
 loved Slavonians, to whom he had given such touch- 
 ing marks of his paternal affection in the bombardment 
 of Prague. He arrived at Olmutz in Moravia on the 
 14th. Here he found a minister, M. Wessenberg, to 
 countersign his proclamations ; and strong in the 
 support offered by the Slavonians to their anti- 
 German and anti-Magyar Emperor, he threw off all 
 disguise, and after returning evasive answers to the 
 importunate messengers from Vienna, after refusing to 
 accept the resignations of the ministers in that city, he 
 declared open war against the rebels. They were to 
 be put down by armed force, and the murderers of his 
 faithful servants Lamberg and Latour should be handed 
 over to avenging justice. To this end he appointed 
 Prince Windischgratz commander-in-chief of all his 
 forces, except those under Radetski in Italy, and he 
 gave the prince full power to do all things " according 
 to his judgment within the shortest time." 
 
 The Emperor's manifesto, fulminated on the 16th, 
 followed close upon the defection of the recreant 
 Hungarians, who had retired within their own frontier, 
 and left their unfortunate allies of Vienna to their fate, 
 
214 AUSTRIA. 
 
 In the House of Representatives at Pesth, on the 14th 
 of September, Kossuth announced the withdrawal of 
 his army, and professed to state the cause. He avowed 
 his gratitude for the sentiments expressed by the 
 citizens of Vienna, but regretted that " no official 
 declaration had come from that quarter." As an 
 advance would under such circumstances have been an 
 invasion, he withdrew his army, and he should look 
 only to defending his fatherland. This pretended ex- 
 planation explains nothing; the only intelligible reasons 
 that have been suggested for the apparent bad faith 
 of the Hungarians on this occasion are purely conjec- 
 tural, such as that they may have yielded to Auers- 
 perg's promises, or to the threats of Russia, that if 
 they advanced upon Vienna she would interpose. 
 
 The conduct of the Slavonians was far more consis- 
 tent with their former professions, and with their 
 avowed policy. Immediately after the outbreak in 
 Vienna, some thirty Bohemian members of the Aus- 
 trian Diet assembled in Prague, and in conjunction 
 with the municipal authorities took counsel for uphold- 
 ing the interests of the kingdom of Bohemia. Palacky, 
 the learned leader of the Tchechs, denounced the 
 recent revolution in Vienna, and the proceedings of 
 the Magyars ; commended the loyalty of Jellachich ; 
 and declared that the throne and the dynasty could be 
 upheld only by the northern and southern Slavonians. 
 Palacky and another deputy went subsequently to 
 Olmutz, and laid before the Emperor a declaration of 
 all the Bohemian members, to the effect that it was 
 their determination not to return to Vienna, and that 
 they would not be answerable for anything that might 
 happen in Bohemia, should the Emperor refuse to 
 transfer the seat of the Diet to another city. His 
 majesty received the deputation graciously, and referred 
 them to a proclamation lie had signed on the 20th, 
 decreeing the removal of the Austrian Diet to the 
 
LETTER OF JELLACHICH. 215 
 
 small town of Kremsier, in Moravia, and summoning 
 all its members to meet there on the 15th of Novem- 
 ber, in order to proceed with the mighty work of per- 
 fecting the Constitution. * 
 
 About the same time the following letter, addressed 
 by the Ban Jellachich to his " Slavonic brethren in Bo- 
 hemia," was read with acclamations in the Slovanska 
 Lipa (Slavonic Union) of Prague : — 
 
 " Beloved Companions and dear Brethren, — My con- 
 duct up to this day shows what I aim at and what I 
 desire. Inspired as I am with affection for Slavism, I 
 am no less persuaded in my inmost heart that Slavism 
 is the strongest prop of Austria ; but that Austria also 
 is an unavoidable condition for the integrity of Slavism, 
 so that ' if there were no Austria we should have to 
 create one.' There certainly is not one sensible man 
 who does not know that the existence of Austria is 
 most intimately connected with that of Slavism. There- 
 fore it was my duty, as a faithful and sincere Slavonian, 
 to oppose in Pesth the anti-Austrian party which rose 
 in hostility against Slavism. 
 
 " But as I approached Pesth, that nest of the Mag- 
 yar aristocracy, our common enemies arose ; and had 
 they conquered in Vienna, my victory in Pesth would 
 have been incomplete, and the mainstay of our enemies 
 would have been Vienna. 
 
 " Therefore I turned with my whole army against 
 Vienna, in order to chastise the enemies of Slavism in 
 Austria's capital. Inexpressibly great was my joy when 
 I saw that my brethren in Bohemia, led by the same 
 conviction, still further strengthened by the departure 
 of the delegates, carried their victorious banners before 
 Vienna, for the purpose of offering me and my army 
 the right hand of fellowship, and of thus conquering 
 as heroes or dying with honor. 
 
 " I was led solely by the conviction that I was 
 approaching Vienna against the enemy of Slavism; 
 
216 AUSTRIA. 
 
 and I cherish the hope that you not only under- 
 stand ray actions, but will support them. Receive 
 my greeting. 
 
 "Given at the head-quarters of the Croatic-Sla- 
 vonian army at Zwolfaxingen. 
 
 " Jellachich, Ban, 
 
 "Oct. 22, 1848.' ? 
 
 Windischgratz had now arrived before Vienna, and 
 invested it with an army of some 100,000 men and 140 
 guns. Some days were spent in negotiation, both par- 
 ties at the same time preparing for action. Messenhau- 
 ser, the commander-in-chief of the National Guard, and 
 General Behm, who acted under him, put the city in 
 as good a position for defence as possible, and the po- 
 pulation were perfectly ready for fighting. 
 
 The attack began on the morning of the 28 th, and 
 by evening all the northern and eastern suburbs were 
 occupied. Next morning the southern suburbs were 
 attacked, and from the interior of the city a column of 
 smoke issued, as a signal of distress, calling upon the 
 Hungarians for help. The Hungarian vanguard did 
 indeed show itself, but, without making any attack, 
 withdrew immediately again to Briick. The Viennese 
 now sent a deputation to Windischgratz with propo- 
 sals of surrender. The prince refused to abate his 
 previous demand for disarming the working-men and 
 the students, but agreed to suspend hostilities for 
 twelve hours, while the besieged held a last delibera- 
 tion. 
 
 The deputation returned and summoned a meeting 
 of the town-council, which was attended by Messen- 
 hauser, the commander of the Academic Legion, and 
 some members of the Diet. Messenhauser declared 
 that he and the officers under him were ready to hold 
 out if the council decided to do so ; but the situation 
 was nearly desperate. The troops were in possession 
 
BOMBARDMENT OF VIENNA. 2lV 
 
 of the suburbs to the foot of the glacis, and the walls were 
 incapable of general defence against escalade. On the 
 question being put to the vote, it was resolved by three- 
 fourths of the town-councillors that the defence should 
 cease. Messenhauser and his National Guards, with 
 the chiefs of the students, set about carrying this reso- 
 lution into effect ; and it was announced to Prince 
 Windischgratz. A disarming had actually commenced 
 on the 30th ; but the sentinels on St. Stephen's then 
 announced that the Hungarians were advancing in full 
 march from Briick, and were driving in the outposts of 
 the besiegers. General Behm, the commander of the 
 workmen, who formed the largest body of the defenders, 
 had protested against the surrender agreed on the day 
 before, and he and they seized on the announcement of 
 the Hungarian advance to renew the conflict. This 
 was done on all sides, with greater activity than ever, 
 and even with some partial successes ; but after the 
 first surprise the Imperial troops drove the workmen 
 back, and resumed all their advantageous positions. 
 
 On the 31st, the Municipal Council endeavored again 
 to carry out the stipulations of the 29th. White flags 
 of surrender were hung out on the bastions and from 
 the houses ; the Imperial troops advanced, but a slaugh- 
 tering fire was opened upon them. This so exasper- 
 ated Prince Windischgratz that he ordered a bombard- 
 ment of the city and an attack by storm on three of 
 the south and south-eastern gates. The library in the 
 castle, several public buildings, and two churches, were 
 set on fire. The Burg Thor was carried by the troops, 
 and a short but bloody fight began in the streets. The 
 defenders being still, as on the 29th and 30th, divided 
 amongst themselves — some only of them for fighting, 
 more for yielding — the success of the besiegers was 
 rapid; and before midnight of the 31st the greater 
 portion of the capital was subdued. On the 1st in- 
 10 
 
218 AUSTRIA. 
 
 staqt, the contest was still continued at detached points 
 by a body of workmen and students ; and the most 
 north-westerly parts of the city were not mastered till 
 dawn of the 2d. These last frantic conflicts were 
 waged between some students and Croats; some of 
 the former were thrown alive from the tops of the lofti- 
 est houses, and hardly any received quarter. The fire 
 in the palace was extinguished without much injury to 
 the books or archives ; but the church of the Augustins 
 was destroyed. On the 2d, the submission of the 
 whole city was complete. All the gates were closed ; all 
 communication with the suburbs was prevented. Prince 
 Windischgratz proclaimed, that in consequence of the 
 breach of capitulation, the conditions which he had at 
 first agreed to were null and void ; and the Academic 
 Legion was for ever dissolved, and the National Guard 
 disbanded for an unlimited time. All newspapers and 
 political associations were suspended ; all assemblages 
 of more than ten persons forbidden ; and a strict search 
 was ordered for concealed arms. 
 
 To the last inexplicable in their movements and their 
 motives, the Hungarians did actually cross 'the Leitha 
 on the 30th October, and made a show of fighting for 
 the Viennese. Jellachich was despatched to drive them 
 off, and he seems to have done so at a blow ; a facility 
 strangely at variance with the boasted uniformity of 
 success attending the Magyars in their wars against the 
 Slavonians. 
 
 The number killed on both sides in the storming of 
 the Austrian capital is estimated at about 2,500 ; the 
 damage sustained by fire and pillage at about a million 
 and a half sterling. The victory of the Imperialists, 
 cruelly won, was infamously used. The horrors of the 
 storming were greatly aggravated by letting loose those 
 lawless savages, the Croat soldiers, to plunder, burn, 
 murder, and ravish. In a letter, written at Vienna on 
 
SACKING OF VIENNA. 219 
 
 the 1st of November, the writer says : — " The victory 
 of the troops has been abused in the most inhuman 
 manner. Instead of making prisoners of all who were 
 found in arms, but who offered no resistance, and de- 
 livering- them over for trial by courts-martial or other- 
 wise, they were butchered singly without mercy ; and 
 this not alone by the privates without orders, even 
 officers boast of having given commands to that effect. 
 An officer of the National Guards surprised by the 
 military, and seeing his retreat cut off, called out 
 • Quarter !' but was shot on the spot. Persons in the 
 streets in the evening were called to by the patrols to 
 stand ; some in their terror endeavored to get out of 
 the way, and were immediately fired upon. I myself 
 witnessed the death of two individuals who fell pierced 
 with balls. But the emperor's troops have not alone 
 massacred — they have pillaged, and, as it would seem, 
 with full permission, no steps being taken by the offi- 
 cers to prevent it. At first I would not believe the 
 iact, but have since seen grenadiers encamped in the 
 hotel in which I am lodging, taking watches, gold-lace, 
 and fine articles of clothing, out of their bread-sacks, so 
 that the truth exhibited itself in all its nakedness to my 
 eyes. You often see parties of tinkers strolling about 
 the country to mend pots and pans ; they come out of 
 the Carpathian mountains ; now fancy two hundred 
 and fifty such fellows with muskets in their hands and 
 a great leather sack on their backs for a knapsack, 
 and you have a company of Croatian soldiers of the 
 kind which Windischgratz has let loose in masses on 
 the city." 
 
 As military occupant of Vienna, Windischgratz 
 exercised the powers of martial law with a vindictive- 
 ness no less impolitic than ruthless. Daily, for more 
 than a week, the courts-martial and the imperial execu- 
 tioners were busy condemning, hanging, and shooting 
 prisoners, with a secresy more becoming conscious 
 
220 AUSTRIA. 
 
 murderers than ministers of justice.* It seemed as 
 though Austria was resolved not to let those who used 
 to tremble at the name of Spielberg, suppose that Aus- 
 trian domination had changed its nature in becoming 
 nominally constitutional. The republican Government 
 of France showed mercy to the political prisoners in its 
 hands, and spared from death even its unyielding 
 antagonists in battle. The monarchical Government of 
 Austria no sooner regained for a time a little of its 
 power, than it again resorted to the cruel conduct which 
 had long made it not only feared but hated. Among 
 the many executions ordered by Windischgratz, two 
 especially excited universal disgust. 
 
 Messenhauser, the brave commander of the National 
 Guard, was shot, — an iniquitous act, which cannot be 
 excused even on the poor plea of expediency. Imperial 
 vengeance should have been restrained by the thought 
 that the civil war had been solely provoked by gross 
 Imperial treachery. A Government that had such need 
 of forgiveness would have acted wisely in forgiving. 
 But Messenhauser was shot as a traitor ; and a chief 
 instrument in bringing him to that fate was Jellachich, 
 a man who had been declared a traitor in May, and 
 who very soon afterwards, without any atonement or 
 change of conduct on his part, had been named Com- 
 mander-in-chief and Governor of Hungary. 
 
 Robert Blum of Leipsic, and Frobel, his companion 
 and colleague in the Frankfort Assembly, were both 
 sentenced to death. Frobel survives, and his story 
 strongly inculpates Windischgratz, who seems to have 
 picked out the two senators from among the crowd that- 
 defended Vienna in order to treat them with especial 
 severity. Frobel was pardoned on the score of " ex- 
 tenuating circumstances ;" a conflict of harshness and 
 
 * It has been said, that the?e alleged cruelties were greatly 
 exaggerated, for that, in fact, only three executions took place 
 for high treason. A most pitiful quibble ! 
 
EXECUTION OF ROBERT BLUM. 221 
 
 leniency which indicates vacillating councils, and im- 
 parts a still darker aspect to the bad deed of shooting 
 Blum. He should have been kept in custody, and 
 handed over to the proper tribunal at Frankfort. To 
 inflict a military sentence on a German senator, a man 
 not fairly within Viennese jurisdiction, was either a 
 savage blunder or a wilful act of scorn and defiance cast 
 upon the Imperial legislature at Frankfort. The latter 
 supposition is probably the true one ; for Austria has 
 scarcely ever condescended to disguise her antipathy to 
 the phantom empire of Germany. If it was her inten- 
 tion to outrage that feeble apparition, she knew that 
 she could do so with impunity. The Assembly at 
 Frankfort did indeed evince its just indignation in very 
 strong language ; but it could do no more. The whole 
 body rose and affirmed the following motion by unani- 
 mous acclamation, including the suffrages of the minis- 
 ters Schmerlmg, an Austrian, Mohl, and Bekerath : — 
 
 " The National Assembly, solemnly protesting before 
 all Germany against the arrest and execution of Robert 
 Blum, which acts were consummated in total disregard 
 of the imperial law of 30th September ultimo, calls 
 upon the Imperial Ministry to adopt the most strenu- 
 ous measures for calling those parties to account who, 
 either directly or indirectly, bear the guilt of the offence, 
 and for securing their punishment." 
 
 Brave words, but nothing more ! Commissioners 
 were sent to Vienna, a show of inquiry was made, and 
 the matter was hushed up. 
 
 The severities exercised against Vienna were such as 
 to produce a revulsion of feeling even in Bohemia, and 
 the Slavonic deputies, with Strobach and Palacky at 
 their head, strongly protested against Windischgratz's 
 barbarities. On the other hand the Emperor Nicholas 
 manifested his approval of the conduct of both the 
 Austrian commanders, thereby ostentatiously marking 
 his own position in the politics of Europe. To Win- 
 
222 AUSTRIA. 
 
 dischgratz lie sent the grand cross of St. Andrew, for 
 coercing Vienna; he had sent him no such tribute 
 when the prince signalized the reduction of Prague by 
 a magnanimous and merciful oblivion of the injuries 
 inflicted on his own household : but Prague is a Slavo- 
 nic city. The grand cross of St. Wladimir was bestowed 
 on the Ban of Croatia, the scourge of Hungary, and 
 leader of those Slavonic races whom Russia desires to 
 absorb. 
 
AUSTRIA. 223 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 AUSTRIA. 
 
 ABDICATION OF THE EMPEROR FERDINAND PRINCIPLES OF THE 
 
 NEW ADMINISTRATION INVASION OF HUNGARY BY THE IMPE- 
 RIAL FORCES. 
 
 After the inexorable Windischgratz had done his 
 bloody work, the Imperial Government entered upon a 
 conciliatory course towards all but the refractory Hun- 
 garians, who were sharply admonished against lending 
 themselves to the " impertinent intrigues " of the traitor 
 Louis Kossuth. A new Ministry was formed, as fol- 
 lows : — Prince Felix Schwarzenberg, Premier and Fo- 
 reign Minister ; Count Francis Stadion, Interior ; Baron 
 Kraus, Finance ; General . Cordon, War ; Dr. Bach, 
 Justice ; Rhinnfield, Worship ; Bruck, Commerce and 
 Public Works ; Thienfeld, Agriculture. Count Stadion 
 stipulated that certain State Councillors, and some 
 other instruments of Metternich, should be dismissed. 
 
 The Diet assembled at Kremsier on the 2 2d of No- 
 vember, and was formally opened in the Cathedral 
 Church. Nearly all the members were present. On 
 the 27th the Premier delivered a speech, declaring the 
 principles on which he and his colleagues proposed to 
 act in their government. So far as we may judge from 
 that manifesto, the statesmen who have subscribed to 
 it were honestly and judiciously intent on consolidating 
 the liberties acquired by the Revolution of March. 
 Resolved to vindicate that authority in the Executive, 
 
224 AUSTRIA. 
 
 without which no Government can exist, they disclaim 
 all reactionary intentions, and, instead of endeavoring 
 to re-establish the Austria of 1815, they seek to deve- 
 lope a new Austria, suited to the altered state of Europe. 
 This is to be effected by organizing a true representation 
 of the people, on the basis of free institutions and local 
 self-government, with a vigorous central administration. 
 Such a constitution of the empire would be the very 
 opposite to that which existed down to 1848 ; that was 
 a centralized bureaucracy, ruling over provinces kept in 
 a state of subjection, separation, and mutual ignorance : 
 the new plan was a popular machinery of government 
 and a federalized consolidation. 
 
 To give more vigor to the prosecution of the grand 
 work proposed in the ministerial programme, and also 
 to inspire the sore-tried subjects of the Austrian Crown 
 with fresh hope and confidence, it was deemed requisite 
 to hold out some token of renovation more signal and 
 impressive than a mere change of ministry. The honor 
 of the Imperial name had been sullied past all cure in 
 the person of Ferdinand. Not all the superstitious 
 attachment of the Austrians to their sovereign could 
 long countervail their just indignation and disgust at 
 the deeds done in his name by the irresponsible keepers 
 of the idiot monarch. A project, therefore, which had 
 been openly discussed in May, after the flight to 
 Inspruck, was now carried into effect, and on the 2d of 
 December the Emperor Ferdinand abdicated the Aus- 
 trian throne; Francis Charles, his next brother and 
 legal heir, renounced the succession; and Francis 
 Joseph, a young man only in his nineteenth year, and 
 son of the renouncing Archduke, was proclaimed 
 Emperor of Austria, &c, by the name of Francis Joseph 
 the First. 
 
 The transfer of the crown relieved the subjects of 
 Austria, not only of an imbecile emperor, but also of 
 the camarilla that had made him their stalking-horse 
 
THE NEW EMPERORS MANIFESTO. 225 
 
 for the perpetration of such incalculable mischief. The 
 Princess Sophia, wife of the Archduke Francis Charles, 
 over whom she rules, was the leading spirit of the 
 camarilla, and generally regarded as the heart and soul 
 of the Metternich party. To have placed the crown on 
 her husband's head would have been tantamount to a 
 restoration of absolute monarchy ; whereas the election 
 of the Princess's son was accepted as a public and un- 
 equivocal announcement of her defeat. The whole 
 family circle was immediately broken up : the ex- 
 Emperor and his consort departed for Prague ; the 
 Archduchess Sophia and the Archduke Francis Charles 
 for Munich ; and the Archduke Ferdinand D'Este for 
 Berlin and Dresden. The young Emperor's inaugural 
 proclamation is a state paper of high interest : — 
 
 " We, Francis Joseph I., by the grace of God Emperor 
 of Austria, <fcc. 
 
 " By the resignation of our beloved uncle, the Em- 
 peror and King Ferdinand the First, in Hungary and 
 Bohemia of that name the Eighth, and by the resigna- 
 tion of our beloved father, the Lord Archduke Francis 
 Charles, and summoned on the strength of the Prag- 
 matic Sanction to assume the crown of this empire, 
 proclaim hereby solemnly to our people the fact of our 
 ascension to the throne, under the name of Francis 
 Joseph the First. 
 
 " We are convinced of the necessity and the value of 
 free institutions, and enter with confidence on the path 
 of a prosperous reformation of the monarchy. 
 
 " On the basis of true liberty, on the basis of the 
 equality of rights of all our people, and the equality of 
 all citizens before the law, and on the basis of their 
 equally partaking in the representation and legislation, 
 the country will rise to its ancient grandeur ; it will 
 acquire new strength to resist the storms of the time ; 
 it will be a hall to shelter the tribes of many tongues 
 united under the sceptre of our fathers. 
 p 10* 
 
226 AUSTRIA. 
 
 " Jealous of the glory of the crown, and resolved to 
 preserve the monarchy uncurtailed, but ready to share 
 our privilege with the representatives of our people, we 
 hope, by the assistance of God and the co-operation of 
 our people, to succeed in uniting all the countries and 
 tribes of the monarchy into one integral state. We 
 have had severe trials ; tranquillity and order have been 
 disturbed in many parts of the empire. A civil war is 
 even now raging in one part of the monarchy. Pre- 
 parations have been made to restore legal order every- 
 where. The conquest over rebellion and the return of 
 domestic peace are the first conditions to the great 
 work which we now take in hand. 
 
 " In this we rely confidently on the sensible and 
 candid co-operation of the nation by its representatives. 
 
 " We rely on the sound sense of the loyal inhabitants 
 of the country, whom the new laws on the abolition of 
 servitude and imposts have admitted to a full enjoy- 
 ment of civil rights. 
 
 " We rely on the loyal servants of the state. 
 
 " We expect our glorious army will persevere in their 
 ancient fidelity and bravery. They will continue to be 
 a pillar of the throne, and a bulwark to the country and 
 its free institutions. 
 
 " We shall be happy to reward merit, without any 
 distinction of birth or station. 
 
 " People of Austria ! it is an awful time in which we 
 mount the throne of our fathers. " Great are the duties 
 of our office, great is its responsibility. May God 
 protect us. 
 
 " Francis Joseph, 
 " schwarzenberg. 
 
 " Olmiitz, December 5, 1848." 
 
 Notwithstanding the enlightened \iews and appa- 
 rently upright intentions of the new authorities, they 
 could not at once win the affections of the country. 
 
INVETERATE BAD HABITS OF GOVERNMENT. 227 
 
 Suspicion had grown inveterate in the minds of the 
 Austrians through long acquaintance with bad govern- 
 ment. Besides this, the Administration was, of course, 
 obliged to employ a host of functionaries, trained and 
 hardened in the practices of the Metternich school; 
 and these men could not soon forget their old ways. 
 To these two causes we may, in fairness, attribute a 
 belief strongly entertained by the people, that the new 
 Government was engaged in a low intrigue to re-es- 
 tablish the old despotic system. " I cannot believe 
 they are right," says the Viennese correspondent of 
 The Times, " but I do wish Austrian Governments — 
 no matter whether represented by Pillersdorf, or Dobl- 
 hof, or Wessenberg, or Schwarzenberg — would conde- 
 scend to act with candor. It is but natural that a 
 thousand abuses cannot be put down in a few weeks ; 
 where so much is to re-make, the most necessary re- 
 forms must be put off to a more convenient time. But 
 they ought to eschew sleights of hand. I grieve to 
 see that the rulers of this country are still given to 
 trickery. I mentioned in' a former letter the case of 
 flogging in the army. That punishment has been 
 abolished by law, and yet the soldiers are as much 
 beaten as they ever were. The law of abolition was 
 made for the public j>apers only. Another grievance, 
 perhaps an imagiuary one, was the ' Theresianum,' a 
 kind of charity-school for young aristocrats. The Go- 
 vernment lately abolished this Theresianum. The 
 Wiener Zeitung was very eloquent on the liberality of 
 that measure, and the great good it would do to the 
 public. But, while people congratulated each other on 
 this momentous improvement, the Theresianum was 
 quietly re-opened. Cunning like this is akin to that 
 of the ostrich." « 
 
 The good people of Vienna fondly expected, for their 
 own share in the graces and bounties of the new reign, 
 the immediate removal of the state of siege, and the 
 
228 AUSTRIA. 
 
 arrival of their young Emperor in the ancient capital 
 of his dynasty. But they were doomed to disappoint- 
 ment in both respects. The Emperor continued to re- 
 side at Olmiitz ; and as for the state of siege, it could 
 only cease to exist with the rebellion in Hungary. The 
 Imperial army could not afford to leave unrestrained in 
 its rear a city of doubtful and even hostile sentiments, 
 whilst about to engage in a war which was likely to 
 be both protracted and bloody. 
 
 Hungary was the only portion of the empire to 
 which the advent of the new monarch brought no 
 hopeful prospects. While to some provinces was 
 vouchsafed a continuance of that peculiar favor they 
 had for some time enjoyed, and while, in other pro- 
 vinces, coercive measures were suspended or mitigated, 
 Hungary was threatened with an invading army, and 
 her leading men were denounced as traitors. Prague 
 had been coerced, so had Vienna, so had Lombardy ; 
 but the rough measures inflicted on them belonged to 
 the bygone reign : it was to Hungary alone that the 
 new Emperor presented an ' adverse front. Her lead- 
 ing men, therefore, were driven to desperate extremi- 
 ties. Their only hope lay in the renewal of the Impe- 
 rial anarchy ; in the re-establishment of the Imperial 
 authority they beheld their own destruction. Branded 
 as rebels and traitors, they retorted by denouncing the 
 young monarch as a usurper. The Parliament of 
 Hungary resolved, that, as regarded that kingdom, 
 " the family abdications and the shiftings of right which 
 took place at Olm utz on the 2d of December" were 
 null and void, inasmuch as any such arrangements 
 " could have no effect on the royal throne of Hungary 
 unless the Hungarian Parliament were consulted and 
 had given its cogent." Whoever, therefore, claimed 
 royal jurisdiction in Hungary, without having been 
 first acknowledged by the Law, the Constitution, and 
 the Parliament, was to be resisted as an usurper, and 
 
HUNGARY IN REBELLION. 229 
 
 those who neglected that duty should be liable to pro- 
 secution for high treason against the country. 
 
 The constitutional law, thus laid down, was admitted 
 to be correct ; the Imperialists themselves owned that 
 a change in the Hungarian succession requires the con- 
 sent of the nation, and they doubted not but that, 
 at the proper season, that assent would be solicited, 
 but they denied that the body calling itself the Hun- 
 garian Parliament had any right to that designa- 
 tion. It had been dissolved by the Emperor, King 
 Ferdinand, in the exercise of his unquestionable prero- 
 gative, and it existed only as an illegal and revolution- 
 ary assembly. 
 
 Vast preparations were now made on both sides for 
 what seemed likely, from the mutual acrimony of the 
 belligerents, to prove a war of extermination. Two 
 months were spent by the Imperial generals in collect- 
 ing troops from all corners of the empire, and inclos- 
 ing Hungary within a ring-fence of bayonets and can- 
 non. The campaign then began after the fashion of 
 those great sporting battues, in which every head of 
 game in a large district is driven in before a continually 
 narrowing circle of hunters. The main army of invasion 
 marched eastward from Austria in three divisions, under 
 Jellachich, Simonich, and Serbelloni ; Windischgratz re- 
 taining the general command. From the Gallician fron- 
 tier, General Schlich directed his march due south to- 
 wards the heart of the kingdom. Nearly opposite him 
 was the force advancing under Dahlen from the Uly- 
 rian provinces ; while Puchner, Urban, and Wardener, 
 who had already put down the insurrection in Transyl- 
 vania, were pressing upon the eastern frontier. The 
 opening of the campaign is thus described under the 
 date of Vienna, December 21 : 
 
 " It would seem that Prince Windischgratz wishes 
 to make up for lost time. He has been marching his 
 troops and carrying his stores for seven long weeks. 
 
230 AUSTRIA. 
 
 He gave the fanatic Magyars nearly two months' time 
 to ponder on the fall of Vienna and to beware of a 
 like curse, to make their country impassable, and to 
 drill the savage hordes of their Landsturm into some- 
 thing like order. Six weeks is the time usually allowed 
 for the breaking in of a recruit. Prince Windischgratz 
 has been generous : he granted the Magyars an extra 
 week to give the tyros the finish. They seem to have 
 profited by it. It is true the serene Commander-in- 
 chief had no sooner appeared among the armies sta- 
 tioned alonu the Hungarian frontier than he led his 
 troops boldly on, carrying everything before him. The 
 campaign had a glorious opening. Oedenburg was 
 taken on the first day, Tyrnau on the second, and Pres- 
 burg on the third. The Imperialists advanced at double 
 quick time ; the Magyars made a running fight of it : 
 they took up positions merely in order to leave them 
 when attacked ; the prisoners whom the Imperialists 
 took were Marodeurs, that could not keep up with the 
 quickness of the retreat, and the five guns which the 
 former captured had their carriages broken. Presburg 
 itself was taken in the most amicable manner. The 
 Magyars left by one gate while the Imperial troops en- 
 tered by another. 
 
 " Details like these characterize the campaign. After 
 all their boasting, the Magyars were bad fighters in the 
 course of this summer, but they were not so bad as to 
 disarm my suspicion of a deep plan being at the bottom 
 of this hasty retreat. The Magyars have adopted that 
 mode of fighting which agrees best with their origin 
 and the nature of their country — to wit, the Parthian : 
 they retire as the enemy advances ; they rather obstruct 
 his progress than oppose it; they call in want, fever, 
 and cold, to assist them ; and surely these must make 
 more havoc than the sabres of the Szeklers ever can do. 
 The Imperial armies have to make their way through 
 deserted tracts of country ; the bridges being brokeia 
 
CAMPAIGN IN HUNGARY. 231 
 
 down, they must ford the rivers, or halt until other 
 bridges have been constructed. If they wish to take 
 their commissariat and stores along with them, their 
 march must be tedious and slow beyond conception ; 
 if, on the contrary, they push forward, they fall a prey 
 to all the evils of a famine. Fancy them on their pro- 
 gress through the inhospitable plains of inner Hungary, 
 and, now that the winter has fairly set in, exposed to 
 all the inclemencies of the season, unsheltered, unfed, 
 and harassed by the light horse of a foe who ever 
 attacks, and ever retreats from attack. . And fancy 
 that foe, though perhaps not naturally of the bravest, 
 yet urged to the most unremitting violence by the con- 
 sciousness of crime and the anticipation of punishment. 
 I have had occasion to talk to some people who lately 
 came from Pesth, and who assure me that the inhabit- 
 ants of the Hungarian capital are fully aware of what 
 they have staked in the game, that their former misdo- 
 ings compel them to resist to the last, and that they 
 are resolved to do so. The just retribution which 
 Prince Windischgratz has dealt on the malefactors of 
 Vienna has there been amplified by rumor into deeds 
 of most bloody revenge and cruelty. No matter whether 
 true or not true, the people of Hungary believe that 
 the Commander-in-ehief treated the Viennese most bar- 
 barously; and the idea that his treatment of them 
 would be b} r far harsher goads them into phrensy. In 
 short, the Hungarians have gone so far that they can- 
 not retrace their steps." 
 
 Their cause was indeed desperate : the whole strength 
 of the empire combined against them, all succor cut off 
 from them, and their only hope of favorable interference 
 from without dependent on the result of a mission they 
 had sent to solicit the mediation of the British and 
 French Governments. The Schwarzenberg Cabinet, 
 secure of victory over the Hungarian rebellion, made 
 Bo secret of their intention to profit by it, as Pitt did 
 
232 AUSTRIA. 
 
 by the Irish Rebellion of 1798. The Wiener Zeitung 
 is the acknowledged organ of the Austrian Government, 
 and sentences like the following are of deep import 
 when published by it : — 
 
 u The Magyar tribe is now being thrown back upon 
 its geographical territory, and the kingdom of Hungary, 
 such as it has been, lies in its agonies after existing for 
 a thousand years. Its history is ended ; its future be- 
 longs to Austria." 
 
 The sort of treatment that, in other respects, awaited 
 the vanquished Hungarians may be inferred from the 
 following proclamation of the Austrian Commander-in- 
 chief; its savage cruelty confounds all distinctions of 
 innocence and guilt : — 
 
 Head-quarters, Nicola, 26th December, 1848. 
 " Any inhabitant who is taken with a weapon of any 
 description in his hand will be immediately hanged. 
 
 " If the inhabitants of any place shall, united, dare 
 to attack any Imperial royal military courier, any trans- 
 ports, any or single commanding officers, or to injure 
 them in any way soever, such place shall be made level 
 with the earth. 
 
 " The authorities of the different places shall answer 
 with their heads for the preservation of the public peace. 
 " Prince Windischgratz, 
 
 " Field-Marshal."* 
 
 * Shortly after the close of the year 1848, the whole of 
 Hungary seemed to be de facto subdued. Raab was taken, 
 and Windischgratz had entered Buda Pesth on the 5th of 
 January at the head of his troops, without a shot being fired. 
 Kossuth had retreated with 12,000 men to the Carpathian 
 mountains. Frost and disease had considerably thinned the 
 Imperial armies, but their force still appeared to be sufficient to 
 crush all effectual opposition on the part of the Hungarians. 
 
 But the spirit of that noble people rose the higher in propor- 
 tion to the difficulties and perils which menaced them. A 
 mere fragment of the Austrian empire, they struggled bravely 
 
NOTE. 233* 
 
 against the imperial tyranny, strengthened as that was by the 
 colossal power of Russia. During the present year (1849) the 
 admiration of the world has been excited by the brilliant victo- 
 ries which have attended the career of Kossuth and his heroic 
 Magyars. Alas ! that a gloomy disaster has eclipsed the 
 bright hopes inspired by their valor ! Gorgey, the Hungarian 
 general, who had hitherto rivalled Kossuth in heroism, has at 
 length despaired of their glorious cause. We instinctively re- 
 pel the suspicion that he has been bought by Russian gold. 
 We hope that it was not treachery, but that it was only a weak 
 although benevolent desire to spare his country the horrors of a 
 prolonged, and in his fear, a vain contest, that induced him to 
 surrender his own army of 27,000 men, and, afterwards, when 
 appointed to hold the reins of government relinquished by 
 Kossuth, to recommend the nation to submit to its invaders. 
 Whatever may have been his motive, his conduct has sealed 
 the doom of Hungary. Kossuth, who could not yield, was 
 forced to fly. The latest report is that, his wife and children 
 being captured, he is on his way to England. 
 
 Hungary now lies at the feet of his Imperial Majesty, the 
 Czar of all the Russias. The Autocrat has aided the Austrian 
 Emperor with fatal success, and the period predicted by Napo- 
 leon, when "Europe will be Cossack," appears to be fast 
 approaching. Alas for Hungary ! Alas for the cause of 
 liberty on the European continent !. 
 
234 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 PRUSSIA. 
 
 FROM THE CONVOCATION OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY TO ITS 
 DISSOLUTION AND THE GRANT OF A CONSTITUTION. 
 
 In accordance with the King's famous proclamation 
 of the 18th of March, the Prussian Diet assembled for 
 the last time on the 2d of April, only to pass a law for 
 convoking a Constituent Assembly. Having fulfilled 
 that duty, the fantastic imitation of a mediaeval institu- 
 tion disappeared like a dream, and from a representa- 
 tion of castes and classes Prussia rushed at once to 
 universal suffrage. The Diet had no hold on public 
 opinion ; its best merit was having placed in a conspi- 
 cuous and national position such men as Camphausen, 
 Beckerath, Dalilmann, and others, and produced a class 
 of persons previously unheard of in Germany — leaders 
 of a peaceful, patriotic opposition to an administration 
 which scarcely admitted of any check from public 
 opinion. 
 
 But however defective may have been the constitu- 
 tion of the short-lived Diet, it was incomparably superior 
 in moral weight and in efficiency to the heterogeneous 
 body that took its place towards the end of May. The 
 great majority of the members returned to the Consti- 
 tuent Assembly were men devoid of experience, of 
 character, of ability, and even of common education. 
 Called into existence at a most momentous crisis, its 
 debates were poor, petty, and barren of all effect on 
 
INSURRECTION IN BERLIN. 235 
 
 public opinion, and every day it sank deeper into dis- 
 repute. It was capricious and hasty in its decisions, 
 undoing one day what it had done the day before; 
 and it was noisy, ill-tempered, and disorderly. To es- 
 cape the charge of drawing its pay for nothing (each 
 member received three dollars for every day he at- 
 tended), it sat when it had nothing to do, and it created 
 business from the same motive, whilst it neglected that 
 for which it had been exclusively called into existence, 
 namely, to arrange with the ministers of the Crown the 
 plan of a constitution. A single specimen will suffice 
 to show the trashy character of its debates. It occupied 
 itself during two days, June 8th and 9th, in discussing 
 a motion brought forward by Herr Behrend, that the 
 Constituent Assembly should acknowledge the revolu- 
 tion of the 18th and 19th of March, and declare its 
 authors to merit well of their country. The motion 
 was opposed by the ministry, who, without disavowing 
 the consequences of the conflict, protested that it had 
 not overturned the existing institutions of the land. A 
 multitude of amendments were proposed, and the whole 
 assembly plunged violently into a critical disquisition 
 on the question, — Were the events of March a revolu- 
 tion or only a transaction between the Crown and the 
 people ? It was decided in favor of the transactionists 
 by a majority of 196 to 177, to the horror and rage of 
 the minority and their supporters out-of-doors. Some 
 of the representatives, the minister Baron Arnim espe- 
 cially, were assaulted as they left the Chamber, and 
 narrowly escaped with life, 
 
 A regular insurrection followed. The first exploit 
 of the mob was to tear down the iron gates which had 
 been set up a few days before on the Schlossplatz, in 
 front of one of the two large courts round which the 
 palace is built. The gates were strong and heavy, yet 
 they were wrenched from their fastenings, a process 
 that must have required immense force; the guard 
 
236 Prussia. 
 
 on duty offered no resistance, and the gates were car 
 ried in triumph to the university, and deposited in the 
 hall. 
 
 But this affair, which might, comparatively speaking, 
 have passed for a venial frolic in a city given up to 
 such perpetual turbulence and confusion, was but the 
 prelude to a most alarming and disgraceful event. On 
 the night of the 14th of June the arsenal was sacked 
 and pillaged. It was between nine and ten when the 
 mob first threatened the building. A battalion of the 
 Burgher guard was on duty there ; some of them fired, 
 killing and wounding five of the assailants, and putting 
 the rest to flight. But a panic seized the majority of 
 the civic soldiers ; they vehemently upbraided their 
 comrades for what they had done, disarmed their com- 
 manding officer, and marched off the ground. The 
 mob, after drifting about without any definite object, 
 soon after eleven o'clock appeared to have got a hint 
 that the arsenal was abandoned. They collected round 
 it again and resolved to storm it. For men, even with 
 no armed resistance to encounter, this was no easy 
 thing to do. The windows of the ground-floor are 
 closed inside with heavy sh utters, lined with thick plate 
 iron ; the doors are all equally strong. But a large beam 
 of timber was procured, and was applied to the doors and 
 windows in the manner of a battering-ram. Four win- 
 dows withstood all the force applied to them ; a fifth 
 gave way, and through it the crowd entered. All this 
 while there were 250 regular troops within the build- 
 ing, but they remained passive, for the officer in com- 
 mand was told that the removal of the troops was the 
 only mode of saving the monarchy from destruction, 
 that all the rest of the army had left the city, and that 
 the King had fled to Potsdam. The unfortunate cap- 
 tain was weak enough to believe this story, and to vio- 
 late the first of military duties in abandoning his post. 
 Had he held out a little longer, almost all the mischief " 
 
THE ARSENAL PILLAGED. 237 
 
 would have been prevented, for the last man of his 
 company had scarcely quitted the arsenal before a re- 
 inforcement arrived. His conduct, culpable as it was, 
 found a party to defend it. A deputation from several 
 of the clubs went to the War-office, and actually de- 
 manded that the captain's refusal to defend his post 
 should be recognised as a patriotic act deserving the 
 thanks of the country. 
 
 The half-hour that followed his departure cost the ' 
 State 50,000 thalers, besides the loss of objects which 
 no money could replace. The scene was a most 
 shameful one ; the mob plundered, ravaged, and de- 
 stroyed everything. New muskets were flung from 
 the windows and broken ; antiquities of priceless value, 
 arms inlaid with silver and ivory, rare models of artil- 
 lery, were stolen or broken to pieces, — nay, the trophies 
 won by the blood of the people, banners taken in the 
 Seven Years' War, and in the latter campaigns against 
 Napoleon, were torn to fragments and trampled in 
 the mire. It was not so much the desire for arms 
 as for plunder that led to this outrage, for many of 
 the arms were soon afterwards sold for a few groschen 
 apiece. 
 
 The history of the Prussian capital during the eight 
 months following the King's capitulation to the popu- 
 lace on the 18th of March is that of a chronic state of 
 riot, with paroxysms almost as frequent and regular as 
 ague-fits. The middle classes were more demoralized 
 and mob-ridden than those of Paris, the Burgher 
 guard failed in every important emergency to perform 
 their primary duty of maintaining order ; we have seen 
 how, for the sake of peace and quiet, they marched off 
 from the arsenal and let the plunderers have their 
 way ; they did not even protect a minister from an inva- 
 sion of a few hundred men, who stormed his office, 
 broke open doors, and nad to be bought off for money. 
 Severe monetary distress exasperated eveiy other evil. 
 
238 Prussia. 
 
 Thousands of artisans, deprived of employment, swelled 
 the malefactor class in a capital that has always from 
 8,000 to 10,000 liberated convicts among its popula- 
 tion, ready to take advantage of any confusion. A 
 rapid succession of ministers passed through the pub- 
 lic offices, some designated by the popular party, and 
 some selected as faithful servants of the Crown, but 
 none of them had strength to guide the Assembly or 
 * courage to resist it, or personal influence enough to dis- 
 arm the animosity of a populace they could neither 
 serve nor feed. It was the King's weakness and folly 
 that had let loose all these elements of confusion, and 
 lest, haply, they should at. last siibside, he kept up the 
 turmoil from time to time by some monstrous outbreak 
 of personal indiscretion. Thus, for instance, so late as 
 the middle of October, 1848, he talked in downright 
 earnest of his divine right as no fiction, but a living 
 truth. On the 15th, Frederick William IV. celebrated 
 the anniversary of his birthday ; various congratula- 
 tory deputations waited on him, but he received them 
 with anything but gracious cordiality. To the deputa- 
 tion from the Assembly he said, " Remember that I am 
 still king ' by the grace of God,' and that the authori- 
 ties which are instituted by God are alone able to main- 
 tain law and order." 
 
 At last a crisis arrived, and under the direction, pro- 
 bably, of the more energetic members of the royal 
 family, the King for once pursued a firm, temperate, 
 and consistent course. A sufficient pretext for this 
 change was found in a scene of more than ordinary 
 violence which occurred in the Assembly on the 31st 
 of October. A motion was brought forward by Herr 
 Waldeck, for a resolution calling on the Government to 
 employ all means and forces at the disposal of the 
 State for the defence of the liberties of the people en- 
 dangered at Vienna. A moo* of several thousands 
 marched to the House to lend this motion the aid of 
 
DEPUTATION FROM THE ASSEMBLY TO THE KING. 239 
 
 their pressure from without ; and many of them went 
 prepared with cords with running nooses, hammers, 
 and long nails or hooks, for the purpose of hanging 
 certain obnoxious deputies. So violent was the temper 
 of the mob, that even Behrend, "the friend of the 
 people," was accused of being lukewarm, and not only 
 was he hissed, hooted, and insulted, but his long red 
 beard was singed off by the torches of his quondam 
 admirers. The Burgher guard for once did their duty, 
 and repulsed the invaders of the Assembly, killing or 
 wounding about a dozen of them, and arresting several 
 others, 
 
 It was expected that Count Pfuel, the premier, 
 would take vigorous means to extricate the Govern- 
 ment and the country from the degraded and perilous 
 position into which they had fallen. But if the King 
 had confidence in his minister, the minister had none 
 
 in the Kino*, and he insisted on beino' relieved from the 
 
 ... . 
 
 responsibilities of an office which had been discredited 
 
 and made almost untenable by the extreme imprudence 
 of the King's language. 
 
 On the retirement of General Pfuel, the King com- 
 mitted the task of forming a ministry to his morganatic 
 uncle, Count Brandenburg, who was notorious for his 
 attachment to the old Absolutist system. The As- 
 sembly thereupon resolved, almost unanimously, to 
 send an address to the King, declaring that the country 
 had for some weeks been kept in alarm by the projects 
 of the reactionary party, and that " a Government 
 under the auspices of the Count of Brandenburg, with 
 out any prospect of obtaining a majority in the 
 National Assembly, or of gaining the confidence of the 
 country, would undoubtedly bring the excitement to a 
 head," and produce disasters like those of Vienna. 
 The King received the deputation that waited on him 
 with the address, heard it read, and then left the room 
 without reply ; not thinking it constitutional, as he after- 
 
240 PRUSSIA. 
 
 wards intimated, to give an answer in the absence of 
 the responsible ministers. As he was turning away, 
 Herr Jacobi, one of the deputation, said, " We have 
 been sent here not only to hand the address to your 
 majesty, but also to give you information respecting the 
 true state of the country. Will your majesty hear us ?" 
 " No !" said the King ; whereupon Herr Jacobi burst 
 out with the angry remark, " It is the misfortune of 
 kings that they will not hear the truth 1" 
 
 After the return of the deputation, a formal reply 
 was sent to the Assembly in writing : it simply asserted 
 the King's right and resolve to appoint the Count as 
 Ins minister. On the 9th was gazetted the list of the 
 new ministry, consisting wholly of persons not members 
 of the Assembly. 
 
 At the meeting of the Chamber on that day, Count 
 Brandenburg, Strotha, Manteuffel, and Ladenburg, 
 entered as Ministers. The Count arose to address the 
 House ; but the President, Von Unruh, stopped him, 
 declaring that he could not speak without obtaining 
 the Assembly's leave. Count Brandenburg desisted, 
 handed in a royal decree, and sat down. The decree 
 was read, and was a thunderstroke to the Assembly. 
 Alluding briefly to the display of Republican symbols, 
 and to criminal demonstrations of force to overawe the 
 Assembly, it stated that there was a necessity to transfer 
 the sittings from Berlin to Brandenburg, and declared 
 " the sittings of the Constituent Assembly to be pro- 
 rogued" to the 27th of the month, when it required 
 that body to reassemble at Brandenburg. The reading 
 of the decree was interrupted by violent exclamations 
 and protests. The Minister was apostrophized with 
 cries of " Never, never ! Ave protest ; we will not assent ; 
 we will perish here sooner ; it is illegal ; it is uncon- 
 stitutional : we are masters." In the midst of this 
 tumult the Count Brandenburg rose and said : — " In 
 consequence of the royal message which has just been 
 
THE BRANDENBURG MINISTRY. 241 
 
 read, I summon the Assembly to suspend its delibera- 
 tions forthwith, and to adjourn until the day specified. 
 I must, at the same time, declare all further prolonga- 
 tion of the deliberations to be illegal, and protest 
 against them in the name of the Crown." He then 
 with his colleagues left the hall of the Assembly. 
 
 As soon as the excitement had somewhat abated, the 
 steps to be taken were discussed. Two motions were 
 made ; the first by Bornemann, that the Ministers 
 should be required to withdraw their message : this was 
 rejected. The second, divided into three clauses, ran 
 in these terms : — " For the present there are not suf- 
 ficient grounds for removing the sitting of the delibera- 
 tion to any other place : it will therefore remain at 
 Berlin. The Crown is not entitled to the right of 
 adjourning, removing, or dissolving the Chamber 
 against its will. The responsible functionaries who 
 may have advised the Crown to issue the above 
 message are not qualified to do so, or to represent the 
 Government : on the contrary, they have thereby 
 rendered themselves guilty of dereliction of duty to- 
 wards the Crown, the country, and Assembly."* 
 
 The three clauses of the motion were put separately, 
 and they were carried almost unanimously by the 
 members remaining in the Chamber — about 240 ; but 
 some 59 members of the Right had first withdrawn, 
 and they afterwards sent in a protest. 
 
 The members of the diplomatic body quitted their 
 gallery immediately after the passing of the resolutions 
 in defiance of the royal decree. At that stage of the 
 proceedings, M. Nothomb, the Belgian envoy, suggested 
 to his colleagues the propriety of retiring. " We are 
 accredited," he said, " to the King, and not to this 
 
 * This is in allusion to a defect in Count Brandenburg's 
 nomination, which had not been countersigned by any Minister. 
 This omission was rectified at a later hour by the nomination 
 being sent down countersigned " Eichmann." 
 Q 11 
 
242 Prussia. 
 
 Assembly. His Majesty has formally declared the 
 Assembly closed : in our eyes it ought to ba so con- 
 sidered ; and consequently, upon general principles, and 
 in virtue of all constitutional ancecedents, I hold it to 
 be my duty to withdraw. Upon this M. Arago said, 
 " My opinion perfectly accords with yours, and I shall 
 also retire." The remaining members of the diplomatic 
 corps coinciding, the whole body quitted the gallery. 
 
 The Assembly resolved to sit in permanence. The 
 President and some thirty members accordingly re- 
 mained in the House all night. During the evening 
 and night the populace were in a fearfully excited 
 state, hurrying about and grouping incessantly on differ- 
 ent spots ; but they were everywhere addressed, and 
 entreated to remain peaceable, by members of the Left, 
 who spread themselves through the city on the mission 
 of preaching passive resistance. 
 
 The members of the Assembly were called together 
 by Unruh, at five o'clock on the morning of the 10th, 
 and told of negotiations that had passed. Count 
 Brandenburg had sent him a formal note, addressed to 
 him simply as Councillor of State, warning him and the 
 members of the Assembly against the illegality of per- 
 sisting to meet in Berlin, and making him and them 
 answerable for all grave consequences. The minority 
 of fifty-nine from the Right had formally protested that 
 the Assembly was constituent only ; that in the decree 
 which summoned it no place of meeting was mentioned ; 
 that the King had, therefore, the right to name the 
 place of meeting, and that it was both his right and 
 his duty to change that place of terrorism for another ; 
 that the Assembly was bound to submit; and that 
 further resolutions passed at Berlin were invalid, and 
 could not bind the fifty-nine or the rest of the country. 
 
 Deputations from various bodies had gone to the 
 King with prayers to retract ; but had not even had an 
 interview. In the evening of the 9th, the President of 
 
POLITICAL CRISIS OF NOVEMBER. 243 
 
 the Police had formally demanded of Rimpler, com- 
 mandant of the Burgher Guard, whether the Guard 
 " intended to act" on the morning of the 10th, in clos- 
 ing by force the hall of the Assembly The captains 
 of battalions met, and resolved to inform the Govern- 
 ment that the Burgher Guard would protect the 
 Chamber, as well as the Government, from all violence 
 on the part of the people; but that, should the mili- 
 tary be called in, the Burgher Guard would close round 
 the theatre of the Assembly, and stand with ordered 
 arms between the soldiers and the house ; and should 
 the military then advance, in defiance of the protest of 
 the Burgher Guard and the President, the former would 
 retire, and take no part in the proceeding. It was in 
 consequence of these resolutions that the Assembly met 
 at five a.m. instead of nine, as it had intended : 225 
 members were counted. 
 
 Unruh addressed the House in a speech counselling 
 the most cautious moderation ; " to maintain the most 
 undeviating attitude of dignified passive resistance." 
 The O'Connell maxims were reiterated almost in terms 
 — " every drop of blood shed through our fault must 
 injure, but cannot benefit, our cause ;" " the blood of 
 our citizens must not be squandered ; it must be re- 
 served for other occasions." At eight a.m. the members 
 refreshed themselves without quitting the house. The 
 Burgher Guard surrounded the house with a deep 
 cordon, and the people assembled in vast crowds and 
 testified their sympathy with the representatives ; 
 orators addressing them with advice to keep the strictest 
 attitude of peacefulness. 
 
 About noon the Assembly was thrown into a state 
 of great uneasiness, by an announcement that the mili- 
 tary were on the move and about to enter the city. 
 Several members rushed to the windows ; others seized 
 their out-door habiliments, as if to fly ; but they were 
 recalled by general shouts of "Order!" "To your 
 
244 Prussia. 
 
 seats !" The business of the House was then resumed, 
 and a proclamation to the Prussian people was agreed 
 to, in which the Assembly protested against the un- 
 justifiable acts of the Crown, and called on the people 
 to resist by legal means. 
 
 At half-past four the President rose suddenly, and 
 announced that the theatre of the Assembly was com- 
 pletely surrounded by the military. The Commandant 
 of the Burgher Guard had questioned General Wrangel 
 why he thus assembled his troops. Wrangel answered, 
 that he really should be glad to get quickly into 
 quarters : he was protecting the Assembly. Rimpler. — 
 " The Assembly declines your protection : how long 
 shall you keep your troops here ?" Wrangel. — " My 
 troops are used to the bivouac : they can remain here 
 a week, if the Assembly sit so long." At five o'clock 
 the President announced that General Wrangel per- 
 sisted in blockading the Assembly. He would allow 
 the gentlemen in the house to go out of it, but would 
 allow none to return. " As to an Assembly, he only 
 knew of one that had been dissolved." The Assembly 
 resolved, on the advice of Unruh, to submit to force 
 under protest ; to withdraw, and reassemble elsewhere 
 next day. This was done. The troops made passages ; 
 the Deputies marched out two and two ; and the 
 Burgher Guard followed them in columns. The people 
 were harangued from houses, and seemed to enter into 
 the policy preached by the Left. They dispersed peace- 
 fully, and the town assumed an appearance of myste- 
 rious calm. 
 
 On the morning of the 11th, 240 of the expelled 
 Deputies met in the great hall of the Rifle Guild, and 
 proceeded to transact business. Addresses of sympathy 
 poured in from public bodies in Berlin, and from the 
 provinces. The Town Council voted its freedom to 
 Unruh and two other members. A committee of the 
 Assembly was appointed ,to draw up a full report of 
 
POLITICAL CRISIS OF NOVEMBER. 245 
 
 events for national circulation ; another committee was 
 to consider and report on the expediency of impeaching 
 the Ministry, and in the event of their perseverance in 
 present courses, of stopping- supplies. A report that it 
 was intended to disband and disarm the Burgher Guard 
 reached the Assembly, and caused immense excitement. 
 It Wcis resolved, that those who advised the measure 
 were traitors to the country ; that the Burgher Guard 
 should be forbidden, on pain of being themselves 
 declared traitors, to surrender their arms; and that 
 they should be ordered and directed to defend them- 
 selves to the last against all attempts to disarm them. 
 
 Later in the day, a royal proclamation appeared, by 
 which the Burgher Guard was disbanded, in conse- 
 quence of its illegal deportment on the previous day. 
 The document contained the following, among other 
 passages, in the King's own peculiar style : — " To all 
 of you (Prussians) I again give the inviolable assurance 
 that nothing shall be abrogated from your constitutional 
 liberties ; that it shall be my holiest endeavor to be 
 unto you, by the help of God, a good constitutional 
 king, so that we may mutually erect a stately and 
 tenable edifice, beneath whose roof, to the weal of our 
 Prussian and our whole German fatherland, our pos- 
 terity may quietly and peacefully rejoice in the blessings 
 of genuine and true liberty for generations to come. 
 May the blessings of God rest upon our work ! " 
 
 On the 12th there appeared another proclamation, 
 more especially devoted to the dissolving the Burgher 
 Guard, in these words, after long preliminary state- 
 ments : — " In conformity with the. 3d section of the 
 law of the 17 th October, for the organization of the 
 Burgher Guard, the contents of which are as follows, — 
 i The Burgher Guard can be suspended or dissolved 
 by order of the King, for motives to be mentioned in 
 the decree of dissolution. This suspension cannot 
 exceed six months. The order for reforming the 
 
246 Prussia. 
 
 Barg'lier Guard must be published three months 
 after its suspension ; ' we have declared the Burgher 
 Guard of Berlin is dissolved ; and the competent 
 authorities are hereby required to execute this decree." 
 
 The Burgher Guard met and resolved not to dis- 
 band, or to yield up their arms. During the day, 
 foreigners arrived and families departed ; both ominous 
 events. The people maintained a peaceable attitude, 
 but were with difficulty restrained. The Assembly 
 continued its proceedings in the hall of the Rifle Guild. 
 Deputations and addresses from the provinces were 
 announced : an important one from the Assembly of 
 Representatives of the two Mecklenburgs, applauding 
 the Assembly for its conduct, and promising all assist- 
 ance in their power ; another from Magdeburg, 
 making a similar declaration, and sending 5000 dollars 
 for the Deputies, whose allowances were stopped ; 
 others from Stettin, Anklam, &c. At six o'clock, 
 General Wrangel determined to place the city under 
 martial law ; and the state of siege was shortly after 
 proclaimed by officers at the corners of all the principal 
 streets. But at the same time the interval was pro- 
 longed one day, for yielding up the arms of the 
 Burgher Guard. The soldiers patrolled in large bodies 
 and dispersed the crowd ; and the Parliament mem- 
 bers of the Left were again seen in all directions con- 
 juring the people to disperse and to be quiet. The 
 artisans of the great iron-works also hastened to and 
 fro wherever excitement arose, and calmed it with the 
 words, " Be cool — be quiet ! " 
 
 The night passed without any outbreak. On the 
 13th, the proceedings of the Assembly were interrupted 
 by the entry of an officer from General Wrangel, 
 summoning it, as an "illegal meeting, to disperse." 
 The Vice-president Plonies was in the chair, and he 
 refused to leave it unless by force. The whole House 
 shouted, "Never, till forced by arms!" Upon this 
 
POLITICAL CRISIS OF NOVEMBER. 247 
 
 two or three officers, with a party of soldiers, entered, 
 and repeating the summons, received the same an- 
 swer. Thereupon the soldiers advanced, seized the 
 chair upon which M. Plonies was seated, and carried 
 him, as gently as possible, into the street, where they 
 deposited him safely. The members followed their 
 President, unanimously protesting against this violation 
 of his dignity. The military having performed their 
 tragi-comic duty with great discretion withdrew, and 
 the mob dispersed, after bestowing an extempore ova- 
 tion on their representatives. 
 
 During the whole of the 13th, the people disregarded 
 the proclamation of the state of siege, and continued 
 to assemble in crowds wherever the military did not 
 prevent them ; but they dispersed when the latter 
 marched among their masses. Towards night a 
 proclamation appeared, directing the soldiers to forbear 
 no longer, but " at once fire " on all persons who per- 
 sisted in assembling, or remaining together after a 
 summons to withdraw. 
 
 The ex-President of the National Assembly, M. 
 Grabow, had an audience with the King ; and the 
 latter is said to have uttered the following words : — 
 " I know that my crown is at stake ; nevertheless, I 
 am firmly resolved not to yield." 
 
 Notwithstanding their two expulsions, the state of 
 siege, and the proclamation of martial law, the mem- 
 bers of the Assembly persevered in their attempts to 
 meet. On the morning of the 15th they assembled 
 in the hall of the Town Council, and were about to 
 commence business, when a battalion of infantry drew 
 up before the hall, and took possession of the doors. 
 The officer in command entered, and politely, but 
 peremptorily, requested the members to withdraw ; at 
 the same time he showed them General Wrangel's 
 written order to that effect. The members, after a 
 
248 Prussia. 
 
 brief consultation together, withdrew under protest, 
 and the troops marched back to their barracks. 
 
 In the evening, 226 members met at Mielentz's, a 
 coffee-house on the Linden, went through the formali- 
 ties of opening a sitting, and proceeded at once to 
 debate the question of refusing taxes. " Two proposi- 
 tions," says the report of the proceedings, "were 
 submitted for consideration. The first, adopted by the 
 committee, ran thus, — 
 
 " * No Minister is authorized to levy taxes until this 
 resolution (for the non-payment of taxes submitted to 
 the committee) be revoked.' 
 
 " The second motion, submitted by Schulz and 
 others, was thus worded, — 
 
 " ' The National Assembly decrees, that the Bran- 
 denburg Ministry is not authorized to levy taxes, or 
 disburse the public money, until the National Assem- 
 bly can fulfil its duties in safety at Berlin. This reso- 
 lution will take effect from the lYth November next 
 ensuing.' 
 
 " The call of the House had scarcely terminated, 
 hcrvvever, ere a field officer entered the apartment, 
 accompanied by half-a-dozen grenadiers, who were 
 posted at the door, whilst a battalion of the same corps 
 were drawn up at the entrance of the building on the 
 Linden. The officer approached the President, and 
 stated that he had received orders from General Wran- 
 gel to cause the chamber to be evacuated. This 
 message having been communicated by M. Unruh to 
 the House, it was responded to by a general shout of, 
 ' We will not stir !' President (to the officer.) — ' Sir, 
 I must beg you to exhibit your warrant.' Officer. — ' I 
 have no written order, but I trust you will believe my 
 word.' President. — ' I am far from questioning your 
 word, but it is my duty to demand a written warrant.' 
 Officer. — c That is not in my power : General Wrangel 
 
POLITICAL CRISIS OF NOVEMBER. 249 
 
 declined to give me written instructions.' (Exclama- 
 tions of ' This is shameful ]') President. — ' Have you 
 received orders to employ force ?' ' I confidently trust,' 
 replied the Major, ' that you will not drive me to that 
 alternative.' ' I must demand categorically,' exclaimed 
 the President, ' whether you have, or have not, orders 
 to employ force of arms V ' I have,' rejoined the 
 officer. President. — ' And are you resolved to employ 
 it V 'I am,' replied the Major. (General silence ; dur- 
 ing which the Deputies looked at each other, whispered, 
 but maintained perfect calmness.) President. — ' Under 
 these circumstances, I declare that force has been exer- 
 cised towards the Assembly, and that I am com- 
 pelled ' 
 
 " The President was now interrupted by the whole 
 Assembly rising, ' No, no ! a thousand times no ! We 
 will not move from this room, although we were run 
 through with bayonets !' Sixty or seventy Deputies 
 sprang towards the officer and his small escort, and by 
 their excited gestures appeared disposed to drive them 
 from the Chamber ; whilst the remainder, in a state of 
 indescribable excitement, crowded round the President's 
 table. During this state of confusion and uproar, 
 which lasted some time, the officer and his escort stood 
 perfectly calm, but not without the precaution of com- 
 municating with the detachment outside. 
 
 " At length, when silence was somewhat re-estab- 
 lished, there was a general call from members, ' Con- 
 tinue the deliberations. We will hear of no more 
 interruptions. Clear the chamber of strangers.' Upon 
 this the Major approached the chair, and, after con- 
 ferring with the President, returned to his escort, and 
 retired with them outside the door, whilst a messenger 
 was despatched to headquarters for further instructions. 
 The members now returned to their seats, and, with 
 infinitely more calmness and self-possession than could 
 be expected, listened to the reading of M. Schulz's 
 11* 
 
250 PRUSSIA. 
 
 motion. This had scarcely terminated ere the whole 
 body rose and agreed to it, with a general shout of 
 * Yes, yes ! ' This decision was no sooner known, than 
 a triple hurrah was raised by the whole House, and 
 was prolonged during several minutes amidst inde- 
 scribable enthusiasm. At length the President rose, 
 and officially announced the passing of the decree 
 prohibiting the levying of taxes : he then proposed 
 that the House should adjourn ; and announced that 
 he would communicate to members individually the 
 time, place, and hour for their next sitting. The mem- 
 bers then dispersed." 
 
 They dispersed, exulting in the cleverness with 
 which they had outwitted the Brandenburg Ministry, 
 and dealt it such a parting blow. After this exploit, 
 the recusant section of the Assembly made no further 
 attempt at meeting, although, to give full effect to the 
 resolution against the payment of taxes, it ought to 
 have been confirmed by a second vote. Victorious 
 over the Constituent Assembly, the Ministry proceeded 
 with the utmost vigor in executing the still more 
 daring measure of disarming the Burgher Guard. 
 Resistance was impossible, and the disarmament was 
 fully effected without the slightest disturbance. The 
 truth seems to be, that a vast number of the citizens 
 were, in secret, not ill-pleased to be relieved of the 
 task of keeping watch and ward, and of the toils of 
 military duty added to all the difficulties of life and 
 business, during a most depressed period. Nor can it 
 be said that the interests of the capital sustained any 
 great loss through the suppression of its civic soldiery. 
 Against any real crisis of peril, a more inefficient 
 repressive body than the Burgher Guard of Berlin 
 never existed. Speculating on its reluctance to act 
 with any energy, the leaders of the mob did nearly 
 as they pleased. The Palace was stormed, the Arse- 
 nal sacked, and the Chamber, often threatened, was at 
 
POLITICAL CRISIS OF NOVEMBER. 251 
 
 last actually invaded and compelled to vote under 
 terror, and all this in the presence of 30,000 armed 
 men ! 
 
 Irrespectively of the broad question of right, at issue 
 between the Constituent Assembly of Prussia and the 
 Brandenburg Ministry, it is impossible to withhold 
 from the latter the praise due to the admirable efficien- 
 cy of their coercive measures. These were so perfect, 
 that the contest was decided without the shedding 
 of one drop of blood. Arrests, however, were nume- 
 rous, and all the prisons were crowded. What seeds 
 of wrath and hatred were sown, to bear deadly fruit 
 at some future day, it is as yet impossible to tell. An 
 eye-witness of the struggle, writing from Berlin on the 
 19th, says : — 
 
 " All expression of public opinion being prohibited, 
 there is a perfect quiet and apathy on the surface of 
 things ; but beneath it there is, unquestionably, the 
 most bitter and angry feeling against the Government. 
 The citizens do not grant, for a moment, that there 
 was any real occasion for so extreme a measure as 
 declaring the capital in a state of siege. They regard 
 it as the completion of a long-contemplated plan, a fit 
 opportunity for which was only waited for ; and that 
 this was furnished by the events at Vienna, without 
 reference to the state of Berlin at all. Besides the 
 humiliation of the disarmament, the declaration of the 
 state of siege has inflicted a loss on the city and its 
 trade which they are very ill able to bear. Strangers 
 avoid a place, the condition of which they imagine to 
 be so alarming. Families who had begun to return 
 have again fled, and large mansions are standing 
 empty. The dreary aspect of the city is indescribable. 
 The respectable inhabitants appear to keep purposely 
 within doors. The streets are nearly deserted, being 
 left almost wholly to a few working people and the 
 military patrols. The weather, the streets, trade, poli- 
 
252 Prussia. 
 
 tics, tempers, and prospects, are all alike dark and 
 discouraging." 
 
 On the other hand, we find the same writer describ- 
 ing, only ten days later, a striking demonstration of 
 loyalty which occurred at the Berlin Opera, where the 
 busts of the King and Queen were crowned amidst the 
 enthusiastic plaudits of the audience. 
 
 The. King and his Ministers had unequivocally dis- 
 played their superiority in point of military strength ; 
 but this would have availed them little had the country 
 continued in a state of moral revolt. But so far was 
 this from being the case, that the popular sympathies, 
 at first engaged by the Assembly, were very generally 
 alienated from that body as soon as the illegal charac- 
 ter of its acts came to be understood. The King's right 
 to prorogue the Assembly and to dissolve the Burgher 
 Guard was incontestable ; the Assembly's denial of 
 that right was a flagrant usurpation of the powers of 
 the Executive. The resolution against the payment of 
 taxes was equally indefensible. It had nothing in 
 common with the constitutional expedient of withhold- 
 ing the supplies, or with the legal opposition to 
 arbitrary imposts, tested by judicial authority, by which 
 British liberty has been vindicated on certain memo- 
 rable occasions. It was simply an order to refuse 
 payment of taxes, due under laws regularly enacted and 
 not repealed by any competent authority, and it was 
 issued, as the mover of the resolution expressly stated, 
 " for the purpose of throwing the country into anarchy." 
 The scheme was not successful ; the taxes were paid 
 without much demur, and a large proportion of them 
 were even paid in advance, in testimony of the dis- 
 approbation with which the anarchical mandate was 
 regarded. 
 
 It is probable that the decision of the Frankfort 
 Parliament contributed not a little towards fixing 
 public opinion in Prussia in favor of the King's policy. 
 
STATE OF THINGS AT BERLIN. 253 
 
 Reversing a former resolution, in which it had mildly 
 censured the royal proceedings, the Imperial Assembly 
 affirmed, on the 20th of November, by a majority of 
 276 votes against 150, a resolution to the following 
 effect : — The King of Prussia is earnestly advised to 
 appoint a ministry which enjoys the confidence of the 
 country. " The notoriously illegal and dangerous reso- 
 lution of the residue of the Berlin Assembly" is 
 declared to be null and void. The Imperial Assembly 
 will protect the rights and liberties promised and 
 guaranteed to the people of Prussia, against all at- 
 tempts to violate them. 
 
 The Frankfort Assembly had sent Herr Bassermann, 
 an earnest and distinguished member of the Liberal 
 party, as its commissioner, to observe the political crisis 
 pending in Berlin, and the above resolution was 
 founded on. his oral report, made in a public sitting. 
 He described the state of things in Berlin as appalling. 
 The mob that, until then, had ruled in the streets, was 
 " a most detestable one." The freedom of the press was 
 abused in propagating atrocious incentives to crime, in 
 the shape of flying leaves, placards, prints, &c. " One, for 
 instance, stuck on the walls of a number of streets, sold 
 in all shops, thrust into your hands wherever you went, 
 was a paper of dark red color, with the inscription, 
 " The Republican's Dream ;" it represented a man 
 sleeping, and all around him an assemblage of lamps 
 with men hanging on them. The red flag was hoisted 
 before the very door of the Assembly. The accounts 
 of the cruel threats against members of the Berlin 
 Assembly were, if anything, understated. Three times 
 had members of the Right begged the House to pass 
 bills that would give safety to their lives, and three 
 times had the Assembly refused to pass any such bills ; 
 three times had it confided its members " to the safe- 
 guard of the people." It had happened on the very 
 staircase of the Assembly-house, that an orator called 
 
254 Prussia. 
 
 upon the mob to come next time armed with short 
 knives and pickaxes, saying that it was easier to find 
 out your man with such instruments ; and the next 
 evening- thousands of these instruments were seen ! He 
 had seen General Brandenburg and M. Von Manteuffel ; 
 and he found them determined to quell anarchy, but as 
 decided not to infringe the liberties of the people. The 
 Minister had said to him, " It would be impossible for 
 any man to rob Prussia of its liberties." Now he. did 
 not consider those men so mad as to strive after what 
 they considered to be impossible. On the other hand, 
 the members of the Assembly with whom he conferred 
 were absolutely proof against any endeavor of his to 
 mediate. One of those gentlemen, an influential 
 name, upon being asked what would be the Assembly's 
 conditions of mediation, answered as follows : — First, 
 banishment of the Royal Princes; second, seizure and 
 prosecution of the present Ministers and of General 
 Wrangel for high treason ; third, the assurance on the 
 part of his Majesty that he would execute all the 
 decrees of the Assembly. He had tried to explain, that 
 such an Assembly would be a Convention, and that a 
 country with such a Government would be a Republic ; 
 but all in vain." 
 
 Strange to say, the individual who propounded the 
 extravagant conditions above mentioned was Herr 
 Kerchman, a judicial functionary, and reputed to be an 
 able jurist. The proportion of lawyers in the Prussian 
 Constituent Assembly was very large, and the conse- 
 quences were anything but fortunate. The smaller 
 minds among the legal Deputies seemed only occupied 
 in perplexing and embroiling every question and party 
 by idle subtleties, and contests about the most trivial 
 points ; and the more eminent of them appear to have 
 been totally deserted by their legal knowledge on criti- 
 cal occasions, when they had most need of it. As for 
 Kerchman and his conditions, there is no evidence that 
 
SEQUEL OF CRISIS. 255 
 
 he was at all authorized to propose them in the name 
 of the whole Opposition, or of any considerable fraction 
 of it ; and Unruh and other leading men of the party 
 loudly protested, that Bassermann had acted most un- 
 fairly and unwarrantably in reporting such unauthorized 
 propositions, as the solemnly preferred basis of a politi- 
 cal negotiation. 
 
 On the appointed day, November 27, the Prussian 
 Assembly met at Brandenburg ; but the Left kept their 
 word and abstained from attending, and the Right and 
 Centre were unable to make more than three-fourths of 
 a House. This state of things continued for some days. 
 At last the members of the Left entered in a body, and 
 completed a quorum ; they then tried one vote, but 
 finding themselves in a minority they immediately 
 withdrew, and again reduced the Assembly to an 
 incapacity to vote. The remaining members adjourned 
 to the 7th of December, on which day it was expected 
 that the Left would assemble in full strength, re-elect 
 Unruh President, and affirm the resolutions prohibiting 
 the levy of taxes. These manoeuvres were anticipated 
 by the King and his Ministers. On the 5th appeared 
 an edict dissolving the Assembly, and accompanying 
 that decree was a complete draft of a Constitution, 
 which was to have force provisionally, until it should 
 be assented to or revised in the ordinary course of legis- 
 lation. 
 
 Thus ended the Prussian Revolution of 1848. The 
 Assembly was beaten at all points, in right as w r ell as 
 in fact. Its neglected task had been taken out of its 
 hands, and most satisfactorily performed by the Execu- 
 tive. The new Prussian Constitution closely resembles 
 that of Belgium. ■ It may be ranked among the most 
 democratic in Europe, and acknowledged as fairly 
 realizing for Prussia all the promises made by Frederick 
 William in March. 
 
 After suppressing the miscalled Constituent Assem- 
 
256 Prussia. 
 
 bly, which had proved its incapacity to constitute any- 
 thing, the Government next applied itself with great 
 vigor to purge the capital of those turbulent men who 
 had led the brawls during the seven months' reign of 
 mob-law. All foreign political emissaries, and especially 
 the members of the Polish Propaganda, were ordered 
 away ; and many natives of Southern Germany came 
 under the same ban. The number of such persons de- 
 ported by the police, or who fled from the terrors of 
 martial law, amounted to many thousands. Several 
 ringleaders in riots subsequent to the amnesty of March, 
 were brought to trial and sentenced to long terms of 
 imprisonment ; and all the others, who were not exiles, 
 beheld the same fate impending over them. The men 
 who were foremost in storming and plundering the 
 Arsenal, the leaders of the attack on the hotels of the 
 Ministers, the pullers down of the palace gates, and 
 even those who addressed the crowds in the streets the 
 night after the Civic Guard was dissolved, were all made 
 to expiate their sayings and doings, for most of which 
 no one had imagined any punishment possible ; whilst 
 the majority of their fellow-citizens seemed rather to 
 rejoice in their correction than to lament it. 
 
 A prosecution was also begun against those Depu- 
 ties who had, in their individual capacity, incited the 
 people to refuse payment of taxes. The process, it was 
 thought, would be a long one, and the result was gene- 
 rally regarded as problematical. But this was not all. 
 A violent spirit of hostility, arising out of the ill-advised 
 vote on the taxes, invaded the seat of justice itself. 
 The colleagues of Messrs. Waldeck, Kerchman, Gierke, 
 and other judges, who as Deputies had joined in that 
 vote, refused to sit with them. Herr Temme, Director 
 of the Oberlandsgericht in Minister, was on the same 
 grounds arrested by the officers of his own court. The 
 landed proprietors in the provincial Diet of Branden- 
 burg, a body somewhat resembling the English courts 
 
COST OF REVOLUTION. 257 
 
 of quarter sessions, withdrew when one of the recusant 
 members of the late Assembly took his seat among 
 them. " Thus," says the intelligent writer from whom 
 we derive these facts, " the judges will not join in ad- 
 ministering the law, nor proprietors discuss local inte- 
 rests, in communion with a compromised Deputy. If 
 this violent party spirit increase, and is carried out in 
 all the ordinary affairs of life, endless confusion will be 
 the result." « 
 
 Some data towards an estimate of the cost of the 
 Prussian Revolution were put forth towards the close 
 of the year. The increased expenditure of taxation so 
 occasioned is reckoned at 6,500,000 of thalers ; in which 
 sum are included 1,700,000 thalers distributed among 
 unemployed workmen, and 2,000,000 thalers the cost 
 of calling out the Landwehr and putting the army on a 
 war footing. An estimate of the loss sustained by all 
 classes in Prussia, in the general depreciation of pro- 
 perty since March, forms a much sadder chapter in the 
 history of the Revolution. 
 
 Up to the 1st of October, it is calculated that the 
 loss in railway property, in shares and securities con- 
 nected with it, was 45,000,000 thalers. The deprecia- 
 tion of funded property and state paper was enormous ; 
 but prices fluctuated so much that the exact estimate 
 cannot be given. On real property, such as houses, 
 buildings, and building-ground, the loss in the city of 
 Berlin alone was 30,000,000 thalers, being the difference 
 between what such property would have fetched in the 
 market, if converted into money, before the Revolution 
 and after it. To this must be added the loss of rent of 
 17,000 houses, deserted and left empty during the 
 year. The trade of the city suffered from a decrease 
 in the average expenditure of at least 10,000,000 
 thalers. The Civic Guard, which proved so sad a 
 failure as a protective force, cost 1,500,000 of thalers ; 
 and the Government was forced to have recourse to a 
 
 R 
 
258 Prussia. 
 
 *" benevolence," or voluntary loan (amounting to 
 10,436,000 thalers), under the threat of raising a forced 
 one. The experiment of " concording" a constitution, 
 which proved so unsuccessful, cost the capital of 
 Prussia, on a moderate calculation, between 40,000,000 
 and 50,000,000 thalers. The ruin inflicted on indi- 
 viduals is proved by the fact, that from the end of 
 March an average of twenty names was daily struck off 
 the Jist of citizens paying the tax incident upon em- 
 ployers and tradesmen ; masters employing workmen 
 sank themselves to the condition of workmen. Such 
 is the price paid for seven months of political agitation. 
 The expense of maintaining the whole army on a war 
 footing would have to be added to complete the account ; 
 it is not less than 30,000 thalers a day. 
 
 The following is a brief enumeration of the most 
 important points of the Constitution, octroyi, as the 
 phrase is, by the King of Prussia to his subjects. Its 
 112 provisions are classified on the model of the Bel- 
 gian Constitution, under nine titles. The second chap- 
 ter concerns the " Eights of Prussia :" it proclaims the 
 equality of all Prussians before the law; guarantees 
 freedom of the person, including the right of emigration ; 
 freedom of property, of religious faith, of knowledge in 
 its communication ; giving every Prussian " a right to 
 express his ideas freely, orally, scripturally, by the 
 printing-press, and by artistical designs ;" and it declares 
 the secresy of letters to be inviolable. Offences in 
 diffusing ideas are cognisable only by the general penal 
 code. The civil validity of marriage is determinate 
 prior to the performance of the religious ceremony. 
 Feudal tenures, family entails, and privileges of rank, 
 are abolished. The third title, " of the King," establishes 
 the inviolability of the King's person, and the responsi- 
 bility of his Ministers. The fifth title regulates the 
 Constitution of the two Legislative Chambers. The 
 First Chamber is to consist of 180 members, who must 
 
NEW CONSTITUTION. 259 
 
 each be forty years of age, five years resident in Prussia, 
 and in full enjoyment of civil rights. The Second 
 Chamber will number 350 members, each above twenty- 
 four years of age, resident six months, in full civil ca- 
 pacity, and not in receipt of public relief. The elective 
 franchise for both Chambers is indirect, and is founded 
 on population and property. "All Prussians thirty 
 years of age," paying 24s. yearly taxes, or . possessing 
 land worth 1200/. or yielding a rent of 75/., and who 
 have resided six weeks, may vote as primary electors in 
 choosing the direct electors of the First Chamber. The 
 direct electors then choose the members of the Cham- 
 ber. "Each independent Prussian," six months' resi- 
 dent, not receiving parish relief, may vote as primary 
 elector in the choice of direct electors of the Second 
 Chamber. The direct electors then choose the mem- 
 bers of the Second Chamber. The sixth title, regu- 
 lating the judicial power, places the judges at the ap- 
 pointment of the King, but gives them a life-tenure 
 indefeasible except by judicial decisions on grounds 
 provided by law. No previous permission is to be 
 necessary before procedure against public, military, or 
 civil officers for overstepping their authority. Title 
 eighth, "on Finance," declares that taxes or imposts 
 can only be levied under special laws, and abolishes all 
 exemptions from burdens. Excesses of expenditure 
 must be approved by the Chambers, and the Chambers 
 alone can give the Government a discharge of its ac- 
 counts ; which must be submitted annually with the 
 budget for the coming year. General provisions declare 
 that laws and ordinances are obligatory only when 
 published in a legal form ; but " when the Chambers 
 are not sitting, ordinances on urgent occasions, and on 
 the responsibility of the whole of the Ministry, may be 
 published with all the force of law : but these are to 
 be laid before the Chambers for approval at the nearest 
 session." 
 
260 GERMANY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 GERMANY. 
 
 THE NEW EMPIRE — ITS PRETENSIONS AND ITS PERFORMANCES. 
 
 Does there yet exist a German Empire ? The full 
 form of that grand creation has been for months before 
 the world ; but whether or not that form invests a cor- 
 responding reality is still an unsolved question. The 
 Imperial Government is complete : there is the Regent 
 of the Empire and a responsible ministry. The Regent 
 claims, and has not been denied, control over the united 
 armies of the empire. He has issued a circular to the 
 diplomatic agents of the German States in foreign 
 courts, intimating that, although they may negotiate 
 the local interests of their own governments, they must 
 not in their separate capacities meddle with aggregate 
 Imperial questions. The Central Government has in- 
 terposed its supreme authority on many occasions, in 
 the internal affairs of several German States ; but as in 
 every such instance its interference has been favorable 
 to the State Executive, no convincing proof has yet 
 been afforded of its power to coerce reluctant members 
 of the federal body. Now, it is manifest, that without 
 such a paramount Imperial power the Emperor is but 
 a nullity. This cardinal truth was assumed as the very 
 basis of their system, by those able men to whom the 
 German people committed the task of elaborating their 
 own crude conception of German unity. 
 
 Jhe remarkable manifesto issued by the Prince von 
 
THEORY OF THE IMPERIAL POWER. 261 
 
 Leiningen, tlie first Imperial Minister of the Interior, 
 contains proposals which plainly amount to this, that 
 the thirty-eight sovereigns of Germany are to be re- 
 duced to the condition of mediatized princes, or of 
 lords-lieutenant of provinces. The consummation of 
 such a design is a problem reserved for the future to 
 solve ; all that the past tells us is, that the strength of 
 the Central Government has risen and sunk inversely 
 with that of the great subordinate powers. When the 
 high princes of Germany felt their own authority 
 crippled, they were glad to avail themselves of such 
 supplemental aid as the Central Government could best 
 supply. Repressive measures, which the local govern- 
 ments would have in vain attempted, were easily ac- 
 complished by a power that issued its behests in the 
 name of all Germany, and whose acts were, therefore, 
 safe from the invidious interpretations commonly put 
 upon the conduct of men who have private and family 
 interests to defend. Hitherto, then, 'the relation 
 between the central and the subordinate Governments 
 lias been altogether void of reciprocity. Its nature has 
 been accurately indicated by a sagacious writer in one 
 pithy sentence : — " Prussians and Austrians, although 
 willing enough to merge their difficulties in the com- 
 mon stock, under the custody of the Regent, are very 
 jealous of really merging their powers.''* An act of in- 
 subordination committed by the monarch who had pro- 
 fessed to take the lead in constructing an imperial 
 authority, led to a damaging exposure of the weakness 
 of the Frankfort Government, and gave occasion to an 
 open assault upon it, accompanied by circumstances of 
 hideous atrocity. 
 
 The armistice concluded on the 26th August, at 
 Malmoe, by the plenipotentiaries of Prussia, Denmark, 
 and Sweden, was ratified at Lubeck on the 1st of 
 
 * British Quarterly Review, Nov. 1848, 
 
262 GERMANY. 
 
 September. The duchies were to be evacuated by the 
 Danish and the German troops, and a Provisional 
 Government of five persons, including Count Molke as 
 president, was to rule in the name of the King-duke. 
 The duchy troops of Schleswig were to be organized 
 under the King, and those of Holstein under the Con- 
 federation. The contributions levied by General 
 Wrangel were to be repaid, and the seizures made by 
 the Danish fleet to be restored or paid for. The 
 armistice to last seven months from the 26th of August, 
 and thenceforward until ended by notice from either 
 party. Great Britain was requested to guarantee the 
 performance of these conditions. 
 
 The armistice occasioned a violent commotion in 
 Frankfort, and nearly produced a collision between the 
 central authority and the King of Prussia. The As- 
 sembly resolved on the 5th of September, by a majority 
 of 238 to 22, to suspend the measures for carrying the 
 armistice into'execution. Its conditions were discussed 
 in a most fiery sitting, and seem to have raised the 
 greatest indignation against Prussia, and even doubts 
 of her loyalty to the new empire. One of the clauses 
 of the armistice required its ratification in eight days : 
 that term expired on the 3d, and the ministry did not 
 lay the document before the Assembly until the 4th. 
 But what most of all roused the German opposition 
 was the form of the initiative and titular parts of the 
 instrument : it was concluded in the name of the King 
 of Prussia instead of the Regent of the Empire, and on 
 behalf of the Germanic Confederation, instead of the 
 Imperial Assembly : the assuming that the Confedera- 
 tion still existed was deemed equivalent to ignoring the 
 existence of the Assembly and the Regent. The 
 appointment of Molke also gave deep offence. 
 
 The resolution of the Assembly was immediately 
 followed by the resignation of the imperial ministry. 
 Professor Dahlmaun, the leader of the majority, having 
 
SEPTEMBER RIOTS AT FRANKFORT. 263 
 
 failed to form a ministry, the Assembly was compelled 
 to retrace its steps, which it did by resolving on the 
 16th, by a majority of 257 to 236, that the armistice 
 should be allowed with the modifications which Den- 
 mark herself had declared to be admissible. The 
 populace assembled round St. Paul's and threatened an 
 attack on the majority as they retired, but did not 
 execute their threats. 
 
 Next day large out-door meetings assembled, and 
 were addressed by Blum, Simon, and other Republican 
 leaders. Resolutions were passed denouncing the ma- 
 jority who ratified the armistice as guilty of " high 
 treason against the majesty, liberty, and honor of the 
 German people." The Senate of Frankfort sent word 
 to the Regent that they would no longer guarantee 
 order. The Regent induced part of his late ministry 
 to resume office provisionally : Schmerling took the 
 combined Home, Foreign, and War Departments, and 
 made prompt provisions against an outbreak ; bringing 
 Austrian, Prussian, and Bavarian troops into Frankfort. 
 
 On Monday, these measures were violently con- 
 demned in the Assembly by the Left, but it was evident 
 that the Revolutionists were awed. Outside the popu- 
 lace began to pelt the soldiery with stones and to raise 
 barricades. Schmerling declared the city in a state of 
 siege. The defenders^of the barricades were summoned 
 to surrender, and on their refusing to comply they were 
 attacked by the military. A sharp fight ensues, but the 
 rioters were soon overcome, being ill-armed and not 
 having the burghers on their side. By midnight every 
 point was in the hands of the troops. 
 
 But before order was restored the horrible murder of 
 Prince Lichnowski and Major Auerswald had branded 
 the Republican party with indelible disgrace. After 
 leaving the Assembly, of which they were members, 
 they rode out of the town, with the intention, it is sup- 
 posed, of meeting the artillery, which was to arrive 
 
264 GERMANY. 
 
 about five o'clock. Several shots being fired at them 
 they attempted to ride back to the town, but found that 
 they were surrounded on all sides. They then en- 
 deavored to escape across the fields, but Major Auers- 
 wald was quickly stopped and dragged from his horse. 
 The assassins, having thrown him on the ground, coolly 
 deliberated where wounds would cause the greatest 
 pain, and then fired into different parts of his body. 
 Observing that life was not quite extinct they left him, 
 saying it was all the better, because he would have the 
 more to suffer ; but an old woman put an end to the 
 unfortunate gentleman's agony by battering his brains 
 out with a stone. Prince Lichnowski, after galloping 
 about a field from which he could find no outlet, re- 
 turned to the public promenade, where he was seized 
 by a number of men, who, having literally slashed, slit, 
 and scraped the flesh from his arms and part of his 
 legs, left him with the remark that this was enough for 
 the present, and that he might afford them more sport 
 when he had recovered a little. The prince, with the 
 utmost difficulty, crawled to a neighboring cottage, 
 where he was kindly received. He had scarcely been 
 there an hour when the same men, with many others, 
 armed with guns, made their appearance and demanded 
 his immediate surrender, which the hospitable people 
 of the cottage refused. The watches then made pre- 
 parations to set fire to the house, and on hearing this 
 the prince boldly stepped out to meet his fate. He was 
 received with shouts of derision, and one of the leaders, 
 dressed as a common laborer, declared that as the 
 prince had always been a kind of Don Quixote he ought 
 to die so : accordingly, they pulled off his clothes and 
 decked him with some sort of grotesque drapery ; then 
 forming a circle round him and pricking him with their 
 knives and bayonets, they compelled him to keep con- 
 stantly in motion : at last, tired of this sport, they 
 fastened him to a wall, and, at a distance of only ten 
 
THE NEW GERMAN EMPIRE. 265 
 
 yards, fired more than twenty balls, most of them in- 
 tentionally avoiding- the vital parts ; but after he had 
 received three mortal wounds they went away laughing, 
 and left him to suffer a little longer. In this state he 
 was found by a patrol of Hessian cavalry, and car- 
 ried, by his own desire, to the hospital, where the rest 
 of those wounded in the riot had been received. He 
 expired about an hour past midnight, after dictating a 
 minute relation of these horrid scenes. 
 
 The outbreak in Frankfort was soon followed by a 
 second Republican invasion of Baden. A column of 
 2000 men, consisting of Italians, Poles, French, and 
 Germans, and headed by Struve, crossed the frontier 
 from Switzerland on the 23d of September, but were 
 speedily defeated by troops sent against them by the 
 Central Government. Some hundred prisoners were 
 taken, including Struve himself. He and eighty of his 
 immediate followers were forthwith tried by court- 
 martial, condemned, and shot. 
 
 The end of the year arrived before the new German 
 Constitution had come out of the makers' hands. 
 There seemed, at that period, an increasing probability 
 that, if the Frankfort proceedings did not end in utter 
 failure, the King of Prussia, or his heir-presumptive, 
 would be elected by the Assembly as Emperor of Ger- 
 many ; that is to say, of a German empire in which 
 Austria is not to be included. The Regent's prime 
 minister (Schmerling), and Wuth, the Under-Secretary 
 of State, both of them Austrian Deputies, resigned office 
 on the 16th of December, and Baron Von Gagern, who 
 was known to be strongly in favor of the claims of 
 Prussia, became the head of the cabinet. His first 
 care was to lay before the Assembly his views with re- 
 gard to Austria, which were, in substance, that Austria, 
 in conformity with her own declaration to that effect, 
 should be considered as not forming part of the new 
 Federal State ; but that as she was a member of the 
 12 
 
266 GERMANY. 
 
 German Confederation, and therefore " in indissoluble 
 alliance with Germany as represented by the Provisional 
 Central," she should be treated with by way of diplo- 
 matic negotiation on all topics of common interest, save 
 only the constitution of the Federal State, as to which 
 she was not to be consulted. 
 
 We have seen what the new German Empire was 
 intended to be ; how far the programme has been 
 realized, we may infer from the following remarks 
 by Von Menzel in an article of unusual length in the 
 leading quarterly journal of Germany : — 
 
 " Fortunate might we deem ourselves could we dis- 
 cover a close analogy between our present circum- 
 stances and the first French Revolution, for then we 
 might hope to arrive at last at unity, though it were 
 through a peiiod of terror, and the true patriot should 
 shrink from no sacrifice that might help to bring about 
 that consummation. But, as it seems, things will not 
 turn out so well and so easily for us as for the French, 
 and a much sadder analogy lies nearer to us, that, 
 namely, of the Thirty Years' War. The erection of all 
 Germany into a Republic, and an omnipotent dictator 
 like Napoleon, as a consequence of that great move- 
 ment, would be a good fortune for us, notwithstanding 
 all the sufferings we should thereby have to sustain. 
 But we shall not attain to this good fortune, since the 
 Republican impulse is far from being so uniform and 
 vivid among us Germans as it was in France, and since 
 our German Republicans have from the outset made 
 democratic freedom their sole aim, setting aside the 
 question of nationality, and not hesitating to attach 
 themselves expressly to France. But the strength of 
 revolutionary France lay not so much in its thirst for 
 freedom as in its national pride, and in a consciousness 
 of its unity that pervaded the whole people : a circum- 
 stance that precludes every comparison with us. 
 
 " Our present circumstances portend, therefore, some- 
 
FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE EMPIRE. 267 
 
 thing more analogous to the Thirty Years' War, — the 
 splitting of Germany, perhaps, not merely into two, 
 but several hostile camps, by which a wide door would 
 again be opened for foreign intervention. A powerless 
 Central Government ; powerful and mutually jealous 
 princes ; half republicanized provinces, inclined to 
 attach themselves to France ; on the other hand, pro- 
 vinces staunch to their sovereigns, like Pomerania and 
 the Tyrol ; political and ecclesiastical parties recipro- 
 cating equal hatred, and so well matched in strength 
 as to give assurance of a long strife between them, but 
 no assurance of victory ; opportunity for individual 
 great men, generals especially, to obtain a transient, 
 but never a complete and thoroughly comprehensive 
 power : such is the state and aspect of things, and it 
 strikingly reminds us of the beginning of the Thirty 
 Years' War. 
 
 " Or are we to yield to the afflicting thought that, 
 after all that has befallen, a return to the old state of 
 things is yet possible ? that the German races will 
 content themselves with some liberal concessions as to 
 internal reform, but give up the idea of unity, or barter 
 it away to a new confederation of sovereigns, in ex- 
 change for restored order ? To keep down the latent 
 strength of Germany has ever since the Congress 
 of Vienna been the common and determined policy 
 of the foreign powers ; does that policy no longer 
 exist, and with what forces do we stand opposed to it ? 
 
 " Freedom alone, not unity, has found among us 
 bold and impassioned representatives in sufficient 
 number ; and, unfortunately, most of the warmest 
 friends of freedom are indifferent to unity, or use 
 it only as a pretext and a means for attaining to 
 freedom. 
 
 " After all this new great German Be volution was, 
 on the whole, but a consequence of the foregone 
 movement in France. Should it come to pass that 
 
268 GERMANY. 
 
 a king were again elected in France, we, too, should 
 feel the influence of that event, as half a year ago 
 we felt the effect of the conversion of France into a 
 republic. 
 
 " Let us confess that the number of warm partisans 
 of German unity is small and weak, in comparison 
 with those who desire to uphold the interests of the 
 great Austrian monarchy by means of the Slavonic 
 majority ; and with those who wish to avenge Prussia's 
 offended pride and old renown ; and with those who 
 long for peace at any price ; and lastly, in comparison 
 with the Republicans, to whom the unity of Germany 
 is a matter of total indifference, and who would gladly 
 sell all Germany to France, if so they might realize 
 their communistic democracy." 
 
DENMARK. 269 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 DENMARK. 
 
 THE WAR IN SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN. 
 
 Upon the death of Christian VIII. of Denmark, 
 his son Frederick VII. succeeded to the throne, in the 
 beginning of January, 1848. The new monarch's 
 first act of sovereignty was to promulgate the project 
 of a Constitution for his dominions, and to convoke a 
 sort of consultative Assembly, which should elaborate 
 the new system. In thus renouncing his absolute 
 prerogatives, Frederick VII. acted entirely from his 
 own spontaneous impulse. His own states were per- 
 fectly tranquil, and Europe w T as not yet agitated by 
 the revolutionary movements imparted to it by the 
 French events of February. 
 
 A considerable portion of the territories subject to 
 the Danish sceptre is held by a peculiar tenure. In 
 the north is Denmark Proper, including Jutland and 
 the islands, and occupied exclusively by a Scandinavian 
 race. In the south are the duchies of Holstein and 
 Lauenburg, inhabited by Germans, and belonging to 
 the German Confederation. In the middle lies the 
 duchy of Schleswig, the population of which is Scan- 
 dinavian in the northern portion, German in the 
 southern, and mixed in the centre. The numerical 
 preponderance is on the side of the Scandinavians or 
 Danes, the gross population of the duchy being 
 300,000, of whom 200,000 are Danes, and the rest 
 
270 DENMARK. 
 
 Germans or Friesen. The King of Denmark is Duke 
 of Holstein, of Lauenburg, and of Schleswig. Hol- 
 stein, it is alleged, is a male fief, and must devolve 
 upon the Duke of Augustenburg in the event of 
 Denmark passing in the female line to the Prince 
 of Hesse-Cassel, the cousin of the present king. This 
 event is anticipated with certainty, for Frederick VII., 
 though twice married, is childless. 
 
 But it is maintained by the German party that 
 Schleswig, though not a member of the German Con- 
 federation, nor subject to the German law of inherit- 
 ance, must follow the fortunes of Holstein, by virtue 
 of certain charters of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 century, whereby it was provided that the two duchies 
 should remain for ever inseparable. On the other 
 hand it is contended that these charters, if they ever 
 existed (for that is even questioned), have been abro- 
 gated by conquest and by modern treaties guaranteed 
 by England, France, and Russia. The Dukes of Hol- 
 stein-Gottorp were constantly involved in hostilities 
 against their suzerains, the Kings of Denmark ; and 
 during the wars in which the latter were long engaged 
 with Germany and Sweden, the former were always on 
 the side of their enemies. In consequence of this 
 Schleswig was overrun by King Ferdinand IV. of 
 Denmark, and the conquered territory, at the conclu- 
 sion of peace between Sweden and Denmark in 1720, 
 was guaranteed to the King of Denmark and his 
 successors, by England and France, as a permanent and 
 inalienable possession. 
 
 But Duke Charles Frederick, w r ho, though he had 
 lost Schleswig, still retained possession of part of Hol- 
 stein, refused to recognise the new state of things ; and 
 when, some years subsequently, his son mounted the 
 throne of Russia as Peter HI., a Russian army was 
 marched against Denmark to maintain the pretensions 
 of the tzar to part of Schleswig. These hostilities 
 
SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN. 271 
 
 were brought to a hasty conclusion by the assassination 
 of the unfortunate prince ; and a treaty was concluded 
 between Denmark and his successor, Catharine II., 
 in 1762, and confirmed by the Emperor Paul in 
 1773, in accordance with which the house of Holstein- 
 Gottorp (or Holstein-Kiel, as it was now called) re- 
 nounced all claims upon Schleswig. 
 
 It is about eight years since the German party in 
 Schleswig began openly to agitate the question of 
 separation from Denmark, and from that time forth 
 the contest has been plied with continually increasing 
 acrimony. From their brethren throughout the whole 
 extent of the Confederation the separatists received the 
 most vehement encouragement. A crusade was preach- 
 ed in support of German nationality ; the subject was 
 laid before the legislative chambers of several German 
 states ; the right of Schleswig-Holstein to unity and 
 independence was toasted at public dinners — was sung 
 in musical societies — was discussed in scientific assem- 
 blies, and maintained in pamphlets innumerable, from 
 the pens of the most learned antiquaries. The sove- 
 reigns of Germany willingly encouraged their subjects 
 in a mania which diverted their attention from domestic 
 matters. Besides this, some of the German states 
 were actuated by still more direct motives of self-inter- 
 est. Prussia especially, which had repeatedly en- 
 deavored without success to induce Denmark to join 
 the Prussian Customs League, gladly supported a 
 movement that tended towards the increase of her own 
 maritime power. 
 
 Such was the state of things when the commotion 
 following the French Revolution produced its natural 
 effect on the course of events in the Duchies. A depu- 
 tation was sent to Copenhagen to demand from the 
 King a recognition of the separate nationality of the 
 two duchies, and of their united incorporation with the 
 German Confederation. His majesty replied, that he 
 
2 "7 2 DENMARK. 
 
 would not offer any hindrance to a more intimate 
 alliance of Holstein with Germany, but that he had 
 neither the right nor the inclination to sever Schleswig 
 from the Danish crown. He desired to maintain its 
 indissoluble union with Denmark through a common 
 free constitution, and further to secure the well-being of 
 the province by extended provincial institutions. 
 
 The arrival of the deputation in Copenhagen hap- 
 pened just after the old, inefficient ministry was super- 
 seded by an administration composed of men of 
 distinguished talent, who had for some years been the 
 leaders of the Liberal party in the kingdom. No sooner 
 was the change of ministry known in the duchies than 
 the leaders of the separatist faction, without waiting for 
 the return of their delegates with the King's reply, 
 hoisted their flag, and nominated a Provisional Govern- 
 ment of their own ; at the same time proclaiming that 
 an insurrection had broken out in Copenhagen, and that 
 the King being held under restraint, Prince Frederick, 
 the brother of the Duke of Augustenburg, was author- 
 ized to take command of the duchies in the King's 
 name. By this trick the rebels were enabled to gain 
 over part of the troops in the duchies, and to get pos- 
 session of the fortress of Rendsburg. But the King 
 forthwith gave the lie to the idle pretence, by putting 
 himself at the head of an army which soon occupied 
 the whole of Schleswig ; and the insurrection would 
 have been easily suppressed had not the Prussian 
 troops, in defiance of the law of nations, crossed the 
 frontiers of Holstein on the 6th of April, without any 
 previous declaration of war. 
 
 The Frankfort Assembly gave its cordial sanction to 
 the step taken by the King of Prussia ; and, in obedience 
 to its orders, his army was reinforced by contingents 
 from Hanover, Mecklenburg, and Oldenburg. The war 
 was universally and immensely popular in Germany. 
 Men who agreed in nothing else, united in ardent de- 
 
THE WAR IN SCHLESWIG. 2*73 
 
 sire for the success of their brethren m Schleswig- 
 Holstein, and for the vindication of the sacred cause of 
 German nationality. But something less disinterested 
 and purely sentimental than national sympathy lay at 
 the bottom of this specious enthusiasm. Germany 
 was bent on ' having a fleet ! Next to the vision of a 
 German empire, that of an imperial German fleet was 
 the dream most fondly cherished in the imagination of 
 the Teutons. Now, in order to have a fleet it is neces- 
 sary to possess a considerable extent of sea-coast, with 
 suitable harbors, and a hardy, sea-going population ; 
 in all which respects Germany is scantily endowed, but 
 with the Duchies in her possession she might do won- 
 ders as a madtime power. " Schleswig-Holstein," said 
 an article in the Allgemeine Zeitung, of Augsburg, " is 
 the handle of the sword which Germany is to throw 
 into the scales of Fate in the northern seas. Will she 
 look on calmly while it is wrested from her hand V 
 
 Thus, then, on the part of the Germans, the war was 
 an affair of unprincipled cupidity, whilst, for the Danes, 
 it was one in which they fought for national honor and 
 national existence. Denmark possesses a population of 
 1,350,000, exclusive of Iceland and the colonies. In 
 giving up Holstein, she loses 450,000; if deprived of 
 Schleswig, she loses 360,000 more, and must soon be- 
 come extinct as a nation. If this be her doom, she will 
 at least not fall through the cowardice or supineness of 
 her sons. The Danes have displayed a noble spirit in 
 their unequal contest with the invader, and their king 
 has shown himself worthy of sueh a people. He re- 
 nounced the fourth part of his yearly income ; ordered 
 the royal plate and medals to be taken to the mint, in 
 order to mitigate as much as possible the public burdens 
 occasioned by the war; and, after returning from 
 Rendsburg to his capital, his first act was to send the 
 whole of his guards to the seat of war, and trust him- 
 s 12 * 
 
274 DENMARK:. 
 
 self, without even a sentry at the palace-gates, to the 
 love of his subjects. 
 
 Until Schleswig was actually invaded, Denmark for- 
 bore to exercise the reprisals with which her fleet enabled 
 her to visit Prussia ; and even subsequently she con- 
 tented herself with a blockade, not very rigidly enforced, 
 and the seizure of some Prussian vessels. She neither 
 thought of granting letters of mark nor of attacking the 
 enemy's sea-coast towns, — measures authorized by 
 Usage, and which would have been especially justifiable 
 against a powerful adversary who had taken the field 
 wrongfully, and without the regular forms of war. 
 Before the actual commencement of hostilities, it was 
 hoped for a while, at least in Denmark, that the ques- 
 tion would be settled by negotiation, for the plenipo- 
 tentiaries of the belligerents were to meet in Hamburg 
 on Easter Monday (24th April). In consequence of 
 this expectation, Hedemann, the Danish commander-in- 
 ehief, had positive orders to avoid an engagement ; 
 but, on Easter Sunday, he was attacked in his position, 
 near Schleswig, by the Prussian general Wrangel, and 
 26,000 Germans. The Danish troops were not more 
 than 11 ,,000; yet, notwithstanding the surprise, and 
 their inferiority in numbers, they made an intrepid 
 stand, and did not give way until after eight hours 7 
 fighting. 
 
 The Danish commander now adopted a system of 
 tactics suited to the peculiar nature of the territory. 
 Had he remained on the mainland he would have been 
 compelled to recede before General Wrangel, until, 
 perhaps, he would have been forced into a corner of 
 Jutland, from whence there was no escape, and suffered 
 a final defeat, which would have made the Prussians 
 masters of the province. Hedemann, therefore^ with- 
 drew into the islands of Alsen and Funen, the former 
 ©£ which lies about two hundred and fifty yards off the 
 
THE WAR IN SCHLESWIG. 275 
 
 eastern coast of Schleswig, and is separated by the 
 Little Belt from the larger island of Funen ; and this 
 again is separated by the Great Belt from Zealand, in 
 which stands Copenhagen. The effect of this manoeuvre 
 was to make Wrangel divide his forces, a part of 
 which marched without opposition into Jutland, and 
 imposed a contribution of 440,000/. on that province. 
 His abundant means of transport by sea rendered it 
 easy for General Hedemann to concentrate all his forces 
 in a few hours, either in Funen in order to make a 
 descent on Jutland, or in Alsen, whence he might fall 
 upon Schleswig ; whilst Wrangel's forces, on the other 
 hand, were divided into two bodies, placed at several 
 days' march asunder. After making a feint of attack- 
 ing Jutland from Funen, Hedemann suddenly fell back 
 upon Alsen, and made a descent on Schleswig. The 
 two armies were in sight of each other when the news 
 arrived from Copenhagen that the Prussians had 
 evacuated Jutland in consequence of the remonstrance 
 made by the powers friendly to Denmark. It was not 
 possible, however, that the two armies should quit each 
 other's presence without an engagement. It took place 
 on the 28th of May, and ended advantageously for the 
 Danes. 
 
 Several encounters subsequently took place between 
 the belligerents, but without any very decisive results. 
 Meanwhile negotiations for a peace were pending. 
 Sweden had given early intimation that she would 
 consider an invasion of Jutland as dangerous to the 
 independence of her own dominions. When the oc- 
 cupation took place, the Swedish fleet approached the 
 theatre of war, and landed an army on the Danish 
 islands, whilst a more considerable force was concen- 
 trated in the Swedish province of Scania. Russia 
 adopted the same policy, and a Russian fleet was sent 
 to cruise in the Danish waters, under the command of 
 the Archduke Constantine. A hint, too, is said to have 
 
276 DENMARK. 
 
 been given from St. Petersburg, that the renunciation 
 of the Emperor Paul to the portion of the duchies he 
 inherited, was made in favor of the royal house of 
 Denmark alone, and that consequently, should that 
 house be dispossessed or become extinct, the rights of 
 Russia would revive. 
 
 England, whose mediation had been solicited by both 
 parties, proposed an armistice on the 18th of May. 
 The terms were disapproved of by Prussia, and hostili- 
 ties were continued until the 29th of June. Sweden 
 then tried her hand, and the preliminaries of an 
 armistice were arranged at Malmoe, in Scania, and 
 promptly acceded to by Prussia and Denmark. Europe 
 looked upon the affair as ended ; but when the two 
 envoys met at Colding, on the 15th of July, to arrange 
 ulterior measures, the Prussian announced with sur- 
 prise to the no less astonished Dane the positive 
 refusal of General Wrangel to fulfil the convention 
 signed and ratified by his Government. He dis- 
 approved of many of the conditions ; and, moreover, he 
 alleged that the ratification could not be valid without 
 the sanction of the Regent of the German Empire. 
 
 Denmark did not at once resume active hostilities ; 
 but she increased the strictness of the blockade, extend- 
 ing it to the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser, to the 
 great detriment of the trade of Hamburg and Bremen. 
 And now France sent in a note to Berlin and Frank- 
 fort, referring to the treaty of 1720, and' expressly 
 recognising the guarantee she had given for the rights 
 of Denmark in Schleswig. Prussia yielded at last, and 
 a convention was definitively concluded at Malmoe on 
 the 26th of August, by which an armistice was estab- 
 lished for seven months, as more fully stated in the 
 preceding chapter. 
 
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 277 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 
 
 THE INVASION PANIC THE CHARTIST MOVEMENTS THE IRISH 
 
 REBELLION THE SESSION OF PARLIAMENT COMMERCIAL VI- 
 CISSITUDES — FOREIGN RELATIONS. 
 
 [The following chapter is reprinted entire from Mr. W. 
 Kelley's History of the year 1848. It has been thought best 
 to present an Englishman's view of English affairs during that 
 eventful year.] 
 
 The domestic annals of the British Empire for the 
 year 1848 are rather of a negative character. We have 
 not been revolutionized ; we have not suffered any vast 
 national calamity; but neither have we made any 
 marked progress in the way of national health, wealth, 
 and contentment. We began the year with a strange 
 panic apprehension of foreign invasion. An old letter 
 of the Duke of Wellington's, painfully exposing the 
 unprotected state of our coasts, and the general ineffici- 
 ency of our National defences, was published in The 
 Chronicle, on the 8th of January, and forthwith there 
 arose throughout the length and breadth of the land 
 an affrighted cry for more fortresses, guns, soldiers, 
 ships, and sailors. The Ministry blandly assented to 
 the patriotic call, and we were in a fair way to see the 
 whole island belted with bomb-proof masonry, bristling 
 w r ith implements of war ; but the magnificent concep- 
 tion was smothered in the birth by vulgar consi derations 
 of cost. The proposed addition of two per cent, to the 
 
278 GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 
 
 income-tax fell like a wet blanket on our martial ardor, 
 and we resolved unanimously to go on encountering 
 the old risks in the old way, rather than pay so heavy 
 a premium for additional insurance. 
 
 We can afford to smile now at the false fears that 
 then possessed us ; but there is no need that we should 
 give them up to unmitigated ridicule. They were 
 erroneous in their direction, but that was all. We had 
 sagacity enough to apprehend the approach of some 
 stupendous commotion, but not enough to forecast its 
 precise nature. When it came at last, and we could 
 make out visibly what manner of thing it was, we knew 
 better how to deal with it. Attempts were made in 
 England and Ireland to parody the revolutionary feats 
 of the Continent ; but the failure in both instances was 
 total and ludicrous. 
 
 The stability of the British Constitution was tried in 
 the metropolis on the 10th of April. On that day, a 
 great public meeting was appointed to be held on 
 Kennington Common, whence 200,000 men were to 
 march to Westminster, present a petition to Parliament 
 for the Charter, and " wait for an answer !" The in- 
 tention was obviously to effect a revolution by the 
 summary process which had prevailed in most of the 
 capitals of Europe ; and it was confidently predicted by 
 the orators of the Chartist Convention then sitting in 
 London, that the Charter would be the law of the land 
 before bedtime on the 10th of April. The Charter 
 might or might not be a good thing ; that was a ques- 
 tion on which two opinions might be fairly entertained : 
 but that an organized mob should be allowed to take 
 possession of the centre of the metropolis and make 
 capture of the Legislature, was a matter that admitted 
 not of a moment's controversy. So said and thought 
 the vast majority of the population, and they took such 
 ft course as demonstrated, once for all, that they would 
 jiot submit to the usurped sovereignty of a casual moU, 
 
THE CHARTIST MOVEMENTS. 279 
 
 The preventive measures of Government, devised and 
 personally worked by the Duke of Wellington, were on 
 a, large and complete scale, though so arranged as not 
 to obtrude themselves needlessly on the view. The 
 Thames bridges were the main points of concentration ; 
 bodies of foot and horse police, and assistant masses of 
 special contables, being posted at their approaches on 
 either side. In the immediate neighborhood of each 
 of them, within call, a strong force of military was kept 
 ready for instant movement. Two regiments of the 
 line were kept in hand at Milbank Penitentiary ; 1200 
 infantry at Deptford Dockyard, and thirty pieces of 4 
 3ieavy field-ordnance at the Tower, all ready for trans- 
 port by hired steamers, to any spot where serious busi- 
 ness might threaten. At other places also bodies of 
 troops were posted, out of sight, but within sudden 
 command. 
 
 In addition to the regular civil and military force, it 
 Is credibly estimated that at least 150,000 special con- 
 stables were sworn and organized throughout the me- 
 tropolis, for the stationary defence of their own districts, 
 or as movable bodies to co-operate with the soldiery 
 and police. On the other hand, the muster on the Com- 
 mon fell far short of the grand number predicted. The 
 •whole gathering did not exceed 20,000, one-half of whom 
 were spectators, led to the spot by mere curiosity. The 
 -"Chartists submitted quietly to their defeat ; the detached 
 rolls of their monster petition were despatched in hack- 
 ney-cabs to Westminster ; the crowd broke up, and after 
 -some slight combating, in which no serious casualty 
 occurred, it was manoeuvred into detailed masses and 
 quietly dispersed ; and the day of intended revolution 
 ended in a gossiping wonderment. 
 
 Two months afterwards the leaders of the violent 
 section of the Chartists began again to trouble the 
 public peace. Numerous riots, some of them attended 
 <with loss of life, took place in Scotland and in the mid- 
 
230 GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 
 
 land counties of England ; and open-air meetings were 
 held in the metropolis, in which language of the most 
 incendiary kind was uttered by Messrs. Ernest Jones, 
 Williams, Sharpe, Vernon, Looney, and Fussell, the last 
 of whom strenuously recommended the expedient of 
 private assassination. They were all brought to trial 
 for these offences, convicted, and sentenced to two 
 years' imprisonment, and to find recognisances for their 
 future good behavior. Subsequently the police detected 
 a widely-ramified conspiracy to effect a simultaneous 
 ^rising in London, Manchester, and other towns, and' to 
 burn, slay, and pillage in all directions. Cuffay, Lacey, 
 and Fay, the metropolitan ringleaders, were transported 1 
 for life, and a great number of the other conspirators- 
 were subjected to various degrees of punishment. 
 
 The Irish rebellion, heralded by far more boisterous 
 and truculent boastings than the Chartist plot, failed 
 still more ignominiously. Newspapers had been 
 founded for the avowed purpose of openly preaching 
 treason, and teaching the art of street>fighting, with 
 the most ingenious devices for maiming and torturing- 
 troops by means of vitriol, bottles turned into hand- 
 grenades, and other missiles. War-clubs were every- 
 where established, whole cargoes of fire-arms were 
 imported and sold by auction in the fairs and markets, 
 all the smiths in Ireland were at work, night and day, 
 manufacturing pikes, and nothing less was talked of 
 than a levy en masse of the Celtic population to exter- 
 minate the Saxon intruders, Mr. Smith O'Brien, Mr. 
 Meagher, and Mr. (^Gorman went to Paris to solicit 
 French aid. On the 3d of April they waited on 
 Lamartine with congratulatory addresses from various 
 bodies of Irish, but received from the foreign minister 
 of the Republic a reply that effectually extinguished all 
 their hopes of support from that quarter. Returning' 
 to Ireland, Messrs. O'Brien and Meagher were in the 
 following month tried for sedition ; but the juries wouM 
 
THE IRISH REBELLION". 2'81 
 
 not agree to a verdict in either case. Mr. Mitchell, the 
 editor of the famous war-journal, the Nation, was not 
 so fortunate ; he was found guilty, and shipped off to 
 Bermuda under sentence of fourteen years' trans- 
 portation. 
 
 Still the Confederates continued their sanguinary 
 ravings, and the preparations for rebellion went on 
 with unabated activity, Lord Clarendon calmly and 
 steadily watching the conspirators, and noiselessly 
 providing means to render their folly innocuous. The 
 Legislature* had strengthened his hands by an act sus- 
 pending the right of Habeas Corpus in Ireland, and 
 by other enactments suited to the state of a country 
 on the eve of a rebellion. At last the leaders of the 
 Irish Confederation took the field. Messrs. O'Brien, 
 Doheny, Meagher, and Dillon, the two former dressed 
 in gorgeous uniforms, threw themselves among the 
 colliers of Tipperary, and summoned them to the 
 destruction of the infamous old English empire. A 
 single battle began and ended the campaign. On 
 Saturday, July 29, Mr. O'Brien and some thousand of 
 his followers were ignominiously beaten by less than fifty 
 policemen, who had posted themselves in the widow 
 M'Cormack's house at Boulagh. Seven of the insur- 
 gents were killed, and many wounded ; and so ended 
 the Irish Rebellion of 1848, crushed at a blow, and 
 without the aid of one soldier of the line, by a small 
 party of men of the same creed, race, and station as 
 the rebels themselves. O'Brien, Meagher, M'Manus, 
 and O'Donohue, fell into the hands of the authorities, 
 were tried at Clonmel, and were sentenced on the 9th 
 of October to death for high treason. A writ of error 
 was entered for each of the convicts ; and while it was 
 pending it became known that in any event the 
 Government would not enforce the full sentence of the- 
 law. 
 
 The Parliamentary session which began on the 1 8t& 
 
282 GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 
 
 of November, 1847, and terminated on the 5th of 
 September, 1848, was one of unexampled length, but 
 of little practical efficiency. Its chief produce was a 
 set of coercive and penal acts for the better enabling 
 of the Executive to curb disaffection, but the list of its 
 enactments tending to any positive improvement was 
 so brief as to be almost nugatory. Parliament was 
 summoned at an unusually early period to consider and 
 counteract the commercial distress that so heavily 
 affected the country ; but the violence of the crisis was 
 over before members could come together, and the 
 proposed inquiry was dropped, the country was left to 
 take its chance of another panic, and nothing was done 
 to secure a permanently safer condition of commercial 
 -affairs. The case was just the same with every other 
 great question that was pressed upon the consideration 
 of the Legislature : in all but two or three instances of 
 no great moment, the decision was postponed to the 
 next session. 
 
 The commercial vicissitudes of the British Empire 
 •during 1848 were remarkable, but not so extreme as 
 those of the preceding year. In 1847, the range of 
 fluctuations in Consols was full 15 per cent., been 
 greater than had been known for eighteen years, and 
 also considerably exceeding the range during the 
 respective years of the declaration of war against Great 
 Britain by the French Convention, the first Bank sus- 
 pension, the Irish Rebellion, and the battle of Waterloo. 
 In 1848, it was 10 per cent. ; namely from 90 to 80, 
 which is quite equal to what, on the average, took 
 place on the above-mentioned occasions. In January, 
 ■Consols opened at 85 ; they crept up steadily to 90, 
 when the shock of the French Revolution made them 
 fall instantly 10 per cent. ; but the panic was only 
 momentary ; and none of the subsequent convulsions 
 of the Continent had power to disturb our money- 
 market in anything like the same degree. It lias been 
 
THE SPANISH QUARREL. 283 
 
 pointed out as a fact pregnant with lessons of prudence 
 of the highest national importance, that the financial 
 consequences of the railroad mania of 1846-7 were 50 
 per cent, more serious than the financial consequences 
 of a twelvemonth of revolution. 
 
 The part played by Great Britain in the agitated 
 politics of the Continent has been confined to friendly 
 mediation, more zealous than successful. In Spain our 
 well-meant counsel has been rejected with a wantonness 
 of insult which is likely, sooner or later, to work out its 
 own punishment. Alarmed at the arbitrary and vio- 
 lent proceedings of the Narvaez Administration in a 
 period of general disturbance, Lord Palmerston thought 
 it advisable to instruct our Ambassador " to recommend 
 earnestly to the Spanish Government and the Queen- 
 Mother, if" he had " an opportunity of doing so, the 
 adoption of a legal and constitutional government of 
 Spain." It must be remembered that Queen Isabella 
 owed her throne chiefly to the aid afforded her by 
 Great Britain, and that she held the British Govern- 
 ment bound by treaty to support her against all 
 pretenders. Now, an insurrection which put the 
 monarchy in peril took place in Madrid on the 23d of 
 March ; the measures taken in consequence by the 
 Government were of a nature to alarm our ambassador ; 
 he remonstrated against them, but finding that his 
 advice made no impression, he backed it by the pro- 
 duction of Lord Palmerston's despatch, for reasons 
 which he thus explains : — 
 
 " It began to be very probable that Count Monte- 
 molin might show himself, supported by the liberal 
 party, and with the cry of the Constitution of 1812 ; 
 — this was here canvassed on one side, a Republic on 
 the other. Now, if the Pretender raised his banner, 
 proclaiming constitutional principles, and we were 
 called upon to support Queen Isabella, her Catholic 
 Majesty upholding military government, it would bs 
 
284 GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 
 
 difficult for us to support the military government 
 against the constitutional one, or to desert Queen 
 Isabella suddenly, on the ground that we disapproved 
 of the course she had pursued, unless there was some 
 proof that we had so disapproved. My unofficial con- 
 versations had no authority. Even if her Catholic 
 Majesty fell, without exposing us to this difficult and 
 particular question, it might be said, ' Why did not 
 Mr. Bulwer warn the Spanish Government of the 
 dangerous course they were pursuing ? Why did he 
 not do so with all the weight that a formal communi- 
 cation of the views of Great Britain would have 
 afforded V It was, my Lord, in view of all these 
 various probabilities, that I gave the sanction of your 
 Lordship's name and of my own opinion to the advice 
 I presumed to offer. It was not, that I am aware of, 
 couched in improper terms. I did not, therefore, 
 expect a violently hostile reply, or that the present 
 Government of Spain would involve amongst Queen 
 Isabella's enemies her Majesty's Government, with 
 more than the precipitancy with which it had included 
 in this category distinguished and loyal Spaniards. 
 The result shows I was mistaken." 
 
 Sir Henry Bulwer was mistaken, because, in his 
 political calculations, he had not taken sufficient 
 account of the ignorance of the Spanish Government, 
 who imagined that England was in the throes of revo- 
 lution, and that the Chartists and the Irish Confederates 
 would soon make wild work in the land. Our Ambas- 
 sador's note was returned to him, with an insolent 
 reply, and soon afterwards his passports were sent him, 
 and he was dismissed the country. Had such an 
 affront been put upon us by a first-rate power, war 
 would have ensued, but Spain was safe in her insig- 
 nificance. Our only revenge was to suspend all diplo- 
 matic intercourse with her, and leave her perverse 
 rulers to the justice of their countrymen. Whatever 
 
* COLONIES. 285 
 
 be the effect on Spain of the severance of the alliance, 
 to us the result can be nothing but gain. 
 
 The chances of this eventful year have brought our 
 mismanaged colonies no relief for their chronic mala- 
 dies. We have had one of our costly little border 
 wars in the Cape colony ; we have put down and 
 punished with barbarous severity an insurrection in 
 Ceylon, which we had provoked by our misgovern- 
 ment ; and we are now engaged in a sanguinary war 
 in the Punjab, where the whole Sikh race has risen in 
 insurrection against us.* 
 
 * The reader will bear in mind that the above was written 
 in the early part of the present year. Our prescribed limits in 
 this publication would of course be transcended, if we were to 
 do more than simply allude to the triumph of the British arms 
 in the recent wars in India. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The year 1848 will be ever marked in the history of the 
 world as the year of Revolutions. The events of 1849 may 
 be regarded as the falling of the curtain after the dramatic 
 scenes of that wonderful year. 
 
 In France, little of a revolutionary character has occur- 
 red. Her interference in Italian affairs has been justly 
 reprobated throughout the civilized world. On the 13th of 
 June occurred the most formidable insurrection of the year, 
 but the troops proved faithful to the government, and it was 
 speedily put down. 
 
 Italy. The political condition of this country seems 
 likely to be restored to what it was two years ago. After 
 an obstinate and gallant resistance to French intervention, 
 Rome was obliged to yield to superior discipline, and on the 
 3d of July Gen. Oudinot led his victorious army into the city 
 of the Caesars. Venice, too, after a struggle which won 
 the admiration of the world, was forced to submit to an un- 
 conditional surrender of her forts, arsenals arms, etc. 
 
 The Lombardo — Venetian kingdom, is secured to the 
 house of Austria. Such is the termination of that noble 
 struggle maintained by the Venetians for so many months. 
 Their valor and persevering efforts seemed to have deserved 
 a better fate ! Of their conduct throughout the trying 
 scenes of the contest, it may be said that it was stained by 
 none of those crimes which add to the evils of civil war. 
 
 Germany. The prospect of German confederation seems 
 to have totally disappeared. As the German sovereigns, 
 especially the Emperor of Austria and King of Prussia, 
 began to regain their former authority, the weight of the 
 Frankfort Assembly or Parliament visibly declined. Their 
 numbers gradually diminished, and thus passed away the 
 fondly cherished project which was to exalt the German 
 name. 
 
 Austria. There can be nothing justly said to palliate 
 the policy of Austria in her relations with Hungary. Her 
 
conduct has been selfish, her pretences hollow, and her con- 
 cessions unwillingly made. 
 
 On the 13th of August the Hungarian army closed a 
 valiant, but unsuccessful, struggle by an unconditional sur- 
 render. Previous to this it appears that Kossuth, sensible 
 of the desperate condition of affairs, resigned all power into 
 the hands of Arthur Georgey, who forthwith surrendered 
 and claimed that his pity for his distracted country induced 
 the act. Kossuth and his companions escaped into the 
 Turkish dominions, where he is still held as a prisoner, 
 although nominally under the protection of the Sultan. 
 
 Denmark. There is something wholly unprecedented in 
 the situation of this little country, which though reckoning 
 hardly 2,000,000 inhabitants, has been able to defend itself 
 very logically in its diplomatic notes, and afterwards very 
 heroically both by land and by sea, against a nation of 
 40,000,000 souls. The armistice with Prussia took place 
 en the 17th of July. 
 
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