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 14685-S
 
 THE HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 TEN YEARS.
 
 THE 
 
 HISTORY OF TEN YEARS, 
 
 18301840. 
 
 BY LOUIS BLANC. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STRAND. 
 1845.
 
 C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOtJSK,
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK THE THIRD, continued. 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Division in the Legitimatist Party Paris, Massa, Holyrood Secret Conferences 
 ~at JLucca-^HT de -Rergorlay^s Letter to Charles X. The Petty Courts of 
 Italy M. de Blacas removed Royalist Conspiracy Metternich opposed to 
 the Duchess de Bern's projects The Duchess and the Cabinets of the Hague, 
 of St. Petersburg State of La Vendee The Duchess embarks secretly 
 Attempt at Insurrection in Marseilles. The Duchess's Journey through 
 France, and Arrival in La Vendee Events there The Duchess at Nantes... 1 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Campte rendu of the Opposition Death and Obsequies of General Lamarque 
 State of Parties Insurrection of June 5 and 6 Cloitre St. Mery State 
 of Siege .......................................................................................... 24 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 Death of the Duke of Reichstadt The St. Simonians at Menilmontant Pro- 
 secution Dissolution of the St. Simonian Family Ministry of October 1 1 
 Character of Thiers The Duchess de Berri arrested at Nantes Affair of the 
 Pistol shot Parliamentary Conflicts .................................................... 56 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Foreign Policy The Belgian Fortresses ; Humiliation inflicted on France by 
 England-^Just Resistance of William to the Treaty of the Twenty-four Arti- */ 
 des Policy of England, Russia, Prussia, and Austria A- Ratifications ex- 
 changed ; Indignation of the Belgians ; Intrigues Ministers opposed to the 
 King ; Saying of Talleyrand The French Army on the Frontier Conven- 
 tion of October 22 The French enter Belgium False Policy of France 
 Siege and Capture of Antwerp Summary of the History of the Conference. 96 
 
 BOOK THE FOURTH. 
 
 FBOM THE BEGINNING OF THE TEAR 1833 TO MAKCH 1836. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 The Duchess de Berri at Blaye Party Disputes and Duels about her Mea- 
 sures taken by the Government to prove her Pregnancy and Delivery Her 
 Departure for Palermo Her Interview with Charles X. at Leoben 123 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Corruption of Morals The Tribune newspaper called to the Bar of the Cham- 
 berThe Holiday of the 21st of January abolished Legislative Labours 
 Disturbances in Paris ; M. Rodde Workmen's Coalitions Societe des Droits 
 de FHomme Trial of the Twenty-seven '. 157 
 
 5 o A-
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 Foreign Policy ; Russia, Turkey, and Egypt ; Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi The 
 Right of Search Portugal Death of the King of Spain General View of 
 the Foreign Policy of France in 1833 189 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Savoy Expedition Young Italy Mazzini and Ramorino Buonarotti Inter- 
 view between Mazzini and Ramorino at Geneva Failure of the Enterprise 
 against Savoy Influence of the Event on the Conduct of the French Govern- 
 ment Preparations for a fierce Struggle on the part of the Republicans 
 Tragic Death of Dulong Laws against Public Criers and Associations 
 
 "" Affair of the 25,000,000 Retirement of the Due de Broglie Remodelling of 
 the Ministry Symptoms of approaching Revolution 218 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Military Aspect of Lyons Progress of Republicanism in that City Prosecution 
 of the Glaneuse Secret Societies Their Correspondence with the Parisian 
 Republicans Law against Associations Wilful llemissness of the Govern- 
 mentFrightful Scenes of Civil War in Lyons; in Paris Preparations for 
 the Monster Prosecution of the April Prisoners 243 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 The French Embassy at St. Petersburg Contempt of the Emperor Nicholas 
 for Louis Philippe Marshal Maison at the Russian Court The French Em- 
 bassy at Hadriu^Martinez de la Rosa; follows the System of Zea Bermudez 
 Origin and real Character of the Quadruple Alliance Negotiations carried 
 on without consulting Talleyrand Proof of his Diplomatic Incompetence ... 28 D 
 
 CHAPTER VTL 
 
 Elections in June, 1834 Disagreement between Guizot and Soult Divisions in 
 the Council on the Subject of M. Decazes and the Due de Bassano Minis- 
 terial Changes M. de Semonville and the Due de Decazes Question of the 
 Amnesty Retirement of Marshal Gerard Ministerial Crisis; Intrigues 
 The Cabinet dissolved Ministry of Three Days Return of the former Mi- 
 nistry Questions put to it in the Chamber 287 
 
 CHAPTER VIH. 
 
 Experiment of Monarchical Terrorism State of the Prisons Armand Carrel's 
 trial before the Court of Peers 299 
 
 CHAPTER EX. 
 
 Court Intrigues against the Ministry Rcederer's Pamphlet Policy of Duver- 
 gier de Hauranne and his Friends Personal Government of the King De 
 Broglie President of the Council The Treaty of the 25,000,000 General 
 Jackson's warlike Message Serrurier recalled Ministerial Dispatches coun- 
 teracted by a Secret Mission The Treaty voted by both Chambers 308 
 
 CHAPTER X. . 
 
 The April Prosecution Republican Congress convoked at Lyons Prepara- 
 tions of the Prisoners Visit to M. Pasquier Violation of the Right of De- 
 fence; Protest of the Bar Difference of Opinion between the Lyons and 
 Paris Prisoners The Trial before the Court of Peers De Cormenin and 
 Audry de Puyraveau incriminated Character of De Cormenin Audry de Puy- 
 raveau surrendered by the Chamber to the Court of Peers Various Incidents 
 of the Trial Convictions Escape of the Prisoners from St. Pelagic Con- 
 tinuation of the Trial Sentences The Republican Party 318 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 First Call for Intervention on the Part of Spain Thiers' Foreign Policy; 
 wherein it differed from the King's Guizot's political Scepticism England 
 consulted as to Intervention in Spain Intervention refused Plots, Rumours; 
 Fieschi's Infernal Machine Arrest of Armand Carrel Speech of the Arch- 
 bishop of Paris to the King September Laws 364
 
 CONTENTS. Vli 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Court Intrigues Madame de Dino and Madame de Lieven Ministerial Broils 
 The Ministry dissolved; tile Personal Government confirmed 379 
 
 BOOK THE FIFTH. 
 
 FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1836 TO THE BEGINNING OF 1840. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Fieschi Prosecution Morey, Pepin, Nina Lassave Triple Execution 388 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Reaction of Continental Policy against the Revolution of July Occupation of 
 Cracow by the Austrians, Prussians, and Russians The English Cabinet asks 
 for French Intervention hi Spain Gradual Alienation from the English Al- 
 liance; First Phase of the Ministry of February 22 Journey of the Due 
 d'Orleans to Berlin and Vienna ; he is refused the Hand of an Archduchess 
 of Austria Accidental Meeting between him and Maria Louisa 403 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 Alibaud's Attempt to Assassinate the King His Trial and Execution Death 
 of Armand Carrel 415 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The French Government allies itself with the Policy of the Continent Manoeu- 
 vres of the Court of Austria Refugees in Switzerland The Due de Monte- 
 bello and the Federal Directory The Spy Conseil Thiers disposed to return 
 to the English Alliance The Question of Intervention hi Spain revived 
 Mendizabal's Administration; his Fall Thiers supported on intervention by 
 the Due d'Orleans; Character of the latter Separation between Guizot and 
 De Broglie Talleyrand employed against the System of the English Alliance 
 Dissolution of the Ministry of February 22 431 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Formation of the Mole Cabinet Continuation of the Swiss Affair Projects of 
 Louis Bonaparte Military Insurrection at Strasbourg Another at Vendome 
 Louis Bonaparte sent to America Death of Charles X 452 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 Affairs of Algiers Various Systems pursued by the Military Governments 
 Abd-el-Kader Battles and Expeditions Effect of Residence in Africa on 
 the French Marshal Clauzel in Paris Opinions on Algiers of the Doctri- 
 naire Party, the King, and M. Thiers First Expedition against Constantina. 470 
 
 CHAPTER VOL 
 
 Liberation of the Prisoners of Ham Another Attempt on the King's Life 
 Debates on Spam The Strasbourg Trial Secret Conflict between Mole and 
 Guizot Project of Ostracism Law of Disjunction rejected; Distress in 
 France Proposed Apannage; De Cormenin'sPamphlet Origin of the Tiers- 
 parti Change of Ministry 491 
 
 CHAPTER VUL 
 
 Announcement of the Marriage of the Due d'Orteans Discussion on African 
 Affairs Dotation of the Due d'Orl&ms Amnesty Arrival of the Princess 
 Helena Opening of the Versailles Gallery 511 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Affairs of Africa Interview between General Bugcaud and Abd-el-Kader 
 Treaty of the Tafna -Taking of Constantina 525
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 New Attitude assumed by the Democratic Party Character 'of Arago For- 
 mation of the CENTRAL COMMITTEE Elections Origin of .the COALITION ; 
 First Defeat Death of Talleyrand. ,*. 534 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Legislation of the Year 1838 Conversion of the Rentes ; the Sinking Fund ; 
 Laffitte's Theories of Finance Railway^ ; Execution by the State, or by Joint 
 Stock Companies Arago's Report Decision of the Question 549 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Hubert Prosecution Coronation of Queen Victoria Louis Bonaparte obliged 
 to quit Switzerland Birth of the Comte de Paris Evacuation of Ancona 
 The Coalition Revived Fanaticism ; Death of the Comte de Montlosier 
 Gisquet's Prosecution of the Messager for Libel Session of 1839 Last 
 Struggle of the Coalition Character of M. de Genoude The Treaty of the 
 Twenty-four Articles forced on Belgium Fall of the Mole Cabinet 570 
 
 CHAPTER XHL 
 
 Various Attempts to form a Ministry out of the Coalition Nomination of a 
 Provisional Cabinet Alarm of the Bourgeoisie Insurrection of May 12 
 A New Ministry Trial and Conviction of Barbes and his Accomplices 597 
 
 CHAPTER XTV. 
 
 Eastern Question Affairs of Turkey, Egypt, and Syria ; Proceedings of the 
 Five Powers Thiers' Speech on the English Alliance Dotation of the Due 
 de Nemours refused Fall of the Ministry of the 12th of May 614 
 
 HISTORICAL CONCLUSION _. 648
 
 THE HISTORY OF TEN YEARS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WE left the Duchess de Berri at Massa, meditating the daring 
 project of recovering her son's throne; the strength of the legiti- 
 matist party, however, was not adequate to so bold a design. 
 
 That party, in fact, a prey to very serious disunion, was at this 
 time divided into three very distinct sections. 
 
 The first of these refused to promote the restoration of Henry V. 
 by any other than legal and parliamentary means. Its centre was 
 Paris ; its organ the Gazette de France ; and its principal represen- 
 tatives were the Duke of Belluno and Viscount Chateaubriand. 
 
 The second looked only to the armed intervention of the Powers. 
 It prevailed at Holyrood, and received its impulsion from the Duke 
 de Blacas. 
 
 The third rejected, as unpopular and fatal, the intervention of fo- 
 reigners; but it, at the same time, rejected the idea of a system of 
 legal and parliamentary opposition; relying upon the resources of 
 the royalists in the interior, its aim was to raise the provinces. Its 
 eyes fixed upon Massa, it sympathized with and applauded the ad- 
 venturous tendencies of Marie Caroline ; its chiefs were Marshal 
 Bourmont, Count de Kergorlay, the Duke d'Escars, and Viscount 
 St. Priest. 
 
 This division of the Royalists rendered the part which Marie Caro- 
 line had to play a very difficult and perilous one ; she had to contend 
 not only against the timid caution of the legitimatist leaders in the 
 capital, but also against the ill-will of the great courts, who were ex- 
 cessively indignant at the desire openly declared by the princess to 
 render herself independent of their support. 
 
 Upon her arrival at Massa, Marie Caroline had at once an insight 
 
 into the difficulties of her undertaking. We have mentioned that 
 
 the Duke de Blacas had been assigned to her as a political Mentor. 
 
 The attachment which she displayed for M. de Mesnard, her chief 
 
 VOL. II. B
 
 2 SECRET CONFERENCES AT LUCCA. 
 
 equerry, and for M. de Brissac, her first gentleman usher, gave um- 
 brage to the favourite of Charles X. And these gentlemen very 
 soon learnt that endeavours were being made to procure their dis- 
 missal from attendance on the princess. M. de Brissac, himself a 
 highly honourable-minded man, would not credit this information; 
 but M. de Mesnard, less incredulous, induced the duchess to surround, 
 herself with counsellors calculated to destroy the influence of M. 
 Blacas with her. Marshal Bourmont arrived at Massa, accompanied 
 by MM. de Pastoret, d'Escars, and Kergorlay. They learnt from 
 the duchess that she had but a very imperfect idea of the powers 
 which M. de Blacas had received from Charles X. ; they imperatively 
 called upon the favourite to show them what these powers were, and 
 their astonishment was extreme at finding that the royal authoriza- 
 tion, while it assigned to the mother of Henry V. the title of regent, 
 conferred upon M. de Blacas all the functions and all the authority 
 of that position. Secret conferences were hereupon held at Lucca, 
 in which M. de Kergorlay energetically disputed the right, thus 
 arrogated by Charles X., of disposing of the'regency, after his volun- 
 tary and formal abdication. MM. de Bourmont and d'Escars con- 
 curred entirely with M. de Kergorlay. M. de Pastoret, whose mode- 
 ration took alarm at such exciting topics, contented himself with 
 pointing out that the document relative to the regency was, by 
 several months, posterior to the abdication, and consequently ir- 
 regular. M. Billot alone supported the claims of M. de Blacas, at 
 whose instance, indeed, he had been despatched to Massa. On the 
 close of these animated conferences, M. de Kergorlay conveyed to 
 Charles X. in a letter, respectful, but firm, his convictions upon the 
 subject.* As to M. de Blacas, he quitted the conference a defeated 
 
 " To his Majesty Charles X. 
 
 " SIRE, I have taken part here in some conferences -which have been held on be- 
 half of Henry V., and of France, in the presence of the mother of our young king. 
 At one of these conferences there were read two declarations ; the one bearing date 
 the 24th August, 1830, the other a later document, wherein your Majesty announces 
 it to be your intention to nominate Madame regent, and to regulate the terms of 
 that regency. 
 
 " No person could have learned with greater pain than myself, the unfortunate act 
 of the 2nd August, 1830, by which your Majesty abdicated the crown of France. That 
 act, however, from its very nature, seemed incapable of retractation; and, as a mat- 
 ter of fact, it was not retracted after the arrival of your Majesty in a foreign country. 
 Your faithful subjects, then, had no alternative but to resign themselves to what had 
 taken place. They rationally considered that your Majesty having affixed no re- 
 servation to this last act of sovereign will, had abdicated, at the same time, all the 
 functions of royalty. I, therefore, in the conference, of which I have spoken, dis- 
 tinctly enunciated the opinion that your Majesty, in abdicating the crown, could not 
 retain either the power of nominating to the regency, or that of regulating its terms. 
 
 " It is true that your Majesty, in your act of abdication, nominated Monseigneur 
 the Duke of Orleans, lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and it may be added that 
 this fatal nomination was not contested. I do not here propose to examine whether 
 er not it ought to have been contested; and, for that matter, instances of the testa- 
 mentary dispositions of our kings, relative to the regency, not having been acted 
 upon after their death, are not wanting in our history. But even were we to admit 
 as incontestable, the validity of the nomination of a lieutenant-general of a kingdom,
 
 M. DE KERGORLAY'S LETTER TO CHARLES x. 3 
 
 man. M. de Metternicli did all he could to support his interest with 
 the duchess, but without effect : her royal highness merely awaited 
 an opportunity of getting rid of him. 
 
 To the embarrassments of these internal differences, the duchess 
 personally found superadded the diplomatic terrors which her pre- 
 sence almost everywhere occasioned. Of all the petty princes of 
 Italy, the Dukes of Modena and Lucca alone ventured to offer to 
 the mother of the duke a frank and fearless hospitality. The King 
 
 contained in the act of abdication of the monarch relinquishing his throne, it would 
 by no means thence follow that in like manner can be sustained the validity of fresh 
 dispositions by the king, relative to the regency, bearing a date subsequent to his ab- 
 dication. It may, indeed, be conceived that, when Monseigneur the Duke of Orleans 
 had, by the crime of usurpation, rendered himself for ever unworthy of holding the 
 office of lieutenant-general of the kingdom which had been confided to him, the king, 
 on the very instant he learned the base act, had felt it to be his duty to revert to the 
 period, then only some days antecedent, wherein, as king, he had made this nomina- 
 tion, and, at once annulling the appointment, substituted a more worthy person, 
 taking no heed of the short interval, which had then occurred; but the fiction which 
 might have availed, when the period to be reverted to was only some few days ante- 
 cedent, cannot be extended, with the least probability, to the delay of more than a 
 year; after so prolonged a silence reality must needs take the place of fiction. 
 
 " That reality is, that a king's abdication being his voluntary renunciation of the 
 exercise of the royal functions, he has by such his abdication, renounced all ulterior 
 exercise of the royal function of disposing of the regency. The renunciation by 
 Monseigneur the Dauphin of his rights to the crown of France, in favour of his 
 nephew, is equivalent, during the life of Henry V., to his complete abdication, and 
 must consequently have, with reference to the actual regency, the same effect. 
 
 " If, passing from the question of validity, we proceed to that of fitness, I must 
 not permit myself to flinch from the very painful duty of stating that, in the present 
 state of men's minds in France, the promulgation of any ordinances by which your 
 Majesty should appoint a regency and regulate its conditions, would have a pernicious 
 effect. The public would see therein but an endeavour to indentify the new reign 
 with a system which proved the destruction of the reign preceding. 
 
 " The system I speak of is the same that drove James IL from England; it consists 
 in the supposition of a constituent power, founded upon divine right, which unites 
 within itself the triple faculty of granting a charter, of swearing to it, and of with- 
 drawing it afterwards. I am well aware that your Majesty yourself neither wished 
 to violate, nor thought you were in any way violating the charter, and that, after 
 weighing the ambiguities of the fourteenth article, you believed that you were proving 
 your fidelity to the charter itself, hi adopting the interpretation of that article which, 
 seemed to you the most consistent with sound reason. I believe that your ministers 
 were equally sincere in adopting the same interpretation; but I know, on the other 
 hand, that this interpretation was admitted by only a very small portion of the na- 
 tion; that it appeared, to the vast majority of Frenchmen, altogether paradoxical, 
 contradictory to the leading principle of the charter, and to the well known maxim, 
 which we find expressed in our ancient law books, in these concise terms : Domier et 
 Tenir ne vaut [you can't give away a thing and keep it too]. 
 
 " I have often had occasion, and more especially during the Hundred Days, pub- 
 licly to explain my views on the preference which should be given to constitutions 
 freely granted by the sovereign, over those which are extorted. I have always ex- 
 pressed, as forcibly as I could, my indignation against the whole base principle of 
 the latter, and have ever added, with equal earnestness, that the former stand upon 
 the basis which ever ought to be esteemed the truest of all guarantees, the honour of 
 a king. 
 
 " The unfortunate controversy as to the interpretation of Article 14, has, how- 
 ever, seriously impaired, in the minds of most men, the idea of the security of this 
 guarantee. Ever since the last revolution I have invariably felt the conviction that 
 the sole obstacle which impedes the establishment of Henry V. upon the throne of 
 his fathers, by general acclamation, is the difficulty of persuading the nation that 
 neither he nor his mother will ever adopt the principle which attributes to a sovereign 
 
 B2
 
 4 PETTY COURTS OF ITALY AND THE DUCHESS DE BERRI. 
 
 of Sardinia wrote her some very affectionate letters, giving her good 
 advice, but always under the rose. The Grand Duke of Tuscany 
 refused her permission to go to Pisa, to take the baths. And now 
 she was about to see closed against her the gates of the very city 
 wherein her brother sat enthroned. " If the Duchess de Berri," 
 General Sebastiani had emphatically exclaimed, " attempts to make 
 Naples the theatre of her intrigues, France has troops and she has 
 ships, and Toulon is not very far from Naples." These words, duly 
 transmitted by the Prince of Castelcicaa to the Neapolitan govern- 
 ment, occasioned the most vivid alarm. That government was not 
 ignorant that the court of France, so easy upon all other points, 
 was in the highest degree tenacious about a purely dynastical ques- 
 tion, and, towards a petty state, would be altogether intractable. 
 Accordingly, upon the return of the King of Naples from Sicily, 
 some of his councillors, and among others, the minister at war, Far- 
 della, put him in fear of the cabinet of the Tuileries, and he resolved 
 to refuse his sister permission to enter his kingdom, which refusal 
 would have been actually carried into effect, had not the Prince 
 Cassaro impressed upon his majesty how base and dishonourable such 
 conduct would be. Marie Caroline was, therefore, allowed to re- 
 visit Naples. At Rome, on her way, the Pope received her with 
 much kindness ; but the Count de Lutzow, the Austrian ambassador, 
 and, following his example, the Prussian and Russian ambassadors, 
 omitted to call upon her, a purposed neglect, which sensibly wounded 
 
 a constituent power, alike enabling him to grant a charter, to swear to it, and to with- 
 draw it afterwards. 
 
 " The rarious considerations, founded upon our constitutional law, and upon the 
 requirements of state utility, which I have here referred to, decided me upon de- 
 claring in the conferences, wherein, I was called upon to take a part, my opinion that 
 the mother of Henry V. ought to proclaim herself regent of the kingdom, in virtue 
 of her own right, and that no person was entitled to dispute the matter with her, or 
 to impose conditions ; unless by mutual agreement between her and the states-general 
 of the kingdom, she thought proper to admit such limitations of her functions as re- 
 gent as they might think fit to propose. I cited in support of my opinion, that Madame 
 not only was entitled, but that she ought long since to have proclaimed herself regent, 
 the example of Louis XVlil., who proclaimed himself regent during the minority of 
 Louis XVH., immediately after the death of Louis XVI. Many persons, no doubt, 
 and I was one of the number, disapproved of the conduct of M. the Count de Pro- 
 Tence, in having, by assuming the title of regent, invaded the rights of the captive 
 queen mother, and felt that he would have acted in better taste had he merely taken 
 the title of lieutenant-general of the kingdom ; but whatever doubts may have been 
 entertained as to the good taste of his assuming the former title, there was none what- 
 ever as to his perfect right to assume it of his own authority ; and he was highly and 
 generally applauded for his decision in not waiting until he should return to France, 
 ere he thus proclaimed his right and his duty, as next heir to the crown, to provide, 
 as well as in him lay, for the government of the state, both during the captivity of 
 the queen mother, and after the deplorable issue of that captivity. 
 
 " I have thought it all the more incumbent upon me, respectfully to state to your 
 Majesty the opinion I pronounced on the subject of the regency, that the members of 
 the conference were refused permission to draw up a report of the various opinions 
 delivered on the question. 
 
 " I am, sire, with the same profound veneration which I felt towards you during 
 the period when I ventured to rank myself among your most faithful subjects, 
 " Your Majesty's most humble, most obedient, and most devoted servant, 
 
 " Baths of Lucca, Sept. 29, 1831." " Count F. DE KERGORLAY."
 
 MASSA AND HOLYROOD. 5 
 
 her pride as princess and as mother. At Naples, she found her bro- 
 ther very kind in his manner, but altogether disinclined to afford 
 her any practical assistance ; and after a short stay, which some youth- 
 ful recollections of the heart rendered soothing and delightful, she 
 resumed her journey to Massa, whither M. de St. Priest, whom she 
 had met at Naples, hastened to join her, and where she became en- 
 tirely absorbed in the cares of her maternal ambition. 
 
 The proceedings at Massa were not viewed without considerable 
 disquiet at Holyrood, as may be seen in various missives from the 
 Baron de Damas, and in a letter from Charles X. to his daughter- 
 in-law. In this letter the old king said that the place of Madame 
 was at Holyrood, with her children; he announced his intention of 
 recalling M. de Blacas, but he accompanied this intimation with an 
 order to the Duchess de Berri herself to return. And yet, the 
 elevation of this princess to the regency, dated only some few months 
 back, in March, 183L* 
 
 On the other hand, the petty court of Massa received informa- 
 tion of the experiments that were being made upon the Conference 
 at London, by the councillors of Charles X.; that the Baron de 
 Damas had left Edinburgh for the purpose of pleading before the 
 members of the Conference, and in the name of Charles X., the 
 cause of the youthful Henry. Under these circumstances, Marshal 
 Bourmont expressed his opinion that the court of Massa should lose 
 no time in sending as its representative in London, an agent whose 
 duty it should be to neutralize any mischievous tendencies which 
 might appear to arise out of the proceedings of the Holyrood envoy. 
 The mission was one of great delicacy. The person to whom it was 
 proposed to intrust it, was M. de St. Priest, formerly ambassador of 
 France at Madrid, a man of great skill and moderation. But this 
 gentleman conceived that, previously to accrediting ambassadors to 
 the powers, it was necessary that the Duchess de Berri should regu- 
 late her own position, and clearly define her authority. First of 
 all, and under any circumstances, it was necessary to get rid of M. 
 de Blacas. After a great deal of hesitation, arising, as far as the 
 duchess was concerned, from her fear of displeasing Charles X., the 
 following plan was determined upon : that the duchess, in a firm, 
 though guarded letter, should represent to the Duke de Blacaa 
 the immense inconveniences and difficulties occasioned by the co- 
 existence of two centres of action, the one placed in Scotland, the 
 other in Italy ; that the greatest possible unity ought to preside over 
 the efforts of the royalists, and that, for her own part, she was im- 
 
 * The act of appointment, -which was confided to M. Feuillant, was conceived and 
 dated thus: 
 
 " Count de , whom we have named chief civil authority in the provinces of the 
 
 west, will arrange with the principal military chiefs, the drawing up and publication, 
 at the period of recurring to arms, of a proclamation in favour of Henry V., in which 
 it shall be announced that Madame, Duchess of Serri, is to be regent of the kingdom 
 during the minority of the king her son. For such is our wilL 
 
 "Edinburgh, March 8, 1831." Signed: "CHARLES."
 
 6 THE REGENT'S PROCLAMATION. 
 
 moveably fixed in her resolution to remain at the post which the 
 dearest interests of her son assigned to her. She concluded by re- 
 questing of the Duke de Blacas, that he would, as an act of friend- 
 ship, proceed to Scotland, and lay all these considerations before 
 Charles X. The duke submitted, and in a few days was on his 
 way to Edinburgh. 
 
 Thus relieved from very troublesome superintendence, Marie Caro- 
 line pursued her undertaking with a continuity and vigour of purpose 
 altogether astonishing in a woman, and in the face of such great and 
 numerous obstacles. The correspondence with the south and with La 
 Vendee assumed double activity. The Duke d'Escars went on a 
 mission throughout the southern provinces, of which he was destined 
 to take the command; proclamations* and ordinances were pre- 
 pared ; an act, dated from Massa, established at Paris a provisional 
 
 * Proclamation of H. R. R. Regent of the Kingdom. 
 
 " SOLDIERS ! A deplorable revolution has violently severed from France the 
 family of its kings; that revolution was effected without you; it was effected against 
 you; faithful to duty and to honour, you submitted yourselves unwillingly to neces- 
 sity : your hearts have not given in their adhesion to usurpation. 
 
 "Soldiers! The interests of the country brings me back among you; the de- 
 scendant of Henry IV. appeals to you for support! He asks it in the name of 
 unhappy France, in the name of your afflicted families ; it is to your love, to the 
 love of all good Frenchmen, to Frenchmen alone, that Henry V. desires to owe his 
 crown. Frenchwomen and mothers I confide to you the future destinies of France, 
 the rights of my son. The usurping government now calls upon you to defend it; 
 but the other day it insulted you. You will not have forgotten, soldiers of the army 
 of Spam, that it was that government which destroyed the monuments raised hi 
 honour of your victories. Soldiers of our African legions, the legitimate monarchy 
 was preparing for you triumphal celebrations and personal recompense; the revolu- 
 tion has not only failed to recognise your services, it has pursued you with ca- 
 lumnies ; these are not Frenchmen who dislike you for the very glory you have 
 earned; separate yourselves from their base cause, rally round the white flag; it was 
 the flag of your fathers, it is your own; it is the glorious emblem which has con- 
 quered or preserved for us our finest provinces, which is renowned in all parts of the 
 world, and respected upon every sea: it is the flag which you yourselves not long 
 since planted on the pillars of Hercules, on the ruins of Athens, and on the ram- 
 parts of Algiers. 
 
 " France and Europe are hastening once more to hail it as a pledge of security, as 
 the standard of honour and courage. Soldiers, your rights shall be recognised, the 
 noble profession of arms shall resume its rank, your advancement, the rewards to 
 which you have justly entitled yourselves, shall be secured to you. Henry V. will 
 recompense merit and devotion, will recognise each man's services, will everywhere 
 seek out and do justice to honourable capacity. 
 
 " I place myself with full confidence among you : you have weapons for the enemies 
 of the state, but none against your brothers, against the daughter of a long race of 
 your monarchs, against a child whom you saw born amongst you, the legitimate 
 heir of thirty-five kings. Delay not, then, but let the love of your country rally you 
 round the mother of Henry V. You will find her at the head of brave men, ad- 
 vancing in arms to assert the rights of their sovereign, amid the applause of a grate- 
 ful people. Hasten and join yourselves to the patriots who eagerly press to our 
 standard, and add your voices with transport to theirs, in the cry so dear to France, 
 
 "LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE HENRY V.! 
 " Given this day of 1832. 
 
 "For the King: the Regent, 
 
 "MARIE CAROLINE." 
 
 (Pieces relative to the trial of the passengers of the Carlo-Alberto, at Mont- 
 prison.)
 
 POLICY OF AUSTRIA. 7 
 
 Syvernment, of which M. de Chateaubriand, M. de Kergorlay, the 
 uke de Belluno, M. de Latour-Maubourg, were to be members, 
 and of which M. de Floirac was named secretary ;* further, a nego- 
 tiation was opened with certain chiefs of the Bonapartist party, 
 which merits a somewhat detailed mention, as showing what were 
 at this period the secret ideas of Austria. 
 
 The first intelligence of the Revolution had painfully affected 
 Prince Metternich. But at the time the news reached him, he was 
 at Carlsbad, with Count Nesselrode; and the count having, in con- 
 sequence of an erroneous interpretation of his master's sentiments on. 
 the subject, intimated an opinion that Russia would, after the exam- 
 ple of England, recognise the new French government, Prince Met- 
 ternich trembled at the idea of Austria having to sustain alone the 
 shock of the French Revolution, should it refuse to acknowledge the 
 existing sovereign, and he acted accordingly. He was very soon un- 
 deceived on the point by Count Orloff, who had been despatched from 
 St. Petersburg for the purpose of coming to an understanding on the 
 subject with the Austrian cabinet; but it was now too late. It thus 
 appears, that but a very little more, and Louis Philippe would not 
 have been recognised by Austria. As it was, in giving his audience 
 of leave to General Belliard, Prince Metternich did not hesitate to 
 make use of the following language: " The emperor holds in entire 
 abhorrence that which has just taken place in France. His profound 
 conviction is, that the present order of things cannot last. He is 
 equally convinced that the chief of the new government and his 
 ministers are quite aware of this. Consequently, they will not fail 
 anxiously to devote themselves to the discovery of means whereby 
 
 * Ordinance for the appointment of a provisional government at Paris. 
 
 " We Marie Caroline, regent of the kingdom, taking into consideration the gra- 
 vity of the dangers which would threaten France, if, in this moment of crisis, the 
 rights and interests of all were not placed under the safeguard of that legitimate 
 authority, which can alone put an effectual stop to the miseries of the country; 
 
 " Deeply convinced of the necessity imposed upon us of constituting in Paris a 
 provisional government, which may, in our absence and in the name of our beloved 
 son Henry V., take the most suitable measures for assuring the re-establishment of 
 order and tranquillity; 
 
 " Desirous, at the same tune, that these important'functions should only be confided, 
 to men recommended by their anxiety for the public welfare; 
 
 " And acting, in virtue of our power, as regent of the kingdom, 
 
 " Have ordained and do ordain as follows : 
 
 " Art. L From the date of the publication of the present ordinance, a provi- 
 sional government is constituted at Paris, for the purpose of causing the proclama- 
 tion and recognition there of the authority of our beloved son, Henry V., and of ex- 
 ercising the said authority during our absence. 
 
 " Art. II. The Marquis de Pastoret, the Due- de Belluno, the Viscount de Cha- 
 teaubriand, and the Count de Kergorlay, are named members of the said provisional 
 government; hi the absence of either one of them, the other members are authorized 
 to fill up the vacancy. 
 
 " Art. ILL The Count de Floirac is appointed secretary to the provisional go- 
 vernment, and will exercise his functions as such, under the direction of the said 
 government. 
 
 " Done at Massa, this 5th of February, 1831. 
 
 "THE REGENT OF THE KINGDOM."
 
 8 THE DUCHESS DE BERRI AND THE BONAPARTISTS. 
 
 they may retain their position ; and these means can alone be sup- 
 plied by a return to the rules and principles upon which all estab- 
 lished governments repose." It was thus clear, that the hope of 
 Austria in recognising the French government was to make it an 
 instrument towards the annihilation of the revolutionary principle. 
 When it saw the cabinet of the Tuileries very willingly and perse- 
 veringly advancing towards that precise object, and no longer felt a 
 doubt as to the determination of Louis Philippe to maintain intact, 
 the treaties of 1815, the Austrian cabinet came to regard the firm 
 establishment of that prince upon the throne of France as a guarantee 
 for the security of monarchical Europe. The principle of the usur- 
 pation was as much the object of denunciation at Vienna as ever; 
 but the authorities there felicitated themselves upon the wisdom of 
 him whom they there called the usurper. Hence their refusal to 
 lend their actual support to any enterprise against the French go- 
 vernment. In short, the double aspect of Austrian policy with re- 
 ference to the dynasty of Orleans, was simply this : to keep in 
 reserve certain pretenders to the crown of France, with whom to 
 menace Louis Philippe upon occasion, and to impose upon these 
 pretenders, amidst a thousand hypocritical professions of regard, a 
 carefully calculated inaction. There were several circumstances, 
 which had they been known at the time, would have laid bare the 
 depths of this policy. 
 
 A general of the empire was at this period residing in Switzer- 
 land. Hostile to the government which had triumphed in France, 
 he laid before Prince Metternich, by the intervention of M. de 
 Bombelles, several propositions having for their object the restora- 
 tion of the Duke de Reichstadt, together with the outline of an 
 imperial constitution. But, not content with shutting his ears to 
 these propositions, Prince Metternich communicated them to a cor- 
 respondent of the Duchess de Berri, and this circumstance led to 
 the negotiation of which we have spoken, for the court of Massa at 
 once proceeded to open a correspondence with some leading Bona- 
 partists, proposing a co-operation of efforts in their common design 
 and purpose of overturning Louis Philippe. But it was difficult to 
 bring such varying elements into combination : the one party 
 would attempt nothing, except under the tri-coloured flag ; the court 
 of Massa could not possibly give up the white standard. The com- 
 munications on this subject ended in the following note: 
 
 " From warm approbation of the sentiments you have expressed to 
 us, we accept your services, and give you full liberty to act with your 
 friends in furtherance of the object explained and agreed upon in 
 the note of the 19th of November, wherein, while declaring that we 
 could not come to an agreement with you as to the colour of the 
 flag, we promised, as we promise now, to welcome among us all 
 those, who, from a desire to benefit France, shall fight for the restor- 
 ation of Henry V. to the throne of his fathers, and amply to 
 requite their services. " MARIE CAROLINE."
 
 HER INSTRUCTIONS TO HER REPRESENTATIVE IN SPAIN. 9 
 
 Such language as this was in no degree conformable to the senti- 
 ments of those Bonapartists to whom it was addressed. One of 
 these observed: " You will never get the whites to take kindly to the 
 blues ! This is only another proof of it." 
 
 Meantime, M. de Metternich caused it to be intimated to the 
 Duchess de Bern, that her presence at Massa was dangerous ; that 
 the French government had its eye closely fixed upon all her move- 
 ments; that she had reason to fear that the temerity of her projects 
 would injure the cause of her son; that it would assuredly compro- 
 mise that cause, to furnish her enemies with a pretence for taking 
 possession of a precious hostage, &c. The whole policy of M. de 
 Metternich was in this counsel, the wisdom of which hardly served 
 to disguise the entire egoism which dictated it. 
 
 The Duchess de Berri, then, evidently could not at all depend 
 upon the cabinet of Vienna. She had herself had better hopes from 
 that of Madrid, where she possessed, in Queen Christina, a powerful 
 auxiliary; but M. de St. Priest had no difficulty in proving to her 
 quick apprehension that the Spanish government was too weak to 
 render its intervention of any efficacy ; that the result to be obtained 
 from that quarter, would by no means compensate for the odium 
 which would popularly attend the application to it; that, above all 
 things, it was necessary to avoid the shame and danger of a third 
 invasion ; that, to be of any service to the cause, the legion or- 
 ganized at Valladolid must be composed of French soldiers, and be 
 commanded by French officers; that it was essential, in short, that 
 no Spaniard should pass the frontier. This advice prevailed, and 
 M. de St. Priest was authorized to write accordingly to the repre- 
 sentative in Spain of the court of Massa. His instructions were 
 conceived in these terms : 
 
 " Two things in your reports have particularly engaged my at- 
 tention : what you say of the foreign legions, and the refusal to per- 
 mit Madame to enter Spain. 
 
 " With respect to the former point, it is highly essential that you 
 should ascertain with certainty the force of the corps, and its exact 
 composition. If it be, in reality, formed of Frenchmen, and that its 
 number is at least several hundred men, it might be very useful, 
 in the event of Madame's succeeding in operating an active move- 
 ment in the south ; but for this purpose, it would be necessary that 
 the Spanish government should permit it to approach the frontiers, 
 so that it might operate by the valley of the Arriege. At the same 
 time, whilst stating to you how desirable, on the one hand, this co- 
 operation would be, Madame does not conceal from herself, on the 
 other hand, its difficulties. It is doubtful, in the first place, whe- 
 ther the Spanish government would grant you the required authori- 
 zation ; and, in the second place, it is essential, to make this diver- 
 sion of any effect, that this corps should be really composed of 
 Frenchmen, and should act solely under your command, and under 
 the ensign of the white cockade. Madame's full wish and intention
 
 10 THE COURTS OF THE HAGUE AND OF ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 is not to have recourse to foreign intervention. She desires and 
 expects to avoid the necessity of such aid, but had she to demand 
 assistance of that nature, it would be to other powers, and not to 
 Spain, she would apply. Not a single Spanish soldier, then, must 
 pass the frontier. Do not lose sight of this point for a moment. 
 All your proceedings must limit themselves to arranging an advan- 
 tageous employment of the foreign legion, and securing an asylum 
 in case of reverses." 
 
 M. de St. Priest went still further. He considered, and with 
 reason, that since they were resolved xipon not applying to fo- 
 reigners for supplies of troops, it was, at the least, useless, to keep up 
 with the Powers, any diplomatic relations whatever. But this opi- 
 nion was not shared by the King of Sardinia, or by Marshal Bour- 
 mont. A son of the latter was accordingly despatched as envoy to 
 the Prince of Orange, and M. de Choulot to the Emperor of Russia. 
 
 M. de Bourmont was commissioned to make the Prince Royal of 
 Holland acquainted with the projects and hopes of the Duchess of 
 Berri, who, fully aware of the various difficulties arising from the 
 Belgian question, reckoned upon a diversion which would carry the 
 troops of Louis Philippe towards the northern frontier. The Prince 
 of Orange seemed greatly astonished at the confidence which the 
 Duchess de Berri had in the strength of the legitimatist party, but 
 all that could be extracted from him were these words: " As for us, 
 we are ready." 
 
 M. de Choulot's unwearied and firm perseverance alone obtained 
 him admission to the Emperor of Russia. The most trifling pre- 
 cautions were taken to keep from the diplomatic body the secret of 
 this interview. His majesty at first received the envoy with some 
 coolness, but when he learned what were the ideas and resources of 
 the Duchess de Berri, he became less reserved, promised the moral 
 aid which was required of him, and entered freely into his grievances 
 against Louis Philippe, adding that his hands were tied by the ti- 
 midity of the cabinet of Berlin, no less than by the vacillation of 
 Austria. 
 
 Such were, with reference to the legitimatist party, the dispositions 
 of the absolute monarchies of the continent. There was a great risk 
 of irritating these powers if the duchess acted independent of their 
 influence ; there was great risk, if she submitted to that influence, of 
 bringing the cause of Henry V. into disrepute. A deplorable alter- 
 native, which, with the mother of the pretender, was complicated by 
 a thousand obstacles and a thousand dangers, arising from within. 
 The denouement of the conspiracy of the Rue des Prouvaires had, in 
 fact, discouraged the royalists, and personally compromised some of 
 them. The part taken in this affair by a man attached to Marshal 
 Bourmont, had become the cause of the most grievous misunder- 
 standings, and had given, more especially, very great offence to the 
 Duke de Belluno. M. de Chateaubriand had demanded, but had 
 not been able to obtain in definite terms permission to visit Madame,
 
 STATE OF LA VENDEE. 11 
 
 who lie knew, might perhaps owe him a grudge for certain expres- 
 sions contained in his later works ; such, for instance, as that where 
 he declared that he would march to combat the foreigner, even were 
 that foreigner bringing back Henry V. in his arms. On their part 
 the royahst committee in Paris, did all they could to impede the 
 movement; the south was doubtful; the reports concerning the state 
 of La Vendee were contradictory, and manifested the existence among 
 the different leaders of very opposite opinions; some of them repel- 
 ling, with M. de Charette, the idea of foreign intervention; others 
 judging with M. de Coislin, " that the day might come perhaps, if 
 people had the patience to wait for it, when France might do all for 
 itself, and need not the stranger's assistance, which doubtless, would 
 be far better; but that in the meantime, that day had not arrived, 
 and something must be done." 
 
 However, these dissensions did not prevent all the preparations for 
 an approaching insurrection, being secretly but actively made in the 
 west ; and if on the one hand, in some districts, the measures were 
 ill concerted, the steps taken altogether wrong, in others the organi- 
 sation was truly formidable. In the country between the Sarthe 
 and the Mayenne alone, they had succeeded in forming twenty-six 
 companies of fifty men each, well provided with muskets, having at 
 their disposition twenty thousand cartridges, and only awaiting the 
 signal. 
 
 Such a state of things was necessarily destined to come to a crisis, 
 for it contained within itself the active source of every species of 
 disorder ; the scenes which resulted were terrible. The order for tak- 
 ing up arms had not yet been issued, when already, in this wretched 
 country, civil war burst forth in every direction, attended by its ac- 
 customed escort of murder and perfidy. Rendered furious by their 
 danger, the partisans of the new regime were pitiless for their ene- 
 mies ; domiciliary visits were multiplied to an infinite extent, and 
 carried terror into the bosoms of thousands of families : the Chouans 
 were hunted up with fierce activity. But they themselves, who be- 
 fore had been guilty of the most criminal aggressions, now exercised 
 terrible reprisals upon their persecutors : the gendarmes were killed 
 wherever an opportunity occurred, in a wood, on the solitary by- 
 road; diligences were stopped on the highway; the state function- 
 aries were attacked, and obliged to contribute provisions and arms. 
 The monuments of Quiberon and Savenay publicly degraded, the 
 statue of Cathelineau mutilated by order of the authorities, the in- 
 sults offered to the column of the gamekeeper Stofflet, in the court- 
 yard of the Chateau de Maulevrier; all this had infused fresh venom 
 into resentment that was already deep and inexorable. It would 
 take up too much space to enumerate here the crimes which, in this 
 tumult of passions, were committed by the servants of the state, 
 and shielded with a fatal impunity. Not far from Ancenis, a young 
 royahst, of the name of Bernard, was assassinated by the gendarmes 
 while he was engaged in laying snares for partridges. Another, one
 
 12 CONSTITUTION AND ORDINANCES 
 
 of the company of Diot, was found by the gendarmes at work on 
 his father's farm; there was nothing to prevent their taking him 
 into custody: but instead of that, they bayonetted him. An in- 
 habitant of St. Julien was hanged from a tree by an officer, who sus- 
 pected him of making gaiters for the Chouans. Some touching epi- 
 sodes occurred amidst these atrocities. Delaunay, a chief of one of 
 the royalist bands, being seized with mortal illness, had been taken to 
 a farm-house, where he was receiving the consolations of religion 
 when the approach of the military was announced. The peasantry 
 hastened to envelope the dying man in a coverlid, and carrying him 
 out to an adjoining field of heath, laid him down among some haw- 
 thorn bushes. Here he rendered up his last sigh, after a long and 
 solitary dying agony. He was an old man, and his will began with 
 these words: "My beloved children, I leave you, in place of the 
 fortune I once possessed, the zeal which brought it to nothing." 
 
 Things ere long arrived at a point which made it necessary that 
 the Duchess de Berri should either definitely renounce her project, 
 or at once proceed to France and try her fortune. She adopted the 
 latter course. In anticipation of victory, a plan of government had 
 been framed, the outline of which was this: 
 
 It was proposed to revive, with some modifications, the institution 
 of the states-general and that of the provincial assemblies. The 
 former was to be composed of two chambers. In every province 
 peers were to be created, who, themselves, having seats in the pro- 
 vincial assemblies, were to depute a certain number of their body to 
 form the first chamber of the states-general. It was proposed to call 
 these peers Barons des Etats, a denomination conformable to ancient 
 usages, and which, in the eyes of Marie Caroline, had the merit of 
 recalling to mind the barons of Sicily. The Barons des Etats were 
 to be chosen by the king from among the leading men of the re- 
 spective provinces, with this restriction, that the dignity was to at- 
 tach, as a matter of right, to certain offices; the question of heredi- 
 tability being reserved. The bishops and the first presidents of the 
 Cour Royale were to be entitled to seats in the provincial assemblies, 
 the barony being, however, attached to the office and not to the per- 
 son. Upon the convocation of the states-general, one-third or one- 
 fourth of the provincial barons were to be chosen, at first by lot, and 
 then by turns, to form the first chamber of the states-general. Seats 
 in the same chamber were to appertain, as of right, to the marshals 
 of France, the cardinals, -the archbishops, the presidents of the courts 
 of cassation and of exchequer, and to the four great officers of the 
 crown, whose number was to be reduced to four. For the compo- 
 sition of the provincial assemblies, the graduated elective principle 
 was adopted. A governor selected by the king, and having under his 
 orders the intendant-general, and the officer in command of the troops, 
 was to preside over the provincial assembly, and, when necessary, to 
 restrain it within the circle of its duties. These were the general 
 outlines. Once in France, the Duchess de Berri was to confide to cer-
 
 PLANNED AT MASSA. 13 
 
 tain eminent persons the care of arranging and adapting together 
 the various parts of the new constitution. But, in the view of the 
 councillors of Marie Caroline, the essential point was to effect, as far 
 as possible, without too greatly weakening the common bond, the 
 breaking up of the centralization system. 
 
 It was at the same time proposed, and nearly decided upon, that 
 the royal guard should be re-established ; that the two Swiss regi- 
 ments should be suppressed, and replaced by two new regiments of 
 infantry; that the engineer and marine services should be admitted 
 to a participation in the advantages of the guards; that the four 
 companies of body guards should be reduced to one ; and that for 
 the interior service of the palace there should be formed a battalion 
 of body guards on foot, to be filled up from among the corporals 
 and other non-commissioned officers of the infantry of the guard. 
 Reforms were to be introduced into the royal establishment. It was 
 determined, among other things, that the posts of gentlemen of 
 the bedchamber and equerry should be gratuitous; that the pages 
 should no longer be brought up at the king's expense ; that the state 
 contributions to the theatres should be discontinued; that the artists 
 attached to the king's collection should no longer be paid ; that the 
 number of persons charged with the different services should be re- 
 duced one-half; that instead of a civil list, voted at the beginning 
 of every new reign, there should be obtained from the states- 
 general a fixed dotation, to the amount, exclusive of the royal fo- 
 rests and domains, of ten or twelve millions a-year, to be the pro- 
 perty of the king, but inalienable. To give popularity to the ac- 
 cession of Henry V., the taxes upon wine and salt were to be abo- 
 lished,* and to be replaced, at some later period, by taxes of a less 
 obnoxious nature. As a principle, all the acts of the government 
 of Louis Philippe were declared null and void, being deemed acts 
 
 * Ordinance as to wine and salt. 
 
 " Henry, by the Grace of God, King of France and Navarre, to all present and to 
 come, salutation: 
 
 " Considering that for some years past there have been raised great complaints as 
 to the system of taxing wines, and the inequality of the burdens thence falling upon 
 the tax-payers; filled with a desire to remove impediments equally injurious to 
 commerce and to the consumer, taking also into consideration the no less just com- 
 plaints as to the enormity of the duties put upon the extraction of salts, and wishing 
 to give to this branch of industry all the development of which it is susceptible, by 
 opening new outlets to this commodity; 
 
 "By the advice of our beloved mother, we have ordained and do ordain as 
 follows: 
 
 " Art. I. From and after the date of these presents, the duties laid on the trans- 
 mission of wines, and on their retail sale (commonly known under the title of droits- 
 reunis,) are abolished. 
 
 "Art. II. From and after the 1st of January, 1833, the duty now laid upon the 
 extraction of salts, shall be reduced to ten francs, the metrical quintal. 
 
 " Given this day of 1832. 
 
 " For the King; the Regent of the Kingdom, 
 
 "MARIE CAROLINE." 
 
 (Pieces relative to the trial of the passengers of the Carlo- Alberto, at Mont- 
 
 brison.)
 
 14 THE DUCHESS DE BERRI EMBARKS SECRETLY. 
 
 of usurpation; but the principle was to be subjected to such modi- 
 fications as might be deemed just and necessary. The personal pro- 
 perty of Louis Philippe was to be placed under sequestration, until 
 the states-general should decide its ultimate appropriation. 
 
 As for measures of vengeance and reaction, the prevalent opinion 
 at Massa was, that all such should be carefully avoided. The Duchess 
 de Bern having one day given way to a gesture expressive of resent- 
 ment, M. de Kergorlay seized her arm, and said, " I beseech you, 
 madam, never again to give way to such a gesture." 
 
 The die was cast, and the 24th of April was fixed for the 
 departure. Every precaution was taken to envelope all their pro- 
 ceedings in the so-indispensable mystery. On the 22d the duchess 
 sent word by letter to the Duke of Modena of her intended move- 
 ment. A visit to Florence was then given out as the object of their 
 journey; a portion of those who were to embark with lie princess, 
 repaired, with the utmost secrecy, to Leghorn. On the 24th, at 
 nightfal, a travelling carriage, with four post-horses, quitted the 
 ducal palace, and drew up at a short distance from the gate of Massa, 
 in a spot where the shadow thrown out by the wall was very obscure. 
 The carriage contained the Duchess de Bern, Madame de Fodenas, 
 Mademoiselle Lebeschu, and M. de Brissac. The footman, who had 
 ordered the postilion to stop, then went forward and engaged his 
 attention by some directions; in the meantime, the other footman 
 quietly opened the door, and Madame descended with Mademoiselle 
 Lebeschu and M. de Brissac; Madame de Podenas' femme de 
 chambre, took their place in the carriage, the door was again closed, 
 and the horses went off at a gallop towards Florence, the postilion 
 suspecting nothing of what had taken place, and Madame, with her 
 attendants gliding along the wall, hastened to the place of em- 
 barkation, and at eleven o'clock in the evening, they stood on the 
 sea-shore. The major of the troops stationed there, whom it had 
 been necessary to take into confidence, as well as the chief of police, 
 brought a lantern, and recommended them to preserve the greatest 
 silence, least they should awaken the soldiers and custom-house 
 officers who were sleeping close by, and thus ruin all. 
 
 The vessel which they were to embark in, was the Carlo- Alberto, 
 a small steamer, purchased in 1831, on account of Marie Caroline, 
 and which had been directed to bring to at Massa, on a fixed day and 
 hour, M. Adolphe Sala, an ex-officer of the guard. Scarcely two 
 months before, the same vessel had conveyed to Genoa the fugitive 
 members of the revolutionary government of Bologna. The party 
 waited long and anxiously. At length a feeble light shone in the 
 distance : it was the Carlo-Alberto rapidly approaching. The crew 
 had been told that they were bound for opain, and the Genoese 
 captain was quite taken by surprise, when M. Sala informed him 
 that he must touch at a point, near Massa, to take up some pas- 
 sengers who had been left behind. He refused to do so at first, 
 having the fear of the sanitary laws before him, but he had to deal
 
 HER VOYAGE. 15 
 
 with some determined young men, whom he found it necessary to 
 submit to. The steamer's boat at length came ashore, to the great 
 joy of Marie Caroline's companions. The princess herself was 
 sleeping on the sand, wrapped in her cloak. She was awakened, and 
 at three o'clock in the morning, the Duchess de Berri, Mademoiselle 
 Lebeschu, Marshal Bourmont, and his son Adolphe, MM. de St. 
 Priest, Mesnard, and de Brissac, joined upon the deck of the Carlo- 
 Alberto, the MM. de Kergorlay, father and son, and MM. Charles de 
 Bourmont, Ledhuy, Sabatier, and Sala. 
 
 During the voyage, the Duchess de Berri wore an aspect, calm, 
 firm, smiling. Bearing deeply in mind, Charette's furious letter, 
 anathematizing the flight of the Count d' Artois in sight of the coast 
 of Brittany, she was manifestly full of a determination to wipe out 
 from the Bourbon name, the reproach of pusillanimity, which it had 
 so often incurred. This was also the fixed idea of MM. de Bour- 
 mont, de Kergorlay, and de St. Priest : they sensibly felt that here, 
 in front of a throne which they were about to struggle for the reco- 
 very of, they had a sort of affair of honour to go through. They 
 did not, however, conceal from themselves the gravity of the enter- 
 prise, and even in their hopes, they were compelled to rely, in a 
 great measure, upon the promises of chance. M. Florian de Ker- 
 gorlay, indeed, was well nigh as full of confidence in, as of devotion 
 to the cause ; and he became very uneasy at the reserve manifested 
 by some of his companions, a reserve in which his impatient loyalty 
 suspected that it saw a secret desire to baffle, or, at any rate, delay 
 the enterprise. 
 
 The passage was made without any impediment, thanks to the 
 blindness and incapacity of the police of Paris. Off Antibes, the 
 Carlo-Alberto went close to a French cruiser, without attracting its 
 attention, and after having crossed the gulf of Hyeres, it approached 
 so near to Toulon, that the passengers could count the port-holes of 
 the frigates in the roads. The voyage, however, was much slower 
 than it ought to have been, owing to two circumstances ; first, that 
 they stood generally too far out to sea, instead of profiting by the 
 currents which, more in shore, would have facilitated the progress of 
 the vessel; and secondly, that their coal fell short, and they were 
 obliged to put into Nice for a supply. It was not until the 28th, 
 at midnight, that the Carlo-Alberto came in sight of the Phare de 
 Planier, in whose vicinity the rendezvous had been fixed. At two 
 o'clock in the morning, two lanterns were hoisted, one at the fore- 
 mast head, the other at the mizen-mast head ; and the boat they 
 expected immediately answered the signal. The better to baffle 
 detection, MM. de Kergorlay, de Bourmont, de Mesnard, and de 
 Brissac, who were to accompany Marie Caroline on shore, imme- 
 diately assumed the costume of fishermen. The south wind had got 
 up, the sky became covered with dark clouds, the sea was rough, 
 and to add to the perils which threatened them from the elements, 
 the cruiser stationed on the coast of Carry, they learned, was near at
 
 16 AN ATTEMPTED INSURRECTION IN 
 
 Hand. However, the boat, under the conduct of M. Spitalier, ap- 
 proached, and the watch-word was exchanged. The waves were at 
 this time so turbulent that the boat was dashed violently against one 
 of the Carlo -Alberto's paddle-boxes, and every one thought she 
 would have gone down. It was not without considerable difficulty 
 that the party were got into the bark. Marie Caroline throughout 
 manifested the utmost intrepidity and alertness; and it was with an 
 uneasiness mingled with pride that those of her companions who re- 
 mained in the steamer, saw her disappearing on board that frail skiff, 
 through the darkness of a most untoward night, over a stormy sea. 
 
 The coast had been carefully surveyed some time before, with a view 
 to the present expedition, and Marie Caroline landed without any 
 accident. But to reach the hut which had been prepared as her 
 temporary asylum, there were rocks to be scaled, which the hardiest 
 and boldest smugglers did not ascend without apprehension. The 
 princess dauntlessly, gaily surmounted the difficult path ; she was pre- 
 pared to encounter every obstacle, every danger, so that it was on 
 the road to triumph. 
 
 Meantime, a singular concurrence of circumstances spread through 
 Marseilles the report of the debarkation of the Duchess de Berri. 
 On the evening of the 28th, one of her most devoted partisans, uneasy 
 at the delay of which we have just spoken, hired there, of a person 
 named Tarteiron, a boat, into which he took with him nets and guns, 
 as though he were going on a fishing and shooting excursion. This 
 boat on quitting the port of Marseilles proceeded by his orders to- 
 wards the Isles de Riou, in the direction of the Planier lighthouse. 
 The stranger who had hired the boat gave the most unequivocal 
 signs of extreme anxiety ; he had a lantern lighted at which he read 
 papers, and every two minutes looked at his watch. Soon they met 
 another fisherman's bark, with the persons in which the stranger ex- 
 changed mysterious words, and then Tarteiron's boat was ordered to 
 put back to shore immediately. Now, by a sad mischance, it hap- 
 pened that Tarteiron's men went to drink at the same wine-shop 
 which the crew of the vessel who had just landed the Duchess de 
 Berri had selected. Imprudent words escaped these men, they even 
 drank the princess's health, and in a very short time the authorities 
 received from public report the information which it was so important 
 to the royalists to have kept as yet concealed. 
 
 Every preparation was immediately made, in anticipation of a 
 rising; and between the night of the 29th and the 30th of April, all 
 the posts throughout Marseilles were doubled. The conspirators, on 
 their part, found themselves compelled to precipitate the crisis. On 
 the 30th, about five o'clock in the morning, an appeal was made to 
 three or four hundred fishermen, who were collected on the espla- 
 nade de la Tourette, which commands the road. They replied by 
 confused cries, but not one of them put himself in motion. Armed 
 with sabres or pistols, some of the conspirators went among the 
 different groups, endeavouring to excite them ; but all in vain. Several
 
 MARSEILLES ACCIDENTALLY FRUSTRATED. 17 
 
 small vessels which were lying in the harbour put hastily out to sea. 
 A threatening order induced a custom-house officer to lower the tri- 
 coloured flag, which was immediately torn in pieces. The tocsin 
 sounded from the church of St. Lawrence, and the flag of legitimacy 
 floated from its tower. Meantime, the crowd increased, but it was 
 principally composed of women. In every body's face there could 
 only be read curiosity, indifference, or suspicion. " It's a movement 
 arranged by the police," muttered some voices. The conspirators 
 began to feel discouraged. After having advanced some paces in 
 one direction they turned back to the Quartier St. Jean, but wher- 
 ever they went, doors and windows were closed on all sides, and even 
 the persons who had encouraged them by their cries, abstained from 
 following them. They then saw that the movement had failed, and 
 resolved to disperse. But at this moment they found themselves in 
 front of the Palais de Justice, and of a party of the 13th of the line, 
 who were on guard there, under the orders of Sub-Lieutenant 
 Chazal. This officer seeing a small body of persons coming up in 
 disorder, with, foremost among them, a jtoung man having a white 
 handkerchief at the end of a vine branch, ordered his men to form, 
 advanced at their head towards the insurgents, and while the assem- 
 blage was hastily dispersing, the military arrested MM. de Candolle, 
 de Bermond, and de Lachau, who had got separated from their com- 
 panions. In one hour from that time, a note was put into the hands 
 of the Duchess de Berri in her retreat; it contained merely this 
 laconic intimation: " The movement has failed; you must leave 
 France." 
 
 The duchess was grieved, but not cast down. Her first deter- 
 mination was to proceed to Spain, and thence get into La Vendee. 
 But it was represented to her that the storm still raged; that no 
 small vessel could at such a time venture out; that, besides, the 
 alarm having been given, the shore was lined with custom-house 
 officers closely on the watch. She then resolved to reach La Ven- 
 dee through France itself, and nothing that could be said sufficed 
 to turn her from this daring plan. At Massa she had had a dream, 
 in which the Duke de Berri appeared to her and said: " I approve 
 of your projects, but you will not succeed in the South; you will 
 only prosper in La Vendee." This dream had produced upon her 
 mind a profound impression, which the events just passed were not 
 calculated to weaken. She quitted her asylum, lost herself in the 
 woods, was obliged to pass the night in a miserable hut, the door of 
 which had first to be broken in. Her next place of refuge was the 
 house of a republican, to whom she presented herself with the an- 
 nouncement : " I am the Duchess de Berri." The republican afforded 
 i secure and generous hospitality to this fugitive mother of a pre- 
 tender. On the 2d of May, at five o'clock in the evening, she entered 
 the chateau of M. de Bonrecueil, one of her most zealous adhe- 
 rents ; and in the evening of the 4th she was on her way to the west, 
 iccompanied by MM. de Mesnard, de Villeneuve, and de Lorge, 
 
 VOL. II. C
 
 18 CAPTURE OF THE DUCHESS'S STEAMER. 
 
 in a calash drawn by post-horses. She bid her friends adieu, in these 
 three words: "Messieurs, en Vendee!" 
 
 Meantime, on the evening of the 3d, the passengers in the Carlo- 
 Alberto perceived in the horizon a long line of smoke; in a few 
 minutes they distinguished a steamer, the Sphynx, which was ra- 
 
 Eidly advancing towards them. It came up, one of its boats was 
 it down, and two officers ascended the deck of the Carlo- Alberto. 
 MM. de St. Priest, Adolphe de Bourmont, de Kergorlay, junior, 
 Sala, and Mademoiselle Lebeschu, were seated at table, at the upper 
 end. They did not lose their presence of mind while one of the 
 officers examined the ship's papers, though there could not be the 
 slightest doubt as to the object of such a visit. The Sphynx towed 
 the Carlo- Alberto to Toulon. In a very few minutes after their ar- 
 rival, a report ran through the town that the Duchess de Berri was 
 taken. Not daring himself to proceed to the Carlo- Alberto, to ascer- 
 tain the fact of the matter, Admiral Rosamel despatched Lieutenant 
 Sarlat for that purpose. On reaching the vessel, this officer re- 
 quested to be introduced to the lady on board. On the appearance 
 of Mademoiselle Lebeschu, who had assumed the name of Rosa 
 Staglieno, M. Sarlat could not help feeling a certain degree of agi- 
 tation ; he took no time to look at her with the necessary attention, 
 but immediately returned with the conviction that the Duchess de 
 Berri was on board the Carlo- Alberto. The intelligence was imme- 
 diately transmitted to Paris by the telegraph, and the Carlo-Alberto 
 was taken to Ajaccio. Here it remained until the 8th of May, 
 under the strictest surveillance. On that day four of the suspected 
 passengers were transferred to the Nageur, and conveyed to Mar- 
 seilles, where, after examination, they were placed under confine- 
 ment. As to the fictitious Duchess de Berri, they were just about 
 to send her, by the Bellona, on her way to Holy rood, when one of 
 the king's aides-de-camp, M. d'Houdetot, who had hastened from 
 Toulon to see the princess, detected the error, and spared the govern- 
 ment the ridicule of what would otherwise have been a complete 
 mystification. 
 
 But the mistake propagated by means of the telegraph had pro- 
 duced its results, and Paris was exclusively occupying itself with the 
 veiled lady of the Carlo- Alberto, and discussing with immense excite- 
 ment whether the Duchess de Berri, a rebel and a prisoner, would be 
 subjected to the levelling equality that was the order of the day; 
 meanwhile the princess herself was traversing France in a post- 
 chaise, passing unnoticed through a swarm of gendarmes, presenting 
 M. de Lorge at one place as her husband, at another place passing 
 him off as her servant, and amusing herself with all these strata- 
 gems, with all these dangers. 
 
 In this way she arrived, without the slightest obstacle, at the 
 Chateau de Plassac, near Saintes, and here was drawn up the order 
 fixing the 24th of May as the day for taking up arms. 
 
 An. advocate of Nantes, M. Guibourg, was despatched as the
 
 THE DUCHESS IN LA VENDEE. 19 
 
 bearer of this order, and the Duchess de Bern followed him almost 
 immediately. On the 17th of May, at nine o'clock in the morning, 
 she arrived at the Chateau de la Preuille, near Montaigu. A substi- 
 tution, like that which took place at Massa, here deceived the posti- 
 lion, who proceeded to Nantes, quite ignorant that he had left civil 
 war behind him. 
 
 Some days after this, the Duchess de Bern, mounted on horse- 
 back behind M. de la Roche St. Andre, and followed by M. de 
 Mesnard, repaired to Les Mesliers, a farm -house, which was to serve 
 as her place of retreat for the present. She had assumed the cos- 
 tume of the peasant lads of La Vendee, a dark wig concealed her 
 blond hair, and she took the name of Petit Pierre. Happy for her 
 had fortune condemned her to no harder privations, to no more 
 dangerous incidents than those of a pilgrimage, the very simplicity 
 of which charmed her. 
 
 But grave cares awaited her. All the Vendean chiefs did not 
 partake of the ardour which animated MM. de Charette, de Bor- 
 digne, de Pontfarcy, de la Roche Mace, Gaullier, de Tilly, Clin^ 
 champ. By the side of men who believed every tiling possible to 
 their enthusiasm and their daring courage, there were others who 
 considered La Vendee incapable of taking the initiative in revolt. 
 These last were supported by the committees in Paris, and had as 
 their principal representatives in the west MM. de Goulaine, de la 
 Roche St. Andre, de Goyon, de Tinguy. 
 
 On the evening of the 21st of May, the Duchess de Berri held, at 
 Les Mesliers, with these chiefs, whom she had summoned for that pur- 
 pose, a conference, the impression of which must have long remained 
 painfully fixed on her memory. In the presence of M. de la Roche 
 St. Andre, who throughout preserved entire silence, that he might 
 not embitter the hospitality he had offered to the duchess, MM. de 
 Goulaine, de Goyon, and de Tinguy, reminded Madame that, accord- 
 ing to the engagements entered into at La Fetelliere, La Vendee 
 was only to take up arms in the case, respectively, of foreign inva- 
 sion, of the proclamation of a republic, or of an insurrection in the 
 south. None of these conditions having been fulfilled, they added, 
 discouragement had germinated in men's minds, and the peasants 
 would not rise. At this unexpected declaration, the Duchess de 
 Berri could not conceal her trouble and agitation. She insisted 
 upon the various reasons she had for reckoning upon the active de- 
 votion of La Vendee, and combated, with a broken voice, the opi- 
 nions which went to deprive her of that cherished hope. But the 
 three Vendean chiefs were not to be moved. " Well," at length 
 she said, " at least, I demand a written declaration of your senti- 
 ments and their reasons." They promised it, and kept their word. 
 
 Let us now turn to what was, meantime, passing among the le- 
 gitimatists at Paris. Here a determined contest prevailed between 
 the movement party and the resistance party. The conspiracy got 
 up by the former had survived the check it received in the Rue dea 
 
 C 2
 
 20 DIVISIONS IN THE PARTY. 
 
 Prouvaires, which served to reveal, but not to crush the plot. Since 
 the night of the 2d of February, the conspirators had conducted 
 their proceedings with greater discretion, and had been more select 
 in the choice of auxiliaries. Aiming at the application of a uniform 
 plan, they had divided their adherents in and about Paris into five 
 grand classes, the fifth of which was principally composed of the 
 forest-rangers of the department. A sixth division had its centre at 
 Versailles, and comprehended a considerable number of the Swiss 
 guard. But the organization was far from being regular : the money 
 expended had been so distributed as, while satisfying hardly any 
 one, to give rise to selfish discontent in some, to jealous claims in 
 others, which it was thought indispensable, under the circumstances, 
 to compromise ; the pecuniary sacrifices became every day more and 
 more considerable, and every day less and less adequate to the pur- 
 pose. Although the police had very imperfect information, yet a 
 lew arrests which they hit upon sufficed to throw confusion among 
 the directors of the plot ; finally, and this was, with the conspirators, 
 almost an insuperable obstacle, the idea of a daring and open move- 
 ment was disapproved of and rejected by the most considerable men 
 of the party. The members of the provisional government did not 
 act; they neither could nor desired to do so; the only one among 
 them who was animated by any ardent zeal had been arrested, and 
 his successor was an ex-minster of the Restoration, a man devoted, 
 indeed, to the cause, but of moderate temperament. To those who 
 condemned any insurrectionary attempt, from motives of reason and 
 prudence, were to be added those with whom fear or selfishness pre- 
 vailed. Owing to these causes, an insurrection prepared for the 9th 
 of April turned out an utter failure. All the measures were taken, 
 the various orders distributed, when, on the eve of execution, the 
 movement was suddenly stopped by a counter-order. One single 
 brigade, which had not received the counter-order, and which con- 
 sisted of thirty-five men, assembled on the 9th at the time and place 
 assigned. Through the very midst of these men did Louis Philippe 
 pass in his carriage, quite without escort, and in no way suspecting 
 that death was within ten paces of him. 
 
 This state of indecision was at its height, with all its complicated 
 embarrassments and anxieties, when the legitimatists at Paris re- 
 ceived the news of the arrival of Marie Caroline in La Vendee; 
 Chateaubriand, Fitzjames, Belluno, Hyde de Neuville, Pastoret, and 
 the rest of them, immediately took the alarm; and M. Berry er was 
 deputed to wait on the princess and dissuade her from her design. 
 
 Conducted with all secrecy to Les Mesliers, he found the mother 
 of him whom he called his king in a bare, gloomy chamber. En- 
 veloped in a Scotch shawl, the Duchess de Berri was reclining on a 
 miserable bed. Near her stood a table covered with papers, and on 
 which lay tw.o brace of pistols. Here, in the presence of MM. de 
 Charette and de Mesnard, M. Berryer intreated the princess to quit 
 La Vendee, supporting his views with all his powerful eloquence.
 
 ORDERS AND COUNTER-ORDERS. 21 
 
 But to yield the victory without fighting for it, to fly in obscurity 
 from a country whither the shades of Cathelineau, of Bonchamps, 
 of de 1'Elbee, of Lecure, seemed to have invoked her, that she 
 might do great deeds; to abandon, without one trial of fortune, 
 those men who had nobly compromised themselves on behalf of her 
 son ; to permit that Europe should be left to doubt whether legiti- 
 macy had given way from fear or from absolute want of power 
 the Duchess de Bern could not make up her mind to it; and some 
 violent expressions escaping from her bitter anger, the fire of her 
 eyes, the change in her features, all manifested how fierce a contest 
 was going on within, between prudence and her passionate nature. 
 At length, however, after an animated and obstinate resistance, she 
 yielded ; and it was agreed that she should leave France by the as- 
 sistance of a passport which M. Berryer had provided for her. 
 
 But the next day M. de la Roche St. Andre, having brought 
 her a letter, sealed with red wax, with the post-mark, Toulon, 
 addressed to Bernard, the name which she bore in the south: " Oh, 
 great God !" she rapturously exclaimed, after glancing through its 
 contents; " the whole South isjn a flame ! No, I will not depart." 
 Was this a stratagem of hers? Was it false intelligence concerted 
 by partisans of the movement, in order to keep her in La Vendee? 
 However this might be, she immediately sent word after M. 
 Berryer, that she had altered her determination of the preceding 
 evening, and despatched to the Baron de Charette, a letter, which 
 concluded with these words: " My dear friend, do not give in your 
 resignation, for Petit Pierre does not give in his !"* 
 
 But, by a fatality, sufficiently accounted for by the divisions 
 among the royah'st party, Marshal Bourmont, who arrived at 
 Nantes on the 19th of May, considered the taking up arms, ordered 
 by the Duchess de Bern, untimely, and a counter-order was des- 
 patched to the various chiefs. It is true, indeed, that at a subse- 
 quent interview between the marshal and Madame, the taking up 
 arms was once more ordered, and fixed to take place on the night of 
 the 3d of June. But it was in vain, the counter-order had disor- 
 ganized every thing; it had spread amongst the insurgents, uncer- 
 
 * The circumstance just referred to, and which rests upon the double testi- 
 mony of MM. de Goulaine and de la Roche St. Andr6, is recorded in a work 
 by M. Johanet, entitled, La Vendee a trois epoques. In a pamphlet, written by M. 
 de Charette, in answer to M. Johanet's book, we find the following remarks on this 
 subject. " I do not dispute that M. de la Roche St. Andre gave her royal highness 
 a letter, post marked Toulon; but I deny that it was a forgery, or that it at all 
 bore the grave character which our antagonists, not to say our public accusers, 
 wish to give it. It is very possible that Madame may have received, during my 
 absence, a letter from Toulon; her friends used frequently to write to her, and give 
 her hopes of a speedily-approaching insurrection ; but none of them had any in- 
 structions or authority to state that the southern provinces were in a flame. No, 
 sir, the resolution formed by Madame to remain in La Vendee, was not owing to the 
 contents of this letter; if it had been, she would have taken care to communicate 
 them fully to her friends." Quelques Mots sur let Evenemens de la Vendee en 1832. 
 Par le Baron de Charette, page 56.
 
 22 PARTIAL ENGAGEMENTS BRUTALITY OF BOTH PARTIES. 
 
 tainty, distrust, discouragement, confusion. Those whom it did not 
 reach in time, began their prescribed movement, and were crushed, 
 not being supported by those who had received the new instruc- 
 tions. In the departments de La Sarthe, de La Mayenne, d'He-et- 
 Vilaine, some disarmings were effected without violence, and the 
 parties arrested. At Chemire-le-Gaudin, Chanay, la Gravelle, la 
 Gaudiniere, the Chouans and the soldiers came to blows with equal 
 courage, with various success; but each of these partial engagements 
 only served to weaken the insurrection. Learning that the Duchess 
 de Berri was then actually in La Vendee, on the information of an 
 officer, whom a son of M. de Coislin had taken into his confidence, in 
 the hope of gaining him over, General Solignac concentrated his 
 forces. A visitation made by General Dermocourt on the Chateau 
 de la Chasliere, gave the final blow to the royalist party. A gre- 
 nadier having found in a cellar a bottle filled with papers, these 
 papers were examined: they contained the plan of the conspiracy. 
 To complete the misfortune, when the duchess came to learn the 
 event that had taken place, there was no time for efficaciously re- 
 voking the second order that called the Vendeans to insurrection. 
 The consequences may readily be imagined. The musters that 
 took place were incomplete: they were at once dispersed. The 
 insurgents who rose in arms, were not sufficiently numerous : their 
 efforts were altogether thrown away. At Riaille, M. de la Roche" 
 Mace, at the head of his division, executed a brilliant charge with 
 the bayonet ; but he could not keep up the contest. At the skirmish 
 of Le Chene, the royalists, under the orders of M. de Charette r 
 fought bravely; but they were compelled to yield to superior num- 
 bers, and they had to lament, among other victims of these fatal 
 struggles, MM. d'Hanache, de Tregomain, and de Bonrecueil. 
 This last gentleman had his leg shot through: after dragging his 
 bleeding limbs from door to door, in a village where hospitality was 
 everywhere refused to the dying man, he fell into the hands of the 
 soldiers, and died surrounded by hostile faces. 
 
 Among the deeds of arms which took place during this unhappy 
 period of party warfare, the siege sustained by the Chateau de la 
 Penissiere deserves especial mention. Here, forty-five Vendeans re- 
 sisted the attacks of a numerous body of the enemy with such firm- 
 ness and vigour, that the latter found themselves obliged to have 
 recourse to the step of firing the chateau. Yet still, with the flames 
 above their heads, the flames beneath their feet, the flames all around 
 them, the besieged fought on unflinchingly, cheered by the sound of 
 two clarions, and by the cries which ever and anon they enthusias- 
 tically sent forth: "Long live Henry V" Six of them ulone were 
 slain ; the rest effected their retreat, fighting hand to hand, and left 
 the besiegers nothing but smoking ruins and the carcases of the dead. 
 
 Civil war is not carried on in a country for any length of time 
 without exciting the passions to a pitch of fury. Lamentable ex-
 
 INSURRECTION PUT DOWN THE DUCHESS AT NANTES. 23 
 
 cesses were committed by the Chouans on the one side, and by the 
 agents of authority on the other. The son of the celebrated Cathe- 
 lineau was killed by an officer, at the moment when, discovered in 
 a hiding-place with two of his friends, MM. Moricet and de Civrac, 
 he was peaceably surrendering himself, and exclaiming, "We are un- 
 armed; do not fire." The officer advanced, placed a pistol to his 
 breast, and shot him dead. A chateau belonging to M. de la Ro- 
 berie was seized and utterly laid waste ; the man and his wife who 
 were in charge of it were massacred, and a daughter of M. de la 
 Roberie, only sixteen years of age, was shot. Surprised by some 
 national guards, M. Charles de Bascher, in flying from them was se- 
 verely wounded; he was lead away prisoner towards Aigrefeuille ; 
 but, as he had lost much blood and could not walk fast enough, he 
 was shot on the road, his executioners refusing to grant him the quar- 
 ter of an hour, which he implored, wherein to recommend his soul 
 to God. 
 
 As to the Duchess de Bern, she had quitted her retreat at Les 
 Mesliers, and was flying from one asylum to another, at one time 
 losing her way at night in the woods, at another crossing marshes on 
 the shoulders of her guide, or passing several hours of mortal sus- 
 pense in a ditch covered with bushes, while the soldiers, engaged in 
 pursuing her, were furiously searching all around. To escape, for 
 any length of time, the dangers attending this wandering life was 
 manifestly impossible. Every day important arrests threw fresh con- 
 sternation into the legitimatist circles ; the highest heads of the party 
 were no longer safe from the attacks of a government which was 
 filled with all the overbearing pride of force. After having placed 
 the arrondissements of Laval, Chateau Gontier, and Vitre under mar- 
 tial law, this government proceeded, by a measure as arbitrary as it 
 was violent, to declare under martial law no fewer than four depart- 
 ments, those, namely, of Maine-et-Loire, La Vendee, Loire In- 
 ferieure, and Deux-Sevres. And, at the same time, as if to show 
 the legitimatists that the dynasty they were assailing would not be de- 
 ficient in aid from without, the Moniteur announced the interview 
 between the king of the French and the king of the Belgians at 
 Compiegne, and the approaching marriage between the Princess 
 Louise of Orleans with Leopold. The moment then had arrived 
 when the sole consideration for the Duchess de Berri was how to 
 save her liberty, nay, her life. Nantes was hostile to her cause ; it 
 was, therefore, improbable that government would direct any pecu- 
 liar vigilance of attention in that quarter. It was this improbability 
 that induced the princess to select Nantes as her place of refuge. 
 She accordingly proceeded thither, in the habit of a peasant woman, 
 accompanied by Mademoiselle Eulalie de Kersabiec, who was pro- 
 tected by a similar disguise. At a later period we shall find her 
 in this asylum, whence a base wretch delivered her over into the 
 liands of her enemies. 
 
 Thus was extinguished the rising in the west. Had it been coin-
 
 24 REFLECTIONS ON THE DUCHESS DE BERRl'S ATTEMPT. 
 
 cident with a republican insurrection, and had the respective chiefs 
 acted in unison, there is no doubt that it would have brought the 
 dynasty of Orleans within an inch of ruin. But, in that case, what 
 would have been the result? To revive the aristocracy, in the shape 
 of an aristocracy having its symbol in royalty, and its bases in a new 
 constitution of territorial property; to substitute the system of in- 
 direct for that of direct taxation, and the states-general for the 
 chambers; to destroy, for the benefit of the great local influences, 
 the political centralization founded by the Convention, and the ad- 
 ministrative centralization established by the Empire ; would it have 
 sufficed for the mother of the Duke of Bordeaux to present herself, 
 holding in one hand the white flag, and in the other the ordinances 
 prepared at Massa, ordinances which, carrying back France to 1788, 
 tended to blot out from our history forty years of revolutions and 
 battles? And upon whose strength would this restoration, victori- 
 ous for the moment, have permanently rested? Upon the material 
 interests? They constituted the power of the very bourgeoisie which 
 had overthrown legitimacy. Upon the war men ? In a country which 
 had gloried in the Republic and in Napoleon, war was no longer to 
 be thought of but under the tricoloured flag. The armed legitima- 
 tists, then, would only have realized, even by success, the satisfac- 
 tion of a temporary turn of the game, ending in a third defeat. 
 Even had they been willing to enter upon their restored government 
 with the passions and ideas of the revolution, it may be doubted 
 whether they would have been able to carry out their own inten- 
 tions. It is true, that the younger men of the party, having taken 
 no part in the emigration, could the more easily shake off its preju- 
 dices ; but was it to be expected that they, whose youth excluded 
 them from the council board, would produce any effect whatever 
 upon their elders? Had the feelings of the emigration become so 
 obnoxious to the bulk of the party, that their influence would not 
 have telling weight on the commencement of the new reign? In 
 any case, the partisans of Henry V. could only succeed by dint of 
 intense devotion and enthusiasm. Now the Duchess de Bern, so full 
 of high courage herself, could not for a long time comprehend that, 
 with a nation which has submitted itself to the passion for repose, to 
 the genius of calculation, the time has passed by for chivalrous im- 
 pulses, for wild enterprises, which look forward not to profit, but to 
 distinction, as their aim and reward. Regarded and accepted as a 
 guarantee for certain interests constantly in agitation, monarchy no 
 longer existed in France, either as a principle or as a symbol. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE legitimatists had sent forth their war-cry in La Vendee ; the 
 republicans were about to raise theirs in Paris. While the extreme
 
 MEMORIAL OF THE OPPOSITION DEPUTIES. 25 
 
 parties were giving way to movements of fierce passions, the more 
 moderate members of the opposition were impressed, on their part, 
 with a vague feeling of impatience, a profound sentiment of uneasi- 
 ness. M. Laffitte was desirous, obtaining possession of power by a 
 parliamentary majority, of rendering triumphant the inspirations of 
 a clement policy. Definitively to establish monarchy as the guardian, 
 of liberty, was the notion of M. Odilon Barrot and of all the depu- 
 ties who, adopting him as their leader, represented, in its narrowest 
 signification, but with all honesty, the liberalism of the Restoration. 
 As to the radical deputies, though impatient of the yoke of royalty, 
 they did not think the time was come for drawing the sword; and 
 all they aspired to was to become the centre of a league, which, acted 
 upon by them, should, by insensible steps, bring the monarchy to a 
 capitulation. Thus the minds of men were universally unsettled, 
 and all the discontented felt the necessity of associating their resent- 
 ments and their hopes in one striking, mighty effort. 
 
 Under the influence of these feelings, in the course of May, 
 M. Laffitte assembled at his house all the members of the oppo- 
 sition then in Paris. They met to the number of about forty, 
 and M. Laffitte proposed an address to the king. But M. Gamier 
 Pages combated the proposition with very decisive arguments. Was 
 it reasonable to expect that royalty would admit itself to have been 
 in fault? Why, then, should they place themselves in the false po- 
 sition of an obviously fruitless step? Why expose themselves to the 
 certainty of humiliation? There was but one tribunal to which the 
 opposition could with dignity appeal the tribunal of the nation. 
 These views were approved of. On the motion of M. Charles 
 Comte, it was decided that the opposition should lay its grievances 
 before the country, in the shape of a memorial ; they named a com- 
 mission, consisting of MM. de Lafayette, de Cormenin, Laffitte, 
 Odilon Barrot, Mauguin, and Charles Comte; and this commission, 
 in turn, appointed MM. de Cormenin and Odilon Barrot to draw 
 up, respectively, a memorial for consideration. The papers drawn 
 up by these gentlemen were very different in their tendencies. The 
 manifesto of M. de Cormenin appeared to the members of the 
 dynastic opposition to go too far; while in that of M. Odilon Barrot, 
 M. Gamier Pages pointed out certain expressions which seemed to 
 enchain France, in all futurity, to the monarchy. It was necessary 
 to blend the two projects: MM. de Cormenin and Barrot accordingly 
 proceeded together to St. Cloud, and it was in the park there, at a 
 few paces from the chateau which Charles X. quitted a defeated man, 
 that was prepared, against his successor, the protest which acquired 
 such celebrity. Seated at the foot of a tree, M. de Cormenin held 
 the pen; but from the indecision of style, and the somewhat dull 
 colouring, we may reasonably infer that it was not the sparkling and 
 vigorous author of the Lettres sur la Liste Civile who most contributed 
 to the composition of the memorial.
 
 26 DEATH OF GENERAL LAMARQUE. 
 
 However this may have been, the effect it produced was very 
 striking. The grievances complained of by the opposition were set 
 forth in grave and measured language ; they reproached the ministry 
 with their manifest tendency to enter the fatal paths wherein the 
 Restoration had lost itself forever; they conveyed this, not as a menace, 
 but as a serious, a solemn warning. The court writers replied to 
 this manifesto by dull jests. The polemics upon this subject were 
 occupying the whole public mind, when suddenly the newspapers 
 announced that General Lamarque was dead. 
 
 The popularity of General Lamarque invested his death with pe- 
 culiar importance. Napoleon, on his death bed, had named him a 
 marshal oi France ; the officers of the Hundred Days had found in him 
 a zealous defender, and the refugees a constant protector ; his name 
 was engraved upon the heart of every Pole; La Vendee preserved 
 an affectionate remembrance of him; the democratic party had rec- 
 koned him of the number of its leading orators. What more need 
 we say ? He possessed in an eminent degree those qualities of tribune 
 and of soldier which the more energetic portion of the French people, 
 the turbulent and the warlike, so adore. There was besides some- 
 thing of the grand and heroic about his dying moments, which still 
 further endeared his memory to the people. When he felt life ebbing 
 from him, he was seen to concentrate, as it were, all his remaining 
 strength into a bitter meditation upon the misfortunes and humilia- 
 tions of his country of late years. To one friend he exclaimed: " I 
 die, filled with regret that I have not avenged France upon the in- 
 famous traitors of 1815." To another: " That Duke of Wellington ! 
 I am sure I should have beaten him !" He sent for the sword which 
 had been given him by the officers of the Hundred Days, and press- 
 ing it fervently to his breast, would not part with it again. At another 
 time, when he was talking about his approaching end, and his friends 
 sought to change the painful subject: " What matters it," he ex- 
 claimed, " that I die, so that the country !" lives, he would 
 
 have said, but the word country was the last which passed from those 
 eloquent lips, then closed for ever. 
 
 The 5th of June, a memorable day, was fixed for his funeral. 
 The various parties in opposition, had longed for an opportunity of 
 settling accounts with the government, for the affront received on 
 the occasion of Casimir Perier's funeral, and that opportunity seemed 
 to present itself. 
 
 The legitimatists who were in a permanent state of conspiracy, had 
 long been preparing an insurrection ; but as they experienced from 
 their own leaders an inflexible and haughty resistance on this subject, 
 they had renounced the perilous honour of taking the initiative, and 
 confined their operations to the exciting, by secret emissaries, the 
 ardour of those republican sections which had in various places been 
 constituted, and the gradually forming others, taking into their pay 
 destitute workmen, lavishing promises, distributing pistols and am-
 
 HIS FUNERAL STATE OF PARTIES. 27 
 
 munition. Two overseers of a gun-manufactory, whom they had 
 gained over, were to open its doors to them when called upon, 
 and they had beforehand disposed several bands of resolute men, 
 whose posts were assigned them at various points of the Boule- 
 vards : at La Madelaine, at the Chateau. d'Eau, at the Place de la 
 Bastille, in short, throughout the whole line of the funeral pro- 
 cession. 
 
 The Bonapartist party, too, at this juncture engaged in very active 
 measures. Though subjected to a rigorous and constant surveillance, 
 the Duke de Reichstadt had found means to open a communication 
 with some of his partisans, with whom Prince Louis Bonaparte acted 
 as his representative ; and while Joseph was on his way from America 
 to Europe, a corps of troops, entirely devoted to the son of Napo- 
 leon, were taking measures to receive, him on the frontier. There 
 can be no doubt that in the then existing state of things, the Bona- 
 partists might have turned to their own profit the national commo- 
 tion, which seemed on all sides arising, had it not been that their 
 own body was torn by internal strife and anarchy. For, not less 
 divided than the legitiraatists, the Bonapartist party was broken up 
 into three factions, separated from each other by grave differences: 
 these were the Imperialists, or the blind worshippers of the Napo- 
 leon monarchy; those who especially admired in Napoleon the vic- 
 torious soldier; and, thirdly, those who, friends of equality from sen- 
 timent and principle, proposed to give to the Duke de Reichstadt 
 merely the title of Chief of the Executive Power, and who summed 
 up their political views in these words : the republic, with a name to 
 it. The latter constituted, beyond contradiction, the most intelligent 
 and high-minded fraction of the party ; but compromised every mo- 
 ment by the imprudence of the men of action, they had besides to 
 contend against a military aristocracy, who were already halfway 
 gone over to the new government, and who, with the exception of 
 a few generals of elevated character of mind, retained of the imperial 
 regime nothing but a coarse mixture of servility and arrogance. 
 
 Then came the republicans, men, almost all of them, of extraor- 
 dinary resolution and impetuous courage, but wanting a centre of 
 action, a watchword, direction. The various associations formed 
 by this party were all independent of each other, and severally fol- 
 lowed the dictate of impulses which, if not altogether adverse, were 
 at least, in the vast majority of instances, divergent. At the side of 
 the Societe des Amis du Peuple, there arose the Societe des Droits 
 de VHomme, which afterwards became so famous; and apart from 
 this last, were in agitation the Societe Gauloise and the Comite Or- 
 ganisateur des Municipality . Great hesitation was the result of this 
 want of harmony. Besides, there was nothing ready for a repub- 
 lican insurrection; and though the Societe Gauloise announced, 
 through some of its members, its intention to strike, the party kept 
 itself altogether in the expectant attitude. On the evening of the 
 4th, however, some members of the Societe des Amis du Peuple
 
 28 FUNERAL OF GENERAL LAMARQUE. 
 
 assembled on the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, to take into consi- 
 deration the event of the ensuing day, and it was decided, after 
 some animated discussion, that they should not commence an attack, 
 but that, a collision appearing inevitable, they should dispose them- 
 selves to carry on the struggle, once begun, with vigour. They 
 arranged communication with each other along the boulevard, and 
 a citizen, whose name revived stirring revolutionary recollections, 
 undertook, though he disapproved of insurrection, to collect on the 
 other side of the bridge of Austerlitz a certain number of intrepid 
 working men, with whom, in case of disorder actually breaking out, 
 lie might raise the Faubourg St. Marceau. 
 
 Early on the morning of the 5th all Paris was in motion. Those 
 who were to form the procession hastened to the places where, ac- 
 cording to the arrangements, they were to assemble; and at nine 
 o'clock an impatient crowd was rushing towards the house of the 
 deceased general. Pouring along the Rue St. Honore was seen, 
 pell-mell, a jostling throng of national guards in uniform, workmen, 
 artillerymen, students, veteran soldiers ; on the Place Louis XV. the 
 law and medical students, mingling with the members of the Societe 
 des Amis du Peuple, formed themselves into platoons, and selected 
 leaders; a hundred banners of various forms and colours floated in the 
 air; one party bore tricoloured streamers; another green boughs; a 
 third brandished weapons undisguisedly, menacingly. But all this 
 infinite variety of groups was animated by one sentiment. Strange 
 human nature ! From every side men were coming to a funeral, yet 
 in each stern, ruffled look on each of those faces, pale with emotion, 
 there glared fierce thoughts of war to the knife. The most alarm- 
 ing rumours were in circulation; here a small group was seen whis- 
 pering earnestly together; next to it, a larger group sent forth con- 
 fused clamours, and used energetic gesticulations ; every body was 
 convinced that a vast plot was on foot, some because they desired it, 
 the rest because they feared it. For all felt alike that French so- 
 ciety was labouring under a terrible malady ; all knew that society to 
 be, unfortunately, in such a state of excitement and disorder, that 
 were the various elements of that disorder once to come together, 
 there must result from their contact some frightful catastrophe. 
 
 Government was quite aware of this, and took early care to pre- 
 pare Paris as a safe field of battle. Four squadrons of carabineers 
 occupied the Place Louis XV. ; a squadron of dragoons was sent to 
 the Halle aux Vins; another, with a battalion of the 3d light in- 
 fantry, covered the Place de Greve; the 12th light infantry awaited 
 the procession on the Place de la Bastille ; there were soldiers in the 
 court-yard of the Louvre ; there were soldiers in the students' quar- 
 ter ; the municipal guard was drawn up in echelons, along the whole 
 line which extends from the Prefecture of Police to the Pantheon; 
 and a detachment of the same guard protected the Jardin des Plantes, 
 not far from the Caserne des Celestms, where the whole of the 6th 
 regiment of dragoons was assembled, ready to mount at a moment's
 
 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TII AND 6TH OF JUNE. 29 
 
 notice. The remainder of the troops were instructed to keep within 
 their barracks, and orders had been given to place the auxiliary regi- 
 ments at Ruel, Courbevoie, and St. Denis, in readiness to march, if 
 necessary. So that to oppose this revolt, which was as yet but the 
 airy vision of conscious fear, the government had got together a paid 
 army of no fewer than 24,000 men !* 
 
 The procession was set in motion. The corners of the pall were 
 borne by General Lafayette, Marshal Clausel, M. Laffitte, and M. 
 Mauguin. A number of young men drew the funeral car, which 
 was followed by exiles from all parts of Europe, of Europe the slave 
 of kings. Only two battalions of troops had been sent as a military 
 escort; but the national guards formed part of the procession, to the 
 number of about 10,000, all wearing their sabres. The artillery of 
 the national guard had their cartridge-boxes full ; their carbines were 
 loaded ; and of the members of the popular societies, there were very 
 many who carried, half concealed beneath their coats, pistols and 
 daggers. The weather, rainy and threatening, added to the mourn- 
 ful gloom, mingled variously with rage or fear, which pervaded 
 every bosom. On arriving at the top of the Rue de la Paix, the 
 procession was suddenly diverted from its arranged route, and lead 
 round the Colonne Vendome, by the enthusiasm of the young men 
 who headed it. The military post placed on guard here, before the 
 staff-office, took fright, and precipitately retreated into the house, 
 the doors of which they closed. " They have insulted the shade of 
 Lamarque !" was the cry instantly sent forth by thousands of voices, 
 and the procession stopped until the soldiers had come out and paid 
 military honours to the coffin, which then passed on. This was the 
 first episode of that fatal day; and from this and the cry of " Vive 
 la Republique /" which was raised energetically as the Office for Fo- 
 reign Affairs was passed, it was easy to see what was in preparation. 
 The procession proceeded along the boulevard, the streets leading 
 into which were covered with innumerable crowds. It was slowly 
 advancing, in a sombre and formidable attitude, when, on reaching 
 the Rue de Grammont, the Duke de Fitzjames appeared at his win- 
 dows, assuming a contemptuous and haughty air, and with his hat 
 on. At this spectacle, the crowd grew angry, furious; a thou- 
 sand voices vehemently commanded him to withdraw his hat, and 
 the duke was compelled to make a prompt retreat from a shower of 
 stones, which, dashing in from all directions, broke every window in 
 the house. From this moment, the excitement went on constantly 
 
 * The actual number of the troops called out for action may be thus estimated: 
 
 Six regiments of the line, and three of light infantry, each of 2000 men 18,000 
 
 Eight regiments of cavalry, of 500 men 4,000 
 
 Municipal guard, horse and foot 2,000 
 
 24,000 
 
 Independently of these forces, 30,000 soldiers were in echelons in the environs of 
 Paris, and the government could further reckon upon the assistance of about 6000 
 national guards.
 
 30 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TII AND 6TH OF JUNE. 
 
 increasing; created by the general character of the circumstances, 
 the incidents we have just related, and a hundred others that took 
 place at various points, supplied it with food. Here, an agent of 
 police was knocked down; there, on the passing remark of a wo- 
 man, the Gaulish cock which surmounted one of the popular stand- 
 ards was thrown into the mud, and trampled upon, and its place filled 
 with a branch of willow. Even the less turbulent by degrees got 
 angry at the incessant recurrence of the police, who were posted at 
 every third or fourth yard on each side of the whole line of proces- 
 sion. One of these poor wretches, grievously wounded, managed 
 to take refuge among the artillery men, who saved his life; another 
 very narrowly escaped destruction at the Porte St. Denis ; an officer 
 of the Invalids had drawn his sword upon him, and was with diffi- 
 culty prevented from using it. Every thing, in short, concurred in 
 rendering inevitable the calamities which had been foreseen. These 
 funereal honours, wherein grief had far less a share than hope and 
 hatred, that immense population, crowding every balcony, filling 
 every window, weighing down every tree, covering every house-top, 
 those flags, Italian, Polish, German, Spanish, recalling to the minds 
 of all who saw them so many tyrannies triumphant, so many insults 
 unavenged; those too manifest preparations for battle; those very 
 precautions of a government whose conscience taught it to see dan- 
 ger even in the passage of a dead man to his last home ; the revo- 
 lutionary hymns rising into the air amidst menacing cries and the 
 mournful roll of the muffled drum, all this disposed the minds of 
 men to an excitement full of peril, all this left to the passions but 
 one bloody outlet. Already, witnessing the gloomy enthusiasm com- 
 municated from man to man in that confused and crowded mass, 
 many looked upon the government of Louis Philippe as lost. 
 One of a party of students having exclaimed: " But, after all, whi- 
 ther are they leading us?" " To the republic," replied a person, 
 wearing the July decoration, who was acting as chief of the troop, 
 " and make yourself sure of this, that to-night we will sup in the 
 Tuileries." The revolution of July itself, at its outset, presented no- 
 thing so imposing, so terrible. The idea of an approaching fight 
 was so clearly fixed in every person's mind, that men, as they passed 
 on, tore down stakes and the branches of trees to serve as weapons 
 in case of need. The government, in spite of all its precautions, 
 was but floating about on the waves of chance, for the fidelity of the 
 troops wavered, and it was well understood that the swords of many 
 of the officers belonged to the cause of the republic or to that of the 
 empire. It is certain that when the procession reached the Place de 
 la Bastille, an officer of the 12th light infantry advanced to the chief 
 of the first party of students, and said to him: "I am a republican; 
 you may reckon upon us;" and several sub-officers were seen to re- 
 ply by signs of assent to the invitation to fraternize with the people. 
 There had been spread a report that the pupils of the Ecole Poly- 
 technique had been ordered to keep within their establishment; it
 
 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 31 
 
 was added that they had vainly demanded permission for one only of 
 their comrades to attend and take part in the ceremony. All at once 
 the crowd saw rushing among them about sixty of these young men, 
 most of them bare-headed and with their dress in confusion. Breaking 
 through the order, they had forced their way out, summarily knocking 
 down General Tholoze, who sought to oppose their egress, and dashed 
 after the procession, ready to throw themselves into any insurrec- 
 tionary movement. Shouts of applause, cries of " Vive I'JEcole! 
 Vive la Republique!" hailed the presence of a uniform which, since 
 1830, had been so dear to the people; and the band of the regiment 
 which preceded the funeral car spontaneously struck up the Mar- 
 seillaise. The procession had crossed the Place de la Bastille, it had 
 passed down the whole length of the Boulevard Bourdon, between 
 the canal St. Martin and the granaries, and now, crossing the little 
 bridge at the end of the canal, it covered the whole space between 
 this bridge and the bridge of Austerlitz : here it halted. 
 
 A scaffold had been erected whence to deliver the funeral ora- 
 tions. Those pronounced by General Lafayette, Marshal Clausel, 
 M. Mauguin, the foreign Generals Saldanha and Sercognani, were, 
 as was befitting, grave, mournful, solemn. But to the calm words 
 of subdued sorrow soon succeeded the most vehement harangues, 
 adding fresh strength to the popular effervescence. Men, elegantly 
 dressed ran to and fro in the crowds seeking to excite it by false 
 intelligence, such as that there was fighting at the Hotel de Ville, 
 or that an eminent general had declared against Louis Philippe, or 
 that the troops, at length rising, had marched upon the Tuileries; 
 the artillerymen of the national guard concerted together; cries of, 
 Vive la Republique! were heard. Suddenly a stranger came up, 
 mounted on a horse, which he had great difficulty in getting through 
 the immense concourse. The appearance of this man was most 
 sinister ; he was dressed in black, and held in his hand a red 
 flag, surmounted by a cap of liberty. It was the symbol of '93 
 that was thus revived before the eyes of the bourgeoisie. The in- 
 dignation which this spectacle excited, was extreme, especially on 
 the part of the republicans, whose principles this fearful apparition 
 tended to misrepresent and to throw a slur upon. One shout of re- 
 probation burst from all present, with the exception of a few, who 
 applauded, either from imbecile fanaticism, or with the treacherous 
 purpose of throwing odium upon the cause of the republic. Ge- 
 neral Excelmans was in the procession. "No red flag!" he ex-- 
 claimed with energy; "we will have none but the tricoloured 
 flag ; the flag of glory and of liberty !" Two men of suspicious 
 character hereupon rushed towards the general, crying out that he 
 ought to be thrown into the canal; but extricating himself from the 
 crowd, he retraced his steps, and meeting Count de Flahault, pro- 
 ceeded with him, in all haste to the Tuileries. Apprehensive, in 
 common with General Excelmans, that the party inciting to action, 
 was that of a sanguinary jacobinism, many citizens had no longer any
 
 32 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 
 
 idea but that of arming against their insurrection. The red flag had 
 produced its effect : he who bore it, had immediately disappeared ; 
 and from that moment, the republicans had to renounce the hope of 
 drawing after their steps the bulk of the bourgeoisie. 
 
 While these things were passing, near the bridge of Austerlitz, 
 and at the end of the Rue Contrescarpe, which runs along the 
 Canal St. Martin, scenes of a no less animated character were taking 
 place in the Boulevard Bourdon, situated on the other side of the 
 canal; and as the streets contiguous to the granaries were filling with 
 daring men eager to fight, yet hesitating whether it would not be 
 more prudent to stay yet awhile ere they began an attack, a column of 
 dragoons, dispatched from the Celestin Barracks, debouched upon 
 the Quai Morland, and proceeded towards the Bridge of Austerlitz. 
 It is proper to remark here, that it was by the direction of the prefect 
 of police, M. Gisquet, and not by order of General Pajol, the officer 
 in command of the first military division, that this movement was 
 executed. However, the dragoons seemed animated by no hostile 
 feeling; their pistols were in their holsters, and their carbines in the 
 butt-sheaths. They advanced at a rapid pace to within two hun- 
 dred paces of the bridge, and then halted. A furious multitude was 
 in their front; on their left palisades, on their right the Seine, with 
 the lie Louviers. The tumult was at its height. A carriage made its 
 appearance, drawn by young men, who, after having made M. de 
 Lafayette enter it, were conducting him in triumph to the Hotel de 
 Ville. The squadron opened its ranks to give passage to the gene- 
 ral, and, a moment afterwards, the air rung with several gun shots. 
 In vain did the commander of the dragoons, M. Desolliers, display, 
 under these circumstances, the most courageous firmness and mode- 
 ration ; from every side the soldiers were commanded to surrender 
 their arms; stones were hurled at them from the roof of an adjoin- 
 ing house, and some of the more daring, gliding up to the very 
 breasts of the horses, took close aim at the soldiers, two of whom 
 were wounded. That more blood did not flow on this spot, was 
 entirely owing to the energetic interposition of MM. Dufour, 
 Devauchelles, Soubiranne, and Larabit. The latter, one of the 
 opposition members, enjoyed a well-merited reputation for honour 
 and patriotism ; and his efforts, more especially, powerfully contri- 
 buted to prevent, on this portion of the theatre of events, a collision, 
 which elsewhere was no longer to be avoided. 
 
 Informed by a sub-officer in disguise, of the critical situation of 
 the dragoons on the Quai Morland, the colonel of that regiment 
 left the barracks at the head of a second detachment, and, with his 
 trumpet sounding, took the direction of the Place de 1'Arsenal, with 
 the view of joining the first detachment by way of the Boulevard 
 Bourdon, so as to turn the insurgents. But he had hardly got 
 twenty paces from the barracks, when a discharge of muskets un- 
 horsed several soldiers. The dragoons then dashed off at a gallop, 
 and crossing the Place de 1'Arsenal, charged down the Boulevard
 
 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 33 
 
 Bourdon. Here the commanding officer, Cholet, was mortally 
 wounded. 
 
 A moment afterwards, from the body of the crowd collected 
 round the approach to the bridge of Austerlitz, at the end of the 
 Rue Contrescarpe, there arose the cry: Here are the dragoons! 
 and the dragoons, indeed, were there close at hand, rushing on 
 at full gallop, and sweeping every thing before them. At this 
 sight every one became filled with indignation, with most justifiable 
 indignation. For the point to which the dragoons had been sum- 
 moned was at some distance from that where they were now 
 furiously riding in upon a crowd of inoffensive citizens. A barri- 
 cade was constructed in all haste; those who were not provided 
 with muskets, tore up stakes to defend themselves with ; a young 
 man, brother of an illustrious savant, exclaimed, raising aloft a tri- 
 coloured flag: " Let him who loves me, follow me !" A number of 
 national guards drew their sabres, and were dashing forwards to 
 meet the cavalry, when at the entrance to the little bridge over the 
 canal, the latter stopped short, amazed, and as it were stupified, at 
 what they saw before them. Insurrection at this time was openly 
 up in arms. A murderous fire now opened from the arsenal, the 
 Pavilion Sully, and the granary. The colonel of dragoons had his 
 horse shot under him, the lieutenant-colonel was wounded, a ball 
 struck Captain Bricqueville. The order to turn back was given to 
 the dragoons, who immediately retreated down the Rue de la Ceri- 
 saire and the Rue du Petit Muse. 
 
 The soldiers of the escort had disappeared. There was no longer 
 any thing to be seen in this part of the city but citizens running 
 against one another, overcome with fear, or, transported with rage, 
 exclaiming : To arms ! To arms ! On the other side of the bridge 
 of Austerlitz, the young men who were escorting the mortal re- 
 mains of General Lamarque towards the Pantheon, whither they 
 wished to convey them, attacked the municipal cavalry, posted 
 near the Jardin des Plantes. These offered an energetic resistance, 
 but driven in the direction of the Barriere de 1'Enfer, they would 
 have been defeated, but for the assistance of two squadrons of cara- 
 bineers who came up. Paris was already in a flame. The repub- 
 licans had spread themselves in every direction, running up barri- 
 cades in the different streets, disarming the military posts, summon- 
 ing the troops whom they came across to join them, attacking them 
 if they refused, menacing the powder magazines and arsenals, arrest- 
 ing the drummers whom they found beating the roll-call, knocking 
 in the drumheads ; a party everywhere small in number, but con- 
 stantly gaining adherents by their audacious bravery, and every- 
 where acting in concert. There was never any thing comparable 
 with the rapidity of this whole affair : in three hours after the first 
 attack, one half of Paris was in the power of the insurgents. 
 
 On the left bank of the Seine, two hundred men had invested the 
 veteran barracks. Their leader, an artilleryman of the national 
 
 VOL. II. D
 
 34 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 
 
 guard, scaled the wall of the barracks; on descending into the court- 
 yard, where the soldiers were drawn up in order of battle, he per- 
 ceived that none of his men had followed him. The critical nature 
 of his situation made him doubly daring; he ran up to the veteran 
 officer and demanded his sword. " I have been twenty years in the 
 service," replied the officer, " I will never surrender my sword but 
 with my life." " Keep your sword. But do you hear the firing? 
 We have force on our side, and it is I who now command here." 
 The young man had actually arrested the officer, and the soldiers 
 were laying down their arms, when seven or eight insurgents rushed 
 into the barracks with the most horrible yells. The veterans think- 
 ing themselves on the point of being massacred, stood on the de- 
 fensive, and repulsed the assailants, most of whom were only armed 
 with pistols and sticks. Two detachments of the municipal guard, 
 hastened from St. Pelagic, by different routes, to rescue the veterans. 
 The first of these encountered, in the Rue d'Orleans, a very sharp 
 fire, which cost them the life of their captain, M. Turpin. The 
 second, commanded by Lieutenant Lenancourt, reached the bar- 
 racks, which they cleared; but shortly afterwards hearing that St. 
 Pelagie was threatened, the municipal guards hastily returned 
 thither, taking the veterans with them. Not far from this spot, 
 upon the Place Maubert, where a post of soldiers had just before 
 been nearly all slaughtered, an engagement took place between the 
 insurgents and a party of horse and foot; the powder-magazine of 
 Les Deux Moulins was carried, and the whole line of the barriers in 
 this direction was in the hands of revolt. 
 
 On the right bank of the river the progress of insurrection was 
 not less rapid. The republicans had made themselves masters of the 
 arsenal ; they had carried the post de la Galiote, and then du Chateau 
 d'Eau; they had all the Marais in their power; they occupied the 
 Mairie of the 8th Arrondissement ; the gun manufactory of the Rue 
 Popincourt, which they had successfully assailed, had supplied them 
 with 1200 muskets; they had advanced as far as the Place des Vic- 
 toires, and were preparing to attack the Bank, the Post-office, and 
 the Petits Peres barracks. But what above all they were intent 
 upon was, the rendering inaccessible the Rue St. Martin, and the 
 surrounding streets, for here they intended to establish the head- 
 quarters of insurrection, having not the slightest notion that at this 
 very moment MM. Tliiers, Mignet, D'Haubersaert, and other per- 
 sonages devoted to the government of Louis Philippe, were assem- 
 bled at dinner at the Rocher de Cancale, fifty yards only from the 
 camp wherein the republicans were fortifying themselves, in the firm 
 resolution of triumphantly proclaiming the republic, or dying in 
 the attempt. 
 
 Such were, at about six o'clock in the evening, the advantages 
 gained by the insurgents ; and at this moment every thing seemed to 
 promise them the victory. The working classes, it is true, had not 
 as yet made any comprehensive movement; terribly deceived in that
 
 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 35 
 
 revolution of July which had opened to them so fair a perspective, 
 but which had practically only served to aggravate the evils under 
 which they laboured, the men of the people hesitated ere they re- 
 newed the experiment of revolution ; but insurrection could not have 
 failed to draw them irresistibly within its vortex, had the storm lasted 
 long enough, there being nothing more natural than for misery to 
 seize hold of any new^turn of things which holds out the prospect of 
 a change of some sort. As to the soldiers they were manifestly in 
 a most disorganized state: the recollection of 1830 presented itself 
 in characters of fire to their wavering minds; they thought they 
 heard once more the cries of gratitude and enthusiastic joy which on 
 the 29th July hailed the defection of the 53d regiment of the line; 
 and the uniform of the national guard, which they saw glittering 
 amongst the groups of insurgents, filled them with a sort of stupor of 
 respect. In the Rue Culture-Saint-Catherine, the sappers took their 
 carbines to pieces, and hid them, that they might not be able to make 
 use of them against a party which had made its way into their bar- 
 racks. The national guard assembled in small groups, and though 
 the bourgeoisie, as a whole, disapproved of the movement, the roll 
 call beating in the various quarters, had the effect of awakening in 
 men's minds that sentiment of patriotic anguish peculiarly excited 
 by civil war. Even of those who issued forth to resist insurrection, 
 the more generous souled could scarcely refrain from giving way to 
 that powerful sympathy which is inspired by the spectacle of gallant 
 deeds. There occurred several remarkable proofs of this in the course 
 of the evening. Eight insurgents returning from the Place Maubert 
 presented themselves, towards the decline of day, at one of the 
 bridges of the city, which was occupied by a battalion of the national 
 guard. They authoritatively claimed their right to go over and join 
 their friends, who were fighting on the other side of the river, and 
 observing some hesitation about letting them pass, they at once 
 advanced resolutely towards the bridge at half-charge, with fixed 
 bayonets. The national guards ranged themselves on either side, 
 and gave unimpeded passage to these eight men, whose infatuated 
 heroism they at once admired, and, reflecting upon its inevitable 
 result, deplored. 
 
 The government all this time was in a cruel state of anxiety. To 
 infuse a little confidence into the soldiers, upon whom alone it could 
 now rely, it determined that they should act wholly in combination 
 with the civil militia, and Marshal Lobau, commander-in-chief of 
 the national guards, had, accordingly, concentrated in his hands 
 the direction of the whole military force of the capital, of whatever 
 description. A meeting of generals and ministers took place at the 
 War-Office. Among them was Marshal Soult, whose countenance 
 bore the impress of deep and anxious thought. What was to be 
 done? Were they to recommence that war of lanes and cross 
 streets, which in 1830 had been so fatal to the Duke of Ragusa and 
 the monarchy? One of the council suggested that the best plan 
 
 D2
 
 36 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 
 
 would be to draw off the troops, just for the present; to collect them 
 all together, in the Champ de Mars, and let them re-enter Paris, 
 sword in hand, at a later and more opportune period. But this 
 was energetically controverted by the prefect of police, M. Gisquet, 
 who, through the whole course of these events, displayed remark- 
 able firmness and presence of mind. The discussion was prolonged 
 for a considerable time, presenting little more than wretched waver- 
 ings to and fro, absurd bursts of passion, vain projects; and the 
 council broke up without coming to any resolution whatever, in so 
 impracticable a state of doubt and agitation were the minds of well 
 nigh all present. 
 
 It was necessary to act, however, for the moments were precious. 
 And first, the danger assumed, in the eyes of all the authorities, 
 such formidable proportions, that orders were despatched in every 
 direction, summoning into the city the soldiers posted in the en- 
 virons, although Paris was already gorged with troops. A batta- 
 lion of the 12th light infantry came from St. Denis; the 14th light 
 infantry, from Courbevoie, having first marched part of the way to 
 St. Cloud, which the king had just quitted; the battery of the 
 Ecole Militaire was directed upon the Carrousel; a large supply of 
 ammunition was brought from Vincennes. At the same time a bat- 
 talion of the 3d light infantry, and a detachment of the 6th legion, 
 were posted on the boulevard, which, near the Porte St. Martin, 
 was already occupied by two squadrons of carabineers, and, at the 
 entrance to the Rue de Clery, by General Schramm, with four com- 
 panies. At six o'clock in the evening, the dragoons succeeded in 
 making themselves masters of the Place des Victoires, and, sup- 
 ported by some companies of infantry, a detachment of national 
 guards, commanded by M. Delessert, secured the departure of the 
 mails. 
 
 But these were small successes, compared with those which had 
 been obtained by the insurgents at a hundred different points. 
 They carried one after another, and each time with considerable loss 
 to the municipal guards, the posts de la Lingerie, de la Bastille, du 
 Marche St. Martin, des Blancs-Manteaux. By eight o'clock they 
 had constructed a barricade near the little bridge of the Hotel- 
 Dieu, had driven back a detachment of the 25th of the line, had 
 compelled a detachment of the municipal guard to beat a hasty re- 
 treat down the Quai des Fleurs, and were surrounding on all sides 
 the prefecture of police. 
 
 The news of these events spread consternation throughout the 
 palace. It would have been in vain to look there now, for that 
 confluence of visitors which is seen around thrones, when they are 
 lit up by the splendour of fetes, and occupied by undisputed power. 
 Fear had frozen the devotion of those who had been most osten- 
 tatious of their devotion. This, however, was so much a matter of 
 course, so completely a circumstance of invariable occurrence in the 
 history of monarchies, that it is almost superfluous to note it.
 
 MARSHAL SOULT. 37 
 
 The chief clerks in the various public offices had already concealed 
 the most important papers, and at the Tuileries they only thought 
 of preparations for flight. What was more especially feared in this 
 quarter was, that General Lafayette and Marshal Clausel might 
 throw themselves into the movement. In that case, what might not 
 the popularity of the one, and the renown of the other, have ef- 
 fected ? The dynasty of Orleans would have been lost. 
 
 Marshal Soult, minister at war, was also a subject of apprehension 
 in high places. Ever since the accounts that had been generally 
 spread abroad of the intrigues of his partizans, and of his secret 
 desire to be crowned King of Portugal, he had been looked upon 
 as a man of boundless ambition. His military glory, his great ad- 
 ministrative ability, his indefatigable activity, the brilliant fortunes 
 of his rival, Bernadotte all these things made it very reasonable 
 to suppose that vast designs had found a place in his soul. He was, 
 besides, well known to be altogether incapable of disinterestedness 
 in his political alliances, incapable of constancy to any party or 
 principle ; he who had successively given himself to Bonaparte, to 
 the Restoration, to Orleans, had lost all claim to confidence in his 
 fidelity towards the last master. Under these circumstances, he was 
 naturally the subject of grave suspicions. People had not failed to 
 remark his embarrassed attitude throughout the struggle, the feeble- 
 ness of his resistance to the popular efforts, his injunction to the 
 officers of the various corps not to resort to force, even in self- 
 defence, until the last extremity; an injunction so entirely at va- 
 riance with his harsh character. It was he who gave the advice to 
 abandon Paris, assuredly a most extraordinary suggestion ! Finally, 
 it is related, though the fact has not been actually proved, that on the 
 night of the 5th he had a secret and important interview with cer- 
 tain well-known members of the republican party. One fact, how- 
 ever, is beyond dispute, namely, that in the evening of the 5th of 
 June, there came to the office of the National, a young man of the 
 name of Guibert,* who had often been there before, as a protege 
 of the minister at war. This young man had been to sound the 
 disposition of General Subervic, and he said he was authorised to 
 promote an interview between Armand Carrel and Marshal Clausel. 
 Carrel accordingly followed this young man to the marshal; but he 
 found the latter very cold, very cautious, and manifestly subjected 
 by a fear of compromising himself. Carrel, in turn, kept himself 
 on the reserve, and the whole affair produced upon his mind, as it 
 did upon that of the marshal, the conviction erroneous, perhaps, 
 but deep-seated that the minister at war had wished to get at 
 their secrets, in order that he might join the insurrection, if it had 
 tolerable prospects, or, in the opposite case, obtain such information 
 as might the more effectually enable him to baffle it. 
 
 But if there was great hesitation among those who were attacked, 
 
 * The same who was afterwards assassinated in the Rue Louis-le-Grand.
 
 38 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 
 
 there was equal hesitation among those whose position called upon 
 them to direct the attack. Two pupils of the Ecole Polytechnique, 
 iully relying upon M. Mauguin, proceeded to his house. They 
 found him in a state of the most profound agitation, and could ex- 
 tract from him nothing beyond a few words of the most discouraging 
 character. Marshal Clausel displayed similar irresolution. An ar- 
 tilleryman pressed him, in the name of his party, to unsheathe the 
 sword: " I will join you," said he, " if you are assured of the co- 
 operation of a regiment." " Sir," answered the artilleryman, sharply, 
 "if, at this moment, a regiment was at our disposition, we should 
 not need you." Alone, among all the persons who had a long past 
 career to compromise, a considerable fortune to risk, M. de Lafayette 
 offered himself unreservedly to the people. From the carriage in 
 which they had placed him, for the purpose of conducting him to 
 the Hotel de Ville, an attempt which failed, the noble old man 
 had heard one of those who were drawing him say, jestingly, to his 
 neighbour, "If we were to throw the general into the Seine, how 
 would the government clear itself from the suspicion of having pro- 
 cured his death?" Afterwards, alluding to the observation, he said: 
 "It was not so bad an idea that!" When his co-operation was 
 called for, ill and wearied as he was, he exclaimed: " My friends, 
 make room amongst you for my chair, and I will go on with you to 
 the last." Filled with disgust at all he saw around him, the victim 
 of base ingratitude, the bitter sense of which was ever present to his 
 mind, now more than ever irritated at the insults with which the 
 court persecuted his old age, he felt strong within him a passion of 
 just hatred which, combining with his patriotism and his ever 
 youthful courage, rendered him eager for revenge. But he was to- 
 tally deficient in the initiative quality, and his friends dared not take 
 upon themselves the disposal of a life so precious. Thus his very 
 popularity was, once more, useless to his party and to himself. 
 
 They might, indeed, have put forward into the van his reputa- 
 tion, if not his person; and it is highly probable that thus a proclama- 
 tion creating a provisional government, and distributed, on the morn- 
 ing of the 6th, in some thousands of copies, would have produced a 
 decisive result. For, in that case, the affair would have been a re- 
 vival of the revolution of 1830, under similar circumstances. Many 
 eminent persons would have submitted to the influence of the great 
 name of Lafayette ; one full half of the national guard would have 
 passed over to the side of their former chief; the troops, remaining 
 so far undecided, would have been operated upon; and, begun by 
 generous hearts, the insurrection, as it assumed consistency, would 
 have drawn within it all the selfish, all the ambitious, all the cowardly. 
 But beyond the mere street fighting, nothing was done, nothing ven- 
 tured. The men of battle were left unsupported by the men of 
 council. The oflice of the Tribune had been early entered by the 
 agents of police, protected by a detachment of national guards, and 
 all the presses had been sealed up, despite the energetic protests
 
 CLAUSEL LAFAYETTE ARM AND CARREL. 39 
 
 of MM. Sarrut and Boussi. A similar visitation was made upon 
 the Quotidienne, and would have silenced the National, but that the 
 office of the latter journal was situated in the immediate vicinity of 
 the barricades. It was to the office of the National, then, where 
 had already assembled several persons, not connected with the party, 
 that some of the most influential republicans proceeded, about eight 
 o'clock on the evening of the 5th of June. Here was discussed, 
 amid the confused sounds from without, the question of a general 
 rising. To many of those present there seemed no rational question 
 about the matter. The start had been made, the impulse, a power- 
 ful one, given; why any delay in carrying it out? The Revolution 
 of 1830 had not begun under auspices more favourable. Such was 
 not the opinion of Armand Carrel; the declaration that it was not, 
 on the part of a man, justly reputed one of the bravest of the brave, 
 in the presence of a party, alike suspicious and fiery, required a firm- 
 ness of no ordinary description. On this occasion Armand Carrel 
 was too eager to decide, as a military man, a question which was 
 presented to him as a conspirator; whereas the principles which as- 
 sure victory to an army in the field are quite different from those 
 which give success to a popular insurrection. Audacity, which was 
 the system, the genius of Danton, audacity is the soundest prudence 
 for parties engaging in such struggles. For, in revolutions, confi- 
 dence has all the chances in her favour. 
 
 The meeting at the National office having broken up, without 
 any other result than that of making more obvious the fatal dissen- 
 sions which prevailed among the opposition, the more ardent of 
 those who had taken part in it, directed their steps towards the 
 corner of the Rue Menilmontant, where they believed themselves 
 to be expected by a large body of friends, and where they had re- 
 solved to intrench themselves, having no doubt that the war would 
 recommence on the morrow. 
 
 But already the face of things had began to change. The utter 
 want of superintendence and direction threatened to compromise 
 every thing. In the apartments of M. Laffitte, several members of 
 the opposition launched out into vague harangues, exhibiting at the 
 same time signs of fear, which were rebuked by the complete sere- 
 nity of M. Laffitte himself, ever calm in the midst of danger. The 
 ministers having obtained information, through their emissaries, of 
 the inaction of Lafayette, and the hesitation of Marshal Clausel, 
 orders were immediately issued to arrest MM. Cabet, Laboissiere 
 and Gamier Pages. The various corps of the immense army that 
 was weighing down Paris, began to lose their belief in a second 
 July revolution, when they heard the cries of Vive la Troupe! which 
 the civic battalions, sent against the insurgents, took care to shout, 
 as they defiled before the military. The insurgents, on their part, 
 got discouraged and began to disperse, when they learnt that their 
 chiefs were not disposed to take a part in the bloody play, and that 
 even the authority of great names would, perhaps, be wanting to revolt.
 
 40 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 
 
 To multiply these defections, and to act upon popular feeling, the 
 agents of police managed widely to circulate a report that the insur- 
 rection was a carlist one. A daring falsehood, which, repelled by some, 
 was unhesitatingly received by others, and inflamed with extreme 
 indignation the suburban national guard, whom the government 
 having impressed with this idea, sent into the city in a perfect 
 phrenzy of ardour to attack the supposed carlists. 
 
 On the other hand, the highest personages of the court, the dig- 
 nitaries, the ministerial deputies, the generals, all seemed para- 
 lyzed with terror; so that it was M. Thiers who, on the evening of 
 the 5th of June, had to superintend the preparations for defence. 
 Proceeding to the staff-office of the national guard, he remained 
 there for some time, in company with MM. Berenger, Keratry, 
 Madier-Montjau, and Voysin de Gartempe, distributing ammunition, 
 and seeming delighted with the opportunity thus afforded him of 
 trying a new character. He had sent word to the ministerial depu- 
 ties to join him there with all haste, but thirteen only attended his 
 summons, including those whom we have just named. They all 
 awaited with impatience the arrival of the king, altogether in doubt 
 whether they should read in his eyes the hope of triumph or the 
 apprehension of defeat. He at length made his appearance from 
 St. Cloud, having ordered his family to follow him. The state of 
 Paris alarmed the queen beyond all measure ; she regarded the posi- 
 tion of things as even more serious than in 1830, an opinion which 
 was not very remote from that of Madame Adelaide herself, a 
 woman of well-known firmness of character. The question of de- 
 parture had been agitated; but there was, in imitating the example 
 of Charles X. in this respect, a danger which could not fail to escape 
 the penetration of Louis Philippe. If he had fears, he kept them a 
 secret from those who went to seek at his hands encouragement to 
 hope. He received them as was expedient at such a moment, with 
 a calm and assured countenance, with expressions of confidence and 
 grateful acknowledgment; and appeared not to perceive the soli- 
 tude which the uncertainty of his fortunes had suddenly created 
 around him. 
 
 Insurrection, meanwhile, had encamped in the very midst of the 
 capital. Two barricades crossed the Rue St. Martin : the one at the 
 south end, at the top of the Rue Maubuee ; the other, a much stronger 
 one, on the south, at the top of the Rue St. Mery, and within a few 
 paces of the old church of that name. In the space between these 
 two ramparts, at the corner of the Rue St. Mery, and facing the 
 Rue Aubry-le-Boucher, stands the house, No. 30, the ground floor 
 and entrance of which were occupied by about a hundred and ten 
 insurgents, who had converted the place into at once their head- 
 quarters, their citadel, and their hospital. The position was admi- 
 rably chosen; if the enemy approached in front, by the Rue Aubry- 
 le-Boucher, they fell under a heavy fire from the windows of the 
 head-quarters; if they attacked it from behind, they must face the
 
 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 41 
 
 insurgents who were posted between the barricades, trained men, 
 whose bullets dealt certain death, and who were animated by daunt- 
 less courage. In the evening of the 5th of June, a column of na- 
 tional guards, who had been ordered to keep the Rue St. Martin 
 clear, came upon the barricade. " Who goes there?" demanded the 
 sentinel. "Friends." " Are you republicans ?" "Yes." The air 
 shook with joyous acclamations at this answer, and an insurgent, 
 named Rossignol, advanced to confer with the officer commanding 
 the column, when, at that very instant, the national guards be- 
 gan scaling the barricade, exclaiming, " Ah, scoundrels, we've 
 got you at last !" The captain seized Rossignol. The latter, turn- 
 ing round to his friends, and regardless of the death which such an 
 order was directly calculated to bring upon himself, cried out in- 
 trepidly, " Fire, my friends P' A volley was discharged from within 
 the barricade, and stretched five of the guards on the earth ; the as- 
 sailants returned the fire, and one of the insurgent leaders received 
 a ball in the groin; the column, however, was driven back; two 
 subsequent attacks were made, and repulsed with equal vigour and 
 success. These were but the prelude to a terrible struggle. The 
 insurgents were fully aware of this, and prepared themselves for the 
 contest with surprising coolness. While, under the orders of a de- 
 corated hero of July, named Jeanne, one portion of the party 
 strongly posted themselves in the street, the rest, installed in the 
 house, No. 30, and in the porter's lodge, impatiently awaited the 
 moment of attack, and, meantime, abridged the weary hours by 
 songs and cheerful conversation; those who had not weapons them- 
 selves, making bullets in a dozen moulds they had collected, with 
 lead they got from the tops of the houses. These strange prepara- 
 tions were superintended by several old men, veteran soldiers, who 
 animated still more the courage of those about them by tales of the 
 gallant deeds of war and patriotism they and their dead comrades 
 had taken part in. There were young boys present who loaded the 
 guns, using for wadding the police notices they had stripped from 
 the walls; when this resource failed, the insurgents tore up their 
 shirts for the purpose. Thus they awaited the coming events, sur- 
 rounded with silence and darkness; themselves, as it seemed, the 
 only moving things in that vast city, and knowing full well that 
 the greater portion of them would never see the morrow's sun. All 
 at once, the sound of many rapid footsteps came along the pave- 
 ment, and the firing of arms was heard. This was a detachment of 
 infantry, advancing from the end of the Rue St. Martin. It was 
 half-past two in the morning, and the barricade at such an hour was 
 almost entirely deserted. Some of the insurgents ran up to the 
 third floor, and knocked vehemently at the door of a set of rooms 
 which looked into the street. The door was opened by two young 
 women, who trembling, panic-struck, fell on their knees, and begged 
 that their lives might be spared. " Fear nothing," replied the repub- 
 licans, with a laugh; " we only come here to hurt the king's men;
 
 42 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 
 
 and if your furniture is damaged by the balls, the provisional go- 
 vernment will make it up to you." Those who had muskets took 
 up their position at the corners of the windows ; the rest kept them- 
 selves in readiness to hurl down upon the heads of the soldiers the 
 large stones they had collected for that purpose, and the reception 
 given to the passing detachment was such, that it was only too glad 
 to escape beyond musket-shot, leaving on its way some dead, and 
 leading off many wounded. Soon after this, learning that in the 
 courtyard of the house they were occupying, there was a gun- 
 smith's shop, the republicans made their way into it, and found 
 about fifty fowling-pieces, which were immediately distributed amid 
 great rejoicings; the fraternity which reigned among the insurgents 
 not preventing them, however, from disputing the possession of these 
 new found treasures with all the jealousy of aspiring courage. While 
 this was going on, suddenly the approach of the municipal guard 
 Tvas announced. The whole body of the insurgents rushed into the 
 Street, and allowing the guard to approach within pistol-shot, thence 
 drove them back, amid cries of " Vive la Republique /" Their ex- 
 ultation was immense, and seemed to increase with the increase of 
 danger. A boy, twelve years old, who was fighting in the foremost 
 ranks, was fearfully wounded in the head; but Jeanne, notwith- 
 standing the most urgent solicitations, could not induce him to quit 
 the post he had assumed. This fiery courage, on the part of the com- 
 batants of St. Mery, was combined with a deep feeling of humanity. 
 After each charge, when the enemy was driven back, they leaped 
 over the barricade, caught up the wounded in their arms, and 
 brought them to the hospital, where their enemies at once became 
 their brothers. 
 
 Not far from this, another troop of insurgents guarded a barricade, 
 constructed at the entrance of the Passage du Saumon, the approaches 
 to which were defended by vigilant sentinels stationed along the Rue 
 Montmartre. Here also obstinate engagements threw additional 
 horror over this ever deplorable night; Marshal Lobau had ordered 
 the military to have this quarter thoroughly cleared before the morn- 
 ing, and the republicans were equally determined not to quit it alive, 
 unless they quitted it as conquerors. For a long time, they maintained 
 themselves in the position they had chosen, inflaming each other by 
 inutual exhortations, inaccessible to discouragement, superior to fear. 
 A cafe, which stood at the angle of the Rue Montmartre and of the 
 Passage,* received the dying and wounded; and from the upper 
 windows of the adjoining houses, which opened every few minutes 
 and then hastily closed, unseen hands threw out supplies of cart- 
 ridges to the republicans. But there was only a handful of these 
 brave men. Pressed upon by a large force, whose numbers were 
 constantly renewed and augmented, every man who fell in their 
 ranks was an irreparable loss. By four o'clock in the morning, a 
 
 * It no longer exists.
 
 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 43 
 
 longer resistance had become absolutely impossible. The cafe was 
 filled with wounded men; on the billiard-table, a pupil of the Ecole 
 Polytechnique lay weltering in his blood, and within the barricade 
 there were fewer combatants than corpses. One more attack closed 
 the struggle in this part of the field of battle. A few insurgents, a 
 very few, escaped as if by miracle; the rest died, giving death, on 
 the breach. 
 
 The military post at the little bridge of the Hotel-Dieu, had been, 
 in the evening of the 5th, the scene of a furious contest, which ter- 
 minated in favour of the insurgents, seventeen of whom were left 
 in occupation of the post. Having, during the night, suffered them- 
 selves to be surprised by a numerous column of the national guard, 
 fifteen of these unhappy wretches were cut to pieces, and thrown 
 into the Seine ; the two others escaped into the street, but were 
 overtaken and slain. As to the republicans in the Rue Menilmon- 
 tant, after having kept up an effective firing, more or less through- 
 out the night, they were fain to beat a retreat on the approach of 
 day, on account of their limited number, and because their position 
 was not strong enough to be defended in the daylight. 
 
 On the 6th of June, the insurgents were nowhere to be seen, ex- 
 cept in the Place de la Bastille, at the entrance to the Faubourg St. 
 Antoine, and in the Rues St. Martin, St. Mery, Aubry-le-Boucher, 
 Planche-Mibray, and des Arcis. To crush the insurrection thus con- 
 centrated into two quarters, the government well nigh exhausted it- 
 self in prodigious efforts. At six o'clock in the morning, the Place 
 Louis XV. was covered with artillery; two battalions, summoned 
 from St. Cloud, were now added to the preposterous army with 
 which Paris was at this time inundated; and, shortly afterwards, 
 another regiment of infantry, and three of cavalry, with a park of 
 artillery, arrived from Versailles. 
 
 But still, with all this, the court did not feel altogether secure. 
 The Tuileries wore nearly the same aspect as on the previous even- 
 ing. The more eminent personages who came to offer their services 
 were easily reckoned up, and on the faces of all present there was 
 an air of constraint. When they were about to distribute the com- 
 mands of the various brigades, most of the military chiefs were found 
 to be absent. One general, well known for the energy of his cha- 
 racter, General Excelmans, refused to serve under the orders of 
 General Pajol, his equal, and was at no pains to conceal that he re- 
 garded the proposition made to him for that purpose as an insult to 
 his epaulettes; and between the same general and Marshal Soult 
 there took place, in the Diana gallery, a very warm altercation, the 
 bursts of which came clearly to the ears of the royal family. ^ The 
 king, all this while, exhibited much serenity. Well practised in the 
 art of keeping a guard upon himself, he preserved, throughout these 
 events, the most complete ease, an entire calmness of manner and of 
 speech, well calculated to infuse confidence into those around him, 
 and which certainly did not desert him, now that he saw the revolt
 
 44 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 
 
 drawing to a close; not but that the flame might yet once more 
 burst out, at any moment. In the course of this same morning, as 
 M. Marchais was passing beneath the windows of Marshal Lobau : 
 " Well," cried the latter, half in jest, half in earnest, " you or me, 
 which of us is to go?" 
 
 The opposition members had, in the course of these events, a 
 second time assembled at M. Laffitte's, and deliberated upon the 
 state of things, under the mixed empire of anger and of fear. Most 
 of these pusillanimous men had turned pale at the bare word re- 
 public, conjuring up forthwith all the dark and horrid phantoms at 
 which their youth had shuddered. But now that and they thanked 
 Heaven for it they heard only the feeble cries of expiring revolt, 
 they were furious with themselves for their past panic, and they 
 exclaimed, " What are we hesitating about? The moment is come 
 for every one of us explicitly to declare his sentiments. There is 
 no longer any possible medium between adopting insurrection, and 
 breaking with it. Let us throw off a fatal connexion, and, by a 
 solemn manifestation, repudiate the promoters of this revolt, their 
 acts, and their doctrines." But this opinion met with energetic op- 
 ponents among those assembled. Was it befitting the framers of 
 laws to arm themselves with the weapon of persecution? And at 
 what a moment ! Was it while the blood that had been spilt still 
 reeked, while the public mind was in a state of fermentation, and 
 ready to start into a fierce blaze, at the least spark; was it amidst 
 discharges of musketry, still echoing through several parts of the 
 city, that they were to fulminate a decree against the insurgents? 
 Had these been conquerors, history alone would have judged them; 
 as vanquished men, the excess of their misery should protect them 
 from insult. This was the feeling and advice of the more generous 
 souled opposition members, of M. de Bryas among the rest. M. de 
 Bryas had a son at the Ecole Poly technique, whence revolt had de- 
 rived more than one intrepid auxiliary. Both as father and as citi- 
 zen, he combated, with laudable vehemence, the idea of a manifes- 
 tation, which, in point of fact, would equally be without dignity 
 and without advantage. It was then proposed that a deputation 
 from their body should wait upon the king, and emphatically point 
 out to him, in the policy acted upon since 1830, the source of all 
 these disorders. To this it was objected, that the step would be ut- 
 terly without effect; that the king, like Charles X., like all kings, 
 had a will of his own, from which he was not to be moved; that 
 such being the case, and it were mere madness to doubt it for one 
 instant, the opposition ought not, thus needlessly and injuriously, 
 to draw down upon themselves the insults of a cabinet, swollen at 
 this moment with triumphant hate and arrogance. The word re- 
 public having been heard once or twice in the course of this discus- 
 sion, and several members having thereupon required that the pro- 
 posed deputation, while censuring the past acts of the government, 
 should express their unequivocal reprobation of those terrible prin-
 
 THE OPPOSITION DEPUTIES. 45 
 
 ciples which had '93 for their date, and the red flag for their sym- 
 bol, M. de Lafayette addressed the meeting. He did not conde- 
 scend to refute the analogies, as frivolous as they -were unjust, which 
 had been suggested; but deckred himself, without circumlocution, 
 a republican. The words, which adroit malevolence had thought 
 fit to attribute to him, " The Duke of Orleans is the best possible 
 republic," he affirmed had never escaped his lips. And recalling, 
 with a magnanimous disapprobation of himself, the days of July, 
 that everlasting warning to nations, his illusions so miserably de- 
 stroyed, his confidence so terribly deceived, his blindness so severely 
 punished, he indignantly repudiated the idea of any thing like hope 
 from a monarchy. But this courageous and sincere old man spoke 
 to politicians whom monarchy held fast under its subjection by all- 
 powerful allurements. The members present named three gentle- 
 men of their number as a deputation : M. Francis Arago, Marshal 
 Clausel, and M. Laffitte. The marshal having declined to act, M. 
 Odilon Barrot was appointed in his place. At this juncture, they 
 received information that the insurrection was suppressed, and the 
 deputies at once separated, looking upon the object of their assem- 
 bling, so far, as at an end. 
 
 On leaving the house, M. Arago met in the courtyard, M. Sa- 
 vary and M. Alexandre Dumas, a savant and a poet. Both of them 
 men of high spirit, they no sooner heard what had taken place at 
 M. Laffitte's, than they burst out into language full of vehemence 
 and bitterness, exclaiming that Paris had but waited an intelligible 
 signal to rise as one man ; and that they regarded as deeply guilty 
 towards their country those deputies who had manifested such eager 
 haste to disavow and reject the efforts of the people, grudging it 
 those high destinies which its magnanimous spirit aspired to, and 
 which the grandeur of its courage well merited. 
 
 In point of fact, the insurrection was not stifled. It is true that 
 a detachment of lancers had disengaged the Porte St. Martin ; that 
 three columns, under the orders of General Schramm, had carried 
 the entrance to the Faubourg St. Antoine ; and that the boulevard 
 was quite clear from la Madeleine to the Bastille. But the tocsin 
 still sounded from the church of St. Mery ; the insurgents intrenched 
 there maintained their post, and woe to the battalions which, crowd- 
 ing down the Rue St. Martin, ventured to approach too near these 
 invincible men. For never were intrenchments better defended. 
 When, vigorously repulsed, the troops fell back in disorder, the re- 
 publicans would leap over the barricade, dash forward, and strip the 
 dead bodies of their cartridge-boxes, and thus renew their well nigh 
 exhausted ammunition. Posted at the windows of an adjacent cof- 
 fee-house, a girl,* whose lover was in the barricades, gave the in- 
 surgents notice, by understood signs, of the advance of the military, 
 and, ever and anon, brought soup to revive the failing strength of 
 
 * She was afterwards included in the trial of the twenty-two, and acquitted.
 
 46 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 
 
 the combatants. The wounded derived equally valuable aid from 
 the active benevolence of another woman, the wife of the gunsmith 
 whose stock had been carried off by the insurgents. It was, how- 
 ever, altogether impossible for this struggle to continue much longer, 
 for every fresh attack caused, in the ranks of the insurgents, vacancies 
 which were not filled up. Up to a certain point, they had believed 
 that their audacious courage, so far attended with success, would be- 
 come contagious; that, from all parts of Paris, insurrection would 
 respond to the inspiring appeal of their redoubtable musketry. At 
 one moment, their confidence was complete : two strangers brought 
 them a small barrel of gunpowder ; and it was announced that friends 
 were marching to their assistance. But this hope soon failed. It 
 was all in vain they listened with ear anxiously intent; the wind 
 scarcely brought them the ordinary murmur of the city ; they sent 
 forth a shout, but the sound of their voices subsided without an 
 echo ; Paris all around them was silent. A soldier of the 62d, named 
 Vigouroux, had the direction of the insurgents posted at the win- 
 dows. " It is all over with us," he said to his companions, in the tone 
 of a man who is sacrificing, and readily, his life to a cause; " if there 
 be among you any who have aught else to do than to die, there is 
 still time for them to retire and secure themselves." But no one 
 stirred. The majority, true children of a reckless and warlike race, 
 experienced in this terrible conflict a sort of generous excitement, 
 the sensation of which they were not willing to lose ; and those who 
 acted in obedience to mature and serious convictions, reflected that 
 if the cause of the republic were now to perish, it was, at least, es- 
 sential that its mortal struggles should fix upon the mind of the 
 nation ineffaceable impressions, an undying memory of devotion 
 and public virtue. 
 
 Towards the middle of the day, a detachment of infantry ad- 
 vanced from the Rue Aubry-le -Boucher: a sergeant stepped forward, 
 and, in a loud voice, expressed their desire to parley. One of the 
 insurgents also advanced, his carbine in his hand. " If I am killed," 
 he said, " it will be only a soldier the less, and you will avenge me." 
 He exchanged a few words with a lieutenant, and returning to his 
 companions, told them that the soldiers merely asked to cross the 
 barricade, promising not to fire a single shot. But Jeanne appre- 
 hended treachery, and in his turn approached the military: " You 
 shall not pass," he said, " unless you ground your arms." Stretch- 
 ing out his hand towards the barricades, he exclaimed that they 
 were inviolable, guarded by men who had sworn never to abandon 
 them with life. He then impressively adjured the soldiers, in the 
 name of their weeping country, to remember that, as children of 
 the people, they owed their strength and their life to the triumph 
 of the people's liberty. The officer in command replied, with emo- 
 tion, that he would not abandon his duty; but he no longer insisted 
 upon passing, and his men retired in slow order, amidst cries of 
 *' Vive la Ligne!" from the occupants of the barricades.
 
 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 47 
 
 A few minutes after, the suburban national guard passed across the 
 end of the Rue St. Martin. Drunk with wine and fury, a party of them 
 hastened towards the barricades, filling the air with imprecations, 
 and imagining they were about to achieve an easy victory; but re- 
 ceived with a rolling fire, they stopped short, and drew back. The 
 mark of men of unerring aim, their first ranks were prostrated to 
 the earth in an instant, while, from the windows of the head-quar- 
 ters, death did its work fiercely upon the centre of the assailing 
 column. For a moment, they stood aghast, and then, full of utter 
 panic, fled at their utmost speed, dispersing in every direction, and 
 throwing away their arms and accoutrements on all sides. 
 
 Thus, in the heart of a city with more than a million of inhabit- 
 ants, in the most populous quarter of Paris, and in the open face of 
 day, sixty citizens were seen utterly defying the government, keep- 
 ing its army in check, parleying, and giving battle. And, mean- 
 time, those who would willingly have lent them aid, found them- 
 selves condemned to all the torture of their powerlessness to do so. 
 Many of these men were observed hovering around the scene of 
 death. With heads bent down, with countenances full of unutterable 
 grief, and eyes filled with tears, they wandered about, mute with 
 despair, ever and anon pausing and listening with anguish to the 
 discharge of musketry, and the intermittent sound of the tocsin. 
 For fortune refused them the means of being useful to their friends. 
 In the struggle of political passions, there is one critical hour, which 
 fixes the fate of empires. This precious, decisive hour, the repub- 
 licans had suffered to pass by; and they now encountered, on their 
 way, not only the men whom loyalty animated against them, but 
 also that immense crowd, that impracticable, implacable herd of 
 wretches, in whose eyes defeat is a crime, misfortune a prey. Be- 
 sides, there was now no centre around which the republicans could 
 rally, no chief to lead them ; on all sides there were soldiers, on all 
 sides traitors, on all sides enemies. Already, such was the confi- 
 dence inspired in the minds of the indifferent part of the commu- 
 nity by the display of government force, that business had resumed 
 its ordinary course. On one hand, was commerce pursuing its ex- 
 clusive, selfish, all-absorbing calculations; on the other, the pave- 
 ment covered with the over-night's blood, houses hung with black, 
 the discharge of musketry, the tocsin's awful sound, dying men car- 
 ried by on litters, prisoners falling beneath the blows of their keepers, 
 only less cruel and base than their insults. Who can have forgotten 
 that saw those scenes of brutal rage? On the Place de Greve, oc- 
 cupied on the 6th of June by national guards and soldiers, there 
 were committed acts of ferocity which the pen of the historian of 
 these fearful days absolutely refuses to describe ; it is one consolation 
 to his sorrowing heart to be able, at least, to render homage to the 
 noble conduct of General Tiburce Sebastiani, by whom the excesses 
 of their hideous fury were repressed.
 
 48 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 
 
 At noon, the king quitted the Chateau des Tuileries, accompanied 
 by the minister at war, the minister of the interior, and the minister 
 of commerce, and reviewed the troops collected on the Place Louis 
 XV. and in the Champs Elysees. He then "proceeded, by the boule- 
 vards, to the Bastille, through the Faubourg St. Antoine, along the 
 Quais, and re-entered his palace by the Louvre. Although the re- 
 volt was at this period all but extinguished, this long circuit of the 
 king was, undoubtedly, an act of courage; though he, as well as 
 the national guards, who, ranged along the route, received him all 
 the way with loud acclamations, was altogether unaware how near, 
 at several points of his progress, he was to death. On the Quai, for 
 instance, at no great distance from the Place de Greve, a young 
 woman had taken aim at him from a window, and she only ab- 
 stained from firing because the weight of the weapon made her 
 hand tremble. The king, on this occasion, manifested great courage 
 and presence of mind, presenting to all a calm and smiling counte- 
 nance, addressing words of consolation to such wounded national 
 guards as he met, fearlessly approaching the silent or hostile groups 
 whom he passed, and motioning aside those of his escort whose af- 
 fectation of zeal, or genuine solicitude, induced them to close around 
 him, that they might cover him with their bodies. 
 
 At three o'clock, an open carriage, in which were MM. Arago, 
 Odilon Barrot, and Laifitte, entered the courtyard of the Tuileries. 
 A stranger here ran forward, seized the bridle of one of the horses, 
 and exclaimed, " Take care, gentlemen. M. Guizot has just quitted 
 the apartments of the king ; your lives are not safe." More surprised 
 than alarmed at this information, the deputation proceeded, and 
 caused themselves to be announced. A long intimacy had enabled 
 M. Laffitte closely to study the monarch, and on the threshold of 
 the royal chamber, he said to his colleagues, " We must keep to 
 our point; he will try to laugh it off." 
 
 On being admitted to the royal presence, the deputies represented 
 to his majesty, that the victory he was about to complete was a vic- 
 tory of the law, and should not be attended with cruelty; that the 
 moment was a highly favourable one for repairing the mistakes 
 which had been committed, to appease the irritation which had be- 
 come general ; and that it would be true wisdom to take this tri- 
 umph of the law as the point whence to proceed to that entire 
 change of system, which it was admitted, on almost all hands, had 
 become necessary; that the popularity of the king daily lessening, 
 the political animosities carried to an unprecedented degree of vio- 
 lence, the civil war in the West, and the civil war in Paris, were 
 manifest proofs how entirely to be condemned was the system of the 
 13th of March; that from that system had flowed, as so many in- 
 evitable consequences, the calamities at Grenoble, the unjustified dis- 
 arming of the national guard in various towns, measures of unex- 
 ampled rigour in many parts of France, and the supposed necessity
 
 INTERVIEW OF THREE DEPUTIES WITH THE KING. 49 
 
 of subjecting four departments to all the severities of martial law; 
 while, as a contrast to this so furious domestic policy, the foreign 
 policy exhibited an entire absence of frankness, energy, and dignity. 
 The reply of the king was exactly what might have been ex- 
 pected. If blood had flown, it was the fault of the factious, who 
 would be punished for their offences, but by the regular course of 
 justice. If the King of France did not enjoy the popularity of the 
 Duke of Orleans, it was no matter of surprise, after the calumnies 
 and insults which had been uttered against him, by those whom the 
 spirit of party rendered his enemies. The rigours complained of 
 were indispensable to the due preservation of order, threatened by 
 ever renewing attacks upon it and upon the government. The 
 memorial in short, was a mere tissue of imaginary grievances, of 
 unjust accusations; how very mistaken, for instance, to accuse the 
 king of an insatiable grasping after wealth ! As to exterior policy, 
 it had been conducted with exact reference to the interests and 
 resources of France : the language of M. de St. Aulaire, blameable 
 perhaps in appearance, had been justified by the result; the Belgian 
 affair was finished ; and if the Italian question was not in an equally 
 satisfactory position, that arose from the difficulty of making a pope 
 reasonable. 
 
 Some curious incidents marked this interview. While the very 
 first words were being exchanged, a sinister noise was heard from 
 without: " It is the cannon," said the king, " which they are ad- 
 vancing to force the barricade St. Mery, with as little loss of life as 
 possible." At the outset, M. Arago had taken occasion to express 
 his distinct resolution to accept no office from the government. M. 
 Odilon Barrot having commenced a similar declaration, the king 
 stopped him, and said, patting his knee with a friendly gesture: 
 " M. Barrot, I do not accept your renunciation." They reproached 
 his policy with its singular tenderness towards the legitimatists. " I 
 have always had in my mind," he replied, " the observation of Kersaint : 
 * Charles I. had his head cut off, and England saw his son ascend 
 the throne; James II. was merely banished, and his race died off 
 upon the continent.' " But the feeling which predominated through- 
 out the whole conversation of the king was a fear least Casimir 
 Perier should have attributed to him the credit of the system which 
 had been hitherto pursued. This credit he asserted for himself, in- 
 sisting upon it over and over again, and evidently desirous of re- 
 presenting his former minister as merely the docile instrument of a 
 superior intellect. He also dwelt much upon the inflexible firmness 
 of his will, which he said had never yielded but upon one occasion, 
 when the question was the laying aside the fleurs-de-lis, an emblem 
 which equally appertained to the younger as to the elder branch of 
 the family. Among the expressions which escaped the king in the 
 course of one of his impromptu speeches on this occasion, the depu- 
 tation remarked the following, as coming somewhat unguardedly 
 from the mouth of so very diplomatic a monarch : "In all the 
 VOL. II. E
 
 50 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 
 
 nations of Europe, the elements of revolution exist, but all of them 
 haven't got the stuff of a Duke of Orleans to put an effectual stop 
 to their progress." 
 
 After the interview, Louis Philippe expressed himself to some of 
 his intimates who were in attendance in an adjoining apartment, in 
 these terms: " M. Odilon Barrot was mild and sententious; M. 
 Laffitte, solemn; M. Arago, extremely excited. 
 
 In the meantime, at the barricade St. Mery, attack immediately 
 followed attack. Pressed upon with relentless fury, hemmed in, re- 
 duced to little more than half their original number, and with but 
 one hundred cartridges left among them, the insurgents displayed an 
 intrepidity which was the object of universal astonishment. An 
 old man, with a bald head and grey beard, fell dead just within the 
 barricade, at the moment when elevating a tri-coloured flag, he 
 was calling upon his comrades to make some grand, desperate effort. 
 Near him, a young man, who was beating the charge, had his left 
 hand shattered by a ball; those around wished him to go to the 
 hospital: "When those fellows are gone," he calmly replied ; and 
 continued to beat the drum with his right hand. One of the com- 
 batants complained of hunger, and asked for provisions: " Provi- 
 sions!" exclaimed Jeanne : " it is now three o'clock; at four o'clock 
 we shall all be dead." It became necessary to have recourse to 
 artillery, to form a regular siege of a few stones piled up and de- 
 fended by a handful of men. Two cannon, placed in front of St. 
 Nicholas-des-Charnps were directed upon the little barricade at the 
 north end, large pieces of which were carried away by every ball. 
 At the same time a gun was brought up the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher, 
 and pointed against the house No. 30. The insurgents, none the 
 less, kept up a good countenance. The only alteration they made 
 was to nail up some mattrasses against the windows, out of consi- 
 deration for the fears of the two women whose rooms they had 
 taken possession of. At length, about four o'clock, the barricades 
 were attacked from both sides at once : by the national guards and 
 the military bearing down from the top of the Rue St. Martin; by 
 a battalion of the 42d of the line, debouching from the Rue de fa 
 Verrerie; by a column of the 1st of the line, under the orders of 
 General Laidet, in the continuation of the Rue des Arcis. The re- 
 publicans hoped that by compelling their assailants once again to 
 retreat, they should have some more dead soldiers to strip of their 
 cartridge-boxes, but the troops pouring in with the utmost impe- 
 tuosity and resolution, all further resistance became impossible. 
 Upon this being seen, of those who had been fighting in the street, 
 one portion led by Jeanne, made an audacious, a desperate charge 
 with the bayonet upon the soldiers, forced their way through them, 
 with the loss of only three men, and effected a secure retreat down 
 the Rue Maubuee; the rest dashed into the house No. 30, with a 
 determination to defend themselves to the last, and the door, after 
 they had all entered, was strengthened within by a heap of paving-
 
 CONFLICT IN THE RUE ST. MERY. 51 
 
 Stones. Such was the determined fury of the insurgents, that one 
 of the panels of the door having burst in, a young man who had 
 just fallen dying in the court, crawled to the opening, in order to 
 discharge his last pistol-shot upon the enemy, and seeing his aim 
 successful, fell back into the arms of death, with a murmur of joy. 
 The next moment the house was forced by the military, and re- 
 sounded with furious cries, and dying groans. Pursued from 
 chamber to chamber, fighting every inch of their way, seventeen of 
 the insurgents perished under the bayonet. One of those who had 
 been firing from the third story, when he saw the soldiers coming 
 up. called out to his comrades to cut down the stairs, but it was too 
 late; the enemy was already on the landing-place. " The barrel of 
 powder !" he then exclaimed, " and let us blow up the house;" but 
 the barrel had disappeared. The insurgents then got out upon the 
 roof, and made their way through a window into the house, No. 48, 
 Rue St. Mery. Here they were discovered, for a strict search was 
 made in all the houses adjoining the barricades, and they would 
 infallibly have been killed, but that Captain Billet, of the 48th, 
 with the high-minded generosity natural to the French character, 
 saved their lives. " Make them prisoners," he nobly said to his 
 soldiers, " but not victims." 
 
 Every one now thought the contest at an end, and already thou- 
 sands of curiosity seekers were crowding towards No. 30, when, all 
 of a sudden, from a butcher's shop looking upon the Rue St. Mery, 
 and which had not yet been examined, there came a sharp discharge 
 of musketry. The soldiers, who were collected at the entrance to 
 the Rue St. Mery, taken altogether by surprise, fell back into 
 the Rue St. Martin; the idlers took to their heels. Profit- 
 ing by the confusion, five or six insurgents who had sought refuge 
 in the butcher's shop, and from whom the firing had proceeded, 
 rushed out, and were lost in the agitated crowd. 
 
 There now remained in the house, No. 30, only two insurgents 
 alive. An officer of the national guard whom the republicans 
 had taken prisoner, had escaped before the house was taken by the 
 military, in the disguise of a woman, but the two survivors among 
 his captors had not had time to attempt the same means of flight. 
 Squeezed, both of them, under one bed in the apartment whence 
 they had poured death upon their enemies, they were condemned 
 to the torture of hearing the imprecations of the victorious soldiers 
 mingling with the dying groans of their slaughtered comrades. 
 They themselves more than once received the points of the bayonets 
 which were thrust about in search of some victim overlooked. At 
 length, feeling convinced that the military would remain yet some 
 time in the house, which they were occupying in every part, and 
 weary, doubtless, of maintaining an attitude which their haughty 
 daring rendered odious to them, they made up their minds to quit 
 their hiding place, thoroughly resolved to sell their lives dearly if 
 any impediment occurred to their egress. But a physician attached 
 
 E2
 
 52 INSURRECTION OF THE 5TH AND 6lH OF JUNE. 
 
 to the Hotel Dieu, who had come there to fulfil his professional 
 duties, saved them. Steeping their handkerchiefs in the pool of 
 blood around them, he folded them round their heads, and, con- 
 ducted by the physician, who claimed for them the respect due to 
 wounded men, they passed freely through the ranks of soldiery, and 
 effected their escape. 
 
 This victory was celebrated with transports, which were not 
 exempt either from cruelty or from discreditable circumstances. 
 There had been exhibited, doubtless, on the part of the national 
 guards some striking acts of courage ; Adjutant Billier, among 
 others who were killed at the barricade St. Martin, proved that 
 in France valour is shared by all parties ; but, as is always the case, 
 it was the men of the least bravery who stunned the city with their 
 songs of triumph. Almost deserted, on the morning of the 6th, the 
 palace, in the evening of the same day, was crowded with visitors. 
 Every one of these had only just returned from the country; every 
 one of them was in a state of absolute despair at having missed 
 such an opportunity of displaying his devoted loyalty ; and so forth. 
 
 Next day a profound calm reigned over well nigh every part of 
 Paris ; all the shops were open ; all the shopkeepers were at their 
 business as usual. There was, however, in this city, one particular 
 point where civil war had left fearful traces, one point to which 
 weeping mothers were hurrying from every direction the Morgue. 
 
 The resistance of the insurgents of St. Mery had been inconceiv- 
 ably determined and obstinate ; so much so, that many persons have 
 imagined that government had taken measures to encourage and 
 prolong it, in order to give greater eclat to its victory, and to attach 
 more closely to its cause, by the influence of fear, of the mass of the 
 bourgeoisie. It is certain so far, that those insurgents of the bar- 
 ricade St. Mery had two traitors among them ; but, besides that 
 the scheme imputed to government is altogether unlikely, simply 
 on account of its utter atrocity and infamy, how can sensible men 
 be supposed to have admitted for one moment a project so mi- 
 serably poor and futile ? Surely, a government can never deem it 
 to its interest to have it understood that a hundred men, raised by 
 their enthusiasm above the fear of death, are at any time sufficient 
 to bring its existence into question, into peril. 
 
 However this may have been, it is certain that the ministry pro- 
 ceeded to make use of their victor}' with impatient ferocity. The 
 very cries of indignation and despair which arose from the bosom 
 of families, plunged into grief by the insurrection, were converted 
 into so many encouragements to rigour. An order of arrest 
 was issued against the chief editor of the National, Armand 
 Carrel ; several journals were seized ; the homes of honourable 
 citizens were brutally violated ; the arrests became so numerous 
 that, to convey the prisoners, it was necessary to call the public 
 conveyances into requisition. And in what colours can we paint 
 the hideous aspect presented during these hours devoted to ven-
 
 JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS. 53 
 
 geance by the courts of the prefecture of police? A prisoner had 
 scarcely entered one of them ere some of those foul creatures whom 
 civilisation charges with the care of protecting public morals, would 
 rush upon the unhappy wretch with savage cries, and assail him 
 with unpunished blows. The example of all this proceeded from 
 the authorities. An order, issued by M. Gisquet, prefect of police, 
 enjoined all physicians and surgeons to denounce such wounded 
 persons as claimed their assistance ; but this base injunction was 
 annulled by public contempt. 
 
 The king had taken vast credit to himself, with MM. Arago, 
 Odilon Barrot, and Laffitte, for the projects of moderation which 
 he announced; he had promised that the ordinary course of justice 
 should not be interrupted. And yet, besides the three ordi- 
 nances, which dissolved the Ecole Polytechnique, the Ecole Veteri- 
 naire d'Alfort, and the artillery of the Parisian national guard, 
 the Moniteur published a fourth ordinance which declared the capi- 
 tal under martial law ; a coup d'etat proceeding from the reckless 
 precipitation of M. Thiers. 
 
 Public opinion was not long ere it made itself heard. It was to 
 little purpose that the Cour Roy ale of Paris, at the request of the 
 Attorney-General, Persil, declared itself incompetent to interfere 
 in matters arising out of the troubles of the 5th and 6th of June ; 
 the councils of war, which had been established for a permanence 
 in the capital, did little more than just make their appearance on 
 the scene. On the appeal of a young painter, named Geoffrey, 
 whom the council of war had condemned to death, the court of 
 cassation decided in concurrence with the arguments of M. Odilon 
 Barrot, and against those of M. Voisin de Gartempe, jun., solicitor- 
 general, that the council of war of the 1st military division had 
 exceeded its powers ; that the rules defining its legal jurisdiction 
 had been violated, and that by it the charter had been outraged. 
 
 An immense, a universal acclamation of applause hailed this me- 
 morable decision, before the majesty of which the government could 
 not refuse to bow, though in so doing it acknowledged itself guilty 
 of the same offence which Charles X. had expiated in the Revolution 
 of July. 
 
 It was, consequently, before a jury that the prisoners of the 5th 
 and 6th of June appeared. And the occasion brought forward 
 some of those fine spirits, those choice natures, which in periods of 
 tranquillity, in a state of imperfect civilisation, remain for ever buried 
 and unknown among the masses. In one of the trials arising out 
 of the insurrection, the dignified and intrepid bearing, the simple, 
 manly, and impressive eloquence of a tailor, named Prosper, was the 
 theme of universal admiration. 
 
 We have seen in what manner Jeanne made good his retreat from 
 the barricades. From that moment the police had had their eye con- 
 stantly upon him, informed of his every movement by a traitor 
 whose treacherous assistance they had purchased. But as Jeanne
 
 54 TRIAL OF THE INSURGENTS OF THE 5TH AND 6TH OF JUNE. 
 
 was in close connexion with several political societies, he was allowed 
 for a time to remain at liberty, the more effectually to compromise 
 his friends and himself. At length he was arrested and taken before 
 the judges. He was one of those men who are rendered what they 
 are by circumstances. More impassioned in his feelings than scru- 
 pulous in his conduct, too much a slave to his wants to have 
 passed an irreproachable life, Jeanne had within him that rough ma- 
 terial of poetry and sensibility which constitutes the heroes of a day. 
 He had displayed the highest bravery and generous magnanimity in 
 the barricades; and after having amazed his enemies there, he now 
 amazed his judges. The following examination took place: 
 
 " On the 5th of June you were present at the general procession? 
 Yes, sir. At five o'clock were you not on the Carrefour St. Mery? 
 Yes, with the musket I had fetched from home. You helped to 
 raise the barricade ? Yes ; two national guards had been killed close 
 to me on the Boulevard ; we had been fired upon without provoca- 
 tion : I ran to get my musket. Were not you the first to give the 
 word to fire? No; a ball wounded me and I fell; as soon as I rose 
 I fired one shot, and only one, for the party who fired upon us ran. 
 away. Did you not remain all night within the barricade? Yes; 
 and fired. Did you not distribute cartridges? Yes; whenever they 
 were wanted. You kept firing all the next day? All the next day. 
 Were you not one of those who, towards the close of the affair, fired 
 from the windows of No. 30 ? Yes. When they became masters of 
 the barricades we had no more cartridges, or we should have re- 
 mained ; as it was we retired forcing our way with the bayonet 
 through the soldiers of the line." 
 
 Of the twenty-one other prisoners* who appeared before the judges 
 on this occasion, sixteen were found not guilty, and dismissed; one 
 of these was the girl whom we have mentioned. Not hearing, among 
 the names of those who were acquitted with her, that of the pri- 
 soner to whom she was betrothed, and fearing a fatal result for 
 him, she could hardly be prevailed upon to leave the court, and re- 
 tired, pale, trembling, and cursing the indulgence which separated 
 her from her lover. The five other prisoners having been interro- 
 
 fited, the court retired to deliberate. Never had a trial attracted a 
 rger crowd, or excited a more powerful interest. Among other 
 features, every one remarked with admiration and sympathy, the 
 Spartan firmness of Jeanne's mother, who, proud of her son, was 
 
 * The names of the twenty-two prisoners were these: Leclerc, Jules Jouanne, 
 Jeanne, Rossignol, Goujon, Jean Vigouroux, Fradelle, Falcy, Rojon, Fourcade, 
 Metiger, Bouley, Conilleau, Dumineray, Mulette, Mans, Renouf, Coiffn, Grimbert, 
 Gentillon, Fournier, and Louise Antoinette Alexandra 
 
 We have before us a letter, in the handwriting of Jeanne's mother, addressed to 
 her son during the trial; it runs thus: 
 
 " Thy mother will be present to hear thee to-day, and for the remainder of the 
 trial; hitherto, thou hast said nothing which thou hast borrowed from any person, 
 and thou hast done well: he who studies and makes up a speech, cannot feel the 
 emotion which inspires, from the bottom of his heart, the person who speaks from 
 aentiment and conviction. I give the utmost credit to the good intentions of M. P.
 
 REFLECTIONS. 55 
 
 continually animating and encouraging him. At the moment when 
 the judges were about to resume their seats, the sister of M. Ros- 
 signol rushed to the prisoners' bench and fell into her brother's arms, 
 shrieking, " The cowards ! They are taking my brother from me ! 
 To arms ! Give me back my brother !" She was removed in a state 
 of insensibility, and it was amidst the agitation produced by this 
 scene that the judgments were pronounced, which condemned 
 Jeanne to transportation for life; Rossignol to eight years' solitary 
 confinement, Goujon and Vigouroux to six years' of the same punish- 
 ment; Rojon to ten years' of hard labour, without exposure, and 
 Fourcade to five years' imprisonment. 
 
 Such was the denouement of this crisis, the most extraordinary, 
 perhaps, that is mentioned in history. What would have happened 
 if the republic had carried the day? It is to be borne in mind, that 
 Europe, at this epoch, had recovered from the immense stupefaction 
 into which 1830 had plunged her; that she possessed the secret of 
 our inevitable divisions ; that she was well aware how ephemeral are 
 our fits of ardour; and that the empire of the world could not for 
 the future be a mere coup de main for us ! Again, combined with the 
 domination of a class altogether Carthaginian in its feelings and 
 tendencies, a monarchy, itself the offspring of revolt, had in the 
 course of two years brought into active existence many bad inspira- 
 tions and turbulent passions; on the one hand a heartless selfishness, 
 an unscrupulous cupidity, a fanatical, miserable desire to keep things 
 in exactly the direction which suited the men of influence ; on the 
 other hand, by the side of the most laudable aspirations, the most 
 elevated impulses, base envy raised its head, a love of disorder, for 
 its own sake, a hatred of unjust men in power rather than of injus- 
 tice itself; and under the pretence of destroying tyranny, the desire 
 merely to replace it by other tyranny. A republican government, 
 then, would, at one and the same time, have had society to new 
 mould, parties to moderate, the people to satisfy and keep in order, 
 the opulent class to place under subjection, without despoiling it, 
 Europe to conquer, Europe on its guard, vigilant, armed. Now to 
 meet the exigencies of such a situation, what was the strength of the 
 republican party? The party of the decided minority, it was 
 the object of prejudices, most of them unjust, but none the 
 
 and others; the very fear of seeing thee fail makes them doubt thy resources, but I 
 know them thoroughly, or at any rate, I know them well enough to have faitli in thy 
 capability to meet this occasion. An unjust distrust of thyself, in this moment of 
 crisis, would be a blemish on so great a reputation; assert the full right you had to 
 act as you did act; make it to be known, as distinctly as you can, that you were in 
 the position of a person lawfully acting in self-defence; be simple, clear, and gene- 
 rous ; deal with thy enemies as leniently as possible ; in short, make my happiness 
 complete, by enabling me to hear the people say, ' He was as great in defeat as he 
 was brave in fight.' Let thy soul maintain an elevation corresponding with thy 
 deeds. Ah! if thou couldst but thoroughly feel how proud I am to have given thee 
 birth! Fear no weakness on my part; thy greatness of soul has the power of 
 strengthening mine. 
 
 "Adieu! Though I am separated from thee, my heart quits thee not for a mo- 
 ment."
 
 56 DEATH OF THE DUC DE REICHSTADT. 
 
 less inveterate ; it allowed itself to be governed rather by sentiment 
 than by ideas; its nominal chief, M. de Lafayette, needed, and yet 
 dreaded, to be superseded ; and as to its real practical leaders, besides 
 that they would have had to encounter the equally strong current 
 of rivalry from within and hatred from without, they had not as 
 yet studied the social condition of France with sufficient appli- 
 cation to enable them to derive from the regeneration of so- 
 ciety the elements of their permanent influence and principles of 
 government. Thus, in the position to which two years of the new 
 reign had brought things, despotism, according to all appearances, 
 was in 1832, far more probable than liberty; it seemed much easier 
 to start as Napoleon, Emperor, than as Washington, President. 
 But then, has it never happened to revolutions to evolve from their 
 own disturbed bosom, the very means required for their secure estab- 
 lishment? In general, people do not take sufficiently into account 
 the ideas which societies in a state of imperfect organization have ger- 
 minating in their bosom, ready to burst forth; or the great men who 
 remain inactive within them, their greatness alike unknown to them- 
 selves and to society. How many a man, perhaps, has died a peasant 
 or a common soldier, who, if circumstances had brought him for- 
 ward, would have been greater than Cromwell ! At all events, how- 
 ever stormy the condition into which a republic might have brought 
 our country, it would never have reduced it to what we now see, 
 the social, the individual character debased; Frenchmen utterly 
 indifferent under national misfortune and disgrace ; the genius of the 
 country decaying, disappearing; the nation itself dying, exhausted, 
 corrupt, and rotten. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE defeat of the republicans had inflated the hearts of their 
 enemies to an enormous degree. When a party has conquered, it 
 requires unusual magnanimity to refrain from an eager and osten- 
 tatious display of its triumph ! In exact proportion to the agonized 
 terror which the court had experienced, was its joy insulting and 
 overbearing now. Under a show of fanatic loyalty and devotion, 
 the men who had basely fled from threatened monarchy, now prostrate 
 before its renewed life, loudly proclaimed it imperishable. At this 
 very juncture the Duke de Reichstadt died. 
 
 In a calm lovely day, there was seen advancing, through a per- 
 fectly silent crowd, along the streets of that capital of Austria, which 
 once looked down abashed and terror struck beneath the proud 
 eagles of Napoleon, a hearse, preceded by a coach and a few horse-
 
 THE ST. SIMONIANS. 57 
 
 men. Some attendants walked on either side, bearing torches. When 
 they arrived at the church, the court commissioner, in pursuance of 
 a remarkable custom of the country, proceeded to enumerate the 
 names and titles of the deceased; then knocking at the door, he soli- 
 cited for the corpse admission to the temple. The princes and 
 princesses of the house of Austria were there awaiting the body, 
 and attended it to the vault, into which the fortune of the empire 
 then descended for ever. 
 
 The death of the son of Napoleon occasioned no surprise among 
 the nations. It was known that he was of a very sickly constitution ; 
 and besides, poison had been spoken of; those who think every 
 thing possible to the fear or ambition of princes, had said: he bears 
 too great a name to live ! 
 
 But whatever may have been the case as to these rumours, the 
 inexhaustible aliment of popular credulity, the devoted partisans of 
 the house of Orleans deceived themselves, if they saw in the death 
 of the Duke de Reichstadt only the removal of a pretender to 
 the crown. That death was but another step in the inexorable deve- 
 lopment of a fatal law, in course of execution in this country. To 
 find a successor to Louis XIV. it was necessary to descend so far 
 down as his great grandson. There was the death of an heir pre- 
 sumptive, between Louis XV. and Louis XVI. Another heir pre- 
 sumptive, Louis XVII., ceased to exist, almost without its being 
 known that he had existed. The Duke de Berri fell mortally wounded 
 at the door of a theatre. The Duke de Bordeaux had just made 
 the journey to Cherbourg; and now it was upon the heir-presumptive 
 of Napoleon himself that fell the inexorable decree which God had, 
 for half a century, been carrying into execution in this country, 
 to punish the arrogance of dynasties, which successively pronounced 
 themselves immortal. I do not add to this list, out of respect to a 
 grief still fresh in the public mind ; it has been seen that the death 
 of the Duke de Reichstadt was not to close the series 
 
 One of the first acts which manifested the eager determination of 
 power to make the most of its victory, was the violent suppression of 
 the St. Simonian religion. 
 
 Since the separation of Bazard and Enfantin, a new schism had 
 afflicted the St. Simonian family. We have explained the ideas of 
 Enfantin as to the mission of the pair-priest, in reference to mar- 
 riage. These ideas were not shared by M. Olinde Rodriguez. He 
 was quite ready to admit of divorce in certain cases, and after cer- 
 tain trials; but, while the union subsisted, he insisted upon its 
 being held sacred, inviolable, and quite independent of the authority 
 of the priest, in all that concerns the heart or the senses. Again, 
 M. Olinde Rodriguez was by no means inclined to submit every 
 thing, in an absolute manner, to the decision of the woman who 
 should first take her seat on the pontifical throne. He admitted that 
 to the priestess might fitly belong the enunciation of the code of 
 chastity, the law of the proprieties; but this code, this law, in his
 
 58 THE ST. SIMONIANS. 
 
 view, should at the same time, not contravene certain rigorous con- 
 ditions; he required, for instance, that the child should always be 
 in a position to name its father, and he rejected, beforehand, as alto- 
 gether irreconcileable with the very essence of marriage, any prin- 
 ciple involving the slightest profanation of the intimacy of husband 
 and wife. 
 
 Such differences as these had a clear tendency to bring about 
 a rupture ; and the rupture very speedily took place, amid much 
 disturbance and confusion. Olinde Rodriguez summoned the St. 
 Simonians around him, in his character of direct inheritor of their 
 master's doctrine, but in vain. Hereupon, the loan he had issued 
 fell naturally into discredit, and the financial embarrassments accu- 
 mulating, the family in the Rue Monsigny had to break up. 
 
 In this crisis Enfantin's imperturbable presence of mind did not 
 forsake him. He possessed, at Menilmontant, at the top of the 
 hill, a house with a garden ; he resolved to constitute this a place 
 of retirement, study, and labour for himself and his chosen dis- 
 ciples. On the 20th of April, 1832, he announced in the follow- 
 ing terms his new determination, and the discontinuance of the 
 Globe : " Dear children, the day on which I address you has been 
 a great day for the last eighteen centuries. On this day died the 
 divine liberator of slaves. To consecrate its anniversary, let us enter 
 upon our sacred retirement ; and let the last trace of slavery, domes- 
 ticity, disappear from amongst us." 
 
 Forty disciples followed Enfantin to Menilmontant, and com- 
 menced, though in combination with a profound sentiment of hier- 
 archical supremacy on the part of Le Pere, the practice of a life in 
 common. Poets, musicians, artists, engineers, civil and military, 
 all gaily applied themselves, by turns, to the hardest and rudest 
 labours. They repaired the house, regularly swept and kept in 
 order the rooms, offices, and court-yard ; cultivated the grounds ; 
 covered the walks with gravel, which they procured from a pit 
 they had themselves with much toil opened ; and so on. To 
 prove that their ideas upon the nature of marriage and the emanci- 
 pation of women were not founded upon the calculations of a volup- 
 tuous selfishness, they imposed upon themselves the law of strict 
 celibacy. Every morning and evening they refreshed their minds 
 with the discourses of Le Pere, or sought in the life of one of the 
 Christian saints, read aloud by one of them to the rest, examples, 
 precepts, encouragement. Hymns, the music to which had been 
 composed by one of their number, M. Felicien David, served to 
 exalt their souls while they soothed their labour. At five o'clock 
 the horn announced dinner. The workmen then piled their tools, 
 ranged the wheelbarrows round the garden, and took their places,after 
 having chanted in chorus the prayer before meat. All this the public 
 were admitted to see : a spectacle in which a sneering, jesting nation 
 only marked the singular features, by turns simple and sublime, 
 but which was assuredly deficient in neither broad aim nor in ab-
 
 SECOND PHASIS OF THE SOCIETY. 59 
 
 stract grandeur. For, in this practice of theirs, the apostles of 
 Menilmontant went far beyond their own theories, and were sow- 
 ing around them, unconsciously, the seeds of doctrines which were 
 destined one day to throw their own into oblivion. 
 
 It was on the 6th of June, amidst the roar of the cannon, in 
 the Rue St. Mery, and not far from the bloody theatre whence arose 
 the cries of the combatants it was on this very 6th of June that, 
 for the first time since they had entered it, the St. Simonian family 
 threw open the doors of their retreat. At half-past one they were 
 assembled, standing in a circle, in front of the house, while, outside 
 a second circle formed of those whom the inmates of Menilmontant 
 termed the exterior family, was a small group of spectators, attractc 
 by the curiosity of the thing. A curious ceremony, in fact, was to 
 take place that day : the assumption of the famiJKr habit. 
 
 In adopting a distinctive costume, the St. .Simoniang. had the 
 double object in view, of at once making clear i|\eir originality a's a 
 sect, and, still more, of establishing some influence over a, society 
 which they were no longer in a position to operate upon by daily 
 publications, or by indefatigable preaching. It was, besides, an 
 effectual test by which to prove the depth of conviction of their ex- 
 isting members ; for it required a firm and manly courage, a belief 
 singularly bold and determined, to appear abroad in the ensigns of 
 an apostleship which would, doubtless, meet on its way, in every 
 direction, with incredulity, mockery, and insult. 
 
 It having been decided, then, that the sect should wear a par- 
 ticular costume, M. Edmond Talabot had designed it, and superin- 
 tended its preparation. Nothing could be more simple, more con- 
 venient, more elegant than this uniform : a blue close coat, opening 
 in part, and showing a waistcoat, the opening of which was not 
 seen ; a leathern girdle, white trousers, and a red cap ; these con- 
 stituted the dress ; the neck was bare, and they were to wear their 
 beards long, after the fashion of the Orientals. 
 
 The ceremony of assuming this new costume was accompanied by 
 some strange scenes, which gave a tolerably clear idea of the second 
 phasis of St. Simonism. The Pere Enfantin, who, for three days, 
 had absented himself, appeared at two o'clock on the 6th of June 
 before the family, who received him with joyful emotion, with 
 tender veneration. At sight of him the faithful, as it were, with a 
 sudden impulse of admiration and love, began chanting in chorus, 
 
 "Hail, Father, hail! 
 Salutation and glory to God!" 
 
 He, meantime, came forward with a slow and majestic step, his head 
 bare, his countenance radiant. He had confided the direction 
 of the community, during his absence, to MM. Michel Chevalier, 
 Fournel, and Barrault. The latter having given an account to Le 
 Pere of their stewardship, Enfantin addressed the assembly in these 
 words: " During my absence, I have been engaged, arranging with 
 Bouffard and Hoart, the division of our apostleship into two branches,
 
 60 THE ST. SIMONIANS. 
 
 the regular and the secular, in the same way that the Christian 
 church distinguishes its clergy. I have charged BoufFard and Hoart 
 to arrange our past interests in the world which we have now quitted. 
 This very day, I have given Bouffard full power to dispose of all 
 that which, according to the law of the world, I possess; I will not, 
 and may not, again sign any deed or act whatever in this world, 
 and those who abide with me, who wear the same habit that I wear, 
 in like manner thereby resign the power and abjure the will to sign 
 any deed or act for the future : we will, all of us, be free as air from 
 the shackles of the world; we will, all of us, renounce what the 
 Christians term the devil and all his works, his pomps, and his va- 
 nities, that we may be the better prepared each day to gain our daily 
 bread, and to render ourselves worthy of receiving, like the man of 
 labour, WAGES." 
 
 These words clearly convey what was, at that moment, the lead- 
 ing idea of the inmates of Menilmontant. They who had de- 
 voted themselves to the noblest exercises of the intellect, sought to re- 
 habilitate physical labour ; to carry into practice that which they had 
 recognised in theory the equality of mind and body, brought to- 
 gether and reunited by sentiment or religion. 
 
 On the conclusion of his address, the Pere Enfantin, assisted by 
 one of his disciples, put on the apostolical habit. Then, aiding in 
 return the disciple who had assisted him, he observed, " This waist- 
 coat is the symbol of fraternity; we cannot put it on us without the 
 help of one of our brethren. If it is, on the one hand, attended by 
 the inconvenience of making assistance indispensable, on the other, 
 it has the great advantage of bringing forcibly before our minds, on 
 each occasion, the sentiment of association." Following the exam- 
 ple of Le Pere, the apostles of Menilmontant then hastened to as- 
 sume the new costume. Some few, indeed, declared that they did 
 not as yet feel within themselves the necessary strength of mind, 
 but they were the exceptions. At the moment of accomplishing 
 this act of renunciation of the world, of his old ideas and amuse- 
 ments, M. Mo'ise Retournet thus expressed himself to the Pere En- 
 fantin: U I told you, one day, that I saw in you the majesty of an 
 emperor, but not, sufficiently for my weakness, the goodness of a 
 Messiah. You then appeared to me an object of awe, of fear. This 
 day, I deeply appreciate what gentleness, what tenderness, fills your 
 soul: father, I am ready." 
 
 That all this should have taken place in the nineteenth century, 
 in France, in Paris, in that city, through every corner of which the 
 breath of Voltaire had passed, where every circumstance recalled to 
 you the reign of sarcasm triumphant, of liberalism long dominant, 
 may appear, to superficial thinkers, mere matter of striking and 
 amusing contrast, but the philosopher will see in it much more than 
 this. So long curbed and kept under to an excessive degree, the 
 religious and democratic sentiment had reacted; and the reaction 
 was not of a nature to be sterile of effects, though it announced it-
 
 JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS AGAINST THEM. 61 
 
 self amidst fantastical circumstances, under the form of a mysticism 
 somewhat too unsophisticated, and with a solemnity so exaggerated 
 as to verge on the puerile. And what renders the matter the more 
 extraordinary, the more deserving of permanent record and re- 
 membrance, is the fact, that the disciples were nearly all of them 
 well instructed, studious, talented, eloquent men, and peculiarly 
 apt in detecting the ridiculous points about the society, whose 
 more serious injustice they denounced with such force, such bold- 
 ness, and often with such good sense and judgment. 
 
 At all events, the government deemed the St. Simonians too dan- 
 gerous a body to enjoy its tolerance any longer. For some months 
 past, indeed, they had been taking steps against them. And now, 
 after having kept, for a long time, a scandalous prosecution hanging 
 over them; after having, more than once, caused the bayonets of 
 the military to glitter amidst their peaceful ceremonies ; the govern- 
 ment decided upon bringing them before the Tribunal of Justice. 
 On the 27th of August, the Pere Enfantin, and MM. Michel Che- 
 vali^r, Barrault, Duveyrier, and Olinde Rodriguez, were summoned 
 to appear before the Cour d'Assises. They were charged 1, with 
 the offence provided against by article 291 of the Penal Code, which 
 prohibits meetings consisting of more than twenty persons; 2, of 
 the offence of outraging public morality and virtue. Wishing to 
 give this trial the utmost possible eclat, Enfantin had summoned aa 
 witnesses, not only all the members of the family of Menilmontant, 
 but also some of those who, without the limits of that select com- 
 munity, professed the St. Simonian doctrines. On the appointed 
 day, the disciples of St. Simon ranged themselves in symmetrical 
 order; M. Michel Chevalier ordered the signal of departure to be 
 sounded on the horn, and the little colony proceeded on their 
 march. 
 
 The high nature of the questions about to be discussed, and the 
 talent of the accused persons, gave to this judicial contest far more 
 importance than the majority of diplomatic or parliamentary strug- 
 gles present. But it was not on this account that the public curi- 
 osity was so vividly excited; what the Parisians sought, in the spec- 
 tacle they had so impatiently looked forward to since its announce- 
 ment, was less its true signification than the singularity of its ob- 
 vious features; they looked upon it as a comedy of a novel and very 
 diverting sort. Accordingly, there was a great crowd to look at the 
 St. Simonians. 
 
 When they entered the court, all eyes were fixed upon Enfantin. 
 He wore a dress like that of the rest of the family, only of a brighter 
 hue, and the words, LE PERE, were worked in large letters upon 
 the breast. Two women, Mesdames Agla St. Hilaire, and Cecile 
 Fournel, were immediately behind him. Standing in a firm and 
 graceful attitude, at the end of the prisoner's bench, he gazed de- 
 liberately upon the audience, who, on their part, beheld with amaze- 
 ment the profound veneration manifested towards Le Pere, by his
 
 62 TRIAL OF THE ST. SB1ONIANS. 
 
 children all pressing devotedly around him. The first remarkable 
 fact which the judicial interrogatories elicited for the spectators, was 
 the youth of the accused. M. Barrault was 33 ; M. Duveyrier, 
 29; M. Michel Chevalier, 26; and Le Pere himself was but 36. Yet 
 when the president, M. Naudin, asked him, " Do you not entitle 
 yourself Father of Humanity? Do you not profess that you are 
 the living law?" he replied, with the utmost coolness and self-posses- 
 sion, "Yes, sir." There then occurred a scene altogether novel in 
 the annals of judicial proceedings. The first witness called, M. 
 Moise Retournet, being required to take the oath, turned round to 
 Enfantin, and said, " Father, can I take the oath?" Enfantin re- 
 plied in the negative, and the president ordered the witness to retire. 
 All the other witnesses belonging to the family were successively 
 called up, and successively, when they were required to take the 
 oath, declared they could not do so, without the authority of the 
 Pere Supreme. 
 
 The leading counsel for the prosecution, M. Delapalme, then 
 proceeded with his address. After a rapid sketch of the origin and 
 progress of St. Simonism, he endeavoured to brand the St. Simo- 
 nian rites as a sort of fetichism, made up of mischievous falsehoods 
 and absurdities. He described Le Pere Enfantin as a man in whom 
 the passion for notoriety had become sheer extravagance. He re- 
 proached the St. Simonian association severely for the appeal which 
 it had made to the capitalists, and for its ostentatious mendicity. He 
 affirmed that such an association had nothing in common with a re- 
 ligious society ; for that it had neither dogma, nor worship, nor cere- 
 monies; and confined its operation to the material world, altogether 
 in contradiction to the distinctive characteristic of all religions. As 
 a matter of consequence, the St. Simonians being in no degree en- 
 titled to invoke, in their favour, the principle of religious liberty, 
 had, by collecting in assemblies of more than twenty persons, 
 been guilty of a flagrant violation of article 291 of the Penal 
 Code. Proceeding to the allegation of their having outraged public 
 morality, M. Delapalme asked whether there was nothing con- 
 trary to morals, in a doctrine which glorified inconstancy ; which 
 tended, by the rehabilitation of the flesh, as they phrased it, to raise 
 upon the ruins of chastity the empire of sensual pleasure; which 
 subjected marriage to the exercise of a right, bringing directly to 
 mind the old droit de Seigneur;* which gave to the Pretre the charge 
 of regulating and developing, as well the carnal as the intellectual 
 appetites. " But, gentlemen," continued the speaker, " these per- 
 nicious doctrines did not pass without opposition. When Le Pere 
 Enfantin first promulgated them, a woman was present, who felt 
 her pure soul revolt against such hideous conceptions ; and she, a 
 weak, timid woman, at once rose and protested energetically against 
 them." 
 
 * An old feudal privilege, which entitled the seigneur to sleep with the bride of 
 his vassal on the first night of the marriage.
 
 TRIAL OF THE ST. SIMONIANS. 63 
 
 M. Delapalme had scarcely concluded these words, when Madame 
 Cecile Foumel (it was she whom the public officer had just re- 
 ferred to, unconscious of her presence), started up, and protested 
 energetically against what he had said: " I am here," she exclaimed, 
 ** to abjure the part which " "Hold your tongue!" cried the 
 president. Madame Fournel, heedless of the injunction, was pro- 
 ceeding: " My understanding has since become more enlightened; 
 I now recognise the morality of the doctrine, and ," when the 
 president furiously called to her: " If you utter another word, I 
 will have you turned out !" Such a menace, publicly directed by a 
 magistrate to a woman, created, in the minds of the audience, a feel- 
 ing of painful amazement; an impression which gave still greater 
 interest to the defence, which they now awaited on the part of the 
 accused. 
 
 M. Olinde Rodriguez, we have seen, had seceded to a certain ex- 
 tent ; he had not followed Enfantin to Menilmontant, and had not 
 assumed the apostolic habit. His position, therefore, in the affair 
 was not the same with that of the other defendants. He accordingly 
 confined himself to the task of vindicating the memory of St. Si- 
 mon, his master, from some attacks upon it which M. Delapalme 
 had unadvisedly ventured to make, and this he did in clear, precise, 
 telling language. MM. Michel Chevalier, Duveyrier, Barrault,and 
 their counsel, MM. Simon, Lambert, and d'Eichthal, then succes- 
 sively addressed the court to this effect: 
 
 The government advocate disallowed to the St. Simonian society 
 the religious character : he reproached them with having substituted 
 for the worship due to the divinity, superstitious homage rendered 
 to a man. There was in this accusation either very great ignorance 
 or reckless injustice, for what had the Pere Enfantin distinctly de- 
 clared ? He had distinctly and emphatically declared this: " GOD IS 
 ALL THAT IS ! " consequently, no more war between the two princi- 
 ples, the mind and the body, the spirit and the flesh: "No ONE 
 
 OF US IS SEPARATE FROM GOD, YET NO ONE OF US IS GOD;" 
 
 consequently, no more slaves, no more outcasts, no more servile 
 adoration of one man by another, no more despotic masterdom; 
 EVERY ONE OF us LIVES IN THE LIFE OF GOD; WE, ALL OF 
 US, HAVE COMMUNION IN HIM ; consequently, no more antago- 
 nism between individuals and society, between interest and duty. 
 Harmony, equality, fraternity, these were the three vast ideas 
 comprehended in the definition given by Enfantin of the Deity; 
 and yet the St. Simonians were charged with not being a reli- 
 gious society ; with having about God no other notion than that 
 of a vague confused pantheism ! As to their ceremonies, the govern- 
 ment was surely inexcusable in being ignorant of them, seeing that 
 it had sent to Menilmontant, to make themselves thoroughly 
 acquainted with those ceremonies, its commissaries of police, its 
 gendarmes, its soldiers. True, the St. Simonians occupied them- 
 selves as well with temporal as with spiritual order ; but tnen, where 
 had M. Delapalme found authority for his assertion, that it was the
 
 64 TRIAL OF THE ST. SIMONIANS. 
 
 property of all religions to keep apart from their influence the social 
 and political interests of humanity ? Did he mean really to affirm 
 that the religion of the Hindoos, that of the Egyptians, that of 
 the Guebres, that of the Hebrews, that of the Druids, that of the 
 adorers of Odin, that of African fetichism, that of Islamism; that 
 all these had not also comprehended morals and politics ; had not 
 regulated the relation between people and people, caste and caste, 
 individual and individual ? Catholicism itself, had it not been politi- 
 cal when it changed the condition of women, and occupied itself 
 in inducing societies to put an end to slavery ? Christianity, in its 
 purer and nobler days, had it not presented as its most obvious fea- 
 ture a series of attempts to influence the temporal world ; to trench 
 upon Caesar ? Was the learned counsel possibly ignorant of the 
 saying of a celebrated historian: "The kingdom of France is a 
 kingdom created by bishops." Again, what did they mean by re- 
 proaching the St. Simonians with asking for money? Money ; 
 why, the first Christians wanted money ; they who, according to 
 the Acts of the Apostles, " put in common all they possessed ; sell- 
 ing their lands and their goods, so that they might distribute the 
 produce among all their number, according to the wants of each." 
 Money ! It was necessary to the deacons of the primitive church, 
 whose special charge it was to collect the gifts of the faithful ; it 
 was necessary to the Christian religion up from Paul, up from 
 Jesus ; it was necessary to it even to the present day, witness the 
 budget, where it figured every year. The St. Simonians, then, 
 were religious men ; they had proved this beyond a reasonable 
 doubt, when, in the face of a society, selfish, sceptical, sneering, 
 altogether devoted to its material interests, they had, in obedience 
 to the dictates of their faith, abandoned family, professions, long 
 established habits, worldly prospects, cherished objects of ambition ; 
 when, in the face of a society which looks down upon the working 
 classes with disdain and contempt, they had voluntarily subjected 
 themselves to labour of the hardest and least attractive description; 
 when, finally, in assertion of what they deemed right, they had 
 braved the ridicule of the multitude by clothing themselves in a 
 distinctive costume, exposing their very names to insult by having 
 them embroidered on their breasts. And then let the question be 
 asked: who were they that thus ventured to deny to the St. Simo- 
 nian family a religious character? Why, the men who, openly pro- 
 fessing their utter indifference on the subject of religion, had placed 
 atheism within the law ; the men who had removed from sight, in 
 the hall in which they were now assembled, the majesty of Christ 
 crucified ; who covered with a green curtain the image of their God, 
 as though it were something not right to be seen. But, supposing 
 the St. Simonians not to be a religious society, what disorders could 
 justly be alleged against it, which rendered it liable to the severity 
 of article 291? The St. Simonians had, from the very outset, con- 
 stantly denounced war as impious, and protested against the spirit
 
 THEIR DEFENCE. 65 
 
 of revolt. If they had described the evils under which the people 
 suffered, it was only for the purpose of pointing out the remedy; 
 at the very time when the government had no other resource against 
 the Lyons insurrection but cannon and soldiers, the St. Simonians 
 had pointed to study and science as affording the means of curing 
 the social evils revealed by these fatal disturbances. As to the charge 
 of immorality, what was there immoral in requiring that the rela- 
 tions between husband and wife should be subjected to a new regu- 
 lation, which freed them from that character of exclusion, and con- 
 sequently of violence or fraud which the kw of Christianity imposed 
 upon them? Was it abolishing marriage to institute that the man 
 
 pleasures and pains of Hymen 1 
 that in a priesthood, voluntarily obeyed, the empire of beauty should 
 be associated with the power of intellect? lhat same empire of 
 beauty even now was absolute, irresistible; those obeying it im- 
 plicity in secret, who affected in public to repudiate it. Even under 
 the influence of the Christian law, society had taken good care not 
 to proscribe the pleasures of the flesh ; people, it was perfectly well 
 known, went much more readily to a ball than to a sermon ; and 
 the deputies themselves, that grave assembly, had just voted less 
 than a hundred francs to the bishops, while they voted nearly a million 
 to the opera, to the opera, to that temple, raised to the worship of 
 beauty ! Amidst the rich perfumes which there exhale from the flowing 
 hair of lovely dancing girls, beneath the silver shower of light which 
 falls glittering from its gorgeous chandelier, the eye gazing with rap- 
 ture on those groups of lovely women, so liberal of their charms, while 
 the ear drinks in delicious music, were the senses here sternly debarr- 
 ed from strong excitement? Did the flesh here fail of worshippers? 
 The Christian law, then, had not been observed ! And how could 
 it have been? In proclaiming anathema against the flesh, Chris- 
 tianity had driven it to a revolt; to a revolt teeming with frightful 
 disorders. What a spectacle was presented to the moralist by that 
 very society in whose name the St. Simonians were accused of 
 immorality! Of 29,000 children born in Paris, nearly 10,000 had 
 been conceived in illicit embraces; the schools and colleges were 
 deeply infected with vices, from whose defects the wretched children 
 became old men ere they had attained adolescence ; the loves of 
 that society were polluted with a terrible poison which envenomed 
 even the nurse's bosom ; you could not move a yard in the streets 
 without being shocked at the presence of patented libertinism ; and, 
 but the other day, in the Palais Royal, in that palace which con- 
 tained the queen and her youthful family, prostitution had its impure 
 sanctuary. The imputation upon the St. Simonians proceeded, fitly 
 indeed, from a society wherein adultery was inculcated at all the 
 theatres, sung by all the poets, embellished by all the artists, set 
 forth with every charm of the imagination, and dignified by the 
 VOL. II. F
 
 66 TRIAL OF THE ST. SIMONIANS. 
 
 sacred name of love by all the novelists. The prosecuting counsel, 
 by way of heaping disgrace upon St. Simonism, had used, in refer- 
 ence to it, the term, le droit de Seigneur; now in what society 
 had the droit de Seigneur prevailed? In the very society whicn 
 the St. Simonians sought to regenerate ; that privilege had been 
 the privilege of the rich man, and, in one way or another, the 
 rich still contrived to retain a large portion of it. For, in existing 
 society, how amply were the pleasures and advantages of the better 
 classes provided for! They made, of the sons of the people, an army 
 to put forward to save their own lives and properties from foreign 
 aggression, food for powder; while they used, as food wherewith to 
 satiate their sensual appetites, the daughters of the people ; unfor- 
 tunates whom poverty condemned to pleasures as to a corvee, more 
 galling and infamous than any forced task-work of old. Vice was 
 everywhere screening itself behind hypocrisy; vice, daringly in- 
 decent because of its hunger; corruption poetised, corruption pa- 
 tented ; adultery above, prostitution below. 
 
 Such was the general outline and character of the defence made 
 by the accused, in the hearing of the 27th of August. They raised 
 therein questions of an incalculable scope. But the society which 
 they assailed chose to be obeyed, and not argued with. As they 
 were speaking, the judges more than once gave open and unequi- 
 vocal signs of impatience; while a contemptuous smile constantly 
 played over the lips of the government advocate, too happy to take 
 refuge in the affectation of disdain, from the exceeding embarrass- 
 ment in which his utter inability to compete in discussion with the 
 defendants would otherwise have involved him. 
 
 The next day, the 28th, Enfantin himself addressed the court. 
 He expressed himself with grave deliberation, and every now and 
 then paused and fixed his eyes, sometimes on the president and the 
 two assistant judges, sometimes on the crown advocate, sometimes 
 on the spectators. The court soon got angry at this proceeding, 
 and the president asked Enfantin, sharply, whether he wanted time 
 to retire and collect his thoughts? " I want," he calmly replied, 
 "to see those about me, and to be seen. I am aware of the 
 advantage of having time to collect one's thoughts apart, but I also 
 know that this is not the only way in which to acquire inspiration ; 
 and, besides, I wish to teach M. Delapalme the influence of the 
 flesh, the form, the senses, and for this purpose to make him feel 
 that of the look." Then, without stopping to watch the effect pro- 
 duced by these words, wherein a thought of deep meaning was 
 mixed up with a sort of buffoonery, altogether unexpected, Enfantin 
 continued: "You regard as pernicious, immoral, silly, the idea I 
 have put forth, namely, that the priest should be handsome; but 
 such is our faith. The priest should be handsome, wise, and good ; 
 goodness, wisdom, and beauty, these shortly sum up our dogma. 
 Well; the Christian church itself, which reproved and checked the 
 flesh, which regarded beauty as a- special privileged weapon of
 
 ENFANTIN'S DEFENCE. 67 
 
 Satan, would never have ordained as priest a deformed or mutilated 
 man. In our own times, when in the army it is desired to form a 
 corps, which shall worthily, nobly, represent the nation, which, by 
 its very aspect shall inspire admiration, respect, fear; assuredly, in- 
 different as your society pretends to be with reference to beauty, 
 you are far from neglecting it in that case. Is it not said, that to 
 get into the carabineers, one must be a fine man? Why, then, may 
 not the same be said as to priests, without wounding the ears of the 
 attorney -general? True, the mission of the soldier is not the same 
 with that of our priesthood: the one gives death, the other life. 
 But I do not see that this is any argument against my proposition." 
 The comparison was not deficient in aptitude or subtilty ; but the de- 
 fendant on concluding it, endeavouring anew to disconcert the tri- 
 bunal by the fixedness of his gaze, the president abruptly declared 
 the sitting suspended, saying to Enfantin, " We are not here to 
 await the result of your contemplations." Turning round to his 
 disciples, with unmoved composure, Le Pere observed: "You see 
 here another proof, another admission of their incompetence. They 
 deny the moral power of the senses; and all the while are not able 
 to understand that by my look alone I have caused them to lose the 
 calmness which befits their position." On the resumption of the 
 sitting, Enfantin announced, that since it was a speech they ex- 
 pected from him, he would deliver one; and he proceeded to draw a 
 striking picture of all the disorders which the anathema, launched 
 by Christianity against the flesh, had engendered: "You, who accuse 
 us," he went on, " to entitle yourselves to pass judgment upon us, 
 should offer a remedy better than ours. Now I can see none you 
 have, except, on the one hand, the Madelonnettes, the Filles Re- 
 pentantesy the Salpetriere ; on the other, the Force and St. Pelagic. 
 As to us, our remedies are these ; the sanctification of beauty, the 
 rehabilitation of the flesh ; the direction and regulation of the phy- 
 sical appetites ; the reorganization of property ; for the misery of the 
 working classes, and the wealth of the idle man, are the main causes 
 of adultery and prostitution. But see, when we say that hereditary 
 misery and hereditary idleness, the results of the existing constitu- 
 tion of property, which is founded on the right of birth, ought to 
 cease, our opponents charge us with an intention of overturning the 
 state. It is of no use for us to urge that this transformation of pro- 
 perty can only be effected progressively, pacifically, voluntarily ; 
 that it can be effected much better than was operated the destruc- 
 tion of feudal rights, with every imaginable system of indemnity, and 
 with even greater deliberation than you apply to the expropriations 
 which you now effect for purposes of public utility; we are not 
 listened to, we are condemned, off hand, as reckless disturbers or 
 order. Unweariedly, we seek to show you, that this transformation 
 is called for by all the present and future wants of society; that it3 
 actual progress is marked out, in the most palpable manner, by the 
 creation of the code of commerce, by all the habits of industry which 
 
 F2
 
 68 SENTENCE ON THE ST. SIMONIANS. 
 
 have sprung up on every side, encouraging the mobilisation of pro- 
 perty, its transference from the idle and incapable to the laborious 
 and capable hand; we show you all this, but still you cry out, 
 shutting your eyes : ' Your association is dangerous !' Yet sooner 
 or later, the bad order of things must be replaced by a good ; for the 
 object and tendency of all society is not merely to maintain, but to 
 improve, to progress. This is what we wish also to effect in morals. 
 It is truly remarkable, that the very men who exercise the most ab- 
 solute despotism with reference to beauty and to woman, are pre- 
 cisely those who the most violently accuse us of a desire to establish 
 in the world a brutifying tyranny. They say that our priesthood 
 will abuse its power. This objection may be raised against all au- 
 thority whatever. The chief of a society, by the mere fact of his 
 chieftainship, is invested with power; that is a principle which may 
 be demonstrated. Now what is the guarantee men can have against 
 this abuse of power? We know but one, namely, that power should 
 be the acquisition of capacity, not the privilege of birth. So long as 
 the principle of the transmission of political power and of wealth 
 shall continue to be that of mere birth, so long shall we be 
 entitled to say that all your systems of guarantees engender and 
 maintain the most brutifying despotism, since they confer power 
 fortuitously." These views, Enfantin explained by a variety of 
 illustrations, some fantastical in the highest degree, fantastical from, 
 simplicity or design, others full of sound sense, sagacity, and acute- 
 ness. They had refused him the right of choosing two women as 
 counsel; he complained of this, and expressed great surprise; for, 
 said he, " who among you will dare to suggest that he is more fitted 
 to speak and judge of morality than his sister or his mother?" 
 
 Next came an animated discussion between the attorney-general 
 on the one side, and on the other MM. Duveyrier, Barrault, and 
 Michel Chevalier. The latter produced a great sensation upon the 
 assembly, when, after quoting the declaration of Robespierre : " The 
 Convention will not permit the peaceful ministers of the various 
 religions to be molested," he exclaimed: " Judges, gentlemen, whe- 
 ther or not we are peaceful men, all we ask from you is the tolerance 
 of Robespierre !" But from the first the cause of the accused was a 
 lost one. Enfantin, Duveyrier, Michel Chevalier, were condemned 
 to one year's imprisonment, and a fine of a hundred francs each; 
 Rodriguez and Barrault were merely fined fifty francs each. The 
 family having listened to the sentence with the utmost calmness, re- 
 sumed the way to Menilmontant, through the midst of an immense 
 crowd, which extended from the Palais de Justice to the Hotel de 
 Ville. The majority gazed on the passing St. Simonians with mute 
 amazement; some repeated in under tones the name of Le Pere; 
 others directed against them abusive language. 
 
 The defendants appealed to the Court of Cassation, but their appeal 
 was rejected, and this, with the imprisonment of Enfantin, speedily 
 gave the signal for the dispersion of the family. It was not, how-
 
 RESULTS OF ST. SIMONISM. 69 
 
 ever, dissolved. It had availed itself of the interval between the 
 judgment and the rejection of the appeal to send into different parts 
 of France missionaries clothed in the apostolic garb ; and the trial 
 which it had just been subjected to, seemed only to have augmented 
 its ardour. Dispersed, and at a later period re-absorbed by that 
 society which it had so boldly combated, it still continued,, in some 
 sort, its collective existence, through the mysterious bond of sen- 
 timent and ideas. This indestructible link of connexion was the 
 result of the assembling of the St. Simonians at Menilmontant. Up 
 to that time, although they had given their association the name of 
 Family, they had constituted but a school; it was in Enfantin's 
 house that the family began. In the Rue Monsigny, that noisy 
 laboratory of their doctrines, they had neither had time nor repose 
 sufficient to study each other as individuals: this they were ably 
 thoroughly to do at Menilmontant, amidst silence and solitude. 
 After their separation some remained in France, where they entered 
 upon various careers ; the others departed for the East, which at that 
 time agitated to its centre by daring essays at reform, seemed to 
 invite intellect, to come and achieve high destinies. ^ 
 
 Every one who honestly sets to work to examine what has been 
 the action of St. Simonism upon French society, will find that this 
 action has been far from sterile. The bourgeoisie, indeed, was too 
 solidly fixed when the St. Simonians made their appearance, to 
 permit of any encroachment being made upon those principles, in 
 virtue of which its domination had been established; it accepted, 
 therefore, and retained, of the influence of the St. Simonians, only 
 what suited its instincts and interests, namely, a more decided ten- 
 dency for the study of economies, a clearer understanding on the 
 subject of public works, a more enlarged view of the importance of 
 industry. As to the ideas of the St. Simonians with respect to the 
 rehabilitation of the principle of authority the credit of the state, the 
 abolition of all privileges of birth, the destruction of pauperism; and 
 in the second phasis of St. Simonism, with respect to the religious 
 mission of power combined with the emancipation of women, the 
 bourgeoisie could not admit these principles without pronouncing its 
 own sentence. They accordingly repelled them with genuine vehe- 
 mence, and feigned contempt; but they did not entirely perish for 
 all that, but remained, as it were, in depot, in certain choice minds, 
 where they germinated and underwent fruitful modifications. 
 
 The session was now approaching. The ministry, composed of 
 men of no authority, of mediocre abilities, could it command the 
 chamber, could it stand before the chamber? This was an interest- 
 ing question. . . 
 
 The victory of June had, as we have seen, elevated the ministers 
 to an extraordinary point of exaltation. They took it for granted 
 that their power, which had successfully withstood so rude a shock, 
 was confirmed for a very long time to come. The king, on his part, 
 was eagerly desirous of retaining in his council men whose incapacity
 
 70 FORMATION OF THE DE BROGLIE ADMINISTRATION, 
 
 and mean order of devotion rendered them the passive instruments 
 of his will. But the language of the deputies, who were now be- 
 ginning to collect in the capital, dissipated the hopes of the court; 
 and it soon became manifest that a cabinet acting in implicit sub- 
 servience to the king, would meet in the chamber a resistance not to 
 be overcome. The vices of the combinations upon which the con- 
 stitutional regime is founded, were now made clearly manifest, and 
 the destinies of the nation were about to be set floating between two 
 powers, both aspiring to the sovereignty, and rendered beforehand 
 bitterly hostile to each other by this rivalry. 
 
 The three men called by their superior talents to hold, one or other 
 of them, the sceptre of the parliamentary majority, were at this time, 
 MM. Thiers, Guizot, and Dupin the elder. Among these three 
 candidates it was necessary to select one as prime minister. 
 
 The sympathies of the king were in favour of M. Dupin, who had 
 for a long time been mixed up with his private interests, whose secret 
 foibles he was thoroughly conversant with, and in whom he had no 
 puritanism to encounter. It was, accordingly, to M. Dupin, that he 
 addressed himself in the first instance. The negotiation, after being 
 protracted for an extended period, was on the point of being satis- 
 factorily concluded, when, all at once, it was rumoured that a scene 
 of an exceedingly animated description had taken place between 
 the monarch and the subject. The news turned out to be true; the 
 parties had separated in a state of mutual displeasure ; some said that 
 M. Dupin had refused to assent to the principle of personal govern- 
 ment, which the king insisted upon ; others that upon a point of 
 minor importance, the king took offence at an exhibition of blunt 
 abruptness on the part of IV! . Dupin, a feature which that gentleman, 
 was occasionally in the habit of introducing into his deportment and 
 language ; however this may have been, the parties had separated in 
 mutual disgust. 
 
 There remained M. Guizot and M. Thiers. But the first was un- 
 popular to a degree, which produced inconvenience to those whose 
 interests he most warmly defended ; and as to the second, though he 
 had displayed great talent, he had not as yet sufficient weight to 
 warrant his being put at the head of affairs. 
 
 In this embarrassment the king cast his eyes upon M. de Broglie. 
 The name of this personage, his large connexion, his high character, 
 the consideration which he enjoyed, were all calculated to give con- 
 sequence to a cabinet of which ne should form part; and under his 
 segis M. Thiers might render the monarchy very useful services. 
 
 This arrangement appeared to most of the influential members of 
 the parliamentary majority an excellent one. But the king had by 
 no means a taste for M. de Broglie, a man of inflexible principles, 
 firm determination, and intractable virtue, who prided himself on his 
 persistance to the same opinions, and repelled a policy of expedients 
 as unmanly, and who was besides of a captious and irritable temper. 
 Procrastination, however, was dangerous. M. de Remusat was
 
 OR THAT OF THE llTH OF OCTOBER. 71 
 
 directed to see M. de Broglie, and to offer him a post in the cabinet, 
 with M. Thiers for his colleague. 
 
 M. de Broglie hesitated at first, and finally declared that he would 
 only enter the cabinet upon condition of being accompanied by M. 
 Guizot. In vain it was represented to him that M. Guizot had exas- 
 perated public opinion ; that, in the existing state of the public mind, 
 the services of such a man would be pernicious to the monarchy; 
 and that such was the opinion of the deputies most devoted to the 
 throne, as, for instance, MM. Jacques Lefevre, Fulchiron, and Jac- 
 queminot; that, if it was expedient sometimes to disdain the cla- 
 mours of the press, at least it was proper to deal warily with the 
 antipathies of the parliament. But M. de Broglie was not to be 
 moved; it was necessary to submit to his conditions; and, on the 
 llth of October, the Moniteur published the famous ordinance which 
 summoned M. de Broglie to the office of foreign affairs; M. Tliiers 
 to that of the interior; M. Guizot to the ministry of public in- 
 struction; and M. Humann to the ministry of finance. Marshal 
 Soult retained the portefeuille of war, with the title of president of 
 the council; and M. Barthe was minister of justice. 
 
 Thus was formed that ministry of the llth of October, which 
 was to continue the fearful conflict begun by Casimir Perier, and 
 the existence of which was but one protracted tempest. If we con- 
 sider only the personal importance and the talent of those who com- 
 posed that ministry, in which were included Thiers, Broglie, and 
 Guizot, it was, unquestionably, the strongest which could have been 
 created under the circumstances; but this very fact was a subject of 
 annoyance to the king. Convinced, with reason, that in a country 
 like France, in which the spirit of inquiry had made such rapid 
 conquests; in which high station no longer commanded its former 
 prestige; and where nothing else was readily obeyed but an active 
 and vigorous authority; convinced that, in such a country, an inert 
 royalty would, sooner or later, fall into contempt, and come to 
 be regarded but as a costly superfluity, the king desired both to 
 reign and to govern. Now, he very well knew that a close alliance 
 between ministers so important as de Broglie, Guizot, and Thiers, 
 would condemn himself to play a passive part: it was amongst the 
 necessities of his position, to prevent them from forming a solid 
 union among themselves; and the divisions which subsequently 
 sprung up between Thiers and Guizot were the work of the court. 
 From the very first, it laboured .with remarkable dexterity to instil 
 the venom of ambitious jealousy into the souls of those two men, 
 who both alike became the dupes of their passions. M. Thiers had 
 risen from a very obscure condition ; and, even amidst his new gran- 
 deurs, he was pursued by the fatality of certain family circumstances, 
 which, without affecting his personal consideration, were, neverthe- 
 less, capable of throwing no few obstacles in his way. M. do Talley- 
 rand thought him all the better fitted, for this very reason, to fill 
 the functions of prime minister under superior control. It was re-
 
 72 PORTRAIT OF TRIERS. 
 
 solved, therefore, to turn to account, against Thiers, the difficulties 
 of his position, and the unfavourable results of chance. He was 
 given to understand that it was open to him to aspire to every thing, 
 and that he was worthy, by his talents, of occupying the first place 
 in the state beneath the throne; but that, to that end, he had need 
 of the highest of all patronages, and that he would be lost from the 
 moment he should cease to be upheld by the royal hand. 
 
 What the court wanted was a president of the council, who would 
 consent to sink his own importance in the most complete manner, 
 and who should be, nevertheless, endowed with a capacity suffi- 
 ciently great, with oratorical talents sufficiently distinguished to exer- 
 cise a durable influence in the parliament. Louis Philippe frequently 
 expressed his regret at not being able to take part in the debates of 
 the Chamber, from which he was excluded by his rank as king, and 
 the results of which he seemed to think his words would, upon many 
 occasions, have modified. The court, therefore, would have desired 
 that, with the title of president of the council, M. Thiers should be, 
 in fact, nothing more than the orator of the crown. Secret ma- 
 noeuvres were practised with a view to this result ; and, as M. Guizot 
 was naturally upon the road to the presidency, there was no difficulty 
 in sowing the seeds of that misunderstanding in the council which 
 was afterwards to become conspicuous, and to render the parliamen- 
 tary government utterly impossible. 
 
 No one, after all, was better calculated than M. Tliiers to lead the 
 bourgeoisie; his shrewd intellect; his subtle, but good-humoured 
 countenance ; his easy, unaffected manners ; his lively chattering, and 
 the careless grace with which he made light of his own importance 
 when need was; all these rendered his superiority light to be borne, 
 and all the better secured its empire. All this was of service to him 
 amongst a class which likes leaders of easy access, and who do not 
 stand too stiffly upon their personal merits. He had risen from a 
 very low station, and this gave him a claim to the favour of the par- 
 venus, who held in him the legitimacy of their own fortunes. And, 
 then, what a fecundity of expedients did he display ! What vi- 
 vacity of intellect ! \v hat aptitude for comprehending, for explain- 
 ing everything ! M. Thiers was a journalist, a man of letters, and 
 a financier ; he would have made himself, had occasion offered, gene- 
 ral of an army, and even, despite the direction his studies had taken, 
 there was nothing he so much envied as the career of a warrior. In 
 his History of the French Revolution, he had affected a great know- 
 ledge of strategy; and nothing would have so delighted him as to 
 mount his charger, review troops, and curry popularity among the 
 soldiers. Eloquent he was not, and his small figure was strikingly 
 to his disadvantage in the tribune; but he was so lucid in his expo- 
 sition of affairs ; he spoke with such a heartiness of his love for his 
 country; his pantomime was so expressive; his shrill and feeble 
 voice acquired such a plaintiveness from fatigue, that he obtained 
 success by means of his very defects; by the absence of all noble
 
 PORTRAIT OF THIERS. 73 
 
 appearance, by diffuseness, excessive negligence, and common-place 
 demeanour and tone. No one better than lie knew the art of assuming 
 mediocrity in an assembly. His ideas -were manifestly turned to- 
 wards the Empire; he would have the executive to be active and 
 respected; he disdained it when scrupulous; as for principles, he had 
 a hair-brained, and sometimes impertinent scorn lor them ; for, in 
 politics, he recognised no other divinity than force, and this he 
 adored in its most opposite manifestations, provided always it showed 
 no features of rigorism. He loved it equally well as a means of 
 tyranny and as an instrument of revolt ; he had admired it in Bona- 
 parte; he had admired it in the impetuous Danton; and he would 
 have admired it even in Robespierre, if in Robespierre he had not 
 found it united with austerity : for the rest, he had no consistency 
 in his conduct, little depth of sentiment, more restlessness than 
 activity, more turbulence than audacity; he proved himself, at 
 times, adequate to an emergency, and he would have possessed ele- 
 vation of mind, had he been gifted with more elevation of heart. 
 In many respects, M. Thiers was a Danton in miniature; he had, 
 nevertheless, much more probity than he was given credit for, and 
 his enemies threw out unjust accusations against him in this respect; 
 but being a man of imagination, loving the arts with a childish pas- 
 sion, devoured by frivolous wants, capable of forgetting the aftairs 
 of state for the discovery of a bas-relief by Jean Goujon; impetu- 
 ous in his whims, eager to snatch the enjoyments of the present 
 moment, he gave a ready handle to calumny. Though, individually, 
 he had no rancour or malice, as a minister he was much less averse 
 than M. Guizot to violent measures ; it is true, that he did not, like 
 M. Guizot, make a parade of despotism ; he would gladly have ter- 
 rified his enemies, without feeling any desire to boast of their fears; 
 the essential thing for him being to put in operation the system of in- 
 timidation which M. Guizot laid down in theory; for the one panted 
 to act, the other to appear. Sometimes, after resisting pernicious 
 designs in the council, M. Guizot stood up in the tribune as their 
 apologist, and uttered implacable words, words of that kind that 
 stick fast in men's minds. It was not so with M. Thiers, who was 
 an indefatigable corrupter of the press, and skilful tamperer with 
 public opinion, and the successful flatterer of that portion of the 
 bourgeoisie which piqued itself upon liberalism and national pride. 
 At any rate, M. Thiers possessed neither love of humanity, nor an 
 apprehension of its possible progress ; guessing at nothing beyond 
 the horizon, he made little account of the people; he admired it 
 only in the battle-field, where it rushes upon destruction, and 
 thought it good for nothing, but as matter to be worked upon by 
 those insolent speculators, who, under the usurped name of states- 
 men, parcel out amongst them the spoils of nations. 
 
 The ministers of the llth of October, upon assuming office, found 
 two great acts to be accomplished : it was necessary to consolidate 
 the new throne by the arrest of the Duchess de Berri, and to secure
 
 74 SEQUEL OF THE VENDEAN INSURRECTION. 
 
 general peace by compelling King William to submission. Since 
 the suppression of the Vendean insurrection had reduced the 
 Duchess de Bern to seek an asylum in the city of Nantes, the pro- 
 vinces of the West had remained silent and still, and yet the alarm 
 of the executive had not been allayed. Deceived by false reports, 
 the sport of the most opposite impressions, believing themselves 
 always upon the point of being betrayed by those they had chosen 
 for instruments, the ministers had never been able to adopt a precise 
 and systematic policy with regard to La Vendee. The Vendean 
 insurrection had been combated by means neither suggested nor 
 directed by the executive ; and upon the personal responsibility of 
 the generals charged with the pacification of the West. This pacifi- 
 cation having been accomplished under the command of Lieutenant- 
 general Solignac, it was to be expected that the executive should 
 show him some gratitude. Notwithstanding this, immediately after 
 his victory over the Chouans, Lieutenant-general Solignac was sur- 
 prised to see Lieutenant-general Bonnet arrive in Nantes, invested 
 with a command superior to his own; the very man under whose 
 orders he had once already refused to serve : and this was done at a 
 moment when the last trace of disturbance was disappearing in La 
 Vendee, and when there remained little more to do but to bury the 
 dead and to try the prisoners. This was, for a veteran distin- 
 guished in the wars of the Empire for a man eminent for his re- 
 cent services an insult not to be glossed over by smooth conven- 
 tional forms and hypocritical eulogiums. General Solignac thought 
 he could recognise in this fact the hand of Marshal Soult, his bitter 
 enemy. He protested; wrote a vehement letter to the minister of 
 war, and addressed his complaints directly to the throne ; and these 
 complaints had the more weight, inasmuch as the general could 
 insist upon the offensive precautions with which his command had 
 been surrounded. For whilst he was making war upon the Ven- 
 deans, several of the authorities under him were corresponding with 
 an aid-de-camp of Louis Philippe, M. de Rumigny, who had been 
 sent into Morbihan, where he exercised, in the name of the court, 
 secret influence, such as was more directly exercised at Nantes by 
 the counter-police of M. Carlier. Such had been the policy of the 
 minister as regards La Vendee, a policy destitute of ability, de- 
 cision, frankness, and good faith. 
 
 After all, General Bonnet did not long retain the post assigned 
 him, and was himself superseded by Lieutenant-general d'Erlon. 
 
 It was under the military government of the, latter, and a few days 
 before the formation of the ministry of the llth of October, that 
 the trial took place, before the Court of Assize at Blois, of Caqueray 
 fils, Sortant, Conde, Cresson, and other Chouans, to the number of 
 twenty-eight. The majority were acquitted; some of them were 
 condemned to detention. The moderation of this sentence was re- 
 markable in the sequel of a civil war, which had aroused such 
 violent passions ; but besides that the accused had been very elo-
 
 TRIAL OF THE CHQUANS, OF M. BERRYER. 75 
 
 quently defended by M. Janvier, a man of great talent, and of a most 
 generous character, the depositions had thrown a strong light upon 
 the situation of La Vendee, and upon the nature of the rising 
 Amidst the many exaggerations and falsehoods spread by party spirit, 
 it was not without surprise and emotion that one of the witnesses, 
 a captain of the 41st, was heard stating the truth respecting those 
 he had fought against, as well as those he had served. This gallant 
 and honourable officer was named Galleran ; he declared that public 
 opinion had been misled by the statements of the journals, and the 
 reports of the government agents; that a great deal had been said 
 about purely imaginary victories, and that public indignation had 
 been excited on account of facts falsely represented ; that the Ven- 
 dean peasants were, in general, good, honest people, animated with 
 genuine patriotism, and republicans, if not in their political notions, 
 at least in their moral character, their habits, and their domestic 
 life ; that the alleged distributions of money made to the Chouana 
 amounted only to sums of from seventeen to twenty sous bestowed 
 uponthe most needy ; that the only system to be employed, with respect 
 to such men and such a country, was a system of moderation and 
 equity. But to these declarations the witness added others, by which 
 the bands were formally accused of brigandage. " The bands," he 
 said, " manifested their presence only by vexations of every kind; 
 if they entered the farmer's dwelling, it was musket in hand, 
 and they called for what they wanted, laying about them wath the 
 butts of their muskets. They adroitly circulated the report that 
 the line was with them, and had orders not to arrest them. In this 
 way they had acquired such an influence through terror, that the ill- 
 treated farmers dared not open their mouths; and the fathers or 
 children of individuals who had been cruelly assassinated, dared not 
 give intimation to justice. In general, the bands did no mischief to 
 the soldiers. One of my soldiers was taken in a battue : ' Are you 
 not,' said the Chouans to him, ' one of those who sent bullets amon<* 
 us this morning?' ' Yes,' replied the soldier, ' I did my duty;' and 
 they let him go. It was not the same with the gendarmes and the 
 national guards ; the bands gave them no quarter." 
 
 The trial of the twenty-two Vendeans was followed by that of M. 
 Berryer; but it was only to furnish him with an occasion for a con- 
 spicuous triumph. When he appeared before the tribunal, the jurors 
 and spectators rose spontaneously. Several avocats seated them- 
 selves beside the traverser; the president having remarked to them 
 that that was not their place, one of them, M. Vallon, replied, " the 
 traverser's bench is so honoured to-day that we thought to do our- 
 selves honour by seating ourselves upon it." A few noble and 
 stirring words were enough on M. Berryer's part to refute the accu- 
 sation, which the law officers of the crown 'speedily abandoned. Il 
 was indeed very strange that the very man should have been arrested as 
 instigator of the civil war, who had with so much energy, persuasive
 
 76 THE DUCHESS DE BERRl'S LETTER TO THE QUEEN. 
 
 power and eloquence, resisted the design in the very presence of the 
 Duchess de Berri. 
 
 Secluded at Nantes, in the house of the Demoiselles Duguigny, 
 Marie Caroline, amidst all her sufferings and dangers, still cherished 
 lofty hopes. From her asylum, guarded with the most vigilant and 
 discreet fidelity, she kept up an active correspondence with some of 
 her partisans, and held herself in readiness to take advantage of 
 events. Among the letters she wrote during her stay at Nantes, 
 there is one that deserves to be quoted ; it was addressed to the Queen 
 oiF the French. Here it is: 
 
 " Whatever consequences may result for me, from the position in which I have 
 placed myself, whilst fulfilling my duties as a mother, I will never speak to you, 
 Madam, of my own interests; but brave men have become involved in danger for my 
 son's sake, and I cannot forbear from attempting whatever may be done with honour, 
 in order to save them. 
 
 " I, therefore, entreat my aunt, whose goodness of heart and religious sentiments 
 are known to me, to exert all her credit in their behalf. The bearer of this letter 
 will furnish details respecting their situation ; he will state, that the judges given 
 them are men against whom they have fought. 
 
 " Notwithstanding the actual difference in our positions, a volcano is also under 
 your feet, Madam, as you know. I knew your alarm, your very natural alarm, at a 
 period when I was in safety, and I was not insensible to it. God alone knows what 
 He destines for us, and perhaps, you will one day thank me for having had confi- 
 dence in your goodness, and for having given you an opportunity of exerting it in 
 behalf of my unfortunate friends. Rely on my gratitude. I wish you happiness, 
 Madam, for I think too highly of you to believe it possible that you can be happy in 
 your present situation. " MARIE CAKOLINE." 
 
 This letter, so affecting and so dignified, was carried to St. Cloud 
 and delivered, unsealed, to M. de Montalivet, who acquainted the 
 queen with its arrival. The officer waited for the reply at the foot 
 of the staircase ; the letter was returned to him and he was told that 
 the queen could not receive it. Certain it is, at least, that she could 
 not reply to it. Unhappy Queen ! condemned for ever to the torture 
 of stifling the voice of her heart, and for whom the most terrible of 
 all anathemas was embodied in an affectionate prayer, in the earnest 
 wish of a relation, of a friend ! 
 
 Five months had nearly elapsed since the entry of the Duchess de 
 Berri into Nantes, and the place of her retirement was still a secret, 
 whether it was that she had contrived, by dint of prudence, to baffle 
 all the efforts of her enemies, or that the government had been pur- 
 posely lax in its researches, for the Duchess de Berri as a prisoner 
 would have been a source of embarrassment and danger; her impu- 
 nity, in fact, would have made Louis Philippe an object of contempt 
 to the nations; her death would have devoted him to the execration 
 of kings ; to restore the princess to liberty would have been to send 
 her back to plots and civil war ; to bring her to trial would have been 
 to put in force the principle of equality before the law, a principle 
 fatal to monarchies. Moreover, who would sit in judgment, in a 
 country which was by all means to be monarchical, upon the mother 
 of a child who had become king by the abdication of his grand- 
 father? The peerage? Undoubtedly it would have recoiled in terror
 
 HER CONCEALMENT IN NANTES. 77 
 
 from such a responsibility. A jury? A few men taken at random 
 might in that case, merely by exhibiting justice disarmed before the 
 royalty of yesterday, convict the royalty of the day of usurpation 
 and felony ! An appeal to the principle of the sovereignty of the 
 people was impossible under the circumstances, without underrninino' 
 the throne. To punish the crime of revolt in the person of the 
 Duchess de Berri could not be done without calling to mind how it 
 was that the most fundamental of the laws of the monarchy had been 
 trampled on, namely, the inviolability of Charles X. 
 
 These were considerations of deep importance, and such as would 
 necessarily prevail as long as foreign war was not imminent; but 
 soon the moment seemed to be at hand when all Europe was to be 
 in flames. William, with increasing pride, was braving the deci- 
 sions of the Conference ; was filling the north jwith the din of his 
 military preparations, and from the citadel of Antwerp, occupied by 
 his soldiers, was threatening to reduce the second city of Belgium to 
 ashes. At such a moment the presence of the Duchess de Berri 
 became really serious and formidable. There seemed every reason 
 to anticipate, that at the first-known shot fired upon the frontiers, 
 the royalists of the south, and those of La Vendee, would rise a 
 second time in arms; that in front there would be war; anarchy in 
 the rear ; that the names of the Prince of Orange and of Henry V. 
 would be blended together in the same wishes, the same cries, and 
 that the dynasty of Louis Philippe, crushed between two efforts at 
 restoration, would be stifled in the cradle. Thenceforth to get pos- 
 session of the person of the Duchess de Berri became the most impe- 
 rious necessity of the moment; but a traitor was necessary in order 
 to enable the govemment to get at the mother of Henry V. Such a 
 man could only be found, in the noble land of France, in the person 
 of a Jew and a renegade. Admitted into the confidence of the Pope 
 for having renounced his God, and into that of the Duchess de Berri 
 for having had the art to conceal the blackness of his heart, this 
 wretch had offered his services to M. de Montalivet long before the 
 ministry of the llth of October was formed. M. de Montalivet left 
 it to the new ministry of the interior to turn the hypocrisy of Deutz 
 to account. It was known that the Duchess de Berri was at Nantes. 
 Deutz took upon him to discover the princess's asylum, and the more 
 surely to profit by the services of this man, the post of prefect of the 
 Loire-Inferieure was conferred upon M. Maurice Duval, the same 
 whose administration had proved such a cruel affliction to Gre- 
 noble. 
 
 Deutz* was far from possessing the influence he afterwards boasted 
 of with the mother of the Due de Bordeaux, but he had accompanied 
 
 * The narrative which follows contains certain details, respecting the arrest 
 of the Duchess de Berri, different from those which have been already publi i I, 
 but they are derived from an authentic source. Our narrative is founded on notes 
 furnished to General Dermoncourt, subsequently to the publication of his bcjok, 
 entitled La Vendee et Madame. These notes, which rectify some errors into which 
 M. Dermoncourt fell, he has been so obliging as himself to transmit to us.
 
 78 THE TRAITOR DEUTZ. 
 
 Mesdames de Bourmont from London to Italy ; he had seen the prin- 
 cess on her way through ISIassa to Rome; he had seen her again 
 after her journey to Rome, and, thanks to the recommendations of 
 the Pope, he had been employed to convey important despatches 
 to the Queen of Spain, and to Don Miguel. In this way he had 
 been naturally initiated into important secrets, the betrayal of which 
 cost his perfidious and dastard soul but little. It is true that, upon 
 his quitting Massa in the month of April, M. de Choulot had 
 obliged him to stop about a league from the town, in a valley 
 planted with olives, and had there made Mm take a solemn and fearful 
 oath,* but what avail oaths? Honour renders them superfluous, 
 baseness violates them. Deutz was betraying the legitimatist'a 
 party by a correspondence of five months' standing, when he was 
 sent with all mystery to Nantes by M. Thiers. As he was looked 
 upon with suspicion, the commissary of police, Joly, was sent along 
 with him, the same who under the Restoration had arrrested 
 Louvel. 
 
 Upon arriving in Nantes, Deutz presented himself to some in- 
 fluential legitimatists. He spoke of urgent despatches which he had 
 to communicate, and piessingly besought the favour of an imme- 
 diate admission to Madame, his only object being to discover her 
 asylum; but certain alarming rumours had already spread among 
 the legitimatist party with respect to this Jew, and besides it was to 
 be feared that the police, who watched narrowly the proceedings of all 
 strangers, should follow the Jew's steps and so reach Marie Caroline. 
 Deutz redoubled his entreaties, and not in vain. Upon the 30th of 
 October the Duchess de Bern said to the brother of the Demoiselles 
 Duguigny, " To-morrow, at six o'clock, you will proceed to the 
 Hotel de France ; ask for M. Gonzague ; address him thus, ' you 
 are come from Spain, sir;' here is half of a card cut in two; M. 
 Gonzague has the other half; you will recognise him by this sign, 
 and bring him to me." The next day accordingly, at the hour 
 appointed, M. Duguigny proceeded to the Hotel de France, recog- 
 nised Deutz by means of the divided card, and offered to be his 
 guide. As they were proceeding together along the Rue Jean- 
 Jacques, and on the way leading from the Port Maillard to the Rue 
 Haute-du-Chateau, Deutz appeared uneasy, and wanted to know 
 exactly in what house he was about to be received. " In a house," 
 said M. Duguigny, " which Madame enters only to give you 
 audience, and which she will immediately afterwards quit;" a 
 little way from the house, Duguigny remarked to Deutz that 
 Marie Boissy, one of Madame's two servants, was not very dis- 
 creet, although her fidelity was unquestionable, and that, con- 
 sequently, it would be necessary for him to be upon his guard be- 
 fore her. When the servant opened the door for them, Deutz im- 
 
 * This is related by Deutz himself, in a pamphlet which he published upon the 
 subject of his treachery; and upon this point we may believe him, since he accuses 
 himself. In other respects, his pamphlet is full of audacious falsehoods. 

 
 ARREST OF THE DUCHESS DE BERRI. 79 
 
 mediately asked, " Is that the one you told me of?" And when 
 Duguigny replied in the affirmative, he said, " And the other, is she 
 discreet?" Being introduced by his guide, Deutz was received in a 
 room in which were the two Demoiselles Duguigny, Mademoiselle 
 Stylite de Kersabiac and M. Guibourg. Duguigny affected to ask, 
 if Madame was arrived ; and he was answered that it was thought 
 she was, for a noise had been heard in the next room. At that mo- 
 ment M. de Mesnard entered. Deutz not recognising him, though 
 he had seen him in Italy, became confused, started back, and cried 
 out, in a tone of dread, " Why, what's this? Where am I?" The 
 wretch, no doubt, remembered the oath he had pledged to M. Chou- 
 lot. The Duchess de Bern at length appeared, and, addressing 
 Deutz, she asked affectionately after his health; Deutz could only 
 reply with a bow, and then, without having uttered a single word, 
 he followed the Duchess de Bern and M. de Mesnard into the gar- 
 ret, which he afterwards described to the police under the name of the 
 reception room. The interview continued till half-past eight in the 
 evening. Deutz contrived to find pretexts for asking for a second 
 interview, for he thought that the Duchess de Berri was not in her 
 own house, and he became confirmed in this opinion when he saw 
 the princess take up her shawl and her bonnet as if to go away. At 
 this moment, M. Duguigny having presented himself to receive Ma- 
 dame's orders, tc If you have," he said, to Deutz, " any message to 
 send to her royal highness, I will take charge of it. You will find 
 me at No. 2, Place de la Prefecture, upon the third story; but, first 
 of all, for fear of surprise let us endeavour to become thoroughly 
 acquainted with each other's persons." Deutz was disconcerted 
 when the other looked him steadily in the face; he made a con- 
 vulsive movement and stammered out, " Did you observe how agi- 
 tated I was when I came in here? It was quite extraordinary." 
 The duchess then pointing to M. Duguigny, said to Deutz, 
 " That is a good Breton; a man of absolute and unbounded devo- 
 tedness." 
 
 Deutz being obliged to solicit a fresh interview had recourse to a 
 nun in whom the Duchess de Berri had much confidence, and whose 
 credulity he contrived to abuse by infamous falsehoods. This second 
 interview was fixed for the 6th of November. Upon that day, in 
 order to give still more value to his perfidy, Deutz called upon Mar- 
 shal Bourmont, told him that he was to see the duchess that evening 
 at the house of Mademoiselles Duguigny, and strongly urged him to 
 be present. The police might have arrested the marshal during the 
 visit of Deutz, but this would have endangered the success of the 
 much more important arrest, and this was the reason why Deutz 
 wished to entice the marshal to the Duchess de Bern's. M. ae Bour- 
 mont, however, was fortunate enough to escape this trap; in the 
 evening he quitted Nantes, overwhelmed with grief, suffenng under 
 high fever, and supported upon the arm of a friend. Meanwhile 
 the fatal hour was approaching for the Duchess de Berri, for, upon
 
 80 ARREST OF THE DUCHESS DE BERRI. 
 
 this occasion, all necessary measures had been taken. Troops, under 
 the command of General Dermoncourt, had invested the quarter. 
 Deutz was introduced to the presence of the Duchess de Bcrri, his 
 benefactress; the villain's face was calm; his words breathed only de- 
 votedness and respect. Meanwhile a young man enters and hands 
 the princess a letter, informing her that she is betrayed ; thereupon 
 she turns to Deutz, and communicates to him the news she has re- 
 ceived, looking at him with a smile of inquiry; he, mastering his 
 confusion, rephes with the most vehement protestations of gratitude 
 and fidelity; but no sooner had he withdrawn, than bayonets glit- 
 tered in every direction, and commissaries of police rushed into the 
 house, with pistols in their hands. The Duchess de Berri, informed 
 of the approach of the troops, had barely time to take refuge, with 
 Mademoiselle Sty lite de Kersabiec and MM. de Mesnard and Gui- 
 bourg, in a little hiding place, formed by the angle of the wall, at 
 the end of the duchess's chamber, and the entrance to which was 
 concealed by an iron plate at the back of the chimney. The com- 
 missaries of police, and M. Maurice Duval at their head, finding no 
 one in the house but the two Demoiselles Duguigny, Madame de 
 Charetteand Madlle. Celeste de Kersabiec, who all four displayed per- 
 fect coolness, set about making the most minute search. Sapeurs and 
 masons were called in ; the various articles of furniture were opened 
 or broken ; the walls were struck with axes, hammers, and crow- 
 bars. Night had fallen, and the work of demolition was still going 
 on. In the narrow space in which they were confined, the duchess 
 and her companions had only a small opening to breathe through, 
 to which they were obliged, in turns, to apply their mouths. A 
 fire, lighted in the chimney, converted their hiding place into a hot 
 oven, and there was a moment when the walls of the narrow enclo- 
 sure were so violently shaken, that those who were cooped up within 
 it, dreaded it would become their tomb. It was then decided by 
 the persons engaged in the search, that the house should be occupied 
 by soldiery until the princess was discovered, and this decision being 
 heard by those in the hiding-place drove them to despair. They 
 had been suffering the agony of confinement for sixteen hours, when 
 two gendarmes, who occupied the chamber, lighted a great fire 
 with peat and newspapers. The prisoners could bear this no longer ; 
 Mademoiselle Stylite de Kersabiec cried out, " We are coining out, 
 take away the fire, and M. Guibourg kicked the iron plate which 
 had now become red hot; the fire was instantly brushed away by 
 the gendarmes, and the Duchess de Berri came forth, pale, sinking, 
 and overcome with fatigue and emotion. General Dermoncourt was 
 sent for, and he came in with the Deputy Procureur du Roi, M. Bau- 
 dot, and some officers. Upon seeing the general, the Duchess de 
 Berri said, as he himself has related, " General, I confide myself to 
 your honour." " Madam," replied General Dermoncourt, "you are 
 under the safeguard of French honour," and acting in conformity 
 with his words, the general treated his prisoner with all the deference
 
 OUVRARD AND THE STOCK EXCHANGE. 81 
 
 due to a woman, and, above all, to a woman in misfortune. When 
 free and in arms, the mother of the Due de Bordeaux had found in 
 General Dennoncourt an active and formidable enemy; vanquished 
 and captive, she found him but an enemy full of courtesy and gene- 
 rosity. As for M. Maurice Duval, who, in the war of La Vendee, 
 had not had occasion, like General Dermoncourt, to expose his own 
 person, he made himself remarkable, upon this occasion, only for a 
 brutal display of rudeness. 
 
 Deutz was, for several hours, kept in view by M. Lenormand, 
 central commissary of police; the traitor was in a deplorable state; 
 he beat his head against the wall, tore out his hair, and begged for 
 weapons to destroy himself. 
 
 On the 8th of November, 1832, the Duchess de Bern embarked at 
 the embouchure of the Loire, with M. de Mesnard and Mile, de 
 Kersabiec, in a little war brig, having on board Captain Leblanc, 
 and commanded by M. Mollien. The signal was given, and she 
 who had entered France as regent, now carried away all her effects 
 tied up in a pocket handkerchief. The daughter-in-law of Charles 
 X., and niece of the Queen of the French, was carried prisoner 
 to the citadel of Blaye, whence, under the reign of a Bourbon, 
 was to issue the dishonour of the family. Among the facts re- 
 lating to the drama of Nantes there are some very curious ones, 
 which we have, nevertheless, thought it right to omit, because 
 they have already been narrated in various works.* But there is a 
 very important fact connected with the arrest of the Duchess 
 de Berri which has hitherto remained unknown. It is worth relat- 
 ing somewhat in detail, and to this end we must begin rather far 
 back. The Bourse of Paris had been the scene of a violent and 
 memorable struggle in 1831. M. Ouvrard was a potent speculator, 
 who never seemed dismayed or confused by the tempests, his schemes 
 stirred up, even when they threatened to overwhelm him. Ouvrard 
 would fain have played havoc with the Bourse, from a sort of poetic 
 instinct, and pretty much as conquerors delight to cut and carve 
 the world for the sport's sake for the renown of the thing and the 
 intense excitement. Clearly foreseeing what shocks the three days 
 of July would occasion amongst all nations, he had begun imme- 
 diately after 1830 to speculate enormously for a fall in the funds. 
 Already violently shaken by the successive revolutions which were 
 then turning up the soil of old Europe, public credit in France 
 appeared in a very tottering condition, and French stock continually 
 offered for sale by Ouvrard, sank lower and lower in price. Upon 
 the 6th of April, 1831, the French funds reached their lowest suite 
 of depression ; the three per-cents. were quoted at 47, 50; the five 
 per-cents. at 76, 50; and several agents de change who had speculated 
 for the rise disappeared. Meanwhile a loan of 120,000,000 had 
 
 * See La Vendee et Madame, by General Dermoncourt; Memoires de la Ducheue 
 de Berri, by M. Nettement; Biographic de la Duchessede Berri, by Germain Sarrut 
 and St. Edme; Madame, Nantes, &c., by M. Guibourg. 
 
 VOL. II. Q
 
 8 2 OUVRARD'S SPECULATIONS. 
 
 been announced, and it was to be adjudged on the 19th of April. 
 Now Ouvrard, who had been the soul, or the leader of most of 
 the operations for a fall, appeared to be the complete master of the 
 Bourse. Besides, the imminence of war paralysed the efforts, both 
 of the bankers, who were interested in a rise of the funds, and of 
 ministers, who had need of credit, and of the receivers-general, 
 whose accounts seemed likely to be thrown into a very disastrous con- 
 dition if the depreciation continued a little longer. It was neces- 
 sary, therefore, at all costs, to put a stop to this movement; to raise 
 the funds, and to cut short the operations of the speculators for a 
 fall. The bankers concerted together; the minister of finance sum- 
 moned the receivers-general to him, and it was determined that 
 recourse should be had to the plan of demanding stock in all time 
 bargains for French rentes. To realise the means of making these 
 demands, it was agreed, we are assured, that the house of Roths- 
 child upon the one hand, and the receivers-general upon the other, 
 should issue paper to the amount of 120,000,000; that the Bank of 
 France should discount that paper; and that, with the capital thua 
 furnished, the house of Rothschild and the receivers-general should 
 take up stock, demanded upon the close of time bargains, in the 
 Bourse, and should carry that stock again to the bank, which should 
 thereupon advance them fresh funds to continue their operations. 
 It is certain that, upon the 9th, llth, and 12th of April, a con- 
 siderable quantity of stock was taken up at the Bourse, viz., upwards 
 of 900,000 francs worth in the three per cents., and more than 
 500,000 francs of five per cents. It was a real coup de theatre. The 
 funds rose with extraordinary rapidity from 48 and 80 to 58 and 89, 
 so that the speculators who had staked upon the fall were either 
 forced to stop, as well as the agents de change, who had joined in their 
 operations, or broke down completely. The thing was quite simple. 
 The call for stock obliged the sellers for the account to deliver these 
 rentes without delay to the purchasers, who came to them, with cash 
 in hand; but the sellers, being unable to fulfil the condition thus im- 
 posed upon them, otherwise than by hurried purchases, a rise became 
 inevitable. Such was the effect of the scheme that, in the course 
 of the month of April, the three per cents, rose from 47 to 62 or 63, 
 and the five per cents, from 75 to 90; and yet, the apprehensions of 
 an European war were still so urgent that no offer to take the loan 
 of 120,000,000, at 84 francs, the minimum fixed by the minister, 
 had yet been made; and the subscription to the national loan had 
 produced a very inconsiderable sum compared with what was wanted. 
 
 M. Ouvrard's defeat was total; but he was not the man to re- 
 nounce his bold speculations. In 1832, his activity was again 
 called forth by the Duchess de Berri's enterprise. A restoration in 
 France demanded a great display of financial resources. M. Ouvrard, 
 who was in Holland, proposed to King William and Marie Caroline 
 a scheme for a loan founded on the following arrangements. 
 
 An English Tory banking-house, a rival of the Rothschilds, was
 
 HIS SCHEME FOR RAISING A CARLIST LOAN. 83 
 
 to issue in the name of Henry V. three per cents, worth 6 mil- 
 lions, annual interest. The three per cents, being: then at 60, the 
 loan would have produced 120,000,000 cash. This capital was to 
 have been employed in purchasing, from the several powers of Eu- 
 rope, the amount, in five per cents., sufficient to pay the 6 millions 
 of three per cents. Now, the three per cents, being at 90, a 
 capital of 108,000,000 would be enough to purchase 6 millions in 
 five per cent, stock, so that of the 120,000,000 produced by the 
 loan, 12,000,000 would remain at the disposal of Henry V. The 
 operation, therefore, offered two advantages; first, the profit of 
 12,000,000; secondly, a solemn guarantee secured to the lenders, 
 since it reposed not upon the credit of a single power, but upon that 
 of all the powers together. This being laid down, two suppositions 
 offered themselves ; either the three per cents, issued in the name of 
 Henry V. would maintain their price, or they would fall. In the 
 former case, the credit of the pretender would have been established, 
 and the 12,000,000 profit might be turned to whatever use should 
 seem most advantageous to the success of the cause. In the latter 
 case, it would have been absolutely necessary, it is true, to employ 
 the money "in hand in raising the price of the three per cents, by 
 well contrived purchases; but here shone forth the extreme inge- 
 nuity of the scheme ; for what would the fall of the three per cents, 
 have proved? It would have proved that Europe was secure from 
 fresh commotions ; that the enterprises of legitimacy were not of a 
 nature to threaten the repose of nations with a speedy reaction. 
 Now, these would have been manifest reasons for a rise in the five 
 per cents, purchased by Henry V. ; thus, the stock issued could not 
 fall without causing a rise in the stock purchased, whence it followed 
 that, by selling the latter very dear, in order to buy in the former 
 very cheap, the treasury of the legitimatist party would, even under 
 the less favourable supposition, realise enormous profits. This was 
 effecting upon a large scale the operation which the stock-jobbers 
 perform upon a small one under the name of arbitrage. A vast plan 
 was built upon this financial project. The King of Holland was 
 not ignorant how important for him would be a diversion in Vendee, 
 and he gladly gave his aid to every scheme calculated to bring back 
 Belgium into his hands. Now, an agent had been sent to the 
 Prince of Orange in the month of June, to announce to him that, if 
 he recommenced hostilities, the King of Sardinia was determined, 
 whether supported or not by Austria, to declare against France ; but 
 nothing had resulted from this overture, in consequence of the 
 timid policy of the King of Prussia, who told the King of Holland 
 that he would abandon him, if he took the first step in war. Sub- 
 sequently, the state of things in Europe had become still more com- 
 plicated; secret divisions had arisen m the Conference of London; 
 Russia, Prussia, and Austria, appeared disposed to separate from the 
 policy pursued by the cabinets of the Tuileries and of St. James'a. 
 The course of the legitimatist negotiations was resumed. The ex- 
 
 G2
 
 84 THE PISTOL SHOT OF NOVEMBER 19TH. 1833. 
 
 iled royal family was to have quitted England, and to have taken 
 refuge in the dominions of the King of Holland. Venloo was to 
 have been assigned, as a residence, to Henry V. ; there was reason 
 to reckon upon the co-operation of some generals half detached from 
 the cause of Louis Philippe. It was known that, upon a signal 
 agreed upon, a lieutenant-general would make his division pass 
 under the white flag. The partition of Belgium between Holland 
 and France was to have been announced as one of the advantages 
 resulting from the triumph of legitimacy; lastly, the confederates 
 promised themselves a great deal from the realisation of the loan, of 
 which we have described the mechanism. But all these brilliant hopes 
 began to wane during the latter period of the abode of the Duchess 
 de Bern in Nantes : they were totally destroyed by her arrest. 
 
 The king had, for the moment, secured the safety of his dynasty : he 
 was not aware that a great danger impended over his life. The boastful 
 and cruel delight displayed after the events of June ; the vanquished 
 handed over to the tender mercies of the sergeants de ville; the pri- 
 sons crowded with suspected persons ; Paris placed unconstitutionally 
 and violently under the jurisdiction of councils of war; the infamous 
 edict of 1666 suddenly revived, and physicians called upon to de- 
 scend to the part of informers ; the recent attack made upon the right 
 of association by the dispersion of the club of the Amis du Peuple ; 
 all this exasperated the enemies of the government to the highest 
 degree. Up to this time, insurrection had been the only object of 
 the most fanatical; but insurrection failing them, the feeling of their 
 own impotence hurried them into the excess of audacity, and they 
 concentrated, upon a single head, all the hatred with which they 
 were animated. Assuredly, there can be no error more profound, 
 none more pernicious, than to believe in the possibility of the suc- 
 cessful issue of murder, even if it be effected, and to accord to a single 
 man the honour of supposing that, upon his single life, hangs the 
 welfare of the people : the destinies of a nation do not depend upon 
 so small a thing. When evil exists, it is in the nature of things, 
 and there only it should be sought out. If a man represent that 
 evil, by sweeping away that man, the personification is not de- 
 stroyed it is renewed. Caesar, assassinated, sprang to more terrible 
 life in the person of Octavius; but how should such ideas have been 
 universally admitted in a country in which all were taught to 
 honour the courage of Hannodius and Aristogiton; in which the 
 memory of Brutus was the object of classical reverence; in which 
 the crime of the month of nivose, attempted by some great persons 
 for their own interests, had been blamed only for not having suc- 
 ceeded; in which every one was suffered to call the whole body of 
 society before the tribunal of his own reason, and in which the doc- 
 trine of individualism had made such rapid progress, that it thrust 
 itself into everything; into morals, by the atheism of the law and 
 the confusion of the creeds; into politics, by the extraordinary sub- 
 division of parties; into education, by the anarchy of the educational
 
 THE PISTOL SHOT OF NOVEMBER 19TII, 1833. 85 
 
 system; into industry, by competition; into government, by the 
 encouragements that had been lavished, for half a century, upon in- 
 surrection? Liberalism had professed, for fifteen years, this false and 
 pernicious theory, that government should have nothing to do with 
 the moral control of the subject: the consequences were not slow to 
 show themselves. Under the sway of atheistic laws, and of a mo- 
 rality abandoned to all the caprices of controversy, each man had 
 come to accept no other judge of the legitimacy of his acts than his 
 own self. 
 
 Such, then, was the state of society, when, for the first time since 
 1830, some young men, blinded by passion, began to entertain 
 vague criminal projects. The triumphant promenade of Louis Phi- 
 lippe, upon the 6th of June, which had been cried up as an act of 
 courage, appeared to them only a bravado. They asked themselves, 
 should they not immolate a great victim to the manes of those whose 
 corpses had lain upon the flags of the Morgue. Ere long, the ru- 
 mour ran that conspirators had, on many occasions, been posted 
 upon the road from Paris to Neuilly, and that chance, or the active 
 surveillance observed upon the road, had alone prevented them from 
 striking the blow. 
 
 It was under the impression of these ominous rumours, that the 
 king was to prepare to open the session of 1833. On the 19th of 
 November, the day fixed for the king's opening the house, the whole 
 space between the Tuileries and the Palais Bourbon was covered 
 with troops. Two carriages, the one containing the queen and her 
 daughters, the other the ministers, proceeded towards the Chamber; 
 next came the cortege, which advanced slowly between two lines of 
 national guards and soldiers. The king was on horseback at the 
 head of the escort ; he reached the Pont Royal, when a shot was 
 suddenly heard within a few paces of him ; he started, and hastily 
 stooped down over the pommel of his saddle, as if he had been 
 wounded; then turning, with a scared and bewildered counte- 
 nance, towards the spot from which the shot had been heard, he ut- 
 tered some words, which were drowned in a long murmur of sur- 
 prise and dismay : he had strength enough, however, to raise his hat 
 in the air, and salute the crowd, and to reassure his escort, which 
 had gathered around him. Consternation was general. Was not 
 this first attempt the signal, or the prelude, to a still more terrible 
 aggression? The cavalcade appeared, for a moment, disposed to 
 turn back; it proceeded, however, upon its way after two or three 
 minutes' hesitation, during which General Pajol and Colonel Raffe, 
 and other superior officers^ hastily collected erroneous, but reassuring 
 information. The shot had been fired so near the troops lining the 
 road, that as no one had been struck, an opinion at first prevailed 
 that the alarm had been caused by the accidental discharge of a sol- 
 dier's piece. This opinion being for a while believed by the crowd 
 and by the public force, contributed, no doubt, to the escape of the 
 criminal and his accomplices, if he had any.
 
 86 THE PISTOL SHOT OF NOVEMBER 19TH, 1833. 
 
 But the truth soon came out. A young woman, elegantly dressed, 
 had fainted, and, under the feet of the crowd that immediately 
 formed round her, was found a recently discharged pistol. Soon 
 afterwards, at a short distance from the spot in the middle of the 
 roadway, which had been entered by the crowd after the cavalcade 
 had passed by, there was found a second pistol, exactly similar to 
 the first, but charged and primed : it was put into the hands of the 
 police. The young woman having recovered, related, in tones of 
 extreme terror, that a young man had placed himself before her; 
 that he had drawn a pistol from his pocket, and that, to take the 
 better aim at the king, he had rested his weapon upon a soldier's 
 shoulder. She stated that she had then made an effort to seize the 
 young man's arm, but that he had pushed her back with a violent 
 blow on the chest, and that the suddenness of that movement had 
 disconcerted his aim. Mademoiselle Bourry that was her name 
 described the, criminal on the spot, and furnished the most precise 
 details. She was then taken to the Tuileries, where, after undergoing 
 a fresh examination, she was presented to high personages, who 
 loaded her with felicitations and caresses; her position was inquired 
 into, which was found to be humble enough; and it appeared that 
 she had come from Bergues to Paris to solicit the reversion of a 
 post-office appointment. She was not the less surrounded with all 
 sorts of delicate attentions. The inn where she had stopped was 
 not thought worthy to receive a female who had become, to such a 
 degree, important in the state. The court journals spoke of Made- 
 moiselle Bourry only in terms of marked respect, and affected to call 
 her exclusively " the young person who saved the king's life." 
 
 The king, meanwhile, had arrived at the Palais Bourbon, whither 
 the news of the danger he had incurred had not preceded him ; ac- 
 cordingly, there was nothing unusual in the reception given by the 
 deputies to the monarch. Some shouted, others remained silent and 
 unmoved, according to their various opinions or sentiments. Louis 
 Philippe read, with emotion, the cause of which was still unknown 
 to the great part of the assembly, the speech prepared for him by 
 the ministers : its tone was threatening. The government congratu- 
 lated itself therein, upon its double victory over the factions; de- 
 clared that it would overwhelm them ; that it would crush them : 
 spoke in very vague terms respecting the peace of Europe, and in 
 very decisive terms respecting the impossibility of diminishing the 
 public burdens. No doubt such language as this would have been 
 very coldly received, if the news had not spread, before the sittings 
 were closed, that Louis Philippe had had a narrow escape from death. 
 Immediately, the deputies, of all shades of opinion, agreed in one 
 common feeling of reprobation, and in the evening they proceeded 
 in great numbers to the Royal Palace : some, because they were really 
 filled with indignation and grief; others, because they did not wisn. 
 to lose this special opportunity for flattery. " Well," said the king 
 to M. Dupin, " so they fired upon me !" " Sire," replied M. Du-
 
 ARRESTS. 87 
 
 pin, " they fired upon themselves," a profound saying, but one that 
 calumniated a whole party. 
 
 In truth, this criminal attempt was not the work of any party; 
 and the republicans repudiated the responsibility of it with lofty and 
 sincere energy. What of that? There was an immediate repetition 
 of that dishonest, undignified, and shameful system of polemics, 
 to which the assassination of the Due de Berri had given occasion 
 under the Restoration. From the fanaticism of a few men, the 
 courtiers argued that of a political opinion, the logic of which was 
 thus condemned as tending to murder. Under the Restoration, the 
 court papers had said " Louvel's dagger is a liberal idea." Under 
 Louis Philippe, there were men who said " The king's life has been 
 put in danger by a republican idea :" for falsehood is the everlasting 
 weapon of parties. 
 
 After all, in this quarrel, injustice was likewise displayed on the 
 part of the opposition journals: some of them replied to odious in- 
 sinuations by suppositions of no probability, and the police was 
 gravely accused of having got up a pretended assassination, for the 
 purpose of reviving the extinguished enthusiasm in favour of mo- 
 narchy. 
 
 Be this as it may, the judicial inquiry was actively followed up; 
 the police, who had not been able to arrest any body upon the Pont 
 Royal, made numerous arrests in private houses. It is asserted, as 
 a fact, that several warrants had been prepared upon the preceding 
 day in anticipation of the disturbances expected from the fermenta- 
 tions of the popular societies. 
 
 On the 14th of November, five days before the opening of the 
 Chambers by the king, two individuals belonging to the Societe des 
 Droits de VHomme, Collet et Cantineau went to the prefecture of po- 
 lice, and gave information of a pretended plot formed by the citi- 
 zens Bergeron, Billard, and Girou. The two informers requested 
 to be placed under arrest, in order to secure them from all suspicion 
 and all vengeance, as well as to give the police a pledge of their sin- 
 cerity. Billard, the only person whom they had clearly pointed out, 
 the only one whose dwelling they could specify, was instantly ar- 
 rested. Girou did not fall into the hands of the police until the 
 day after the attempted assassination, and Bergeron not till five days 
 after this, although it had been established, in the course of the judi- 
 cial inquiry, that the latterjiad not ceased to perform his duty in the 
 institution with which he was connected as a tutor. Whilst Bergeron 
 was on his way from his dwelling to the prefecture of police, a post 
 carriage, escorted by gendarmerie, was conveving Doctor Benoist, 
 an avowed republican, from Chauny to the capital. A denunciation 
 attributed to the jealousy of another physician, had pointed out M. 
 Benoist as having proceeded to Paris on the evening of the opening 
 of the chambers, and left it hastily on the following day. It hap- 
 pened by a strange coincidence, that M. Benoist was tne intimate
 
 88 THE PISTOL SHOT OF NOVEMBER 19TH, 1833. 
 
 friend of Bergeron, and it was proved that they had passed a part 
 of the day of the 1 9th together. 
 
 Girou, another of the accused, was confronted with Mademoiselle 
 Bourry, who, without positively recognising him, thought he had 
 some resemblance with the criminal. Soon afterwards, this young 
 lady and the other witnesses were confronted with the four suspected 
 persons, Bergeron, Benoist, Girou, and Lambert. The latter, a 
 working man, possessing much influence from his intelligence and 
 his courage, was restored to liberty, because none of the descriptions 
 given were applicable to him. The same thing was done by Girou 
 some time afterwards. As far as could be determined, amidst nu- 
 merous contradictions and uncertainties, the heaviest charges lay 
 against Bergeron, but these charges were not beyond the scope of 
 doubt; there was no affirmative testimony, no formal recognition. 
 
 Bergeron, whose age was hardly twenty-one, was a man of calm 
 and self-possessed exaltation of mind; of gentle manners, and of good 
 natured, though firm and resolute character. His demeanour before 
 the judge was neither arrogant nor timid. He made no secret of his 
 ardent republicanism, avowed his participation in the conflict of the 
 5th and 6th of June, and declared his readiness again to take up a 
 musket if he saw any chance of success in a fresh insurrection. The 
 magistrate who conducted the inquiry, having asked him, " Did you 
 say that the king deserved to be shot?" Bergeron calmly replied, " I 
 don't recollect that I ever said so, but I think so." 
 
 This daring frankness seemed to give more weight to the formal 
 denials with which he met the charges against him. Being ques- 
 tioned as to how he had spent his time upon the 19th, he alleged 
 an alibi at the time that the crime was committed, and his assertion 
 was borne out by numerous testimonies. 
 
 The inquiry was drawing to a close; the law officers were in the 
 utmost uncertainty ; the prisoner's discharge seemed inevitable, when 
 an unexpected incident gave strength to the accusation against him. 
 A woman of doubtful character suddenly pointed out to the law 
 officers a college companion of Bergeron's, named Janety, who she 
 said could give valuable information. Janety asserted, that being 
 on the 19th upon the Quai Voltaire, with MM. Planet and 
 Benoist, he had met Bergeron, and heard him say that he had just 
 fired at Louis Philippe; that he had shown great coolness, and 
 escaped being arrested by his presence of mind. But Planet, Be- 
 noist, and several other persons, denied the principal circumstances 
 related by Janety. Some of his relations, among them his own 
 brother, affirmed that he was naturally disposed to exaggeration and 
 lying. Bergeron and Benoist were nevertheless committed for trial 
 before the court of assizes; the former as principal, the latter as 
 accomplice in the affair of the Pont Royal. 
 
 The trial having subsequently begun under the presidency of M. 
 Duboys d' Angers, whose partiality, involuntary no doubt, was re-
 
 TRIAL OF BERGERON. 89 
 
 marked by the journals, one hundred and thirty witnesses were 
 examined. Among them figured Mademoiselle Bourry, who after 
 having been the heroine of the drama, had sunk down to the part of 
 a mere supernumerary. As long as there had been any hope of ob- 
 taining information from her, which would support a prosecution, 
 all sorts of honours and applauses had been lavished upon her; but 
 from the moment her conscientious, unvarying, and disinterested 
 statements could be appealed to in favour of the traversers, the im- 
 mense service which she had very probably rendered the king, was 
 forgotten, and nothing was thought of but her importunate candour. 
 The witnesses, jealously desirous of obtaining an importance in which 
 she had forestalled them, agreed in answer to the leading ques- 
 tions of the solicitor-general and the president, in contesting a part 
 of the glory she arrogated to herself; there were some who even went 
 so far as to deny her presence upon the scene of event. Bergeron 
 baffled this manoeuvre by remarking, that Mademoiselle Bourry 
 had been the first to describe the assassin, and that most of the 
 depositions made subsequently to hers, tallied with her description 
 of the man; whence the conclusion followed, either that she had 
 stated the exact truth, or that she must have possessed a strange 
 power of divination. The accusation was given up as regarded 
 Benoist, and sustained with extreme pertinacity against Bergeron 
 by the procureur-general, M. Persil, and his deputy, M. Franck- 
 Carre. But the traverser and M. Joly, his able advocate, met it 
 with as much success as energy, nor was it long even before they 
 assumed the offensive. After eight days stormy debates, which 
 ended upon Bergeron's part by a very noble and lofty profession of 
 the republican faith, the jury pronounced a verdict of acquittal. 
 Joyous shouts burst forth, and were prolonged upon the Quai do 
 1'Horloge, which was covered by an impatient crowd, and lined 
 by numerous soldiers. 
 
 Arrnand Carrel, who had closely watched the course of the trial, 
 gave the following account of his impressions in the National: 
 
 " Young Bergeron delivered, with great feeling, a short defence, 
 nobly written, and expressive of his firm convictions; a defence 
 which will prove to those who know mankind, that he is no com- 
 mon man. Such has been the result of almost all the political pro- 
 secutions directed against the republican opinions; they have done 
 the executive no other service, than to put in bold relief characters 
 of a strong stamp and hopeful talents. Such is the young traverser, 
 whose acquittal the jury this day pronounced." 
 
 What Armand Carrel here said with respect to Bergeron's trial 
 was no less applicable to one that had taken place previously, and 
 which had made no less noise. Towards the close of the year, 
 several members of the Societt des Amis du Peuple had been sum- 
 moned before the court of assizes of the Seine, for having taken part 
 a year previously in meetings, consisting of more than twenty persons. 
 The accusation was grounded upon Art. 291, and the point was
 
 90 
 
 about to be decided, whether the right of association should be 
 maintained or abolished in a country which was called free. 
 
 After a brilliant harangue from M. Rittiez, M. Godefroi Ca- 
 vaignac addressed the court. He began by defending with simple, 
 but vigorous eloquence, the right of association; then addressing 
 those who affected to see in the idea of a republic, only that of dis- 
 organization and anarchy, he exclaimed, 
 
 " We are, you say, the enemies alike of society and of the govern- 
 ment, but to this I have already replied; what we hdte in society, 
 are its vices; we are the real friends of social order, for we wish that 
 it should be corrected, and we believe that it is susceptible of being 
 so. You, who say that it is good, flatter it; you, who say that it 
 will always remain vicious, calumniate it. Furthermore, I may 
 upon this occasion, once again demand, where is that organization 
 which we intend to destroy? Religion, science, labour, what is 
 there constituted and settled in existing society?" 
 
 " Religion? Ask a priest, M. de Lammennais. Science? Ask 
 Raspail. What scientific organization is there in a country that is 
 destitute of popular instruction?" 
 
 r " As for labour, inquire of all those who are devoted to it, if it be 
 organized. Remember Lyons; examine all that is said, all that is 
 done for want of laws to organize labour. Strange calumny ! We 
 are disorganizes in a society in which organization is wanting, and 
 in which we desire that it may be at last established !" 
 
 " Is it in religion? We are for the absolute liberty of conscience; 
 we are for having no priests who, under any pretence whatever, 
 should govern the affairs of the world ; neither do we adopt a faith 
 which refers every thing to heaven; which reduces equality to 
 equality in the eyes of God ; to that posthumous equality which 
 paganism proclaimed as well as Catholicism." 
 
 " Religion, as we understand it, comprises the sacred rights of 
 humanity. We deem it not enough to hold up a scare-crow to 
 crime after death," to offer the wretched a consolation upon the 
 other side of the grave. Morality and well-being, that is to say, 
 equality, must be established in this world. The title of man must 
 avail to obtain for all those who bear it, a common religious respect 
 for their rights, a pious sympathy for their wants. The religion 
 which we profess is that which will change horrid prisons into peni- 
 tentiaries, and which will abolish the penalty of death in the name of 
 human inviolability." 
 
 " For science, we demand that it be organized so as to facilitate 
 labour, to multiply production, wealth, and comfort, to diffuse in- 
 struction, and to defend mankind against the scourges that befall it. 
 We demand that it be organized, so that when a man like Broussais 
 shall present himself as candidate, he may be elected, and that he 
 may have as electors men who will not thrust him aside ; for well or- 
 ganized election is in its turn pre-eminently a law of organization.
 
 SPEECH OF GODEFROI CAVAIGNAC. 91 
 
 We say as much for letters and for arts: we give them, we say, 
 social utility, glory, liberty, public examination, election. 
 
 " As for labour we demand that it be no longer made subordinate 
 to the interests of the greedy and the idle; we demand that tho 
 working man be no longer made the helpless drudge of the capi- 
 talist; that the labour of his hands be not his sole source of 
 gain ; that he find in the establishment of public banks, in the dif- 
 fusion of instruction both general and special to his calling, in the 
 sage administration of justice and the equitable adjustment of taxa- 
 tion, in the multiplication of the means of intercommunication, and 
 in the power of association itself, the means of lightening his tasks, 
 of emancipating his capabilities, and of recompensing his industry 
 and courage. We demand above all that labour shall constitute the 
 first of all claims to the exercise of political rights, for societies sub- 
 sist by labour and not by property. 
 
 " At this word I pause, messieurs. I feel it needful still further 
 to pursue my explanations; for we are accused of doctrines hostile 
 to proprietors, and I must add that, in French society, amidst the 
 general existing want of organization and life which I have pointed 
 out, property presents itself under an aspect of strength and organi- 
 zation. Our first revolution established it on new bases, imperfect 
 indeed, but founded on a useful principle, that of division. 
 
 " That division it effected solely by limiting the right of inherit- 
 ance, by enacting the equal partition of patrimonies and prohibiting 
 entails. This was not the only means it might have employed; for 
 instance, it ought further to have extended the right of inheritance ; 
 that is to say, that the principle of the division of property would 
 have received increased force and completeness, if there had been 
 levied on every inheritance of a certain value, a sort of duty, which 
 should be thrown into a common fund to be divided among the pau- 
 per class. 
 
 " Let no one cry out against this scheme; for the fisc does pre- 
 cisely the same thing in levying duties on every succession to pro- 
 perty. Only it does so for its own profit, and we should prefer seeing 
 this advantage gathered by the productive hands of the working men. 
 
 " But be this as it may, there is might and organization on the 
 side of property in France. The principle of division has been in- 
 troduced, and it has further multiplied the proprietary class, already 
 enkrged by the sale of national estates; and this recent parcelling 
 out of property among many hands has given it collectively a con- 
 stitution at once vital and perfectible. 
 
 " As for us we have never assailed it; the sentiment of property 
 is one of those that are natural to man ; but it is precisely for that rea- 
 son, precisely because man longs to possess, and because we must not 
 slight or overlook this instinctive tendency, that we would have it 
 satisfied in the greatest possible number of men, instead of being 
 gratified only in a few exceptional instances.
 
 92 SPEECH OF GODEFROI CAVAIGNAC. 
 
 " There would be no more great fortunes ; there would be no 
 more excessive poverty. Politically and morally this would be a 
 blessing. It is alleged that the accumulation of capital is necessary 
 for certain purposes of production. But there will always be a suf- 
 ficiently large capitalist the budget. Besides, what will compen- 
 sate for the subdivision of capital? Once more, association. 
 
 "We do not contest the right of property; only we estimate 
 above it the right which society possesses of regulating it for the 
 greatest common good. We cannot admit the right of doing what 
 one will with one's own to the extent of abusing it to the detriment 
 of the social state. Does not the government itself submit to the 
 chambers a law providing for the forced abstraction of private pro- 
 perty, on the ground of public utility, thus calling on the law to 
 guard the interests of the community against the abusive hindrances 
 caused by the individual right of property? 
 
 " What we do contend against, is the monopoly of political 
 rights ; and do not suppose that we do so solely to claim them in 
 favour of capacities. According to our views, whoever is useful is 
 capable ; every service infers a right ; to every labour belongs, in 
 justice, a profit and a guarantee; for it is to labour especially that 
 the profit is due and the guarantee necessary. 
 
 " Why then should property alone have political rights? And 
 then, will not those rights themselves be a property ? Can nothing 
 be possessed but land or houses? Will not instruction, that first 
 element of labour and industry which society is bound to afford 
 every one of its members, will not the title of citizen, realised by 
 the guarantees, the assistance, and the protection society owes to all, 
 will not these too be likewise property !" 
 
 These explanations given by Godefroi Cavaignac indicate pretty 
 nearly how far went and where stopped the opinions of most repub- 
 licans towards the close of the year 1832. The traverser concluded 
 his address in these terms : 
 
 " You have no right to hinder us from founding our commune 
 on the soil we till. The law, you will say? But here it speaks the 
 language of force ; and this language we do not comprehend. ' You 
 cite a law to me,' said a protestant to an inquisitor, ' which prohibits 
 us from meeting together ; how can you expect me to fulfil such a 
 law? I do not understand it.' 
 
 "No, we do not understand it; and when we revert from the 
 present to the past, all this appears to us a dream. It was but yes- 
 terday I looked over the Moniteur, and there I found recorded those 
 famous days, those grand labours, those gigantic wars, the whole 
 vast enterprise of the French people for the achievement of its rights. 
 I followed that luminous track with which the genius of liberty has 
 marked the last forty years, and the events which have shaken the 
 earth from pole to pole, leaving nothing erect but the fortune of 
 nations. I saw that genius caring for every people, making their
 
 ACQUITTAL OF THE TRAVERSERS. 93 
 
 cause its own, and selecting France as their sustainer; arming her, 
 inspiring her, breathing into her heart an incredible energy, and re- 
 newing in her veins all the blood she had prodigally expended. 
 
 " I beheld our triumphs, then our reverses; reverses still worthy 
 of us ; showing all the arms of Europe stretched out for our over- 
 throw; then, under the Bourbons, I beheld liberty furnishing bloody 
 sacrifices to tyranny ; and, last of all, the days of July, which added 
 the right of the stronger to the sacred right of the people. 
 
 " I might, perhaps, count the tale of so many victories and dis- 
 asters, of so many mighty labours; I might gather up those lessons 
 which France has given to the world : but what shall I find as the 
 result of those lessons, of those efforts? Nothing but men like those 
 who now govern us ; nothing but laws like those you are now called 
 on to apply. 
 
 " That we should not, at this day, messieurs, have got beyond the 
 291st article would be an incomprehensible, a desperate enigma 
 were there not citizens to break through it and juries to acquit them 
 for the deed." 
 
 M. Godefroi Cavaignac had not relied too boldly on the sentiments 
 of the jurors he addressed. The defence having been completed by 
 some grave and energetic words on the part of MM. Plocque, Des- 
 jardins, Carre, Gaussuron and Despreaux, the proceedings were de- 
 clared to be closed, and M. Fenet, the foreman of the jury, read the 
 following verdict : 
 
 Has there been association of more than twenty persons? Yes. 
 Was that association periodical? Yes. Was it authorised by the 
 government? No. Are the traversers guilty? No. 
 
 Thus the jury declared innocent that same fact which the court of 
 cassation had pronounced to be criminal, when it rejected the appeal 
 of the St. Simonians! Thus the 29 1st article, confirmed by a magis- 
 tracy emanating from the government, had been virtually abolished 
 by a magistracy emanating from the people ! And, that there might 
 remain no shadow of doubt as to the principle on which the jurors 
 had given their verdict, they took care to declare through their fore- 
 man, that " in their consciences they had deemed not guilty the fact 
 of association in numbers exceeding twenty persons." Notwith- 
 standing this solemn protest, the president of the court of assize, 
 whilst pronouncing the acquittal of the traversers, declared the 
 Socittc des Amis du Peuple dissolved. This was pushing anarchy to 
 to its utmost limit; it was plunging justice into chaos. 
 
 Whilst the republicans were taking advantage of the very prose- 
 cution instituted against them, to propound and discuss the most pro- 
 found problems of political and social order, the two chambers were 
 filled with the din of idle and profitless recriminations. 
 
 The government had a brilliant and obstinate foeman at the Palais 
 du Luxembourg, in the person of the Marquis de Dreux Brcze. But 
 as he never spoke save in the name of the Restoration, and was the
 
 94 THE MINISTRY AND THE OPPOSITION. 
 
 orator of a vanquished power, his words did not awaken many echoes 
 out of doors. 
 
 The peerage, besides having long lost all credit, the contests that 
 might arise within it but feebly engaged the attention of the public. 
 The chamber of deputies was, therefore, the chief scene of battle 
 between the ministry and the opposition on the subject of the speech 
 from the throne. 
 
 The executive had had recourse, for its own defence, to measures 
 of flagrant brutality: it had abused the right of prosecuting the 
 press; it had violated the abode of citizens, on many occasions, 
 with cruel recklessness; by its intemperate display of strength, and 
 by the protection it afforded to the violence of its subaltern agents, 
 it had flung challenges to the spirit of revolt, of a nature to change 
 disorder into riot, and riot into insurrection; victor in the open 
 forum, it had put on the powers of the dictator, in order to wreak 
 its vengeance, when the arm of the law would have been sufficient 
 to vindicate its just rights. It was upon the ground of these com- 
 plicated acts subversive of liberty, that the opposition assailed 
 the ministry, through the mouths of MM. Thouvenel, de Sade, 
 Havin, and Eusebe Salverte. 
 
 The friends of government replied some with abusive vehemence, 
 like M. Roul, others, like Duvergier de Hauranne, with the calmness 
 of rational conviction, that a system of half measures would inevitably 
 have proved the ruin of the state, amidst so many raging passions, 
 and such a turmoil of clashing factions ; that it was holding out en- 
 couragements to revolt to refuse ministers the means of crushing it ; 
 and that it had needed to the full all the energy displayed up to 
 that time, to put down that audacity of party which, failing in in- 
 surrection, had recourse to assassination ; that the opposition belied 
 its own principles, when, after calling for the application of martial 
 law to the provinces of the west, it took It amiss that martial law 
 should be proclaimed in the capital, when labouring, like the west, 
 under all the dangers, all the horrors of civil war. Thus, acting on 
 the offensive, the ministerial party reproached the opposition with 
 having instigated to anarchy by the publication of its famous compte 
 rendu. Why did it not rather give useful and moderate counsels to 
 that government, whose path it had bestrewed with obstacles? 
 Why did it not teach ministers, in terms more precise and clear, 
 that precious art of good government, of which it seemed to boast 
 itself the sole possessor? "What would you have done in our 
 place?" cried M. Thiers to his adversaries. " How would you have 
 surmounted so many difficulties, conjured so many perils? Come, 
 let us hear your plans ; initiate us into the mysteries of your wisdom !" 
 
 Odilon Barrot had no difficulty in showing how little account 
 was to be made of such appeals. But when he dilated, in bitter 
 tones and with indignant air, on the maintenance of the double vote in 
 the election of the Chamber, the stand made against public opinion
 
 PARLIAMENTARY CONFLICTS. 95 
 
 in behalf of a hereditary peerage, the opposition to the diminution 
 of the electoral qualification, and the sort of proscription of capacity 
 perpetrated by the electoral law; when he loudly stigmatised the 
 ways of the new government, borrowed from its predecessor, which 
 a tempest had overwhelmed; when he affirmed that the royalty de- 
 sired in July, was not a royalty relying on interests of family, of 
 caste, of aristocracy, and living under the patronage of the foreigner; 
 when, in fine, he accused ministers of having only been able to con- 
 tinue the course of the Restoration, then, indeed, M. Odilon Barrot 
 unwittingly pronounced sentence on the very principle of monarchy. 
 For no royalty can subsist upon its own resources. Established 
 upon the most exorbitant of all privileges, it must have by its side 
 a privileged body to defend it. You destroy it if you isolate it ; 
 you render it superfluous unless you give it, as in England, an aris- 
 tocracy to represent. Every royalty which is not a symbol, is 
 necessarily a tyranny, for this very simple reason, that a power 
 which does not derive the rationale of its existence from the me- 
 dium in which its subsists, can only maintain itself by main 
 force. The opposition consequently required an impossibility, when 
 it demanded, to use M. Odilon Barrot's expression, "a royalty 
 which should be in harmony with that sentiment of equality which 
 pervaded French society." Never had political doctrines rested 
 upon more contradictory data, upon a more monstrous Utopia; but 
 such was the inconceivable blindness of all the honest liberals! 
 Wholly possessed of monarchical sentiments, and always filled with 
 the apprehension that permanence of the scaffold would succeed to 
 the abolition of the hereditary throne, they said, " Let us preserve 
 the monarchical regime;'* then, hurried away by the torrent of revo- 
 lutionary ideas, and irresistibly swayed by the principles of equality, 
 they added, " Let there be in that monarchical regime neither un- 
 just distinctions, nor shameful fictions, nor privileges." This was, 
 in point of fact, to demand that the monarchy should exist indepen- 
 dently of the sole conditions which could render it possible. 
 
 The ministerial party, without having right on its side, had, at 
 least, over its adversaries of the dynastic gauche, the advantage of 
 being consistent in its errors ; accordingly, its victory was complete. 
 In the first sittings of the Chamber, M. Dupin aine, had defeated 
 M. Laffitte in the contest for the presidency, and M. Berenger had 
 obtained more votes than M. Dupont de 1'Eure, for the vice-presi- 
 dency. The adhesion given to the speech from the throne by the 
 address, such as it was passed, rendered the triumph of the ministry 
 incontestible. That address was drawn up in such a way, as not 
 even to show any trace of the timid doubts which the Chamber of 
 Peers had expressed upon the subject of the state of siege. It is 
 true, that the Chamber of Deputies expressed its wish that the policy 
 pursued by ministers should hold a middle course, equally aloof 
 from the reminiscences of the Restoration and from the doctrines of 
 the Republic; a strange chimera, still pursued by the constitu-
 
 96 FOREIGN POLICY OF FRANCE. 
 
 tionalists of our day. If men will have monarchy, they must have 
 it with all that constitutes it, they must have it entire. To proclaim 
 it indispensable, and at the same time to refuse to grant it the 
 power to act, and even the means of dazzling by its splendour, is of 
 all imprudences the most dangerous and the least pardonable; for a 
 power proclaimed indispensable, is sure to desire whatever is not 
 granted it ; and whatever it desires, it endeavours, sooner or later, 
 to seize, whether by corruption or violence. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 RENT and convulsed within, abroad, France was become the 
 sport of diplomacy. The Conference of London, aided by M. de 
 Talleyrand, was following up against us the work of jealousy and 
 hatred, which for two years had absorbed all its activity. In order 
 to resume the thread of these pernicious intrigues, it is necessary to 
 go somewhat further back in the course of events. 
 
 The King of the French, upon opening the session of the 23d of 
 June, 1831, had announced to the chambers in a tone of satisfied 
 pride, that the Conference of London consented to the demolition 
 of the fortresses erected in pursuance of the treaty of 1815, in the 
 kingdom of the Netherlands, to humiliate France, and keep her in 
 check. This was a lucky piece of news; the ministers took occa- 
 sion, in consequence, to vaunt the excellence of their policy ; the 
 court journals exulted in this reparation afforded to our honour, and 
 the nation might indulge in a moment of pride; it was not ac- 
 quainted with the real nature of things. Sir Robert Peel having 
 put a question to the English ministry upon the 28th of June, 
 1831, touching the Belgian fortresses, Lord Palmerston replied to 
 him in these words: "The negotiation for intervention will take 
 place only between the four powers and Belgium ; France is ex- 
 cluded from it" Thus France was to be rudely excluded from a 
 treaty which affected her own honour ; thus she had been admitted 
 into the Amphictyonic council of sovereigns, as long as the matter 
 in hand had been to favour the views of the great European mo- 
 narchies, and now that her dearest interests, her wounded pride was 
 in question, she was repulsed; and M. de Talleyrand, in the name 
 of the French government, submitted to endure this outrage, the 
 most atrocious of all. 
 
 Lord Palmerston had spoken the truth. On the 14th of De- 
 cember, 1831, the Plenipotentiaries of Austria, Great Britain, Prus- 
 sia, and Russia, signed a definitive convention, the first article of 
 which ran thus: "In consequence of the changes which the inde- 
 pendence and neutrality of Belgium have introduced into the military
 
 FRANCE, HOLLAND, AND BELGIUM. 97 
 
 situation of that country, as well as into the means it may command 
 for its defence, the high contracting parties agree to cause to be 
 demolished those of the fortresses erected, repaired, or extended in 
 Belgium since 1815, wholly or partially at the expense of the courts 
 of Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia, the maintenance 
 of which would henceforth only constitute a useless incumbrance. 
 In accordance with this principle, all the fortifications of Menin, 
 Ath, Mons, Philippeville, and Marienburg, shall be demolished 
 within the periods determined by the articles hereinafter following."* 
 
 So, then, this demolition was determined first, because it rid 
 the powers of an incumbrance, admitted to be henceforth useless; 
 secondly, because the character of an independent and neutral power, 
 attributed to Belgium, was evidently sufficient security for Europe 
 combined against us ; and that no doubt whatever should remain 
 as to the purport of this convention, the English ministers took 
 care, in parliament, to add to the insult of the text the insult of a 
 commentary. Never, assuredly, even under Louis XV., had the 
 policy of the French government been less French. It is true that, 
 subsequently, the eldest daughter of King Louis Philippe married 
 King Leopold. 
 
 Meanwhile, the disputes between Holland and Belgium continued 
 to be the chief subject that engaged the attention of the Conference; 
 it was well aware that, upon the result of that long quarrel, was to 
 depend the peace of Europe. 
 
 The reader remembers the treaty of the twenty-four articles; it 
 had resolved the commercial and financial questions in favour of 
 Belgium, and the territorial question in favour of Holland. The 
 fact is, that treaty was not aimed either against Holland or against 
 Belgium it was aimed against France. The European monarchies, 
 unable to erase from history the revolutions of July and of Septem- 
 ber, had sought to revive, under another form, the notions which, 
 in 1815, had led to the formation of the kingdom of the Nether- 
 lands ; and it was for the purpose of setting up against us a double 
 barrier upon the north, that, after having proclaimed the neutrality 
 of Belgium, they granted the King of Holland, not only a part of 
 Luxemburg and the left bank of the Scheldt, but also a part of Lim- 
 burg and Maastricht; in a word, a strong footing along the Meusc. 
 
 Upon this occasion, France was not excluded from the delibera- 
 tions of the Conference ; she found herself, therefore, of course sub- 
 jected to the humiliation of guaranteeing, conjointly with the four 
 great powers, the execution of a treaty, the object of which was to 
 keep her in leading strings. f 
 
 This convention does not bear the signature of M. de Talleyrand, who had con- 
 sented to our exclusion: the names appended to it are those of Palmerston, Lster- 
 hazy, Wessemberg, Bulow, Lieven, Mastuszewicz, and Goblet 
 
 f The more we reflect upon the insolence of this arrangement, the more we arc 
 amazed that it obtained the approbation and consent of our ministers, and the signa- 
 ture of our ambassador. It is manifest that what we have said of the mediocrity of 
 M. de Talleyrand rests upon the most positive proofs, for these proofs are official 
 
 VOL. II. H
 
 98 KING WILLIAM'S PROTEST AGAINST THE DECISIONS 
 
 She was bound to this by the treaty of the 15th of November, 1831, 
 which ratified the twenty-four articles, by placing them under the 
 guarantee of the five subscribing powers, and which prescribed that 
 the treaty should be carried into effect within two months. 
 ' The treaty of the twenty-four articles gave rise to the most impas- 
 sioned debates in the Chamber of Representatives in Belgium ; it 
 was accepted, nevertheless, as men accept the law of the stronger. 
 The ratification, on the part of the Belgians, was, therefore, pure 
 and simple. So, likewise, were the ratifications on the part of France 
 and England; but the Dutch plenipotentiaries in London, by express 
 order of King William, protested against the dictatorial decisions of 
 the Conference. 
 
 In their note of the 14th of December, 1831, the Dutch pleni- 
 potentiaries, Falck and Van Zuylen Van Nyevell began by re- 
 proaching the Conference with having set itself in opposition to the 
 protocol of Aix-la-Chapelle.* This protocol had declared, "That 
 in case a congress, either of sovereigns or of plenipotentiaries, 
 should have for its object matters specially connected with the other 
 interests of Europe, that congress should only take place under the 
 express understanding that the sovereigns should participate in it 
 directly, or by their plenipotentiaries." Now, what had the Con- 
 ference done? It had, in the first place, admitted the ambassador 
 of the King of Holland to take part in the common deliberations; 
 then, after some meetings, suddenly changing its system, it had ex- 
 cluded the representatives of Holland, and confined itself merely to 
 receiving written communications from them. Was this the sort of 
 participation intended by the protocol of Aix-la-Chapelle? The 
 Dutch plenipotentiaries then denounced, as a flagrant wrong to the 
 independence of their sovereign, and as a violation of the law of 
 nations, certain ckuses of the treaty, which tended to nothing less 
 than giving strangers the right of inspection over a river of Hol- 
 land; giving the right of fishing to foreigners, and confirming to 
 the Dutch, as if it were a matter of doubt, the right of navigating 
 their own rivers, &c. In short, the signers of the protest claimed 
 the whole course of the Scheldt, from Antwerp downwards; depre- 
 cated the participation of the Belgians in the intermediate waters, 
 between the Scheldt and the Rhine, and declared that they acceded 
 to the participation of the debts only upon the condition of a ca- 
 pitalization ; and they appealed from the treaty of the twenty-four 
 articles to that of the 27th of January, 1831, which had fixed the 
 
 documents. We defy M. de Talleyrand's defenders to cite a single one of the proto- 
 cols of the Conference of London which was not drawn up in a spirit manifestly hos- 
 tile to France, and, consequently, to the ideas of civilization which France represents. 
 If, then, any man refuse to see hi tliis series of protocols an unanswerable evidence 
 of the incapacity of him who submitted to, or accepted them, it must be admitted 
 that M. de Talleyrand was guilty towards his country of one of those treasons which 
 are rendered improbable, if not by the excess of their baseness, at least by the excess 
 of their effrontery. 
 * Dated Nov. 15, 1818.
 
 OF THE LONDON CONFERENCE. 99 
 
 basis of separation. Viewing the matter in accordance with the 
 rules and laws of diplomacy, nothing was more reasonable, nothing 
 better grounded than this protest of Holland. The Conference re- 
 plied to it with undignified sophisms. As for the protocol of Aix- 
 k-Chapelle, it pretended that it contained nothing relative to the 
 form of the deliberations; a truly pitiful subtlety T For the proto- 
 col in question, by attributing to the sovereigns concerned the right 
 of participating in the congresses, directly or by their plenipoten- 
 tiaries, had evidently intended to leave no interest without security. 
 The Conference added, that the twenty-four articles contained only 
 the development of the bases of separation ; and here again the Con- 
 ference violated the truth, because the treaty of the twenty-four arti- 
 cles, for instance, portioned out Luxemburg between Belgium and 
 Holland, upon the stipulation of a territorial indemnity being 
 granted to the latter, whilst, in the treaty of the basis of separation, 
 it was expressly said, article second, " Belgium shall be formed of 
 all the rest of the territories which had received the denomination 
 of the kingdom of the Netherlands, in the treaty of 1831, except- 
 ing the grand duchy of Luxemburg, which being possessed by a 
 different title by the princes of the house of Nassau, makes, and 
 shall continue to make, part of the Germanic Confederation." It is 
 true that, as the two countries possessed isolated portions, each in 
 the other's territory, the fourth article had provided that arrangements 
 might be made to secure to each a continuous extent of frontier; 
 but when it was found that these arrangements, the scope of which 
 had not been fully foreseen in the first instance, led to a total re- 
 modification of the basis adopted, what signified that hypocritical 
 word development, with which the Conference met the remon- 
 strances of King William? 
 
 Be that as it may, the energetic resistance of that prince had, for 
 its first result, to throw Russia, Prussia, and Austria, into a long fit 
 of doubt and vacillation. Up to that time, these three powers had 
 acted in concert with Engknd, because, upon their part, as well as 
 upon that of England, the secret motive in all these arrangements 
 was a motive hostile to France; but, in order to gratify this com- 
 mon hatred, in order to raise up sufficient obstacles against us upon 
 the North, it had been necessary to sacrifice, partially, the interests 
 of the King of Holland, and to sacrifice them in the name of the 
 revolutionary principle. Now, on this point, Russia, Austria, and 
 Prussia, necessarily began to separate from Great Britain. For the 
 latter power, the question was a very simple one ; it consisted simply 
 in keeping France in check. For the former powers, on the con- 
 trary, the question was more complicated; it consisted in curbing 
 France, without, at the same time, too fully sanctioning the revo- 
 lutionary principle, by permitting that the sequel of the days of 
 September should depress, beyond measure, that Dutch royalty 
 which the treaties of 1815 had engendered, which the principle of 
 
 II 2
 
 100 AUSTRIA, PRUSSIA, AND RUSSIA. 
 
 legitimacy protected, and which made part of the inviolable family 
 of European monarchies. 
 
 The protests of King William had, therefore, for the cabinets of 
 St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Berlin, a signification and importance 
 which they could not have in the eyes of the cabinet of St. James's. 
 Thence, the delay in the exchange of the ratifications upon the part 
 of the King of Prussia and of the Emperors of Russia and Austria. 
 True to the spirit of the Holy Alliance, those three sovereigns 
 would have wished that King William would permit them, by his 
 voluntary acquiescence in the treaty of the twenty-four articles, 
 to put themselves upon their guard against France, while they 
 should be spared the necessity of violating, openly and outrageously, 
 the laws of monarchical freemasonry. 
 
 In this dilemma, the Emperor of Russia determined to send 
 Count Alexis Orloff to the Hague, for the purpose of obtaining the 
 desired acquiescence from the King of Holland. 
 
 Count Orloff, finding his urgent applications refused, quitted the 
 Hague, and announced to Europe, in an official declaration, that the 
 Emperor of Russia did not intend to take part in the employment 
 of coercive means for constraining the King of the Low Countries, 
 by force of arms, to subscribe to the twenty-four articles, but that 
 he considered those articles as comprising the sole basis upon which 
 could be effected the separation of Belgium from Holland (saving 
 the amendments admissible in a final treaty between the two coun- 
 tries). Count Orloff furthermore declared, in the name of his mas- 
 ter, that in case the neutrality of Belgium should be menaced, by 
 force of arms, by Holland, the Emperor of Russia reserved to him- 
 self the right of concerting, with his allies, for the re-establishment 
 of that neutrality, and the maintenance of general peace. 
 
 Austria and Prussia having adhered to this declaration, their pleni- 
 potentiaries exchanged ratifications upon the 18th of April, and the 
 plenipotentiaries of Russia upon the 4th of May. The drama was 
 approaching its denouement ; it was not yet arrived at it. The 
 Prussian and Austrian ratifications were, in fact, given only under a 
 reservation of the rights of the Germanic Confederation, relatively to 
 the cession and exchange of a part of the grand duchy of Luxem- 
 burg ; and as for Russia, its ratification was but partial ; it contained 
 these words " Saving the modifications to be made in articles nine, 
 twelve, and thirteen, in a. definitive arrangement between Holland 
 and Belgium." 
 
 Belgium had counted upon a pure and simple ratification upon 
 the part of Russia, and the Belgian plenipotentiary had been by 
 no means authorized to accept the partial ratification; this was, 
 nevertheless, done by M. Van de Weyer, who therein exceeded his 
 powers, and forced upon his country the alternative, either of sub- 
 mitting to ratifications under reserve, which seemed to throw open 
 the whole question, or to reconstruct them at the risk of breaking
 
 INDIGNATION OF THE BELGIANS. 101 
 
 with Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and of imprudently tampering 
 with the nationality of Belgium. 
 
 Great, therefore, was the indignation in Brussels, and loud were 
 the cries upon all sides against the diplomacy which so long con- 
 demned Belgium to a ruinous state of provisional existence, and 
 against the Belgian ministry, which had plunged the future prospects 
 of the country into these perplexities, and against the French go- 
 vernment, which had done nothing but crawl meanly at the heels of 
 the Conference. There was but too just cause for the anger of the 
 Belgians; placed between the fluctuations of diplomacy, between 
 dishonour and ruin, they already beheld their industry paralysed, 
 their commerce dried up at the source, their credit lost, their na- 
 tionality floating at the pleasure of every caprice, at the breath of 
 every chance. The Orangists, furthermore, took advantage of the 
 disorders arising from so many uncertainties, to tempt weak minds 
 to calumniate the revolution, and to cast upon the principle of re- 
 volt the responsibility of the growing evils of the country. The 
 kidnapping of M. Thorn, a member of the Belgian senate, by an 
 audacious gang, and his incarceration in the prison of Luxemburg, 
 added fresh fuel to the universal excitement. One cry rose from all 
 points of Belgium : There must be an end of this ! But diplomacy 
 could show nothing to match the scandal of its usurpations, except 
 its impotence, and it held anarchy suspended over that Europe 
 whose destinies it pretended to regulate. To the perplexities result- 
 ing from the reservations made by Russia were superadded by those 
 latent in the protocol of the 4th of May, which declared, upon the 
 one hand, that the state of territorial possession was irrevocably 
 fixed ; upon the other hand, that there existed difficulties affording 
 grounds for fresh negotiations. The treaty of the 15th of Novem- 
 ber, 1831, was not definitive, either in what concerned the par- 
 tition of the debt, or with respect to the commercial advantages 
 accorded to Belgium. This was declared by a separate act. In a 
 note, dated May llth, the Belgian minister expressed himself in 
 these terms: " If the King of Belgium could show a disposition to 
 open negotiations upon points admitting of them, this could only be 
 after the treaty should have begun to be carried into effect upon all 
 points not subject to controversy. This commencement would con- 
 sist, at least, in the evacuation of the Belgian territory;^ until then 
 his majesty will take no part in any new negotiation." The Belgian 
 plenipotentiary, Van de Weyer, was ordered to lay this note before 
 the Conference ; he did not do so. This was the second time he 
 failed in the duties of his station. Strange suspicions began to bo 
 conceived ; nevertheless, he was not deprived of his title of pleni- 
 potentiary ; but General Goblet was associated with him, and set out 
 for London. 
 
 Under the existing state of things Belgium simply demanded that 
 the principle of preliminary evacuation snould be laid down. Tho 
 Conference consented to this at first, and it decided by a note of the
 
 102 COMPLICATED DIPLOMATIC INTRIGUES. 
 
 11 tli of June, that the reciprocal evacuation should be effected upon 
 the 1 1th of July. Then, seeing that the Dutch plenipotentiaries per- 
 sisted in the attitude they had assumed, it virtually annulled its de- 
 cision, and declared upon the llth of July that the evacuation should 
 take place fifteen days after the exchange of the ratifications of the 
 new convention, which was in effect annulling the limit previously 
 fixed. It was upon this that Holland, without explicitly making 
 known the ultimate aim of its pretensions, offered to open a direct 
 negotiation with Belgium. She expected in this way to have ap- 
 pearances in her favour, being very well convinced that Belgium 
 would not be so ready as the Conference to give up the condition of 
 the preliminary evacuation. 
 
 Let us consider then what were the situations of the respective 
 parties in this great medley of barefaced intrigues. 
 
 The territorial question having been settled in a manner hostile 
 to France, the Conference maintained its decision upon this point, 
 but it gave it up the two other points, that of the river naviga- 
 tion and that of the debt, and it consented that upon these two 
 heads Holland and Belgium should settle their differences between 
 them. Now Holland demanded that the direct negotiations should 
 be opened previously to the evacuation ; Belgium required that they 
 should not be opened until after it. This was the grand difficulty. 
 
 It was very evident after all that Holland was not in earnest in 
 the offer it made to negotiate directly with Belgium; it expected 
 this reply upon the part of the Belgians " Evacuate our territory; 
 until then we reject all proposals for arrangement;" in that case it 
 would again stand advantageously in the eyes of the Conference, 
 which, in its propositions of the 1 1th of July, had made so little ac- 
 count of the principle of the preliminary evacuation. 
 
 The Belgian diplomatists perceived the snare and opposed artifice 
 to artifice. Van de Weyer and Goblet drew up in concert with 
 Lord Palmerston, propositions which they communicated to the Con- 
 ference, and they resolved to offer Holland to treat upon this basis, 
 which they perfectly well knew would not be accepted by William. 
 Thus the whole of this diplomatic war consisted in efforts made, by 
 each of the two parties, to cast upon the other the odium of a re- 
 fusal ; for to such a frivolous interchange of deceptions, such a cross 
 fire of shameful tricks is the genius of the statesman reduced under 
 monarchies. 
 
 Be this as it may, the policy of Belgium had assumed a new as- 
 pect since the principle of the preliminary evacuation was apparently 
 abandoned. M. de Meulenaere, Belgian minister of foreign affairs, 
 retired from a sense of decency not from conviction, and General 
 Goblet was called upon to terminate, as first minister in Brussels, 
 what he had begun as plenipotentiary in London. Accordingly, on 
 the 20th of September, 1832, Van de Weyer signified to the Con- 
 ference that he was ready to enter into direct negotiation with Hol- 
 land, and that he was furnished with full powers to that end.
 
 HOLLAND TO BE COERCED. HOW? 103 
 
 Her own proposal being thus accepted, Holland drew back as had 
 been expected; the Dutch plenipotentiary, Van Zuylen Van Nye- 
 velt, addressed a vehement manifesto to the Conference, demanding 
 the signature of the treaty of separation upon the ground of the 
 notes which Holland had presented on the 30th of June and the 
 25th of July; which notes did but embody, with slight modifi- 
 cations, the obstinate pretensions of King William. 
 
 Belgian diplomacy had obtained its object, which was to set the 
 Conference against Holland. A written, and a verbal interrogatory, to 
 which the Conference subjected the Dutch plenipotentiary, com- 
 pleted the proof that the Cabinet of the Hague rejected the twenty- 
 four articles collectively, and would not even accept those territorial 
 arrangements which were so highly commended to European diplo- 
 macy by the anti-French motive that had dictated them. 
 
 Thereupon there remained nothing more for the great powers but 
 to take coercive measures against Holland. But what was to be the 
 nature of those measures? The plenipotentiaries of Austria, Prussia, 
 and Russia expressed the wish that the state of things should be sub- 
 mitted to their own courts, which should be requested once more to 
 employ their influence with the king of the Netherlands towards 
 bringing about a reconciliation. Afterwards, reflecting that the dis- 
 tances between Vienna, St. Petersburg, and London would cause 
 too long delays, the same plenipotentiaries proposed that the final de- 
 cision should be left to the cabinet of Berlin. In reality, Aus- 
 tria, Prussia, and Russia adopted only with much reluctance the 
 employment of coercive measures, and declared, that in any case they 
 could only co-operate in a pecuniary way ; but means of this nature 
 did not appear sufficient either to the French or to the British pleni- 
 potentiary. The protocol of the 1st of October, 1832, was drawn 
 up for the purpose of recording these dissensions, and the Conference 
 concluded its labours. It had begun by usurpation, it ended with 
 anarchy.* 
 
 Russia, Prussia, and Austria had positively refused to take part in 
 military measures against the King of Holland, but if they did not 
 consent to make war upon him, on the other hand, neither did 
 they pledge themselves to support him, and thus they left the field 
 open to France and England. 
 
 Now these two latter powers had not waited for the note of the 
 1st of October to menace William with their preparations. The 
 Duke of Orleans had gone to Brussels to come to an understanding 
 with King Leopold respecting the possible entry of the French 
 troops into Belgium. A French fleet was mustering at Cherbourg, 
 an English fleet at Spithead, and, by the end of September, 50,000 
 French, under the command of Marshal Gerard, were upon the fron- 
 
 * The signature of M. Mareuil appears instead of that of M. de Talleyrand at the 
 foot of the protocol of the 1st of October. The reason is, that M. de Talleyrand 
 was, at that period, at Paris, where his presence was to be influential upon the for- 
 mation of the ministry of the llth of October.
 
 104 THE FRENCH ARMAMENT. A SAYING OF TALLEYRAND'S. 
 
 tiers of the north, ready to cross them at the first signal. Belgium 
 on her part had lost patience. General Goblet demanded the ex- 
 ecution, by force of arms, of the treaty of the twenty-four articles, 
 in two notes, one of which was communicated to France on the 
 6th of October, and the other to England on the 8th of the same 
 month. 
 
 It was whilst these things were in progress that the ministry, of 
 the llth of October, entered upon office as we have already related. 
 We have stated that this ministry desired to mark its accession to 
 office by two grand results; the arrest of the Duchess de Berri, and 
 the capture of the citadel of Antwerp, which was occupied by the 
 troops of King William. 
 
 The treaty of the twenty-four articles having been specially aimed 
 against France, it was, certainly, no business of hers to go and force 
 it upon the King of Holland, sword in hand. To demand of France 
 that she should uphold, at the cost of her gold, at the cost of the 
 blood of her children, the whole bulk of the measures concerted 
 against herself, was to prepare for Europe the most woful spectacle 
 ever presented to it. But the essential thing for our ministry was 
 to dazzle men's minds; to give to their new-born power the eclat of 
 a grand enterprise. In reality, the true scope of the treaty of the 
 twenty-four articles was hardly known to anybody in France ; the 
 ministry had, therefore, reason to hope that an expedition into Bel- 
 gium would please the warlike humour of the French nation, and 
 that the expedition would be looked upon only as an aid given to 
 the revolutionary principle, as a proof of fortitude and determination 
 upon the part of the executive. Now there is no doubt that these 
 calculations were perfectly just, for as the proceedings of the cabinet 
 were enveloped in mystery, and as the acts of the Conference were 
 a dead letter to the bulk of the people, public opinion, in France, 
 took fire at random, and the attacks of the opposition fell wide of 
 the mark. 
 
 Upon the other hand it must be admitted that France had some 
 interest in proving that peace had not enervated her courage ; that 
 she was in a condition to revive the recollections of her heroic days, 
 if need were, that, in a word, she had not ceased to be a people of 
 warriors. Thus, although shameful and insensate in a diplomatic 
 point of view, the projected expedition presented, in a military point 
 of view, a sufficiently notable advantage. 
 
 So sure did this advantage appear to the ministers of the llth of 
 October, that, for a moment, they doubted the consent of the English. 
 Talleyrand was come back from London; he was asked, would the 
 cabinet of St. Jameses permit the expedition against the citadel of 
 Antwerp in case France should pledge herself not to occupy the Bel- 
 gian territory longer than was necessary. Talleyrand made this sin- 
 gular and not very becoming reply, " If the convention were signed 
 Louis Philippe, the English would not accede to it; they will do so 
 if it be signed De Broghe."
 
 THE FRENCH ARMY ON THE FRONTIERS. 105 
 
 The ministers did not think it right to wait for the diplomatic 
 authorisation of the cabinet of St James's, and it was decided that 
 the expedition should take place with or without the consent of the 
 English. But the king could not dissemble his dissatisfaction at 
 this news; to offend England was a thing he could not make up 
 his mind to do, for his whole policy consisted in the art of nice 
 conciliations and concessions; he tried, therefore, to make his mi- 
 nisters forego the measure they had determined on, whereupon they 
 offered their resignations. The king appeared to give way, and 
 this explains the movement of the troops which took place at this 
 period when, as yet no protocol authorised the French in the name 
 of diplomacy to advance to the frontiers. 
 
 But the important thing was not so much to approach them, as 
 to cross them, and the court failed not to multiply obstacles as to 
 the latter point; for the cabinet of St. James's wished for nothing 
 better than to procrastinate, hoping that the French, if they under- 
 took the siege of Antwerp at an advanced season, would be forced 
 to raise it disgracefully. Such were the perfidious schemes which 
 lurked beneath that, so much vaunted, English alliance; nor was 
 this unknown at the Tuileries, where the fact had been learned 
 that the Duke of Wellington had gone so far as to say in several 
 private circles, " Marshal Gerard will fare before the citadel of 
 Antwerp, as I did before Burgos." 
 
 Accordingly, nothing could exceed the impatience of Marshal 
 Gerard; but it was in vain that he bitterly complained, from his 
 head-quarters of Valenciennes, of a delay which could not be pro- 
 longed without rendering the French army the scoff of Europe, 
 and exposing the country to the most cruel reverses. In vain he 
 wrote to the minister of war, that the camp resounded with mur- 
 murs; that the officers were furious at their inaction; that the 
 soldiers, who at first had refused furloughs, were now beginning to 
 ask for them again, and that in fine, the good of the service was 
 put in jeopardy by the strong and daily growing conviction that 
 there would be no fighting. Still the order to march was delayed; 
 for, was it not necessary to obtain the permission of the English? 
 And during all this while, debts were accumulating upon the trea- 
 sury, because the expectation of war entailed almost as consider- 
 able expenses as war itself. The troops having approached the 
 extreme frontiers, were huddled together amongst the cantonments 
 of the artillery and the cavalry, which occupied much space ; and a 
 portion of the corps de reserve, which Marshal Gerard had sent 
 into the department du Nord, was already suffering from the incon- 
 veniences that result from the agglomeration of masses of men, 
 such as augmented prices of provisions. The weather besides, was 
 become inclement. The cholera was raging in the country, and the 
 health of the soldier demanded indulgences. The several corps 
 eagerly demanded bounty money, which it was necessary to grant
 
 106 UNCERTAINTIES AND DIFFICULTIES OF 
 
 them throughout the whole extent of the sixteenth military divi- 
 sion. 
 
 A longer delay would, therefore, have been at once absurd and 
 ruinous. Marshal Gerard, not less a good citizen than a good cap- 
 tain, could not account for so much backwardness. He thought 
 that since war was declared against Holland, it ought to be made 
 against it promptly, and in a straightforward fashion. In his opinion 
 it would be better to attack Breda and Bois le Due, than to stop at 
 the siege of the citadel of Antwerp and of Fort Lillo. He said with 
 reason, that if the powers which signed the treaty of the 15th of 
 November, were sincere in wishing it to be executed, they could 
 not object to the taking of vigorous and decisive measures to that end. 
 Such were the views also of General Saint-Cyr Nugues and General 
 Haxo, officers of distinguished merit, who longed to engage in 
 bold enterprises, and who would fain have traced out a plan of 
 invading Holland, where they would have been very glad to re- 
 commence the career of Pichegru. 
 
 But such were not the views of the court of the Tuileries. 
 Prompted by motives which we shall explain further on, it intended 
 first, that the French should lay siege to the citadel of Antwerp 
 without the co-operation of the Belgians ; secondly, that in case our 
 army had to repulse an attack on the part of the Dutch, it should 
 abstain from pursuing them into their own territory. Marshal Gerard 
 was a man of too high spirit and too good sense to submit to con- 
 ditions of this kind. In several letters nobly conceived, he laid before 
 the king the disadvantages of the part intended to be imposed 
 on the French army. The only reply he received was an order 
 to repair to Paris, where it was hoped that a conversation of two 
 hours would do more to advance business than a long correspond- 
 ence. Marshal Gerard, therefore, quitted his head-quarters at Va- 
 lenciennes, and set out for the capital. It was his firm determina- 
 tion to resign the command of the army, if in case of an attack on 
 the part of the Dutch, he was condemned to halt respectfully on the 
 limits of their territory. D'Argout and Thiers were sent to him 
 to overcome his determination; but the dexterity and persuasive 
 eloquence of the latter failed to overcome the stubborn will of the 
 marshal, strengthened as it was, by the loftiness of his sentiments. 
 The council having assembled the next day, the ministers could not 
 make up their minds either to accept Marshal Gerard's resignation, or 
 to disregard the injunctions of diplomacy; it was, therefore, decided 
 that no change should be made in the diplomatic arrangements, and 
 that Marshal Gerard should act according to circumstances under the 
 liability of having his acts subsequently disavowed. The marshal 
 returned to head-quarters master of his own purposes. By a con- 
 vention concluded in London on the 22d of October, between 
 Prince Talleyrand and Lord Palmerston, it was arranged, " that the 
 two powers, France and England, should proceed to the execution 
 of the treaty of the 15th of November, conformably with their en-
 
 THE FRENCH FORCES. 107 
 
 gageraents; that the territorial evacuation should form a commence- 
 ment of the entire execution; that the governments of Belgium 
 and of Holland should be required reciprocally to effect that evacua- 
 tion by the 12th of November; that force should be employed 
 against whichever of those governments should not have given its 
 consent bv the 2nd of November; that, in case of Holland's re- 
 fusal especially, an embargo should be placed upon the Dutch ves- 
 sels, and that on the 15th of November, the French army should 
 enter Belgium, and lay siege to the citadel of Antwerp." 
 
 The King of Holland, as was expected, gave a refusal to the sum- 
 mons of the two powers ; and on the 4th of November this refusal 
 was known at Valenciennes. The army then was about to cross 
 the frontier ! The delight of the soldiers was immense. Marshal 
 Gerard gave orders to General Neigre to hasten the transport of 
 the besieging materials, and that vessels should be freighted at 
 Douai, Lille, and Valenciennes, with the heavy artillery and its 
 appendages. General Haxo sent an officer in disguise to Antwerp, 
 with orders to make an exact recognizance of the citadel; in fine, 
 preparations were urgently made upon all sides, and the army awaited 
 with eager anticipation the hour when it should enter Belgium. 
 
 But unexpected difficulties were to arise out of the siege of the 
 citadel of Antwerp. Louis Philippe was particularly desirous of 
 having the Belgians excluded from all co-operation in the siege; di- 
 plomacy exacted this, and for the following reasons. 
 
 England was unwilling that the French and the Belgians should 
 fight together under allied banners, lest the Belgians should be brought 
 back by affection and gratitude to the wish it had previously felt of 
 becoming French. England knew that if the Belgians were forced 
 to look on inactively at the taking of the citadel of Antwerp by a 
 French army, they would never forgive us for this humiliation. 
 Thus the cabinet of St. James's found means to render us odious 
 by the very excess of our generosity, and it raised up irreconcileable 
 enemies against us from among those whom we were going to aid. ^ 
 
 As for the cabinets of St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Berlin, their 
 motives were different, though marked with a no less manifest cha- 
 racter of distrust and hostility towards us. Russia, Austria, and 
 Prussia could not conceal from themselves, that in a quarrel between 
 Holland and Belgium, the latter represented the revolutionary prin- 
 ciple, since its revived nationality dated from the days of September. 
 Now to suffer that the French and the Belgians should wield the 
 sword together against the King of Holland, would have been to 
 announce distinctly to the world, that the revolutionary principle 
 had the upper hand, that the moral authority of the revolution of 
 July weighed more in the diplomatic scale than the principle of right 
 divine, more than the treaties of Vienna. A military alliance 
 between the French and the Belgians would have been a mortal 
 blow to the Holy Alliance; it would have been the revolution of 
 1830, seconding, with its might and its majesty, the shock given in
 
 108 THE FRENCH MADE TO SUPERSEDE THE BELGIANS 
 
 September to the treaties of 1815; and this was precisely what 
 Austria, Russia, and Prussia did not desire. They imposed upon 
 the cabinet of the Tuilerics the obligation of fighting by the side of 
 the Belgians, upon their soil and yet without them, in order that it 
 might be clearly manifested, that if our army took the field, it was 
 not on behalf of a Belgian or a French, that is to say, a revolu- 
 tionary interest, but on the contrary, on behalf of the diplomatic 
 and anti-French interest ! To force our army to appear, and to be in 
 reality, nothing but the gens cFarmerie of the Conference, such 
 was the sole intention of the humiliating inaction to which diplo- 
 macy condemned the Belgians in what was yet their own quarrel, 
 and one in which we had no right to figure but as their* allies and 
 friends. However crafty such a plan may have been, one can 
 understand its having been conceived by the enemies of France ; but 
 that the French government should have done all in its power to- 
 wards the success of schemes so openly aimed against our interest 
 and our honour is what posterity doubtless will find it difficult to 
 believe. We, ourselves, but for the painful disclosures furnished to 
 us by a long and pertinacious investigation, we ourselves could never 
 have judged such infamies possible, and it is certain that France 
 would not have submitted to them, but for the darkness in which 
 diplomacy shrouded the shame of its stratagems. 
 
 vVe must add, that nothing was better suited to compromise the 
 success of the intended siege, than the inaction imposed upon the 
 Belgians ; for in order to reinforce the garrison of the citadel of Ant- 
 werp in good time, and to place it in a condition to hold out long 
 and ably against the French, the Dutch had nothing more to do 
 than to cut the embankment of the Scheldt, near Fort Sainte-Marie, 
 and that of Blockersdick. It was not unknown that such was their 
 intention, and that in order to accomplish it, they had prepared 
 vessels, in which they had embarked pioneering implements; and it 
 was probable that this attempt on the embankments would be made 
 upon the first intimation received of the march of the French. 
 General Evain, Belgian minister at war, had taken his measures 
 accordingly; the question, therefore, came to this, were the Belgians 
 to be compelled quietly to suffer their embankments to be broken 
 down, and was the enemy, to whom the French were about to give 
 battle, to be allowed to secure advantages from which he might be 
 so easily cut off, if the Belgians were left free to act? Besides, what 
 was to be done, if, as there was reason to expect, Belgium would 
 revolt against the discreditable part it was thought to impose upon 
 her? By what right was she to be forbidden to defend her own pro- 
 perty, and to resume at her own risk and peril her usurped territory? 
 And in case she should refuse to submit to conditions truly degrading, 
 was she to be reduced to obedience by force of arms? Were the 
 French, whom she hailed as allies, to change towards her and 
 become her enemies and oppressors? And what would be the conse- 
 quence if, upon the Dutch fleet and flotilla, seconding with their fire
 
 IN THE DEFENCE OF THEIR OWN TERRITORY. 109 
 
 that of the Fortress _ of Antwerp, General Chasse", commandant of the 
 citadel, should begin to bombard the town? By what insolent and 
 criminal abuse of strength were the Belgians to be hindered from 
 defending themselves when attacked? Were the French to go the 
 length of saying to men, with swords in their hands, " They are 
 ravaging your cities; they are spreading terror amongst your mothers 
 and your wives; they are carrying death into your tottering houses ; 
 never mind, all that is our affair alone !" 
 
 Yet such were the odious and ridiculous consequences which might 
 spring from the determination to exclude the Belgians from all our 
 military operations ; but so diplomacy ordained, and the cabinet of 
 the Tuileries would not brave or displease it upon any account 
 whatever. 
 
 Be this as it may, when the news of what was intended was known 
 in Belgium, the French government became there the object of more 
 violent execration than the foreign cabinets. Indignation was every- 
 where expressed against a support in which the pride of the nascent 
 nationality beheld only an outrageous insult. The inhabitants, who 
 the preceding year had cheerfully offered to harbour the French 
 troops, drew up petition after petition, demanding that they should 
 be exempted from the burden which the maintenance of the officers 
 would entail upon them; and the remonstrances upon this subject 
 became so numerous, so pressing, and so imperious, that the Bel- 
 gian minister at war soon found it necessary to accede to them. 
 Nevertheless, stipulations had been made him and M. Laneuville, 
 commissary -general of the French army, the terms of which were 
 precise and formal. No matter; the ill will of the inhabitants dis- 
 played itself with so much impetuosity, so much rancour, that it was 
 necessary to swallow the insult to the very last. To escape from the 
 dilemma, and to secure the means of subsistence to the French 
 officers, M. Laneuville had to propose to Marshal Soult that he 
 should grant supplementary allowances to the officers, as had been 
 done under similar circumstances in the expeditions to Spain, the 
 Morea, Algiers, and Ancona; and all this was but the prelude to the 
 obstacles which were to be thrown in the way of the French by the 
 resentment of the Belgian people. King Leopold himself felt a 
 secret vexation at the inforced impotence of his army, and the 
 dangers to which the schemes of diplomacy exposed his still in- 
 secure popularity. As for his ministers, their responsibility being 
 more direct, their vexation was more bitter. In various letters 
 written, some to General Saint Cyr Nugues, chef d'etat-major of 
 the French army, some to General Haxo, the Belgian minis- 
 ter at war, expressed himself very distinctly as to the impossi- 
 bility of leaving the Belgian army unemployed. Leopold held 
 nearly similar language in his private correspondence with Loub 
 Philippe, and the problem became more and more insoluble. 
 
 The French government at last resolved upon some concessions. 
 It was agreed that the Belgians should occupy the city of Antwerp,
 
 110 ILL FEELING PRODUCED AMONG THE 
 
 with a division of 6000 men, and that to them should be exclusively 
 confided the guard and defence of all the batteries established upon 
 the right bank ; but this was not enough for the Belgian government, 
 which could not consent to the French taking upon themselves the 
 sole investiture of the citadel. 
 
 At half-past ten, on the 13th of November, an extraordinary 
 courier brought Marshal Gerard an order on the part of Marshal 
 Soult, to present himself in all haste before Leopold, and conclude 
 with that prince the military convention which was to precede the 
 entry of the French into Belgium. Two days after this they passed 
 the frontier, and on the 17th of November, at one o'clock, the Dukes 
 of Orleans and Nemours passed through Brussels at the head of the 
 20th regiment of light infantry, and of the first regiment of lancers. 
 According to Article 2 of the convention passed between the 
 Belgian government and Marshal Gerard, the Belgian posts esta- 
 blished in the city of Antwerp, fronting the citadel, were to be en- 
 tirely relieved by our troops. Marshal Gerard learned, however, 
 just as he was setting out for Malines, that there was some intention 
 of not executing Article 2. He immediately repaired to King 
 Leopold, represented to him how very vexatious under the circum- 
 stances were the impediments created, promised him to deal circum- 
 spectly with the legitimate scruples of the Belgian army, and, at last, 
 after long exertion, he obtained the king's consent, that General Des- 
 prez, chef d'etat-major of the Belgian army, should set out the next 
 day to Antwerp, and there make all arrangements for the relieving of 
 the posts. But before the end of that same day Leopold had already 
 changed his mind; his ministers set their faces in the most decided 
 manner against the entry of the French army into the city of Ant- 
 werp, and offered their resignation in case their feelings on the sub- 
 ject were disregarded. The first article of the convention prohi- 
 bited the French army from occupying any fortress in Belgium, and 
 although the second and third articles were expressed in very clear 
 terms, Leopold's ministers availed themselves of the first article, not 
 very honestly interpreted, to elude the general tenor of the measures 
 agreed upon. Menaced in the chamber by the representatives of a 
 formidable party, perhaps they only sought to give a popular colour 
 to their fall: but in the critical position of Belgium, it was no 
 easy matter to form a new cabinet, and Leopold was in a state of the 
 most distressing anxiety, pressed as he was by Marshal Gerard on the 
 one side, and by his ministers on the other. 
 
 Thus, thanks to the tortuous anti-French policy adopted by the 
 cabinet of the Tuileries, obstacles multiplied at every step, and the 
 success of the expedition seemed every moment on the point of being 
 compromised. In this extremity, Marshal Gerard, upon leaving 
 Brussels, sent his aide-de-camp, M. de Sercey, to Paris, to take in- 
 structions from Marshal Soult, and to know whether in case the 
 Belgians obstinately persisted in their refusal, their posts were to be 
 taken from them by force ; for to such an incredible pitch of violence
 
 BELGIANS AGAINST THE FRENCH. HI 
 
 were the French in danger of being driven by M. de Talleyrand 
 and the cabinet of the Tuileries. Certain it is, that in spite of the 
 observations of M. de Latour-Maubourg, a prohibition against the 
 entry of the French into the city of Antwerp was formally made by 
 the Belgian minister, and officially announced to General Saint Cyr 
 Nugues by General Evain. What was to be done? Marshal Ge- 
 rard received for answer from Paris, that he was to act with vigour 
 if need were ! Happily Fortune spared us this iniquity. Leopold's 
 ministers had, in the interval, somewhat abated their pretensions. 
 General Desprez had proposed arrangements to Marshal Gerard, and 
 after a very animated conference, Colonel Buzen, superior com- 
 mandant of Antwerp, had signed a military convention with Ge- 
 neral Saint Cyr Nugues, importing, first, that the French should 
 occupy the lunette of Montebello, which was indispensable to them 
 for the siege ; and secondly, that they might introduce into the city, 
 for the purpose of occupying the first line of brigades before the 
 esplanade of the citadel, 500 men, who were to be relieved every 
 twenty-four hours. 
 
 Such were our first relations with our allies, who, from that 
 moment became our secret and implacable enemies. The views of 
 England were accomplished. It was not long before the French 
 army sorely felt the results of the disastrous policy of the Tuileries. 
 One would have said that the Belgians made it their special busi- 
 ness to frustrate the expedition. On arriving upon the ground 
 near Antwerp, Marshal Gerard perceived that not one of General 
 Evain's promises had been fulfilled ; not a magazine was established ; 
 no munitions of any kind were forthcoming. With great difficulty 
 could the first necessary wants of the army be supplied. The in- 
 habitants concealed their produce, either for the purpose of annoy- 
 ing the French army, or because they were paid only in bills, 
 which they deemed of no value. Men and horses were in danger 
 of perishing with famine. Marshal Gerard found himself constrained 
 to extend the Achard division, the brigade of the prince and that 
 of General Lawestine, to retain the Jamin division and the Simo- 
 neau brigade by Malines and Contik, and to send the Sebastian! 
 division to St. Nichoks, which fortunately offered some resources. 
 This was a state of things that could no longer be endured. Upon 
 the report of the commissary-general of the army, Marshal Gerard 
 wrote to the governor of the province of Antwerp, that the clauses 
 stipulated on the 18th of October, had not been executed by the 
 Belgian government, and that this failure upon its part might pro- 
 duce frightful consequences; that the groundless distrust of the 
 inhabitants put the army and the province in peril; that in this 
 state of things, the best thing to be done, was to make each com- 
 mune bring in provisions to certain places which should be pointed 
 out, and that such provisions should be paid for in cash at the prices 
 fixed by the clauses of the 18th of October. The proposed mea- 
 sure had all the success that could be desired, but it had needed
 
 112 SIEGE OF ANTWERP BEGUN. 
 
 but a very little more to place the French under the alternative 
 either of suffering the most horrible famine, or treating the province 
 as a conquered country. 
 
 We have dwelt at some length upon these details hitherto unknown, 
 because they proved that if the policy of the cabinet of the Tuileries 
 lacked dignity and grandeur, it was wanting at the same time in 
 ability and foresight : for the secret hostility of the Belgians ; the 
 obstacles which they delighted to create around us; the extremities 
 to which they did not hesitate to drive us, all this was upon their 
 part, the result of a just resentment; all this sprang from the ini- 
 quitous and offensive exclusion imposed upon them by our govern- 
 ment in the name and to the advantage of the enemies of France. 
 
 At eight in the evening of the 29th of October, the trenches 
 tvere opened before the citadel of Antwerp. The operations, carried 
 on with that intelligent vivacity which characterizes the French 
 soldier, had the happiest results, and it was not till the next day 
 that the besieged had cognisance of our works. At early dawn 
 Marshal Gerard sent Colonel Auvray, sous-chef de I'etat-major ge- 
 neral of the army, to General Chasse with orders to deliver the 
 following summons to the commandant of the citadel. 
 
 " To General Chasse, commanding the citadel of Antwerp. 
 
 " M. LE GENERAL, I am" arrived before the Citadel of Antwerp at the head of the 
 French army, with orders from my government to demand the execution of the 
 treaty of the 15th of November, 1831, which guarantees to his majesty the King of 
 the Belgians the possession of that fortress, as well as of the forts depending upon 
 it, on both banks of the Scheldt. I hope to find you disposed to recognise the jus- 
 tice of this demand. If, contrary to my expectation, it prove otherwise, I am 
 ordered to make known to you that I must employ the means at my disposal to 
 take possession of the citadel of Antwerp. 
 
 " The operations of the siege will be directed against the outer fronts of the citadel ; 
 I have, therefore, a right to hope, conformably with the laws of war, and the usages 
 constantly observed, that you will abstain from every kind of hostility against the 
 city. I cause a part of it to be occupied, with the sole view of preventing what 
 might expose it to the fire of your artillery. A bombardment would be an act of 
 useless barbarity, and a calamity to the commerce of all nations. 
 
 " If, notwithstanding these considerations, you fire upon the city, France and Eng- 
 land will exact indemnities equivalent to the damages caused by the fire of the 
 citadel and of the forts, as well as by that of the vessels of war. It is impossible but 
 that you must yourself foresee, that in this case you would be personally responsible 
 for the violation of an usage respected by all civilized nations, and for the evils 
 resulting therefrom. 
 
 " I await your reply, and trust that you will find it expedient to enter immediately 
 into negotiations with me for delivering up to me the citadel of Antwerp and the 
 forts depending upon it. 
 " Receive, &c." 
 
 General Chasse having replied that he was resolved to defend 
 himself, the siege began. The ardour and the gaiety of the sol- 
 diers were extreme ; but it was not the enemy alone we had to fight, 
 but the season; and the English had calculated shrewdly. It was 
 necessary to form the trenches upon a naturally very moist soil, 
 which was further drenched by the rains. In some places the sol- 
 diers sank two feet in the mud. This state of things rendered con- 
 siderable preparatory works necessary. General Neigre had 300 
 beams bought at Antwerp, which with a great number of fascines
 
 THE BESIEGERS OPEN THEIR FIRE. 113 
 
 were intended to render the trenches more accessible; and at len"lh 
 after incredible efforts, all the batteries were pronounced in alser- 
 viceable condition on the night of the 2nd of September, except- 
 ting only Nos. 7 and 8 upon the left wing. The pieces intended 
 for these last two batteries, could not be planted upon them till the 
 following night. Again, the besiegers were obliged, instead of 
 taking the usual route by the trench, to cross it, to quit the parallel, 
 and to bring in the guns by the open country, passing under the 
 fire of the citadel. The adoption of such a course was ex- 
 tremely perilous, nevertheless it was crowned with complete suc- 
 cess, and the admirable works executed under the direction of Ge- 
 neral Neigre for the complete equipment of the batteries, proved 
 that nothing was too much to expect from the intelligence and acti- 
 vity of the French artillerymen. 
 
 At eleven o'clock on the 4th of December, the besiegers 
 opened their fire upon the citadel with eighty-two guns, which 
 were soon increased in number to 104, the half of which threw 
 shells. 
 
 The Dutch had feebly defended the approaches to the citadel, 
 but on the 4th of December their fire became much brisker than 
 upon the preceding days; and then began, on their part, that 
 obstinate resistance which was to honour their defeat and our tri- 
 umph. On the night of the 5th they removed their guns from 
 that portion of their works which faced the city and the bastion of 
 Toledo and the Kiel lunette, and their fire became more and more 
 slaughterous. 
 
 On the other hand, General Chasse kept the threat of bom- 
 bardment continually suspended over Antwerp. Accordingly, that 
 city presented a most lamentable spectacle; everywhere cannon, 
 barricades, the image of war; everywhere terror. The inhabitants 
 daily expected to see their city reduced to ashes; and those whose 
 apprehensions did not force them to make a hasty retreat, con- 
 cealed their money, their furniture, and their most precious effects 
 in cellars. To prevent the calamities that appeared imminent, 
 Marshal Gerard appealed, in his letters to General Chasse, by turns 
 to the laws of war, the rights of humanity, and the examples fur- 
 nished by history. Since he consented to attack the citadel only 
 on the side of the open country, had he not a right to insist upon 
 it that the citadel should spare the town? But General Chasse 
 demanded that the French should abstain from employing even the 
 Fort of Montebello in their operations. Now to submit to such 
 a condition as this, would have been madly to compromise the suc- 
 cess of the siege; so that the threat still subsisted, though the Dutch 
 never dared to execute it. Could they have done so without vio- 
 lating the laws of war? Of one thing there is no doubt, that 
 two or three bomb-shots cast into Antwerp, would have been 
 enough to bring down the scaffolding of artifices so laboriously 
 erected by diplomacy; for in that case a longer inaction upon the 
 
 YOL. II. I
 
 114 SIEGE OF ANTWERP. 
 
 part of the Belgians would have become impossible, and their 
 efforts combined with ours would have given the conflict a cha- 
 racter quite opposite to that which the schemes of diplomacy had 
 sought to impose upon it. This simple remark may enable the 
 reader to appreciate at their just value the statesmen of the Confer- 
 ence, and their accomplice M. de Talleyrand. 
 
 Be this as it may, Marshal Gerard, being compelled to confine 
 himself to the exterior attack, felt that it was indispensable to iso- 
 late the citadel by closing the Scheldt. General Sebastiani occu- 
 pied the embankments upon the left side of the Lower Scheldt, and 
 General Achard those on the right bank. The French garrisoned Fort 
 St. Marie, and prepared to put Fort St. Philippe in a condition to 
 command the course of the river. The Dutch fleet advanced to in- 
 terrupt the operations of the besiegers, and, after some useless parleys, 
 began a cannonade, which was without effect, our posts being co- 
 vered by the embankments. On the 8th of December, a Dutch 
 frigate and corvette, and twelve gun-boats, appeared off Fort Fre- 
 derick, which was occupied by a detachment of the 22nd. The cap- 
 tain was immediately summoned to evacuate the fort, and, upon his 
 refusal, the Dutch prepared to land under cover of a very brisk fire; 
 but these attempts were valiantly repulsed by four companies of the 
 22nd. Fort Philippe was soon put in a state of service; two mortars 
 were placed permanently upon Fort la Croix, which was constantly 
 annoyed by the fire of the fleet ; and Marshal Gerard took all proper 
 measures to isolate the citadel, and hinder the rapture of the em- 
 bankments. 
 
 At the same time, our posts upon the left and right banks of the 
 river were approaching the Forts Liefkenshoek and Lillo. But 
 these points having been placed in a perfect state of defence, and 
 being, besides, surrounded at a distance by inundations, which could 
 only be passed by a defile, it was impossible to think either of be- 
 sieging or surprising them. 
 
 Meanwhile the attacks directed by the French against the body of 
 the citadel, were carried on with marvellous ardour. Unfortunately, 
 the full moon, while it brought drier weather, gave too much light 
 by night for works carried on within range of musketry; not to 
 mention, that the garrison vigorously defended itself, and poured 
 upon the French workers a hail of bullets, shells, common bombs, 
 and small bombs, called Coehorns. But the fire of the French bat- 
 teries was directed with so much steadiness and precision, that the 
 Dutch were compelled to take shelter in their casemates. Ere long 
 the communications from one bastion to another, were carried on only 
 under ground ; and, with the exception of the men absolutely 
 necessary to work the batteries, no one was seen moving about in 
 the interior of the citadel. 
 
 On the 13th of December the siege was already very far ad- 
 vanced. The progress of the engineering works in front of the St. 
 Laurent lunette, had allowed of a raft being formed upon the ditch
 
 SIEGE OF ANTWERP. 115 
 
 on the left face, and of mining operations being begun upon the 
 escarpment near the saillant. The work which had been de- 
 kjed during the first two nights, by the extreme hardness of the 
 masonry, had been steadily resumed, and was approaching its con- 
 clusion; the fire of our batteries and that of the musketry were per- 
 severingly kept up ever since morning, so as to occupy the attention 
 of the enemy, and the marechal de camp, Georges, who was in the 
 trenches with the 65th regiment of infantry, received orders to lead 
 the attack that evening. The engineers had constructed three new 
 rafts, to be joined with the first one; and in order to form a bridge, 
 over which our soldiers should pass to the breach at the moment of 
 the explosion of the mine, the rest of the ditch had been filled up 
 with fascines loaded with stones. These works required extreme 
 nicety of detail; they were not completed till far on in the night, 
 and there was some reason to fear that, after having entered the 
 lunette, we should not have time to obtain a firm footing there 
 under cover of the darkness. The enterprise, however, conducted 
 by General Haxo, had all the success which might be expected from 
 that able officer. Upon the 14th, at five o'clock in the morning, the 
 mine blew up, opening a very practicable breach to the French. An 
 order to go up to the top and reconnoitre it was given to Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Vaillant, and the garde du genie Negrier. In accordance 
 with their report, three picked companies of the 65th put themselves 
 in motion ; the 2nd grenadiers, commanded by Lieutenant Duverger, 
 and the 3rd light company commanded by Captain Courant, ad- 
 vanced in silence upon the rafts and the ruins of the rampart; whilst 
 twenty-five grenadiers, led by Carles, of the 61st, the adjutant of the 
 trenches, passed round the lunette on the right front, and proceeded 
 with ladders to the gorge, to escalade or cross the barrier. At the 
 same time another light company, Captain Montigny's, debouched 
 by the right, in order likewise to attack the lunette at the gorge, 
 and to cut off all retreat from the garrison. The soldiers were en- 
 joined not to fire; they marched with fixed bayonets, climbed the 
 breach, and rushed with the utmost intrepidity upon the Dutch gar- 
 rison, which, thus surprised and surrounded, laid down its arms 
 after a short resistance. Some Dutch soldiers succeeded in escaping; 
 others were killed or wounded; sixty were made prisoners. 
 
 This first piece of ill success did not break down the courage of 
 
 the besieged ; but the besieging army had never ceased to regard its 
 
 own triumph as inevitable. Still the difficulties to be overcome were 
 
 considerable and various ; the works were incommoded by an almost 
 
 I continual rain, which fell so heavily upon the night of the 17th, 
 
 I that the trenches were almost rivers of mud. To these expected 
 
 I difficulties were added others, which the French could hardly liave 
 
 I foreseen. Thirty mortars offered by Prince Leopold, with artillery- 
 
 I men to work them, and 5000 shells which General Evain had pro- 
 
 I poeed to send to Berchem this was the whole amount which the 
 
 I besieging army owed to the good-will of the Belgian government. 
 
 12
 
 116 SIEGE OF ANTWERP. 
 
 Now, the most serious embarrassment of the army was the want of 
 victuals above all, of forage. Marshal Gerard's uneasiness on this 
 subject was very intense. He sent an urgent letter to King Leo- 
 pold, entreating him to order the Belgian commissary to deliver 
 to the French at a stipulated price 120,000 rations, which he 
 had in his magazines. M. de Laneville and General Sainte Cyr 
 Nugues wrote to General Evain to the same effect. The only reply 
 of the latter was to express the wish, that the result of the contracts 
 to be entered into by the commissary-general should be waited for. 
 Tenders, in fact, were sent in, but nothing was done, so high were 
 the prices demanded by the contractors. Need we say more? 
 King Leopold urgently demanded that a part of our cavalry sta- 
 tioned at the advanced posts, should be recalled beyond the RouppeL 
 This was as much as to ask that our corps of observation should be 
 weakened in the face of the Dutch army; the immobility of which, 
 there was reason to suspect, was a mask to dangerous designs; and 
 yet, upon the order of Marshal Soult, King Leopold's wishes were- 
 complied with. General Gentil St. Alphonse, who was at Gram- 
 mont, was ordered to lead back his division of cuirassiers to France 
 before the end of the campaign. It was not but that Leopold was 
 most kindly disposed towards the army, but around him growled the 
 implacable resentments excited in the minds of the Belgians, by that 
 policy of the cabinet of the Tuileries, which had been full of 
 tyranny and insult towards them. The French, no doubt, received 
 some private testimonies of good- will; at Antwerp, for instance r 
 M. de Retz, an old soldier, who had fought under our flag, gene- 
 rously offered to give up his house to our wounded. But it is not 
 the less true, that we had against us in Belgium, at one and the- 
 same time, both those we had gone to fight and those we had gone 
 to second. 
 
 It must be added, that Marshal Soult, minister of war, did not 
 hesitate, upon more than one occasion, to throw inexcusable impedi- 
 ments in the way of our generals. In his desire to ward off all the 
 attacks directed against him, and to reply to the errors propagated 
 by the public press, he complained without ground, sometimes of 
 the brevity of the reports, sometimes of the slowness of the opera- 
 tions; or else, lending an ear to lying tales, he showed a readiness 
 deeply to wound the feelings of men whose honour and gallantry 
 were unquestionable. Thus he sent General Gourgand before the 
 walls of Antwerp, to ascertain whether General Neigre had made the 
 necessary provision of powder. General Neigre's correspondence 
 left no doubt upon this subject, and it was proved that the stock in 
 hand was much more than sufficient. General Neigre, justly pro- 
 voked, at first offered to throw up his command ; but upon the re- 
 presentations of the commandcr-m-chief, he remained at the post of 
 honour, which he had so well occupied since the commencement of 
 the siege. 
 
 Amidst so many obstacles and annoyances, General Gerard dis>- 

 
 CAPITULATION. 117 
 
 pkyed admirable fortitude and consummate prudence. The works 
 were advancing rapidly, and the fire of the French, directed with 
 extreme precision, had converted the interior of the citadel into an 
 immense mass of rubbish. General Chasse, who was seriously ill, 
 Lad hardly shown himself to the garrison; it was General Favange 
 who did all the work of the siege. But the moment arrived when 
 the besieged were forced to give way. The sufferings of the gar- 
 rison had for some days reached the highest pitch. The French 
 having laid dry the ditches of the citadel, the Dutch could no longer 
 procure the necessary supply of water. Their two remaining wells 
 were destroyed by the bombs of the besiegers. There was not a 
 building but was in ruins. The casemated hospital appeared in 
 danger of falling, and crushing all the wounded beneath it. Lastly, 
 the garrison, crowded together in the posterns, felt its strength 
 utterly exhausted. Such was the situation of the Dutch troops, as 
 described by General Chasse himself, when the French began to 
 storm. They had made an enormous breach upon the left front 
 of bastion No. 2, which had filled up nearly half the fosse. The 
 descent into the fosse was effected; and to render it possible to 
 storm, nothing more was requisite than to explode the mine. 
 Judging from the impetuosity and courage displayed up to that 
 time by the French, that their attack would be furious and irre- 
 sistible, General Chasse sent two superior officers to treat, in his 
 name, with the commander-in-chief of the French army. After a 
 warm altercation, a capitulation was agreed on for the evacuation of 
 the citadel of Antwerp, and the forts depending upon it; and the 
 chef d'escadron Lafontaine Carried this capitulation to Paris. The 
 second article was in these terms: " The garrison shall be consi- 
 dered prisoners of war, but shall be reconducted to the frontiers, 
 where their arms shall be restored to them as soon as his majesty the 
 King of Holland shall have ordered the surrender of the forts of Lillo 
 and Liefkenshoek." 
 
 The same day upon which the citadel of Antwerp fell into the 
 hands of the French, the Doel embankment, occupied by General 
 Tiburce Sebastiani's division, was threatened by the garrison of the 
 fort of Liefkenshoek and by the Dutch squadron. Whilst this 
 squadron, descending the river, took up its position opposite the 
 embankment, barges, filled with men and artillery, proceeded from 
 Liefkenshoek, and disembarked the troops upon the embankment 
 near the point where it joins that one by which the inundation is 
 controuled. The Dutch were 2000 in number. At the first sound of 
 the musketrv, the French, who were not more than 600 paces off, 
 rushed to tne point attacked, being led by General Scbastiani in 
 person, charged the enemy at the point of the bayonet, overthrew 
 them, and hurried to the embankment, the drums beating the 
 charge. The Dutch, shaken by this vigorous attack, got back in 
 disorder to their vessels. In vain were they protected by the fire of 
 a numerous squadron; some fell under the bayonets of our soldiers;
 
 118 CAPTAIN KOOPMAN. 
 
 others threw themselves into the water and perished; the more for- 
 tunate got back into the fort, the approaches to which were defended 
 by a fire of grape. In this rapid engagement, which secured our 
 position at Doel, and in which General Tiburce Sebastiani distin- 
 
 fiished himself by his presence of mind and his gallantry, the 
 rench had had but sixty men killed or wounded. They had dis- 
 played the utmost enthusiasm, and the cry of all was "Forward! 
 forward !" The delight of the inhabitants of the village was ex- 
 treme ; they thronged round our soldiers, embracing them, and of- 
 fering them bread and brandy. 
 
 The last episode in this campaign deserves to be related. Between 
 the citadel of Antwerp and the Tete-de-Flandres, there was a flo- 
 tilla and several gun-boats, which formed the communication be- 
 tween the two portions of the Dutch garrison. In proposing the 
 capitulation upon the morning of the 23d, General Chasse had styled 
 himself commandant of the citadel of Antwerp, of the Tete-de-Flan- 
 dres, and of the Netherland squadron stationed upon the Scheldt be- 
 fore that place. Now his draft of the capitulation contained an 
 article stating that the flotilla should be at liberty to descend the 
 river and retire. This article was rejected in the French draft, and 
 the French insisted on the surrender of the flotilla; but the claims 
 of the victors upon this point became the subject of very animated 
 discussion in the council of war of the besieged. Captain Koopman, 
 commandant of the Dutch marine, demanded that the word. flotilla 
 should be struck out of the capitulation, and declared that he re- 
 cognised no authority which could force him to surrender; he was 
 determined to escape from the enemy tr perish. In fact, that same 
 night he burned part of his vessels, and attempted with the rest 
 to escape the vigilance of the French ; but his efforts failed. One 
 vessel succeeded in passing, but was taken at St. Philippe; the 
 others were obliged to go up the stream towards the citadel, and 
 were scuttled. The crews of the Dutch marine were shut up in the 
 Tete-de-Flandres; when the capitulation was executed in the cita- 
 del, they declared their submission to it; but Marshal Gerard inti- 
 mated to Captain Koopman that he could not claim the benefit of a 
 capitulation which he himself had disregarded. The seamen were, 
 therefore, left upon the left bank without arms or baggage; the offi- 
 cers were disarmed, and Captain Koopman found liimself treated 
 as a prisoner at discretion. 
 
 As for General Chasse and the soldiers, their lot, by the terms of 
 the capitulation, was to depend upon the course William would take 
 with respect to the forts of Lief kenshoek and Lillo. This point did 
 not remain long uncertain. Captain Passy and M. de Tallenay, sent 
 by Marshal Gerard to the King of Holland, were unable to cross the 
 frontier; the local authorities formally refusing them permission. The 
 Dutch officer who accompanied them proceeded alone to the Hague. 
 But William kept himself upon his guard against every discourage- 
 ment; he testified his satisfaction at the energetic resistance of
 
 GALLANTRY OF THE FRENCH FORCES. 119 
 
 General Chasse, and he flatly refused to deliver up to the French 
 the forts depending upon the citadel. 
 
 This refusal condemned the garrison to remain prisoners. An offer 
 was made to General Chasse and his soldiers, to send them back to 
 Holland, and to restore them their arms upon the frontier, if they 
 would engage not to serve against France and her allies until the ar- 
 rangements yet to be made between Belgium and Holland should 
 be concluded. General Chasse replied, in his own name and that 
 of his comrades in arms, that he was not authorised to enter into such 
 an engagement. 
 
 Such was this siege, memorable amongst all those mentioned in 
 history. The French soldiers, though belonging for the most part 
 to a generation not yet tried in war, were deserving of all praise for 
 their zeal, discipline, and intrepidity. Generals, officers, and sol- 
 diers, did their duty more than their duty; and Marshal Gerard, 
 upon whom the success of the enterprise more particularly rested, 
 being potently seconded by Generals Sainte Cyr Nugues, Haxo, and 
 Neigre, rendered his country an inestimable service. 
 
 The Due d'Orleans, as we have seen, had accompanied the army, 
 and he behaved with great gallantry. Marshalt Soult, acting 
 upon a very injudicious instigation, demanded that the heir presump- 
 tive of the throne should be withdrawn from the perilous service of 
 the trenches, and sent upon reconnoitring duty. Marshal Gerard 
 opposed this, thinking it ill became a prince to fly from danger; and 
 for this the Due d'Orleans manifested much gratitude to him. Thus, 
 no one in the army had come short of his part, and thenceforth it 
 stood demonstrated in the eyes of Europe, that the irruption of vul- 
 gar mercantilism had not wholly effaced the distinctive characters of 
 our old nationality. It stood demonstrated that the wars of the 
 empire had not drained dry the sources of that generous blood which 
 had flowed at so many various epochs for oppressed nations. For it 
 is the everlasting glory of the French people, that, amidst all the 
 fluctuations of human affairs, it has ever represented the principle of 
 high-souled disinterestedness. That the formidable mission it took 
 upon itself towards the close of the eighteenth century, should have 
 left a long enduring impression of dread on the mind of Europe, 
 may very well be conceived ; and yet it was not for herself alone 
 that France acted, when, wrathful and sublime, she began to shako 
 thrones and preach universal liberty with an energy that nothing 
 could resist, neither the league of all monarchies, nor England ex- 
 hausting against us her opulence and her hate, nor the most fiery 
 passions let loose over the whole face of the globe, nor, lastly, the 
 terrible necessity of providing for the common safety by smiting and 
 subduing. 
 
 This is what should never have been forgotten by those who ac- 
 cused us, after the revolution of July, of cherishing a j>ernicious 
 spirit of conquest; this is what rendered odiously hypocritical thoso 
 diplomatic jealousies, of which the cabinet of the luilerics was not
 
 120 SUMMARY REVIEW AND ESTIMATE OF THE 
 
 ashamed to endure the gross contumely during the campaign of Ant- 
 werp. For if the siege of the citadel of Antwerp was a glorious 
 event in a military point of view, diplomatically considered, it was 
 but a cruel mystification. It had, in truth, no other effect than that 
 of employing ourselves in aiding the triumph of our enemies; it 
 erected an insurmountable barrier between us and the Belgian peo- 
 ple ; it lost, through the conditions imposed on us by diplomacy, 
 the character of a revolutionary campaign, which it was so impor- 
 tant it should retain ; in fine, being accomplished under the eyes of 
 Prussian soldiers, ranged motionless along the Meuse, it converted 
 the soldiers of France into the instruments of a merely dynastic in- 
 terest, and of ideas connected by a manifest affiliation with the 
 treaties of 1815. 
 
 The Conference had reason to be satisfied ! Let us sum up its 
 history. 
 
 Belgium had made a violent effort to separate from Holland. 
 This was more than a manifestation of the revolutionary spirit; it 
 was a weakening of the securities which the European monarchies 
 had taken against France, when they formed the kingdom of the 
 Netherlands in 1815. They, therefore, leagued together once more, 
 urged by the immense terror with which we inspired them ; and it 
 was in London their plenipotentiaries met, as though England 
 merited that preference by the depth of her rancour.* And, O 
 monstrous ! in that league France had her representative, and that 
 representative M. de Talleyrand! The deliberations began. To 
 re-establish the kingdom of the Netherlands could not have been 
 done without openly insulting the revolution of July, and it had 
 too deeply moved the hearts of men to allow of its being thus defied 
 with impunity. Diplomacy, therefore, bent all its thoughts to open- 
 ing a yawning chasm between France and Belgium. The latter of 
 these two nations seemed insuperably attracted to the former by 
 community of manners, identity of language, conformity of interests, 
 by religion and remembrances; the Conference made haste to de- 
 clare Belgium a neutral and independent nation. Belgium showed 
 her amity towards France to the extent of demanding to be ruled 
 by a French prince: the Conference exacted from Louis Philippe 
 that he should refuse the crown offered to his son ; and to the end 
 that France might find in those Belgians, whose sympathies she pos- 
 sessed, only impotent allies, it took care to attach conditions to the 
 separation of Belgium from Holland (by the protocols of January 
 20th and 27th, 1831,) which were of a nature to ruin Belgium. But 
 the state of feeling in Brussels soon became unfavourable, and almost 
 hostile to us, because the Due de Nemours' refusal of the crown was, 
 for the Belgians, both an affront and a misfortune. England then 
 
 * There is in England, we are aware, a party that professes for our nation a sincere 
 esteem and honourable sympathy. That party is dear to us, and cannot be affected 
 by our attacks. Unfortunately, England has hitherto been represented only by the 
 Tories or the Whigs, the systematic enemies of France and of all peoples.
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONFERENCE. 121 
 
 proposed Leopold. He was approved of by the French government, 
 and accepted by^ Belgium ; and the Conference recompensed the Bel- 
 gians for this evidence of their incipient hatred towards us, by sub- 
 stituting for the protocols of the 20th and 27th of January (the 
 same having, nevertheless, been declared irrevocable) the treaty of 
 eighteen articles, which was of a nature to ruin Holland. William, 
 now in his turn oppressed, vehemently reproached his brethren of 
 the Holy Alliance with the support they afforded to the revolution- 
 ary principle inaugurated by the events of September. He did 
 more; he drew the sword, surprised and beat down Belgium, and 
 presented himself to the eyes of Europe as the sole supporter of the 
 cause of kings. Thereupon, the Emperors of Russia and Austria, 
 and the King of Prussia, claimed, in the Congress of London, in 
 favour of the monarchical principle, a part of that influence which 
 England had until then exerted wholly under the dictates of her ab- 
 horrence of France. The treaty of twenty-four articles was, in con- - 
 sequence, substituted for the treaty of eighteen articles. Now, the 
 disputes between Holland and Belgium had reference to three points, 
 one of which was the demarcation of their respective territories, and 
 the other two were certain rights of navigation, and the apportion- 
 ment of the joint debt. The navigation and the debt questions 
 were such as simply and solely concerned Belgium and Holland: 
 the Conference, after long debate, told the two parties to settle their 
 quarrel by direct negotiation between themselves, thus admitting its 
 own incompetence. But it took good care not to do the same with 
 respect to the territorial question, on which it peremptorily forbade 
 all controversy, and this because the treaty of twenty-four articles 
 had settled the question in a manner most pointedly and intentionally 
 injurious to France. 
 
 Had the French people been a people of adventurers, without faith 
 or law, deserving to be put under the ban of mankind, the other 
 nations would have done an act of cosmopolitism and patriotism in 
 leaguing together against it ; an act for which they would have been 
 entitled to praise. Europe is rapidly advancing to a condition under 
 which v all the causes that interest men collectively must come before 
 a supreme, an amphyctionic tribunal: nothing is more desirable, 
 and nothing would be more august. But whence had the Conference 
 of London derived its right? From the power of the sword. What 
 did its members represent? A worn-out civilisation, the offspring of 
 the grossest errors and the most barbarous prejudices. And what 
 was it that Conference sought to uphold? A work of general spolia- 
 tion, the system of the treaties of Vienna. And against whom was 
 it arrayed? Against the people pre-eminent above all others for 
 its generous self-abandonment, pre-eminent for leading the march of 
 civilisation upon untrodden paths. Therefore, one of the most fla- 
 grant crimes it falls to the lot of the historian to record was that 
 usurped dominion over the affairs of Europe perpetrated by the Con-
 
 122 SUMMARY REVIEW OF THE COXFERENCE. 
 
 ference in the years 1831 and 1832. The friends of mankind, to 
 whatever country they belong, ought to know that the principle of 
 cosmopolitism cannot but gain by the consolidation and aggrandise- 
 ment of that French nationality which is so essentially communi- 
 cative and disinterested. Well was this known to the European 
 monarchies that took part in the Conference. They eagerly longed 
 to rob us of our strength, because the strength of France is of vital 
 importance to the liberty of the world.
 
 THE DUCHESS DE BERRI AT BLAYE. 123 
 
 BOOK THE FOUETH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE citadel of Blaye stands" on the left bank of the Gironde, 
 overlooking a wretched and melancholy-looking town. Some streets, 
 formed by rows of barracks, an exercise ground, and artillery and 
 engineering magazines compose the interior of the citadel. Its 
 summit is crowned by an old castle, built, as tradition tells, by 
 Roland, and in which his body was deposited after the defeat of 
 Roncesvalles. Round it runs a terrace only ten or twelve feet wide, 
 and on a level with the revetement. From this sort of parapet, the 
 greater part of which is clothed with sand, and which is divided at 
 intervals by embrasures crossed by planks, the eye ranges over a vast 
 extent of country. On the west is the river, which at this spot wears 
 the melancholy grandeur of the sea; on the north, east, and south, 
 there are vine-clad hills, country houses, mills, and factories. The 
 citadel is a chilly place to dwell in ; the prevailing winds are dan- 
 gerous ; it is a spot where persons of weak lungs die fast. 
 
 This was the place to which the government sent the Duchess de 
 Berri, and every measure was taken for keeping her prisoner there 
 for a long time. The fortress was put in a state of defence as though 
 an enemy were encamped before its gates. The cannons mounted 
 on their carriages and pointed, were provided with every requisite 
 for immediate service. The only two gates, the Dauphine and the 
 Royale, were rendered inaccessible; and the corvette, la Capricieuse^ 
 was anchored not far from the citadel, in the waters of the Gironde, 
 and formed, with two pinnaces, a line of defence on the river side. In 
 every direction were to be seen vigilant sentinels, in every direction 
 was to be heard the cktter of arms. The garrison, consisting of more 
 than nine hundred men, was ordered to keep within its barracks, and 
 every detail of the service was performed with as much strictness and 
 rigour as in a besieged town. Each morning at six o clock, a 
 cannon-shot fired from the citadel, and repeated from the corvette, 
 gave the signal for opening the gates; the drums then beat the 
 reveille, and at intervals throughout the day, a similar warlike sound 
 announced the recurrence of the various military duties. At six 
 o'clock in the evening, another cannon-shot was fired, and the gates 
 were closed till the next morning. The house in which the princess 
 was detained, was surrounded by a double range of palisadoes, ten or
 
 124 THE DUCHESS DE BERRI HER PARTISANS. 
 
 twelve feet high ; the apertures of the chimneys were covered with a 
 close grating; the windows of all the rooms were provided with 
 strong iron bars; and the princess and the voluntary companions of 
 her captivity were forbidden to look through those bars, to inhale for 
 a moment the air of evening, after the hour for retirement had 
 arrived. 
 
 Thus subjected to a constraint, which the vivacity of her tem- 
 perament rendered doubly irksome, plunged into a prison where 
 she could no longer enjoy the excitement of active operations, Marie 
 Caroline felt that her courage was less than her misfortunes. Her 
 utter isolation from her party; the fixed, unmoving countenances of 
 her guards, the warlike aspect of all around her new abode, an aspect 
 which forbade her to hope; the clamours of the soldiery, by turns 
 jovial and menacing; and amid the silence of the night, the watchful 
 qui vive? of the sentinels; all this depressed, overwhelmed her. 
 
 M. dc Mesnard and Mademoiselle Stylite de Kersabiec had in the 
 first instance presented themselves for the purpose of sharing the 
 rigours of her captivity; but claimed, almost immediately after- 
 wards by the Courts of Montbrison and Nantes, these faithful 
 adherents were obliged to let their duties devolve on M. de Brissac 
 and Madame d'Hautefort, who, though highly esteemed by the 
 princess, were not so deeply in her confidence that she could open 
 to them all her graver and more secret thoughts: they could not, 
 therefore, guide her by their counsels, but they contributed to 
 soothe her heart. 
 
 Her afflictions, indeed, were not altogether without alleviation, at 
 least in the earlier period of her imprisonment. Colonel Chousserie 
 possessed a lofty and generous soul; and he tempered as much as 
 possible the severity of her position. Besides, the state had not as 
 yet ascertained the exact extent of her offences; and from her own 
 party she received in person the most gratifying proofs of fidelity. 
 From Geneva, M. de Chateaubriand thus addressed her: 
 
 " MADAM, You will deem it inconsiderate, obtrusive, that at such a moment as 
 this, I intreat you to grant me a favour, but it is the high ambition of my life: I 
 would earnestly solicit to be numbered among your defenders. I have no personal 
 title to the great favour I solicit of you in your new grandeur; but I venture to im- 
 plore it in memory of a prince, of whom you deigned to name me historian, and in the 
 name of my family's blood. It was my brother's glorious destiny to die, with his 
 illustrious grandfather, M. de Malesherbes, the defender of Louis XVL. the same 
 day, the same hour, for the same cause, and upon the same scaffold. 
 
 " CHATEAUBRIAND." 
 
 Very shortly after her arrest, and previous to her quitting Nantes, 
 the Duchess de Berri had received other testimonies of devotion, 
 from more obscure quarters, indeed, but not less touching. The 
 Demoiselles Duguigny having requested as an especial favour to 
 spend one day with her who had received an asylum in their house, 
 Charlotte Moreau added to their letter the following lines : "If 
 madame would condescend to grant it to a poor femme de chambre, 
 who has served her with all her heart, I solicit the same favour as my 
 mistresses."
 
 THE GOVERNMENT. 125 
 
 But the period was at hand when the Duchess de Berri was to 
 lose every thing, even the attached fidelity of her most zealous par- 
 tisans. And their secession was perfectly justified; for it took place 
 upon the divulgation of a terrible secret; a divulgation, the shame 
 of which was not too severe an expiation of the crime which the 
 Duchess De Berri had committed, when, regarding the people as 
 her patrimony, she came into France to let loose all the horrors of 
 civil war. 
 
 Meantime, the court was intoxicated with joy. It seemed to be 
 altogether forgotten there, that the Duchess de Berri was the queen's 
 niece, and that, in the time of her prosperity, the mother of the 
 Duke de Bordeaux had always lavished upon the children of 
 Louis Philippe marks of the tenderest affection. But the bonds of 
 blood are very fragile, with him who gains, by breaking them, all 
 that the pride of man can realise in the exercise of sovereign au- 
 thority; the Orleans family went to the opera, the evening of the 
 day on which they heard of their relative's arrest 
 
 I et the satisfaction which they took so little pains to disguise, 
 was poisoned by a vivid feeling of disquiet. For the revolutionary 
 party eagerly demanded that the prisoner should be brought to trial. 
 Now, if she were acquitted, Louis Philippe stood branded in the 
 face of all nations, as an usurper; if, on the contrary, she were con- 
 demned to a punishment proportioned to the weight of her offence, 
 Louis Philippe would have to choose between the alternative of 
 despotically annulling the sentence, or of drawing down upon him- 
 self, if he permitted it to take its course, the eternal malediction of 
 all the crowned heads. Had he felt his position more secure, on the 
 point of legitimacy, he would not have been afraid to encounter the 
 former of these risks; had he been more independent of the sove- 
 reigns, he would not have feared the latter. But as he could not 
 venture to risk his right upon the will of the people, nor to shake 
 off the patronage of the great courts, every thing harassed and im- 
 peded him: a defeat would have been utter destruction; victory 
 was the source of terrible embarrassment. 
 
 And no one was more sensible of this embarrassment than M. 
 Thiers, the person more especially responsible for the results. He had 
 certainly displayed, in the arrest of the princess, an extraordinary 
 degree of resolution.* He had dashed forward unhesitatingly, up tcv 
 
 * The first communication between M. Thiers and Deutz, took place under the 
 following circumstances : 
 
 M. Thiers one day received a letter, wherein a stranger begged him to repair in 
 the evening to the Champs-Elysees, promising to make him a communication of the 
 very highest importance. M. Thiers sent for the chief of police, showed him the 
 letter, and requested his opinion. The latter thought that the proposed meeting 
 was a trap, and that he had better not attend it. But, under the powerful influence 
 of an instinct which impelled him to accept the adventure, M. Thiers took no heed 
 to the advice which he had called for, and at the appointed hour proceeded to the 
 Champs-Elysees, with a brace of pistols ready in his coat pockets. At the spot in- 
 dicated in the letter, he perceived a man standing, who seemed agitated with fear 
 and doubt. He approached, and accosted this man: it was Deutz. A conference
 
 126 " MADAME, YOUR SOX IS MY KING." 
 
 the period when, having become the instigator of a wretched knave, 
 he had exhausted his tool's base knavery. But he felt clearly that 
 it would never do to allow his prisoner to incur the risk of a capital 
 condemnation. Before the arrest of the duchess, when Deutz, writing 
 from Nantes, proposed to deliver up M. de Bourmont into the hands 
 of government, M. Thiers repelled the disgraceful offer, in order to 
 save the government the very inconvenient possibility of having to 
 shoot a marshal of France.* 
 
 But some decision must be come to. For the blood which had 
 been poured out in the West, cried aloud for vengeance ; formida- 
 ble clamours arose from the bosom of the families which had been 
 plunged into mourning by civil war; and the conquerors of the 
 month of July, the sincere liberals, the republicans, concurred in 
 demanding with determined voices, that a great example should be 
 made, that justice should be done. For their part, the legitimatists 
 made the country re-echo with their shouts of monarchical enthu- 
 siasm, all the louder to cover their real depression. The Gazette de 
 France and the Quotidienne sent forth, day after day, addresses glo- 
 rifying the courage of the mother of Henry V., and protests against 
 the base treachery of which she had been made the victim ; a great 
 number of gentlemen made known the project they had formed of 
 making up, by subscription, a civil list for her; and last, but not least, 
 M. de Chateaubriand, in the pamphlet which became so celebrated, 
 ventured to exclaim : "Madame, your son is my king !" These words 
 flew rapidly from mouth to mouth, amongst the royalist party, and 
 hundreds of young men, the sons of noblemen, made a procession 
 through Paris, to wait upon and do honour to their author. For 
 some time past, petitions relative to the Duchess de Berri had been 
 pouring into the Chamber. On the 5th of January, the ministers 
 were called upon there, to explain their intentions. The crowded 
 assembly was full of excitement, and of various passions. On one 
 side, the ministers were charged with entertaining the criminal idea 
 of frustrating the justice of the country; on the other the right of 
 punishing, a corollary from that of reigning, was altogether de- 
 nied them. M. Sapey, who had been charged with the drawing up 
 
 was opened, which ended in a base crime. The next night, by an arrangement of 
 the police, Deutz was secretly introduced into the office of the minister of the inte- 
 rior. " You can make a good thing of this," said M. Thiers. The Jew shook with 
 agitation at the idea; his limbs trembled under him, and his countenance changed. 
 The price of the treachery was settled without difficulty. 
 
 * However, M. Thiers was not destined to remain much longer troubled, as minister 
 of the ulterior, with the affairs of the Duchess de Berri. There existed between him 
 and M. d'Argout minister of commerce and public works, a most entire misunder- 
 Btanding. Possessed by a mania for business, M. d'Argout had added to his 
 functions, the direction of the communes and of the national guards, which rendered 
 the minister of the interior precisely what, under the Empire, the minister of 
 police was. M. Thiers made great complaints of this : " I will not be the Fouche of 
 this regime," said he. After long discussions, it was arranged that M. d'Argout 
 should have the ministry of the interior, with the direction of the national guard 
 and the communes, and that M. Thiers should take the public works. It was, con- 
 sequently, M. d'Argout who had the especial charge of the affair of Blaye.
 
 PARLIAMENTARY SITTINGS OF JANUARY 5. 127 
 
 a report on the petitions on this subject, presented one, which left 
 it to the ministers to take, with regard to the prisoner, what steps 
 they should deem most advisable, leaving them responsible to the 
 Chamber and the country for the soundness of their judgment. 
 
 M. de Broglie appeared at the tribune in support of this view. 
 He maintained that the elder Bourbons had placed themselves out of 
 the pale of ordinary law; that the government had no other rules to 
 act upon, in reference to the Duchess de Berri, than those of the 
 laws of war; that the princess ought to be detained as a person whom 
 it was dangerous to the country to leave at liberty; that every 
 sound reason of state required this; that the tranquillity of the citi- 
 zens would otherwise be periled ; that the principle of equality before 
 the law was not applicable to this case, the Duchess de Berri not 
 being a Frenchwoman by birth, and being such no longer by 
 alliance. At these words violent exclamations arose from the benches 
 on the right. M. de Broglie continued: " After all, this principle, 
 tutelary as it may be, is not more sacred or inviolable than many 
 others which you have set aside. It is not more so, for example, 
 than the principle of royal irresponsibility, which you set aside when 
 you deposed Charles X." Passing on to the disorders which they 
 would risk in summoning the Duchess de Berri before judges desig- 
 nated by chance: " Do you think," he exclaimed, " that the whole 
 force of which the government can dispose will suffice to protect, as 
 the case may be, the heads of the judges or those of the accused? 
 You have seen the trial of the ministers, you have seen for ten 
 whole days the entire city of Paris under arms, the capital of the 
 kingdom in the attitude, in the terrible suspense, of a town in a state 
 of siege : well, you have seen nothing. You have seen the disturb- 
 ances of the month of June : well, you have seen nothing." 
 
 Several orators of the left presented themselves to reply to M. de 
 Broglie. M. de Ludre intimated that he would vote for referring the 
 petitions to the keeper of the seals, if this proviso were added: " In 
 order to have the laws of the kingdom carried into effect." M. de 
 Bricqueville reminded the Chamber that, at the time of its propo- 
 sition for the banishment of the elder branch, the government de- 
 clared the penal code applicable to such of the exiled family as should 
 attempt to introduce civil war; and expressed his astonishment that 
 the same persons should now be so eager to deviate from the ordi- 
 nary principles of kw who, but the other day, were so determined 
 in their resolution to have those principles adhered to under all cir- 
 cumstances. " You talk," cried M. Cerbet, " of the danger there 
 would-be in submitting the Duchess de Berri to the ordinary tribu- 
 nals: is your government, then, so ill established that it cannot 
 undergo such a test? " 
 
 On this occasion M. Berryer ranged himself resolutely on the side 
 of the ministers, the more effectually to strike at the dynasty of 
 which they were the blind, passive instruments. In common with 
 them, he asserted that, to bring the Duchess de Berri before the
 
 128 "REASONS OF STATE" AGAINST LAW. 
 
 judges, would be a fault and a perilous fault; in common with them, 
 he affirmed that she lived in a sphere which the sword of ordinary 
 law could not reach. Reasoning upon monarchical principles, the 
 mother of a legitimate king, being engaged by no duty of necessary 
 submission to a prince whom insurrection had placed upon the 
 throne, the Duchess de Berri was, with reference to Louis Philippe, 
 in a position, not of revolt but of war. The matter in hand was a 
 defeat, not a judicial offence; a question of policy, not of justice; 
 and it was, consequently, altogether left to the executive power to 
 do that which it should think proper, should think itself strong 
 enough to venture upon. 
 
 M. Thiers saw at once the dangerous meaning and intent of this 
 alliance, and immediately endeavoured to turn the eyes of the as- 
 sembly in another direction. Persuaded that it was to the cowardice 
 of the Chamber he must appeal, in order to achieve success for his 
 views, he set his imagination to work, and drew a picture of com- 
 plicated and tremendous horror; he depicted the judges trembling 
 on the bench ; the accusers dumbfounded ; the accused triumphant in 
 the impossibility which her enemies would experience of adducing 
 material and decisive proofs against her ; the passions excited in con- 
 tending ways, and ready to come into fierce collision ; the scenes at- 
 tending the trial of the ministers renewed with aggravated terrors, 
 and the government compelled to station 80,000 or 100,000 men in 
 echelons on the road from Blaye to Paris. 
 
 Terrified at this evocation, in ghastly array, of vain phantoms, 
 the Chamber relinquished to the ministers the charge of deciding, 
 at their own responsibility, it is true, but also at their own caprice, 
 upon the fate of the Duchess de Berri. 
 
 Thus, from the very urn, whence laws receive their birth, issued 
 arbitrary rule, and all its insolent temerity; legality, so warmly ad- 
 vocated by Casimir Perier, gave way to reasons of state, the hypo- 
 critical pretence under which despotism veils itself; the interests of 
 a temporary and variable policy superseded the rights of justice, 
 which are eternal and immutable ; juries, which had been so osten- 
 tatiously proclaimed a sacred institution, were now denounced as a 
 power open to corruption, to legal chicanery, to fear; the principle 
 of equality before the law, which, without reservation, formed so 
 leading a feature of the charter, was soon confined to a sort of in- 
 violability, which had not been respected in the slightest degree 
 when the object in hand was the obtaining possession of the crown, 
 but which was carefully respected now that the object which ought 
 to have been kept in view was the vindication of outraged society; 
 in fine, by a monstrous contradiction, a government, which repre- 
 sented itself as based upon the affections and sympathies of the peo- 
 ple, absolutely declared itself too weak to run the risk of a trial, 
 and seemed to think that an army would not suffice to bring safely 
 to Paris a woman twice conquered and a prisoner. Such an avowal 
 was sheer insanity.
 
 RUMOURED PREGNANCY OF THE DUCHESS DE BERRI. 129 
 
 The legitimatists were perfectly enraptured; and while the re- 
 publican party gave way to transports of passion against the govern- 
 ment, the loyalists, raising their heads once more, viewed the speeches 
 of MM. Thiers and de Broglie with malignant satisfaction, and styled 
 the sittings of the 5th of January, stance aux aveux: " So the 
 legitimatist party was not dead, as had been so often said and 
 repeated; for here was the ministers themselves stating that in 
 order to keep it down, not fewer than a hundred thousand soldiers 
 would be necessary !" And they addressed jeering felicitations to 
 M. de Broglie upon the service he had just rendered to the cause of 
 sound doctrines, reproaching him merely with his want of consist- 
 ency, and comparing the power which thus lived on the past, which 
 it insulted_ all the while, to the vulture which lives on the prey 
 which it disfigures. 
 
 The ministerial party had fallen into a sore dilemma; it defended 
 itself with the utmost embarrassment, and its confuson, giving it the 
 appearance of still greater weakness, served to encrease tenfold the 
 audacity of its adversaries. 
 
 Such was the condition of things, when suddenly strange ru- 
 mours were whispered about. A mysterious love affair, an inex- 
 cusable act of imprudence, was attributed to the Duchess de Berri; 
 and it was said that certain consequences, which could not be con- 
 cealed, were inevitable. Indignantly repelled by the legitimatists, 
 as a mere impure calumny, this rumour was diligently propagated 
 by those whose morbid curiosity it pleased, or who made useof it 
 to serve their own unworthy purposes. But the place where of all 
 others it was most willingly received, though conveyed and com- 
 municated from one to another in ambiguous terms, was the pa- 
 lace. The courtiers knew perfectly well that their ready acquiescence 
 in the rumour would be accepted as a favourable proof of devo- 
 tion to the reigning dynasty, and they believed one and all. The 
 queen having suffered some" remarks on the levity of her niece to 
 escape from her, in a tone partly severe, partly expressive of affec- 
 tionate interest in the offender, the courtiers aptly gave to these 
 hints the harsh interpretation which they felt persuaded the king 
 wished to have conveyed abroad. He himself, whether from po- 
 licy, or from real indifference, permitted a free course to the licence 
 of remark around him upon this subject, though the scandal fell 
 upon his own family. And not only did he tolerate the rumours 
 circulating about the palace, as to the presumed dishonour of his 
 niece, but he even added his own conjectures, and illustrated the 
 topic by all the piquant details, which his memory supplied, of 
 the intrigues of the old court. 
 
 Suspicion became daily stronger; and a circumstance occurred 
 which was calculated to confirm it. On the night of the 16th of 
 January^ the prisoner was seized with vomiting; a telegraphic 
 despatch instantly conveyed the intelligence to the Tuileries. The 
 Duchess de Berri, since her arrival at Blaye, had been attended 
 
 VOL. n.
 
 130 SUSPECTED PREGNANCY OF THE 
 
 by no other physician than M. Gintrac, a man of the highest 
 honour and talent, whom she greatly esteemed, and in whom she 
 had full confidence. The government, then, might have well been 
 content to leave the medical care of Marie Caroline in the hands of 
 M. Gintrac, and the more especially so as the princess had dis- 
 tinctly refused to receive Dr. Barthez, who had been ordered by 
 government to wait upon her professionally. Ministers thought 
 otherwise; and to shield themselves from responsibility, as well as, 
 most probably, to clear up a mystery, an explanation of which might 
 be so beneficial to their implacable policy, they determined upon 
 sending two physicians to Blaye, with instructions to inquire into 
 all the circumstances affecting the health of the prisoner, and to re- 
 port upon the most effective mode of removing any complaint with 
 which she might be troubled. The two physicians selected in ac- 
 cordance with this determination, started for Blaye on the night of 
 the 21st of January: they were MM. Orfila and Auvity. In an- 
 nouncing their departure, the ministerial press, intimated with 
 coarse significance, that they had been despatched to solve un cas de 
 medecine legate. 
 
 The emotion produced in the public mind, was profound. The 
 legitimatists affected the greatest apprehensions for the safety of the 
 princess. Under the Restoration, M. Auvity had been the medical 
 attendant upon Marie Caroline; and it was therefore quite natural 
 that he should be appointed by ministers to visit her; but that 
 which gave an opening to sinister suppositions, was the selection 
 they had made of M. Orfila, a man skilled in the art of detecting 
 the traces of poison. " Let any fatal intelligence come from Blaye!" 
 exclaimed a journal devoted to the mother of the Due de Bor- 
 deaux, " and by our faith, we swear that the government shall not 
 have reason to ask where are the royalists ! Life shall be paid for 
 life !" In point of fact, however, there was no sincerity whatever in 
 these fears and these menaces. The king and his ministers had in 
 the preservation of the princess's life while in prison, an interest 
 which it was as unjust as absurd to disallow. Indeed, to suppose 
 them indifferent to the matter, was a mere gratuitous and clumsy 
 calumny. But such is the logic of party passions; offended in 
 the person of her whom they had placed upon a visionary throne 
 raised by their own illusions, the royalist party returned the partisans 
 of the new dynasty outrage for outrage, meeting absurd accusations, 
 with cruel imputations ! 
 
 On the 24th January, MM. Orfila and Auvity arrived at Blaye; 
 on the 25th they were admitted into the presence of the princess, at 
 the same time with MM. Gintrac and Barthez; and on the same 
 day these four gentlemen signed a report, setting forth the result of 
 their visit and its inquiries. It stated that the princess, born of con- 
 sumptive parents, manifested symptoms of the hereditary malady; 
 that she was subject to inflammatory affections; that often, after 
 walking on the ramparts, she had suffered from a short, dry cough,
 
 DUCHESS DE BERRI. 131 
 
 the character of which was somewhat alarming; that her state of 
 health required serious precautions to be taken; and that more espe- 
 cially she ought to abstain rigidly from going out, except in the 
 middle of the day, and then to keep in sheltered places, the citadel 
 being so much exposed to the cold, and to the thick fogs frequently 
 arising from the river. 
 
 Had this report been inserted in theMontieur, it would have effectu- 
 ally falsified the discreditable rumours which for some time past had 
 been put in circulation ; and in showing a longer residence at Blayeto 
 be attended with danger to the princess, would have compelled the 
 government either to liberate her, or to remove her to a more salubrious 
 prison. The ministers at once saw this, and forthwith thrust away 
 the report among the archives of the ministry of the interior; they had 
 made up their minds that the Duchess de Berri was pregnant, and they 
 were determined not for one moment to risk the benefit of a dis- 
 covery which would overwhelm the legitimatist party with confusion. 
 And the court must have indeed been powerfully acted upon by the 
 temptation held out in this most disgraceful prospect; for rather than 
 give it up, it^chose to run the hazard of a contingency which, with 
 the construction inevitably put upon it by party hatred, always un- 
 just, even towards the best of men and of measures, might be- 
 come the ground work of the most fearful charge against it. But 
 such infatuation is common to all governments and all men impa- 
 tient for full success. The court was playing the game of a despe- 
 rate gamester: it had staked the chance of profiting by a scandal 
 against that of being overwhelmed beneath the weight of an infamous 
 calumny. 
 
 It was accordingly at this time in a constant state of anxiety, 
 watching with greedy eye each successive bulletin from Blaye, and 
 sending order after order that the princess should be treated with all 
 possible indulgence and consideration, careful as it now was of a life 
 which its selfish policy now rendered doubly precious to it. But 
 despite all this really anxious solicitude, the legitimatists grew more 
 and more furious, asserting that the citadel of Blaye had been as- 
 signed to the mother of Henry V. at once as a prison and as a tomb, 
 became necessary to meet these accusations, daily repeated as 
 they were; and the ministry accordingly obtained from MM. Orfila 
 and Auvity, a new report which, quite differing from the former, 
 went to prove the salubrity of the fortress of Blaye. The first report 
 had been signed by MM. Orfila, Auvity, Gintrac, Barthez; the 
 second bore the signatures only of MM. Orfila and Auvity. The 
 first had been kept altogether in the back ground, silent and unheard 
 of; the second was published far and wide, trumpeted aloud through- 
 out the whole country, throughout Europe. 
 
 ^ But success did not crown these despicable artifices of an execu- 
 tive which, being attacked without good faith, defended itself with- 
 out honesty. Proud of the power imputed to them in the seance 
 
 K2
 
 132 DUELS BETWEEN THE PARTISANS OF THE 
 
 aux aveux, by the infatuated declarations of MM. de Broglie and 
 Thiers, the royalists carried their heads high, and were more menac- 
 ing in their demeanour, more arrogant in their language than when 
 the Duchess de Berri was leading the insurgent bands to battle. 
 The Corsaire, a satirical journal belonging to the republican party, 
 having one day alluded to the suspicions indulged in by public 
 malice, the editor, M. Eugene Brifault, was called out by a royalist 
 and wounded. Another attack was followed by another challenge 
 upon the part of the writers in the Revenant, to which the Corsaire 
 on this occasion replied by an energetic appeal to the respect due to 
 the liberty of the press. Now to have recourse to measures of inti- 
 midation against the republican party was a proof how little that 
 party was understood. Composed of men full of courage, impe- 
 tuosity, and daring, the strength of that party consisted precisely in 
 its ardour in braving death. No sooner did it find itself threatened 
 than its indignation burst forth with tremendous vehemence. The- 
 National and the Tribune, which until then had spoken only with 
 chivalrous generosity of the unfortunate and captive Duchess de 
 Berri, now hurled a formal and haughty defial at the legitimatists^ 
 With that lofty disdain which characterised him, Armand Carrel 
 wrote, "It seems that the moment is come for testing the famous. 
 Carlo-republican alliance ; be it so. Let messieurs, the cavaliere ser- 
 venti* say how many they are ; let us see each other once face to face,, 
 and then let there be an end of the matter. We will not call in the- 
 juste-milieu men to help us." A declaration of the same kind ap- 
 peared in the Tribune. Instantly the popular societies, the schools, 
 and all were in motion. The offices of the two republican news- 
 papers were filled with impassioned crowds. Every one demanded 
 permission to enrol his name; every one claimed for himself the 
 honour of the first fight. A list of twelve names had been deposited' 
 by the legitimatists at the offices of the National and the Tribune^ 
 and from that list Armand Carrel had selected the name of M. Roux 
 Laborie; but in matters of single combat the republicans admitted i 
 no representative, and they all insisted that the engagement should 
 have a character more in conformity with the intensity of their 
 anger. Accordingly they deposited at the offices both of the Na- 
 tional and the Tribune twelve names in opposition to the twelve that 
 had been furnished to them, and declared that they determined to> 
 have, not a collective engagement, not a listed field, which would 
 have been impracticable, but a combat divided into twelve rencon- 
 tres, at different hours and at different places. After several nego- 
 tiations and a long correspondence, the legitimatists refused to sub- 
 scribe to these conditions. The following letter addressed to the 
 Revenant, by MM. Godefroi Cavaignac, Marrast, and Garderin, wil 
 give an idea of this singular conflict, in which the spirit of the mid 
 die ages seemed to be revived. 
 " We send you a first list of twelve persons. We demand, not twelve simulta 

 
 DUCHESS AND THE REPUBLICANS. 133 
 
 neons duels, but twelve successive duels, at times and places on which we shall easily 
 agree. No excuses; no pretexts, which would not save you from the disgrace of 
 cowardice, nor, above all, from the consequences which ensue from it. Henceforth 
 there is war, man to man, between your party and ours; no truce till one of the two 
 shall have given way to the other." 
 
 From the acrimony of this language, it may be conceived what 
 must have been the surprise of the republican party when its oppo- 
 nents dared to threaten it. The men of intelligence among the 
 royalists felt that a great blunder had been committed, and they 
 exerted all their energies to stifle this deplorable quarrel. In pursu- 
 ance of a decision come to at a meeting of their leading men, the 
 legitimatists declared that they could not consent to generalise the 
 dispute. Tardy prudence, and insufficient to the end proposed ! On 
 the 2nd of February, MM. Armand Carrel and Roux Laborie met 
 upon the ground. The fight took place with swords, and lasted 
 three minutes. Carrel had already twice wounded his adversary in 
 the arm ; but in making a lunge, he met the point of the sword, and 
 received a deep wound in the abdomen. The news spread like light- 
 ning, and immediately became the subject of every conversation. 
 Nothing was talked of in the schools, the journals, at the Bourse, 
 in the theatres, but the courage of Armand Carrel, his devotedness, 
 and the danger impending over his life. M. Dupin, M. Chateau- 
 briand himself, called to ask how he did. M. Thiers, whose col- 
 league he had been in other times, sent his secretary. The people 
 of the house refused to admit him. Let him come in, said Carrel; 
 and, addressing the visiter, he said, " I have a favour to ask of M. 
 Thiers ; it is my earnest desire that M. Roux Laborie be not incom- 
 moded." 
 
 But, as was to be expected, a cry of execration against the execu- 
 tive, mingled with the interest which was everywhere manifested 
 for the magnanimous writer. So then, said the sincere liberals, here 
 is the fruit of the affirmations of M. Thiers and the Due de Broglie; 
 let the blood that has been shed lie at their door. But for the im- 
 portance bestowed upon a vanquished woman, but for the moral 
 force with which they have invested her by placing her above the 
 laws, but for the ludicrous confession they have made of their dread 
 of the legitimatist party, never would that party have ventured to 
 display such an excess of hardihood. The partisans of the ministry 
 appeared evidently humiliated by these reproaches, for the insult 
 offered to the revolution of July was flagrant, and could not be de- 
 nied. As for the republicans, they continued to meet tumultuously; 
 but vengeance Ava# with them a sentiment full of grandeur and gene- 
 rosity. The men of the people, in the vehemence of their indigna- 
 tion, beset the office of the Gazette de France with the intention of 
 breaking up its presses. They were restrained by a republican, M. 
 Ferdinand Flocon, who harangued the furious multitude, and made 
 them ashamed of their violence. However, it was determined in 
 the office of the Tribune to publish the following manifesto, the 
 effect of which was to put an end to the legitimatist meetings that,
 
 134 FLOCON'S MANIFESTO. 
 
 till then, had been held in various points of the capital. A vehe- 
 ment and strange manifesto it was, in which the spirit of the times 
 is curiously displayed, and which shows how much incapacity there 
 was then in the executive, how much impotence in the laws, how 
 much pride in all parties, and anarchy in the general state of things. 
 
 " MESSIEURS You do not choose that the people should speak ill of the Duchess 
 de Berri ; you say that she is a woman, an unfortunate and captive woman; a mother, 
 deprived of her children; you say that regard is due to the female sex, to weakness 
 and misfortune. You set yourselves up as her champions. 
 
 " And we, having taken part in the revolution of July, we declare that we will not 
 suffer you any longer to insult it in your journals. 
 
 " We did think that the care of its defence might still be left to those who have 
 profited by it. We think so no longer. The revolution of July is a principle. The 
 men who have usurped it, permit you to attack it. The revolution of July is op- 
 pressed and persecuted every day in the persons of those who effected it; the pri- 
 sons are filled with its friends and representatives; the registers of the gaols are 
 scribbled all over with the names of the defenders of liberty. If, then, you claim 
 the privilege of the unfortunate and the oppressed, that privilege belongs to us as 
 much and more than to you. 
 
 " For us, we were upon the ground on the day of the fight. We looked for you and 
 did not find you, and now you show yourselves. You dare to forbid us to speak of 
 your dame. 
 
 " Well, then, our dame is liberty; our dame is the revolution of July, and we 
 forbid you to speak of her good or bad. 
 
 " You have held meetings in the capital, the avowed object of which was to mani- 
 fest your sympathy for a cause which the nation repudiates. The capital., amazed 
 at your audacity, has vainly awaited the repression of so much effrontery by legal 
 means. We forbid you to hold similar meetings for the future. 
 
 " And, since the executive approves of you, for it tolerates you, we declare to you 
 that upon the very first occasion on which you shall have had the insolence to 
 announce a public meeting of legitimatists, we will do what the executive ought to 
 have done long ago, we will disperse you by force. 
 
 (Signed) " P. C. C. FERDINAND FLOCON." 
 
 The government could no longer remain neutral ; it interfered 
 through the police. The leaders were put under surveillance ; some 
 arrests were made. MM. de Calvimont, Albert Berthier, and Theo- 
 dore Anne, who were to fight MM. Marrast, d'Hervas, and Achille 
 Gregoire, were obliged to yield to the measures taken by the executive 
 to prevent the meeting. This, however, would not have been 
 enough to stop the mischief, if the legitimatists had not perceived 
 that they had taken a bad course. The Gazette de France, the Cou- 
 rier de I Europe, and the Quotidienne, legitimatist organs, pointedly 
 expressed, in the name of their party, their regret at what had 
 passed. Armand Carrel, whose life had been thought in danger, 
 was soon restored to the journal which he conducted with so much 
 eclat. At last the republicans returned to the use of less offensive 
 language, and to a calmer bearing as regarded the royalists. But as 
 their resentments had not yet been wholly allayed, they signed, very ! 
 numerously, a petition demanding that the Duchess de Berri should 
 be brought to trial; and such of them as had long abstained from 
 wearing the insignia of the revolution of 1830, which, they said, 
 had been profaned, now made a point of never appearing in public 
 but with the ribbon of July in their button-holes. 
 
 The ministry, meanwhile, was silently preparing means for turn- 
 
 '
 
 THE DUCHESS PUBLISHES THE FACT OF HER MARRIAGE. 135 
 
 ing to good account the advantageous position afforded to it by the 
 Duchess de Berri. The governor of the citadel of Blaye had op- 
 posed the introduction of the police into the fort. As a soldier, he 
 wished to command over his soldiers. This loftiness of character 
 gave offence. M. Chousserie, because he was a man of honour, 
 ceased to appear sufficiently devoted. General Bugeaud was ap- 
 pointed to supersede him. He was a man endowed with high qua- 
 lities as a soldier, possessed of sound information upon certain sub- 
 jects, remarkable for a sort of grotesque common sense ; whimsical 
 rather than ill-natured, susceptible even of good feeling by fits, but 
 irascible, blunt, destitute of tact, scorning the suamter in modo, and 
 filled with a subaltern's zeal, the meanness of which he hardly con- 
 trived to relieve by his arrogance, his bluntness, and his blustering 
 airs. The arrival of such a man was a thunderstroke to the prisoner; 
 she readily guessed what he was in reality, notwithstanding all 
 the courtesies to which he laboured sincerely to bend his stubborn 
 nature, and she was afraid of him. 
 
 The commissary of police, Joly, was also sent to the citadel; he 
 was lodged in the enclosure under the apartment occupied by the 
 princess. There were afterwards discovered, sunk in the ceiling of 
 the room assigned to this commissary of police, two funnels covered 
 with plaster and terminating upon a very thin plate of metal placed a 
 little in front of the room in which it was customary with the Duchess 
 de Berri, Madame d'Hautefort, and M. de Brissac to meet. Was this 
 a contrivance for the purpose of espionage? Certain it is that the 
 government speedily obtained the most precise information, but it 
 wanted the means of making use of it, and those means were fur- 
 nished it by the prisoner herself. On the 22nd of February, 
 1833, she placed in the hands of General Bugeaud the following de- 
 claration: " Urged by circumstances and by the measures ordered by 
 the government, though I had the strongest reasons to keep my 
 marriage secret, I think it a duty to myself and to my children to 
 declare that I was secretly married during my residence in Italy. 
 MAEIE CAROLINE." 
 
 Now, here is what the princess wrote to M. de Mesnard upon the 
 subject of the above declaration. 
 
 44 1 feel as if it would kill me to tell you what follows, but it must 
 be done. Vexatious annoyances ; the order to leave me alone with 
 spies; the certainty that I cannot get out till September, could 
 alone have determined me to declare my secret marriage." 
 
 How, indeed, could it be supposed that the Duchess de Berri 
 should, of her own accord, determine to sign a document which 
 stripped her of her title of regent and of her dignity as a mother j* 
 A document, the publication of which degraded the cause^of legiti- 
 macy, covered the royalists with confusion, and made the issue of a 
 civil war turn upon the hazards of a secret amour. Marie Caroline, 
 therefore, only yielded, according to the terms of the declaration, 
 " to the measures ordained by the government." After all, resigna-
 
 136 MINISTERIAL EMBARRASSMENTS. 
 
 tion was a thing impossible to her ardent temperament, and she had 
 not sufficient fortitude to sacrifice herself to her party by rising 
 superior to her misfortune. Perhaps no more might have been ne- 
 cessary than to let some hope of liberty gleam upon her. Certain 
 it is that she did not consult upon this occasion either Madame 
 d'Hautefort or M. de Brissac, as if she had been afraid that they 
 would hinder her from rushing upon destruction. 
 
 The declaration was made on the 22nd. On the 26th the queen 
 could read it in the Moniteur. Thus, Marie Caroline saw the details 
 of her private life exposed to the insulting commentaries of the mul- 
 titude, under the government of those she most loved of all her kin- 
 dred; thus, she had counted in vain upon that common regard for 
 the family honour, which prevails even in humble life. 
 
 But this disclosure of a woman's weakness was not only shameful, 
 it was also impolitic : for the momentary advantage the ministry could 
 derive from the discredit cast upon the legitimatist party, was far 
 from recompensing the lasting injury they inflicted upon the mo- 
 narchical principle, by the disgrace entailed upon a royal house. 
 
 Accordingly, the result disappointed the expectations of the exe- 
 cutive. In the eyes of all honest men, the disgrace of the fault 
 confessed was almost covered from view by the infamy of the pub- 
 licity given to it. The republicans, behaving with as much gene- 
 rosity to the captive princess as they had shown themselves formida- 
 ble to her party, inveighed solely against the violation of the sacred 
 ties of blood committed by the executive. As for the legitimatists, 
 they denied the authenticity of the declaration, and asserted that 
 the Duchess de Berri had been basely calumniated before the face of 
 Europe. The ministers must, then, have felt to what miserable ne- 
 cessities they had condemned themselves. Accused of fraud and 
 imposture, no means of exculpating themselves remained, but by 
 proving, by authentic evidence, the pregnancy of the Duchess de 
 Berri ; and how was that proof to be obtained, without descending 
 to the vilest and most tyrannical persecution ? They might, it is 
 true, suffer the prisoner to be delivered in Blaye; they might have 
 proper measures taken for having the accouchement duly authenti- 
 cated, and thus they might shut the mouths of those who were, or 
 who affected to be, incredulous. But how many chances would 
 they have to run, if this course was adopted? not to say how ignoble 
 it was to surround a captive woman with spies, and to set policemen 
 to watch the moment when she was about to become a mother. 
 Who could answer for it, that she should not succeed, when the 
 critical hour was come, in baffling the vigilance of her guardians? 
 What would be the consequence besides, should she die in child- 
 birth, or should she sink under the moral torture of the investiga- 
 tion, which to her was so full of insult? Should the executive suiter 
 a charge of assassination to lie at its door? These fears, upon the 
 part of the ministers, were the more natural, inasmuch as the pri- 
 soner's health had been visibly declining for some time. A report
 
 MEDICAL CONSULTATIONS. 137 
 
 was drawn up, on the 1st of March, by five physicians of Blaye, 
 and it stated : 
 
 " It will be very important to enable Madame la Duchesse de Berri to proceed, as 
 soon as possible, to her native country, the temperature of which appears by all 
 means likely to be more favourable to her health; and, should this salutary measure 
 be adopted, it would be desirable that it should be effected before the conclusion of 
 her presumed pregnancy, for fear the symptoms of the pulmonary affection should 
 make too rapid progress after her accouchement to allow of a journey of any kind. 
 This advice ought to have the more weight, because every day the captivity of the 
 Duchess de Berri is prolonged cannot but have a most injurious effect on her moral 
 condition." 
 
 The inference was clear; and it is to be remarked that, in addi- 
 tion to the signatures of MM. Canihac, Grateloup, Bourges, and 
 Gintrac, there was also attached to this report that of M. Meniere, 
 whom the government itself had appointed as physician to the 
 princess upon the recommendation of M. Orfila. 
 
 The ministers, then, had potent motives for not prolonging the 
 captivity of the Duchess de Berri until after her accouchement; 
 whilst, on the other hand, they did not wish to set her at liberty 
 until they had obtained manifest authentic proof of her pregnancy, 
 such as they could victoriously oppose to the denials of the legiti- 
 matist party. 
 
 Things were in this state when M. Deneux, the Duchess de Berri's 
 accoucheur, demanded permission to proceed to Blaye. He was de- 
 termined upon this step by considerations which his party did not 
 approve of, but which, nevertheless, were honourable. He thought 
 that if his request were rejected the fact of pregnancy would be dis- 
 proved, and that if, on the contrary, it were granted, his mission 
 would be equivalent to a formal disavowal of the protest, formerly 
 attributed to Louis Philippe, against the legitimacy of the Due de 
 Bordeaux. The reader will recollect the doubts to which the birth 
 of the Due de Bordeaux had given occasion. These doubts had 
 been ingeniously increased and envenomed after the revolution of 
 July by the partisans of Louis Philippe; a judicial inquiry had even, 
 been talked of. M. Deneux thought, not without reason, that by 
 going to do at Blaye, by order of the new government, what he had 
 done in the Tuileries on the 29th of September, 1820, he would 
 render it impossible for the courtiers to dispute the authority of his 
 first testimony. 
 
 Desiring by all means to destroy the accusation of falsehood thrown 
 out against them, the ministers felt it their interest to have the pri- 
 soner's pregnancy certified by one of her own party. Now the devo- 
 tion of M. Deneux to the mother of Henry V. was notorious, and his 
 profession as an accoucheur gave his presence in Blaye a significance 
 which it was impossible to mistake. His proposal was therefore 
 favourably received by the council, and was a fresh subject of grief 
 and irritation for the legitimatists. He set out, arrived in Blaye on 
 the 24th of March, and being admitted the next day into the citadel, 
 was introduced into the princess's apartment. She was in bed; her
 
 138 THE DUCHESS VISITED BY HER 
 
 face was emaciated, her complexion sallow, her cheeks hollow. She 
 stretched out her hand to M. Deneux, and said with a melancholy 
 grace, u Good M. Deneux! I was very sure he would come to me." 
 The old man, intensely affected, threw himself at the feet of the bed, 
 sobbing violently, and all but fainted. When he recovered from his 
 emotion the princess said to him, " My good M. Deneux, you have 
 left your wife for me, abandoned your business, and inconvenienced 
 your patients ; I cannot accept such a sacrifice;" and, when he replied 
 only with expressions of unbounded devotion, the princess disclosing 
 her real thoughts said, " But do you not know that by remaining 
 with me you will involuntarily prove an impediment to my liberation." 
 She saw in fact in the presence of M. Deneux a proof that the mi- 
 nisters intended to let her await the termination of her pregnancy in 
 prison. But M. Deneux represented to her that if he returned to 
 Paris, the legitimatist journals would deny more obstinately than ever 
 the declaration of the 22nd of February, and would by so doing render 
 it still more imperatively necessary for the government to confound 
 them by a positive proof at the risk of imposing a longer captivity 
 upon the princess. She appeared struck by this observation, and in 
 a second interview, which took place upon the 28th of March, she 
 declared to M. Deneux that she accepted his services. 
 
 From that day began a life of anxiety and self-denial for M. 
 Deneux. Wholly possessed with the desire of restoring his patient 
 to repose and liberty, he did not fear to draw down upon himself the 
 reprobation of his party, of which it was necessary to baffle the cal- 
 culations and brave the passions, in order to serve the mother of 
 Henry V. ; for here the princess's interest and that of the legitimatist 
 party were manifestly opposed. To procure the opening of her 
 prison gates Marie Caroline had but one means, which was, openly 
 to divulge that formidable truth which the legitimatist party would 
 have wished for ever to conceal, even though the mother of Henry 
 V. were to remain longer the victim of the important secret. 
 
 But a mere avowal was not what the ministers wanted, not such 
 an avowal as had been made on the 22nd of February, and published 
 on the 26th. What the government required was a public au- 
 thentication of the fact, resting upon official testimony, and of such a 
 nature as to render all controversy impossible. Now the Duchess de 
 Bern felt an invincible repugnance to allow of that authentication ; 
 first, from feelings of modesty, and next, because having been already 
 deceived, she did not believe that her liberty would be granted her 
 in return for the sacrifice the government dared to demand of her. 
 
 The following was the plan submitted to General Bugeaud upon 
 this subject by M. Deneux. A certain number of respectable per- 
 sons of Blaye and Bordeaux were to be chosen by the government 
 to receive from the accoucheurs, chosen in equal numbers by the 
 government and the princess, a declaration authenticating the preg- 
 nancy of the latter. The document having been made out in due 
 form, the princess was to embark in presence of the same persons,
 
 OWN ACCOUCHEUR. 139 
 
 and the document was not to be sent to Paris until the vessel had 
 proceeded far away from Blaye. This plan bespoke a distrust 
 offensive to ministers, and which they had but too well deserved. 
 General Bugeaud appeared, nevertheless, disposed to adopt it, and he 
 replied to M. Deneux that he would draw up propositions which 
 should be laid before the Duchess de Berri and the ministers; he 
 also said, that if after the conditions had been once effected, the 
 government should venture to break its word, he, Bugeaud, would 
 seize the corvette La Capricieuse, and would convey Madame to 
 Sicily of his own sole authority. 
 
 If the Duchess de Berri could have believed for an instant in the 
 sincerity of her enemies' promises she might perhaps have yielded, 
 but she was convinced that it would have been all to no purpose for 
 her to submit to an authentication, the offensive nature of which 
 was, moreover, so well suited to dismay her. A conversation she 
 had upon this subject with M. Deneux will give an idea of the tor- 
 ments endured by this unfortunate woman. " I would rather be 
 delivered in Blaye," she said to her physician, " than consent to the 
 authentication required of me. If I cause my condition to be au- 
 thenticated, the results will be sure to be published in the journals 
 and I shall remain here, whilst the declaration made at the moment 
 of my delivery will not be made public." " Oh, as for that, I can 
 take upon me to assert that Madame is mistaken." " What, Mon- 
 sieur Deneux, do you think that ministers will dare to publish it?" 
 " I have not the least doubt of it, Madame." " Why, it would be 
 an infamy beyond all parallel." " They will do it, Madame, you 
 may rely upon it." " Well, then, if they will, I will divulge what 
 ought to remain concealed ; I will state the name of my husband ; but 
 as the French laws oblige me to do so in order to legitimise my child, 
 the odium of this disclosure will devolve wholly upon my enemies; 
 whereas, if I were to submit to have my pregnancy authenticated, I 
 alone should be the person accused, and it would not fail to be said 
 that I longed to obtain my liberty before being delivered, to obtain 
 it at any cost, because my child was not legitimate." 
 
 These considerations determined her, and she wrote to General 
 Bugeaud to announce her refusal.* 
 
 Some little time after this M. Meniere was called to Paris by 
 
 * The following is her letter: "I cannot but feel grateful to you, general, for the 
 motives which have dictated the propositions you have submitted to me. Upon the 
 first perusal of them, I was determined to reply in the negative; upon reflection, I 
 have not changed my mind. Decidedly, I shall make no request of the government. 
 If it think fit to impose conditions on my liberty, which is so necessary to my health, 
 now totally destroyed, let it make known those conditions to me in writing. If they 
 are compatible with my dignity, I will consider whether I can accept them. Happen 
 what may, I cannot forget, general, that you have, upon every occasion, combined the 
 respect and the deference due to misfortune with the duties imposed upon you. I feel 
 pleasure in testifying to you my gratitude for this. MARIE CAROLINE." Some 
 days afterwards, the Duchess de Berri, having communicated this letter to M. De- 
 neux, and the latter having expressed his surprise at it, the princess said to him, 
 " One must submit to coax the lion, in order to escape his claws."
 
 140 M. CHOULOT'S INTERVIEWS WITH THE 
 
 telegraphic despatch. He was summoned to the council hall where 
 he gave an account in presence of the assembled ministers, of all that 
 he knew respecting the state of things in Blaye. In consequence of 
 his communications it was definitively fixed that the princess should 
 be delivered in prison. The king then intimated his wish to have 
 a private interview with M. Meniere. He expressed himself pain- 
 fully affected by the rigour displayed against his wife's niece, and 
 represented himself as the victim of the necessities of the constitu- 
 tional system. Then, foreseeing what points would be likely to be 
 touched upon in the conversations between the princess and M. 
 Meniere, he explained to the latter at great length the sort of lan- 
 guage he ought to hold, and he took great pains to mark out for him 
 the course he should pursue. 
 
 Marie Caroline had now no other chance than a skilfully contrived 
 evasion. The idea of this occurred to some of her partisans, and 
 M. de Choulot was pitched upon, unknown to himself, as the head 
 of the conspiracy. He had rendered himself worthy of this perilous 
 honour by his daring devotedness; by the sacrifices of every kind 
 he had made for the cause of legitimacy, especially the frequent 
 journeys he had undertaken for that cause, and in which he had sunk 
 the greater part of his fortune. He was then at Paris on his return 
 from Prague, whence he brought letters, portraits, and words of com- 
 fort for the Duchess de Berri. Despairing of getting admission by 
 stratagem to the citadel of Blaye, he applied in the first instance to 
 the minister of war, concealing nothing of what he had done for 
 the Duchess de Berri whilst she was still free and in arms. " You 
 have conducted yourself like a true French chevalier," said Marshal 
 Soult to M. Choulot; but he added that an authorisation from the 
 king himself would not be enough to gain him admission to the 
 princess's presence; that the affair was a question of state and one 
 upon which the ministers must be consulted. 
 
 The next day M. de Choulot was informed that his request was 
 rejected. He was not to be bafHed by this, but pressed his suit still 
 more urgently in a letter to the king ; and relying on the resources of 
 his own energy and presence of mind he set out for Blaye. He pre- 
 sented himself to General Bugeaud, appealed to every motive of 
 humanity, and of honour, and at length succeeded in gaining en- 
 trance into the prison. He found the Duchess de Berri in great 
 despondency, and attributing to the prolonged sufferings of her cap- 
 tivity all the blame of the declaration wrested from her weakness. 
 The interview was short. M. Bugeaud had appointed that the visit 
 should last only tsvelve or fifteen minutes. Before taking leave of 
 the prisoner M. de Choulot, who had conceived the design of saving 
 her, asked her for some object which might serve as a token of re- 
 cognition for the person whom he should by and bye have to send 
 to her. The Duchess de Berri then opening a drawer said, " See, 
 here are the crown jewels," and she pointed out to him, among some 
 things of very small value, a little chain formed into a ring. M. de
 
 DUCHESS DE BERRI AND THE KING. 141 
 
 Choulot took this, and he had scarcely withdrawn when the princess, 
 yielding to a feeling of pride, very natural in a mother, called Ge- 
 neral Bugeaud to show him the portraits of young Henry and his 
 sister. After a short stay in his prisoner's room, the general re- 
 turned to M. de Choulot, and, with inconceivable want of tact, ques- 
 tioned him as to the pregnancy of the Duchess de Berri. M. de 
 Choulot replied, as might be expected, that he had not come to the 
 citadel to make observations of that kind and he had remarked no- 
 thing. The general's face grew fiery red at these words; all he 
 sought were testimonies, the sincerity of which the legitimatists 
 could not pretend to question, and he had counted upon that of M. 
 de Choulot. Disappointed in his expectation he could hardly sup- 
 press his anger and he sent his aide-de-camp, M. de St. Arnault, to- 
 the princess, to request that she would let M. de Choulot see her on 
 foot and walking about. Offensive as was this proposal, the Duchess 
 de Berri durst not reject it; the trial, however, dad not take place, 
 thanks to the firmness of M. de Choulot ; but he had to endure very 
 vehement reproaches on the general's part, and, still more, on 
 that of the aide-de-camp. He paid little heed to them, and returned 
 to Paris in all haste, impatient to realise his project. 
 
 He had very clearly seen from the moment he entered Blaye, that 
 it was absolutely impossible to carry off the Duchess de Berri either 
 by force or artifice, unless Louis Philippe himself would consent se- 
 cretly to aid the scheme. The first thing he did, therefore, upon 
 arriving in Paris was to write to the king that the princess had con- 
 fided to him her secret views, and that he solicited an audience. It 
 was granted him immediately, and he was received at the Tuileries 
 in Baron Fain's cabinet. But just as the king was about to see 
 M. de Choulot face to face he suddenly changed his mind. Whe- 
 ther it was from embarrassment or from alarm, he durst not appear 
 at the appointed rendezvous. M. de Choulot waited a long time 
 with visible impatience. Baron Fain went out at his request to see 
 the monarch, and upon his return he proposed to M. de Choulot to 
 introduce him to the presence of the queen. De Choulot refused, 
 and, after fresh expostulations, Louis Philippe at length decided to 
 encounter an interview which must have been so very painful to him. 
 De Choulot began in a respectful and calm tone, but gradually warm- 
 ing he declared to the king that the man he saw before him was- 
 bound to the elder branch by imperishable sentiments of love and 
 fidelity. " That," said the king, " is language which a citizen mo- 
 narch can understand." M. de Choulot held in his hands canes 
 upon which he was in the habit of leaning since he had had a fall 
 in hunting ; he remarked that the king looked at those canes in a 
 manner which betrayed strange alarm, and he disarmed himself with 
 a smile. Returning then to the subject of his visit, he explained to- 
 the king how important for him it was not to leave the Duchess de 
 Berri in a position likely to have disastrous consequences. He de- 
 picted the princess as sinking under evils, the cause of which being
 
 142 ARTS PRACTISED UPON THE 
 
 unknown to Europe would be linked with the blackest suspicions. 
 Louis Philippe did not appear inaccessible to the fears which were 
 thus suggested to him. He owned that if the Duchess de Berri died 
 in prison, that fatal event might be turned to the same account 
 against him as had the death of the Due de Bourbon ; but to lend 
 himself to the escape of the duchess appeared to him contrary to 
 the dearest interests of his race. " My government,' 1 said he, over 
 and over again, " my government must have guarantees;" neverthe- 
 less, he showed himself disposed to let M. de Choulot act without 
 throwing any obstacle in his way, only he required him to remain 
 in Paris some days and wait. During the whole course of this in- 
 terview, one thought had manifestly been uppermost in the king's 
 mind; the memory of the Due de Bourbon, whose representative 
 lie had in a manner before him. He frequently recurred to the 
 accusations for which the death of that prince had afforded a pre- 
 text to faction; and he even exclaimed, " JEh, mon Dieu! that 
 unlucky bequest ; we have not yet received a sous of it." 
 
 M. de Choulot believed from what took place in this interview 
 that it would be expedient for him to wait. He did not suspect that 
 delay would paralyze his devoted exertions.* 
 
 No change, in fact, was made in the cruel severity of the mea- 
 sures previously adopted towards the Duchess de Berri. Isolated, 
 anxious, inwardly perturbed by the rumours of her party, of which 
 she seemed, as it were, sometimes to hear a distant echo, she desired 
 and requested that M. Hennequin and M. de Chateaubriand should 
 be given her as advisers.f There seemed to be a disposition to com- 
 ply with her wishes, but it was insisted upon, as a condition, that 
 she should make those gentlemen pledge themselves to depose to her 
 pregnancy. This was imposing upon her a stipulation as harsh as 
 it was indecent; she refused to submit to it, and her request, which 
 was transmitted to Paris by telegraph, was rejected. 
 
 At the same time General Bugeaud was directed to communicate 
 to her certain particulars tending to make her party odious to her. 
 That party, said a ministerial despatch, which was carefully commu- 
 nicated to her on the 18th of April, was sacrificing her in a dis- 
 graceful manner; the legitimatists wished for her death to afford 
 
 * We are assured that M. de Choulot intends to publish what took place upon 
 this occasion more completely than we have been at liberty to do. 
 
 f The following is the letter she wrote on this subject to General Bugeaud: 
 " I wish to take several days to reflect, monsieur le general, upon our various con- 
 versations. I am convinced that, notwithstanding my intense desire to be set at 
 liberty. I could not make up my mind to make any proposal to the government 
 without consulting with some of my friends. I will confine myself to two, but upon 
 the clear understanding that I shall be allowed to see them without witnesses. If 
 the minister consents to this, I will write to M. le Vicomte de Chateaubriand and 
 to M. Hennequin, and ask them to come to me to Blaye. I have every reason to hope 
 the proposals which I shall be enabled to lay before them will meet their approba- 
 tion. Should that be the case, those proposals shah" be communicated to the govern- 
 ment. I request you will make known my wishes to the president of the council. 
 My request will prove to you, general, that I appreciate your good intentions upon 
 my behalf. I shall not cease to be truly grateful to you. MABLE CAROLINE."
 
 MIND OF THE PRISONER. 143 
 
 them a handle for calumny against the executive. Whilst living she 
 was no longer any thing more than a source of embarrassment to them. 
 Letters from Prague announced that every one there was incensed 
 against her, and that among her most implacable enemies were M 
 de Blacas and the Abbe de Latil. The intention of these crafty 
 communications was manifest. By pointing out to the Duchess de 
 Berri that her partisans were abandoning her, that her family, even, 
 was declaring against her, it was hoped that she would be driven by 
 despair to permit her pregnancy to be authenticated. What did she 
 risk by dissatisfying a party, the ingratitude of which was so in- 
 geniously exaggerated to her ? But her repugnance was not to be 
 overcome. MM. Orfila and Auvity were sent to her a second time, 
 with MM. Andral, fils, and Fouquier. She would not receive them. 
 M. Dubois, who_had been in Blaye for six weeks hoping for admis- 
 sion, wrote her, in vain, an almost suppliant letter. " Woe to him 
 if he dare to appear before me," she exclaimed in a tone that almost 
 savoured of menace, for she felt a sort of horror against M. Dubois 
 which she took no pains to conceal. 
 
 The government had spared nothing to overcome the obstinacy of 
 the prisoner. M. Auvity even went the length of pressing M. de 
 Mesnard to use his influence with her towards inducing her to con- 
 sent to an authentication which should be followed by her liberation. 
 All attempts having failed, and the princess having preferred the 
 misfortune of being delivered in the citadel to the disgrace of yield- 
 ing, nothing was now thought of but how to make the preparations 
 for her accouchement complete in all points. But was it not to be 
 feared that she would baffle the arrangements made by her enemies 
 by procuring abortion? The government apprehended this; thus 
 outraging the prisoner by suppositions as absurd as they were cruel. 
 The fact is, that far from having given admission to such a thought, 
 she manifested her intention to suckle her child. Now, as she had 
 not suckled either the Due de Bordeaux or the Princess Louise, it 
 was easy to foresee that these facts would give rise to unpleasant in- 
 terpretations in Prague, and in the world in general. Accordingly 
 Madame d'Hautefort did not hesitate to argue against Marie Caro- 
 line's wishes; but all remonstrances and entreaties were ineffectual. 
 MM. Gintrac, Meniere, and Deneux having declared that the prin- 
 cess ought to suckle her child, even for the sake of her own health, 
 she expressed the greatest delight at this, and requested that the 
 necessary matters should be brought in all haste from Paris. She 
 could not offer a more formal confutation of the calumnious fears 
 entertained by the government; yet, notwithstanding this, the mi- 
 nisters, in order to prevent an imaginary crime, stooped to precau- 
 tions, the pretended prudence of which was but folly and insult. 
 Though the windows were protected by bars and closed below by 
 demi-persiennes, perfectly secured, they talked of placing iron gratings 
 across them, for fear, no doubt, that the child should be thrust 
 tnrough the bars, and thus, the physical proof of pregnancy be de-
 
 144 PERSECUTION AND ESPIONAGE. 
 
 stroyed. The genius of espionage went still further .... but here 
 we must stop. When policy hesitates at nothing, it is impossible 
 to relate every thing ; in such a case, silence is but the modesty of 
 history. 
 
 At last the Duchess de Berri could measure the extent of her 
 misfortune. Devoted to unparalleled humiliations, and steeped in 
 bitterness to the lips, nothing more remained for her to expiate. In 
 the beginning of her captivity, she had at least some consolations, 
 and she had not been forbidden to beguile her sorrows. She could 
 at times forget the rigour of her destiny, when from the rampart, 
 assigned her as a place for her promenades, she followed with her 
 eye the steamboat which every morning proceeds from Bordeaux to 
 Blaye ; or, when from the plain, where the inhabitants of those two 
 cities assemble upon certain days, she received the salutation of fide- 
 lity, or recognised some friend of her misfortune. But even these 
 bnef gleams of pleasure had disappeared for her since the be- 
 ginning of April. Languid and suffering, she hardly ever left her 
 apartment, and was wholly dependent upon the kind attentions be- 
 stowed upon her by her companions in captivity; happy still, if in 
 her fallen condition she had not had constantly to struggle against 
 the importunities or the rudeness of her keepers. 
 
 On the 24th of April, General Bugeaud entered her room, hold- 
 ing a roll of paper in his hand. It was a sort of prospectus of what 
 was to take place at the moment of her confinement. The paper 
 mentioned as persons who were to be present at the birth of the 
 child, the sub-prefect of Blaye, the mayor, one of his adjoints, the 
 president of the tribunal, the procureur du roi, the juge de paix, 
 the commandant of the national guard, MM. Dubois and Meniere. 
 The paper stated that all these witnesses were to enter the bedroom 
 at the commencement of the labour; that they were to authenticate 
 the princess's identity; that they were to ask her if she was really 
 the Duchess de Berri, if she was pregnant, and if she felt near 
 being delivered; that mention should be made of her replies or of 
 her silence ; that the witnesses should then scrutinize the room, the 
 closets, the cupboards, the secretaries, the drawers, and even the 
 princess's bed, to see if there was no new-born infant in the room, 
 and that with the same view they should ascertain whether there 
 was not about the Duchess de Berri any pregnant woman upon the 
 point of being delivered; that in case she should cry out during 
 the labour, mention should be made of those cries, and also of the 
 cries of the infant at the moment of its birth. Marie Caroline had 
 no sooner heard the enumeration of these formalities, than she burst 
 into a passion of grief and indignation ; but the general going on to 
 say that the precautions could not stop there, and that in order to 
 be aware of the commencement of her labour, it would be necessary 
 to place two persons upon the watch in the room adjoining her bed- 
 room, " Retire, sir," cried the princess, in a transport of rage; and, 
 rushing from the room into her bedroom, she violently slapped the
 
 THE DUCHESS'S RESISTANCE OVERCOME. 145 
 
 door ^to. M. Deneux was immediately summoned. The princess 
 was in bed suffering extreme agitation; the muscles of her face 
 neck, and chest, were contracted, her breathing was painful, her lips 
 swollen and livid, her heart palpitated violently, the child no longer 
 gave any signs of life. 
 
 As scenes like this might bring on a miscarriage, and entail 
 fearful responsibility upon the ministers, General Bugeaud spared no 
 pains to soothe Marie Caroline, and he succeeded; for impressions 
 were with her, more vehement than lasting; but it made no part of 
 his conciliatory system to annul the arrangements prescribed in the 
 paper he had read. On the contrary, he negotiated laboriously for 
 their acceptance. 
 
 Though placed about Marie Caroline by the government, M. 
 Meniere completely disapproved of the course prescribed in the 
 paper in question. He wrote upon this subject to M. d'Argaut, and 
 gave^ grounds for his disapprobation as honourable as they were 
 decisive. What^could be the purpose of a document of this kind? 
 To convince the incredulous? But the denials upon the part of the 
 legitimatists were systematic. Could there be a doubt that they had 
 not made up their minds to deny the clearest evidence? Besides, 
 not to speak of the indecency of the task imposed upon the wit- 
 nesses, was it not impossible to fulfil it? Would not M. Deneux, a 
 man of honour, and responsible for the results of the accouchement, 
 protect his patient from the disastrous influence which the sight of 
 eight or ten persons perfectly unknown to her, and engaged in a 
 grossly offensive inquisitorial mission, would have upon her in the 
 midst of the emotion of such a moment? 
 
 Thus, then, amongst a people renowned for its generosity and its 
 courtesy, the accouchement of a poor vanquished captive and aban- 
 doned sick woman was become the great affair of the moment, the 
 subject of a very busy ministerial correspondence, in short, a ques- 
 tion of state. What do I say? Negotiations were carried on re- 
 specting this accouchement as belligerent powers treat between 
 them respecting a province to be divided, or a peace to be con- 
 cluded. 
 
 After long negotiations, Marie Caroline consented, first, to send 
 word to General Bugeaud when she felt the pains of labour; se- 
 condly, to reply affirmatively to the following question, " Are you 
 the Duchess de Bern?" Thirdly, should the witnesses not arrive 
 until after her accouchement, to receive them when M. Deneux 
 should think proper. 
 
 In return for these concessions, Marie Caroline required, first, 
 that upon no pretext should M. Dubois enter her room ; secondly, 
 that a promise should be given her that she should be set at liberty 
 as soon as M. Deneux should think her in a state to support the 
 fatigues of the journey; thirdly, that the promise should be dis- 
 cussed and determined in council, and signed by five ministers at 
 least; fourthly, that the original, or a copy signed by the ministers 
 
 VOL. II. L
 
 146 INQUISITORIAL MEASURES. 
 
 should be entrusted to the general, and preserved by him ; fifthly, 
 that a copy of this promise should be put into her own hands. 
 
 This last clause gave rise to various negotiations, in the sequel of 
 which the conditions were accepted upon both sides, and transmitted 
 to the government by telegraph. The reader, we trust, will pardon 
 us for these details ; it is painful, but it is useful to set them forth. 
 This is the way in which dynasties make war upon each other. The 
 affair of the programme being terminated, nothing remained but to 
 take measures, that the witnesses might not be too late informed 
 of the precise moment of the accouchement. M. Deneux had been 
 lodged in the chamber formerly occupied by the commissary of po- 
 lice, Joly, that is to say, under Marie Caroline's apartment. Now, 
 on the 1st of May, a message was sent to M. Deneux, ordering 
 him, on the part of General Bugeaud, to quit that room. In vain 
 did he allege the respect due to his age and to his habits, in order 
 to evade an injunction, the secret motive of which he too well 
 guessed. His room was taken possession of, and a ladder was placed 
 in it, which reached to the ceiling immediately under the captive's 
 bed. General Bugeaud, on his part, thought it his duty to watch 
 with the warders of the first floor, of whom there were four, two 
 officers, MM. Fayoux and Salabelle, and two non-commissioned 
 officers, MM. Budier and Willemot. But even this was not enough 
 to relieve the governor of Blaye from the fear of being taken 
 unawares; he therefore determined to make two warders sleep in 
 the room adjoining the bed-chamber of Marie Caroline, so that the 
 door between the two remaining open, these men might, upon the 
 slightest moan of the princess, hurry to his bed and give him the 
 signal. This scheme with which Marie Caroline was threatened, 
 was perhaps only designed with a view of making the princess con- 
 sent to suffer M. Meniere, the physician assigned her by the 
 government, to sleep in the salon instead of the two warders. She 
 did consent to this as soon as it had been agreed upon that the salon 
 should be occupied by M. Meniere and M. Deneux together. It 
 was also thought to make all the persons chosen as witnesses sleep in 
 the citadel, and it is probable that they would have entered it upon 
 the evening of the 8th, had not the mayor and the juge de paix 
 been detained beyond the town by urgent business. But with all 
 the minute and circumspect foresight of the princess's keepers, they 
 were to be baffled by circumstances. 
 
 It was now the night of the 9th of May, and nothing foretold 
 that that night was to be marked by the expected event. M. De- 
 neux and M. Meniere went to bed, not expecting that their services 
 were about to be called for, and the whole citadel seemed asleep. 
 Suddenly the door of the princess's bed-chamber was opened; Ma- 
 dame Hansler rushed half-dressed into the room, calling out, " Come, 
 come, M. Deneux, madame is in labour." It was about three in 
 the morning. In a moment everybody was on foot. M. Me- 
 niere ran and knocked at the door of the corridor, loudly calling to 
 
 ;
 
 THE ACCOUCHEMENT. 147 
 
 the general; the latter, in his turn, hurried to the door at the 
 entrance of the pallisaded enclosure to call M. Dubois. Orders 
 were given to discharge the cannon to summon the witnesses from 
 the town into the citauel. MM. Deneux and Meniere were already 
 by Marie Caroline's bed-side. Presently arrived in the salon Ge- 
 neral Bugeaud, M. Delort, commandant of the place, M. Dubois 
 and the officers on duty. Messengers ran hurriedly about the 
 citadel in every direction. Three cannon-shots were fired. " What's 
 that?" cried the princess, in alarm; she was re-assured, and was in- 
 treated to calm herself and to wait patiently. The princess replied 
 to these^ doubly cruel intreaties, "But do you not think that this 
 delay will be fatal to my child?" M. Dubois had approached the 
 bed-room ; M. Meniere immediately placed himself so as to prevent 
 Marie Caroline from seeing him ; at the same time Madame Hansler 
 said to him in a whisper, but with great vehemence, " Retire, sir, 
 retire, will you?" It was during this scene that M. Deneux effected 
 the delivery, and he received immediately afterwards from the 
 princess's hands the declaration he was to make to the witnesses. 
 Marie Caroline expressed a wish to see Madame d'Hautefort, who 
 was sent for immediately; then perceiving M. Bugeaud in the salon, 
 she said to M. Meniere, " He may come in if he pleases." The 
 general approached, and she held out her hand to him, " I called as 
 soon as I felt the first pain; I did what I could, and I hope that all 
 will be well;" words painfully expressing the state of submission 
 and restraint under which that unfortunate princess had lived till 
 then. Thereupon, with a laudable impulse of good feeling, the 
 general read to her a ministerial despatch he had received the pre- 
 ceding evening^ and which he knew would be grateful to her. She 
 thanked him with great earnestness; and, as he was withdrawing, 
 she said to him, " general, you have two daughters, well then here 
 is a third." She had before said to M. Meniere, in speaking of 
 the mysterious personage, who at this moment, no doubt, filled her 
 thoughts, " He will be happy, he longed so much for a daughter." 
 
 Meanwhile the witnesses were arrived. Every thing having 
 been arranged for their reception, word was sent to General Bu- 
 geaud. Madame d'Hautefort was at this moment with the princess, 
 and the demeanour of that lady, her impatient movements and the 
 expression of her countenance, showed how intensely painful had 
 been to her all the details of this disgusting drama. Such was her 
 agitation, that when the witnesses delayed to make their appearance, 
 she advanced to the door, and said imperiously, " Come, gentlemen, 
 madame is waiting for you." The witnesses entered with solemn 
 looks. The president, Pastoureau, addressed the appointed questions 
 to the princess; she replied without hesitation, and the witnesses 
 withdrew into the salon to draw up the requisite document. This 
 formality being completed, M. Deneux was called upon by the pre- 
 sident to declare who was the person whom he had just put to bed. 
 There was a moment's silence. Was it the declaration of a legi- 
 
 L 2
 
 148 CONSTERNATION OF THE LEGITIMATISTS. 
 
 timate marriage that was expected? Curiosity was depicted upon 
 every face, and the pause was a solemn one. M. Deneux made the 
 following declaration, " I have just delivered Madame la Duchesse 
 de Bern here present, the lawful wife of Oount Hector Luchesi 
 Palli of the princes del Campo Franco, gentleman of the chamber to 
 the King of the Two Sicilies, domiciled at Palermo." 
 
 The effect produced by these words was profound and various, ac- 
 cording to the sentiments of sympathy or dislike that animated the 
 persons present. Those who had counted upon the scandal of a con- 
 fession, mingled with unavoidable suppressions, appeared vexed and 
 confounded. A generous satisfaction, on the other hand, glowed in 
 the faces of those who, without being of the prisoner's party, re- 
 spected in her the rights of the vanquished, of weakness, and of 
 misfortune. 
 
 The government learned its victory by the telegraph, but it was 
 not content with the information conveyed to it by the official 
 channel. Immediately after the accouchement, M. Deneux had 
 hastened to write to his wife a letter which he had sealed, after 
 having communicated it to General Bugeaud. The government 
 broke the seal of that letter, sent a copy of it to Madame Deneux, 
 and kept the original, which it circulated in the two Chambers ; for, 
 once engaged in the headlong course of arbitrary power, the exe- 
 cutive knew not where to stop. 
 
 Though the Duchess de Berri had legitimized her child by 
 naming her husband, the partisans of the new dynasty exulted with 
 indecent zeal at the event, of which the minister had so well pre- 
 pared the scandal. The republicans only manifested the contempt 
 they felt for this ignoble triumph. 
 
 As for the legitimatists they were overwhelmed with consterna- 
 tion; some of them, however, still persisted in their darling incredu- 
 lity, and they did not hesitate to denounce the document upon 
 which their enemies relied, as the denouement of an intrigue which 
 had begun with violence and ended with a lie. Was it not a thing 
 unheard of in the history of the human race to keep a princess in close 
 confinement and seclusion, that she might be delivered in a sort of 
 slavery? Could there be any civil standing for the child, or any 
 physical certainty of its birth, when the mother, arbitrarily incar- 
 cerated,- and deprived even of the protection of her judges, Avas 
 placed in a situation which the laws disavowed, and which made her 
 the helpless victim of an invincible tyranny? Separated from her 
 friends, deprived of their counsels, dead to the world, to the laws, to 
 society, was it possible for Marie Caroline to make any valid deposi- 
 tion against herself, and that too, surrounded by her accusers, by her 
 keepers, by the men who had vowed her destruction? If the cer- 
 tificate was to be believed, why had M. de Brissac and Madame 
 d'Hautefort formally refused to sign it? Such were the reasonings 
 of the most impassioned of the legitimatists. They went still 
 further, and a demand for an indictment upon the grounds of lawful 

 
 THEIR ESTRANGEMENT FROM THE DUCHESS. 149 
 
 presumption of supposititious birth was addressed to the procureurs 
 generaux of the cours royales of Paris and Bordeaux by the Comte 
 and Vicorate de Kergolay, the Baron de Ludre, the Comte de 
 Floirac, the Baron de Meugin-Fondragon, the Vicomte Felix de 
 Conny, MM. de Verneuil, de Mauduit, and Battur. This appeal was 
 soon corroborated by numerous adhesions, and in a letter, breathing 
 the strongest indignation, M. Floirac de Kergolay reproached the 
 president of the council with having rendered himself guilty of 
 calumnious defamation and arbitrary sequestration. The letter con- 
 cluded with these words, " The lawful presumption that the crime of 
 supposititious birth has been committed, has become an historical 
 fact." 
 
 But the Duchess de Berri had too completely yielded to the exac- 
 tions of her keepers to allow of such protests having any weight. 
 In general, they were looked upon only as the last clamour of a 
 desperate party. Indeed the bulk of that party had already re- 
 covered from all its illusions, and nothing remained but to digest 
 the hard truth in silence. Silly, indeed, are the princes who ima- 
 gine that men adore in them any thing but their fortunes. Marie 
 Caroline soon had proof of this. Many of her party without ceas- 
 ing to defend her in public, now secretly evinced for her only 
 estrangement, coldness, and disdain. Many and many who would 
 have forgiven her for a prosperous crime, deemed her unpardonable 
 because she had committed a weakness that compromised her. To 
 the reproaches sincerely addressed to her by the rigid, but honour- 
 able men of her party, was added the vituperation of those whose 
 stoicism was but the mask of baffled selfishness or disappointed ambi- 
 tion. This was unquestionably the most painful of all the sufferings 
 that Marie Caroline had endured for many months. Certain it is, 
 that when, upon her restoration to liberty, she prepared to set out 
 for Palermo, the number of those who offered to accompany her 
 was but small. Some ladies even, gave it to be understood that the 
 part they would have eagerly desired to perform in the service of 
 the regent, could hardly suit them about the person of the Coun- 
 tess Luchesi Palli. Marie Caroline had expressed a wish to be ac- 
 companied to Palermo by M. de Mesnard ; shortly before her depar- 
 ture from Blaye, a letter was delivered to her by her first equerry. 
 No sooner had she cast her eyes upon it, than an expression of sad- 
 ness came over her face; a painful exclamation, it is said, escaped 
 her, and it was a whole day before she recovered from her trouble. 
 The letter was coldly respectful, and stated that M. de Mesnard 
 would await the princess's orders to accompany her; yet no one of 
 the legitimatists was more devoted to the interests of Marie Caro- 
 line, nor more obedient to her will than M. de Mesnard; but per- 
 haps even he, had been at last affected by the general discontent of 
 the party. Perhaps, too, he thought that the last declaration of the 
 mother of Henry V., was not sufficiently explained by the oppres- 
 sion to which she had been subjected. Be this as it may, he re-
 
 150 LIBERATION OF THE PRINCESS. 
 
 paired to Blaye when the time was come, ready to follow her whom 
 he had served alike in grandeur and abasement. 
 
 The Princess de Beauffremont set the royalist party a grand ex- 
 ample of courage and generosity under these circumstances. De- 
 servedly esteemed by that party, and well known never to have 
 sought court station, she hastened to Blaye with a determination of 
 not separating from Marie Caroline, until the mother of the Due de 
 Bordeaux, whom all the world seemed now to abandon, should have 
 been received at Prague. 
 
 It was on the 8th of June that Marie Caroline quitted her prison. 
 The journey was to be of a deep historical importance, and it is ab- 
 solutely necessary to know its details, if we would analyse the situa- 
 tion of the legitimatist party whether in France or abroad. The 
 preparations for the princess's departure had been carried on for 
 sometime at Blaye with great activity. On the 8th a steamboat 
 moored in front of the citadel; it was to convey the princess to the 
 Rode de Richard, where the corvette V Agate awaited her. Strict 
 orders had been given by General Bugeaud that no popular mani- 
 festation should be made upon the embarkation. Some personages 
 of distinction had repaired on board the steamboat to receive Marie 
 Caroline; these were the Prince and Princess de Beauffremont, 
 the Marquis and Marchioness de Dampierre, the Vicomte de Mes- 
 nard, the Marquis de Barbanois, and the Comte Louis de Calvi- 
 mont. The Abbe Sabatier, who had been named the princess's 
 almoner, was also on board. At half past nine, General Bugeaud 
 went and informed Marie Caroline that the hour for her departure 
 had arrived. He found her sitting to a painter, sent from Bor- 
 deaux by M. Gintrac, who had wished to preserve a portrait of the 
 prisoner of Blaye. Marie Caroline set out escorted by the general. 
 Beside her walked the nurse carrying the little princess, whose 
 birth a prison had witnessed, and whom a premature death awaited; 
 then followed M. de Mesnard, giving his arm to Madame d'Haute- 
 fort, M. Deneux, M. de St. Arnault, the general's aide-de-camp, 
 Mademoiselle Lebeschu, and Madame Hansler. Just at the porte 
 Dauphine, Marie Caroline perceiving the governor's two daughters 
 and their mother, stooped down to embrace the children; then, 
 turning to Madame Bugeaud, whom she knew to be endowed with 
 a noble character and compassionate soul, she said to her, " I hope 
 that you will shortly see your husband again, in good health." 
 Beyond the porte Dauphine was assembled a dense and impatient 
 multitude. When Marie Caroline appeared, a profound silence 
 prevailed among the people ; but no sooner had she moved on a few 
 steps, than a confused noise of whisperings and murmurs was heard, 
 without its being possible to tell what was the prevailing feeling of 
 the multitude, or to whom were addressed certain threats that is- 
 sued from it. 
 
 At ten o'clock the anchor was weighed, and the Bordelais was 
 upon its way to the sea. Two boats were seen following the steam-
 
 HER DEPARTURE FOR NAPLES. 151 
 
 vessel; they contained persons devoted to Marie Caroline, as ap- 
 peared by the arms raised in sign of adieu, and the white handker- 
 chiefs waved in the air. " Keep off," cried the commander of the 
 Bordelais, roughly; but at the same moment a small parcel was 
 thrown from one of the boats, and fell at a little distance from 
 General Bugeaud. It was a green handkerchief, upon which was 
 the portrait of Henry V. General Bugeaud, who flew into a passion 
 at the most trifling things, displayed a most childish indignation; 
 but Marie Caroline had no longer any reason to fear his authority. 
 Accordingly, she found means to indemnify herself for her too 
 long dissimulation with regard to M. Bugeaud ; and the general no 
 longer received from her hands and from her suite, during the whole 
 voyage, any thing but the expression of a hardly concealed resent- 
 ment. 
 
 About mid-day the corvette I 1 Agate discovered the steamboat Bor- 
 delais descending the Gironde, and approaching the Bade de Richard. 
 The transhipment took place without any difficulty. The persons 
 who were to accompany Marie Caroline to Palermo, were the Prince 
 and Princess de Beaufiremont, M. de Mesnard, M. Deneux, M. 
 Meniere, General Bugeaud and his aide-de-camp, and the princess's 
 attendants, Mile. Lebeschu and Madame Hansler. M. de Bnssac 
 had been recalled by urgent family affairs, and the state of the 
 Countess d'Hautefort's health did not allow her to undertake the 
 voyage. 
 
 On the 9th of June the Agate withdrew from the shores of 
 France. Upon arriving in sight of Palermo, the corvette fired a 
 salute of twenty-one guns, which was immediately replied to from all 
 the batteries of the port. The Agate having cast anchor, ^the sea 
 was covered with a swarm of boats, several of them containing mu- 
 sicians; and songs upon the princess, sempre tormentata, mingled 
 with the plashing of the oars. According to^the etiquette of the 
 court of Sicily, the viceroy could not quit his palace to receive 
 any other than the king himself; the Count of Syracuse, the brother 
 of the King of Naples, sent, therefore, the Due of San Martino, 
 minister of the interior, to Marie Caroline, to compliment her, and 
 to make arrangements with her respecting her disembarkation. The 
 Count Luchesi Palli then presented himself. He was admitted 
 into Marie Caroline's chamber, where he remained nearly an hour; 
 they then came upon deck, walked about together, and were gazed 
 at with a curiosity which respect would hardly temper. Before dis- 
 embarking, the princess gave an audience of ceremony to the com- 
 mander, Turpin, and his oflicers. She thanked him profusely lor 
 his courtesies and honourable conduct, and she would not quit 
 the corvette till she had bestowed a present of twenty days pay 
 upon the crew; an act of munificence which gave _ rise to many 
 caustic remarks upon the part of sailors in the service of a tlinlty 
 prince. 
 
 As for General Bugeaud, Marie Caroline had contnved, with a
 
 152 DIVISIONS IN THE ROYALIST PARTY. 
 
 very allowable vindictiveness, to frighten him with the danger that 
 awaited him on shore. Accordingly he did not venture to land, but 
 embarked on board the brig Acteoti, which the government had 
 sent to Palermo under the command of Captain Nonay, with orders 
 to await the arrival of the Ayate, and to bring back word of the 
 princess's disembarkation. 
 
 Marie Caroline was free at last, but she had not arrived at the 
 termination of her misfortunes. Her declarations of the month of 
 May had made the legitimatist party lose countenance, and had 
 brought to light the elements of discord that lurked within it. 
 Some believed, or pretended to believe, that by- her new marriage 
 the Duchess de Bern had renounced the rights of her royal mater- 
 nity ; others took advantage of the misfortunes produced by the war 
 of Vendee, to affirm that the princess had never been invested with 
 the powers of regent. Some thought that Marie Caroline's mor- 
 ganatic marriage with the Count Luchesi Palli, could not deprive 
 the mother of all influence over the destinies of her son. The two- 
 fold abdication of Rambouillet had never been regarded as serious 
 at Prague. The King of France was still Charles X. ; and after 
 him, the personage who was to be saluted king, by the name of 
 Louis XIX., was the Dauphin. There were some even who, ad- 
 mitting the validity of the abdication of -Charles X., declared that 
 which he had imposed upon his son at Rambouillet to be null and 
 void. Absurd as were these notions, the marriage of Marie Caro- 
 line revived them, and gave them an importance in the eyes of some 
 royalists which they had never possessed before. Thus, then, the 
 legitimatist party came to be divided into three classes carlists, dau- 
 phinists, and henriquinquists. 
 
 In this state of the matter, Marie Caroline ardently desired three 
 things ; first, that the guardianship of her son should be entrusted to 
 her; secondly, that she should be allowed to go to Prague and 
 join her child; thirdly, that the system of education adopted for the 
 Due de Bordeaux, who was brought up in the principles of the 
 ancien rtgime, should be modified. Now, M. de Chateaubriand had 
 made a journey to Prague, in the month of May, to obtain these 
 three things, but without success. Charles X. asserted that, accord- 
 ing to French law, Marie Caroline could not remain guardian; he 
 saw great diificulties in the way of the return of that princess to 
 Prague, before the conditions of her marriage had been arranged, 
 both with regard to her husband's father, and to her brother, the 
 King of Naples ; and he insisted that she should not come and em- 
 brace her son, until she had spent some time in Sicily with Count 
 Luchesi Palli; lastly, he seemed determined to make no change in 
 the education of the Due de Bordeaux, and to act, to the last, 
 under the influence of MM. de Blacas, de Damas, and de Latil. 
 
 In fact, Marie Caroline was no sooner in Sicily than she found 
 herself in a manner kept prisoner. She had so to speak to enter 
 into negotiations, in order to visit the king, her brother, at Naples,
 
 JEALOUSY FELT TOWARDS THE DUCHESS DE BERRI. 153 
 
 and _ if the interdiction was, at last, removed, this was due only to 
 the indefatigable zeal of M. de Choulot. From Naples, the princess, 
 now Madame Luchesi Palli, repaired to Rome, where the pope gave 
 her a most cordial reception. She then set out for Florence, where 
 she met some persons of approved fidelity, M. and Madame de 
 Podenas, M. d'Haussez, and Mademoiselle de Fauveau. Her plan 
 was arranged^ she intended, happen what might, to proceed to the 
 Austrian frontier, feeling a longing to see her infants which disre- 
 garded all obstacles. A very strong feeling had been created against 
 her in Prague ; she was blamed for her expedition into Vendee, 
 which had been highly disapproved of by M. Blacas, and attempted 
 without the consent of Austria; she was reproached for her foolish 
 confidence, her precipitation, her arrogant longing to become the 
 sole centre of the royalist party, and, above all, for the indiscretions 
 that had been her ruin. Thus much was expressed in words, but 
 those who blamed her had, perhaps, in their secret hearts still more 
 decisive grounds of dissatisfaction. By rushing on the career of 
 danger the Duchess de Bern had thrown the other members of her 
 family too much in the shade ; this was her crime. 
 
 After all, they might with reason have accused her of having 
 wanted courage and energy at Blaye. Had she, as she might with 
 right have done, offered an invincible passive resistance to the ex- 
 actions of her keepers, there is no doubt that her enemies would 
 have been plunged into the most discreditable embarrassment; but 
 once more we repeat, what rendered her guilty in the eyes of the 
 fallen king's courtiers was the glory she had dreamed of more than 
 the fault she had committed. M. de la Ferronays had set out from 
 Naples for Prague hoping to soften the old king, but Marie Caroline 
 was condemned, not solely by the jealousies of which we have ex- 
 plained the secret motive, but also by the wary policy of Austria, 
 the ascendancy of which country she had braved, and which sought 
 to make the same use of the Due de Bordeaux as it had of the Due 
 de Reichstadt, who had been some months dead; that is to say to 
 use him as a threat perpetually suspended over the head of the 
 French government. 
 
 Accordingly Marie Caroline in vain awaited passports for Ger- 
 many, whilst her friends were dogged by the Austrian police 
 almost as the Chouans had been in La Vende'e by the police of 
 Louis Philippe. As the 29th of the ensuing September was to 
 be the period of the Due de Bordeaux's majority,* several young 
 royalists had set out from Paris for Prague to salute their new 
 king; some of them succeeded in crossing the frontier, the others 
 were arrested by the Austrian authorities for want of a licence signed 
 Blacas. 
 
 Marie Caroline counted the days and the hours with painful im- 
 
 * The Ducde Bordeaux was approaching his 13th year; he was, therefore, about 
 to become of age in the opinion of the legitimatists, the kings of France having 
 been declared of age at 13.
 
 154 M. DE CHATEAUBRIAND'S FRUITLESS EFFORTS 
 
 patience ; at last, M. de Montbel arrived. He brought the princess 
 permission to advance, but on the condition that she should show 
 her marriage contract. Marie Caroline sent M. de Montbel to Rome 
 where the contract was deposited, and, without delaying longer, she 
 entered the Austrian territories by Ferrara. There she was met by 
 M. Chateaubriand, whom she requested to go to Prague, and pro- 
 cure the recall of the prohibitions issued against her, and also to in- 
 duce Charles X. to consent to the declaration of majority. The 
 princess continued to advance upon her journey, but she was stopped 
 at Padua, and it was with great difficulty that she obtained permis- 
 sion, as a favour, to go to Venice, where were assembled MM. de 
 Charette, Barba^ois, and some other Vendeans, and there to await 
 the result of the mission which M. de Chateaubriand had taken upon 
 him. 
 
 It was on the 25th of September that the illustrious writer 
 reached the end of his journey. Madame de Beauffremont had ar- 
 rived some hours before him. Charles X. was then residing in the 
 castle of Butschierad. not far from Prague ; but the dauphine, the 
 sister of the Due de Bordeaux, and Madame de Gontaut, had left 
 Butschierad for Rhadschinn; for it was decided that, in order to pre- 
 vent the Duchess de Berri from coming to Prague, the royal family 
 should go and meet her at Leoben. M. de Chateaubriand had an 
 interview on this subject with the dauphine, wherein he expressed 
 all his astonishment at the course resolved upon. What ! the royal 
 family were to go and meet Marie Caroline, to bring her her chil- 
 dren, let her embrace them hurriedly in an inn, and then separate 
 her from them for ever ! The dauphine replied, with feeling, that 
 if such were the king's will, and he persisted in it, he must needs be 
 obeyed. M. de Chateaubriand then went to Madame de Gontaut; 
 she was making preparations for the journey, and was lamenting, 
 "They are taking us away, I know not whither; save us." The 
 sister of the Due de Bordeaux was ill, and in bed. M. de Chateau- 
 briand being introduced into the young invalid's chamber, did not 
 see her, for the windows were closed; but she held out her hand to 
 him, which was burning, and she, too, intreated him to save them alL 
 
 That same evening M. de Chateaubriand proceeded to Butschierad. 
 He found a card table laid out in the salon, in which room were the 
 Due de Blacas and M. (yEgerthy. " The king," said M. de Blacas,, 
 " has been seized with an attack of fever, and is lying down;" and 
 upon perceiving some signs of incredulity on M. de Chateaubriand's 
 face, M. de Blacas cautiously opened the door between the salon and 
 the bed-chamber of Charles X. M. de Chateaubriand advanced, but 
 heard only the king's deep breathing, like that of a man sleeping" 
 uneasily. He then explained his business to M. de Blacas, in pre- 
 sence of M. O'Egerthy, insisted upon it how insulting to Marie 
 Caroline would be the journey to Leoben, and how advantageous 
 would be the declaration of majority. M. de Blacas made a few ob- 
 jections to all this, but did not press them. " After all," said he,
 
 ON BEHALF OF THE PRINCESS. 155 
 
 " as the king is ill, it is likely that he will not set out to-morrow; so 
 you will have an opportunity of speaking with him." M. de Cha- 
 teaubriand returned to Prague, and was again at Butschierad at an 
 early hour the next morning. Charles X., who was still ill, graci- 
 ously received his noble visiter, made him sit down by his bed-side, 
 lent him an attentive and indulgent ear, but still adhered to his de- 
 termination not to admit Marie Caroline to Prague. He appeared 
 not quite so decided upon the subject of the declaration of majority, 
 and begged M. de Chateaubriand to make a draft declaration, and 
 talk upon the subject with M. de Blacas. He then took the letter 
 written to him by the Duchess de Berri, read it with an absent air, 
 and throwing it upon the bed, " By what right," said he, " does 
 the Duchess de Berri presume to dictate to me what I am to do? 
 What authority has she to speak? She is no longer anything. She 
 is now only Madame Luchesi Palli. The code divests her of the 
 guardianship of her children, as having entered into a second wed- 
 lock." M. de Chateaubriand replied that there remained to Marie 
 Caroline the rights she derived from her courage, from her misfor- 
 tunes, from all she had braved, from all she had suffered in her son's 
 cause. There ended the interview. M. de Chateaubriand made 
 haste to draw up the declaration of majority; but this act having 
 been laid before Charles X. by M. de Blacas, it was intimated to the 
 author that his draft, which, nevertheless, was found to be per- 
 fectly correct, must be sent to Vienna, because an engagement had 
 been unfortunately entered into to take no steps as to the majority 
 of Henry V. " It is a hard thing, madame," said M. de Chateau- 
 briand, in a letter upon this subject to Marie Caroline; " it is a hard 
 thing to have to speak of Austria when France is the country con- 
 cerned. What would our enemies say, if they saw us wrangling 
 for a royalty without a kingdom, for a sceptre which is now but the 
 staff upon which we lean in our pilgrimage of exile !" Then, after 
 reporting the results of his journey, he continued: " If, madame, you 
 should ever become mistress of your son's destiny, and should you 
 persist in believing that this precious deposit might be confided to 
 my faithful hands, it would be an honour and a happiness to me to 
 devote the rest of my life to him ; but I could not undertake so for- 
 midable a responsibility, except upon the condition of being, under 
 your advice, entirely free in my selections and my ideas, and of be- 
 ing placed, from the very first, upon an independent soil beyond the 
 circle of absolute monarchies." 
 
 The education of the Due de Bordeaux was, in fact, a subject of 
 eager and busy speculation for the royalists, and this is what explains 
 the intervention of MM. de Chateaubriand, de la Ferronays, de Saint 
 Priest, and other eminent personages who were about Marie Caro- 
 line. They were hardly capable, at Prague, of comprehending the 
 sentiments so nobly expressed by M. de Chateaubriand in the lines 
 we have cited. The author of the Genie du Christianisme was kept 
 aloof from the son; he had obtained nothing for the mother.
 
 156 IMPOLITIC MEASURES TO DISGRACE THE PRINCESS. 
 
 After a rather long abode at Venice, and many difficulties, Marie 
 Caroline received passports for Germany ; but it was intended that 
 she should appear there as a fugitive, and as one almost completely 
 forsaken. The number of passports was measured out to her with 
 penurious jealousy. When she left Venice for Leoben, four persons 
 only accompanied her, M. and Madame de Saint Priest, MM. Po- 
 denas and Sala. Charles X. did not perceive that, in humiliating 
 Marie Caroline, it was the principle of legitimacy itself that he ex- 
 posed to the derision of Europe : but men would be too unhappy if 
 their obstinacy in serving was not sometimes equalled by the folly 
 of those they serve. 
 
 . The interview at Leoben was cold and reserved. Charles X. was 
 attended by MM. de Blacas, de Damas, and de Montbel. Marie 
 Caroline spoke of her son, of his education, of his majority; they 
 affected not to understand her. Some young Frenchmen who had 
 escaped from Prague, MM. de Bruc, Walsh, and de Seran, had suc- 
 ceeded in passing through the town. Charles X.'s people pretended 
 to believe that the Duchess de Berri intended to have her children 
 carried off. The separation of the family took place after some days. 
 General Latour Maubourg had been chosen by common accord to 
 superintend the education of the Due de Bordeaux. This was all; 
 the political career of Marie Caroline was closed. 
 
 Such were these events. The elder branch lost by them what 
 moral authority still remained to it in France, that land so fatal to 
 monarchies; and then was it clearly seen how pitiable is the mad- 
 ness of parties, which, linking their destinies with those of a family, 
 consent to stake all their futurity upon the wrong-headedness of an 
 old man, or the amours of a young woman. 
 
 But it was God's pleasure that the lessons provided for our age 
 should not stop here. By a marvellous dispensation of Providence, 
 the newer of these two conflicting dynasties could not trample the 
 old one under foot without lessening and lowering itself; for there 
 is an intercommunity of interests between all crowns which it is im- 
 possible to mistake, and prestige, that source of might created by the 
 stupidity of the people, is, in the hands of the great ones of the 
 earth, a common treasure which is diminished for all when it seems 
 only to be diminished for one. Nothing but extreme dulness and 
 narrowness of mind could have failed to perceive that, to abandon 
 Marie Caroline, the daughter, sister, niece, and mother of a king, to 
 the sarcasms of the mob, was to invite insult upon the very prin- 
 ciple upon which monarchies reposed. The reverence for royalty 
 has been continually decreasing in Europe since men have been used 
 to disgrace princes, not since they have begun to kill them; and a 
 dynasty is not to be founded by teaching from a throne the dangerous 
 lesson how to heap contempt upon royal races.
 
 FORTIFICATIONS OF PARIS. 157 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 THE year 1833 was not altogether taken up by the foregoing 
 events ; and, whilst bewildered monarchs seemed to reel under the 
 hand of God, their enemies increased in number, energy, and bold- 
 ness. 
 
 Two rival forces stood face to face; on the one hand, an elective 
 assembly, on the other, an hereditary chief; consequently, the con- 
 stitution had only served to install anarchy in the seat of power. So- 
 ciety had two heads ; and the result was, that authority, swayed by 
 opposing interests, inclined at times to the side of the throne, at 
 others, to that of the Chamber, and that the country, divided be- 
 twixt the fear of oppression and of disorder, was become a prize 
 to be fought for. 
 
 It thus became indispensable to give fixity to power; but to this 
 end it was necessary that the crown should either subdue the parlia- 
 ment or submit to it, and it tried the first. Individual interests 
 were appealed to, in order to corrupt the Chamber; and, to secure 
 its final subjugation, it was planned to surround it with fortresses. 
 Indeed, this combination of craft and violence was not more than 
 was required to counteract the radical vices of a constitution, which 
 was a masterpiece of human folly. 
 
 The following appeared in the Tribune newspaper of the 1st of 
 April, 1833: 
 
 " The motion for fortifying Paris occupied the Chamber to-day. 
 * * The plan is to erect, not fortifications which may serve 
 for the defence of the capital, but fortified barracks, which, at the 
 fitting time, may serve for its subjugation. This plan has been kept 
 steadily in view. Vincennes has become a kind of feudal castle, 
 encumbered with casemates, provided with underground chambers 
 and passages, and far less fit for the brave than the timorous; a re- 
 fuge for cowardice at bay ; a cover where a whole family may take 
 earth, sheltered from shot and steel. Then a circle has been put 
 round Paris, which will allow despotism to hold the capital tight, 
 buckled, if we may use the term, round the loins; and which, under 
 the hollow pretence of an intrenched camp, will afford the strongest 
 positions to a garrison of 60,000 men, who will constantly menace 
 both the Chambers and the press, and whoever and whatever may 
 have an influence on the course of public events. And this is pre- 
 cisely what has taken place. The Chamber demands to-day that 
 Paris shall not be fortified, except by legislative authority. Would 
 not one say, looking at the gravity of those who make the demand, 
 that the words legislative authority carry weight with them? As 
 if they will not vote whichever way they shall be ordered ! Oh, how 
 we are cheated and laughed at by this prostituted Chamber !" * * *
 
 158 MOTION THAT THE EDITORS OF THE TRIBUNE 
 
 In a second article, replete with bitterness and irony, the Tribune 
 charged many deputies, and, among them, M. Viennet, of maintain- 
 ing an intercourse with M. Gerin, treasurer of the secret service 
 money, less honourable than profitable. 
 
 The blow told, as the Tribune had expected. On the very day 
 after the articles had appeared, M. Viennet rose to complain of them 
 in the Chamber. The house indignantly appointed a committee; 
 the report of which, brought up by M. Persil, recommended that 
 the offenders should be summoned to appear at the bar of the house ; 
 and in the discussion that ensued, the recommendation of the com- 
 mittee was supported by MM. Petit, Pataille, de Remusat, Damon, 
 Jaubert, and Duvergier de Hauranne, and strenuously opposed by 
 MM. Gaetan de la Rochefoucauld, Laurence, Salverte, Gauthier 
 de Rumilly, Generals Bertrand and Lafayette, Thouvenel, and Gar- 
 nier Pages. 
 
 The former argued that the Chamber owed it to herself not to 
 suffer the majesty of the nation to be insulted in her; that in punish- 
 ing, with her own hands, those who declared themselves so openly 
 her enemies, she acted as a political, not as a judiciary body; that 
 she should follow the example of England and the United States, 
 whose parliaments had more than once assumed the right to chastise 
 the authors of defamatory writings; and that, besides, by the laws 
 of the 23d of March, 1822, and of the 8th of October, 1830, the 
 Chamber was rendered the judge of whatever insults affected her. 
 
 The latter replied with arguments equally wise and dignified. 
 Ought an assembly of legislators to descend to party contests, instead 
 of holding itself calmly and serenely above the storms of controversy? 
 What could a political body gain by trampling under foot that 
 eternal principle of moral justice which wills that no one shall be at 
 the same time accuser, judge, and defendant? Would the Chamber 
 be accounted more virtuous for giving herself, as it were, a patent 
 for virtue? If true that the nation had been insulted in her, why not 
 leave the punishment of the crime to the ordinary tribunals and the 
 justice of the country? A legal sentence would surely be more potent 
 towards causing legislatorial inviolability to be respected than a 
 punishment which would be considered in the light of revenge. The 
 orators of the minority recalled, too, the circumstance of the writer of 
 the Journal du Commerce having been dragged, during the period of 
 the Restoration, before the bar of an assembly which, by so glutting 
 its hatred, had only degraded itself; and, pointing to M. Barthe, who 
 sat on the ministerial bench, they added, with an allusion as terrible 
 as unexpected: " And there sits the man who then pleaded the cause 
 of the Journal du Commerce!" M. Gamier Pages cited the anec- 
 dote of Frederick the Great, who, seeing from his palace windows 
 a knot of men busily reading a placard, in which he was reflected 
 upon, ordered it to be placed lower for the greater convenience of the 
 readers. He also called to mind, in proof of the puerility of some 
 kinds of vengeance, the witticism of Sheridan, who, when condemned
 
 SHOULD APPEAR AT THE BAR OF THE CHAMBER. 159 
 
 by the English parliament to ask pardon on his knees, said as he got 
 up, wiping the dust from his trousers: " This is the dirtiest house I 
 
 /a^rat* iTTrt ^ i -n ' 
 
 ever was in. 
 
 But the majority, of whom M. Persil, with his usual overbearino-- 
 ness, had constituted himself the champion and the orator, had taken 
 its resolution. During one of his speeches, a burst of laughter was 
 heard at the farther end of the Chamber. " Your laughter is shame- 
 ful," exclaimed M. Persil, angrily, and looking at the last bench on 
 the left. " You are impertinent," rejoined M. Dupont (de 1'Eure). 
 A terrible scene of confusion ensued, and many deputies started to 
 their feet. The president calls Dupont (de 1'Eure) to order. " We 
 all require to be called to order !" shouted most of the members of 
 the opposition; and M. Dupont said firmly, " Gentlemen, I profess 
 the utmost tolerance for all opinions, but I claim the same for my own. 
 I therefore tell M. Persil that as often as he shall look at me and 
 pronounce my laughing or my talking shameful, when I have neither 
 laughed nor talked, I shall call him impertinent." The members 
 proceeded to the ballot, fresh from the impression of those stormy 
 debates; but both before and after the names of those present were 
 called over, forty-five members expressed their resolution to decline 
 voting.* Among them were M. Viennet, who had submitted the 
 motion, and M. Teste who had recently been bitterly attacked in the 
 Tribune. 
 
 It was decided by two hundred and five against ninety-two, that 
 a summons should be^issued; and, accordingly, on the 16th of April, 
 M. Lionne, the security for the paper, and two of its editors, MM. 
 Armand Marrast and Godefroi Cavaignac appeared at the bar of the 
 Chamber. ^ The crowd was immense. The deputies, fixed statue- 
 like on their seats, observed an icy silence, and seemed to compose 
 their countenances for the occasion. The republicans entered with 
 head erect, and a smile of contempt on their lips. They were not 
 ignorant that they were hastening to their condemnation; but they 
 derived a haughty^and a legitimate gratification from braving it by 
 declaring their political creed under such brilliant circumstances. A 
 table had been placed within a circular balustrade, which rested 
 against the benches of the extreme left; and here the party sum- 
 moned, and his defenders, took their places. 
 
 M. Godefroi Cavaignac began by observing: " Gentlemen, we 
 appear before you, but we do not acknowledge you for our judges." 
 He continued in the same strain, like a man convinced of the sacred- 
 ness of his cause, and the superiority of his doctrines. He did not 
 defend himself but attacked his accusers; and was urgent and bold, 
 though maintaining a grave decorum in his indignation, and modesty 
 
 ^' T * <] j h ^ e Were MM< ^gkde, d'Argenson, Audry de Puyraveau, Auguis, Bastide 
 
 ird, Bavoux, Berard, Bertrand, Boudet, Briqueville, Chaigneau, Corcelles, Cool- 
 
 .nn, Uemareay, Dubois Ayme, Dulong, Dupont (de 1'Eure), Duris Dufresne, Gar- 
 
 L ages,, trirardm, Havin, Joly, Laboissiere, General Lafayette, George Lafayette, 
 
 arat>it, .Lenouvel, Leprevost, Levaillant, de Ludre, Laguette Mornay, Luminais, 
 
 Eenouner, Roussilhe, Senn6, Tardieu, Teste, and Viennet.
 
 160 SPEECHES OF CAVAIGNAC AND 
 
 in his boldness. He confessed that in the course of political con- 
 tentions it was common to have one's enemies for one's judges; and 
 that hence the pretensions of the Chamber were natural, and would, 
 indeed, have been lawful had the Chamber truly represented the 
 sovereignty of the people. But could an assembly chosen by a few, 
 have the omnipotence of an assembly chosen by the universal voice 
 of the citizens ? Could the deputies annex the privilege of inviola- 
 bility to the privilege which erected them into the representatives of 
 200,000 electors out of a people numbering 33,000,000 souls? After 
 all, what was the crime imputed to the Tribune the having said 
 that the Chamber, venal and prostituted as she was, would suffer forts 
 to be erected round Paris? Well; had not sums been voted the year 
 before for commencing the fortifications : a clear proof of the state of 
 vassalage towards the executive in which the Chamber lived! 
 For what could be stranger than to see an assembly itself supply a 
 rival authority with means of dictatorship and instruments of ty- ' 
 ranny? It was equally novel and remarkable to find legislators sur- 
 rounding themselves with the pomp of arms, and consenting to sit 
 under the fire of costly citadels ! Freedom of parliamentary debate 
 after this fashion had not been known to the authors of any of the con- 
 stitutions anterior to the year VIII., to those who had drawn round 
 the capital a circle which no soldier was suffered to cross, to those 
 who had secured to the legislative authority the possession of a sacred 
 territory where the moral power of the law was omnipotent ! After 
 a spirited attack on the project of converting the capital into one 
 huge bastile, M. Cavaignac traced throughout the history of the 
 nineteenth century the progress of that system of reaction which had 
 manifested itself up to the 18th of brumaire against men; under the 
 Empire, against ideas; under the Restoration, against the sentiments 
 and interests of the people ; and since, against all safeguards of public 
 liberty. Even the prosecution of the Tribune appeared to the re- 
 publican orator the result of a vast counter-revolutionary conspiracy, 
 rather than an act of vengeance produced by an insult. " So ! you 
 are for prosecuting at a time when society is undergoing a suit of a 
 far different nature; when reeling on its axis the disturbed world 
 threatens to take some unknown orbit I So, you hear the cry of a 
 journalist in the midst of the tempest roaring around you ! And you 
 keep an army near you at a moment when from Frankfort to Con- 
 stantinople there is that going on which should arouse kings and 
 peoples; when Germany is instinct with that hereditary spirit which 
 wore out Charles V. and ruined Napoleon! Europe is kindling 
 with the return of the fire which 1830 had lighted in its centre; 
 the spirit of revolution is again rising against that holy alliance which 
 henceforward cannot exist except between nations; a spark of July 
 has fallen upon the hearth of the great European family; and yet 
 here are you prosecuting ! If done in the madness and blindness of 
 passion, still the thing would appear incredible, impossible ! But no; 
 it will not be believed that your wrath against us is the sole motive
 
 MARRAST AT THE BAR OF THE CHAMBER. 161 
 
 for this prosecution. No; when there is not an hour's sleep which 
 may not be broken in upon by a courier, you will never persuade 
 men that you are wooing repose by sitting as judges. You are in a 
 bad path ; still, on you go, and this prosecution will close the session 
 for it begins what is reserved for its successors to execute." In this 
 manner M. Cavaignac exalted his subject, and made what would 
 otherwise have appeared a simple burst of anger on the part of a few 
 deputies whose j>ride had been hurt, part and parcel of a long and 
 detestable conspiracy against public liberty; in short, he made the 
 cause of the Tribune that of the whole nation. 
 _ He was followed by M. Marrast, who, in an ardent, bitino- speech, 
 impetuous, nervous, and highly-wrought, traced the history of corrup- 
 tion as produced and necessitated by the constitutional system. He 
 summed up this history as follows: " The chamber which consented 
 to extra legal courts (tribunaux tf exception) and to prevotal courts ; the 
 chamber which tolerated the getting up of conspiracies by the police; 
 the chamber which suffered the charter to be violated with impunity; 
 the chamber which wasted the coffers of the state on interests by 
 which it was the first to profit; the chamber which abandoned the 
 personal safety of the citizen to the will of ministers; the chamber 
 which prosecuted to the death liberty of opinion what were these 
 chambers? What name should be given them? The chamber which 
 was constantly increasing the salary of office-holders, and then de- 
 livered them, bound hand and foot, up to ministers; the chamber 
 which heaped loan upon loan, which lavished secret service money, 
 which supported all privileges, which reared altars to base cupidity' 
 which encouraged jobbing by the sinking fund, which caused every 
 thing to gravitate towards the impure centre of the stock-exchange, 
 which cast honour, national dignity, and the public treasure into the 
 maw of kite-fliersall these chambers, gentlemen, what were they 
 but prostituted, prostituted, I say!" Attacking the corruption of the 
 day" Who is there," continued M. Marrast, " ignorant of those 
 fortunate speculations, which, last year, signalised the stock-exchange? 
 All remember the news received of an evening and kept back till 
 the following day, after time had been allowed for the transaction of 
 important operations. Were these things unknown to the chamber? 
 Undoubtedly. And yet the prices of the funds were regularly hung 
 up in the house, along with the orders of the day ! Your motives, 
 gentlemen, must have been excellent, and yet you voted in two years 
 more secret service money than was asked during the last six years 
 1 the Restoration. You are perfectly indifferent to the bounty on 
 sugar, and yet this bounty has increased since 1830 from seven 
 millions to nineteen; and, singular enough, nearly the third of this 
 sum is divided between six large firms, including the houses of 
 certain of your members whom you especially delight to honour, and 
 in particular that of a member of the cabinet. Thus, in the bounty- 
 warrants for 1832, we see set down the firm of Perier, brothers 
 900 5 000f. ; of Delessert, 600,000f. ; of Humann. 600,000f. ; of Fould, 
 VOL. II. M
 
 162 SENTENCE ON THE " TRIBUNE." RETALIATION. 
 
 600,000f. ; of Santerre, 800,000f. ; and that of Durand, of Marseilles, a 
 million." After having thus accumulated facts upon facts, and charges 
 upon charges ; after having reminded his hearers that the Tribune 
 only appeared at the bar of the Chamber on the accusation of one 
 who had had the hardihood " to boast in public of the advantages of 
 the golden key and the charms of secret service money," M. Marrast 
 wound-up his withering defence by exclaiming: " If war has been 
 declared against the Tribune alone, it is childishness ; if against the 
 press, you will be the victims." 
 
 Notwithstanding the reserve which it had prescribed itself, the 
 Chamber could not help manifesting a subdued sensation. When 
 the vote was about to be taken, or, virtually speaking, when sen- 
 tence was about to be passed, M. Cavaignac rose and said, " The 
 Chamber is aware that M. Lionne has been cited before it only by a 
 legal fiction. The higher the fine which you impose on the paper the 
 shorter will be the term of imprisonment, which will affect M. Li- 
 onne only, who cannot be considered the party really guilty. At 
 least, I should vote, and so I should think will the Chamber a heavy 
 fine, a short imprisonment." The accused and his defenders then 
 withdrew; six tables were placed in the body of the house for the 
 taking of the ballot, and, after their names had been called over, 
 each member proceeded to put his vote in the urn in the midst of a 
 scene of extreme confusion. The result had been foreseen. M. 
 Lionne was condemned to three years' imprisonment and to pay a 
 fine of ten thousand francs, by a majority of 304 to 204. 
 
 But vengeance was not slow in following. There were in the 
 Chamber no fewer than 122 deputies who held offices under govern- 
 ment of one kind or other, whose yearly salaries amounted to more 
 than two millions of francs, and that for duties which they were un- 
 able to discharge as, for instance, M. d'Estourmel, deputy for the 
 department of the Nord, and envoy to Columbia. The Tribune 
 gave full prominence to this monstrous fact, and proved that these 
 122 deputies received, without doing any thing to gain it, as much 
 as would have supported eight thousand of their poor countrymen. 
 The duty upon steel, iron, and cast-iron, imported from abroad, was ; 
 2,380,000 francs a year; an amount which fell ruinously upon agri- j 
 culture, and upon all branches of industry dependent on the use of 
 that mineral; and the Tribune stated that this tax was only kept on ' 
 for the advantage of twenty-six deputies who voted with ministers, \ 
 without counting two of the ministers themselves, who had entered 
 into a partnership with M. Decazes to work some new mines in 
 Aveyron. The charges of the Tribune went further; and it sum- ; 
 moned the finance minister in the name of the violated laws f and in 
 the name of the public interests, which had been sacrificed to courtly 
 niceties, to repay into the treasury a sum of 3,503,607 francs, which 
 had been too long owed it by the civil list. The nation was re- 
 minded that on the 6th of August, 1830, in contempt of the most 
 inviolable usages of the monarchy, Louis Philippe had not hesitated
 
 THE HOTEL LAFFITTE FOR SALE. 163 
 
 to endow his children with his property, which he wished to with- 
 draw from the estates of the crown; and much astonishment was 
 expressed that the duty on the act of registry, which, according to 
 kw, should be paid beforehand, had not, after a lapse of three years 
 been finally settled. The circumstance of M. Laffitte'e sale to the 
 king of the forest of Breteuil, was also raked up. But, on this point, a 
 charge was levelled at the king as unjust as it was false. It was as- 
 serted that, in order to defraud the stamp-office, the deed of sale 
 stated the purchase money to have been only six milling whereas, 
 really, it had been ten. The charge was false,* but the prejudiced 
 believed it to be true, and it was eagerly reiterated. Kcesner was 
 talked of more than ever, and that deficiency, to the amount of mil- 
 lions, which he had left in the treasury, as well as the mystery in 
 which the disgraceful affair had been suffered to remain enveloped. 
 It was asked whether it were possible that Ko3sner should have risked 
 the public money in the foul jobbing of the stock exchange, and 
 should have maintained daily a patent and disgraceful correspondence 
 with stock-jobbers, without the privity of Baron Louis, the minister 
 of finance; and the responsibility which M. Martin (du Nord) had 
 made to devolve entirely upon Kcesner, in a report which was the 
 beginning of his political fortune, was extended, by implication, to 
 quarters which could not be openly attacked. In short, all the ru- 
 mours of corruption and of profligate jobbing, which had been afloat 
 since 1830, were revived. 
 
 An unforeseen event swelled this flood of accusations. One day, 
 there was seen posted up on the front of the house which had served 
 
 as head quarters to the revolution of July, these words " To be 
 
 Sold, the Hotel Laflitte." Then he was ruined, he who had crowned 
 the Duke of Orleans king; he who, to accomplish that event, had 
 not hesitated to risk, in the changes of an unavoidable crisis, a life 
 so long worthy of envy; he who at a later period had consented, in 
 order to consolidate his work, to hold the helm of government in 
 the midst of the tempest, abandoning the care of his own affairs, 
 and making to the kingly idol of his own manufacture the double 
 sacrifice of his popularity hazarded by the conflicts between the 
 mob and the soldiery, and of his moneyed concerns left to the 
 mercy of chance ! Such were the feelings which found utterance 
 from every lip, when there were stuck up, shortly after the accession 
 of Louis Philippe, and but a few paces from the Tuileries, posters, 
 with the announcement" Sale of the Hotel Laflitte !" The kind's 
 enemies seized on the fact as a text to accuse him of ingratitude; 
 and expatiated upon it with that secret joy and noisy indignation 
 with which the errors or mistakes of an enemy are ever hailed. On 
 the other hand, the partisans of Louis Philippe bethought them- 
 selves, for the better acquittal of the monarch, of blackening his old 
 mend; against whom they thenceforward declared an odious war of 
 
 We hare seen the deed of sale. 
 M 2
 
 164 PECUNIARY TRANSACTIONS BETWEEN 
 
 lies. They asserted that the firm of Laffitte was tottering when the 
 revolution of July burst forth; that the speculations which M. Laf- 
 fitte had made in the three per cents, were the beginning of M. Laf- 
 fitte's difficulties; that, far from having shown himself ungrateful, 
 the king had on various occasions assisted him, as was proved both 
 by his having paid ten millions for the forest of Breteuil, when it 
 was only worth eight, and by a loan of six millions, advanced to M. 
 Laffitte by the bank, on the king's own security, who must, indeed, 
 have already discharged a portion of that sum in three successive 
 payments which had fallen due. It was impossible for assertions to 
 be more utterly false;* and yet an article was written at Paris ex- 
 pressly to give them currency, and sent to Marseilles and published 
 in the Garde National, that its authorship might be the better con- 
 cealed. M. Laffitte was cut to the heart; but he hid his feelings 
 under a calm and dignified reserve. 
 
 * It is time that the truth should be known on tliis much disputed point, for 
 which purpose we may look backwards a little. 
 
 Whatever blow the revolution, for which M. Laffitte could find no other denoue- 
 ment than a monarchy, might have inflicted on his commercial credit, his house was 
 too firmly established not to withstand the shock which then overthrew so many for- 
 tunes. But having called a monarchy into existence, it was necessary to support it. 
 We have traced the disturbances which signalised the early days of the revolution. 
 Riot knocked hourly at the gates of the Palais Royal; and in the squares and streets 
 nothing was heard save the shouts of a furious multitude, mingled with the beating 
 of the alarm. The atmosphere, if we may so speak, was laden with passions ; and 
 the couriers, speeded upon every highway of Europe, did not bring a despatch but 
 what contained tidings of an insurrection. The first ministry which had been formed 
 was about to expire of weakness and of alarm; the ground trembled on every side 
 of the new throne; the royal family Avas in despair; the king thought that the hour 
 of his fall would soon succeed that of his accession, and M. Laffitte was applied to. 
 
 Power was then as eagerly avoided as it has since been greedily sought. But M. 
 Laffitte had peculiar reasons for avoiding the whirlwind of public business. His 
 bank required all his care and attention, and his partners pressed him to renounce a 
 greatness which would, in all probability, end in his ruin. 
 
 At this period, M. Laffitte was president of the Chamber of Deputies; and, al- 
 though in this capacity, a minister without holding office, none of the members of 
 the council took a more active part in public business than he. He wished to with- 
 draw into private life; but the king, to whom he was still necessary, spared nothing 
 to retain him, and it was at this period that the sale of the forest of Breteuil took 
 place. The price was fixed at ten millions ; but to secure the king from giving more 
 than was fair, a proviso was made in the deed of sale, that the purchaser should be 
 allowed to have the forest measured, a privilege which the seller did not .reserve to 
 himself. 
 
 If this purchase was rendering a service to M. Laffitte, it was a service dearly 
 paid for, since it only served to plunge him deeper into public business. The presi- 
 dentship of the council was offered to him, and refused. Vain resistance! There 
 was something irresistible in the entreaties of the king. Why had he been given a 
 crown, if they had intended to deliver him up, without defence, to so many con- 
 spiring hates? Would M. Laffitte, who had done so much for him, refuse, in the 
 hour of danger, to shield him with his popularity? No one would accept the pre- 
 miership; nor could any one bring to the support of the throne sufficient moral 
 strength. There only remained for the King of the French to vacate his solitary, 
 his shaken throne! Was he "to withdraw to Neuilly, or throw himself into the 
 Seine?" M. Laffitte yielded; saw himself treated as their saviour by the monarch, 
 by Madame Adelaide, and all the royal family; and the ministry of the 3d of No- 
 vember was formed. 
 
 However, as had been anticipated, M. Laffitte's private affairs soon suffered from 
 his devotion to his ministerial duties; and, in addition, an unexpected circumstance
 
 LOUIS PHILIPPE AND LAFFITTE. 165 
 
 But the anxiety of his friends took a very touching expression. 
 M. Guillemot, the principal editor of the Commerce newspaper, 
 started the idea of a subscription. It was caught at by the public 
 with enthusiasm. Long lists of subscriptions filled the columns of 
 the papers ; a committee was formed in the Chamber itself to receive 
 them ; and M. Nitot was appointed treasurer. This ebulition dis- 
 turbed the court; since one party looked upon the ruin of M. 
 Laffitte as treason to the cause of the revolution, whilst another 
 regarded devotion to M. Laffitte as hatred of the king. In most of 
 the opposition journals stress had been kid, with very little reserve, 
 upon royal ingratitude; and, to do away with this charge, the cour- 
 tiers applied to M. Laffitte himself, representing to him that they 
 were both ready to subscribe and to induce their friends to sub- 
 hurried him to quit the political arena. At the time of the sale of the forest of 
 Breteuil, it had been verbally agreed between the king and him that the deed of sale 
 should not be registered. We have already explained how this important clause of 
 the contract came to be violated.* The registration made the sale public; and the 
 firm was supposed to be in difficulties. A run took place on the bank, and, pressed 
 on every side, M. Laffitte borrowed seven millions from the bank of France. The 
 crisis which harassed the commercial world, and which, for the reasons we have just 
 given, pressed more especially on the firm of Laffitte, rendered this sum insufficient, 
 and M. Laffitte was again about to throw up office, when M. Casimir Perier, who re- 
 served himself for more tranquil tunes, interfered. Appealing by turns to the in- 
 terests of the monarch and to those of France, he conjured M. Laffitte' to keep at 
 his post, and promised a fresh loan from the bank, with the king for security. In 
 fact, M. Perier knew from M. Laffitte's partners that that sum would amply meet 
 the wants of the firm. M. Laffitte declined long and firmly the advances made to 
 him ; but the king summoned him to the Tuileries, and he was bound to obey. It 
 was night. M. Laffitte found the king about to retire to rest, on a couch with a 
 couple of inattrasses upon it. Louis Philippe received his minister with that affec- 
 tation of familiarity which was usual to him, and besought him so affectionately to 
 accept of him for security, that M. Laffitte at last consented; and the two friends 
 separated after a tender embrace. The loan was contracted the next day. The bank 
 advanced six millions to M. Laffitte, and the king gave his security to the bank. It 
 was specified in the contract, that if the latter should be called upon to pay, the re- 
 imbursement should be made in five annual payments, the four first of thirteen hun- 
 dred thousand francs each, and the last of eight hundred thousand. In thus en- 
 gaging himself, the king ran no visible risk, since M. Laffitte deposited hi the bank 
 a mass of valuable securities far exceeding in amount the sum borrowed. However, 
 when the first payment became due, the bank applied to the king, who paid three 
 hundred thousand francs; but only out of a sum of four hundred thousand, in which 
 he stood indebted to M. Laffitte for the iron-works of Bonneville. The bank being 
 unable to get any more from him, brought its action; but it was maintained by M. 
 Dupin, on the part of the civil list, that the king being simply security, the bank 
 ought first to have proceeded against the principal debtor. The argument bore hard 
 upon M. Laffitte, but it was strictly legal. The bank lost its suit, and found itself 
 compelled to take steps against M. Laffitte. It would willingly have avoided such a 
 display; and since the securities which he had deposited with it seemed almost as 
 good as cash, it made a proposal to the king to release him from the bond for six mil- 
 Sons, if he would enter into fresh security for two only; to bear no interest, and not 
 to be asked for until after the expiration of ten years. This easy offer was formally 
 declined. The bank applied to M. Laffitte. He could not pay, and put up his hotel 
 for sale. It is true that, two years after, by an arrangement between the bank, the 
 firm of Laffitte, and the king, the latter gave the sum of twelve hundred thousand 
 francs to be released from his security; but in this, M. Laffitte could neither perceive 
 a royal gut nor an indemnification for the enormous sacrifices which a few months of 
 office had cost him. 
 
 * Vol. L, p. 329, sqq.
 
 166 ANNIVERSARY SOLEMNITIES OF JAN. 21 ABOLISHED. 
 
 scribe, if he would publish a letter to declare that the attacks on the 
 king were altogether without his privity. As this was asking him 
 to declare no more than the truth, he did not hesitate. He even 
 did more than was expected from his loyalty. Nobly omitting all 
 mention of the great services which he had rendered the king, to 
 dwell only on the very questionable services which the king had 
 rendered him, he wrote a letter in which he acknowledged his 
 obligations to Louis Philippe. But at this juncture, one of the 
 deputies of Marseilles, M. Reynard, having brought him the article 
 in the Garde National, already alluded to, he immediately retracted 
 his letter, unwilling to profit in his purse at the expense of his 
 honour. The result was, that no one attached to the court sub- 
 scribed. As for him, he remained erect on the ruins of his fortune, 
 after having been taught by bitter experience what men of the 
 people gain by making kings. 
 
 Whilst these things were going on, parliament approached the 
 term of its labours ; in which it had exhibited more of show than of 
 work. Innumerable motions had provoked unprofitable debates; 
 and by their frequent collisions, the two Chambers had shown the 
 defects which interfere with the wheel-work of constitutional me- 
 chanism. 
 
 In particular, the repeal of the law for holding the anniversary of 
 the 21st of January, a day sacred to mourning, had given rise to 
 that kind of sharp-shooting which ever occasions fully as much 
 danger as scandal. The elective Chamber only saw in this ex- 
 piatory solemnity an insult to the nation; the Chamber of Peers 
 saw in it only a recognition of the principle of the inviolability of 
 the sovereign. After a long and warm struggle, the two rival 
 powers conceived and brought forth out of their united weakness a 
 law, couched as follows: "The law of the 19th of January, 1816, 
 rektive to the anniversary of the fatal and ever-deplorable day 
 of the 21st of January, 1793, is repealed;" a pusillanimous act, 
 which left it doubtful whether these inconsequential legislators in- 
 tended to countenance or denounce the revolution! Standing 
 before the bloody scaffold of Louis XVI., they durst not persist in 
 the rehabilitation of the victim, and indemnified themselves by 
 denouncing the executioner ! 
 
 It would be equally wearisome and nugatory to conduct the 
 reader through the labyrinth of endless discussions, which occupied 
 the two sessions of the year 1833; but there were three decisions 
 come to by the legislature, which had important consequences, and 
 on which the spirit of the bourgeoisie was deeply imprinted, and 
 these claim our attention. 
 
 The constituent parts of the political and administrative hierarchy 
 in this country are well known. In the state, a king, and, by his 
 side, a parliament to vote taxes ; in the departments, a prefect, and, 
 with him a consdl-gencral to apportion the tax among the arron- 
 dissements; in the -arrondissements, a sub-prefect, and, with him, a
 
 LEGISLATIVE REFORMS. 167 
 
 conseil d 1 arrondissement to apportion the tax among the communes; 
 in the communes a mayor, and, with him, a municipal council to 
 apportion the tax among the citizens such are the main springs of 
 the government. 
 
 Thus, society in France is traversed, as it -were, by two great in- 
 stitutions running in parallel lines the monarchical, personified in 
 the king, the prefects, the sub-prefects, and the mayors; and the 
 elective, represented by the Chamber, the conseils-gencrauz, the 
 conseils d* arrondissement, and the municipal councils. 
 
 Are these two institutions of a nature to exist perpetually face 
 to face? Can they develope themselves without clashing, and can 
 they clash without producing deadly disorders? Is it wise to admit 
 at each step of this hierarchical scale, the struggle betwixt the elective 
 and monarchical power, a struggle whose changes are witnessed in 
 our history by these celebrated dates the 21st of January, the 10th 
 of August, the 18th of Brumaire, and the 29th of July, 1830, 
 without speaking of that other date, more celebrated than all the 
 rest, which marks the disasters of Waterloo? These are the ques- 
 tions which should have been examined before ^ every other, by 
 an assembly called upon to organize the administration of the 
 provinces. 
 
 But the representatives of the bourgeoisie were incapable of ele- 
 vating themselves to such lofty thoughts. Regarding election _as 
 the basis of their power, they could not suppress the elective prin- 
 ciple ; and regarding monarchy as a privilege which protected their 
 privileges, they would not for any consideration lay hands on the 
 monarchical principle. 
 
 Thus the most important part of the problem was thrown com- 
 pletely into the shade ; and of all the speakers who took a share in the 
 discussion of the subject, there was not one who was aware, or who, 
 at least, had the boldness to point out the hold which anarchy was 
 thus enabled to take on society. So far from the antagonism^ of two 
 principles, essentially opposed to each other, and contending for 
 society as for their prey, appearing a mischief sufficient to provoke 
 discussion it was not even alluded to. 
 
 The debate turned almost wholly upon the question whether the 
 conseils d 1 arrondissement should be replaced by conseils cantonnaux. 
 
 This was the object contended for by MM. Berard, Lherbette, de 
 Rambuteau, and Odilon Barrot. The commerce ^ of every-day life 
 has created, they said, the collective body which is called the com- 
 mune; connexions arising out of neighbourhood have originated the 
 collective body, called a canton. The canton, which is only a union 
 of several neighbouring communes, similarly situated, and having 
 almost the same wants, has, like the commune, an existence peculiar 
 to itself, and interests requiring to be represented. Why, then, re- 
 fuse a council to the canton, and give one to the arrondissement; 
 which is an aggregation of cantons, separated from each other by 
 different interests and wants? The canton is a real limitation, indi-
 
 168 ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANISATION 
 
 cated by the very nature of things ; the arrondissement an arbitrary 
 and factitious one, which exists only upon paper. Were the duties 
 of the sub-prefects assimilated to those of the prefects, the reason for 
 associating a council with the former, the same as with the latter, 
 would be obvious; but their office is limited to taking informa- 
 tions ; they decide nothing, they only prepare the way for decisions ; 
 they are administrative instruments, not authorities, and what part 
 can a council sustain with respect to such ? The uselessness of these 
 councils is clearly proved by the futility of their functions. Apart 
 from the distribution of the taxes between the communes, a business 
 daily becoming unnecessary, through the rectification of the ine- 
 qualities which formerly existed, and which, besides, would be quite 
 as well discharged by conseils cantonnaux, what is the good of the 
 conseik a" arrondissement? They communicate information, and ex- 
 press wishes; a puerile function, which compromises the majesty of 
 the elective principle. Establish conseils cantonnaux, and their im- 
 portance would soon be felt; for instance, all the communes would 
 be directly represented in them, and consequently they might be 
 entrusted with the settlement of the differences which sometimes 
 divide the communes, more particularly as regards adjoining roads. 
 A conseil <T arrondissement imposes a heavy and vexatious burden 
 on the citizen, by the distance which it frequently obliges him to 
 travel ; whereas the advantages of a conseil cantonnal would be, the 
 little interference it would occasion with his daily concerns and do- 
 mestic habitudes, and the enabling him, without over-fatigue, to/ 
 display an activity suited to any emergency. 
 
 In opposition to this reasoning, which, so far as it went, was just, 
 it was contended by M. Mauguin, and those who followed his lead, 
 that the suppression of the conseils d' arrondissement would weaken 
 the vigour of the executive; that this result, undesirable at all 
 times, would, in critical times, and in time of war, be peculiarly dis- 
 tressing ; that if the conseils a" arrondissement were deficient in power, 
 instead of suppressing them, it would be better to enlarge their au- 
 thority; that, through the electoral system, the arrondissement was 
 already a politically defined body; through its civil court, a judiciary 
 one; through being the seat of a sub-prefecture, an executive one; 
 and that its being made the centre of the deliberations relative to 
 the interests of the locality, followed as a matter of course ; and, 
 above all, that the point to be feared and avoided, was the weaken- 
 ing of the central power, and enervation of the executive. 
 
 Thus M. Mauguin opposed to the system of conseils cantonnaux, 
 the grand principle of unity in power. But here he confounded 
 two things which are essentially distinct. He forgot that cen- 
 tralisation is useful, fecund, or even necessary, in respect of general 
 interests only; that is, as regards religion, education, the moral in- 
 fluence of public amusements, industry, and national works, whereas, 
 applied to local or special interests, it is, on the contrary, depressing 
 and fatal. We have before had occasion to make the remark, that)
 
 OF THE COUNTRY. 169 
 
 political centralisation is strength but that administrative cen- 
 tralisation sooner or later becomes despotism. Woe to the country 
 in which political liberty is not intimately connected with municipal 
 liberty; for it is by the regular and continued exercise of their 
 power in every quarter of the country, that the people retain the 
 feeling of their own dignity. Missing the frequent use of their 
 power, they lose the consciousness of their strength, and, from in- 
 difference, fall into supineness. Wherever a central authority is the 
 depository, even of local interests, there public life, forcibly impelled 
 to the same spot, becomes hurried and tumultuous ; whilst everywhere 
 else it languishes. The heart of society beats too quickly ; and the 
 limbs from which all the blood has been withdrawn, are left frozen 
 and powerless. When, in the time of Diocletian, the central power 
 of the emperors had become infused into every branch of govern- 
 ment, and placemen, expedited from Rome, identified the imperial 
 will with every local measure, whether the construction of a foun- 
 tain, the enfranchisement of a slave, or the nomination of a local 
 magistrate, the empire toppled to its ruin. The curiales, no longer 
 finding the reward of their trouble in the free exercise .of their 
 power, plunged into the ranks of the clergy or of the army a fatal 
 movement of dissolution, which delivered up to the barbarians of 
 the north the whole of the Roman world, nerveless, disarmed, and 
 already dead. Such were the reasonings and recollections which 
 M. Mauguin, and the government whose doctrines he, on this occa- 
 sion, supported, ought to have borne in mind. And surely they 
 would never have required the social machine to remain entirely 
 passive under the weight of a central power, charged with a work 
 it was unable to execute; they would never have required that, 
 whilst Paris was a prey to all the disorders occasioned by an over- 
 active vitality, the rest of France should be sunk in impotence and 
 languor had they visited those numberless communes and paralysed 
 cities, in which the burning aspirations, the bursts of pride and 
 patriotism, and the great joys and noble griefs of life had been re- 
 placed, through the excess of administrative centralisation, by that 
 calm, uniform, death-like quiet, which is nothing else than regu- 
 larity in oppression, silence in abasement, immobility in servitude. 
 
 However, the Chamber of Deputies, by pronouncing in favour of 
 keeping up the conseils cTarrondissement, gave its countenance to the 
 principle of administrative centralisation ; but it soon abandoned this 
 very principle by enacting 1st, That the conseil-general should 
 have as many members as there were cantons in the department; 
 2nd, That the number of members composing the conseil (Van-on* 
 dissentient should be equal to that of the cantons in the arron- 
 dissement. 
 
 When carried up to the Chamber of Peers, the law underwent 
 important modifications, but which did not interfere with its general 
 bearings. In giving each canton a representative in the conseil' 
 general, the elective Chamber had, nevertheless, restricted the
 
 I 
 
 170 ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANISATION. 
 
 maximum of councillors to sixty; the Chamber of Peers reduced it 
 to thirty. Faithful to the feelings of the restless liberalism of the 
 18th century, the elective Chamber, on the motion of M. Comte, 
 warmly seconded by M. Dupin aine, had excluded priests from the 
 list of those eligible to sit in the conseils. The Chamber of Peers 
 condemned this exclusion, in spite of the obstinate Jansenism of 
 MM. de Montlosier and Roederer. A clause had been introduced 
 by the elective Chamber, to the effect, that besides those whose 
 names were in the jury lists, and those who enjoyed the political 
 franchise, one out of every two hundred of the most highly taxed 
 should be free to vote for members of the conseils. But, to render 
 the monopoly more stringent, this privilege was restricted by the 
 Chamber of Peers to cantons which should not have fifty inhabitants 
 enjoying the franchise, or enrolled on the jury-lists. The Chambers 
 were agreed as to the qualification for voting ; which consisted, for 
 the conseils- generaux, in being rated at 200f. yearly, and at 150f. 
 for the conseils d'arrondissement. 
 
 The alterations of the peers having been adopted by the Chamber 
 of Deputies, the law was passed on the 10th of June, 1833. It 
 confirmed what was most vicious in administrative centralisation ; 
 maintained the useless machinery in the conseils cTarrondissements 
 of an authority without powers; and, in short, consecrated, even 
 within the sphere of local deliberations, that electoral monopoly 
 which was an instrument of oppression in the hands of a bourgeoisie 
 which had seized on the fortunes of France, and which had only 
 proclaimed the sovereignty of the people the better to destroy it. 
 
 But this inability of the bourgeoisie to govern society, equitably 
 and vigorously, was much more clearly manifested in the law on 
 primary instruction. Here, there was every thing to create. The 
 Convention had conceived plans worthy of its daring, and as vast as 
 its genius, for the instruction of the children of the poor; but, hav- 
 ing the world to astonish, subdue, and convert, it had no time to 
 realise them. The Empire, hastening to fill the abyss in which whole 
 generations were swallowed up, had sought but for a nursery of sol- 
 diers. Later still, under the Restoration, divided as it was betwixt fa- 
 naticism and hypocrisy, ignorance was considered a means of go- 
 vernment, and the propagation of knowledge, revolt. A reform of 
 education, then, was not the question after 1830, but a beginning. 
 Unfortunately, as was proved by M. Guizot's motion on primary in- 
 struction, men were wanting for the task. 
 
 This motion was to the effect that primary instruction should 
 comprise elementary schools and superior schools ; that in the former 
 should be taught the principles of religion and morality, reading, 
 writing, the elements of the French language and of arithmetic, 
 and the legalised system of weights and measures ; that in the second 
 should be taught the elements of geometry, linear drawing, survey- 
 ing, the principles of natural philosophy and of natural history, sing- 
 ing, and the elements of history and geography ; that it should be
 
 PRIMARY INSTRUCTION. 171 
 
 allowable for every individual, aged eighteen, to open a primary 
 school, if provided with a certificate of morality and capability from 
 the mayor, or the testimonial of three municipal councillors; that, 
 independently of private schools, every commune should be bound 
 to maintain a public school; that the public primary school should 
 be placed under the superintendence of a local committee, and of a 
 committee cCarrondissement ; that only those children should be ad- 
 mitted gratuitously whose parents were declared by the municipal 
 councils to be incapable of paying the fee; that the minimum salary 
 of the teacher should be, in the primary schools, two hundred francs 
 & year, and in the superior, four hundred francs, in addition to a 
 monthly stipend to be fixed by the municipal council; and that, in 
 behalf of the communal primary teachers, there should be esta- 
 blished a savings' bank, by holding back a twentieth part of their 
 yearly salary. 
 
 M. Guizot's motion was hailed with acclamations; nevertheless, it 
 betrayed extremely limited views. 
 
 Education can be made national by no other means than by con- 
 sidering it as a debt on the part of the state, and as a duty on that 
 of the citizen. It must therefore be at once gratuitous and com- 
 pulsory. In France it could not have been rendered the latter with- 
 out interfering with the rights of labour, since, through the effects 
 of a government as foolish as barbarous, the poor workman was 
 universally compelled to look upon his children as a means of in- 
 creasing his wages, and had too great need of their services to care 
 for their instruction. To force the father to die of hunger in order 
 that the son might be educated, would only have been a cruel 
 mockery. But this very fact ought to have shown the absurdity of 
 "every partial reform ; and that the only true reform is one which 
 shall be bound up with a body of reforms constituting a thorough, 
 bold, and complete social renovation. This was a truth which M. 
 Guizot could not grasp. 
 
 There was another blemish in his plan. When authority has an 
 end in view, it ought to impel society towards it with uniformity, 
 steadiness, and vigour of purpose. With regard to instruction, there 
 cannot be too strong a centralisation. To allow, in a country torn 
 by party, of the silly rivalry of private schools, is to instil into new 
 generations the poison of civil discords, and to afford rival parties 
 the means of propagating themselves in the midst of an increasing 
 confusion of opinions and principles it is like sowing chaos. The 
 education of the people, a sublime priesthood when the state provides 
 it, is, when abandoned to individual caprices, but a speculation 
 replete with danger ; and what is termed liberty of teaching is only 
 the gestation of anarchy. Considered in this light, M. Guizot's plan 
 was of fatal tendency, but it had other defects equally serious though 
 less apparent. 
 
 By giving communal instructors a precarious and miserable ex- 
 istence, government inducted into one of the highest functions of the
 
 172 PRIMARY INSTRUCTION. 
 
 state men without merit, and of no standing. Besides, there was no 
 future held out to them ; and what was to be expected from isolated 
 men, tethered, as it were, in their hamlets and villages, chained down 
 for ever to a miserable life, belonging to no hierarchical institution, 
 and consequently possessing neither the stimulus of pride given by 
 class feeling, nor the support derived from the hope of advancement? 
 How could such men contend in the career of instruction with the 
 brothers of the Ecole Chrttienne, a united and persevering associa- 
 tion, supported by the clergy? 
 
 M. Guizot's plan then was valueless. How far more elevated, 
 profound, and worthy of a statesman was the report which Lakanal 
 had presented to the Convention on the 26th of June, 1793, a report 
 which contained provisions similar to the following: " Every citizen 
 may open private courses ; but the legislature will charge itself with 
 the care 01 providing a central commission, whose office it will be to 
 enforce a uniform system of instruction throughout the republic. On 
 certain days of the year the children and their preceptor shall visit 
 the hospitals and prisons under the guidance of a magistrate, and on 
 these occasions they shall help in their household labours poor citi- 
 zens suffering from infirmities or from sickness. The preceptor, when 
 in school, and all national solemnities, shall wear a medal with the 
 inscription : ' He who teaches is a second father? " Sfc. 4*c. Great 
 thoughts these, attesting a great epoch !* 
 
 But all had strangely dwindled, since the government of this noble 
 country of France had fallen into the hands of an oligarchy of stock 
 brokers and merchants; and hence the enthusiastic reception of M. 
 Guizot's plan. Adopted, almost \inreservedly, by the committees of 
 both chambers, the attacks it had to undergo in parliament were more 
 > violent than strongly urged. M. Salverte moved as an amendment, 
 that a knowledge of the rights and duties of citizenship should be 
 added to the subjects of primary instruction; but his sensible and 
 patriotic proposition was negatived. And who will believe it, in a 
 debate on which the future welfare of the people so largely de- 
 pended, the only question which caused any anxiety was whether or 
 not the cure should be put on the local committee of superintendence 
 along with the mayor and notables. The chambers coming to dif- 
 ferent decisions on this point, the deputies voting in the negative and 
 the peers in the affirmative, a new torch of discord was about to be 
 kindled in parliament, when the deputies at length gave way. With 
 this the discussion ended; and the chambers passed into law a system 
 which they had not even taken the trouble to study. They then 
 proceeded to discuss, without having studied it a whit more, the 
 law of expropriation on grounds of public utility. 
 
 The injurious extent given to the right of property has covered 
 
 * Lakanal's report was only a sketch as it was laid before the Convention, and it 
 bore all the marks of want of finish. For instance, a blank was left for the salaries 
 of the teachers, and no conclusion was come to on the important question, whether 
 primary instruction should be compulsory or not.
 
 PRIVATE PROPERTY REQUIRED FOR PUBLIC USES. 173 
 
 the earth with crimes and revolutions. The abolition of slavery over 
 a great part of the globe, the enfranchisement of serfs, the fall of all 
 feudal tyrannies, and the suppression of the laws of entail and of 
 primogeniture, have successively manifested the impatience with 
 which the world bore the yoke of victorious force, fraudulently 
 transformed into lawful dominion. What else is history than the 
 recital of the long and violent revolt of mankind against the ill-de- 
 fined and ill-regulated right of him who " the first to enclose a spot 
 of ground bethought himself of saying, this is mine, and found fools 
 to believe him?" 
 
 A day suffices to give birth to some abuses, which it requires cen- 
 turies to kill. Despite all those formidable essays at reform to which 
 France had been subjected, despite the doctrine of human brother- 
 hood borrowed from the sublime legislation of the gospel, and loudly 
 proclaimed by the nineteenth century, in the height of a tempest 
 such as was never before witnessed, the right of property had not 
 ceased to be a tyrannous bugbear. On many an occasion Napoleon 
 had bent before it; it had been venerated by the Restoration to a 
 scandalous extreme ; and the evil had become so inveterate after the 
 revolution of July, that it was impossible in France to undertake the 
 opening of any road, canal, or railway, so little known was the prin- 
 ciple laid down by the immortal author of the Contrat Social, that 
 " The right of every one to his own property is subordinate to the 
 right of the community to every thing." 
 
 It had in fact become indispensable to remove, with the aid of the 
 law, the pernicious impediments to which this state of things had 
 given rise, and the government ought to have made up its mind to 
 it. Up to this time two systems had successively prevailed, with 
 equally deplorable results. By entrusting the conseil de prefecture 
 with the power of valuing property claimed for the public benefit, 
 the law of the 16th of September, 1807, had put private interests 
 too much at the mercy of the executive. The law of the 8th of 
 March, 1810, on the contrary, by substituting the jurisdiction of the 
 judiciary for that of the executive, had had too little regard to 
 the public interest; and it was necessary to desert these equally dan- 
 gerous routes, and to strike out a new one. 
 
 Had ministers been gifted with a sounder understanding they could 
 not have reflected on the subject without perceiving that there was 
 a great gap in the constitution, and that there was an urgent neces- 
 sity for erecting, not only for the particular case in question, but for 
 all analagous ones, an authority charged with holding the balance 
 between the executive and the citizens. The office of the courts of 
 law is to settle the differences of citizens with each other, and not 
 the differences between citizen and government. The Council of 
 State, as at present constituted, is only a kind of consulting council 
 immediately dependent on ministers. How deal then with the diffi- 
 culties which may arise either as to the interpretation or the exe- 
 cution of the laws? If the executive hold aloof, authority abdicates;
 
 174 EXPROPRIATION FOR PURPOSES OF PUBLIC UTILITY. 
 
 if it pronounce judgment on its own cause, the law disappears before 
 a capricious interpretation, and despotism reigns. 
 
 Government ought to have taken these points into consideration ; 
 it ought to have been aware that when between ministers, the sup- 
 posed representatives of die public interest, and citizens, representa- 
 tives of private interests, there exists no authority specially invested 
 with the right of determining the interpretation and the execution 
 of the law, one of two things always happens either power is para- 
 lysed, or liberty succumbs. 
 
 These important truths were not even descried; and in the draft 
 of a law which it laid before the chambers, government proposed to 
 substitute for the administrative jurisdiction consecrated by the law 
 of the 16th of September, 1807, and the judicial recognised by the 
 law of the 8th of March, 1810, the authority of a jury composed of 
 the principal proprietors in the district where the expropriation might 
 be demanded. A pitiable system, which tempted the proprietors to 
 enhance, for their mutual benefit, the value of the property needed 
 by the state ! An unjust and anti-social system, which in every con- 
 flict between private and general interests, abandoned the decision 
 to the natural representatives of the first.* 
 
 Nor is this all: as if they had feared that they had not left the state 
 completely at the mercy of individual self-interests, ministers took care 
 to embarrass the execution of their law by such slow, minute, and com- 
 plicated forms, that these could not fail on many an occasion to oppose 
 an insurmountable obstacle to the execution of public works. 
 
 The debates on the law in both chambers, previously to its pass- 
 ing, showed how destitute of greatness and equity was the supremacy 
 of the bourgeoisie. For instance, it was laid down in the draft 
 of the law that when the works executed upon one part of an estate 
 should raise the value of the rest, this increase should be taken into 
 account in the estimate of the purchase money ; and, surely, when 
 depreciation of value was taken into account, it was only just that 
 increase of value should be considered also. Yet, in the Chamber 
 of Peers, M. Mole had the hardihood to call this a dangerous and a 
 detestible principle; and, to prove its injustice, M. villemain ob- 
 served that it forced the proprietors to become speculators in spite of 
 themselves, by offering them by way of payment, a chance of profit 
 for which, after all, they might very possibly care nothing. It is but 
 just to government to confess that it exerted itself to the utmost to 
 defend the principle in question from such gross sophisms, though in 
 vain. It was ruled that the taking increase of value into account in 
 estimating the payment to be made for property, should be optional 
 with the jury; which was, in fact, to nullify the principle. 
 
 This law was definitively adopted on the 20th of June, 1833, and 
 
 * This absurd system has borne the fruits which were to be expected from it. 
 Since it passed, juries of proprietors have condemned the state to pay to the owners 
 of property wanted for public purposes far more considerable sums than were asked 
 by the owners themselves; a fact which renders all commentary superfluous.
 
 filled 
 
 hav 
 
 , and 
 
 Chamber, forts are Ssing 
 or destroy it. Paris is " 
 strange news; the oppo 
 aertj, and the ^a^ ren 
 storation, of the evil proiecta 
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 The anniversary of the three I da 
 volution was near. The intimi 
 that the ^e^ 
 
 officially announced the 
 ihese declarations thnno-V, , 
 
 fill 
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 f tfe 
 
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 of the Re- 
 
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 in 1826 - 
 ' and a11 thought re- 
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 the 
 
 appeared the statue of 
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 Immense acclamations arose and 
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 P leS f Us 
 
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 and'walldng
 
 176 THE POLICE AND THE UNSTAMPED PRESS. 
 
 vended unstamped sheets or pamphlets, although the existing law 
 only required newspapers to be stamped. It is true that in every 
 case in which the police was summoned before the courts to answer 
 for such proceedings, its conduct met with the sternest and most 
 humiliating reproof; but it thought itself strong enough to brave 
 justice, and continued its arrests. 
 
 Thus a scene took place in the very centre of Paris, more exciting 
 than that by which Hampden commenced the English rebellion. 
 
 Of the journals devoted, in 1833, to the propagation of demo- 
 cratic principles, the Populaire and the Bon Sens were particularly 
 harassed by the new system of persecution adopted by the police. 
 Edited with great boldness and causticity by M. Cabet, the Popu- 
 laire had a strong effect upon the excitable portion of the population. 
 The Son Sens was more timid ; but was distinguished by its unre- 
 mitting and direct appeals to the understanding of the people. Not 
 content with circulating, almost daily, thousands of copies of pam- 
 phlets which it conceived useful to the cause of the commonalty, the 
 Bon Sens uniformly inserted, under the head'of Tribune des Proletaires, 
 communications from the working classes. Numbers availed them- 
 selves of this intellectual arena; and statesmen, philosophers, and 
 poets appeared in the persons of tailors, shoemakers, and joiners. 
 It was thus made evident that the political change begun in 1789 
 had not produced true liberty since so many fine talents had re- 
 mained unemployed, so much genius had been thrown out of its 
 proper sphere, so many men had been wrongly placed in the world, 
 so many of the choice of mankind had been buried alive in the tomb 
 of modern manufactories; since, in short, society, the victim of a 
 system of exclusion and of repression, had been condemned to lose 
 treasures of intellect and of poesy, for ever buried in the bosom of 
 the people! Such was the glorious demonstration undertaken by 
 the Bon Sens, under the direction of MM. Cauchois Lemaire and 
 Rodde. 
 
 The qualities which distinguished the first-named writer were a 
 reflective and cautious patriotism, moderation allied with firmness, 
 courtesy in attack, a fine and delicate wit, a carefully modelled style, 
 and a genius marked by good taste, quiet irony, and polish. 
 
 M. Rodde, on the contrary, was singularly intemperate, and un- 
 able to command himself. He knew not fear, and could hardly un- 
 derstand it. His style was coarse, though often ennobled by passion ; 
 and his rude and violent sensibilities burst forth by turns in trans- 
 ports of tenderness, generosity, and rage. However, with whim- 
 sical contrariety, he was as moderate in his opinions as passionate in 
 his sentiments. Disliking ultra ideas and the extremes of party, he 
 had always kept himself a little aloof from the republicans, although 
 he wrote against their opponents with unconquerable energy timid 
 of mind, bold of heart. 
 
 To a man of this temperament, the affair'of the crieurs publics of- 
 fered an admirable opportunity for showing himself as he was. Learn-
 
 M. RODDE BRAVES THE GOVERNMENT. 177 
 
 Ing that notwithstanding the decisions of the courts, and in violation 
 of the laws, the police continued to arrest the newsmen, M. Rodde 
 wrote to all the other papers on the 8th of October, 1833, that on 
 the Mowing Sunday, at two in the afternoon, he would repair to 
 the Exchange and vend those pamphlets of which many copies had 
 already been arbitrarily seized. His resolution was taken and he 
 made it known to aU. He was ready to defend his right even to the 
 death. 
 
 On this, many of his friends hasten to him to dissuade him from 
 his design. They represent to him that after having braved the au- 
 thority of the magistracy with so much insolence, the police will dare 
 everything; that the threatened resistance can only have a bloody 
 issue; that he will be first a murderer, then a victim, and that he 
 will throw all Paris into confusion. This was the opinion of most, 
 and even of Armand Carrel himself. 
 
 However, on the day appointed, an immense crowd filled the 
 square of the Exchange as early as twelve o'clock. Some pupils of 
 the Polytechnic School, and a number of national guards in full 
 costume, patrolled the square with uneasy looks. Expectation had 
 never been wound up to a greater pitch. The windows were filled 
 with spectators ; and all was anxiety to know the end. It was already 
 whispered in some of the busy groups collected, that M. Rodde would 
 not keep his word, when, at two o'clock precisely, a great stir took 
 place in the crowd, and a powerfully-built man was seen making his 
 way through the agitated throng, with a haughty step and fiery glance. 
 He had two pistols in his case of papers, and wore the dress of the 
 crieurs publics a, dark blue blouse, and a glazed hat, on which 
 were the words Publications patriotiques. The air was rent by a 
 thousand voices shouting, "Long live the defender of liberty ! Long 
 live M. Rodde I Let the laws be upheld !" Hats were ilung in the 
 air, handkerchiefs waved out of the windows, and the national guards 
 thronged round the intrepid newsvender, ready to defend or avenge 
 him. But government shrank from its own violence. M. Rodde 
 was allowed to distribute his pamphlets without interruption, and, 
 having thus fulfilled his promise, he tried to withdraw, but could 
 not. The crowd were about to carry him off in triumph, when he 
 escaped into Lointier's; and, directly after, making his appearance in 
 the balcony, he besought the people to show themselves, at this con- 
 juncture, capable and worthy of liberty. By nightfall, the crowd 
 had dispersed. A profound calm reigned in Paris; and the only 
 sound heard in the Exchange and its neighbourhood was the mea- 
 sured tread of watchful patrols. 
 
 But each day brought its own subject of uneasiness in a state of 
 things where all was hate, oppression, and disorder. About the end 
 of October societies of the working classes were formed in every part 
 of the kingdom, and social anarchy succeeded political. At Lyons, 
 the cartwrights and the gold- wire drawers struck. At Caen, the 
 cabinetmakers caballed, and demanded a reduction in the hours of 
 VOL. II. N
 
 178 STRIKES FOR WAGES. 
 
 work. At Mans, the tailors struck ; and the masters were obliged 
 to send for strange hands. Luckier than their brethren of Mans, the 
 potters of Limoges managed to have their wages raised. But it was 
 at Paris that this movement of the labouring classes assumed its most 
 formidable aspect. The working jewellers demanded an hour's less 
 work a day; and on the 20th of October they met, to the number of 
 twelve or fifteen hundred, at the Barrier des Amandiers, and there 
 decided on forming a mutual protection society. It was settled that 
 they should divide themselves into divisions of twenties, each of 
 which should choose a delegate, and that these delegates should 
 name a committee of five members to treat with the masters. On 
 the 27th of the same month, a meeting of the journeymen shoe- 
 makers took place at the Barrier du Maine, and named a committee 
 to negotiate a rise of wages. The journeymen bakers, whose work 
 is so heavy, and life so short, also demanded more liberal and kinder 
 treatment ; but consented to work at the old prices until a new tariff 
 could be arranged; and the syndics of the bakers' company (de la 
 boulangerie), were chosen to be arbiters. To conclude this lament- 
 able enumeration, on the 28th of October a meeting of more than 
 three thousand journeymen tailors, held at the Rotunda, near the 
 Barrier du Maine, drew up and published the following : 
 
 " Whereas the master tailors have been invited by a circular, 
 dated the 20th of the present October, to unite against the journey- 
 men, and in consequence of this coalition having been sanctioned 
 by the police, many of the masters have since discharged their hands 
 Resolved, 1st., that the philanthropic society of journeymen tailors 
 unanimously puts the society's funds at the disposal of its committee, 
 towards forming a depot for work; 2nd, that every thing shall be 
 sold there at prime cost; 3rd, that the committee shall watch over 
 the interests of the establishment, and take steps to open it before 
 the end of the week ; lastly, that such assistance as may be required 
 shall be distributed to the workmen in companies of twenty each, 
 and that in each company rations shall be served out on the plan 
 followed in the army. Journeymen working with masters who em- 
 ploy the full number of hands, bind themselves to pay a stipulated 
 free gift towards the support of their unemployed brethren." 
 
 Thus, the inhuman principle of competition bore its fruit ! Thus, 
 through the feeble " let alone and wait" policy, a war was com- 
 menced between employers and employed, petty in its origin, but 
 sublime and formidable in its tendency, since its final result must be 
 the completion of the conquests of the Gospel by the abolition of 
 pauperism, the second form of slavery. 
 
 Ministers were too shortsighted to perceive the tendency of these 
 associations. They ignorantly saw in the symptoms of the approach- 
 ing rising up of the world, and in the first ebullitions of a people, 
 proclaimed free and yet enslaved, only the petty movements of fac- 
 tion ; and they made arrests by wholesale. 
 
 A republican association had been fonned for the defence of the
 
 c. TESTE'S PROJECT OF A CONSTITUTION. 179 
 
 liberty of the subject and the freedom of the press, and was orga- 
 nised into various committees.* The committee of inquiry was 
 charged with collecting all the facts rektive to the arrests which had 
 been made; and these facts were made public in a report, as bitter 
 as it was spirited, drawn up by M. Pagnerre, one of the secretaries 
 to the committee. This report attracted considerable attention, and 
 raised a furious controversy; but the journeymen's unions were for- 
 cibly dissolved, and malecontents were restrained by menaces. Poor 
 journeymen were treated as malefactors; the prisons were crowded; 
 and ministers fancied that they had taken every precaution for the 
 maintenance of endangered civilisation ! 
 
 But the enemies of government with unwearied zeal brought out 
 into full relief all that escaped its ken; sometimes disclosing the fes- 
 tering sores of the state, at others seeking remedies. 
 
 As early as February, 1833, one of our noblest citizens, M. Charles 
 Teste, ^had published a draught of a constitution, based on the two 
 following principles: " All property, movable or immovable, con- 
 tained within the national territory, or anywhere possessed by its 
 citizens, belongs to the people, who alone can regulate its distribu- 
 tion. Labour is a debt which every healthy citizen owes to society; 
 idleness ought to be branded as a robbery, and as a perpetual source 
 of immorality." Every part of his plan bore the imprint of this 
 courageous and noble puritanism. M. Charles Teste founded com- 
 mittees of reformers, whose office it was to watch over public man- 
 ners, and to endeavour to make the exercise of the rights of citizen- 
 ship depend on the honest discharge of one's duties. But these 
 were sentiments not likely to become general, nor, indeed, even to 
 be understood, in so corrupt a state of society; and M. Teste was so 
 far from deceiving himself as to the state of public feeling, that in 
 order not to offend the Voltairianism of several of his friends, he had 
 forborne to base his constitution on religion, which he knew to be 
 the source of all poetry, strength, and greatness. 
 
 Society, which had wandered far from the right path, had to 
 regain it or else go on to some horrible catastrophe. It was laid 
 down by the republicans in writings, in which, unfortunately, the 
 authority of science was weakened by the too lively colouring of pas- 
 sion and of hate, that for several centuries the price of the neces- 
 saries of lifejiad risen in a degree far exceeding the rise which had 
 taken^kce in wages; that the people had gained nothing by the 
 ibolition of serfdom but a sentiment of dignity which rendered 
 their real subjection the more bitter; that the inmates of the alms- 
 iiouses had fearfully increased; that in less than half a century, and 
 through the system of the receiving baskets (tours), necessitated by 
 
 * The members of these committees were MM. Lafayette, Garnier Pages, Cor- 
 nenir, Voyer d'Argenson, Joly, Audry de Puyraveau, Corbet, all deputies: MM. 
 \. Carrel, A. Marrast, Guinard, J. Bernard, Pagnerre, Dupont, Marie, Boussi, Rit- 
 iez, Audriat, Boissaye, Conseil, Desjardins, G. Cavaignac, Marchet, Fenet, and E. 
 Vrago. 
 
 N2
 
 180 ORGANISED SEDITION. 
 
 the increase of infanticide, the proportion of foundlings to the entire 
 population had been more than tripled ; that a similar increase had 
 taken place in ten years' time, in the case of imprisonment for debt ; 
 that from 1811 to 1833, the number of bankruptcies had been 
 quintupled; that from 1809 to 1831, the pledges at the Mont de 
 Piete had increased 70 per cent.; that the annual consumption of 
 meat, which, according to Lavoisier, was 40lbs. each person in 
 1789; and, according to Sauvepain, 14f Ibs. in 1806; ana, accord- 
 ing to Chaptal, ll^lbs. in 1812, had fallen belowSlbs. in 1826; 
 and that the people were thus irresistibly hurried downwards to the 
 extreme of misery, that is, to insurrection or to death. 
 
 While these things were going on, the Societc des Droits de 
 VHomme issued a violent manifesto. This society, from a poor be- 
 ginning, had taken a quick and strong hold on the country. In 
 1833, its power at Paris rested upon the ardour of upwards of three 
 thousand sectionnaires, either speakers at the clubs or fighting men ; 
 and it acted upon the provinces by numerous societies which had 
 been formed on the same model, and with the same name, in the 
 principal cities of the kingdom. Its object was to keep up the 
 movement made by the people in 1830, to cherish enthusiasm, to 
 forge new weapons of attack, by elaborating new ideas, to prevent 
 republican feeling from languishing, and to inspire the faltering 
 with wrath, courage, and hope; and it had pressed this object with 
 extraordinary vigour and determination. It left no means unem- 
 ployed, but brought into play subscriptions on behalf of political 
 sufferers, or of convicted journals, popular lectures, travelling ora- 
 tors, and active correspondence : so that, in the very midst of the 
 state, revolt had its government, its administration, its geographical 
 divisions, and its army. 
 
 Here was huge disorder, undoubtedly; but it had at least an 
 element of vitality a principle of strength. Generous ideas of de- 
 votion were mingled with these projects of rebellion, and the senti- 
 ment of brotherhood was sublimed out of this ceaseless agitation. 
 Men learnt to sport with danger, and life was full of vigour. The 
 Socictt des Droits de VHomme was of use, inasmuch as it served to 
 counteract that feebleness, which, under an oligarchy of men of busi- 
 ness, tended to sink the nation into the sordid anxieties of indi- 
 vidual interest and the stupefaction of fears. France was impelled 
 by the existing state of things to such debasing habits, that agita- 
 tion had become indispensable to defer the degradation of the 
 national character. Anarchy served as a compensation balance. 
 
 About the middle of the year, serious differences had split the 
 Societe des Droits de THomme into two parties; the one desired 
 instant war with the prejudices that had to be destroyed, and the 
 tyrannies which they had sworn to overthrow ; the other counselled 
 persuasive means and indirect methods as the safest. After long 
 hesitation, the two parties drew together. A central committee was 
 appointed, with a view of ensuring a more decided course of action;
 
 ROBESPIERRE'S DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 181 
 
 and it was agreed by this committee, which consisted of MM. 
 Voyer d'Argenson, Guinard, Berrier-Fontaine, Lebon, Vignerte, 
 Godefroi-Cavaignac, Kersausie, Audry de Puyraveau, Beaumont, 
 Desjardins, and Titot, that a solemn declaration of principles should 
 be published, and addressed to all patriotic papers, associations, and 
 political refugees. 
 
 According to this declaration, the society sought a central, 
 elective, temporary, and responsible authority, endowed with great 
 strength and with unity of action; the sovereignty of the people, 
 exercised by universal suffrage; the liberty of the communes, 
 restricted by the right granted to the government of watching the 
 votes and the competency of the municipal bodies, by means of its 
 delegates; a system of public education, tending to create commu- 
 nity of ideas, but compatible with advancement; the organisation 
 of public credit; the universal adoption of the trial by jury; 
 the emancipation of the working classes, by a better division of 
 labour, a more equitable distribution of production, and by associa- 
 tion; the federalisation of Europe, based on the common principle 
 of the sovereignty of the people, on free trade, and on entire equa- 
 lity of relations. 
 
 These views were developed and justified in a closely-argued and 
 luminous statement; and there followed the Declaration of the 
 Rights of Man, as presented to the Convention by Maximilian Ro- 
 bespierre.* 
 
 * The following is an exact copy of this declaration, so much talked of and so 
 little known: 
 
 Article I. The end of every political association is the support of the natural and 
 inalienable rights of man, and the developement of all his faculties. 
 
 IL The chief rights of man are those of providing for the preservation of existence 
 and of liberty. 
 
 HI. These rights belong equally to all men, whatever the difference between their 
 physical and moral strength. 
 
 Equality of rights is established by nature. Society, far from infringing on it, 
 only protects it against the abuse of strength, which renders it a deception. 
 
 IV. Liberty is the power belonging to man, to exercise all his faculties as he 
 chooses; its rule is justice, its limits the rights of others, nature its principle, and 
 the law its safeguard. 
 
 V. The right of assembling peaceably and of declaring one's opinions, either 
 through the press or in any other way, follows so necessarily from the principle of 
 the liberty of man, that the necessity of declaring it supposes either the presence or 
 the recent recollection of despotism. 
 
 VI. Property is the right which each citizen has to enjoy and to dispose of as he 
 chooses, that portion of worldly goods which is secured him by the law. 
 
 VIL The right of property is limited, like all other rights, by the obligation of 
 respecting the rights of others. 
 
 VHI. It cannot be prejudicial either to the safety, liberty, existence, or property 
 of one's fellow men. 
 
 IX. Every species of trade which violates this principle is radically illegal and 
 immoral. 
 
 X. Society is obliged to provide for the subsistence of all its members, either by 
 giving them work or by supporting those who are unable to work. 
 
 XI. The assistance required by him who has no means, is a debt on the part of 
 him who has a superabundance. It is the office of the law to determine in what man- 
 ner this debt is to be discharged. 
 
 XII. Those citizens whose means are only sufficient for the purposes of existence,
 
 182 OUTCRY EXCITED BY THE 
 
 The evoking of this famous and terrible name provoked scandal. 
 In fact, there were two individuals in Robespierre the philosopher 
 and the tribune. As philosopher, he certainly had not been as bold 
 as Jean Jacques Rousseau, Mably, or Fenelon ; but as tribune, he 
 had called upon himself never-ending revenge. Superior in his 
 devotedness to those warriors of ancient Rome, who dedicated them- 
 selves to the infernal deities, he had, with heroic aim and wild mag- 
 nanimity, immolated his name to the execration of future ages ; he 
 had been of those who said " Perish our memories, rather than the 
 ideas which will be the salvation of the world;" and he had ren- 
 
 are exempt from taxation; the rest are bound to contribute to the public expenses 
 according to their fortune. 
 
 X1IL Society is bound to forward, to the best of its ability, the progress of the 
 popular understanding, and to place education within the reach of all citizens. 
 
 XIV. The people are the sovereign government is their work and their property 
 ministers are their clerks. 
 
 The people can, when they choose, change their government, and discharge their 
 proxies. 
 
 XV. The law is the free and eolemn expression of the will of the people. 
 
 XVI. The law should be alike for all. 
 
 XVII. The law can only prohibit; what is injurious to society; it can only com- 
 mand what is useful to it. 
 
 XVTH. Every law which transgresses the inalienable rights of man, is radically 
 unjust and tyrannical: it is not law. 
 
 XIX. In every free state the law ought, above all other things, to defend public 
 and private liberty against the power of those who govern. 
 
 Every institution which does not suppose the people good, and the magistrate cor- 
 ruptible, is vicious. 
 
 XX. No portion of the people can exercise the power of the whole people; but the 
 wishes which it expresses ought to be respected as the wishes of a portion of the 
 people who have their share in the expression of the general will. Each section of 
 the sovereign assembly ought to enjoy the right of expressing its will with plenary 
 liberty; it is essentially independent of all constituted authorities, and can regulate 
 its own forms (sa police) and deliberations. 
 
 XXL All good citizens are capable of holding all public offices, without any other 
 recommendation than that of their virtues and talents, and with no other title than 
 the confidence of the people. 
 
 XXII. All citizens have an equal right to concur in the nomination of the officers 
 of the people, and ha the making of laws. 
 
 XXIII. That these rights may not be illusory, and equality chimerical, all public 
 functionaries ought to be paid, and society ought to contrive that citizens, who live 
 by their work, may assist at the public assemblies to which they are summoned by 
 the law, without detriment to their own means of living or those of their family. 
 
 XXIV. Every citizen ought religiously to obey the magistrates and the officers of 
 government, when they are the organs or the executors of the law. 
 
 XXV. But every act against the liberty, safety, or property of a man, no matter 
 by whom exercised, even in the name of the law, beyond the cases thereby deter- 
 mined, and forms thereby prescribed, is arbitrary and void; respect itself for the 
 law forbids submission to it; and if it is attempted to be carried violently into exe- 
 cution, it may be forcibly resisted. 
 
 XXVI. The right of presenting petitions to the public authorities belongs to every 
 one; those to whom they are addressed must determine upon them; but they can 
 never forbid, restrain, or condemn the right of petition. 
 
 XX Vn. Resistance to oppression is the consequence of the other rights of the 
 man and the citizen. 
 
 XXVIII. The body politic is oppressed when but one of its members is oppressed. 
 Each member of the body politic is oppressed when the body is itself oppressed. 
 
 XXIX. When government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is the 
 most sacred of rights and indispensable of duties.
 
 NAiME OF ROBESPIERRE. jg 3 
 
 k^S"? res P 01 f e {o * , chaos mtU the day when, wishing to 
 hold back the revolution which was drowning "itself in blood he 
 was himself draped in, and sank. A conquered man, whoseSsC 
 was written by his conquerors, Robespierre had left behind him! 
 memory which was accursed. By attempting to rehabilitate it, Ae 
 
 the otslflf -tT /' H mme dld an ^P^* act > "d increased 
 )stacies it had. to surmount. 
 
 Its declaration then was received with different, but equally vio- 
 lent sentiments. The society received responsive addresses from 
 almost all the towns of importance in the kingdom, and from all the 
 quarters of Pans; whilst, on the other hand, the court writers and 
 
 M^TdaU * thflthT^ f ^ b Ur " eoisie cried anathema. 
 Man, to wit "Property is the right which each has to eni'oy Lid 
 uspose of ^ he chooses, that portion of worldly goods which is 
 secured him by the law," notwithstanding the justness of SSfr 
 nifaon, was made the subject of the most envenomed commentaries. 
 You confess then at last," exclaimed the favourers of monarchy in 
 pretended terror you confess your aim is the division of property 
 lowers of Robespierre it is the agrarian law which you seek !" 
 
 of * tzen ' he " restored to ^ - 
 
 ^ * oppression to legal fonns 
 
 ***** ^ ""^^ dther " ci. o rewards, 
 
 
 
 
 C nceiye i 
 
 the right f s <***> ^t it accepts it; 
 
 T the right of property as laid down in Robespierre's " Declaration,"
 
 184 ROBESPIERRE ON THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 
 
 The words, agjrarian law, and division of property, soon resounded 
 in France, from north to south, from east to west : and, to give the 
 greater solemnity to the charge, M. Dupin aine read a discourse 
 at the re-opening*of the Cour de Cassation, in which he represented 
 the republicans as threatening " to put each owner of property on 
 allowance." 
 
 A rasher calumny had never been uttered against a party in more 
 gross language. For sole answer, the republican prints published 
 that part of Robespierre's speech, in which he had developed before 
 the Convention his definition of the rights of property : 
 
 " I shall begin by proposing to you some articles which are neces- 
 sary to complete your theories on property, let no one be alarmed 
 at the word ; souls of clay, who idolize gold alone, I will not touch 
 your treasures, however impurely got. Know that this agrarian 
 law you have talked so much of, is only a phantom created by 
 knaves to frighten fools. Much better is it to render poverty 
 honourable than to proscribe opulence ; the hut of Fabricius has 
 nothing to envy the palace of Crassus ; for my part, I had rather 
 be one of the sons of Aristides, brought up in the Prytaneum at 
 the charge of the republic, than heir-presumptive of Xerxes, born 
 in the shine of courts, to occupy a throne decorated with the 
 degradation of the people and resplendent with the public misery. 
 Let us then honestly lay down and establish the principles of the 
 rights of property ; which is so much the more necessary, as there is 
 no one point which the vices of men have sought to hide in thicker 
 clouds. Ask that dealer in human flesh what property is : pointing 
 
 is, therefore, the only one reconcilable with the changes made in each property after 
 the death of each citizen by the laws of succession. 
 
 2. The pure natural right, as it is conceived a priori by its advocates, is irrecon- 
 cilable with any state of society. Therefore, the philosophers of this school say, 
 that man, in his social capacity, sacrifices a portion of Ms liberty in order to secure 
 the remaining portion. According to this, social liberty ought, rationally, to be de- 
 fined the portion of liberty guaranteed by the law. 
 
 The absolute right of property, like absolute liberty, is incompatible with the social 
 state. Thus, social man is obliged to sacrifice a portion of his property, as he does 
 of his liberty, in order that the other portion may be guaranteed to him. According 
 to this, the right of property hi the social state can only, rationally, be defined the 
 right to enjoy the portion of wordly goods guaranteed by the law. 
 
 3. The definition will be better proved by considering property under the aspect 
 in which it is really useful to man. 
 
 The right of property which is really useful to man is not the right to call himself 
 proprietor of this or that estate, of this or that capital, but it is free and guaranteed 
 enjoyment of the revenues and of the fruits of such estate or capital. An example 
 wUl render the idea sensible : if the law guaranteed your right of property in one 
 estate, but if, at the same time, it laid a tax ov it which swallowed up the whole re- 
 venue, the law would guarantee you only a vague and useless right of property, a 
 parchment. Useful property consists then principally in the enjoyment and free dis- 
 posal of revenue. 
 
 But no one, to my knowledge, has ever called in question the right of society to 
 anticipate a portion of this revenue, yearly, under the name of tax or contribution. 
 Hence society only lends to proprietors, only guarantees them a portion of their re- 
 venues that is to say, of their useful property. 
 
 Hence, too, property, even looking to the advocates of natural right, is the right 
 to enjoy the portion of worldly goods, the portion of revenue, guaranteed by the law.
 
 INCONSISTENCY OF OPPONENTS OF THE * DECLARATION.' 185 
 
 to that huge hearse, which he calls a ship, and in which he has 
 packed up and crowded together human beings who appear to live, 
 he will exclaim ' Those are m j property ; I have paid so much a 
 head for them.' Ask the gentleman who had estates and vassals, 
 and who thinks the world turned upside down because he no longer 
 has any his ideas of property will be found to be almost similar. 
 Ask the august members of the Capetian dynasty they will tell 
 you that the most sacred of all property is undoubtedly the here- 
 ditary right which they have enjoyed from all antiquity to oppress, 
 degrade, and take legal and monarchial possession of the five-and- 
 twenty millions of men who inhabited the territory of France, at 
 their good pleasure." 
 
 However, the definition which, ascribed to Robespierre, seemed 
 so alarming to M. Dupin, was in reality, as Armand Carrel well 
 observed -Mirabeau's. " What is property," said Mirabeau, con- 
 tending in the Constituent Assembly, in opposition to the Abbe 
 Maury, that the property of the church ought to be declared 
 national property " Property is worldly goods acquired by virtue 
 of the laws" To which the Abbe Maury replied " If your pro- 
 perty has been legalised for fourteen centuries, it ought to be so for 
 ever, for a property is necessarily a thing which cannot be removed, 
 and the terms property and removable are contradictory." 
 
 Sieyes, in his turn, had defended tithes in these celebrated 
 words " Tithes come within the category of lawful property, 
 although injurious to the public interest. You wish to be free, and 
 do not know how to be just." 
 
 Thus, by attacking the social character given to property by the 
 Declaration of the Rights of Man, by affirming, after the Abbe 
 Maury and after Sieyes that property is only a right inherent in the 
 individual, M. Dupin did not reflect that he was condemning the 
 revolution of 1789, and the labours of the Constituent Assembly, 
 and all that had led to the triumph of that bourgeoisie, of which 
 M. Dupin boasted himself to be both the advocate and the cham- 
 pion ! For, in short, were it true that the laws ought not even for 
 the public interest and safety to limit, regulate, and restrict in its 
 unjust and exaggerated extent this right inherent in the indimdual; 
 were it true, according to the monstrous and impious assertion of 
 Sieyes, that a property can be " lawful, although injurious to the 
 public interest," the bourgeoisie had been guilty of a frightful rob- 
 bery, when in 1789 it had abolished all feudal rights, wardenships, 
 feudal services, tenths, and entails; when it had, by law, limited 
 the power of bequests, whether testamentary or given during life- 
 time; when it had decreed that property should be equally divided 
 vmong the children; and when, but recently, its representatives had 
 passed a law on EXPROPRIATION FOB THE SAKE OF THE PUBLIC 
 
 VDVANTAGE ! 
 
 Thus came out, in full relief, the bad faith of the ruling party of 
 he day. Oppressors, though sons of the oppressed, in the drunken-
 
 186 DISPUTES AMONG THE REPUBLICANS 
 
 ness of their good fortune, they denied the very principle of their 
 elevation ; and they blushed not to arm themselves against the pro- 
 letariat with a doctrine which they had pronounced infamous when 
 employed by the noblesse against themselves. An important lesson, 
 and which stamps with real historical importance the publication of 
 the declaration of the Societe des Droits de VHomme! 
 
 But the importance of this document was not less in another point 
 of view, for it gave rise to debates of the highest interest in the 
 democratic party itself. 
 
 The declaration was guarded on the subjects of the liberty of the 
 press and the liberty of the individual ; and, on the contrary, stren- 
 uously insisted upon the necessity of giving a vigorous organisation 
 to' authority. With this a distinguished section of the republicans 
 felt disatisfied. The Tribune supported the declaration, without 
 pledging itself to all its details; and it was criticised as not having 
 sufficiently regarded the principle of liberty, by three men of tried 
 patriotism and of indisputable talent. M. Armand Carrel, editor of 
 the National, M. Anselme Petetin, editor of the Precurseur de Lyon, 
 and M. Martin Maillefer, editor of the Peuple Souverain de Mar- 
 seilles. On which side lay the truth? 
 
 Suppose two men about to start on a journey; the one in good 
 health, active and vigorous the other ill and wounded. Before the 
 revolution of 1789 power, instead of holding out its hand to the 
 second, would only have thought of enabling the first to walk more 
 at his ease, and with greater speed. It was different in 1789: power 
 was chained, and the two men would have been told: " The road 
 is open, your rights are equal; go on." Yet the weaker might have 
 answered: "What use is the road's being open to me? Do you 
 not see that I am ill, that my wounds are bleeding, that the very 
 weight of my body is too much for me, and the stones of the high- 
 way lacerate my bare feet? My neighbour needs no special protection, 
 for he is well, and has the use of his limbs ; but why talk of equal 
 rights to me? it is a cruel mockery." 
 
 Such is the language which the working classes might have held 
 in 1789. For, did not they find the bourgeoisie in possession of all 
 the instruments of labour; in possession of soil, money, credit, and 
 of all the resources given by the cultivation of the intellect? As to 
 themselves, having neither property, capital, credit, nor education, 
 and unable to save, out of the wages earned one day, enough to 
 afford a holiday for the next, what price were they to attach to the 
 
 S'ft of liberty, defined metaphysically and considered as a right? 
 r what use to them was the right of publication or of discussion, 
 when they had neither the knowledge nor the leisure to profit by the 
 one or the other? Of what use to them was the right of living free 
 from the oppressions of king or of courtiers, when they escaped those 
 oppressions by their very obscurity and wretchedness? Of what use 
 was the privilege of atheism to them who needed belief in God, in 
 order not to curse their existence? Of what use was the right of
 
 TOUCHING THE DECLARATION.' 187 
 
 raising themselves in the world to them, who were without the means 
 essential to success? Political liberty, liberty of conscience, freedom 
 of trade acquisitions so profitable to the bourgeoisie were only, 
 as regarded them, imaginary and delusive triumphs, since, havin^ 
 the right to profit by them, they had not the means. 
 ^ It was noUong before this was understood. Under the Conven- 
 tion, bold thinkers could get up and say, for whom has the revolu- 
 tion been accomplished ? Is it for that groaning crowd of workmen 
 who have lent such powerful assistance to the bourgeoisie in destroy- 
 ing the Bastile, vanquishing the Swiss guards, subduing monarchi- 
 cal Europe, and saving revolutionary France? They were originally 
 called slaves, then villains they are now called the poor. Has their 
 condition been altered with their style? By right, they are free; in 
 fact, slaves. 
 
 The deduction was easy to make. In place of that liberty which 
 supplied a new instrument of oppression to those who were in a state 
 to make use of it, and which served as a lure to the rest, the true 
 friends of the people demanded a tutelary and strong government, 
 whose strength might protect the people, and change right into 
 might. Hence, the admirable and august definition " Liberty is 
 the power belonging to man to exercise all his faculties as he 
 chooses; its rule is justice, its limits the rights of others, nature its 
 principle, and the law its safeguard."* 
 
 After 1830, the state of society being exactly what it was made 
 in 1789, the problem clearly remained precisely as the author of the 
 preceding definition kid it down. The great question, still, was to 
 render the working classes free in fact, which amounts to giving 
 them the means of advancement, the instruments of labour. Now 
 what can give them these, if not a democratic government strong 
 enough to give association the superiority over competition, and to 
 render participation in the credit of the state preferable to individual 
 credit? 
 
 It was then towards the rehabilitation of the principle on which 
 authority should be based that the democrats were bound chiefly to 
 direct their energies; or, to put it differently, they were bound 
 much less to seek guarantees for existing liberties than to summon 
 the people to make use of them. 
 
 These were the doctrines of the Societe des Droits de THomme. 
 They were the sound ones; and survived in the party the attacks 
 directed against them by upright and sincere men, but who were 
 blinded by the traditions of that liberal school which had made of 
 the vroid right, an unexampled deception, and of the word liberty, 
 the most cowardly tyranny on record. 
 
 * Compare this definition with that given by M. Dupin ame (in his opinion on the 
 question of the Jesuits): " Liberty is the right of doing whatever is not prohibited 
 by the law." 
 
 What twaddle! Suppose the law itself is tyranny?
 
 188 TRIAL OF 27 MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETE DES DROITS, &C. 
 
 However this be, the sensation created by the declaration dis- 
 played itself not only in warm discussion, but in scenes of a singular 
 character. Government wished to exclude from the Chamber, as 
 indignes, two deputies, MM. Voyer d'Argenson, and Audry de 
 Puyraveau, who had signed the declaration. They were, indeed, 
 denounced from the tribune, but by the energy of their language 
 and the firmness of their attitude, they kept in check the odium got 
 up against them ; and the party to which they belonged was so little 
 intimidated by the outpouring of bitter hostility, that another 
 deputy, M. de Sudre, immediately made known through the papers 
 his adhesion to the declaration. 
 
 Some time after this, the prosecution of twenty-seven members of 
 the Socicte showed better still the implacable nature of the struggle, 
 and the malignant passions it had engendered. The twenty-seven 
 were cited before the Cour d' Assises on the charge of having formed, 
 at the time of the last anniversary of the three days, a plot against 
 the state. After the examination of witnesses, M. Delapalme be- 
 gan his pleading (reguisitoire). Having gone through the leading 
 facts of the charge, he proceeded to examine the doctrines of the 
 accused, and reproached them with seeking for an agrarian kw. 
 The injustice of the accusation was flagrant, and, after the thorough 
 discussion which the subject had undergone in public, such a ca- 
 lumny was without excuse. A movement of indignation simulta- 
 neously agitated the accused ; and a witness, suddenly getting up, 
 exclaims, with a loud voice, " Thou iiest, wretch !" At this, the 
 court is thrown into inexpressible confusion. On inquiry, M. Vig- 
 nerte owns that he was the speaker; and the accused cry out, 
 " Bravo, Vignerte ! He speaks right, and we feel as he does. Ac- 
 cuse us, punish us, do not belie us." M. Vignerte is put to the 
 bar, together with another member of the party, M. Petit Jean. 
 The president, addressing the latter, "Is it you who interrupted 
 the attorney -general?" "No." " Why have you been put to the 
 bar?" " Because I think with M. Vignerte. What the public 
 accuser has said is false. We have our hands and arms for work, 
 and want no man's property." The president, turning to M. Vig- 
 nerte, " Was it you who said, 'You lie?'" "I said, ' thou Iiest, 
 wretch !' " " What have you to say in justification of yourself? 1 ' " I 
 shall not justify myself." After deliberating a few minutes, the court 
 condemned Vignerte to three years' imprisonment. The accused, 
 defended with great eloquence and zeal by MM. Dupont, Mou- 
 lin, Pinart, and Michel (of Bourges), were acquitted by the jury; 
 but the court, balked by this decision, in its hopes of vengeance, 
 punished the pleaders, at the instance of M. Delapalme, as guilty of 
 insulting him in his official capacity; and MM. Dupont, Pinart, and 
 Michel (of Bourges), were suspended from practising in the courts, 
 the first for a year, the two latter for six months. 
 
 On the same day, MM. Voyer d'Argensou and M. Charles Teste
 
 FOREIGN POLICY OF FRANCE IN 1833. 189 
 
 were acquitted. They had been dragged before the courts for hav- 
 ing published a pamphlet, full of love of the people, and of the sen- 
 timents of gospel charity. 
 
 Such was the deplorably troublous state of society. Happy, too, 
 if it had not been condemned to a more gloomy fate ; for to these con- 
 vulsions which, at least, were signs of life, there succeeded a shame- 
 ful prostration, and a sleep heavy as that of death ! 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The course of events, in 1833, called France to different points of 
 the worldly scene to the East, to Portugal, and to Spain. 
 
 Perhaps the best method of giving a clear idea of the foreign 
 policy of France, in the reign of Louis Philippe I., is to interweave 
 the episodes, as far as possible, with the main narrative; and this is 
 the plan followed in the present work. One ruling thought'having 
 dictated all the acts of France, whether at Lisbon, Madrid, or Con- 
 stantinople, their connexion, real character, and general bearing, 
 will be better perceived by their being brought into juxtaposition. 
 
 Of all the questions of foreign policy mooted by Europe, in 1833, 
 none moved it more deeply, or exercised a more decisive influence 
 on the fate of different states than the oriental; and, therefore, we 
 will take this the first in order, tracing it from the beginning, and 
 at the length which its importance demands. 
 
 In the first chapter of the second book of this history we pointed 
 out the halting-places of Russia in her march for half a century on 
 Constantinople; an inevitable and fated march, planned by Peter the 
 Great, and begun by Catherine. We showed, that brought to the 
 shores of the Black Sea. in 1774, by the peace of Kaidnardji; then into 
 the Kuban and the Crimea by the treaty of Constantinople ; then to the 
 banks of the Pruth and into Bessarabia by the peace of Bucharest, in 
 1812 ; and, finally, by the famous treaty of Adrianople, into the Delta 
 formed by the mouths of the Danube, with a range of coast-line two 
 hundred leagues in extent; Russia, in 1830, knocked at the gates of the 
 Seraglio. To bid these be opened to her, to command exclusively 
 the Black Sea, taking her stand on the Bosphorus, and, from the 
 Dardanelles, to overlook the Mediterranean she had only to express 
 her will. One consideration alone could stay her the fear of seeing 
 all Western Europe, in alarm and anger, rise up against her. 
 
 The Ottoman empire could barely be said to exist. Sultan Mah- 
 moud had dried up all the pristine sources of the Ottoman power, 
 without opening new ones, by his bold but inconsiderate reforms. 
 He had lowered the long-respected authority of the ulemas, with- 
 out replacing, by the doctrine of human liberty, that of fatalism,
 
 190 DISORGANIZATION AND WEAKNESS OP TURKEY. 
 
 which he appeared to deny. He had exterminated the military 
 aristocracy of the Janissaries to form an army out of a chance-as- 
 sorted peasantry, who parodied, in awkward wonder, the European 
 drill. For those great and permanent pashas a powerful feudal 
 order which, at times, made the sultan tremble, but was a tower of 
 strength at others he had substituted a swarm of temporary tyrants; 
 a kind of circulating feudality, which he mistook for unity, but which, 
 truly speaking, was only the despotism of the master multiplied by 
 the number of his agents. Mahmoud had introduced changes into 
 religion, army, and government, but had created nothing. He had 
 only succeeded in making a void around him ; and his omnipotence 
 no longer existed, except in the irremediable powerlessness of his 
 people. Besides, to keep possession of Turkey, Turks were wanting. 
 In a population of nearly seventeen millions of souls, there were 
 scarcely seven millions of Turks, the rest consisting of Greeks, Ar- 
 menians, Arabs, Jews, &c., races united neither by the bond of his- 
 torical traditions, nor by that of religion, nor by that of a common 
 tongue; races, approximated by servitude only; conquered, op- 
 pressed races, ready-made for revolt, bearing civil war within their 
 bosom, and scattered over a territory eighty-six thousand square 
 leagues in extent. An empire like this clearly invited to conquest 
 or division. Of what, in fact, did it consist of Moldavia and 
 Walachia? they were already under Russian protectorship ; of Bul- 
 garia ? it was only waiting the opportunity to throw off the yoke ; 
 of Servia? with a Christian population, and emboldened, moreover, 
 by a successful insurrection, it desired to live under a prince of its 
 own; of the island of Cyprus? there were not more than a hundred 
 Turks in it, who were lost in a population of 30,000 Cypriot 
 Greeks; of Syria?- it was occupied by a heterogeneous population, 
 consisting, on the sea-coast, of Christians; on the south, bordering 
 on the desert, of Arabs; in the mountains, of the Druses, who 
 are idolaters; and, on Lebanon, of the Maronites, a Roman 
 Catholic people. There remained then, Constantinople ; and she was 
 at the disposal of the first Russian fleet which should set sail from 
 Sevastopol. In addition, to shorten the death-struggle of this 
 loosely-constructed empire, there had arisen a man in Egypt who 
 cherished the impatient desire of dismembering it, a man at once 
 cautious and bold, magnanimous and crafty, a soldier of fortune, in 
 whose veins coursed that blood which gives the thirst of conquest, 
 an innovator in despotism, an apprentice-missionary of civilisation 
 in the East, too shrewd to renounce allegiance to the Porte, but too 
 proud, great, and strong to humble himself to his nominal master. 
 Was there any thing more required to cast Turkey, exhausted and 
 dying, at the feet of Russia ? 
 
 Such was the situation of the East, when the revolution of July 
 suddenly brought into question the insolent division made of Europe 
 by the treaties of 1815. 
 
 In order to show th? extreme folly and imbecility of the policy
 
 ITS INTEGRITY ESSENTIAL TO WESTERN EUROPE. 191 
 
 of the French government with regard to the East, it is essential to 
 lay down the question rightly, and, before describing what she did 
 do, to examine what France might have done. 
 
 " The integrity of the Ottoman empire must be maintained," had 
 long been the formula employed in the grammar of European diplo- 
 macy. 
 
 All the powers, in fact, and especially France, England, and Aus- 
 tria, were interested in maintaining the inviolability of Constantino- 
 ple, and of preserving to it, as regarded Russia, its epithet of Stam- 
 boul, the well defended. 
 
 The possession of the Dardanelles by Russia, without some vast 
 concessions in our favour, would have been a lasting obstacle to the 
 views of France on the Mediterranean ; that battle-field where, 
 sooner or later, must be fought the great fight of our intellectual 
 and moral supremacy. 
 
 By her geographical position, Austria was compelled to stand on ' 
 her guard against the encroachments of Russia. The possession, by 
 the latter, of the mouths of the Danube, through virtue of the treaty 
 of Adrianople, was already a subject of grave consideration to the 
 Austrian cabinet, since it compromised both the internal navigation of 
 Austria and her communications with the Black Sea. Russia once 
 master of the principalities to the south of the Austrian territory, 
 how alarming to the court of Vienna would be its proximity to the 
 military colonists of Illyria, the guards of the Hungarian frontier ! 
 Russia once master of Constantinople and of the Dardanelles, how 
 embarrassing would be the vicinity of the Russian marine to the 
 merchantmen of Austria, engaged in the commerce of the Adriatic ! 
 
 With respect to England, we showed at the commencement of 
 our second volume, how she would have lost, through the occupa- 
 tion of Constantinople by Russia, part of her influence in the Medi- 
 terranean, her means of communication with India, via Turkey, 
 part of the importance of her possessions in the Levant, and an 
 opening for the annual export of English manufactures, of thirty 
 millions' value. Hence the language of Lord Chatham, which we 
 have already quoted: "With a man who cannot see the interest 
 England has in the preservation of the Ottoman empire, I hold no 
 argument." 
 
 The watchword, then, of Western Europe, in 1830, was, the 
 " integrity of the Ottoman empire must be maintained." But how? 
 and if it were fit that it should be so, why had France and Eng- 
 land so long submitted to the encroaching ambition of Russia ; why 
 had they carried their blindness so far as to favour it ; why had 
 they co-operated with Russia in annihilating the Turkish navy in 
 that premeditated trap, Navarino, and in accelerating, by the eman- 
 cipation of Greece, the certain dismemberment of the Ottoman em- 
 pire; why, in short, had they so loudly applauded the victories 
 which had carried the Muscovites to the foot of the Balkans, and 
 dictated the treaty of Adrianople that last will and testament iin-
 
 192 FRENCH SCHEME OF SUBSTITUTING MEHEMET ALI 
 
 posed on the Turkish race? Strange! it was after tolerating, nay, 
 seconding the triumphant march of the Russians on Constantinople, 
 that Western Europe perceived the necessity of preserving in the 
 Sultan's hands the double key of the Mediterranean and of the Black 
 Sea ! They who had directed the Russian sword to Turkey's heart, 
 asked for her life, in order that the balance of European power 
 might not be too violently disturbed ! Monstrous contradiction ! 
 
 The preserving of the balance of Europe, by means of the inte- 
 grity of the Ottoman empire, had become an empty word. The north 
 wind, which, in these latitudes, prevails eight months out of the 
 twelve, irresistibly impelled the Russians towards Constantinople. 
 The status quo of the eastern question but delayed their conquest, to 
 make it the more certain.* 
 
 But if the Ottoman empire could not be saved by the status quo, 
 might not a revolution save it? If the Turkish element within it 
 was without vigour, might not new life be sought for it in the Arab ? 
 If the maintenance of Turkey, with Mahmoud at its head, was im- 
 possible, might not the putting Mehemet Ali there render it pos- 
 sible? Such was the policy which, as we shall have occasion to see, 
 met with most favour in France ; and yet it, too, was chimerical. 
 
 Mehemet Ali had, undoubtedly, achieved great things. He had 
 extirpated the Mamelukes, subjects of the sultan, and absorbed their 
 powers in his own family ; he had erected his pashalic of Egypt into 
 an all but independent sovereignty ; he had drawn an army, provided 
 and disciplined in European fashion, almost out of nothing; he 
 had contrived, by dint of gold, to create a navy, in a country desti- 
 tute of hemp, iron, and timber; at his bidding Egypt had been 
 covered with manufactories and work-yards, directed by Europeans, 
 and especially by Frenchmen ; in short, he had pressed into the ser- 
 vice of his Oriental power the experience, science, arts, and industry 
 of the West. Then, next to his glory shone that of his son, Ibrahim, 
 a terrible and intelligent warrior, full of confidence in the fate of 
 battles, full of faith in his father's genius the arm of that Egypt 
 of which Mehemet Ali was the heart and the head. 
 
 Here was certainly enough to dazzle, and it was natural that France, 
 whose protege and pupil Mehemet Ali loved to call himself, should 
 see in him only a continuer of the work begun on the banks of the 
 Nile by the victor of the Pyramids, the Oriental vicar of Napoleon. 
 It was natural that she should seek to consolidate her influence at 
 Cairo and Alexandria, in order to extend along the southern shores 
 of the Mediterranean that new sovereignty, whose starting point and 
 centre had just been fixed by the taking of Algiers. 
 
 * The only means by which France, in 1830, could have confirmed the power of the 
 sultans, would have been to draw the sword against the Russians by arming Con- 
 stantinople, and supporting a rising at Warsaw. But if our rulers shrank from a 
 policy which would have placed France, supported by all the secondary powers, in 
 opposition to the league of all the principal powers, a dangerous but a grand policy, 
 then the sole plan to follow for overturning the treaties of Vienna and securing France 
 the rank which belongs to her, would have been that proposed in the present chapter.
 
 FOR THE SULTAN. ITS FUTILITY. 193 
 
 Yet had France inquired, however slightly, into his exact position, 
 she would have seen that all which Mehemet Ali had called into 
 being rested upon the most^ odious and destructive tyranny that had 
 ever existed; that, to recruit his army, he had had recourse to the 
 impressment of the young, and had only been able to force the mi- 
 serable fellahs into his ranks by dragging them from their homes, 
 with their hands bound behind their backs, and in chains; that to 
 fill his treasury he had not only established, with regard to taxes, 
 an abominable system of mutual responsibility, but had embodied the 
 entire Egyptian nation in himself, constituting himself the sole pro- 
 prietor, the sole manufacturer, the sole merchant of Egypt, a gigantic 
 monopolist who had made government a chaos, administration orga- 
 nised ^plunder, and each Egyptian farmer a hard-worked machine, 
 superintended by a soldier. The splendour which surrounded Me- 
 hemet Ali concealed, then, only wretchedness and ruins. Through 
 pressing and grinding down the population he had extracted where- 
 withal to throw a lively brilliancy around him; but he found that 
 he had anticipated the resources of many successive generations to 
 supply the wants of a few years. The vitality of a whole race had 
 been exhausted ^ to swell the grandeur of a single man. Mehemet 
 Ali was much in Egypt, simply because he was every thing: then, 
 what could he leave after him? nothing. 
 
 Supposing that civilisation, as understood and practised by Me- 
 hemet Ali, deserved the encouragement of France, how could the 
 Ottoman empire have been revived by the intervention of such a 
 man?^ To revolt against the sultan, invade Syria by the agency of 
 Ibrahim, subdue it, and hasten upon Constantinople sword in hand, 
 were in his power; and so it was afterwards proved. But, arrived 
 at the threshold of the seraglio, would he have dared to cross it to 
 seat himself on the throne of his prostrate master? It would have 
 been impossible for him to have conceived the idea. Should he 
 have dared it, would his daring have remained unpunished? Could 
 a Macedonian soldier have girded on the sabre of Othman in a 
 country in which respect for the blood of Othman is religion itself? 
 Had he presented himself as the avenger of the true believers, as the 
 avowed preserver of the Mussulman religion outraged by the re- 
 forms of Mahmoud, the dethronement of the sultan might, perhaps, 
 have been the result of his audacity: but the taking his place! 
 Those ^who know the East have always judged this hypothesis to be 
 inadmissible; and, even admitting it, what benefit would the usur- 
 pation of Mehemet Ali have been to the Ottoman empire? A 
 Turk at heart, he knew better than any one the worthlessness of 
 that pretended Arab element of which so much has since been said. 
 Can any one believe that of this Arab race which he despised, which 
 he found brutified by supineness and by want, which he had bru- 
 tified still more by misery and excess of labour, which he had so 
 long sacrificed as mere material for the superstructure of his glory, can 
 any one believe that of this he would have made the dominant race, 
 
 VOL. ri. o
 
 194 QUESTION OF A PARTITION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 to the detriment of the Turks, and that he would have essayed to rege- 
 nerate the empire through its agency? The idea is folly ; and, besides, 
 how could this regeneration have been accomplished? Would there 
 not have been under Mehemet Ali as well as under Mahmoud a con- 
 fused mass of diverse and hostile races, striving with constant effort 
 to disunite, and to free themselves? Could Mehemet Ali have hin- 
 dered the Maronites of Lebanon being Catholics, and the Druses 
 idolaters? Could he have spirited away from Greeks, Jews, and 
 Armenians their character as Greeks, Jews, and Armenians? By 
 what excess of tyranny, by what administrative procedure, could 
 he have substituted unity for that fatal diversity which these dif- 
 ferent races had sucked in with their mother's milk, and which ran 
 in their blood. The conquering race, the Turkish, had constantly 
 deteriorated and grown poorer, whilst the conquered people had 
 increased in importance and in wealth. The only means of securing 
 unity which had existed in Turkey, stronghanded violence, had 
 passed away, and was as impracticable for Mehemet Ali as for 
 Mahmoud. Mehemet Ali, then, at Constantinople, whatever may be 
 argued to the contrary, would but have been but a man instinct 
 with life at the head of an inanimate empire. 
 
 It being impossible to maintain the Ottoman empire, the question 
 of dividing it remains to be discussed. Could a division be made 
 without committing an injustice? Yes; for whence had the Turks 
 derived their right to sovereignty over the provinces they occupied 
 but from conquest, and conquest only becomes legitimate when it 
 effaces its violences by the benefits it confers. When a conquering 
 people has not been able to fuse the conquered races with itself, 
 either by inspiring them with a love of its own manners and cus- 
 toms, or by adopting theirs, its power is based on tyranny : if firmly, 
 and it is submitted to, well and good; but better, if it shall be 
 weak, and so overthrown. Had the Turks attempted to efface the 
 line of demarcation traced by victory between them and the sub- 
 jected races? Far from it; they had only thought of rendering the 
 native brutality of their conquest permanent by refusing them equa- 
 lity of civil and religious rights, treating them as infidels, and tramp- 
 ling them under foot as a conquered people. This was sufficient to 
 justify the intervention of Western Europe, inasmuch as Europe 
 was Christian, and that in dispossessing the followers of Mahomet, 
 she freed the worshippers of Christ in the East. 
 
 Moreover, the dispossession of the Turks was called for by the 
 profoundest and most sacred of the interests of civilisation. In fact, 
 Turkey in Europe and Asia was neither more nor less than a popu- 
 lation of seventeen millions of souls, scattered over eighty-six thou- 
 sand square leagues. France, England, Spain, Belgium, and Switzer- 
 land together were ninety-seven millions of souls confined in less 
 than the same space. So that under the influence of fatalism, and 
 of the habits with which it is connected, and of the vices which it 
 engenders, magnificent countries had become almost deserts, whilst,
 
 FRANCE THE NATURAL ENEMY OF ENGLAND AND AUSTRIA. 195 
 under the influence of too absolute a liberty, Europe had acme o 
 until it staggered under the weight of an over-teeming population 
 Ihe indication thus presented was sufficiently clear, and bore all the 
 marks of a providential fact. There can be no doubt the void made 
 m the East invited the surplus of the population of the West to 
 nil it up. 
 
 Thus situated, France would have had before her a road ready 
 marked out, had not her policy been dwarfed and hampered by the 
 selnsh cares of the ruling dynasty, pre-occupied by its own immedi- 
 ate interests. Aided by Russia and with a new division of the Eat 
 
 But at the expense of what nations? Let our history srive the 
 answer. J 
 
 The ancient policy of France, as is well-known, always aimed at 
 the lowering of the house of Austria. Henry IV. fell under the 
 dagger of RavaiUac, at the very moment that he was about to place 
 himself against Austria, at the head of all protestant Germany The 
 Thirty gears' War waged with Ferdinand II. by the heroic Gus- 
 tavus Adolphus, backed by the Elector of Saxony and the German 
 Lutherans, was the master-stroke of Richelieu's policy; and Louis 
 Al V. endeavoured to give the final blow to the Austrian power by 
 placing his grandson on the throne of Charles V. In fact it was a 
 point of vital moment to France not to have the freedom of her 
 movements on the south interfered with; and here she was menaced 
 by Austria, who rendered herself necessary to the pope, preyed 
 upon Italy, and extended her hand to Spain. 
 
 Subsequently Napoleon did but take up and exaggerate the po- 
 licy of Henry IV. and Richelieu, when he declared himself the 
 protector of the Germanic Confederation. Here again was Germany 
 opposed to Austria, only there should have been opposed to her 
 trermany independent, not Germany in pupilage. 
 
 However, this was but one of the many-sided aspects of Napoleon's 
 policy; and all the world knows that with the humiliation of Austria 
 
 , was connected in his mind the ruin of England. He was too lofty 
 and clear in his views not to comprehend that the principle of com- 
 petition which, since 1789, had been introduced into our social sys- 
 tem imperiously dictated the extension of our markets, the conquest 
 >t distant factories, our erection into a great maritime power and 
 
 . Consequently the hurling the English from the supremacy of the 
 an. Napoleon has said in his memoirs: " The principal end of 
 
 This is the very proper view taken by Doctor Barrachin, who has lived in the 
 ^L^ 3 a ^ mted ^th Turkey, and has published some sound notions on the 
 *iT*i 1 ! natel y he has come to the conclusion, not that the East should be 
 i the West, but that Turkey should be submitted to a new division a 
 ureiy gi fraphical division which he has sought to base on the common interests 
 C " OUr opinion ' would eventually make Russia para- 
 
 O 2
 
 196 SCHEME OF A FRENCH-RUSSIAN ALLIANCE FOR 
 
 the French expedition into the East was to humble the power of 
 England. It was from the Nile that the army which was to give a 
 new destiny to the Indies was to set out. Egypt was to replace St. 
 Domingo and the Antilles, and to reconcile the freedom of the blacks 
 with the extension of our manufactures. The conquest of this pro- 
 vince would have ensured the downfall of all the English possessions 
 in America, and in the peninsula of the Ganges. The French once 
 masters of the ports of Italy, of Corfu, Malta and Alexandria, the 
 Mediterranean becomes a French lake." 
 
 Well, by a surprising concurrence of circumstances, and it being 
 granted that the Ottoman empire could not fail to be divided, and 
 that the occupation of Constantinople by the Russians was inevitable, 
 the only two powers interested in repelling us from the East, and 
 excluding us from any share in its division, were precisely those 
 which had been the mark of the policy of Henry IV., of Richelieu, 
 of Louis XIV., and of Napoleon England and Austria. 
 
 In point of fact, we could not have assisted the Russians to take 
 possession of Constantinople except through their aiding us to esta- 
 blish ourselves in Syria and in Egypt, by virtue of an exchange 
 which, giving them the Black Sea, would have secured us the Me- 
 diterranean. Now, Austria, on account of her Italian interests, 
 would never have consented to our supremacy in the Mediterranean ; 
 and, as to England, she knew that she might date her ruin from the 
 day that, masters of the course of the Euphrates and of the Isthmus 
 of Suez, we could shut against her the door of her Indian domain. 
 
 France then, after 1830, was naturally led to hold the following 
 language to Russia: 
 
 " The late revolution of July must be considered as more than the 
 conclusion of a political struggle between the Chamber and the 
 throne; it is the explosion of national feelings repressed to bursting 
 by the treaties of 1815. We are resolved to shake off the yoke of 
 those treaties, and to re-adjust the balance of power in Europe. 
 This we shall be able to effect by uniting our interests with yours, 
 after ascertaining the common bond which knits them together. 
 You clearly incline towards Asia, and covet that half of the empire 
 of the world. Who is the enemy that disputes it with you ? Eng- 
 land. You want exclusive possession of the Black Sea, and Con- 
 stantinople. Which are the powers that on that side oppose your 
 march, and shackle your ambition? England and Austria. We 
 offer you our support against them, but on the following con- 
 dition: You, to take Constantinople and its dependencies; we, tof 
 take Egypt waiting for masters, and Syria, where a religious pro- 
 tectorship of three centuries have paved the way for our dominion. 
 But by this division of the world, Poland belongs to the west, 
 which she covers. We bargain for her; and remember that there 
 reigns in Poland a spirit of independence which you can only stifle 
 by exterminating its inhabitants. Remember that you possess in 
 her not a kingdom, whose resources you can develope, but a focus
 
 THE SPOLIATION OF ENGLAND. 197 
 
 of hatred and revolt calling for incessant watchfulness. Eemember, 
 in short, that in a general war the greatest of your dangers, and most 
 insurmountable of your difficulties, would be a rebellion in Poland, 
 and that you would have to shed seas of blood to preserve a con- 
 quest which, after all, is of little use to your Asiatic dominion." 
 
 Would a French-Russian alliance, on these bases, have been 
 acceptable to Russia? There can be no doubt of it. A glance at 
 the map will show what Constantinople would be in the hands of 
 Russia. For Constantinople, Alexander would have left Europe 
 to Napoleon; and Napoleon turned a deaf ear to his dazzling^ propo- 
 sals, esteeming the possession of the Bosphorus beyond all price.* 
 
 On the other hand, the French-Russian alliance required the ad- 
 hesion of Prussia ; and, by abandoning to that power part of the 
 spoils of Austria, we were authorised to claim the boundary of the 
 Rhine, at the same time that we seconded the movement which 
 impels Germany towards unity, and tends to give her Berlin for 
 capital. 
 
 To sum up : The Ottoman empire being condemned to inevitable 
 death, the policy of revolutionary ^France, following up that ^ of 
 Henry IV., Richelieu, and Napoleon, consisted in contracting with 
 Russia and Prussia, against Austria and England, an alliance of in- 
 terests, having the following results for its fixed and definite end 
 the final establishment of the Russians in Constantinople, and the 
 recognition of their preponderance in Asia; the establishment of 
 France in Syria and in Egypt, and the recognition of its prepon- 
 derance in the Mediterranean, become a French lake ; the restora- 
 tion of the kingdom of Poland, with Galicia annexed to it; the 
 aggrandisement of Prussia at the expense of Austria, as the price of 
 the cession of the boundary of the Rhine to France, and, as the 
 necessary consequence of the ruin of Austria, the independence of 
 Italy. 
 
 This plan, whilst supplying incalculable resources for war, con- 
 
 * But would not such an agreement have been pregnant with danger to the col- 
 lective European interests, represented by Trance? Yes if we had not stipulated 
 for equivalents which would have made us independent for ever; and it is for this 
 reason that Egypt, Syria, and the boundary of the Rhine, would not have been too 
 much in exchange for Constantinople. 
 
 With such terms all danger vanished; since, to use M. de Lamartine s expression, 
 the geographical inclination of Russia is towards Asia. 
 
 Of all our statesmen, M. de Lamartine is the one who has formed the clearest 
 conception of the Eastern question. It could not escape his noble and lofty genius, 
 that the fall of the Ottoman empire was the signal for the regeneration of the Eastern 
 by the Western world ; only and on this point we cannot agree with him he 
 would have desired the protectorate of Constantinople for Russia, of Syria for 
 France, and of Egypt for England; which would have been giving the Mediterranean 
 to the latter, and leaving it the Indies. Could we maintain ourselves in Syria if 
 hemmed in between the Russians and the English; and, besides, how poor would be 
 our equivalent for handing Constantinople to the first, and Alexandria to the last, 
 since what M. de Lamartine terms a protectorate would quickly become a sove- 
 reignty. France reduced to the stormy protectorate of Syria! Why Napoleon did 
 not consider the giving up Egypt wholly to France a sufficient compensation for 
 abandoning Constantinople to Russia.
 
 198 AFFAIRS OF EGYPT, SYRIA, 
 
 stituted France the protectress of all the secondary powers, unjustly 
 oppressed, and made Russia herself the interested instrument of 
 their freedom. What was warring with England, but saving Ire- 
 land and avenging Portugal; with Austria, but restoring Italian 
 nationality ? What was gaining the boundary of the Rhine, but 
 securing the Belgians a fraternal connexion, in place of an odious 
 subjection? What was persuading Russia to accept a magnificent 
 indemnification for restoring Poland to independence, but, by the 
 same stroke of policy, providing for the safety of Europe, and ful- 
 filling the task of gratitude incumbent upon us? 
 
 Here, then, a war of interests was, by the force of circumstances, 
 rendered identical with a war of principles.* 
 
 We would also observe and this is a point on which we insist 
 that the plan which we have here developed would have had 
 nothing forced or arbitrary in it; since it flowed from the natural 
 movements of the peoples, and was combined with general ten- 
 dencies in every part of Europe. Was there not, in point of fact, 
 a logical and almost irresistible tendency of France to extend her- 
 self over the Mediterranean, o Russia to occupy Constantinople, of 
 Prussia to give a head to remodelled Germany, of Belgium to sepa- 
 rate herself from Holland, of Poland to resume her nationality, and 
 of Italy to proclaim her independence ? 
 
 But, alas! the destinies of our country had strayed, after 1830, 
 into the hands of men destitute alike of capacity, of plan, of eleva- 
 tion, or of strength of mind. These men, who fancied themselves 
 practical because they were mediocre, and skilful because they durst 
 attempt nothing great, did not see that the Eastern question em- 
 braced the fate of the world. They overlooked the fact, that if 
 France did not take advantage of the violent and overmastering de- 
 
 * It will perhaps be objected to the above plan that it would have been very 
 strange to prefer, after the revolution of July, the alliance of a despot to that of a 
 constitutional monarchy, by which, too, that revolution had been warmly applauded. 
 Now there are none who esteem and admire more than we the great people of 
 England, taking them apart from their government, but, to speak frankly, we see 
 no reason for sympathy with the English constitution, which hallows the most exe- 
 crable tyranny that ever existed. What political bond can exist between a nation 
 which, h'ke ours, has gone through the convulsions of the most formidable anarchy, 
 has exhausted itself by a war equally without parallel and without a name, has half 
 drowned itself in the blood of Europe and its own blood, and all to extirpate the 
 power of the aristocracy, and a nation which, like the English, lives only by the 
 excesses and permanent usurpations of its aristocracy. Have we so soon forgotten 
 that it was England who roused the whole continent against the principles of our 
 immortal revolution, and kept its wrath in her pay? 
 
 As to the welcome with which England greeted the revolution of July, when have 
 manifestations of the kind been made of serious account by the statesman? Did the 
 sympathy of the English for our revolution hinder them from opposing our justest 
 pretensions as soon as the Belgian question was mooted ; and did they not bring 
 every thing into play to revive as far as it was possible, to our detriment, the sen- 
 timent of distrust and hatred which, in 1815, had dictated the formation of the 
 kingdom of Holland. 
 
 To imagine that Russia would have rejected an alliance of interests, eminently 
 favourable to her, and that through zeal for the monarchical principle, especially when 
 she had so little to fear from the propagation of our ideas, is childishness.
 
 AND TURKEY. 199 
 
 sire which drove the Russians on Constantinople, to get possession 
 of Egypt for herself, the English, sooner or later, would do what 
 we had neglected to do, would establish themselves at Alexandria, 
 would take the Mediterranean in return for abandoning the Black 
 Sea to Russia, and would thus lower us to the rank of a secondary 
 
 power. 
 
 Since the cabinet of theTuileries desired only the status guo, and 
 took for its leading principle the maintenance of the integrity of 
 the Ottoman empire, it should at least have laboured to carry it 
 out- but it could not even act consistently with itself. The foolish 
 anger with which General Sebastian! recalled our ambassador, (*e- 
 neral Guilleminot, because he had zealously endeavoured to under- 
 mine Russian influence in Turkey, is well remembered as are 
 these words, delivered from the tribune by the minister for foreign 
 affairs- " The Ottoman empire is now but a corpse." Such were 
 the conduct and language held in face of Europe, by those who 
 had espoused, as their leading principle, the preservation of lurkey 
 the status quo of the East. Posterity will have difficulty in be- 
 lieving such gross want of forecast; but the length the Drench 
 government were prepared to go in their career of faults and lollies 
 will be seen as we proceed. 
 
 Towards the close of 1831, Mehemet Ah despatched Ibrahim to 
 lay siege to Acre. Abdallah, Pasha of Acre, was a compound of 
 presumption and of craft. Having revolted against the Porte, and 
 been menaced by its vengeance, he had accepted the artfully-ten- 
 dered good offices of the Pasha of Egypt with the Divan, and had 
 linked himself to his fortunes by engagements which he violated. 
 However, Mehemet All's resentment was onlv a cover for the war, 
 which had a deeper cause. He lusted for Syria as an almost indis- 
 pensable adjunct to Egypt both with a view to aggrandisement 
 and defence; for the sultan feared and envied him and Khosrew 
 Pasha, the most powerful man in the empire after Mahmoud, and 
 whom Mehemet All had supplanted in Egypt, longed for his de- 
 struction. Exposed to secret machinations and environed by r. 
 triffue, the stroke of a dagger might settle accounts with his glory. 
 This he was well aware of; and the sultan, whose mandates he 
 received with head inclined to the earth, regarded him as his deadliest 
 enemy. Thus Ibrahim sat down before those walls of Acre, which, 
 had he surmounted them, would have been worth to Napoleon the 
 conquest of Asia and the dominion of the world. Abdallah held out 
 long, but finally yielded the pkce, and was dragged captive in 
 E<rypt, where Mehemet AH, who had no need of him as a slave, 
 took it into his head to treat him as a fallen sovereign. Ihe fort* 
 is roused, and sends Hussein Pasha, the destroyer of the Jams .&*, 
 against Ibrahim. Ibrahim invokes the god of his father marct 
 against the Turks, cuts them to pieces at Horns, finishes their rout 
 at Bevlan, and treats the Syrians, who look up to him with admira- 
 tion, as their master. The seragHo is struck with consternation.
 
 200 AFFAIRS OF EGYPT, SYRIA, 
 
 To save Syria, perhaps Constantinople, Mahmoud turns to his grand 
 vizier, Reschid Mehemet, the victor of Missolonghi, and his chiefest 
 warrior. Reschid Mehemet sets out at the head of a numerous 
 army, resolved not to run the chance of a pitched battle, and pre- 
 paring for the irregular warfare in which he excelled. But he 
 leaves behind him Khosrew Pasha, who, jealous of the grand- vizier, 
 and impatient for his fall, thwarts, in his capacity of seraskier, all 
 Reschid Mehemet's plans, and gets the sultan to lay his commands 
 upon him to undertake some brilliant stroke. Now, France having 
 concluded to maintain the inviolability of the Turkish empire, in 
 order the better to oppose it to Russia, ought to have prayed for the 
 success of Reschid Mehemet she put up vows for that of Ibrahim. 
 The meeting took place at Koniah, the 21st of December, 1832. 
 On the one side there were ten thousand Egyptians, on the other, 
 sixty thousand Turks, and between the two armies a thick fog. 
 The Turks began the action by a brisk cannonade, which, piercing 
 the fog, and throwing fitful gleams over the field of battle, revealed 
 their positions to the piercing glance of Ibrahim. The two armies 
 encountered almost in darkness, and the rout of the Turks was com- 
 plete. The grand-vizier, met by some Egyptian horse, as he was 
 hurrying, bewildered, over the battle-field, and risking his life as a 
 common soldier, was made prisoner. He thought himself lost, 
 when, through an apparent freak, but to be accounted for by eastern, 
 usages, Ibrahim saluted him as his superior, drank out of the cup 
 which Reschid Mehemet hesitated to raise to his lips, fearing it 
 might contain poison, and gave him all the honours of command, 
 whilst he himself enjoyed the reality. The battle of Koniah de- 
 cided all. Ibrahim had only to take possession of Syria and more, 
 he had but to cry " Forward," and Constantinople was his. 
 
 Such, at the beginning of the year 1833, was the situation of 
 affairs in the east. However short might be Ibrahim's delay to de- 
 throne Mahmoud, the true victors at Koniah were the Russians. 
 Was not the opportunity given them of pitching their tents on the 
 banks of the Bosphorus, as protectors of the sultan ? And, indeed, 
 at the first news of the disaster of Koniah, Mahmoud, frozen with 
 fear, turned towards Sevastopol. Can it be believed that the 
 cabinet of the Tuileries was found unprepared at this important 
 juncture, which had been so progressively brought about; it had no 
 ambassador at the Porte, and its chargc-d' affaires, M. de Varennes, 
 was without instructions. 
 
 However, the French government behoved to take some resolu- 
 tion ; and having, right or wrong, concluded that the preserving the 
 inviolability of Constantinople was possible, it ought either to have 
 declared itself vigorously against Mehemet Ali, or have resolutely 
 encouraged Ibrahim to follow up his successful revolt : in the first 
 case, the necessity for the interested intervention of the Russian 
 would have been done away with; in the second, the triumphant 
 Ibrahim would have been constituted defender of Constantinople.
 
 AND TURKEY. 201 
 
 All this was a mystery to the French cabinet, and M. de Va- 
 rennes was left to the guidance of his own inspiration. He had a 
 difficult part to play. He had to keep from Constantinople the 
 Russians, impatient to show themselves there, and, in fact, sum- 
 moned by the terrors of the sultan; and yet, how bring this about 
 without staying Ibrahim ! Now it was easy for M. de Varennes to 
 employ counsels and solicitations with the conqueror of Syria, and 
 with Mehemet Ali; but, to make them succeed, he required to 
 speak with authority, to threaten if his prayers were unheeded. 
 This, the short-sightedness of the cabinet of the Tuileries had ren- 
 dered impossible ; nevertheless, M. de Varennes contrived for some 
 time to keep the influence of Russia in check, and displayed great 
 dexterity in turning every circumstance to account. 
 
 Russia had at once offered to put at the sultan's service five men- 
 of-war and seven frigates, and had sent General Mourawieff on a 
 mission to Mahmoud, with orders to dispose every thing for inter- 
 vention, and to push on to Alexandria. The general fell into the 
 mistake of making the Turks sensible of the insult of his presence ; 
 he inspected the barracks, and assumed the tone of command with 
 the Turkish soldiers. This was blowing upon ashes, but ashes still 
 alive. He found the subjects less servile of heart than their master. 
 An alarming agitation prevailed in the capital. The Pasha of 
 Egypt, at least, would not have lowered the majesty of the crescent 
 before the two-headed black eagle ! Such was the reflection made 
 by numbers ; and Mehemet Ali counted more than one secret par- 
 tisan in the Divan. Besides, Mahmoud seemed to take a rash 
 pleasure in braving his people. At the very moment in which the 
 empire was undergoing an unexampled annihilation, he gave himself 
 up to profane intrigues with Christian women, and, hardening in 
 his licentiousness, insulted the faith by indulging to excess in for- 
 bidden drinks. One would have supposed that he wished to blind 
 himself to his weakness with regard to the foreigners, b)r redoubling 
 his audacity with regard to his people ; a kind of self-indemnifica- 
 tion natural to' minds divided between pusillanimity and pride. 
 
 M. de Varennes availed himself of all the resources offered by 
 this assemblage of circumstances. He reanimated whatever pa- 
 triotism subsisted in the Divan; he nourished all the French sym- 
 pathies of the Reis-Effendi, who was his friend, and the secret 
 enemy of the Russians ; and the opportune death of Antonio Fran- 
 chini, a celebrated dragoman, or interpreter, whose services were 
 of great use to the cabinet of St. Petersburg, came luckily to his 
 assistance in his struggle with M. de Boutenieff, the Russian pleni- 
 potentiary. 
 
 Mehemet Ali had given it to be understood that he had no dis- 
 inclination to treat with the Porte; and M. de Varennes took 
 advantage of this overture to urge a direct arrangement, and, sup- 
 ported by the Reis-Effendi, by the secret inclinations of several 
 members of the Divan, by the discontent prevailing in Constant!-
 
 202 AFFAIRS OF EGYPT, SYRIA, 
 
 nople, and by the name of France, which, at this time, had not 
 quite lost the respect of the world, he prevailed on the sultan to 
 despatch Halil Pasha to Egypt, with propositions for the cession 
 of the petty pashaliks of Seyde, Jerusalem, Naplous, and Tripoli. 
 This step threw Russia out of the pale of Turkish affairs; and Ge- 
 neral Mourawieff started off after the envoy, the cabinet of St. 
 Petersburg dreading that the Ottoman empire should learn how to 
 provide for its own safety. 
 
 Hitherto, the French influence had gained ground. But the 
 mediation of France had only been accepted, and could only be 
 accepted, on one condition; namely, that Ibrahim should be sum- 
 moned to withdraw the threat which he constantly held suspended 
 over Constantinople. Here began the difficulty for us, since, as 
 has been already mentioned, the French government had neither 
 foreseen nor prepared any thing for a solution of the question. It 
 is true, that M. de Varennes had undertaken to write to Ibrahim 
 and to Mehemet AH, to suspend the march of the Egyptian 
 army ; but the Pasha of Egypt and his son had advanced so far, 
 that it was impossible for any request to stop them, unsupported by 
 a display of force. This was the stumbling-block. Ibrahim con- 
 tented himself with replying, that his father's orders were the mea- 
 sure of his power; and, under the pretext that his army could not 
 subsist at Koniah, he expressed his determination to move forward. 
 At the same time, he took care to set the grand-vizier at liberty, 
 and charged him to ask the sultan's permission for his moving on to 
 Broussa an act of submission which, in any other quarter than the 
 East, would have been a gross and insolent irony ! 
 
 This movement of Ibrahim's overturned all M. de Varennes' 
 work. In greater consternation than ever, the sultan secretly soli- 
 cited the assistance of Russia, inclined to so shameful a dependence, 
 not only by his 'own uneasiness, but by the intrigues of Achmet 
 Pasha, a tool of foreign ambition. Here we must mention, as a 
 proof of the uncompromising spirit of hatred which animated many 
 of the highest personages of the empire against Russia, that it was a 
 member of the Divan who let M. de Varennes into the secret of 
 this new step on the part of Mahmoud, which he set about coun- 
 teracting, and this time, too, he was aided by circumstances. 
 
 The negotiation opened at Alexandria was terminated. Mehemet 
 AH had received General Mourawieff poHtely, but had waived his 
 mediation; and as to the sultan's propositions, he fairly rejected 
 them. The tenns he asked were, Syria and the pashaHk of Adana; 
 and this being agreed to by HaHl, subject to the sanction of the 
 Divan, Mehemet AH sent his son orders to halt at Kutaya. 
 
 General Mourawieff's return to Constantinople, where he spread 
 the news of the approaching 'peace, and of the halt of Ibrahim, 
 again changed the face of affairs, and the Russian aids were coun- 
 termanded. 
 
 Meanwhile, Admiral Roussin arrived as ambassador at Constant!-
 
 AND TURKEY. 203 
 
 nople, and with other views than those entertained by M. de Varennes, 
 whose policy had been limited to averting Russia from the banks of 
 the Bosphorus, without precisely entering into the Turkish-Egyptian 
 question. Admiral Roussin came with a more decided policy, re- 
 solved to protect Turkey at once against Russia and against Mehemet 
 Ali. This was renouncing the benefits which France expected 
 from the consolidation of her influence in Egypt ; but, independently 
 of the want of precise data for the working of such influence, the 
 admiral's line of conduct had the advantage of being clear and con- 
 sistent. Since there was no longer any idea of restoring unity to 
 Turkey, through the medium of Meheroet Ali, and since the main- 
 tenance of her independence was regarded as a dike opposed to 
 Russia, and as a bulwark necessary to Western Europe, the alter- 
 native was to restrict Mehemet Ali to Egypt : in order, in the first 
 place, to deprive the Russians of all pretence for intervention ; and, 
 in the second, to hinder the irremediable prostration of the empire 
 by its being cut in half. 
 
 Unfortunately, Admiral Roussin was not free to enforce his 
 policy; since, with a carelessness unheard of in the annals of diplo- 
 macy, whilst the French government sent to Constantinople an am- 
 bassador wholly impressed with the necessity of protecting Mahmoud 
 against Mehemet Ali, the same government had for its consul-general 
 at Alexandria a man convinced of the necessity of aggrandising 
 Mehemet AH at the expense of Mahmoud. Never had the foreign 
 relations of a great people been involved in more pitiable confusion ; 
 and the consequences were soon apparent. 
 
 Admiral Roussin made his entry into Constantinople, the 17th of 
 February, 1833. His first care was to ask an interview of the Reis- 
 Efiendi, which, in spite of the Bairam, he obtained without diffi- 
 culty. The admiral united the bluntness of the sailor with the dig- 
 nity of the ambassador. He imperiously demanded the counter- 
 manding of the Russian aids ; and received full satisfaction on this 
 point. 
 
 But Russia had laid her plans so as not to receive counter- 
 orders in time; and, on the 20th of February, three days after the 
 arrival of the French ambassador, a Russian squadron of ten ships 
 of war entered the Bosphorus. 
 
 The French ambassador immediately declared that if the squa- 
 dron were not sent back," he would suspend the unlading of 
 his baggage ; and the Porte engaged to dismiss the Russians, if on 
 his part Admiral Roussin would save Constantinople from Ibrahim. 
 This he stipulated to do in a letter given in on the 21st of Fe- 
 bruary, taking upon himself to conclude a peace on the same con- 
 ditions as had been proposed by Halil Pasha; and, faithful to his 
 word, he summoned Mehemet Ali, in pressing and peremptory terms, 
 to content himself with the pashaliks of Seyde, Tripoli, Jerusalem 
 and Naplous. 
 
 Nothing is rasher and more offensive than to threaten, without
 
 204 AFFAIRS OF EGYPT, SYRIA, 
 
 the power of enforcing the threat. Admiral Roussin's whole 
 fleet was the ship which had brought him; and M. Mimaut, 
 the French consul at Alexandria, seconded with all his energy 
 the views of the Pasha of Egypt; who, emboldened by the real 
 weakness of France at Constantinople, poorly disguised by the 
 pride of our attitude, and encouraged by the strange want of union 
 between the representatives of the cabinet of the Tuileries, did not 
 hesitate to take his ground against our ambassador. In a cautiously 
 worded, but firm answer, he gave him to understand that he was 
 not in the slightest degree disposed to lose the fruit of his conquests; 
 and, at the same time, the pasha submitted to the cabinets of 
 Europe a note, in which he laboured to prove that Syria, under 
 the anarchical rule of the sultan, was a perpetual sore in the side of 
 the empire, that it could only become strong and prosperous under 
 a regular government, such as the Egyptian, and that consequently 
 the endeavour to erect between Syria and Egypt a barrier which 
 was no longer possible, was contrary to the interests of the Ottoman 
 empire, of which he, Mehemet AH, was the sincerest supporter. 
 This was only a sophism, but it served to conceal the ambitious pro- 
 jects of the pasha under a show of moderation and wisdom naturally 
 pleasing to Europe, and deprived of all appearance of bravado the 
 refusal, to the humiliation of which Admiral Roussin had exposed 
 himself. 
 
 This humiliation was great, and was by no means compensated 
 by the happy results of the energy which the ambassador displayed 
 in the affairs of Smyrna, which city had submitted at the mere 
 summons of a messenger despatched by Ibrahim. Admiral Roussin 
 immediately sent orders to the French consul there to take down his 
 flag; and the presence of some vessels which arrived unexpectedly 
 from the Archipelago, under the command of Rear- Admiral Hugo, 
 decided the re-establishment of the Turkish authorities. 
 
 However, the Russians had not yet struck their tents, insolently 
 pitched at the foot of the Giant mountain. At the date of the 
 stipulation of the 21st of February, the Reis-Effendi had trans- 
 mitted a note to M. de BouteniefF with the object of effecting the 
 dismissal of the Russian squadron ; but the latter had refused to receive 
 it on the pretence of its being informal, and it had not been again 
 presented. On the other hand, Ibrahim had not returned his 
 sword into its sheath, and his constant boast was that he would take 
 his horse to drink in the waters of Scutari. 
 
 Thus, the only change in the aspect of affairs, since Admiral 
 Roussin's arrival, was the decline of our influence both with the 
 Porte and Egypt; with the latter, from the ambassador's having 
 sided against Mehemet Ali, without having the means to overcome 
 him, and with the former, from Mehemet Ali's disregard of our 
 intervention, and from Admiral Roussin's having generously, rather 
 than opportunely, taken the occasion of his first interview with the 
 sultan to plead the cause of the unfortunate peoples of the East.
 
 AND TURKEY. 205 
 
 This the enemies of our influence had not failed to enlarge upon aa 
 proof of the fatally revolutionary aim of our policy ; and not even 
 the straightforward and earnest protection which Admiral Roussin 
 lent the Porte could remove the evil impression from the mind of 
 the despot reformer. 
 
 However, as time pressed, recourse was had to the mediation of 
 France. Since Admiral Roussin's appointment, M. de Varennes 
 had become only^ first secretory to the embassy; but Rescind Bey, 
 afterwards Reschid Pasha, and Prince Vogoridi, applied to him, 
 on the part of the sultan, to repair to Kutaya with Reschid- 
 Pasha to negotiate a peace with Ibrahim. In the existing con- 
 juncture of affairs, to have renewed the proposals which Admiral 
 Roussin had vainly endeavoured to force on Mehemet AH, would 
 have been both a childish folly and a gross blunder. No peace had 
 a chance of being concluded which was not advantageous to Me- 
 hemet Ali, and France could not interfere in the negotiation 
 without contradicting the policy which her ambassador had from 
 the first adopted. Nevertheless, Constantinople was to be rid of 
 the neighbourhood of the Russians on any terms, and the most 
 startling and unfortunate of political contradictions was not thought 
 too dear a price for their departure: so Reschid Bey and M. de 
 Varennes set out on their journey. 
 
 Admiral Roussin gave M. de Varennes a note, in which he had 
 traced a few instructions for his guidance ; but he ran it over with 
 a hasty and indifferent look, resolved to act upon his own opinions. 
 Thus the name of France was about to be mixed up with the 
 concluding of a peace, so momentous, as to be neither more nor less 
 than a provisional arrangement of the affairs of the whole world; 
 and the French government, absorbed in its own selfish and ephe- 
 meral passions, had not made a single preparation, nor even knew 
 what responsibility it was about to undertake, or in what line of 
 policy it would be implicated. 
 
 When a few leagues from Kutaya, M. de Varennes and Reschid 
 Bey stopped in a small village to consult on the proposals they 
 should make. Reschid Bey was for offering to Ibrahim, at first, 
 only the four pashaliks of Seyde, Jerusalem, Tripoli, and Naplous, 
 leaving further concessions to be made matter of bargain; but 
 M. de Varennes pointed out the imprudence and the insult of 
 opening the negotiation with offers which had been so peremptorily 
 refused, and the necessity of proposing the cession of the whole of 
 Syria. Reschid Bey acceded, and even owned to M. dc Varennes, 
 that, on his farewell audience, Mahmoud had said to him " Come 
 to an understanding with M. de Varennes, and settle the affairs as 
 you best can," whence the latter concluded that the sultan desired 
 to be freed, at any cost, from the distressing situation in which he 
 had so long been placed. However, there was nothing surprising 
 in this readiness of Mahmoud ; since, like almost all princes invested 
 with theocratic power, he made no concession to his slave without
 
 206 PEACE CONCLUDED BETWEEN MEHEMET 
 
 a mental reservation to retract it on the first favourable opportunity. 
 His resignation was a hypocrisy, induced by his weakness. 
 
 Ibrahim, calm and confident in his strength, waited, without be- 
 traying any impatience, for the ratification of his victories ; and, 
 being apprised of the approach of the negotiators, courteously sent 
 them an escort. A trifling circumstance, connected with this atten- 
 tion, showed in the strongest manner the extreme contempt for the 
 Turkish government affected by Ibrahim and his followers. M. de 
 Varennes, who journeyed on horseback, being in advance of Rescind 
 Bey, who was compelled, by a painful, but not dangerous illness, 
 to be carried in a litter, was the first to meet the escort, and had 
 great difficulty to persuade them to wait for Reschid Bey. " It is 
 you," they seemed to say, " not he, whom we came to meet." 
 
 At Kutaya, this difference was marked in a way much more cutting 
 still to the Turkish envoy, since M. de Varennes alone was received 
 by the victor of Koniah, whom he found breakfasting, and in- 
 dulging, without scruple, in the beverage so strictly forbidden by 
 Mahomet. Ibrahim's reception of him was distinguished by a kind 
 of rude delicacy. In honour of his visit, a barbarous band played 
 the Marseillaise, and it was then mangled, rather than sung, by the 
 Arabs, who laboured might and main to imitate the French rhythm. 
 The language held by Ibrahim did not belie the politic feeling 
 which dictated these skilful attentions. He enlarged upon the 
 affection and gratitude which he felt for the countrymen of Napo- 
 leon. " The Egyptians," he frequently repeated, " are the chil- 
 dren of the French." Against the Russians he displayed great 
 animosity, and, with the boastfulness that enters into his character, 
 expressed his desire to measure his strength with them. Of the 
 sultan, his attempted reforms, his submission to Russia, and hig 
 government, he spoke with a singular mixture of compassion and 
 contempt. His father was his god. The only error he imputed to 
 him, and this in a tone of the deepest respect, was his having sunk 
 part of the treasures of Egypt in building a fleet, which no effort 
 could place on an equality with the European marine. " Egypt," 
 he very justly observed, " cannot be a maritime power, for it wants 
 all the elements of naval strength. Our true field of battle lies in- 
 land." On M. de Varennes' entry upon the object of his journey 
 to Kutaya, Ibrahim endeavoured to cut short all discussion, by pro- 
 testing that he was only the obedient minister of his father's orders. 
 Now, Mehemet Ali demanded more than Syria; he demanded the 
 pashalik of Diarbekir, the districts of Itchyla and of Alaya, and, 
 above all, the pashalik of Adana that is to say, a footing in Asia 
 Minor. These were exorbitant demands, and were firmly contested 
 by M. de Varennes ; but he was met with a seemingly invincible 
 obstinacy on Ibrahim's part. 
 
 Discouraged and irritated, M. de Varennes was on the point of 
 breaking off the negotiation, and leaving Kutaya, when he was 
 stopped by the entreaties of Reschid Bey; and, finally, Ibrahim
 
 ALI AND THE PORTE. 207 
 
 consented, 1st, To give up the districts of Itchyla and Alaya ; 
 2nd, To reserve his demand of the pashalik of Diarbekir for future 
 discussion; but, as regarded the cession of Adana, he was im- 
 moveable. The possession of this pashalik was like opening the gate 
 of Asia Minor, and, besides completing the defences of Syria, it 
 abounded in timber, and would be invaluable to the dock-yards of Me- 
 hemet Ali. In a subsequent conference, M. de Varennes had recourse 
 even to threats to bend Ibrahim. He had noticed, that, in his pre- 
 vious interview, the word protocol always had an extraordinary effect 
 on the son of Mehemet Ali ; and he therefore urged upon him, that 
 the certain consequence of his persisting to abuse the present power 
 his victorious position gave him, would be the protocols of Western 
 Europe in coalition against the ambition of his sire ; he went fur- 
 ther he reminded him of Navarino? Whilst he was speaking, 
 Ibrahim made visible efforts to keep down his passion; his face 
 flushed, his eye sparkled, and his whole demeanour showed the 
 violence of the feelings with which he was agitated. Nevertheless, 
 he maintained his command over himself, and remained inflexible; 
 so that M. de Varennes was obliged to yield on the question of 
 Adana. 
 
 Forthwith, Ibrahim sent him costly presents, but the French 
 diplomatist was too chagrined at the result of his labours to accept 
 them, and returned them with the observation: " It would be sup- 
 posed that I sold you the peace/' Indeed, he had misgivings that 
 the conditions granted to Ibrahim would be considered excessive, and 
 would lead to fatal difficulties. 
 
 At the very moment this arrangement was being concluded at 
 Kutaya to prevent the necessity for Russian intervention, the inter- 
 vention was daily assuming a more formidable shape. An army of 
 24,000 men had been put in movement, and a division of the squa- 
 dron of Odessa had landed 5000 men on the Asiatic coast, opposite 
 to Bujukdere and Therapia. This wanton superfluity of succour 
 was the excess of insolence ; still the Sultan received the Russians 
 with a parade of gratitude which, had it been more real, would not 
 have been less shameful. He loaded the officers with presents, and 
 volunteered an extravagant admiration of the appearance of the 
 troops, nattering them by comparisons injurious to his own subjects, 
 and, even down to the smallest things, sacrificed his imperial dignity 
 to his desire of pleasing his dangerous protectors. Thus, after hav- 
 ing promised his portrait to M. de Varennes, considered a mark of 
 great favour in Turkey, he did not hesitate to break his word through 
 fear of displeasing Russia, which affected to be offended at the im- 
 portance of the concessions obtained by Ibrahim. Informed of this 
 want of faith and of what Mahmoud proposed to do in order to soften 
 the blow, M. de Varennes declined beforehand all indemnifica- 
 tion, observing, " I see clearly Turkey is no more than a Turkish 
 province."
 
 208 THE POLICY OF RUSSIA STILL PROSPEROUS. 
 
 And, indeed, on the 5th of May, that is to say, the very day after 
 the definitive termination of the great quarrel between Mehemet 
 Ali and Mahmoud by the settlement of some difficulties that had 
 arisen relative to the cession of Adana, Count Orloff arrived at 
 Constantinople, bearing extraordinary powers. Was this a defi- 
 ance? Did the Emperor Nicholas design to terrify us with his 
 ascendancy in the East? A serious cause could be with difficulty 
 assigned for so solemn a mission, so tardily sent; since Ibrahim was 
 already preparing to evacuate Asia Minor. He abandoned Kutaya 
 on the 24th of May, and before July had left Mount Taurus be- 
 hind him. 
 
 The Russians then decided on delivering Constantinople from the 
 burden of their presence, as they had no longer a shadow of a pre- 
 text for remaining. But they did not let go their hold of their prey 
 until they had obtained from the sultan's condescension a treaty 
 which knit Russia and Turkey in a defensive alliance, and closed the 
 Dardanelles to all other than Russian ships for eight years. Europe 
 took umbrage at this treaty, without understanding its real drift. 
 At bottom, and this their recent intervention proved, the Russians 
 had no need of a diplomatic sanction to give them a right to occupy 
 the Bosphorus whenever they saw fit. They derived their right 
 to do so from their previous conquests, their superiority, proximity, 
 and power. The treaty of Unkiar Skelessi was only a bravado, but 
 a dexterous one; since it spoke meaningly to the imagination of the 
 Turks, and accustomed Europe to regard the sovereignty of St. 
 Petersburg over Constantinople as in the course of things. 
 
 We may now form some idea of the fatal effect which the treat- 
 ment of the question of the East, the source of so many difficulties, 
 had on the interests of France. It cannot be too often repeated, 
 that as soon as the French government had decided, no matter 
 whether rightly or wrongly, on maintaining the integrity of the 
 Ottoman empire and its dependence on its lawful sovereign, the 
 allowing Mehemet Ali to aggrandise himself at th* expense of the 
 Porte, was either madness or bad faith. Consequently, on this principle, 
 Admiral Roussin's policy was both the most honourable and the wisest. 
 Unfortunately, thanks to the inconsistency of the French govern- 
 ment and the diplomatic confusion which followed, this policy 
 wavered and contradicted itself in a deplorable manner. Between 
 the system represented by the steps taken in favour of Mahmoud 
 by Admiral Roussin on the 21st of February, and the conditions 
 subsequently agreed upon at Kutaya in favour of Mehemet Ali, 
 there is a wide gulf. Now, of these two systems, the first, which 
 failed, shook our credit with the pasha of Egypt; the second, which 
 prevailed, ruined our influence with the sultan. The first alienated 
 Alexandria, the second Constantinople from us. It is true that, 
 apparently, Mehemet Ali owed the ratification of his conquests to 
 us ; but what merit could our mediation have in his eyes after our
 
 THE SLAVE TRADE. RIGHT OF SEARCH. 209 
 
 menacing summons and his formal declaration that he would not 
 yield? 
 
 As to the material result of the negotiations, and leaving out 
 of view their moral consequences, it was altogether iu favour of 
 Russia, not of France. The abandonment of the whole of Syria 
 and of the gates of Asia Minor to Mehemet Ah, was, in fact, to 
 weaken the Ottoman empire by cutting it in half, and to render 
 the dependence of Mahmoud on the Emperor Nicholas more neces- 
 sary and complete : it was anticipating the fatal hour of the sub- 
 jection of Constantinople, and this without any compensation to 
 us. That the cabinet of St. Petersburg should have shown itself 
 opposed to the pretensions of Mehemet AH, and discontented with 
 ;he advantages accorded him, was part and parcel of the policy of 
 Russia which affected to protect Mahmoud ; for, under what pretext 
 could the Muscovite have entered the Bosphorus, save as the pro- 
 tector of Turkey. 
 
 Thus terminated our first diplomatic campaign in the east; and 
 the end, as will be seen, answered to the beginning. 
 
 About this period the cabinet of the Tuileries contracted an en- 
 gagement with that of St. James's, which, buried in the shades of 
 office, escaped notice at the time ; but which, some years afterwards, 
 awakened in France hatreds not yet appeased, and gave rise to 
 most serious discussion. 
 
 Every body knows what the slave trade is, as that hideous traffic 
 
 n human flesh, which Mirabeau stigmatizes so energetically, when 
 
 le called the vessels engaged in it ambulatory hearses. This traffic 
 
 he French Convention had the glory of abolishing by a decree, 
 
 lated the 16th Brumaire, year XL, which denounces both sla- 
 
 -ery and the trade in slaves, but which was repealed by Bona- 
 
 >arte. The example was followed by England ; and the slave-trade 
 
 vas proscribed by the English parliament in 1808, by a very con- 
 
 iderable majority ; thus carrying out the policy to which the 
 
 .egroes in the English colonies had been indebted for their liberty. 
 
 1 1 has been said and believed, in almost every country in Europe, 
 
 hat in abolishing skvery the English government had concealed 
 
 be most sordidly selfish designs under the cloak of philanthropy, 
 
 nd had aimed at ruining the sugar plantations of the Antilles in 
 
 rder to secure the market of the whole world for its Indian sugar. 
 
 'he Machiavelic schemes of the English aristocracy to cement their 
 
 ower, and keep up slavery in the East Indies, give grounds for 
 
 lis hypothesis, but do not warrant its being regarded as certain. 
 
 ightly to ascribe sordid motives for acts which may be naturally 
 
 1~ tplained by those nobler feelings of the human heart which are 
 1 3ver utterly extinct, is to reflect both on ourselves and on huma- 
 i ,ty at large. Besides, it was the English nation and not the 
 nglish government, which raised the cry of emancipation the 
 ost solemn and powerful which ever re-echoed throughout the 
 
 VOL. II. P 

 
 210 TREATY BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE FOR 
 
 world. "Without the efforts of the quakers and of the dissenters of 
 England, without their preachings and the impulse so given to 
 public opinion, the opposition which Wilberforce's immortal motion 
 encountered would never have been surmounted. But at all events, 
 after having proclaimed emancipation in its own colonies, the Eng- 
 lish government was led to desire that the example should be fol- 
 lowed in those belonging to other powers, and thus what had been 
 a question of humanity became one of interest, and it did not fail to 
 follow up the abolition of slavery and the suppression of the slave- 
 trade with the perseverance characteristic of the English. After the 
 revolution of 1830, the opportunity seemed favourable for bringing 
 over France to its plans; and, on the 30th of November, 1831, 
 Count Horace Sebastiani and Viscount Grenville signed, on behalf 
 of their respective courts, a treaty for the suppression of the slave- 
 trade. 
 
 The treaty enacted that, within certain specified limits, each of the 
 two countries should have the right of visiting the merchantmen of 
 the other; that the number of vessels privileged to exercise this right 
 should be fixed each year by special convention ; that it might not 
 be the same for each country, but that in no case the number of 
 the cruisers of the one should be more than double that of the other; 
 that the ships seized on account of their being engaged in the slave 
 trade, or on suspicion of such being their destination from their 
 equipment, should, with their crews, be delivered without delay up 
 to the jurisdiction of the country to which they should belong, 
 to be judged solely by the laws of their respective countries. 
 
 Nothing could be more sacred or august than the avowed aim of 
 this treaty. Europe cannot tolerate, without degradation, a traffic 
 in human flesh ; and it is its duty to brand slave-dealers as wretches, 
 and pursue and punish them as assassins. If the right of visiting, in 
 war time, neutral vessels suspected of carrying arms to the enemy 
 has been admitted by all civilised nations, why not allow in time of 
 peace the right of visiting vessels suspected of bearing their living 
 freight to slavery? Unfortunately, the treaty on this subject, con- 
 cluded between France and England, tended to realise a good prin- 
 ciple by detestable means. In order to annihilate this infamous 
 traffic all the powers should have been summoned to a crusade 
 against it, and this time they would have been allied by the double 
 bond of religion and of humanity. A neutral flotilla should have been 
 established, commissioned not by this or that nation, but by all 
 Europe.* And, indeed, was not the refusal of a single people to 
 
 * When, at a later period, the right of search became the subject of public debate, 
 this was the solution of the question adopted by all the sincere and noble-minded. 
 But, alas! the difficulty of carrying it into execution has furnished a triumphant 
 argument to its adversaries : sovereigns easily agree, and easily assemble congresses, 
 when the object is to agree in tyranising over the people, or dividing them among 
 themselves like brute beasts; but they find it very difficult to coalesce when the 
 object is merely to tear thousands of poor victims out of the hand of robbers !
 
 THE SUPPRESSION OF THE SLAVE TRADE. 211 
 
 adopt the agreement sufficient to render the convention on the right 
 of search useless? Did not America, republican as she boasts to be, 
 and who dishonours herself by tolerating slavery, enable the slave- 
 dealers to escape all pursuit by hoisting the American flag? Here 
 was the weak point of the treaty signed by MM. Sebastiani and 
 Grenville ; and it had, too, the serious inconvenience of furnishing 
 those well-known and incorrigible tyrants of the ocean waste, the 
 English, with an excuse for harassing our navy, impeding our com- 
 merce, humiliating our sailors, and insultingly controlling our move- 
 ments, and all this whilst artfully invoking the name of philanthropy. 
 It is true that the right being reciprocal, reprisals were in our power; 
 but besides that these were restricted by the privilege the treaty gave 
 England of maintaining twice as many cruisers as France, reprisals 
 lead to war, and it is the height of temerity to leave the germ of 
 inevitable disagreements in the fundamentals of an alliance.* 
 
 And yet it was this ill-conceived and dangerous treaty which the 
 French government, in 1833, consented to confirm and extend; and 
 if a doubt could have remained as to the ulterior designs of England, 
 it would have been removed by the clauses of the supplementary con- 
 vention signed at Paris, on the 22d of March, 1833, by Viscount 
 Grenville and the Duke de Broglie, our minister for foreign affairs: 
 for the supplementary convention was not, as it has since been asserted, 
 limited to developing the basis of the original treaty, and removing 
 the difficulties which had occurred in its execution, but modified its 
 nature and effects. Thus it was stipulated by the sixth article that 
 every merchantman, of either nation, should be concluded to be en- 
 gaged in the slave-trade, or to be designed for it, if there were found 
 on board hatchways with iron gratings instead of the common wooden 
 ones, or a store of planks fit for forming a flying bridge, or chains 
 and handcuffs, or a greater provision of water than was required for 
 the wants of the vessel, or too many mess plates and cans, or too 
 large a quantity of rice, corn, cassada, Indian corn, &c. 
 
 Chains and handcuffs might certainly be considered proofs of 
 criminal intent; but was not the settling that a ship might be 
 diverted from her destination, cut off from her trade, and dragged 
 into port to undergo the delays and disagreeables of a law-suit, be- 
 cause it pleased a foreigner to find too much corn or rice on board 
 of her, a caricature of the right of search, and a complete change of 
 its character? Was it not exposing the mercantile navy to vexa- 
 tions of all sorts, which could only be met by brutal reprisals? 
 Strange that the cabinet of the Tuileries, so enamoured of peace, 
 should have exposed it to the merest mercies of chance; strange to 
 allow it to depend on the injustice or overbearing conduct of the 
 first seaman who should exercise the right of search in a bad spirit ! 
 
 * M. Schoelcher, the most worthy and earnest of all the defenders of this cele- 
 brated treaty, could hardly have sufficiently considered this point. 
 
 P2
 
 212 FRENCH POLICY REGARDING PORTUGAL. 
 
 Is more required to show the imperious character of English in- 
 fluence at the Tuileries at this period? 
 
 The conduct of the French ministers towards Portugal was as 
 unequivocal an index of their timorous and yielding policy. That 
 country had been long troubled by the contest between the two 
 brothers, Don Pedro and Don Miguel, who pursued it with im- 
 placable fury the crown being the prize. After numerous vicis- 
 situdes, the father of Donna Maria had made himself master of 
 Oporto ; to which Don Miguel kid siege. Oporto was but a small 
 point on the map of Europe; yet on this all eyes were fixed, as 
 on a spot whence might flash the first sparks of a general confla- 
 gration. An avowed despiser of modern charters, and a declared 
 despot, Don Miguel had the sympathies of the ultra -monarchical 
 powers of the continent, and received both encouragement and 
 assistance from them. Besides, he depended on the people; whose 
 ignorance is so easily led to make a compact with despotism in 
 every country in which superstition has sway. Don Pedro had car- 
 ried to Portugal a charter after the English fashion, and consequently 
 appealed to Great Britain and to France to support the rights of 
 Donna Maria, his daughter. 
 
 The French government put up vows for Don Pedro, but durst 
 go no farther. General Solignac, summoned to Oporto to give the 
 benefit of his military talents and long experience to the constitu- 
 tional cause, met only reserve and coldness from the cabinet of the 
 Tuileries. No sum of money was put, even secretly, at his dis- 
 posal. A timid tolerance was extended to the steps he took to secure 
 the assistance of his brothers in arms; but no precaution was neg- 
 lected to be able to deny all official participation in the movement. 
 The Duchess of Braganza, who was then at Paris, and who would 
 have willingly pawned her diamonds to have purchased avaikble 
 assistance, was obliged to resign herself to a state of mind rather 
 anxious than hopeful; and, in short, General Solignac could only 
 throw into the balance the weight of his name and of his sword. 
 
 And here we must say that the conduct of the cabinet of St. 
 James's was more pusilknimous and more hesitating still, than that 
 of the cabinet of the Tuileries. The policy of England, in the 
 hands of Earl Grey and of the Whigs, who had been borne into 
 office by the triumph of reform, seemed to have lost its customary 
 clear-sightedness and vigour. The Whigs could not be ignorant of 
 Don Miguel's hatred of them ; and by not lending decisive support 
 to Don Pedro, they exposed themselves to see an enemy installed on 
 the throne of Portugal, which, since the Methuen treaty, had been 
 considered in the light of an English colony. But the policy of the 
 Duke of Wellington and Lord Aberdeen, predecessors of Earl Grey 
 and Lord Pahnerston, had not been less inconsistent, for they had I 
 alternately stigmatised and supported Don Miguel. At one time, ' 
 Lord Aberdeen, from his place in the House of Lords, would launch ; 
 a thundering anathema against Don Miguel's cruelty and dastardli-
 
 DEFEAT OF DON MIGUEL. 213 
 
 ness; at another, the Duke of Wellington would order the English 
 cruisers to sink the ship in which General Saldanha and some other 
 of Don Pedro's partisans had embarked: a barbarous order, which 
 occasioned it to be said that England had kept in reserve, for Don 
 Miguel's use, balls saved from the bombardment of ^Copenhagen ! 
 
 In this state of things, Don Pedro was true to himself. Guided 
 by General Solignac, and powerfully seconded by the intrepid ad- 
 venturers furnished him by France this nation of soldiers, he de- 
 fended Oporto with remarkable constancy, but with efforts which 
 threatened to exhaust his resources. Don Miguel had an army of 
 6000 men on the south of the Douro, and, on its northern banks, 
 one of 17,000, whilst the besieged army barely amounted to 13,000. 
 At one time famine pressed hard on the city ; the cholera had left cruel 
 marks of its passage there; the patience of the inhabitants was nearly 
 exhausted; there was no hand powerful enough to keep the bonds of 
 discipline much longer united in a garrison composed of men of so 
 many different countries; Sartorius, the commodore of Don Pedro's 
 fleet, had openly revolted, had left the coast, and it had been found 
 necessary first to appease him, then to find a substitute for him: 
 abundant, indeed, were the reasons for bringing matters to a crisis ! 
 This was General Solignac's opinion; and, in a council of war, called 
 with the object of coming to an energetic and definitive resolution, he 
 proposed to march right against the enemy, cut through them, and ap- 
 pear sword in hand before Lisbon. All his dispositions were taken, 
 he had studied the ground, weighed the courage of either army, 
 and answered for the victory. The majority of the Council, how- 
 ever, came to a different decision; and it was determined to send a 
 body of 4000 men into the province of Algarva, which required but 
 the signal for insurrection, whilst Don Pedro should wait the result 
 of this division where he was. General Solignac, who was con- 
 scious that a spirit of insubordination was spreading, and who, not- 
 withstanding he was commander-in-chief, had not the necessary 
 influence, having had, too, the mortification of finding his own aide- 
 de-camp, M. Duverger, oppose his opinion in the last council of 
 war, laid down his command and withdrew from Oporto, with every 
 apprehension that Don Pedro would lose the game, through lack of 
 nerve and boldness. 
 
 But new and happy circumstances came to aid the fortunes of 
 Don Pedro. The Duke of Palmella, who, as an English instru- 
 ment, was to Portugal what Talleyrand was to France, and M. Van 
 de Weyer to Belgium, had been busy negociating a loan in England 
 for the constitutional cause, as successfully as M. Mendizabal had 
 previously been in the same country and for the same end; and this 
 money quickly brought levies of volunteers to Oporto, together 
 with English sailors, commanded by Captain Napier, a true sea- 
 man. From this moment, Don Pedro enjoyed a succession of 
 triumphs and of good fortune. The Duke of Terceira overran 
 Algarva, and the flag of Donna Maria soon floated over the whole
 
 214 AFFAIRS OF SPAIN. 
 
 province. Napier encountered the Miguelite fleet off St. Vincent, 
 consisting of two ships of the line, two frigates, three corvettes, two 
 brigs, and a xebeck; and, although he had only three frigates, a 
 corvette, a brig, and a small schooner, notwithstanding this inequa- 
 lity of force, he immediately fell upon it with irresistible impetuo- 
 sity, and gained a complete victory. Don Miguel's fleet annihilated, 
 a profound consternation takes possession of his army. The Duke 
 01 Terceira hurries towards the capital, carries the town of Setubal, 
 and cuts in pieces a body of 6000 Miguelites, whose leader, Telles 
 Jordao, is killed on the spot. The Duke of Cadaval, governor of 
 the capital, flies terror-struck; Lisbon opens her gates; her popula- 
 tion throngs to meet the conquerors with those confused shouts 
 which hail all victories; and at the head of 1500 men, the Duke of 
 Terceira takes possession of the town in the name of Donna Maria. 
 This was on the 24th of July, 1833. On the 27th, M. de BOUT- 
 mont, who had arrived a few days before at the camp of Don Miguel, 
 made a furious but useless assault on Oporto, in which blood flowed 
 like water, and the trenches were filled with dead bodies, and he 
 withdrew to his camp in agjmy of mind. Although the struggle 
 might yet be for sometime prolonged, every thing seemed to pre- 
 sage the downfal of Don Miguel, and the French legitimatists 
 already saw him bearing away with him. the last remaining shred of 
 monarchy. 
 
 The news of these events was doubly agreeable to Louis Philippe, 
 as serving to strengthen him on his throne, and without compro- 
 mising him in the eyes of the continental powers. But Spain was 
 preparing serious uneasiness for him. 
 
 Auguring from the sudden turns and unlocked for fluctuations 
 which rendered the political physiognomy of this country so change- 
 able, one would necessarily have concluded that the fate of the na- 
 tion depended upon the time the king would take in dying; and 
 the conclusion was warranted by the extraordinary scene enacted the 
 preceding year in the palace of La Granja, when Ferdinand VH. 
 had seemed on the point of expiring. An old servant of his. M. 
 Calomarde. who had become by degrees his minister and favourite, 
 took possession of his bedside, and, having been gained over by the 
 Apostolicals, the moment he saw Ferdinand's naturally weak mind 
 utterly sinking, and the shades of death thickening around him, ex- 
 erted the mastery he had acquired over him, and extorted from his 
 trembling hand the revocation of the pragmatic act which left the 
 youthful Isabella heiress of the Spanish crown, to the exclusion of 
 Don Carlos. As soon as this is effected, the report is spread that 
 Ferdinand has breathed his last, and that Don Carlos is his successor. 
 Hereupon a universal movement takes place; the people begin to be 
 agitated, the ambitious prepare themselves for coming events, the 
 liberals are disturbed by fear, and the Apostolicals in their rising joy 
 insult their dejected enemies. In her inexperience and trouble, 
 Christina is at a loss to know what ought to be done or what
 
 LOUISA CARLOTTA. CALOMARDE. ZEA-BERMUDEZ. 215 
 
 should be dared, when the infanta, Louisa Carlotta, suddenly hastens 
 from the south of Spain, appears unexpectedly at the palace of La 
 Granja, and as indignant as Christina, but more resolute, insists on 
 seeing Calomarde, upbraids him in violent terms, threatens him, and, 
 it is even said, strikes him : so that round the bed on which lay a 
 half-expiring monarch in all the nothingness of human grandeur, his 
 relatives, ministers, and servants were tumultuously contending for 
 the prizes of his death a spectacle worthy of the beneficial in- 
 fluences of a pure monarchy ! But a startling incident occurred 
 Ferdinand did not die. The sequel may be guessed. It was the 
 turn of the Apostolicals to tremble, and of the liberals to insult. 
 Ferdinand gained strength by degrees; the pragmatic act was re- 
 stored to honour, Calomarde banished, and Christina resumed the 
 management of affairs. 
 
 But, at the same time, M. Zea-Bermudez was recalled to power. 
 Now, his policy was reducible to two principles first, the_ main- 
 tenance of absolute government combined with certain administra- 
 tive reforms; secondly, the establishment of the rights of Isabella: 
 and, indeed, some petty ameliorations were attempted, and the Cortes 
 convoked by states to Madrid to take the oath of fidelity to Isabella 
 n., declared princess of the Asturias. But to desire the confirmation 
 of despotism was to provoke the opposition of all the partisans of the 
 young queen, who coveted a constitution, whilst the recognition of 
 Isabella equally offended and alienated the friends of Don Carlos, so 
 that nothing could be more impolitic or less durable than M. Zea's 
 policy, and its consequences were fantastic in the extreme. Although 
 the contest between Don Carlos and Isabella in Spain, that between 
 Don Miguel and Donna Maria in Portugal, and the contest between 
 Louis Philippe and the Duke de Bordeaux in France, were different 
 in origin and character, there nevertheless existed a very strongly- 
 knit political bond between Don Carlos, Don Miguel, and the Duke 
 of Bordeaux on the one hand, and Isabella, Donna Maria, and Louis 
 Philippe on the other; and this M. Zea altogether overlooked. As 
 the subject of Isabella he had to oppose Don Carlos; whilst, as a sup- 
 porter of despotism, he countenanced Don Miguel, by whom Don 
 Carlos was encouraged and assisted. Never were the errors of a 
 system of policy revealed by more contradictory results. However, 
 the system being based on M. Zea's own convictions, he followed it 
 up with a calm and noble firmness for which the greatest ministers 
 might have taken credit to themselves; and on strenuous representa- 
 tions from England, respecting the mode in which he displayed his 
 sympathy for Don Miguel, he did not hesitate to return haughty 
 replies, declaring that if the English should enter Portugal in the 
 name of Don Pedro, he would march his Spaniards into it in the name 
 of Don Miguel. 
 
 Such was the policy of Spain, when, on the 29th of September, 
 1833, Ferdinand VII. gave up the ghost. His life had been a series 
 of low buffooneries mingled with the cruelties of an animal nature ;
 
 216 DEATH OF FERDINAND VII. CONSEQUENT 
 
 and his weak and sanguinary character had made him by turns the 
 slave of those who surrounded him, and the tyrant of his people. He 
 died, leaving to his young widow a stormy regency, to his infant 
 daughter a disputed throne, and to his country civil war. 
 
 The death of the King of Spain was no sooner known at Paris, than 
 the council met to discuss the question of the recognition of the 
 youthful Isabella. 
 
 To recognise her was to destroy the work accomplished by Louis 
 XIV., when he had secured, not alone the sovereignty of Spain for 
 his grandson, but the adoption of the Salic law, so peculiarly French, 
 by that country ; and the maintenance of which law there was of the 
 highest moment to France, since it sheltered her from all the perils 
 of a marriage which might render Spain English, or which might 
 revive the Austrian interest in Madrid. Was it right to incur the 
 chance of another Charles V.? Was it provident to keep the gate of 
 the Pyrenees open to the English, so that they might come to attack 
 us by land ? They cannot disembark on our own coast without 
 running the risk of being driven into the sea ; but, on the side of the 
 Pyrenees, they can commence operations much more safely to them- 
 selves and more dangerously for \is. In a national point of view, 
 therefore, it was our interest to side with Don Carlos, and so hinder 
 a woman from some day inviting a foreign prince to seat himself 
 on the throne of Spain, and depriving us of an indispensable al- 
 liance. 
 
 The objections to these arguments were, firstly, that the upshot of 
 the marriage might be in our favour, and, indeed, was more likely to 
 be so than in that of any other power ; and, secondly, that to sup- 
 port the rights of the male branch in Spain was to crown, in Don 
 Carlos, the bitterest enemy of the house of Orleans and of its new- 
 made dynasty. 
 
 The first of these considerations had little weight with Louis 
 Philippe, who stood in too much awe of the other continental powers 
 to cherish the hope of making one of his sons the husband of the 
 youthful Isabella : but the whole aim of his policy being to secure 
 the French throne in his own family, the idea that the triumph of 
 Don Carlos might pave the way for the return of the Duke of Bour- 
 deaux, was sufficient to decide him. The opinion of the king was 
 that of his ministers, Avho unanimously approved of the recognition 
 of the Queen of Spain, although Christina had retained Don Miguel's 
 partisan, M. Zea : and M. Mignet was instructed to be the bearer of 
 this important announcement to Madrid. 
 
 M. Thiers had begun to exercise in the council, even on questions 
 which did not come within the province of his own department, the 
 influence to which his universality of talent, his insinuating manners, 
 his activity and incontestable endowments, entitled him. He was, 
 moreover, liked by the king, because the latter, finding him easy and 
 careless, he flattered himself that he ruled him. M. Thiers took ad- 
 vantage of these circumstances to turn the policy of the cabinet into"
 
 POLICY OF FRANCE. M. THIERS. 217 
 
 that route in which he proposed to lead it on, in conformity with 
 views which we shall hereafter have occasion fully to develope. He 
 showed his colleagues and the king that the recognition of the Queen 
 of Spain implied the obligation of aiding her in case of need ; that 
 it became a country like France to attach to its acts of courtesy the 
 value of a real benefit and the authority of a high patronage ; that 
 the tempest collecting above the Pyrenees, and which might burst 
 upon our southern provinces, ought not to find us unprepared ; and 
 that, in short, it would be useful, and was even necessary, to levy an 
 army of observation of 50,000 men. 
 
 Although systematically opposed to all strong measures, the king 
 approved of the suggestion. Besides, the raising an army of 50,000 
 men was not pledging himself to employ it, and this was enough to 
 decide him, for he is completely deficient in foresight. Endowed 
 with unusual powers of judgment on matters of the moment on the 
 isolated accidents of politics, he is unable to embrace a comprehensive 
 view of a question, and to seize its logical consequences. The faculty 
 of generalization is wanting in him to an extraordinary degree. He 
 will often admit a principle, certain to try afterwards and wriggle 
 out of its inevitable results by painful and dangerous artifices. The 
 proposition of M. Thiers involving, as he supposed, no offensive or 
 decisive step, he did not hesitate to adopt it, for want of perceiving 
 its bearing and its remote consequences. We must add that, as a 
 general rule, Louis Philippe, who had struck root in peace, never- 
 theless lent himself, and very willingly, to every measure which 
 aimed at the increase of the army. " How glorious," he once ex- 
 claimed to one of his ministers, who was laying before him the 
 amount of his disposable troops, " How glorious to have so large 
 a force at command, and to make no use of it !" A saying which 
 might have appeared philosophical and profound, had the national 
 guard alone been employed to overawe malecontents. 
 
 After having secured the king's consent to this levy of 50,000 
 men, M. Thiers had no difficulty in obtaining that of Marshal 
 Soult, the minister of war. He was no favourite of the marshal's, 
 for whom, on his part, he entertained little liking; but his brilliant 
 eloquence was so much at his service in parliament, that he at last 
 made his way with him. 
 
 There was now only the finance minister for him to gain over, 
 but here he had to encounter an obstinate opposition. M. Humann 
 conceived the art of finance to lie in petty savings, and of all ex- 
 penses, those for the increase of the army were the least to his 
 taste; so he took care to object to M. Thiers the want of the neces- 
 sary funds, the danger of asking from the Chamber a vote of credit 
 which might be refused, the certainty of parliamentary difficulties, 
 the end of which could not be foreseen ; and he concluded by declaring 
 that he had no relish for hazarding his responsibility on a throw of 
 the dice. M. Thiers insisted on his point, urged that the cause of 
 Christina was that of the revolution of July itself, undertook to
 
 218 TROUBLES IN SAVOY. 
 
 carry the measure through the Chamber, and at kst gained the 
 day. 
 
 The matter was debated several days, and the council had met 
 for the last time to put the measure into a formal shape, when, to 
 the astonishment of the king and of M. Thiers, Marshal Soult sud- 
 denly exclaimed, in reference to the new troops it was proposed to 
 levy " I want none of them !" This burst, so unexpected by 
 every one, violently excited the king, who, so runs the report, was 
 hurried into saying, " Marshal, you are making a mess of the 
 matter," (vous faites du gacliis;) to which the minister, stifling 
 with anger, retorted, " Marshal Soult is making no mess of it," and 
 flung out of the room. This sudden change of opinion was attri- 
 buted by some of his colleagues to the base suggestions of an under- 
 strapper, who had persuaded him that the measure was only brought 
 forward to compromise him with the Chambers, and to subject him 
 to the mortification of an unfavourable division. Nothing was more 
 improbable. However, as his resignation seemed likely, the king 
 wrote a soothing letter to him ; to which he returned for answer that 
 lie would see what was to be done. On this it became necessary 
 to think of giving him a successor, and Marshal Maison was sug- 
 gested ; but soon thinking better of it, the old minister of war timely 
 resumed his functions, and harmony once more prevailed in the 
 council. 
 
 Such is the picture of the foreign policy pursued by the French 
 government in 1833, which presents itself for the judgment of 
 history. In the East it was uncertain, ill-considered, blind, and 
 contradictory; with regard to England, it was summed up in the 
 rashest of all engagements. Absolutely null with respect to Por- 
 tugal, it assumed towards Spain a character of decision, which, 
 would deserve praise had it been followed up. On the whole, the 
 year 1833 was marked neither by the number nor brilliancy of its 
 events; but the solution of many questions was commenced in it, 
 and Providence submitted to the passions of men more than one 
 important and formidable problem. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WE are now entering upon a stormy epoch. The spirit of revo- 
 lution which, in 1833, sank, as it were, into a disturbed sleep, was 
 destined to a sudden and terrible awaking at Lyons. 
 
 The storm, whose clouds had begun to collect in Geneva, whence 
 they were about to darken the whole of Italy, first burst forth in 
 Savoy. Strictly speaking, these first movements appear unconnected 
 with France; but they emanated from the revolution of 1830, and 

 
 " YOUNG ITALY." 219 
 
 were calculated to have a powerful influence upon its destinies ; they 
 were ultimately connected -with the movements of the French mind; 
 they kept awake, in the heart of attentive France, noble sympathies 
 and hopes which sought for encouragement; in short, they were 
 linked with the efforts of the democratic party in the Jura, at Lyons, 
 and at Grenoble ; and from all these considerations they deserve our 
 devoting a few pages to them, the more so that they have been hi- 
 therto imperfectly known and ill-understood. 
 
 Charles Albert had become, from conspirator, King of Sardinia. 
 His treasons were no mystery to any of his former accomplices ; and 
 yet when the old carbonari saw one of their fraternity on a throne, 
 they could not refrain from a feeling of hope and pride. Would 
 not the monarch keep some of those promises which the prince had 
 made? Many thought so; and a letter was published which re- 
 called his former career. Charles Albert's reply was prosecutions 
 and threats of proscription. The Italian patriots then iinderstood 
 that a prince who had had them for his confidants, could only be 
 their enemy; and an association was organised, known under the 
 name of Young Italy. 
 
 Young Italy, the reverse of carbonarism, which had been scep- 
 tical and liberal, was profoundly religious and democratic. Its 
 founder and head was M. Mazzini; its aim, the independence and 
 unity of Italy; its symbol, a branch of cypress, with the device 
 " Now and always" (Ora e sempre)-, its means, insurrection and 
 propagandise!, the conspirator's sword and the journalist's pen. 
 Young Italy spread its principles through the medium of a news- 
 paper established at Marseilles, and prepared for its revolutionary 
 campaign by mysterious committees formed in Lombardy, Tuscany, 
 the Papal States, and latterly at Naples. The conspiracy soon 
 reckoned numerous recruits among the youth of Italy, and struck 
 root in the army, and, more particularly, in the artillery. The plan 
 was for a few men, chosen from different provinces, to form the in- 
 surrectionary government a provisional power which was to have 
 expired with the insurrection, that is, as soon as Austria no longer 
 possessed an inch of ground in Italy. On that day a national con- 
 gress was to assemble at Rome, and supersede all the authorities 
 which had sprung out of the necessities of the moment. Attempts 
 from without were to be combined with this internal movement. 
 The system of guerilla warfare was adopted, because, in Mazzini's 
 opinion, this harmonised best with the inspirations of patriotism, 
 because it hallowed by some brave deed every Corner of the soil, 
 because it did not crush under the weight of military discipline the 
 spontaneous feats of patriotic valour, and because, in short, as Napo- 
 leon had said, it was not by parade movements that ThermopylsB 
 was defended. 
 
 Unfortunately, one false idea prevailed throughout these plans. 
 The feeling of patriotism had been weakened in Italy, even among 
 the truest lovers of their country, by the custom the Italians had ac-
 
 220 CONSPIRATORS DETECTED AND PUNISHED. 
 
 quired since 1830, of looking to France and resting their hopes in 
 her alone. Mazzini and his associates wished to counteract this ten- 
 dency, but they set about it too ardently. Victims of an honourable 
 delusion, they imagined that a summons to independence would be 
 sufficient to make battalions of citizens start out of the very earth, 
 forgetting that the denizens of their beautiful clime wanted the 
 energy which the extreme of destitution imparts. They fancied 
 that Italy, enervated by a long slavery which its physical and ma- 
 terial advantages prevented from galling, would nevertheless start 
 up to commence a revolution for herself, instead of waiting to be 
 impelled by France, and would lead the world in the march of de- 
 mocracy. This was a great and a fatal mistake. The leaders of the 
 conspiracy were stopped at each step by the inexperience, mistrust, 
 want of energy, and doubt, which were the bitter fruits of four cen- 
 turies of the spy system and of servitude. The Sardinian govern- 
 ment was aware that plots were hatching, and was on the watch, 
 when a trifling circumstance put it on the track of the conspirators. 
 Two subalterns of artillery, one of whom had begun to sound the other 
 on the subject of joining the conspiracy, fell out on a love affair and 
 drew on each other. They were arrested, and some words of ven- 
 geance uttered at the moment excited suspicion. Government ordered 
 a strict search to be made throughout the baggage of the artillery; 
 some fragments of pamphlets and a list of names are found, and 
 arrests follow. Terror is at its height in Genoa, Turin, and Cham- 
 bery. All means are put in action to obtain confessions ; friends by 
 deceitful promises are tempted to betray friends ; the fears of sisters, 
 wives, and mothers are turned to account to procure information; 
 and the dungeons themselves swarm with spies?) A Serjeant of the 
 sappers, named Miglio, one of the arrested, was put into the same cell 
 with a stranger who made him believe that he was a fellow conspi- 
 rator, and giving him to understand that he had still, means of com- 
 munication with his friends, the hapless man fell into the snare, and 
 entrusted the wretch with a letter for his family, which he had 
 managed to write with his own blood for ink. This letter was pro- 
 duced on his trial, and condemned Miglio to death. The frightful 
 power of moral tortures had been tried upon a gentle and noble- 
 minded young man, M. Jacopo Ruffini. He opposed to them silent 
 contempt and calm indignation; and, during the night, he severed 
 the tie which bound his generous and wounded soul to its earthly 
 covering by means of a nail, which he forced out of his prison door. 
 In a short time /he prisons were filled, and numerous victims de- 
 livered over to the executioner. 
 
 The blow fell rudely on Young Italy; which, however, was neither 
 subdued nor broken up. In the course of 1833 Mazzini repaired to 
 Geneva, where he organised an expedition which, traversing Savoy, 
 was to invade Italy; but the ill-success of the previous attempts made 
 against him. There was associated with him General Ramorino, of 
 a Savoyard family, who, since the Polish insurrection, had been the
 
 MAZZINI. RAMORINO. BUONAROTTI. 221 
 
 hero of the Italian youth. Mazzini had his doubts ; he distrusted 
 those rapidly made reputations, and remembered that Young Italy 
 was vowed to the worship of principles and not of names. But the 
 general was forced upon him by the committees of the interior and 
 by those who supplied the funds, who were almost all Italian re- 
 fugees. He feared, too, the being accused of jealousy if he declined 
 receiving him ; so he summoned him to Geneva, after having had 
 his character studied by two agents whom he had kept near him. 
 In their first interviews it was agreed that Italy should be invaded 
 by two columns, one setting out from Geneva, the other from Lyons. 
 General Ramorino took the care of the last upon himself, under the 
 idea that he had considerable means of influence in that city; and a 
 sum of 40,000 francs was put at his disposal. Accordingly he left 
 for Lyons, taking with him a young Modenese whom Mazzini had 
 recommended to him as a secretary, but, in reality, to keep a watch 
 on his proceedings. 
 
 Mazzini set on foot the conspiracy in Savoy with wonderful 
 activity. He entered into communication with Poles, Germans, 
 with the Swiss carbineers, purchased arms, studied the plan of the 
 approaching campaign, and, in enthusiastic letters, urged the demo- 
 crats of Paris to try a diversion. He went further. To decide 
 them to the step, he exhibited Italy to them as aroused and already 
 victorious, exaggerated the chances of success in order to increase 
 them, and imagined triumph in order to obtain it. What we ar- 
 dently desire, we easily believe; and the chief of the republican 
 party at Paris were preparing to second vigorously the expedition 
 of Savoy, when it was condemned as rash, and as contaminated 
 with aristocratic alloy by Buonarotti, the patriarch of the new 
 CarbonarisuA 
 
 We must There be allowed a brief digression, in order to describe 
 one of the least known, but most remarkable characters of our time. 
 
 Buonarotti was born at Pisa, and was descended from Michel An- 
 gelo. The gravity of his deportment, the authority of his speech, 
 always unctuous though severe, the furrows imprinted by deep me- 
 ditation and long experience on his noble countenance, his ample 
 brow, thoughtful look, and haughty curve of lip, on which pru- 
 dence, however, had set her seal all conspired to liken him to the 
 sages of ancient Greece. He had their virtue, wisdom, and good- 
 ness; and his very authority was tempered by infinite sweetness. 
 Endowed, like all men of pure conscience, with admirable serenity 
 of mind, he had seen death approach him without emotion, and had 
 been raised above the agonies of want by the energy of his soul. 
 Only, his sufferings had left the traces of that august melancholy 
 with which the spectacle of humanity inspires the true philosopher. 
 His opinions might truly be said to be of heavenly origin, since 
 they aimed at reviving among mankind the brotherhood taught by 
 the Gospel: but they were with difficulty comprehended in an age 
 brutalised by excess of corruption for there are truths whi '
 
 222 BUONAROTTI. 
 
 although most simple, yet are of so sublime a character, that the in- 
 tellect alone will not talce them in ; they must be acknowledged by 
 the heart, without whose qualities the most gifted minds possess but 
 seeming strength and false lights. Buonarotti loved the people, but 
 with a profound love ; not that intemperate love arising out of the 
 tumultuous feelings of youth, which subsequently becoming embit- 
 tered by the experience of riper years, ends by turning into gall, 
 often degenerates into ambition, and is then lost in the violence of 
 the unprincipled demagogue. Buonarotti loved the people, and had 
 never ceased to conspire for them ; yet with the distrust of an expe- 
 rienced observer, and the calmness of a philosopher, studying men 
 before resigning himself to them, armed with a clear-sightedness 
 akin to suspicion, circumspect in the choice of his allies, and reckon- 
 ing far less on their number than on the sincerity of their devotion. 
 A witness of our first revolution, to which he had nearly fallen a 
 martyr, and the bed-fellow of Bonaparte in his youthful days, he 
 had divined the new Caesar, and was not ignorant of the gradual 
 steps which lead from liberty to despotism, and from the agitations 
 of the forum to the discipline of the camp. He also knew how 
 often the best causes are more injured by their partisans than by 
 their enemies. That so constituted, Buonarotti should have de- 
 clined becoming in France, where he had taken up his abode, the 
 chief of a noisy party, and should have moved, almost unnoticed, 
 on the political scene, is easily conceivable; and yet his action 
 upon it was far from being without power. Poor, and support- 
 ing himself by teaching music, nevertheless, in the depth of his 
 obscurity, he held power over generous minds, moved many secret 
 springs, maintained constant relations with the democrats abroad, 
 and, seconded by Voyer d'Argenson and Charles Teste, held, in 
 the sphere in which his ascendancy was exercised, the reins of 
 propagandism, so as to accelerate or restrain its movements. He 
 withheld his approbation from the revolutionary campaign pre- 
 paring at Geneva, for two reasons; knowing Italy, and informed 
 of the real state of things there by his correspondents, he per- 
 ceived that the expedition of Savoy could end in nothing; and, 
 on the other hand, he mistrusted some of the individuals engaged 
 in it. The truth is, that all Mazzini's companions were not in- 
 fluenced by the same sacred belief and the same love of humanity 
 as himself. Now Buonarotti thought that the truth ought to have 
 defenders worthy of her, and that they alone are worthy to serve 
 the people who can honour them by their virtue. 
 
 However, Ramorino had left Lyons and repaired to Paris, in- 
 forming Mazzini that he met with unexpected obstacles, and asking 
 for a month to make preparations. Afterwards he asked a second, 
 and then a third month. Mazzini grew impatient at these delays, 
 for the secret was getting wind, police agents nocked to Geneva, 
 some refugees, who only subsisted on the frugal hospitality of the 
 Swiss patriots, threatened to set out; offers came from the French
 
 PLAN OF OPERATIONS ARRANGED BY MAZZINI. 223 
 
 embassy to the Poles who had left Besai^on of assistance and their 
 travelling expenses, if they would return to France ; suspicion kept 
 watch on the threshold of the conspiracy, which fatigue and discou- 
 ragement had already crossed in short, it was time to act. Gene- 
 ral Ramorino, importuned by Mazzini's emissaries, at last declares 
 that nothing is prepared at Lyons, and that he is beset with insur- 
 mountable difficulties ; and he returns 10,000 francs out of the 
 49,000 francs which had been entrusted to him. It was already 
 January, 1834, and the movement, which ought to have been general 
 in the October of the preceding year, was not yet begun. 
 
 Uneasy, and a prey to the most painful doubts, Mazzini resolved 
 to bring matters to a crisis. He fixed the day of action, and ap- 
 prized Ramorino of it. The general was expected on the 20th of 
 January, but did not arrive till the evening of the 31st, accompanied 
 by two general officers, an aide-de-camp, and a medical man. The 
 interview between him and Mazzini was sad and troubled by gloomy 
 presentiments. Mazzini proposed for the basis of operations the 
 taking of St. Julien, where were assembled agents from the different 
 provinces of Savoy, and where the signal was to be given for the in- 
 surrection, which, once begun, he thought he could easily defeat 
 Ramorino's disaffection, supposing that his suspicions were founded. 
 Whether or not he divined this, the general agreed to the plan. 
 The expedition was to consist of two columns. The insurgents 
 who composed the first were to proceed from Geneva and rendezvous 
 on the frontier at Carouge ; those of the second, setting out from 
 Nyon, where they had a depot of arms, were to cross the lake and 
 join their companions on ths road to St. Julien. General Ramorino 
 gave the command of this column to a Pole, named Grabski, a 
 brave soldier, but inexperienced in expeditions of the kind. 
 
 The government of Geneva could not remain ignorant of the at- 
 tempt, and had taken steps to frustrate it. The militia was under 
 arms ; drums beat in every quarter ; gendarmes were posted at the 
 gates of the Hotel de la Navigation ; and the ferry-boats were seized. 
 But the insurgents were protected by the sympathies of the inha- 
 bitants, and even by those of the militia, whose officers shed tears 
 whilst arresting them, and, yielding to the entreaties of the townsmen, 
 set them at liberty. The authorities were thus rendered powerless, 
 and the first column began its march under happy auspices. 
 
 The fate of the second was different. Two barks had left Nyon, 
 one freighted with men, the other with arms; but a government 
 boat cut between them, and the arms were seized and the men 
 arrested, and led back to the Genevese territory. 
 
 On this, General Ramorino, whether thinking the original plan 
 defective, or conceiving the co-operation of the column of Nyon in- 
 dispensable to its execution, suddenly changed the route of the 
 little troop under his command. Instead of advancing on St. Ju- 
 lien, he proceeded along the shore of the lake. The column marched 
 for a long time towards an unknown destination; the cold was ex-
 
 224 FAILURE OF THE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 cessive; not a soldier appeared; and composed, with the exception 
 of the Poles, of young men ready for a sudden dash, but unaccus- 
 tomed to toilsome marches, its progress was slow and painful. Every 
 face wore the impress of gloomy anticipations, and each whispered 
 distrusting doubts to his neighbour. No enthusiastic shout greeted 
 the column in the small towns through which it passed, but only 
 wondering looks. Mazzini, exhausted by his previous labours, had 
 fallen into a state of extreme weakness, and, with the grief of see- 
 ing success slipping from him added to his ills, he was attacked by a 
 burning fever. He marched with pain, weighed down by the 
 fatigue of many sleepless nights. He had repeatedly asked Ramo- 
 rino which road they were going, why they did not march upon St. 
 Julien, why not upon Bonneville ; and, whether right or wrong in his 
 suspicions, Ramorino's answers alarmed him as they appeared evasive. 
 He went up to him for the last time when bivouacking at Carra, 
 and found him lying, wrapped in his cloak, near the fire. Maz- 
 zini told him in the delirium of his fever that they must march 
 wherever they could soonest bring on an engagement, and that if 
 they could not hope for victory it was at least necessary to prove to 
 Italy that the patriots remained faithful to their engagements and 
 knew how to die. Ramorino answered that to run to meet danger 
 uselessly would be worse than imprudent, and that it would be 
 madness to spend the lives of the flower of the Italian youth 
 without serving the common cause. Mazzini was gazing at him 
 with haggard look, and labouring heart, when firing was suddenly 
 heard. Mazzini runs to a pile of arms, and seizes a carbine thanking 
 God for sending the enemy. But he was delirious, his companions 
 seemed to him to wear a spectral hue; he tottered, fell senseless, 
 and when he came to himself, found that he was in Switzerland, 
 whither he had been carried back on a cart. The firing had only 
 been a false alarm; but Ramorino had lost all hope of success, 
 and plainly told his companions that the expedition was a failure, 
 and that their only chance was to regain the frontier. Accordingly, 
 the troop broke up. 
 
 This deplorable failure was followed by equally deplorable recri- 
 minations, as always happens in such cases. Ramorino was accused 
 of treachery, but the charge was not proved, since the facts brought 
 against him were succeptible of another interpretation than was put 
 upon them by suspicion, exasperated by misfortune. On the other 
 hand, Ramorino declared himself betrayed, without furnishing the 
 shadow of a proof, and against all probability. 
 
 Men are fallible, but sound ideas are immortal. This was well un- 
 derstood by Mazzini and his companions, and they bore up against 
 all pusillanimous despair; though they could not help regretting 
 having cast a momentary shade over the cause they upheld. For 
 the pride of their enemies rose with their failure. Austria, Russia, 
 and Prussia joined with Sardinia in a common denunciation of the 
 friends of the independence of Italy ; and Switzerland, the land of
 
 INSOLENCE OF THE GOVERNMENT PARTY IN FRANCE. 225 
 
 freedom, the last asylum offered to the -woes of the exile, Switzer- 
 land was forced, after a glorious resistance, to put a restraint for the 
 future upon its generous hospitality. It need hardly be added that 
 the French government redoubled its daring, convinced that the 
 democratic party would be long ere it found serious and available 
 support abroad. 
 
 A lamentable catastrophe was soon evidently preparing. The 
 Journal des Dcbats, the court organ, urged on the ministry in im- 
 passioned articles to the most sinister designs, and sought to excite 
 in the bourgeoisie all the passions of civil war. According to it, 
 the salvation of society from the destruction with which it was me- 
 naced, depended on the annihilation of the popular press, the proscrip- 
 tion of the republic, the declaring null even the right to form associa- 
 tions, and the shielding the royal person for ever with an impene- 
 trable buckler. This was pushing opposition to violence and de- 
 spair, and opening to the country a career of blood. But those in 
 power could not restrain their impatience. Vexed at encounter- 
 ing the republican party at every step, uninterruptedly pursued by 
 its eternal shout of challenge, and, as often happens, pushed by ex- 
 cess of fear to the extreme of audacity, they longed to ascertain 
 what extent of danger they had to expect from the depths of that 
 state of society which they were as incapable of lulling as of guiding. 
 The republicans, on their side, perceived the imminency of the 
 attack, and only sought to secure the honour of striking the first blow. 
 The struggle then began. A prosecution was instituted against the 
 National, a republican print, on the most barefaced pretences, with 
 the design of ruining it by depriving it of its name. The Populaire 
 was attacked in the person of its chief editor, M. Cabet, who, al- 
 though a member of the Chamber, saw himself dragged before a 
 jury, in virtue of an authority easily obtained from the hostile pas- 
 sions of the majority of the house. Parliament was turned into 
 an arena, and, instead of debates, resounded with interchange of 
 threats. 
 
 During the sitting of the 16th of January, M. Larabit complained 
 of the military dictatorship of Marshal Soult, who, in a communi- 
 cation addressed to the officers of artillery in garrison at Strasburg, 
 had taken upon himself to forbid their entering protests, even in 
 legal form. Murmurs arose, and General Bugeaud exclaimed "Obe- 
 dience is the first thing necessary" on which M. Dulong warmly 
 observed, ""What, if ordered to become a gaoler!" The general 
 walked up to M. Dulong, and, whilst the house was sitting, obtained 
 an explanation with which he seemed satisfied, for it screened the 
 dignity of the offender and the honour of the offended. However, 
 the resentment of individuals is more easily appeased than the pas- 
 sions of party. Amongst M. Bugeaud's friends, there were several 
 who most unwarrantably took upon themselves to resent the insult 
 he had received more warmly than himself ; and, in particular, Ge- 
 neral Rumigny, the king's aide-de-camp, made himself remarkable 
 
 VOL. II. Q
 
 226 FATAL DUEL BETWEEN M. DULONG AND 
 
 by his noisy indignation, his animated gestures, and his uneasy 
 walks along the benches of the centre. 
 
 In the midst of the hubbub M. Dulong, speaking of the sort of 
 mute and servile obedience required by ministers, had used the word 
 ignominy. The Journal des Debats took up the word, and, giving 
 it a conspicuous place in its report of the proceedings of the Cham- 
 ber, made M. Dulong say, l( What, if ordered to become a gaoler, to 
 incur ignominy !" What could be the object of this cruel falsifi- 
 cation? why did the Journal des Debats, alone, of all the papers, 
 exaggerate M. Dulong's words so as to render a duel almost inevi- 
 table ? So it was, that on seeing this report, General Bugeaud wrote 
 for a further explanation, to which M. Dulong replied by answering, 
 " I am at your service ; my friends are General Bachelu and Colo- 
 nel Desaix." The friends of both parties having met, it was agreed 
 that M. Dulong should address a letter to the Journal des Dcbats, 
 in which he should deny having used the offensive words falsely at- 
 tributed to him, a course of proceeding which sacrificed neither 
 honour nor truth. The letter was forwarded for publication on the 
 day following, the 28th; but what was the surprise and indignation 
 of M. Dulong, when he read in the ministerial evening papers of the 
 same day, the 27th, the following paragraph : : ' There appeared in 
 the parliamentary report of yesterday's Journal des Debats, some in- 
 sulting words addressed by M. Dulong to General Bugeaud. It was 
 understood in the Chambers to-day that the general had asked satis- 
 faction of M. Dulong, and had required a letter from him, which will 
 be published in to-morrow's Debats?' Thus, the system of provoca- 
 tion begun by one ministerial paper, was continued by another. 
 Thus, the meaning of the words was altered, in the first instance, by 
 an exaggeration ; and, in the second, the nature of the explanation 
 to which it had given rise, was misrepresented. What invisible hand 
 was it, that thus prepared a fatal result of the quarrel? How could 
 the Bulletin Ministeriel du Soir have any knowledge of a letter con- 
 fided to the honour and discretion of the Journal des Debats? Did the 
 communication proceed directly from the friends of General Bugeaud, 
 or was it only a distant echo of the prating of a few hectoring cour- 
 tiers ? These were the questions everywhere asked ; and a strange and 
 terrible suspicion arose in the minds of many. 
 
 It only remained for M. Dulong to follow the suggestions of his 
 courage ; and he accordingly forbade the insertion of the letter said 
 to have been required of him, and, the first arrangement having 
 dropped, he put the business into the hands of new friends, MM. 
 Georges Lafayette and Cesar Bacot, both belonging to the Cham- 
 ber. 
 
 These gentlemen were atM. Dulong's residence at about eight o'clock 
 in the afternoon of the 2 8th, together with Armand Carrel, whose noble 
 heart led him to interfere in the quarrel with a view to composing 
 it, when General Bugeaud presented himself, and evinced, both by 
 his words and looks, his desire for an amicable arrangement. Ar-
 
 GENERAL BUGEAUD. SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES. 227 
 
 mand Carrel had a long conversation with him, from which he con- 
 ceived the hope, that all might be settled by M. Dulong's writing a 
 note, which, whilst it satisfied M. Bugeaud as a man and an indivi- 
 dual, should preserve M. Dulong's dignity by disavowing, in no par- 
 ticular, the blame with which he had visited the government agent. 
 
 At eight o'clock, the same evening, there was a second meeting, 
 at which General Bugeaud's friends, MM. de Rumigny and Laury 
 were present, and it was remarked that the general no longer re- 
 mained in the same mind. M. de Rumigny declined the interposition 
 of Armand Carrel, on the grounds of his being the representative of 
 the press of the opposite party ; and was the first to demand the 
 publication of the letter, although the insolent language of the go- 
 vernment evening organ had rendered it -clearly impossible. M. 
 Dulong's friends desired to substitute for it such a note as could 
 not be said to have been required; but the proposal was met by a 
 pertinacious negative, and a meeting was consequently fixed for the 
 day after. The Bois de Boulogne was the place, and pistols the 
 weapons chosen. Dulong was a good citizen, the best of men, and 
 the devotion of his friends to him was such as fine natures ever in- 
 spire. All were moved by the danger which he was about to run 
 through an exclamation, dictated by a generous feeling, whilst he, 
 calm and cheerful, reassured his friends. On the 29th, he repaired 
 with his seconds to the Bois de Boulogne, in good spirits, for he had 
 cared for those who were nearest his heart, and was quite prepared 
 for the worst extremity. 
 
 The meeting took place at ten o'clock. The principals were 
 placed at forty paces from each other, and were to fire as they ad- 
 vanced. They had scarcely taken two or three steps when General 
 Bugeaud fired ; and his ball striking the unfortunate Dulong about 
 an inch above his left eye, he fell without uttering a word. In the 
 evening there was a ball at the court ; at six, the following morning, 
 the wounded man was a corpse. 
 
 Consternation prevails in one half of Paris at the news ; and by 
 many, the fatal issue of the duel is felt as a public calamity. Gloomy 
 reports are at first mingled with the regrets which bear witness to the 
 general grief. Soon, a cry is heard, a powerful and accusing cry 
 the death of the unfortunate Dulong has been planned, the duel ren- 
 dered unavoidable, the whole has been a piece of court revenge ! 
 Each detail given by the opposition papers increases the indignation. 
 M. de Rumigny is accused of being the tool of a bed-chamber plot, 
 and royalty itself is dragged before the tribunal of public opinion. 
 
 A particular circumstance gave weight to these attacks. When 
 the seconds of the victim went to General Rumigny to claim the 
 original of the letter which had remained in his hands, he replied 
 verbally, and then in a declaration properly signed and authenticated, 
 that he had it not, that he had promised M. Dulong on the ground 
 to destroy it, and that he had, indeed, burned it in the presence of the 
 king. It was not probable that instead of requiring that the letter, 
 
 Q2
 
 228 THE KING TAXED WITH HAVING CAUSED THE DUEL. 
 
 for whose restitution lie was about to give such fatal payment, should 
 be Driven up, M. Dulong would leave the care of destroying it 
 to his adversary's seconds. This was put in the strongest light by 
 Armand Carrel, in an article which bore his signature and the ener- 
 getic imprint of his talent. What was the meaning of such an ac- 
 cumulation of mysteries ; and how came the king's name to be mixed 
 up in a quarrel which blood alone was able to end? 
 
 The court was put upon its defence ; and one article, composed in 
 the Chateau by a writer devoted to the royal family, was published in 
 the Journal des Debats, in which the charge was vehemently met, 
 and which was applauded by all whose political sentiments found an 
 organ in that paper. What probability was there that the king should 
 have been the secret instigator of the duel ; that the honestest man 
 in the kingdom and the most interested in having all on good terms 
 with each other, that a prince hostile to duelling and to the punish- 
 ment of death, and to all prejudices which jeopardise human life, 
 should have lowered himself to be a vile suborner of intrigue in 
 order to provoke a murder ? Did M. Bugeaud, a soldier and a 
 man of violent temper, need any one to teach him to resent an 
 offence ? And, when his resentment could be so naturally explained, 
 men could be found to busy themselves in inventing an intrigue as 
 absurd as it was detestable ! M. de Rumigny had interfered ; well, 
 what was there surprising in that ? Was he not General Bugeaud's 
 friend, his colleague, his companion in arms ? M. de Rumigny, who 
 was on duty at the Chateau on the day of the duel, could not absent 
 himself without the king's leave, and he was blamable for having 
 done so ; but was the aide-de-camp's breach of discipline attributable 
 to the monarch ? The king had known nothing of the duel until he 
 had to lament its fatal issue ; and to suppose the contrary was a mon- 
 strous creation of that party spirit which loves to sully every thing 
 with its own venom. 
 
 The reply of the opposition prints was that, in the ex-governor of 
 Blaye, it was the uncle of the Duchess of Berri who must have felt 
 insulted; that, consequently, the king was not as disinterested as was 
 wished to be supposed; that eulogies were not reasons, especially 
 coming from a courtly pen ; that the king's pretended horror 
 for duelling had not led him, after all, to prevent a duel, all the pre- 
 parations for which were made under his eyes, although a word of 
 his to his aide-de-camp, or to General Bugeaud, would have been 
 sufficient for the purpose; that, once for all, that it was by facts 
 and not by invectives that charges founded upon such clearly 
 established and connected facts were to be met. They compared 
 all the circumstances of the deplorable business; the exclamation 
 of M. Dulong immediately followed by an explanation with which 
 General Bugeaud seemed satisfied; the exasperation caused by the 
 false report given in the Journal des Dtbats; the arrangement which 
 had been entered into and was immediately afterwards broken by the 
 irritating commentaries of the evening organ of ministers ; the ami- 
 cable feelings evinced by General Bugeaud in the morning changed
 
 DULON'G'S OBSEQUIES. 229 
 
 by evening into reserve and bitterness; the frivolous rejection by M. 
 de Rumiony of the entirely pacific interposition of Armand Carrel ; 
 the desertion of his post at the Chateau by M. de Rumigny to fulfil 
 a task which any other friend of General Bugeaud's could have un- 
 dertaken as well; the deferring to give up the letter until after the 
 duel as if it had been kept back to use in case of need against Dulong, 
 should he have been the victor; the subsequent burning of the letter 
 in the king's presence; and the persisting m giving the ball in the 
 evening of the fatal day instead of countermanding it, although under 
 the circumstances nothing could have been in better taste, especially 
 if it had been true, as the Journal des Debate stated, that the result of 
 the duel had excited the liveliest grief at court ! 
 
 We have softened down the features of this dispute, which rose to 
 the highest degrees of violence and passion. Enough has been de- 
 scribed to show the excitement which prevailed, and how far party 
 
 dared to go. 
 
 Dulong's rektive and dearest friend, Dupont de lEure, was ab- 
 sent from Paris when the melancholy catastrophe occurred. The 
 deputies in opposition addressed a collective letter to him, expressing 
 their participation in the grief which awaited him, and which was 
 poi<mant in the extreme. Finding he could not summon nerve to 
 return to an assembly where death appeared to have made one place 
 vacant for ever, and convinced besides, that France could not soon be 
 stopped on the road down which she was precipitating herself blind- 
 fold, he resigned his seat, preferring to lament in solitude his own 
 woes and those of his country. 
 
 Dulong's obsequies, like his death, formed a truly political event. 
 Hishears'e was followed all along the Boulevards by an innumerable 
 multitude. Government, fearing an outbreak, called out all the 
 troops at its disposal, and separated the procession at different points 
 by movements of horse and foot. His friends ranged themselves in 
 profound grief around the resting-place where the good man was to 
 sleep his everlasting sleep, and MM. Salverte, Tardieu, Cabet, 
 Lan^lois, Armand Carrel, and Dupont (the barrister), delivered, in 
 turns, valedictory addresses. The latter concluded his address with the 
 following beautiful words: " We live in one of those corrupt periods 
 of the world in which the conscientious man, except he choose to 
 give the lie to truth, ought to be ready to back his thoughts with his 
 sword. Dulong understood the sad age in which he lived. His 
 life no more belonged to him than ours to us. His life belonged to 
 truth, and when truth asked it from him, he satisfied the covenant, 
 he gave his life." 
 
 Paris was still under the impression of this tragic event, when scenes, 
 in which ignominy and atrocity marched hand in hand, suddenly n 
 it with grief and shame. ,. c 
 
 A law had just been passed which submitted to the formality of a 
 preliminary authority granted by the police, all writings sold, dis- 
 tributed, or cried in the public streets. Why should we hesitate to
 
 230 LAW AGAINST HAWKERS OF UNAUTHORISED PAPERS. 
 
 speak the truth the criers sent into the squares and streets by the 
 enemies of government were often only the porters of scandal, the 
 heralds of revolt; and, in the libels which they distributed, the 
 falsehood of the attacks was not unfrequently matched by the gross 
 language and coarse banters in which they were conveyed. Now, 
 flattering the people is cowardice, deceiving them is crime. For the 
 government to interfere to put a stop to such disorder, was its duty. 
 But how could it accustomed to meet defamation by defamation, 
 and lie by lie, it, which had never hesitated upon attack or upon de- 
 fence by the very same agents, and by employing the most abject 
 libellers, how and with what face could it abandon the exclusive 
 freedom of the streets to the hirelings of the secret-service money? 
 For this was, in fact, to create a monopoly of calumny. It was 
 exalting above the nefarious power of the magistracy the preventive 
 power of the police, and, on the great question of the defence of 
 order, lowering the judge before the spy. 
 
 Trouble was anticipated; and it came. The execution of this law 
 was neither more nor less than a sentence of death pronounced on 
 certain popular prints; and their proprietors did not choose them 
 to disappear without giving at the least public testimony of their in- 
 dignation and their courage. On Sunday, February 23d, a general 
 distribution of these prints being to take place in the square of the 
 Exchange, an immense crowd had collected there, perfectly inoffen- 
 sive, tolerably quiet, but every moment increased by the tide of foot 
 passengers. Of a sudden the gates of the Exchange are opened, and 
 there pour forth, on the square, police agents, habited in the blouse of 
 the working man, and armed with clubs, headed by some of the town- 
 guard (sergents de ville) in full uniform. These wretches rush with 
 furious shouts on the crowd, which falls back in astonishment, dealing 
 out their blows at random, adding insult to cruelty, and revenging 
 themselves for the horrors they inspired by the most shocking bru- 
 tality. There is a general rush to escape ; the street Neuve- Vivienne 
 is blocked up with fugitives who fill the air with their cries ; women 
 are thrown down and trampled under foot ; children, falling under 
 the bludgeon, stain the pavement with their blood; peaceable pas- 
 sengers are assailed by fiends who beat them down and stamp upon 
 them ; and when a commissary of police interferes to put an end to 
 the shameful scene, so far from acknowledging his authority they 
 threaten him. M. Argout himself was a spectator of the drama. 
 Some troops of horse were sent for, but when the brave fellows saw 
 the wretches with whom they had to act, they blushed for shame, 
 and gently urged on the multitude before them with friendly gestures 
 and sympathising looks. 
 
 All Paris was indignant. Among the wounded were many citi- 
 zens attached to the government ! the victims belonged to every class 
 of society and every shade of opinion ; the whole population felt 
 itself humiliated. The Journal des Delats had the grace to keep 
 silence on the subject ; and M. Salverte, ascending the tribune, sum-
 
 LAW AGAINST ASSOCIATIONS. 231 
 
 moned the minister to account to the country for this vile and pre- 
 meditated attack on the people. M. d'Argout, who was deficient 
 neither in firmness nor talent, broke down under the weight ol the 
 accusation. He declared that recourse had been had to police agents 
 in disguise, as they were the most capable of distinguishing the in- 
 nocent from the guilty and yet the attack had been indiscriminate. 
 He pretended that bodies of the police had been employed in order 
 to avoid the destructive charges of cavalry ; yetM. Gisquets agents, 
 with their bludgeons, had just displayed a bloodthirstmess which 
 equalled the worst that bayonets could do ! His defence was an in- 
 sult- and, besides, he gave no reply to the charge of having usurped 
 an authority beyond the laws. Unluckily, the enemies oi govern- 
 ment served its cause by their dishonest exaggerations and false tales, 
 which furnished the majority with an excuse, of which it took ad- 
 vantage, for acquitting the ministers. By proving the falsehood ot 
 many of the charges, facts which could not be disputed were thrown 
 into the background ; and a bill of indemnity was passed amidst the 
 most odious sneers which had ever affected the dignity of a public 
 assembly. Thus the government was acquitted by the Chamber ; but 
 it had been, and it remained, condemned by public opinion. 
 
 All this, however, was but the prelude to greater calamities, 
 kw proscribing associations, which had long been looked for by some 
 and dreaded by others, was at last laid before the Chamber, 
 gravated the famous 291st article of the penal code that legacy be- 
 queathed to the Restoration by the despotism of the Empire, and. 
 against which the liberals, with MM. de Broglie and Guizot at their 
 head, had so violently protested. The 291st article proscribed every 
 association of more than twenty persons, which had not received 
 sanction of government ; but the new kw proposed to extend its prc 
 visions to every association divided into sections of fewer than twenty 
 persons. The 291st article was restricted to associationsmeeting 
 periodically; the new kw was unfettered in thisrespect. The 291st 
 article attached penalties to the heads of illegal associations only >; the 
 new law included all the members. Lastly, by a gross violation o 
 the Charter, offences against the 291st article, thus altered, were 
 to be brought, not before a jury, but the police courts (tnbunaux 
 correctionels\ . . ., 
 
 The famous debate on this law, which was to end in a civil war, 
 was opened on the llth of March. There was not a heart but was 
 filled with trouble, not a face but what wore the marks ot the 
 iiest anxiety. It was well known that if such a kw gassed, it could 
 only be met by the Soriett des Droits de I'Homme with open resist 
 ance ; and, therefore, greater sensation than astonishment was e: 
 cited in the Chamber when M. Sudre kunches from the tribune : thea 
 bold and terrible words "The Societt des Droits de IHomme will 
 gin no tumults; but were it not resolved to wait until the French 
 people shall deckre their sentiments, the number and courage 
 members mi^ht perchance impel it at once to arms. buch was
 
 232 DEBATE ON THE LAW AGAINST ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 declaration with, which the debate opened, and personal attacks were 
 the order of the day. Allusions were made to three individuals 
 sitting on the ministerial bench, of whom one (M. de Broglie) had 
 opened his house, during the Restoration, to the Societe des Amis de 
 la Presse ; another (M. Guizot) had been the prime mover in the 
 Socicte aide-toi le del taidcra, and the third (M. Barthe) had been an 
 associate of the Carbonari. The allusion was understood by all 
 present, and M. Pages (de 1'Arriege) overwhelmed ministers, espe- 
 cially M. Guizot, with his sarcasms on that point. The only answer 
 the latter could make was by explaining away the views and inten- 
 tions of the Societc aide-toi, when he belonged to it a pitiable 
 begging of the question unworthy of him, and of which he was, 
 doubtless, conscious, since his humbled pride sought refuge in passion. 
 Pale, with head erect, body trembling with emotion, and extended 
 arm, he hurled at the republican party insults for their defiance. 
 Quick at making up for the weakness of his defence by the haughti- 
 ness of his attacks, he was great in his bravado and contempt. 
 " Man vexes himself, God leads him, " he exclaimed, quoting 
 Bossuet ; and, according to him, the paths of ministers are God's 
 ways in France. 
 
 Many speakers took a part in the general discussion before the 
 bill went into committee, and, among its supporters were MM. 
 Keratry, Fulchiron, Viennet, and Herve ; and, amongst those 
 who spoke against it, MM. Portalis, Salverte, Garnier- Pages, Big- 
 non, de Sade, and Merilhou. An amendment, moved by M. Beren- 
 ger, gave precision to the debate. 
 
 M. Berenger desired the recognition of the principle of the right 
 of association, whilst its exercise should be submitted to legal re- 
 straint : and he, therefore, moved that associations might be formed 
 without any preliminary permission, being simply bound to com- 
 municate to the authorities their rules and object; that the mayor of 
 the commune should have a right to be present at their meetings, 
 and disperse them if he thought fit ; and that government should 
 have the power of dissolving associations esteemed dangerous, but 
 should be accountable to the Chamber for the exercise of the privi- 
 lege. Thus, this amendment of M. Berenger 's substituted the re- 
 pressive system for the preventive countenanced by the government 
 bill. 
 
 The amendment, ably proposed, was most eloquently seconded by 
 M. Odillon Barrot. What ! were civilisation and human reason to 
 be outraged by the abrogation, under form of law, of a right with- 
 out which society could not exist, and which is the most imperious 
 and inevitable of all necessary rights? What! was not this self- 
 same 291st article the offspring of the imperial dictatorship, and 
 which, under the Restoration, had seemed so crushing, sufficient for 
 the wants of a revolution brought about in the name and for the 
 service of liberty ? Government sought to live ; but was the destruc- 
 tion of the generative principle of society essential to its exist-
 
 M. TRIERS' ARGUMENT. 233 
 
 ence? Did the necessity for regulating a right imply the necessity 
 for denying it ? Were we compelled, like savages, to cut down the 
 tree in order to gather the fruit ? Submit the right of association to 
 the permission of government why, it was placing in the hands of 
 authority an arbitrary power before which might disappear the char- 
 ter, its guarantees, the right of election, the liberty of the press 
 every thing ; since, when citizens endeavour to come to an under- 
 standing with regard to the candidate who best deserves their votes, 
 they clearly associate ; when they combine their means or thoughts 
 to start, write, or edit a paper, they clearly associate ; were the op- 
 position electors, when combining to return a deput 
 ber, to have to appeal to the pleasure of gove 
 more freedom of election. Were journalists to 
 ferance of the authorities ? Then, the liberty of 
 The proposed law was insolent beyond all exam 
 nature of its propositions, and was, besides, impos 
 effect. By the 29 1st article, as it stood, the offen 
 be defined; the facts of the meeting of more than 
 of its periodical character, and of the bearing of the 
 number of individuals, furnished so many means for the substan- 
 tiation of the change. But what were the means of proofs, with 
 the article altered as proposed? Could the offence be specified under 
 all that variety of forms which it can so easily assume ? Could it be 
 punished in the persons of an illimitable number of the guilty? The 
 proposed law, brutal in theory, would be in practice childish and 
 ridiculous. 
 
 M. Thiers replied in a shrewd and guarded speech, that every 
 right in civilised society required legislative regulation, that it was 
 a strange pretension that political societies fomenters of discord 
 and schools of sedition, should be exempted from the necessity for 
 preliminary permission to which anonymous and even benevolent 
 societies were subject; that the strength of government in a country 
 with a population of thirty-two millions of souls, resulted, not from 
 its having some thousands of placeholders and two or three hundred 
 thousand soldiers at its disposal, but from the means it possessed of 
 making its will reach everywhere, of concentrating its power 
 through the agency of a well-constructed hierarchy, and, in short, 
 of being present everywhere at once ; that leaving so valuable a 
 power to individuals was unseating authority for their profit, and 
 gifting them with all the might of government ; that the danger of 
 this was incalculable; that, introduce but the smallest degree of re- 
 gularity into revolt, or discipline into anarchy, and the state was 
 ruined ; that the law against associations was, consequently, a law 
 securing the public safety ; that, as regarded M. Berenger's amend- 
 ment, it placed a useless weapon in the hands of government, since 
 as soon as an association was dissolved under one name it might re- 
 appear under another, and, dying as the Societe des Droits de 
 FHomme, might revive as the Societe des Amis du Peuple; that, 
 with regard to the probable abuse of the law, the public might be
 
 234 SPEECH OF THIERS. 
 
 at ease on that head, since government had no wish to meddle with 
 mechanical, literary, scientific, religious, or benevolent societies, and 
 was only interested in breaking up political societies the entrenched 
 camps of faction. 
 
 This speech, which M. Thiers wound up by a skilful and life-like 
 retrospect of the policy of the Empire and of the Restoration, com- 
 pared with that pursued since Louis Philippe came to the throne, 
 produced a very deep impression on the Chamber. The amend- 
 ment was rejected. M. Thiers was certainly not in the wrong, 
 when he described the Socittt des Droits de THomme as an army, 
 which, shifting war upon the nation, might at any moment change 
 the apparent destiny of France. Without the law against associa- 
 tions, not as understood by the opposition, but as asked by the go- 
 vernment, the constitutional monarchy was at an end. This was a 
 certainty ; and they who doubted it, like MM. Bignon, Berenger, 
 and Odillon Barrot, did not know the strength and vigour which 
 an organised democracy would have had. Yes ; M. Thiers rightly 
 said, " We must have this arbitrary power, or we are lost." But this 
 very confession was a demolishing condemnation of the system re- 
 presented by the speaker. What a government must that be, 
 which cannot maintain itself without such destructive resources! 
 What a government must that be which is acknowledged to be at 
 an end, if the most necessary and sacred of all rights be not put at 
 the capricious mercy of seven or eight individuals ! The measure of 
 the weakness and illegitimacy of a power is the extent of the re- 
 sources which it consumes. It is unworthy to exist, if the interests 
 which it arms against itself are so numerous and powerful, that con- 
 tact with liberty must be mortal to it ; and, if it can only exist by 
 absorbing the life-blood of a people, why should it exist at all? 
 
 It is obvious that, to have opposed the law to any purpose, the 
 foundations of the system which had rendered this law so mon- 
 strously necessary, ought to have been boldly attacked. This the 
 opposition durst not do, and the triumph of ministers was complete. 
 Various amendments were moved by MM. Taillandier, Corcelles, 
 Anglade, Glais-Bizoin, de la Rochefoucald, Dubois (Loire-Infe- 
 rieure), Teulon, Roger, and Charamaule, all designed to counteract 
 the fatal tendency of the proposed law; but they were rejected in 
 succession by a systematic majority, and associations, whether for 
 the promotion of industry, science, letters, religion, or charity, be- 
 came no otherwise lawful than as it pleased ministers. This was the 
 decision of 246 votes out of 400. However, civilisation was not so 
 far outraged without having had energetic defenders. M. Berryer 
 exclaimed, in one of those transports of feeling which lightened up 
 his countenance and shook his voice " There is something more dis- 
 gusting than revolutionary impudence; it is the impudence of apos- 
 tacies;" and M. Pages (de 1'Arriege) thundered forth the following 
 protest, which must for ever stigmatise this law : " If any French- 
 man, an honest man, desires to found an association for the propaga- 
 tion and support of Christianity, I am his man, despite your ministers
 
 M. DE LAMARTINE. 235 
 
 and your law. If any Frenchman, an honest man, desires a greater 
 diffusion of the knowledge which paves the way for the morality of 
 the future, and the happiness of humanity, I am his man, despite 
 your ministers and your law. The slave of all just, the enemy of 
 all unjust laws, I will never hesitate between persecutor and victim. 
 I know no human power which can make me an apostate to God, 
 humanity, and France ; and, to obey my conscience, I will disobey 
 your law." 
 
 Among the deputies who sided with government, there was one 
 who did not give his vote until he had explained, that he only 
 voted for the law as one of public expediency. This deputy had 
 only recently been returned to the Chamber; but two speeches 
 had caused him to be hailed as one of the masters of eloquence. 
 One half of his genius had long been patent. This deputy was 
 M. de Lamartine. 
 
 In appearance, M. de Lamartine is the nobleman. His features 
 are finely chiselled, his figure tall and slight, his manner easy, 
 though dignified, and he adds to the style of the perfect gentle- 
 man the spontaneous elegance which is composed of exquisite 
 nothings. Only, his addiction to poetry having accustomed him 
 to pomp of diction, he is unskilled in the language of the drawing- 
 room, the light and lively babble of the day. That such a man 
 should be a democrat was astonishing to some, though nothing, 
 however, was more true. And if democracy had not been his first 
 worship, it was because he had only seen her through the dust 
 raised by the battles of half a century; because he had seen her 
 bleeding, tattered, always ready to treat with death, and knowing 
 neither how to set restraints upon herself, nor to perpetuate her 
 triumphs. How was it possible that the poet of the Medita- 
 tions, so calm and gentle, that he was himself almost a breathing 
 lyre, should not have been revolted by such a spectacle? How 
 was it possible that so harmonious a soul should not have been 
 troubled by those numerous hymns chaunted in honour of slaughter? 
 But false appearances only exercise a passing influence on superior 
 men. They easily perceive the march of grand ideas through the 
 disorders which reveal, even whilst obscuring them. Moreover, we 
 do not love the people for their virtues. We must love them, 
 gross and vicious as they are, for the virtues which they have not, 
 but which they certainly would have had, if they had not been de- 
 prived of the education which was their due, and stinted in the 
 happiness to which they had a right. M. de Lamartine was a 
 Christian, heart and soul, and to do the people this justice was a senti- 
 ment not too lofty for him. And then, like all the truly great and 
 strong-minded, he could comprehend, that they only deserve em- 
 pire who are borne to it by public acclaim; that the hallowing of 
 any prescriptive right, which delivers the people to the guidance of 
 pastors chosen by chance, is madness; and that to resign the govern- 
 ment of human affairs to folly or baseness is a great impiety. Un-
 
 236 M. DE LAMARTINE. 
 
 fortunately, M. Lamartine is impassionable to a degree which sets 
 the suspicious on their guard against him. He was ardently desired 
 as anally but was one sure of him, was there not a danger of losing 
 him? The magnanimity with which he would acknowledge an 
 error, and the intrepidity with which he would announce a change 
 of opinion, gave a tone of indecision to his policy and he was 
 lowered by it, to his real exaltation. On the other hand, he seemed 
 as ill-calculated for the leader of a party as Chateaubriand. Not 
 that he neglected the practical side of things. On the contrary, he 
 would busy himself in such matters with a sort of childish anxiety, 
 as if he dreaded that his fame would otherwise suffer, and that 
 poetry should be exposed, in his person, to the scorn of men of busi- 
 ness. But to be leader of a party is to be its slave ; and when com- 
 mand becomes a haughty form of obedience, then a total renunciation 
 of self, of one's own ideas, and, at times, a servility of ambition, are 
 required, of which men of genius are incapable. A demagogue, 
 M. de Lamartine could not become. He was never seen to give 
 way in the Chamber to that hostile look, menacing gesture, sudden 
 start, or unexpected burst, which challenge and provoke passion, 
 and act on an assembly like tempestuous winds on the billows of the 
 sea. His action was deliberate; his words, of purple and gold, fell 
 from his lips with slow and measured cadence; his lofty figure pre- 
 served a coldly dignified port ; and, if we may so express ourselves, 
 the pulsations of his eloquence beat too temperately and uniformly. 
 But there is one glory which is indisputably M. de Lamar tine's. At 
 an epoch when many republicans had not got beyond the notion 
 that the substitution of a consul for a king would ensure the weal 
 of the people, he, a legitimatist but newly converted, already he- 
 ralded social reform. The ancients, as all know, honoured poets 
 with the designation of Vates, or prophet; and M. de Lamartine 
 was a poet in the noblest acceptation of the word, since there came 
 a time when courageously shaking off the prejudices of half a h'fe, 
 and deserting the cause of power, that is, of force, he rivetted the 
 attention of his fellow-men by the noise of his illustrious defection, and 
 pointed to the luminous path which will be run by future generations. 
 
 M. de Lamartine had voted for the law against associations, 
 through his fear of seeing political societies wage war on govern- 
 ment and heap ruin on ruin. He did not perceive that this very 
 law was about to give the signal for the battle, so much dreaded by 
 him ; that from that moment every sword was half drawn from its 
 sheath, and that from one end of France to the other there were 
 preparations for war. 
 
 Now, no impending crisis had ever found the executive a prey to 
 greater divisions. War for place was eagerly pursued, until a more 
 terrible war should break out. Beset with intrigues, two mem- 
 bers of the cabinet were on the point of succumbing ; and the Duke 
 de Broglie, the object of a secret and persevering hate, was himself 
 about to resign.
 
 THE DUC DE BROGLIE'S RETIREMENT. 237 
 
 The ckim made on the French government by that of the 
 United States for twenty-five millions of francs was not the cause, 
 but the occasion of the Duke de Broglie's retirement. Was France 
 really indebted in the sum of five-and-twenty millions to the United 
 States? What was the origin of the American claim? How far 
 had the pretensions of America a valid foundation? These were 
 the questions which the Chamber had to examine, but we shall pass 
 over the debates to which they gave rise, reserving an explanation 
 of the subject until it shall be again brought up in 1835, and merely 
 observing that the claim was at this time unhesitatingly rejected. 
 
 In its excessive desire to preserve peace the ministry had tried 
 their utmost to induce the Chamber to vote in favour of America; 
 and yet the backstairs men of the Chateau managed to drop black 
 balls into the balloting box. 
 
 This was an extraordinary fact ; for there can be no doubt that 
 the king attached the utmost importance to the acknowledgement of 
 the claim, and therefore M. de Broglie's friends saw in this result 
 only the triumph of intrigue, and remained convinced that as he was 
 disagreeable to the king, the vote was designed to get rid of him. 
 It is true that the court had to resign itself to a painful defeat, but 
 M. de Broglie's retirement made amends for it. A rejection of the 
 claim did not prevent its being renewed, whilst the minister's retire- 
 ment might be considered definitive ; and, in the eyes of the courtiers, 
 the advantage of this way of reckoning exceeded the inconvenience. 
 
 Certain it is that the count did not mistake M. de Broglie's sus- 
 ceptibility ; for, as soon as the house broke up, he went straight to 
 the king and offered his resignation. 
 
 The king had little feeling for parliamentary scruples, and openly 
 laughed at them ; to suffer self-love to interfere with business 
 seemed to him in the highest degree silly and dangerous. His opi- 
 nion was, that the making all important questions, cabinet questions, 
 was elevating the power of parliament on the ruins of the royal pre- 
 rogative. M. de Broglie was far from partaking these sentiments, 
 but he was aware of them, and naturally expected to see the king 
 hesitate before accepting so sudden a resignation. On the contrary, 
 M. de Broglie was suffered to leave as soon as he manifested the wish. 
 The king's efforts to retain him were confined to those mere expres- 
 sions of politeness prescribed by modern courtesy, and by which M. 
 de Broglie could not be deceived, since Louis Philippe betrayed him- 
 self by a particular expression of countenance which he could not 
 hide, and the secret of which his ministers had learned to divine. 
 
 It is not the least doubtful that the Duke de Broglie's retirement 
 occasioned the liveliest joy in the Chateau. As we have intimated, 
 the king had a personal objection to him. He found him stiff, ob- 
 stinate, coldly dignified, and impenetrable to all minor seductions ; 
 and he felt ifl at nis ease with a minister with whom he hardly dared 
 to be familiar, and who could detect the secret meaning of royal con- 
 descension. On the other hand, M. de Broglie had the fault, in
 
 238 CHANGES IX THE MINISTRY. MM. DE RIGNY, 
 
 courtly eyes, of meddling with matters of business, and this in a de- 
 partment in which the king disliked all control. In short, the retire- 
 ment of the minister for foreign affairs was but the beginning of a 
 plan, long in embryo. A thorough understanding between the Duke 
 de Broglie, M. Guizot, and M. Thiers, would too often have counter- 
 acted the king's personal policy, and it was deemed expedient to 
 sow the seeds of distrust between them, and set them against each 
 other by a dark and persevering appeal to feelings of jealousy. 
 Up to this period the plan had made little progress. The friend- 
 ship of M. Guizot and the Duke de Broglie had remained free from 
 clouds ; and if their intimacy inspired M. Thiers with any unea- 
 siness, he did not yet suppose that it would be to his advantage to 
 break with them. But the duke's resignation was the signal for a 
 complete change. M. Guizot and M. Thiers were placed face to face, 
 without any bond of union between them, with different characters 
 and aims, rival talents, and equal pretensions. This was a state of 
 things easily to be turned to the account of the king's wish to govern 
 uncontrolled ! 
 
 A new minister for foreign affairs had to be found in the Duke 
 de Broglie's stead. Marshal Soult retained the presidency be- 
 cause his military reputation carried weight with it, and because 
 his political importance in the council was not sufficient to 
 awaken jealousy. The foreign office was offered to M. de Rigny, 
 who was with difficulty persuaded to accept it. A sailor, he felt 
 himself at his ease as minister of marine, the duties of the office 
 not being beyond him ; but could he keep the post to which he was 
 invited ? Would not the thread of diplomatic intrigue break in his 
 fingers every moment ; and how could he reply to attacks in the 
 Chamber made on every point of European policy. He distrusted 
 his capabilities, and, after long hesitation, only consented to take the 
 post on the understanding that he would receive the benefit of M. de 
 Broglie's experience and advice. The ministry of marine was in- 
 tended for Admiral Roussin, then on service ; but, on his declining 
 it, was given to Admiral Jacobs. 
 
 Other changes were in contemplation. M. d'Argout, a well-in- 
 formed, pains-taking man, and who was passionately fond of all 
 business connected with numerical details, had shed no brilliancy on 
 the office of home secretary, and had even lost in the estimation of 
 his colleagues. M. Thiers, on the contrary, although confined to 
 the less conspicuous department of the ministry of commerce, had 
 made his influence felt in every other. His friends desired a higher 
 position for him, but he clung to his office, disregardful of its se- 
 condary and non-political character, aware that he acquired but the 
 more lustre from it, and satisfied with dazzling the Chamber with 
 his displays on the questions which more particularly belonged to his 
 colleagues. Nevertheless, he suffered himself to be persuaded, espe- 
 cially by M. Bertin-de-Vaux, all powerful as editor of the Journal 
 des Debats, and who considered it indispensable that M. Thiers 
 should become minister for the interior. Consequently, an intrigue 

 
 D'ARGOUT, PERSIL, BARTHE, &c. 239 
 
 was set on foot in the council itself for the exclusion of M. d'Argout, 
 and M. Barthe entered into it without a suspicion that he was him- 
 self the object of a similar malevolent plot; for he was looked upon 
 as worn out, and M. Bertin-de-Vaux was secretly planning to instal 
 in his stead, as minister of justice, M. Persil, a morose, but stout-hearted 
 magistrate, who had been made a marked man by party resent- 
 ment. We shall not degrade our history by entering upon the 
 shameful details of the intrigues which were to remodel the cabinet. 
 Sufficient to state that one day, while M. Barthe, seated in the Chamber 
 on the ministerial bench, was quietly flattering his senses with the 
 sweets of power, M. Dupin aine was called out to receive the im- 
 portant communication that the office of minister of justice was at 
 his service. The offer was made with the hope that he would refuse 
 it, since they durst not give it to M. Persil without having first 
 offered it to him ; and he did refuse. On that very day M. Barthe 
 learnt from a friend the intrigues of his colleagues against him ; and, 
 in his indignation, he resolved at once to give loose to his wrath, and, 
 the council meeting that evening, out it came. This was the 
 crisis, and MM. d'Argout and Barthe were replaced by MM. Tliiers 
 and Persil. To dismiss them without some mark of favour would 
 have been imprudent. M. Barthe received the presidency of the 
 Cour des Comptes, from which it was necessary to remove M. Barbe- 
 Marbois, whose austerity in the famous Kesner affair had been of- 
 fensive; and the Duke de Gae'te had to yield to M. d'Argout the 
 magnificent functions of the Governor of the Bank of France. The 
 ministry of commerce, vacated by M. Thiers, was given to M. 
 Duchatel, one of the most able defenders of the treaty of the twenty- 
 five millions : a clear proof that this onerous treaty was again to be 
 brought up, and that M. de Broglie had not been so eagerly sacri- 
 ficed to the sovereignty^ of the Chamber alone. 
 
 But whilst these intrigues were going on in the cabinet, the nation 
 was fermenting beneath ; and the interests, so directly threatened by 
 the law of associations, were at every quarter preparing for a vigo- 
 rous effort. Meetings were held at Paris, sometimes at General La- 
 fayette's, sometimes at the house of one of his most intimate friends. 
 Tne question of the line of conduct they should pursue was there dis- 
 cussed. But what was to be done, if by trampling the most invio- 
 lable principles under foot, liberty was to be violently assailed by 
 power? should force be met by force? How can we hesitate, said 
 some. Government begins the attack, and will go on to the end; and 
 will dare all against us if we dare nothing against it. If we give way 
 we are lost. The majority, with Garnier- Pages at their head, objected 
 the vastness of the enterprise, the insufficiency of the preparations, 
 the difficulty of managing the daring spirits which would embark in 
 the enterprise, the want of organisation, the number of troops that 
 would be opposed to them, and the absolute impossibility of exciting 
 the bulk of the bourgeoisie to insurrection. A singular suggestion 
 was that of a literary man noted among the republicans for the
 
 240 FORETOKENINGS OF INSURRECTION. 
 
 savageness of his disposition and storminess of his character, but, at 
 the same time, for his intellectual endowments and heroic disinter- 
 estedness, who proposed that since there is a surprising fascination 
 in suffering for a cause, so that one martyr makes many, the repub- 
 licans should strike a covenant with death, and, shutting themselves 
 up in a house, should defend the principle, attacked in their persons, 
 to their latest breath. It was not, however, the chiefs of the 
 party whom the suggester designed to fill the parts in this drama. 
 " These," he said, " shall reserve themselves for the assault; we will 
 be the fascines to fill up the ditch." The only feeling to which 
 such strange ideas could give rise was that of astonishment. Each 
 asked the other if they were seriously intended, and it was supposed 
 that they were only meant to try the devotion of some whose zeal 
 for the cause was suspected. 
 
 The committee of the Societe des Droits de IHomme meanwhile 
 redoubled its activity. By a system of correspondence, indefatigably 
 kept up, it accelerated the work of organisation which had been be- 
 gun in the provinces. By bold manifestoes, it fostered the spirit of 
 the hundred and sixty-three sections into which it had divided the 
 capital. Cartridges were manufactured, muskets purchased, the gar- 
 risons of Versailles and Vincennes tampered with, and the leaders 
 of the sections were ordered to acquaint the committee with the re- 
 sources of the different quarters of Paris, and with the number of 
 men on whom they could rely. But funds failed; the zeal mani- 
 fested did not rise to the level of the prevailing agitation ; and when 
 the means at the disposal of the committee were ascertained, they 
 fell far short of previous expectation. 
 
 The Association pour la Defense de la Liberte de la Pressc, of 
 which General Lafayette was president, and MM. Marchais and 
 Etienne Arago, the secretaries, exerted itself in like manner. It 
 promoted its professed object by cherishing friendly relations between 
 the various republican prints, by forwarding the publication of the 
 works of poor citizens, and by raising, throughout France, subscrip- 
 tions to cover fines. But, pacific as the nature of the association was, 
 it favoured the movement by the personal inclinations of its mem- 
 bers, by its branch societies in the provinces, and by its eagerness to 
 circulate news of an exciting character. Unfortunately there existed 
 between it and the Societe des Droits de 1'Homme, a sort of secret 
 rivalry of which, it was to be feared, the enemy would take advan- 
 tage at some decisive moment. 
 
 Affairs in the provinces were neither less menacing nor less com- 
 plex. In the next chapter we will show the state of Lyons. A 
 central committee, established at Perpignan, and communicating 
 with the committee of the Association pour la Defense, &c., at Paris, 
 managed the department of the Eastern Pyrenees, the birth-place of 
 the illustrious Francois Arago. The republican party was dominant 
 in the Jura, and, under the management of a nephew of General 
 Bachelu's, showed itself all powerful in the town of Arbois. At
 
 FORETOKENINGS OF INSURRECTION. 241 
 
 Dijon, Clermont-Ferand, Chdlons-sur-Saone, St. Etiennc, Besa^on, 
 and Grenoble, the elements of resistance abounded. At Epinal, 
 where M. Mathieu, the avocat, had great influence, the carbonari, 
 and the Societe des Droits de VHomme daily acquired new and im- 
 portant members. At Luneville a M. Thomas, quarter-master-general 
 of the 9th regiment of cuirassiers, had formed the daring project of 
 drawing over to the republican side the four regiments of cuirassiers 
 stationed in that town since the breaking up of the army of exercise, 
 collected there in 1833. Enterprising, devoted, full of intelligence 
 and courage, M. Thomas had made certain of the assistance of many 
 of his comrades, had entered into communication with the republicans 
 of Nancy, had advised the Paris committee of the Societe des Droits 
 de VHomme of his designs, and only waited the signal for action. 
 
 Had all these movements been combined and directed by one 
 common and vigorous will, there can be no doubt that the govern- 
 ment would have been overthrown. But its leaders, hurried away as 
 they were by the whirlwind of the moment, could neither give the 
 necessary care nor time to its proper organisation. 
 
 The signal for action ought properly to have been given by the 
 Societe des Droits de VHomme. For some time, however, it had 
 been torn by grievous divisions. It had received into its bosom 
 young men burning with fiery passions, and impatient of the yoke 
 of the committee, which they charged with lukewarmness because 
 it suffered prudence to regulate its zeal. The policy of the com- 
 mittee was to hold all ready for battle if it was forced upon them ; 
 whilst these youths despised arming on the defensive and were all 
 for attack. The committee conceived that the injuries of which the 
 country complained might be redressed without volunteering a direct 
 and unmeasured assault on the bourgeoisie ; whilst these young men 
 scorned all politic management as timorous. These divisions occa- 
 sioned the formation of a second committee, under the title of Comite 
 d 'Action ; and the consequence was, an ill-will among the sectionaires, 
 which was carefully fomented by the police, whose agents pene- 
 trated everywhere. After fatal recriminations, the original committee 
 triumphed; but the junction of the two committees was not effected 
 without concessions, of which the smaller but bolder party took ad- 
 
 vantage. 
 
 ^Moreover, the Societe des Droits de THomme was far from com- 
 prising the whole of the republican party. The Tribune newspaper, 
 although violent in its doctrines, was independent of the society, to 
 which its editor, M. Armand Marrast, did not belong. It was the 
 same with MM. Armand Carrel at Paris, Anselme Pctetin at Lyons, 
 and Martin Maillefer at Marseilles ; who all three felt a repugnance 
 to any hazardous attempt, which they did not try to conceal. Na- 
 turally averse from all the artifices of the demagogue, and accus- 
 tomed to the regularity of military discipline, Armand Carrel Avas 
 troubled at the display of forceful, but irregular passions, always 
 threatening to overshoot the mark; but was too keen-sighted not to 
 
 VOL. II. R
 
 242 DISSENSIONS IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 
 
 detect the elements of power half hidden in the confusion. If he 
 was alarmed by the exaggerated views of some individuals, he yet 
 found in the very vigour of their flights something pleasing to his 
 own courage, and which filled his impassioned soul with emotion. 
 He was often on the point of publicly breaking with them, but at 
 the very moment he was about to attack them in the National, his 
 paper, he would hesitate and then dismiss the idea, not choosing to 
 afford the common enemy the triumph of exulting over the disunion 
 of the republicans, and prefering, after all, tumult to selfishness, in- 
 considerate rage to base insolence, and the very faults of the rebels 
 to the lying wisdom of their oppressors. 
 
 To this difference of view as to the degree of energy to be im- 
 parted to the movements of the republicans, were added very serious 
 differences of opinion. For instance, M. Godefroi Cavaignac, in the 
 committee of the Societe des Droits de THomme, and M. Armand 
 Marrast, in the Tribune newspaper, professed ideas with regard to 
 the principle on which the authority of government should be based, 
 and on centralisation, which were not altogether shared either by 
 M. Armand Carrel, M. Anselme Petetin, or M. Martin Maillefer. 
 Armand Carrel, however, was shaken in his opinion, and finally gave 
 it up with the courageous good faith which was his characteristic; 
 but MM. Maillefer and Petetin clung tenaciously to theirs, and were 
 but little moved by the necessity for strengthening and centralising 
 power after having provided for its tutelary character, being much 
 more occupied in devising means for securing the liberty of the in- 
 dividual by solid guarantees, and for keeping Paris in check. 
 
 If the republicans had felt themselves less strong, and had not 
 fancied they were on the eve of realising all their hopes, perhaps 
 they would have been less warm in the intellectual struggle by which 
 the party was internally agitated. But the party was so headlong in 
 its resolve to conquer, and was animated by such exuberance of life, 
 that it conceived power was within its grasp, and that it was about 
 to pass from theory to practice, from the direction of passions to that 
 of interests. For we must observe that in the very bosom of the 
 Societe des Droits de tHomme, and at the height of its enthusiasm, 
 it had actively carried on the peaceful labour of organising a plan 
 by which the passions of revolt should be subjected to the rules 
 of science. It had therefore to come to an understanding on the 
 means by which the nation should be aroused, directed, governed, 
 defended ; it was necessary to be prepared, at one and the same time, 
 for battle and for meditation, to provide for the wants of the moment, 
 and to ponder on the calls of the morrow an additional incentive 
 to enthusiasm, but also to division and passion. 
 
 In addition to the foregoing we must observe, that although there 
 were many charbonniers in the Societe des Droits de VHomme, the 
 chiefs of this society and of the charbonniers did not move quite in 
 concert. In the aged Buonarotti the Societe des Droits de VHomme 
 had a much more severe and imposing judge than Armand Carrel.
 
 MILITARY ASPECT OF LYONS. 243 
 
 The supreme director of the mysterious movements of charbonnerie, 
 Buonarotti, had no confidence in a conspiracy which openly blazoned 
 its plans, published every morning the name of its leaders, and beat up 
 for recruits in the face of day. As matters stood, he was in the rio-ht. 
 A conspiracy against government cannot succeed, even when it af- 
 fects no secrecy, except its leaders are kept in the back-ground. 
 The fact is that the Societe had ah 1 the inconveniencies and none of 
 the advantages of secret societies. Excellent for the work of pro- 
 pagandism, it was impossible for it not to be thrown into confusion 
 on the eve of a struggle by the single step of arresting its leaders. 
 Its founders, in separating their course of action from that of the 
 charbonniers, had committed a fault, which they had dearly to atone 
 for ; since the first summons to arms was heard by most of them in 
 the depths of a dungeon. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE progress of our narrative has led us up to the 9th of April, 
 1834; but to understand the events which make this date a bloody 
 epoch in the annals of Lyons, we must retrace our steps a little. 
 
 Lyons had long been in a state of excitement ; and all conspired to 
 conjure up there a vaster and more terrible tempest than that dreadful 
 storm of November, the roar of which still echoed through France. 
 
 The insurrection of November had taken government by surprise ; 
 and therefore it had neglected nothing to efface the shame of its de- 
 feat. The garrison was increased beyond all proportion; troops, 
 divided amongst the neighbouring towns, were kept ready to march 
 at the first signal; the national guard was rudely disarmed; forti- 
 fications arose around the city, and the cannon which were to re- 
 strain or destroy it were placed no more than from 1500 to 2000 
 metres from the Hotel-de-Ville, which is situated in the most central 
 and richest quarter of the city; the war-office purchased, without 
 appearing in the transaction, and repaired, a high wall, that served 
 to isolate the Croix-Rousse, which had been the cradle of the insur- 
 rection of November; government managed to fortify various points, 
 even in the interior of the city; in short, Lyons became a battle 
 field prepared for anticipated and inevitable contest. At the same 
 time, the military authorities appeared to take a pleasure in a display 
 of force as menacing as it was haughty. The Lyonese often found, 
 the first thing in the morning, the squares covered with armed sol- 
 diers; and trouble, terror, or rage possessed every soul. 
 
 The republican party, on its side, had increased there, was fully 
 organised, carried itself loftily, and assumed 'possession of the 
 public mind with its customary impetuosity. Along with the Prc- 
 -urseur, a republican paper, conducted with much talent by M 
 
 R2
 
 244 REVOLUTIONARY BANQUET AT LYONS PROHIBITED. 
 
 Petetin,but upon principles of decentralisation andnotions that lacked 
 boldness, another paper, the Glaneuse, was established. Its finances 
 were supplied by M. Albert, who placed his fortune and the ad- 
 vantages of his social relations at the disposal of the party. 
 
 In the month of April 1833, two suits, commenced simultaneously 
 against the Glaneuse, gave occasion to a regular review of the forces 
 of democracy. M. Dupont. an avocat of the Paris bar, was invited to 
 Lyons to afford the aid of his eloquence to the incriminated paper. 
 M. Gamier Pages, to whom the republican Lyonese had already in the 
 preceding year given a dinner attended by 2000 guests, prepared also 
 to proceed to Lyons. M. Philippon, editor of a very celebrated sa- 
 tirical journal, M. Saint Romme, an avocat of celebrity in the depart- 
 ment de 1'Isere, and M. Trelat, representative of the republicans of 
 Auvergne, came to the rendezvous. Fifteen deputations were sent 
 by the adjoining departments ; preparations were actively made for 
 a banquet, for which 2000 subscribers were reckoned upon ; 6000 
 presented themselves ; the banquet was fixed for the 5th of May, 
 1833, and no pains were spared to give this manifestation an imposing 
 character. 
 
 The executive took alarm ; the men who under the Restoration had 
 decreed a decidedly revolutionary ovation to Lafayette in the name of 
 persecuted liberalism ; these very men vowed that the proposed ban- 
 quet should not take place even should civil war resume the work of 
 destruction begun in November. The prohibition was expressed in a 
 decree which rested upon no written law. The stewards of the dinner 
 declared the decree illegal, and continued to make their preparations : 
 but suddenly, an agitation of a mysterious character broke out ; 
 unknown and sinister faces appeared in the thoroughfares; stupid 
 shouts were raised, and the town was inundated with false circulars, 
 some calumniating the weakness of the dinner committee, others ca- 
 lumniating its audacity. Had the police excited this movement ? 
 The committee was convinced of this, and being fully determined 
 not to overstep the law, it adjourned the dinner to the 12th of May, 
 after having had an opinion drawn up by four avocats of the Lyonese 
 bar, in which the illegality of the prefect's decree was demonstrated. 
 The committee wished to signify this to the prefect through a /missier, 
 but not one ministerial officer would venture to take the business 
 upon him. An appeal was laid before the procureur du roi, M. de 
 Chegaray ; he replied that any huissier who should sign the notice 
 should be dismissed. All legal means were now exhausted. The 
 police gave notice to the proprietor of the garden where the banquet 
 was to be held, that his property would be occupied by the military. 
 Thousands of soldiers were to be brought together ; nothing there- 
 fore remained to the committee but a call to arms ; they shrank from 
 the effusion of blood, but by the demeanour of the republicans, by the 
 energy of their proceedings, by their untamed pride, by the magni- 
 tude of the measures which it had been necessary to employ against 
 them, one might already judge of their commanding influence.
 
 DISSENSIONS AMONG THE CHARBONNIERS. 245 
 
 Some days afterwards the editor of the Glaneuse was summoned 
 before the j ury . Lyons still remembers the harangues of M . D upont. 
 All that is loftiest in argument, all that is most cogent in logic, the 
 most caustic irony, the most impassioned eloquence of the heart; all 
 this M. Dupont displayed in this celebrated cause^, but that which lay 
 at the root of the matter was war, always war. The Glaneuse was ac- 
 quitted upon the first trial ; there was a verdict against it on the se- 
 cond. The penalty was terrific; fifteen months imprisonment and 
 5000 francs fine, and as if such a sentence were^not enough, it was 
 aggravated by the enforcement of the prison discipline, fitted only for 
 the lowest criminals. The writer was seized by gensdarmes, and 
 was transported from brigade to brigade to Clairvaux, along with 
 eighteen hundred robbers; and the men who proceeded to the ac- 
 co'mplishment of such acts of vengeance were the same who had 
 cried out anathema against the Restoration for its conduct with re- 
 spect to MM. Magalon and Fontan ! 
 
 Thus were the causes of irritation and revolt accumulating, but 
 disunion had crept in among the Lyonese democrats. Charbonnerie 
 in Lvons wanted a solid organisation; several charbonniers, with a 
 singular ignorance of what constitutes the force of secret societies, 
 complained of the mystery with which the members of the haute- 
 vente nationale remained shrouded; and they made no secret of their 
 aversion blindly to obey orders, the origin of which was as carefully 
 concealed from them. Two Lyonese, MM. Martin and^Bertholon, 
 having been elected presidents ofventes, required of the dicastcre that 
 they should be initiated into the secret of the constitution of the 
 vente nationale, A half promise was made them, but _ either there 
 was no intention or no ability to fulfil it: unpleasant bickerings en- 
 sued; the dissenters named commissioners; anew system of rules 
 was prepared, and the reconstitution of the society was imminent. 
 
 All this took place in the month of July, 1833. M. Cavaignac, 
 whose opinion it* was that the executive oiight to be resisted m the 
 open day, in the face of the sun, arrived unexpectedly in Lyons. 
 He immediately had interviews with the most influential democrats, 
 and inquired into the state of public opinion, and a meeting was held 
 in his presence, in the office of the Prtcurseur, which was presided 
 over by M. Jules Seguin. After a close investigation into the re- 
 sources of the party it was admitted that there was no opportunity 
 just then for an open display of force; that the party should confine 
 itself to the energetic propagation of its opinions; that even supposing 
 an insurrection should be begun in Paris, Lyons could not take part 
 in it unless with the voluntary and spontaneous adhesion of the work- 
 ing men ; that it was important consequently to strike root among the 
 people; and that meanwhile in anticipation of the crisis it was ex- 
 pedient to create a power representing all the living forces ol the 
 city, and destined to centralise the action of the party, whether it 
 should have to sustain an open conflict, or whether it should be ne-
 
 246 THE LYONS SOCIETE DES DROITS DE I/HOMME. 
 
 cessary for it to secure the people the advantages of victory. It was, 
 therefore, at one and the same time a committee of resistance and a 
 provisional municipality, which it proposed to institute, but in order 
 to invest the committee with sufficient strength, a mode of election 
 was agreed upon which was calculated as much as possible to conceal 
 from the electors all knowledge of the elected. Every one wrote out 
 his list, and, the meeting having dispersed, the president alone read the 
 result of the votes, which he communicated to those who were elected. 
 Their names became known at a later period; they were MM. Jules 
 Seguin, Lortet, Bertholon, Baune, Charassin, Foujol, Jules Favre, 
 Michel- Ange Perier, Antide Martin, Riviere cadet. 
 
 M. Cavaignac chose for correspondents MM. Bertholon and Martin, 
 gave them the names of all the provincial members with whom active 
 relations were to be publicly kept up, and returned to Paris. 
 
 The hour seemed approaching when the republicans would rule in 
 Lyons. In vain was their ascendancy there resisted with energy; 
 they tended more and more to gain the upper hand by their courage. 
 On the 29th of July, 1833, in the course of a review of the gar- 
 rison troops, some national guards having loudly protested against 
 the bastiles, and some one in the cortege of Lieutenant- General 
 Ay mar having cried out, " There are Austrians here," two republi- 
 cans, MM.Jules Seguin and Baune, hurried up to Lieutenant-General 
 Aymar, who was surrounded by his staff, demanded an explanation 
 of him, and obtained a public disavowal. 
 
 The strength of the party had nevertheless need of guidance. 
 The committee formed subsequently to M. Cavaignac's journey, and 
 which was called the invisible committee, did not act, and seemed to 
 have no intention of doing so. As for that dissenting charbonnerie, 
 of which we have already spoken, it had set to work ; but certain di- 
 visions produced by personal antipathies supineness the difficulty 
 of organising a secret society without limiting its scheme; all this 
 had concurred to render the endeavours made wholly unproductive. 
 Out of the principal remains of charbonnerie was formed, under the 
 name of Socicte du Progri-s, an association, which was at first semi- 
 public rather than wholly public, and of which M. Lagrange was the 
 soul. The Societe des Droits de THamme came next and was modelled 
 upon that of Paris. Created in the month of October, 1833, it began, 
 on electing a committee of five members, MM. Martin, Bertholon, 
 Baune, Hugon, and Poujol. On the 25th of December, 1833, a 
 general meeting of the sectionaries having taken place, the rules were 
 laid down. Two new leaders, MM. Albert and Sylvain Court, were 
 nominated, and the society was definitively constituted. 
 
 From that moment, the influence of the republican party extended 
 with extraordinary rapidity. At the conclusion of the year 1833, 
 the Societe des Droits' de THomme embraced the whole city of Lyons; 
 radiating over the adjoining departments, it had created correspond- 
 ing centres wherever it had exerted its formidable and irresistible 
 propaganda, that is to say, in the most important towns of 1'Isere,
 
 MUTUALISM. 247 
 
 Drome, Ardeche, Loire, Jura, and Saone-et-Loire. There its domi- 
 nation was so absolute, and the voice of its representatives so re- 
 spectfully obeyed, that at Romans, for instance, M. Baune extended 
 his protection to the prefect of Drome, who had come with gens- 
 darms to arrest him, and saved that functionary from the fury of 
 the people. It would be hard to conceive an idea of the intensely 
 impassioned spirit which prevailed in Lyons at this period. Upon 
 certain days strange clamours rose in the air, and then a threatening 
 and haggard population were seen flocking together to the open 
 places ; a sort of human tide that seemed ready to ingulf every 
 thing. The soldiers were worn out with extreme toil and watching; 
 the cavalry were always in readiness to mount. Sometimes it was 
 ballad-singers whose voices they had to silence; because such sounds 
 appeared fearful in those days of universal perturbation. Sometimes 
 it was, as in Paris, the public criers, whose arrest was to be at- 
 tempted in the midst of a raging crowd. _ The authorities engaged 
 in a vehement struggle against the criers in the month of January, 
 and were defeated. Exasperation was at its height between 
 the prefect and the mayor of Lyons, MM. Gasparin and Prunelle. 
 An order, issued by the latter, frustrated the despotic measures re- 
 commended by the former. Protected by the municipal authorities, 
 and by the law, the public criers were enabled freely to distribute 
 all the writings which had not yet been judicially condemned to 
 seizure, and the city was deluged with political publications. ^ 
 
 Such was the- state of things at Lyons and in the adjoining re- 
 gions in the beginning of the year 1834. Mutualism then entered 
 the arena, and added to the complications of the times. 
 
 Mutualism was the association of the master silk- weavers; it was 
 purely an industrial affair, and its origin went back to 1828. Its 
 statutes excluded, in the most formal manner, all discussion of reli- 
 gious and political matters. Founded, in the first instance, with a 
 view to mutual assistance between the working men, mutualism was 
 divided into lodges of less than twenty persons each. Eleven lodges, 
 naming each of them two delegates, thus formed a central lodge, 
 and the guidance of the whole body belonged to the council of the 
 presidents of the central lodges. The power of the presidents des 
 centrales had continued till the end of 1833, when it was broken 
 up. The association wished to extend its action ; it wished to em- 
 ploy the strength it derived from the union of its members towards 
 hindering thedecrease of wages; it wished to oppose a counterpoise 
 to the hypocritical tyranny in the struggle between the poor man 
 and the rich, which is impudently called freedom of business, 
 for the accomplishment of these new views, a new power was requi- 
 site. The presidents des centrales were deposed, and their authority 
 passed into the hands of the executive council, which was itself but 
 the instrument of the association democratically constituted, and de- 
 ciding every thing by election. 
 
 Meanwhile the condition of the working man was becoming
 
 248 STRIKE FOR WAGES. 
 
 worse. By a melancholy and too frequent effect ot competition, 
 orders had diminished. The activity of the Lyonese manufacturers 
 was found to have notably decreased during the first months of the 
 year 1834. A sad contrast ! Never had the gaiety of the rich been 
 more obtrusively displayed. Balls followed balls with a rapidity in 
 which there was something like an ostentatious defiance. Lyons 
 resounded with the noise of festivities ; the poor man trembled with 
 indignation, and anger stole into his heart and sat there beside 
 despair. The crisis was, therefore, become imminent ; it was hur- 
 ried on by a reduction of twenty-five centimes per ell in the price of 
 plushes. This reduction was not in itself very considerable, but it 
 bore upon wages, already insufficient ; and as it opened a way to more 
 disastrous encroachments, it was but a first application of the law of 
 the stronger. The plush-weavers called in the aid of their brethren 
 of the other classes, and then the mutualists' society, in pursuance of 
 their leading principle, took into consideration a general stoppage 
 of the looms. 
 
 Considered in its physical results the measure was a disastrous one ; 
 regarded as to its moral principle there was something in it singu- 
 larly exalted. What could be more affecting than to see 50,000 
 working men all at once suspending the labours by which they 
 live, and resigning themselves to the hardest privations to protect 
 from every unjust encroachment 1200 of their most unfortunate 
 brethren ! Accordingly, such a determination, had it been possible 
 for the workmen to have upheld it, would have produced incal- 
 culable effects. With regard to the working class it was the 
 theory of association applied on a grand scale, and at the cost of 
 sacrifices which rendered its effect more imposing. With respect 
 to the bourgeoisie, it was a terrible but peremptory demonstration of 
 the vices of the industrial regime, which, founded upon an anta- 
 gonism of all interests, lives only by the perpetual triumph of the 
 strong over the weak, and keeps up a flagrant hostility between 
 those two elements of production, capital and labour. 
 
 All this was perfectly understood by the leaders of the majority; 
 1297 votes out of 2341 were given for the stoppage of the looms; 
 and as a great number of working men did not belong to the asso- 
 ciation, the latter sent emissaries into various quarters of the city 
 with orders to compel every Lyonese factory to obey the common 
 law. Some workmen wished to resist, they were threatened; this 
 was a culpable violence, and one which gave the colour of injustice 
 to a just cause. The interdiction had been pronounced on the 
 12th of February; two days afterwards 20,000 looms had ceased to 
 ply in Lyons. 
 
 It is impossible to describe the consternation which this news 
 spread through the city. One would have said that the gory phan- 
 tom of November had suddenly started up before the affrighted 
 imaginations of men. Nothing was to be seen on every hand but 
 anxious or threatening visages. Men gazed at each other with per-
 
 THE GOVERNMENT WISHES TO PRECIPITATE THE CRISIS. 249 
 
 plexed and inquiring looks, every bosom laboured with that heavy 
 air which announces the approach of a tempest. Every day the 
 Place des Terreaux and the vicinity were filled with crowds, the 
 aspect of which was not so much excited as sullen. Every day 
 the streets were filled with emigrants, for terror having seized 
 upon most of the manufacturers, they had suddenly cut short 
 their business, shut up their houses, and were hastening to the 
 country in search of an asylum. 
 
 Others remained; and these, far from taking alarm, began to 
 encourage each other to savage vehemence, saying, that the time 
 was come for them at last to put an end to all this ; that they 
 had a revenge to take since November; that it was the recollec- 
 tion of their deplorable victory that had encouraged the insolence 
 displayed by the mutualists, and that it was absolutely necessary to 
 give them a severe lesson. Such were verbatim the terms em- 
 ployed by the Courier de Lyon, the passionate organ of the manufac- 
 turing aristocracy of the city, and these feelings agreed but too well 
 with those of the authorities. The government was not ignorant 
 that the republican party was then engaged in an immense task of 
 self-organisation. It beheld the Societe des Droits de VHomme ex- 
 tending, increasing in hardihood and discipline, and casting its 
 inevitable net even over the towns of the second and third order. 
 It foresaw that the promulgation of the law against associations 
 would become the signal for a resistance, which showing itself in all 
 points of the kingdom simultaneously in obedience to orders from 
 the capital, would throw the whole realm into confusion, and bring 
 the monarchy to the verge of ruin. Hence its forwardness to anti- 
 cipate a crisis which had all the character of fatality. Since it was 
 impossible to avoid the battle, it was better to engage in it, whilst 
 the choice still remained to it of circumstances, time, weapons, and 
 ground ; since it was necessary either to overthrow the republican 
 party, or to perish beneath its blows, it was better to attack it 
 whilst embarrassed with the details of the unfinished organisation, 
 and before it had spread its arrangements throughout all France 
 and terminated its preparations. Lyons was much better suited 
 to the government than Paris as the field of battle ; centralisation 
 having conferred upon Paris the exclusive privilege of achieving 
 decisive victories in times of revolution. 
 
 Thus the manufacturers and the executive were both alike in- 
 terested in hurrying on the denouement ; the former, in order to fix 
 their own position definitively, and to avenge their humiliated 
 pride ; the latter, in order to deprive its enemies of time to make 
 their arrangements, and regulate their order of battle. 
 
 But what the executive and the manufacturers were interested in 
 wishing, the mutualists and the republicans had reason to fear. 
 
 The mutualists were in general neither sufficiently instructed, 
 nor sufficiently filled with the importance of political forms, to long 
 for a struggle in which they would have had the government for
 
 250 THE REPUBLICANS' RELUCTANCE TO RESORT TO ARMS. 
 
 their enemy ; only let the question of wages be settled in their favour 
 and they desired nothing more. As for the Socittc des Droits de 
 rifommey its members burnt for the fight and they did not conceal 
 the fact; but the most intelligent amongst them dreaded lest, they 
 should be forced into the fight too soon, and they wished to wait 
 before taking up arms; first, until the departmental organisation 
 should be completed, and then until the promulgation of the law 
 against associations should render the attack general. 
 
 Facts proved that such was the moral situation of the confronted 
 parties. The mutualists made overtures of accommodation; they 
 were repulsed with cold disdain. " Stand firm," was said to 
 the manufacturers, " the working men cannot fail to give way 
 when pressed by hunger; and if they proceed to a revolt, it will be 
 the last, for we have at hand cannons and thousands of bayonets." 
 Repulsed by the masters, the rnutualists invoked the mediation of 
 the authorities. M. Gasparin replied that the executive had no title 
 to interfere in the quarrels of the manufacturing world, since all 
 transactions between capitalist and workman ought to remain 
 free. So that they dared to speak of freedom in business transac- 
 tions at the very moment when the despotism of famine was relied 
 upon as a means of forcing the working man to submission. 
 
 Lamentable scenes then took place. Among the workers in silk 
 there were some who, though in a condition to support the suspen- 
 sion of employment, grew tired of a state of things of which they 
 perceived only the present sterility. There were others, who, being 
 too poor to endure idleness, could not bear to see around them 
 their wives languishing and their children deprived of bread. Divi- 
 sion sprang up in the mutualist society, some demanding that 
 work should be resumed, others resisting this; broils ensued, and 
 thus the workmen went on exhausting their strength, whilst their 
 masters looked on in triumph. Had the leaders of the republican 
 party in Lyons really wished to descend into the open forum, they 
 would have done so then. The opportunity appeared so favourable ! 
 Would not the Socittc des Droits de I'Homme, which numbered in its 
 ranks a considerable number of mutualists, have itself brought about 
 the explosion by insisting upon the continued suspension of busi- 
 ness? No, it did precisely the contrary, and this was the occasion 
 of one of the most violent storms within the sections. Perfidiously 
 urged on by police agents disguised as sectionaries, some hot headed 
 republicans were amazed at the inaction of their leaders at a me 
 ment which seemed so propitious. What can they be waiting for: 
 Is it conceivable that they do not take advantage of the distress 
 despair of the silk weavers to bring them over in a mass to the pai 
 and march forward with them? Such language was soon heard 
 every direction. Its tone was embittered by persons of dubious cl 
 racter; the credulity of some sectionaries, more zealous than ei 
 lightened, was abused; and the members of the committee, oper 
 accused of treason, were subjected to the threat of the dagger. Bi
 
 MUTUALISTS' FEELINGS WITH REGARD TO REPUBLICANS. 251 
 
 they had invincible grounds for resisting the torrent. To anticipate 
 the movement of Paris, and that of the provinces, in Lyons, would 
 have been to jeopardise every thing; arms, besides, were wanting; 
 the amount of the monthly contributions imposed upon the sec- 
 tionaries not being sufficient even to cover the expenses of the 
 numberless publications issued for several months from the presses 
 of the society. It was indispensable, at least, that the society should 
 be able to count with certainty upon the insurrectional aid of the 
 silk-weavers who formed the bulk of the working population in 
 Lyons, and that aid had till then never been offered or promised. 
 
 We have said that a considerable number of mutualists had en- 
 tered the Sociitc des Droits de CHomme, but they had done so only 
 as individuals, for, as for the rnutualist society, considered collec- 
 tively and in its tendency, it is certain that, at the period in question, 
 it was governed by a narrow corporate spirit; above all, it was 
 bent on preserving its industrial physiognomy, its originality, and 
 all that constituted for it a situation apart amongst the working 
 classes. No doubt there were amongst it men exalted above corpo- 
 rate interests, by the strength of their intellect and the generosity of 
 their feelings; but these men did not constitute the majority, all 
 whose wishes might have been thus summed up increased wages 
 for the silk- weavers. The thing, alas ! was quite natural. Who had 
 taken upon him to instruct that portion of the people, to give it 
 notions of morality, to instil into it the precepts of charity, to teach 
 it the everlasting rudiments of the Gospel? And, on the other 
 hand, how should it have given itself up with entire confidence to 
 a political association in which, along with intelligent and cou- 
 rageous citizens, there were found so many men of restless and im- 
 patient ambition, so many grossly ignorant demagogues, so many 
 men of doubtful character and purposes, and so many noisy and 
 aimless agitators? The influence of the clergy, moreover, over the 
 class of silk-weavers in Lyons, had always been rather consi- 
 derable. Now, the following was the spirit in which was exercised 
 this influence, of which women were the inconspicuous but efficient 
 agents. The clergy, beholding in the manufacturers but liberals 
 and sceptics, had felt no inclination to damp the disposition to 
 revolt which animated the workmen against them, but, at the same 
 time, it urged the latter to distrust the republican party, while tak- 
 ing advantage of its sympathies. Now this was, in fact, precisely 
 the conduct observed towards the Societe des Droits de fHomme, by 
 the leaders of mutualism ; for whilst they suffered themselves to be 
 charged with republicanism, and availed themselves, against the 
 manufacturers, of the popular diatribes in the Glaneuse, they spared 
 nothing to deaden the republican propaganda in the lodges, and, in 
 their orders of the day, they ceased not to inculcate upon their 
 friends the observance of the rules forbidding the discussion of 
 political topics. 
 
 Add to this, that societies swarmed in the town. There was the
 
 252 VIOLENT DISPUTES IN THE LYONNESE SOCIETE 
 
 Societt du Progrh, directed by MM. Lagrange and Leon Favre; 
 that of La Libertc de la Presse ; and again, that of Les Inde- 
 pendens, and that of the Hommes Libres. It is true that these 
 various associations were partly composed of the same men, which 
 somewhat mitigated their discordance; but if they tended to one 
 common goal, they advanced towards it with unequal steps. The 
 committee encountered, likewise, a serious obstacle, in the tendency 
 of the Lyonese towards ideas of decentralisation, ideas which were 
 those of the editor of the Precurseur, M. Petitin, and which were 
 shared, at least in a philosophic point of view, by M. Lortet, one of 
 the most respected and worthy members of the party. What, then, 
 was to be done? Which way was the helm to be turned, in such a 
 chaos of uncertainties? Breakers and tempests were on every hand. 
 
 And yet it was impossible to pause; the fermentation was be- 
 coming every hour more intense; the collision of so many pas- 
 sions was daily scattering a thousand sparks; already the impatient 
 crowd, heated, and urged on by real traitors, panted and chafed 
 for action. The committee did not feel itself sufficiently strong to 
 bear up against such a state of things; the reins were falling from 
 its hand; it resolved to seek direct assistance from the capital, and 
 M. Albert was despatched thither. 
 
 His orders were to lay the state of things before the Parisian com- 
 mittee, to consult with it, and to bring back to Lyons M. Gode- 
 froi Cavaignac, or M. Guinard, who were exceedingly popular from 
 their energy, and whom the Lyonese committee thought alone capa- 
 ble of influentially restraining, if need were, those who were hurried 
 away by blind and un disci plined zeal, or of giving a sufficiently vigor- 
 ous impulse to the movement, should it come to that, in order to 
 secure success. M. Albert had been advised not to call either upon 
 Armand Carrel, or Garnier-Pages ; the former, because he was not 
 a member of the Societe dcs Droits de THomme; the latter, because he 
 appeared too moderate. 
 
 It was not without difficulty that the committee succeeded in sub- 
 duing the effervescence whilst waiting the return of M. Albert. One 
 day M. Martin was informed that several leaders of sections were 
 holding a tumultuous meeting in the Rue Tapin ; that the speakers 
 there loudly denounced the wariness of the leaders as treason, and 
 talked of shaking off their authority. M. Martin immediately went 
 in quest of M.Hugon,and they set off together in all haste to the place. 
 There were about forty sectionaries assembled, and their rage was 
 manifested in their faces. One of them, named Mcrcet, was particu- 
 larlv remarkable for the warmth of his language. The members of 
 the committee demanded that the persons present should form them- 
 selves into a regular meeting. This was done with closed doors, and 
 M. Martin ascended a sort of tribune to address the sectionaries. He 
 represented to them that nothing was ready for a serious engagement ; 
 that to provoke a struggle would be to hurry the party upon its de- 
 struction ; that patience, too, has its courage ; that great care ought to 
 be taken not rudely and impatiently to break off the relations already
 
 DES DR01TS DE L'HOMME. 253 
 
 formed between the committee of Lyons and those of the neighbour- 
 ing towns. He then acquainted them with M. Albert's journey, and 
 read to them several letters received the preceding day, one of which 
 was signed Maximilian. The energy and prudence of this letter were 
 admirable ; it recommended caution and moderation as the virtues most 
 necessary to republicans. M. Martin did not choose to make known 
 the author ; it was Buonarotti. The same spirit prevailed in the 
 warm letter of adhesion of M. Menand, formerly procureur du roi at 
 Ch&lon sur Saone, and in other letters, which all promised an active 
 but prudent co-operation in ordinary circumstances. Language like 
 this hardly accorded with the passions of the assembly. MM. Ber- 
 tholon and Baune came in, and when the most refractory began to 
 vent their dissatisfaction in threats, M. Baune addressed the meeting. 
 He declared that the committee would not give way, that the refrac- 
 tory leaders of sections should be cashiered, and that they should find 
 if need were that they could be answered according to the manner 
 usual with men of courage when they are affronted. The energy of 
 the committee saved it, and most of the leaders of sections returned 
 to their allegiance. Some, instigated by Mercet, whow as afterwards 
 discovered to be a police agent, persisted in their blind schemes and 
 succeeded that evening in exciting to a riot 500 or 600 men, whom they 
 hurried about the town singing the Marseillaise. Fortunately the 
 authorities did not interfere, and the men dispersed. 
 
 Meanwhile M. Albert had arrived in Paris. In pursuance of the 
 instructions he had received, he proceeded first of all to the com- 
 mittee of the Socictc des Drafts de FHomme, and made known the 
 object of his journey to the members composing it. But MM. 
 Cavaignac and Guinard were detained at Paris by important duties, 
 and would not separate from each other. M. Albert sought advice 
 of M. Cabet, who had much influence over the people of the fau- 
 bourgs. The interview took place at night in the office of the 
 Populaire. M. Cabet was altogether in favour of a resistance 
 strictly within the pale of the law; he did not hesitate to assert, that 
 to try the fortune of arms would be a glaring, an irreparable folly; 
 and more strikingly to express all the depth of his conviction upon 
 this point he exclaimed, " We ought rather to fight to prevent 
 fighting." Similar language was held by M. Gamier-Pages, whom 
 M. Albert went to see at his invitation. But what M. Albert had 
 come to Paris to look for was not merely opinions deprecatory of 
 movement, but a man sufficiently energetic, and sufficiently popular 
 to restrain it. The anxiety of the Lyonese envoy was therefore ex- 
 treme, and he was preparing to return home when Armand Carrel 
 sent M. Marchais to request an interview with him. " If no one 
 will accompany you to Lyons," said Carrel, " I am ready to do so." 
 " You !" replied M. Albert, astonished at this unexpected proposal; 
 " what sort _ of reception do you expect in our town? Are you 
 aware that it is only by overstepping my instructions that I have 
 been able to hold an interview with you?" " What if I went to
 
 254 REPUBLICANS CAUSE THE MUTUALISTS TO RESUME WORK. 
 
 Lyons with Godfroi Cavaignac?" replied Carrel. " Oil ! that indeed 
 God grant it may be so." 
 
 Some slight cloud had passed across the friendship that subsisted 
 between Cavaignac and Carrel, still they were in the habit of seeing 
 each other, and as they were both animated by the loftiest sentiments, 
 they had no difficulty in coming to an understanding. The journey 
 was determined on. It was wished that M. Lafayette should take part 
 in it on account of his name and the recollections he had left among 
 the Lyonese population, but he was then seriously ill: " I feel," he 
 said, " an extreme regret that I cannot personally share in the dangers 
 of so courageous and honourable an enterprise, but I will give these 
 gentlemen letters which will be useful to them, and I will authorise 
 them to present themselves as my lieutenants." 
 
 Every thing was settled; M. Albert was about to precede his 
 friends, and a post-chaise was already waiting for him, when it was 
 suddenly announced in Paris, that the city of Lyons had become 
 tranquillised, and that the executive council had ordered that work 
 should be resumed. This news rendered the journey, if not useless, 
 at least less urgent. It was given up, and M. Albert contented 
 himself with writing a letter to this effect: " Abstain from offering 
 any provocation. Paris is not like Lyons ; it has no need of being 
 curbed, it rather wants the spur. Nevertheless, should the govern- 
 ment attack and reduce you to the necessity of defending yourselves, 
 Paris would back you." 
 
 The moral situation of the leaders of the republican party is 
 wholly revealed in these letters. If they had no thought of permit- 
 ing the government to lay rude hands upon the liberties which had 
 been thought to have been for ever secured in 1830, neither had 
 they any intention of drawing the sword unnecessarily, and at the 
 caprice of wild or guilty passions. Nothing proves this more clearly 
 than what passed at Lyons during Albert's journey to Paris. Seve- 
 ral Lyonese republicans of deservedly high repute among their fel- 
 low-citizens had been the first to interfere between the manufac- 
 turers and the mutualists. A letter, advising the latter, in noble 
 and impressive terms, to resume their suspended labours, was 
 signed by MM. d'Epouilly, Leon Favre, Lortet, and Michel Ange 
 Perier. MM. Baune and Jules Seguin went also from workshop to 
 workshop, preaching resignation and tranquillity. The executive 
 council of the mutualists was already disposed to this, but, acting 
 merely as a medium of transmission, it had no orders to give. Thanks 
 to the suggestions of the republicans, it assumed a more active part, 
 ordered the workmen to resume their suspended labours, and was 
 obeyed. On the 22d of February, 1834, all the looms of Lyons 
 were plying as usual. 
 
 Quiet had thus returned to the city, but the law against associa- 
 tions soon became known there, and the people was violently driven 
 back upon revolt. A fearful clamour arose among all the trades' 
 bodies; the mutualists saw themselves directly menaced, and assem-
 
 EFFECT OF THE LAW AGAINST ASSOCIATIONS IN LYONS. 255 
 
 bled tumultuously ; a protest was published by the Echo de la Fa- 
 brique. It was signed by 2540 persons, and concluded with these 
 words: "The rautualists declare that they will never bend their 
 necks beneath so brutalising a yoke ; they declare that their meet- 
 ings shall not be suspended. Taking their stand upon the most in- 
 violable right, that of living by the labour of their hands, they will 
 know how to resist, with all the energy that characterises freemen, 
 every brutal attempt against their immunities; and they will not 
 recoil from any sacrifice for the defence of a right which no human 
 power can wrest from them." 
 
 The executive, upon its part, seemed to invoke general war on Lyons. 
 As long as the strike had lasted, no workmen had been arrested; 
 after work was resumed, and at the moment when it was least ex- 
 pected, six mutualists were imprisoned as coalition leaders. Imme- 
 diately there was a burst of indignation at Croix-Rousse, Saint Juste, 
 and Saint Georges, and the workmen encouraged each other to 
 resistance. " We too," said twenty master weavers, in a letter to 
 the procureur du roi, "we too were members of the executive 
 council; we demand to be partakers in our comrades' fate." 
 
 The law against associations was an incumbrance to the trading 
 societies, as well as to those of a political character; the scheme of 
 resistance became universal. Mutualists, tailors, shoemakers, hat- 
 makers, workmen of every kind, and members of the Societe des 
 Draits de I'Homme all became soldiers in the same cause ; all hesita- 
 tion, all wavering, was at end. The cry of Vive la Republique! should 
 be raised, and then to battle. Girard, one of the members of the 
 executive council, took the first step. The various trades' unions 
 delegated several of their members to give a common direction to 
 the common resentments of all, and a Comite d'ensemble was 
 formed. The Societe des Droits de THomme could not be represented 
 in that committee without being absorbed by it; and this actually 
 happened, for nothing could depict the fierce enthusiasm with which 
 the trades* unions were animated. They accused their central com- 
 mittee of languor and supineness, and burnt with desire to come 
 to blows. " Beware," said influential mutualists to MM. Baune, 
 Martin, and Albert, " if your sections do not turn out into the 
 street, we will do so without them;" and when a voice cried out, 
 " But we want arms," a thousand voices replied, " The soldiers 
 have them ; and the soldiers will refuse, as they did in July and in 
 November, to kill their brethren." Involved in this irresistible 
 whirlwind, the committee of the Droits de THomme knew not 
 whether it ought to urge or restrain the insurgents. Tortured at 
 once with rage and anxiety, the inexorable rapidity of events over- 
 whelmed it. It had, besides, within it a principle of weakness ; there 
 existed between MM. Albert, Martin, and Hugon, a community of 
 ideas and feelings which was not entirely shared by M. Baune. As 
 for M. Bartholon, having had occasion to make a short journey, his 
 return to Lyons was to be anticipated by the conflict; and M roujol
 
 256 PREPARATIONS FOR CONFLICT. 
 
 was dying. Thus the committee would have looked upon the exist- 
 ing state of things with more dread than hope, but for the confi- 
 dence it derived from the demeanour of the troops. It is certain 
 that the spirit of revolt had been breathed into them with formidable 
 effect. The committee of the Droits de VHomme kept up cor- 
 respondences with almost all the regiments, above all, with the 
 artillery corps ; and so close were these relations, that M. Baune was 
 enabled to know, from hour to hour, the direction and the intention 
 of the military movements. Such was the state of things and of 
 feelings when the 5th of April arrived, the day on which the ar- 
 rested mutualists were to be brought to trial. In order to glorify 
 the conduct of their leaders, and perhaps to dismay the judges, a 
 great number of mutualists repaired to the Place Saint Jean, where 
 the criminal court stands. This, however, was as yet but a demon- 
 stration, and it was agreed that the people should be sedulously 
 upon their guard against spies and false instigators. But the presence 
 of a witness accused of perjury, and the insolence of an imprudent 
 gendarme, sufficed to rouse the multitude. The procureur du roi 
 came up ; he was insulted and hustled ; the gendarme was pur- 
 sued with threats, and some soldiers appearing, " Down with your 
 bayonets!" cried the workmen. The soldiers complied with this 
 call, and some of them went so far as to fraternise with the people 
 in the Place Saint Jean and in the yard of the court. 
 
 That same day a mutualist had died, and the next day 8000 
 working men, following the remains of the unknown defunct, passed 
 slowly through the dismayed town. 
 
 From that moment threats gleamed in every glance, and the 
 word " Fight" was upon every lip. Excited by the results of the 
 5th, and by the display of their force on the 6th, the workmen 
 believed themselves already masters of the town. The trial of 
 the mutualists had been postponed to Wednesday the 9th of April. 
 It is on the 9th that the battle is to be fought, and no one 
 in Lyons has now any doubt of the matter. The committee d'en- 
 sernble assembles during the night to discuss the momentous ques- 
 tion, and resistance is resolved upon. The people will not attack, 
 but it will hold itself in readiness to repulse any attack ; the sections 
 shall remain permanently constituted; the watch- word adopted is 
 Association, resistance, and courage. M. Lagrange, who deemed the 
 struggle premature, is nevertheless appointed to direct it, if needful, 
 and he is given, as well as M. Baune and some others, the command 
 of the insurrection, not so much prepared as foreseen. Thus there 
 was no well-determined plan, no fixed order of battle; but com- 
 plete uncertainty as to the manner in which the shock should be sus- 
 tained, as to the occupation of military points, as to the communica- 
 tions between the various posts, and as to the tactics to be observed 
 in the insurrection, should it be provoked. It was reasonable that 
 the members of the committee should make trial of their influence 
 in so critical a moment; they therefore appealed to a new election,
 
 THE AUTHORITIES DETERMINED ON A CONFLICT. 257 
 
 and, being unanimously re-elected, they found themselves charged 
 with the capital responsibility of the plot. Then it was that M. 
 Martin drew up a proclamation, wliich was to be read the next day; 
 it breathed an angry spirit, and yet was not an appeal to arms. 
 Unfortunately the public effervescence was increasing hourly ; alas ! 
 how many would gladly pause at the entrance of that obscure path, 
 upon which they were perhaps to stumble over so many corpses. 
 How many felt themselves perplexed and troubled in their inmost 
 hearts ! 
 
 The executive alone might have extinguished, or, at least have 
 postponed the explosion had it pleased. Every thing combines to 
 prove that it had not the wish. In rain the president of the tri- 
 bunal, M. Pic, demanded that the affair of the mutualists should be 
 transferred to another court, a right which the law provides for cer- 
 tain extreme cases. M. Pic's application was refused. The oppor- 
 tunity had never been more favourable for striking a great blow in 
 Lyons, and crushing republicanism there. Accordingly the execu- 
 tive had made its arrangements for taking advantage thereof. Fif- 
 teen battalions, four companies, seven squadrons, ten batteries of 
 artillery, two companies of engineers; that is to say, nearly 10,000 
 men were the forces with which the executive was backed, without 
 counting the aid to be sent it during the fight from the nearest gar- 
 risons. The chief editor of the Precurseur, M. Pete tin, called upon 
 the prefect, on the 8th of April, to ask what might be the mean- 
 ing of those boding preparations. M. Petetin had constantly repu- 
 diated the idea of an insurrection, however remote ; an insurrection 
 was at hand, and his anxiety was immense. M. Gasparin received 
 him politely, and by no means made any secret of the military re- 
 sources upon which the confidence of the executive reposed. Some 
 hours afterwards, in the evening, MM. Gasparin, Duplan, Chegaray, 
 Lieutenant-general Aymar, and some officers of the staff, met together. 
 General Aymar was of opinion that the Place St. Jean should be 
 occupied by troops, so as to prevent the mob from approaching the 
 court. How much blood might then have been saved had this wise 
 measure been adopted ; but M. Chegaray eagerly opposed it, and his 
 opinion prevailed. Now, it is worthy of remark, that throughout the 
 whole course of this and subsequent events, the military authorities 
 constantly showed a disposition to the least violent measures, and was 
 as constantly overruled by the civil authorities, the implacable will 
 of which was personified in MM. Gasparin and Chegaray. 
 
 Final orders were issued on the night of the 8th, the various corps 
 were dispersed through the town, and day broke upon a city con- 
 verted into a camp. 
 
 The troops were disposed in such a manner as to intersect the in- 
 surgent body from the commencement of the action, and the troops 
 had been ordered to carry their colours with them, in order to justify 
 the shooting of every deserter upon the spot. The lieutenant- 
 general was posted upon the Place dc Bellecour, General Fleury at 
 
 VOL. II. S
 
 258 A POLICE SPY THE FIRST VICTIM. 
 
 Croix-Rousse, General Buchet at the archbishopric, and Colonel 
 Dietmann at the Hotel de Ville. Each soldier had received three 
 packets of cartridges, and their muskets were loaded. The 7th light 
 infantry (it was a company of this regiment that figured in the fra- 
 ternal scenes of the 5th of April) was in full uniform, and stationed 
 near the Place St. Jean. The cathedral adjoining that place was 
 crowded with troops, and bayonets glittered amongst the gothic 
 arches of the sacred edifice. The city, thus guarded, presented a 
 horrible aspect. Agitation prevailed in it; but a mute, indefinable 
 agitation. Upon the same spot succeeded each other, from moment 
 to moment, strange multitudinous movements and solitude. 
 
 Three men met, at daybreak, upon the Quai St. Antoine ; these 
 were MM. Baune, Albert, and Limage. The first of these, though 
 ill, went to visit the central quarters; the second repaired to the place 
 where the committee was accustomed to hold its sittings; the third 
 was prepared to obey orders. They had but to look around them to 
 be aware that the die was cast. They parted after grasping each other's 
 hands with convulsive emotion. " Doubtless we shall never see each 
 other again," they said. One of them, M. Limage, was dead before 
 the close of the day. 
 
 It is about half-past ten. The Place St. Jean, for a moment co- 
 vered with people, is suddenly deserted. The people fall back into 
 the adjoining streets, where some children attempt to form barricades, 
 while the crowd looks on in silence. In the interior of the court, 
 confronting the arrested mutualists, the judges were upon the bench, 
 labouring to assume a composed demeanour, struggling hard against 
 the thoughts that engrossed their minds, and lending but an absent 
 ear to the pleadings of M. Jules Favre. Suddenly an explosion is 
 heard. Avocats, judges, prisoners, and spectators all turn pale, all 
 spring to their feet. Presently a man, covered with blood, is brought 
 into the yard of the court; "It is an insurgent," say those who ac- 
 company him, " who has been shot by a gendarme in the act of 
 making a barricade." Every one presses round him, but what is 
 their surprise, when, upon opening his clothes, they perceive the belt 
 of a police agent. The wretch, whose name was Faivre, soon 
 breathed his last. Thus, it was the troops who fired the first shot, 
 and it was the police who furnished the first victim. 
 
 The signal had been given ; the soldiers of the 7th rush into the 
 Place; the working men, driven back into the adjacent streets, crowd 
 upon each other in their flight. Some endeavour to return to their 
 own quarters ; others stop at the corners of the streets to close them 
 with barricades; others, in undetermined fury, run about mute and 
 bewildered. The leader of a section runs into the house where MM. 
 Martin, Albert, Hugon, and Sylvaincourt are assembled, crying 
 out, "We cannot keep our men back any longer; they are frantic 
 and determined to fight." A voice then exclaimed, " Well, then let 
 them turn out." In the state in which things then were, such an 
 order really went for nothing. Far from having given the signal to
 
 CIVIL WAR IN LYONS. 259 
 
 begin, the committee had been, really, carried away by the move- 
 ment; but, after all, had the executive wished to prevent the insur- 
 rection, and had it believed it could do so by arresting the members 
 of the committee, nothing could have been more easy for it than to 
 do this, for it had been made acquainted, that morning, with their 
 intended meeting; it knew the place, and the road to it was open. 
 What mysterious motives induced M. Gasparin to forbear? Are we 
 to suppose that he was restrained by the fear of committing an ar- 
 I bitrary act, when a civil war was to be prevented in a city inun- 
 dated with soldiers? 
 
 One order had, besides, been given to the military, which did not 
 indicate any very great legal scruples; " Fire upon whoever appears 
 in the streets;" a terrible order which, it is true, was not general, 
 wliich existed only with regard to certain quarters, but which pro- 
 duced inconceivable scenes of horror and dismay where it was acted 
 upon. Can it be believed ? In order that judges and barristers might 
 come out, even in their robes, from the court which they had attended 
 upon the affair of the mutualists, and that they might not be exposed 
 to become the victims of this frightful order, it was necessary that a 
 superior officer should escort them, and that a special order should 
 be given to protect their retreat. 
 
 Already, in fact, Lyons was in a state of open civil war. Sta- 
 tioned upon the principal quais and places, as if impelled by some 
 electric agency, the troops fired in every direction ; the cannon 
 boomed upon the Place Louis le Grand ; the grape firing had begun, 
 strewing the pavement with men, women, and children. 
 
 How was an attack so abrupt, so violent, to be resisted? For the 
 communications had been cut off by the soldiers, and the greater num- 
 ber of the sectionaries and working men found themselves isolated 
 and circumvented in their respective quarters, without being able 
 to concert together or to assemble. As for those insurgents to 
 whom the order to fight had arrived, and who had turned out into 
 the streets, they were for the most part without arms. They had 
 reckoned upon depots of muskets ; a mere illusion ! They had hoped 
 that the insurrectional spirit would lay hold upon the army; and all 
 measures had been taken to preserve the soldier from all contact with 
 the citizen. It was from a distance and with cannon shots that the 
 revolt was combatted. The insurgents had believed in an organi- 
 sation, and they now perceived around them nothing but horrible 
 disorder. They cast their eyes around in search of leaders, and many 
 of these were absent ; thereupon they almost all withdrew discouraged, 
 and with imprecations upon their lips. The most desperate determined 
 to remain and die upon their posts, defeat having anticipated the 
 battle. 
 
 And yet, in this immense confusion, it had been contrived hastily 
 to form six centres of action, but without any mutual connection. 
 One in the quarters St. Jean, St. Paul, and St. Georges; one in the 
 quartier of the Cordeliers ; one in the Rue Key ret, and those adjoin- 
 
 S2
 
 260 EVENTS OF APRIL 
 
 ing it ; one in the Clos Casaty comprised between the Grand Cote 
 and the Cote St. Sebastien ; one in the Croix-Rousse and one at La 
 Guillotiere. The fusillade continuing, skirmishes had taken place in 
 various directions ; some insurgents barricaded the bridge du Change, 
 and four companies sent thither were forced to retreat. In the Rue 
 de St. Pierre le Vieux, the troops were fired upon from the top of 
 a house ; it was blown up with a petard. The Prefecture, me- 
 naced by a small body of the insurgents, was rapidly cleared, and the 
 soldiers drove back the insurgents to the entrance of the Rue Mer- 
 ciere and the passage de ? Argue. There the republicans wheel 
 around. Master of the passage, they sustain the assault for some 
 time, but a cannon loaded with grape comes up. It is fired ; the 
 windows are smashed, the lustres shattered to dust, the shops reduced 
 to ruins. The passage being thus cleared, the soldiers run into it. 
 A barricade had been erected at the end of the gallery ; it is obsti- 
 nately defended. At last the insurgents are repulsed. They were 
 six in number! During this time, the troops gain the Rue Mer- 
 ciere, and they establish a permanent communication between the 
 Place Bellecour and the Place de Terreaux, after having blown up a 
 house in the Rue de 1'Hopital, where a violent conflagration begins, 
 and is increased by a breeze from the north. 
 
 The day was approaching its close; silence had fallen upon the 
 town a sudden silence, almost more fearful than the tumult. The 
 inhabitants of the quarters exposed to the fire, imprisoned in their 
 houses, remain in torturing ignorance of all that is going on around, 
 and all that awaits them. Night came on ; it was but a pause in 
 civil war. 
 
 The first few hours of the next day, April 10th, 1834, were tole- 
 rably quiet, but the conflict once begun became furious. What a 
 day ! The soldiers occupied the main thoroughfares, filled the forts, 
 covered almost all the open places and the bridges, and with their 
 cannon and muskets pointed towards the streets which lead to both 
 rivers, effectually debarred the people from all access to those quays, 
 over which the solitude of death now reigned, and across which 
 every step of the people had been marked, since the preceding even- 
 ing, by long tracks of blood. Artillery roared in Lyons, as on a field 
 of battle; shells flew in every direction, spreading conflagration at 
 random. 
 
 And yet, that same day, the insurrection gained ground. Stealing 
 along the heights, at whose base flows the Saone, it won each point, 
 and soon bursting out at once throughout the whole range, it en- 
 veloped the town. The Faubourg de Vaise was already on foot, 
 and here some disciplined men rising, swelled the opening revolt. 
 The Caserne des Bernardines opposed its menacing, impracticable 
 front to the moving fortifications, with which La Croix-Rousse 
 bristled. La Guillotiere was overrun, and kept in a state of breath- 
 less agitation by bands of insurgents. The tocsin sounded from the 
 belfries of the Cordeliers, and of St. Nizier. The black flag floated
 
 IN LYONS. 261 
 
 from the top of the church of St. Polycarp, and from the Lunatic 
 Hospital. Horrible was the spectacle now displayed. Petards blew 
 -up houses, whose windows were thronged with insurgents. The bar- 
 ricades were assailed and overthrown by cannon balls. Bomb-shells 
 showered down upon the Faubourg de la Guillotiere; and in every 
 direction, subjected to their ravages, unfortunate wretches were seen 
 seeking to escape along the roofs of their neighbour's houses, from the 
 burning ruins of their own. In the centre of the town, the same scene 
 of desolation was presented. The college took fire, the flames were 
 twice extinguished by the students, and burst out for the third time, 
 during the fight. Around the Hotel de Ville, soldiers and insur- 
 gents'were seen pursuing and firing at each other on the slippery 
 roofs of the adjacent houses. Further on, the two toll-houses on the 
 Pont Lafayette, which had fallen into the hands of the insurgents, 
 were being battered down with cannon balls; while on the river, a 
 hay-barge set on fire by a shell, descended the Sa6ne, burning 
 fiercely, and running against the Pont de Chazourne, consumed 
 three of its arches. 
 
 The military throughout were as cautious in their movements as 
 they were implacable. They had received orders, which they duly 
 obeyed, to avoid all the narrow winding streets, to advance only 
 step by step, always to keep the length of a street between them- 
 selves and the insurgents, and to oppose one barricade to another; 
 either because there was a wish, as some have thought, to protract 
 the struggle, in order to swell the triumph, or because the military 
 leaders had formed an exaggerated idea of the material force of the 
 insurrection. 
 
 In the latter hypothesis they made a profound mistake, lor the 
 number of republicans in arms was very limited. Dispersed in 
 small groups of ten, twentv, thirty men, over an immense extent of 
 ground, commanded by chiefs of the moment, having no communi- 
 cation, no settled plan, having most of them no arms beyond a sabre, 
 or a pistol or two, they had to derive their force from their daring, 
 and their daring from the very greatness of the danger. In one 
 point alone did the insurrection occupy a favourable position; this was 
 in the centre of the town, on the Place des Cordeliers. There the 
 republicans had got possession of the church, had made it their head- 
 quarters, and surrounding it with barricades, rendered hostile ap- 
 proach on every side an attempt of mortal peril. Nothing could be 
 more striking or strange than the interior aspect of this temple of 
 God, which had thus become the seat of a desperate revolt. In one 
 of the naves, workmen were making powder; while, seated round a 
 large fire, others were casting bullets. One of the side chapels had 
 been converted into a temporary hospital. Here the wounded were 
 carried, their sufferings soothed and cheered by pious priests, their 
 wants attended to by the charitable benevolence of a girl whom love, 
 that strongest of all devoted impulses, had brought amidst these 
 scenes of horror. The person in command here was a young man,
 
 262 EVENTS OF APRIL 
 
 tall, dark-eyed, with a countenance full of haughty energy. His 
 name was Lagrange. And never did chief exercise sovereingty 
 more sovereignly. Prompt with expedients against every new 
 danger, he hurried from one barricade to another, animating his 
 companions by voice and gesture, setting and relieving sentinels, 
 despatching succours to all the menaced points, and covering, 
 with a magnanimous protection, the quarter itself in which civil war 
 had assigned him his fatal post. An agent of police, Corteys, had 
 crept in among the insurgents ; he was detected and about to be 
 shot, when Lagrange saved him. This interference gave rise to 
 some murmured expressions of suspicion on the part of those around 
 him : as his only answer, he leaped over the barrier, walked tran- 
 quilly to and fro before the military stationed at a short distance 
 from him, underwent a discharge of their musketry, which failed to 
 hit him, and then returned absolved from what some deemed un- ; 
 timely generosity by his undaunted courage. And a similar spirit 
 animated all the chiefs of the insurrection : Carrier and Gauthier at 
 La Croix-Rousse, Reverchons in the Faubourg de Vaise, Despi- 
 nasse in the Faubourg Guillotiere, all by their moderation and 
 their humanity, did honour to the cause, which they were defending 
 at the peril of their lives. 
 
 The struggle went on, victory remaining uncertain, disasters mul- 
 tiplying hour after hour. So protracted an interruption of the daily 
 business of life, added fresh misery to the permanent distress of the 
 people; in some of the more retired quarters, citizens were seen 
 going about begging in lamentable tones: " Bread for the poor 
 workmen !" But elsewhere, in the vicinity of the troops, all was 
 solitary, desert; whenever the musketry ceased for a while to roar, 
 the tocsin to peal, the drum to beat, these sounds of destruction 
 were succeeded by the silence of death, a fearful silence ! Not a 
 cry escaped from any of the houses, which remained all closed up 
 and mute as the tomb ; for sad experience told their inmates, that 
 wherever a window opened there death made its way. All circu- 
 lation about the streets was forbidden to the citizens, an extreme 
 measure, which rendered every innocent passenger a rebel, which 
 converted every person, who, for whatever cause, crossed the 
 threshold of his door, into a shooting butt for the soldiers. Women, 
 children, old men, were pitilessly massacred at the corner of 
 streets. One young man was prostrated by a bullet on the body of 
 his brother, whom a soldier had just shot, and whom, over- 
 whelmed with grief, he was about to raise from the blood-stained 
 earth. Hence the interior of many houses soon presented a spec- 
 tacle well nigh as mournful as that of the streets. In some the 
 inmates were in actual want of bread; in others they trembled for 
 the safety of a father or a husband absent, perhaps, ere this, mur- 
 dered; and there was this aggravation of their misery, that they 
 could not even go forth in search of the lost one; in other houses, 
 people were dying for want of assistance; or were lying dead, and 
 could not be interred.
 
 IN LYONS. 263 
 
 The terror on all sides was as unbounded, as the ferocity of the 
 soldiers was implacable, particularly in certain quarters^ And as is 
 always the case, those of the military fought against the insurrection 
 with the greatest fury, who had kept up dangerous relations with 
 the insurgents. 
 
 Near the Place Sathonay, at the entrance of the Rue M. Marcel, 
 a barricade had been constructed; the soldiers sent against it ap- 
 peared to hesitate. Colonel Monnier, dashing forward, fell dead, 
 but his men carried the place; and, forcing their way into the 
 I houses which had been marked out for vengeance, overran them, 
 frantic with blind rage. A citizen of highly honourable character, 
 M. Joseph Remond, was seated peaceably at his fire-side; he was 
 killed. Close by, the dwelling of M. Baune was invaded _ in like 
 manner. The evening before, M. Baune, though well nigh ex- 
 hausted with illness, had crawled out into the town; excessive suf- 
 fering, however, had forced him to return, and he had ever since 
 been lying in bed, tortured with a paralytical attack. His wife and 
 youngest child were with him when the soldiers entered the room. 
 As they were running forward to kill him, he with great difficulty 
 half rose from his recumbent position, and, collecting all his strength, 
 exclaimed: " As a republican, it is in the open streets I should be 
 shot. You will not massacre me in the presence of my wife and 
 son I" At the same moment, the officer in command, struck with 
 pity at the sight before him, his eyes moistened with honourable 
 tears, dashed in between the soldiers and their intended victim; 
 but his authority would hardly have availed to stay their mad fury, 
 had not the circumstance of M. Baune being in possession of im- 
 portant information, which, the authorities hoped to extract from 
 him, brought a messenger, at the critical moment, to back it, with 
 a distinct order from the local government, that he should be pre- 
 served as a prisoner; he was accordingly dragged off to the Hotel 
 de Ville, the soldiers all the way loading him with abuse, which 
 he met with lofty defial or silent contempt. 
 
 Blood intoxicates as well as wine; there are no atrocities which 
 the fumes of slaughter will not give rise to, in fierce and unculti- 
 vated natures. There were fearful examples of this on the 10th of 
 April. On the bridge of Tilsitt, some grenadiers were seen, drag- 
 einf along a prisoner, whom they had determined to throw into 
 theSaone. On reaching the middle of the bridge, the_ victim 
 seized one of his murderers round the body, and clasped him in a 
 desperate embrace. A shot was fired, and the unhappy man J 
 writhing on the pavement. The soldiers then drew back a lew 
 paces, and, aiming at him all at once, terminated his misery, 
 then raised the corpse, balanced it to and fro, one, two, three, amid 
 Satanic laughter, and sent it over the parapet. Some piles rising 
 from the stream, caught the body, and the grenadiers amused them- 
 selves for some time riddling it with bullets, using it as a target I 
 There were noble exceptions, however, to this appalling ierocity.
 
 264 EVENTS OF APRIL 
 
 At several points the wives of insurgents who had been taken pri- 
 soners by the soldiers that were bivouacked in the streets, were 
 treated by them, not merely with consideration, but with generous 
 kindness, and had a share of their captor's rations. An insurgent 
 had discharged his pistol at an officer, within a yard from his breast; 
 the ball glanced off against a button ; the man immediately unco- 
 vered his breast, and with the utmost coolness said to the other, 
 " Now it's your turn : fire away !" But, acting under a noble inspira- 
 tion of generosity, the officer replied, " It is not my way to fire at 
 such close quarters upon a defenceless man. Get you gone !"* The 
 history of civil wars is full of such contrasts. 
 
 Meantime the devastation of Lyons was followed up with ter- 
 rible vigour; the troops battered the town in every direction, as 
 though each house had been a fortress occupied by a thousand 
 enemies. Now the insurgents actually under arms were scarcely 
 three hundred in number, and too well aware of their own weak- 
 ness, they were utterly astonished at the prolongation of the 
 struggle. The most ardent workmen of the suburbs, had come into 
 town to hear the trial of the mutualists, and had not been able to 
 regain their own districts so as to give the signal of battle. In La 
 Croix-Rousse, the remoteness of wnich placed it under peculiar dis- 
 advantages, M. Carrier had but a very small body of men under his 
 orders. In the Faubourg of Vaise, M. Reverchon had made ener- 
 getic attempts to collect the materials for an effective resistance, but 
 Failing, he had retired in the hope of raising the country districts. 
 In the Faubourg de la Guillotiere, insurrection was giving way to 
 the prayers and tears of the inhabitants. Daring men had gone 
 through the adjacent parishes in search of muskets, but had failed 
 to procure any, even under threats. Insurrections were to have 
 simultaneously burst out at St. Etienne, at Grenoble, at Vienne, 
 but not a word was heard about them. Even the moderation 
 of the insurgents operated against them. If, when they had made 
 their way into houses, which were then quite at their mercy, 
 they had demanded arms, they would have got them ; but merely 
 asking for them, unaccompained by any menaces, they experienced 
 nothing but refusals. The insurrection, besides, floated about purely 
 on the waves of chance ; the direction of it having got out of the 
 hands of those who were naturally called to carry it on, and the 
 dispersion of the committee of the Draits de IHomme being com- 
 plete; for MM. Hugon, Martin, and Sylvaincourt were, at the 
 outset of the affair, at a distance from the various centres of action, 
 and M. Baune was awaiting, in the dungeons of the Hotel de Ville, 
 
 * We borrow this anecdote from a pamphlet, published by M. Sala, entitled, " Les 
 Ouvriers Lyonnais en 1834," in which the author, a man of considerable talent, has 
 manifested, towards the republicans, though a legitimatist himself, a spirit of fairness 
 and justice, which is worthy of all praise. 
 
 M. Sala was arrested on the 12th of April, at Lyons, at the same time with M. de 
 Bourmont, jun.; but they were both soon set at liberty.
 
 IN LYONS. 265 
 
 the decision which his enemies might think proper to form as to 
 his fate. As for M. Albert, separated in like manner from his 
 friends, and too well known in Lyons to show himself there with 
 impunity, he had at first sought shelter with one of his friends, in 
 the very house inhabited by M. Chegaray; but after a while, im- 
 pelled by a very legitimate anxiety, he ventered out into the town 
 disguised as a priest, and carrying pistols under his borrowed 
 attire. 
 
 Thus, on the evening of the 10th of April, a mere breath would 
 have well nigh sufficed to extinguish the insurrection. And yet, 
 remarkable fact! the military authorities, on that very evening, 
 discussed and determined upon the evacuation of the city! The 
 civil authorities, however, perfectly well acquainted, by means of 
 their agents, with the real state of affairs, obtained a revocation of 
 the order already issued, to retreat; and it was arranged that the army 
 should continue encamped amidst the smoking ruins it had made. 
 
 For the second time since the commencement of the outbreak, 
 the arrival of night suspended hostilities. The weather was dreary, 
 the snow fell thick. The soldiers sat watching around huge fires, 
 the flame lighting up their anxious faces, pallid with weariness. 
 Here and there were seen crouching on straw, women and children 
 detained as prisoners, their only crime having been that of passing the 
 threshold of their homes. Lyons was plunged into a silence, un- 
 blessed with repose, and interrupted only, at intervals, with a musket 
 shot, fired in the distance. All at once amongst the troops posted 
 in the Quartier St. Jean, there circulated a rumour that they were 
 about to pass over to the other side of the Saone, the leaders having 
 determined it indispensable to concentrate their forces. The Quartier 
 St. Jean was inhabited by several functionaries, and among others, 
 by M. Duplan, a man of great moderation, who in the exercise of 
 rigorous duties, had obtained for himself the esteem of his adversaries; 
 and who, probably on this account, had not been initiated so 
 thoroughly as his subordinate, M. Chegaray, into the mysterious in- 
 structions received from Paris. Having an intimation, in the course 
 of the night, that the military were about to abandon the Quartier 
 St. Jean, and that it was high time for him to take measures for his 
 own security, he immediately hastened to the prefecture, less alarmed 
 than surprised. There he found, stretched on a mattrass, with all 
 his clothes on, General Buchet, to whom he expressed his astonish- 
 ment. What irreparable checks, he asked, had the troops experienced, 
 that it was necessary so soon to concentrate them between the two 
 rivers, and to leave the west bank of the Saone a prey to insurrection? 
 Why encourage the insurgents of St. Just and St. George by this 
 retreating movement? Was there no danger that it would enable 
 the factions to obtain possession of the cathedral, to fortify them- 
 selves in it, to convert it into a citadel? And once they were es- 
 tablished there, would the authorities, employing artillery to dis-
 
 264 EVENTS OF APRIL 
 
 At several points the wives of insurgents who had been taken pri- 
 soners by the soldiers that were bivouacked in the streets, were 
 treated by them, not merely with consideration, but with generous 
 kindness, and had a share of their captor's rations. An insurgent 
 had discharged his pistol at an officer, within a yard from his breast ; 
 the ball glanced off against a button ; the man immediately unco- 
 vered his breast, and with the utmost coolness said to the other, 
 " Now it's your turn: fire away !" But, acting under a noble inspira- 
 tion of generosity, the officer replied, " It is not my way to fire at 
 such close quarters upon a defenceless man. Get you gone !"* The 
 history of civil wars is full of such contrasts. 
 
 Meantime the devastation of Lyons was followed up with ter- 
 rible vigour; the troops battered the town in every direction, as 
 though each house had been a fortress occupied by a thousand 
 enemies. Now the insurgents actually under arms were scarcely 
 three hundred in number, and too well aware of their own weak- 
 ness, they were utterly astonished at the prolongation of the 
 struggle. The most ardent workmen of the suburbs, had come into 
 town to hear the trial of the mutualists, and had not been able to 
 regain their own districts so as to give the signal of battle. In La 
 Croix-Rousse, the remoteness of which placed it under peculiar dis- 
 advantages, M. Carrier had but a very small body of men under his 
 orders. In the Faubourg of Vaise, M. Reverchon had made ener- 
 getic attempts to collect the materials for an effective resistance, but 
 failing, he had retired in the hope of raising the country districts. 
 In the Faubourg de la Guillotiere, insurrection was giving way to 
 the prayers and tears of the inhabitants. Daring men had gone 
 through the adjacent parishes in search of muskets, but had failed 
 to procure any, even under threats. Insurrections were to have 
 simultaneously burst out at St. Etienne, at Grenoble, at Vienne, 
 but not a word was heard about them. Even the moderation 
 of the insurgents operated against them. If, when they had made 
 their way into houses, which were then quite at their mercy, 
 they had demanded arms, they would have got them ; but merely 
 asking for them, unaccompained by any menaces, they experienced 
 nothing but refusals. The insurrection, besides, floated about purely 
 on the waves of chance ; the direction of it having got out of the 
 hands of those who were naturally called to carry it on, and the 
 dispersion of the committee of the Drcrits de FHomme being com- 
 plete; for MM. Hugon, Martin, and Sylvaincourt were, at the 
 outset of the affair, at a distance from the various centres of action, 
 and M. Baune was awaiting, in the dungeons of the Hotel de Ville, 
 
 * We borrow this anecdote from a pamphlet, published by M. Sala, entitled, " Les 
 Ouvriers Lyonnais en 1834," in which the author, a man of considerable talent, has 
 manifested, towards the republicans, though a legitimatist himself, a spirit of fairness 
 and justice, which is worthy of all praise. 
 
 M. Sala was arrested on the 12th of April, at Lyons, at the same time with M. de 
 Bourmont, jun.; but they were both soon set at liberty.
 
 IN LYONS. 265 
 
 the decision which his enemies might think proper to form as to 
 his fate. As for M. Albert, separated in like manner from his 
 friends, and too well known in Lyons to show himself there with 
 impunity, he had at first sought shelter with one of his friends, in 
 the very house inhabited by M. Chegaray; but after^ a while, im- 
 pelled by a very legitimate anxiety, he ventered out into the town 
 disguised as a priest, and carrying pistols under his borrowed 
 attire. 
 
 Thus, on the evening of the 10th of April, a mere breath would 
 have well nigh sufficed to extinguish the insurrection. And yet, 
 remarkable fact! the military authorities, on that very evening, 
 discussed and determined upon the evacuation of the city! The 
 civil authorities, however, perfectly well acquainted, by means of 
 their agents, with the real state of affairs, obtained a revocation of 
 the order already issued, to retreat; and it was arranged that the army 
 should continue encamped amidst the smoking ruins it had made. 
 
 For the second time since the commencement of the outbreak, 
 the arrival of night suspended hostilities. The weather was dreary, 
 the snow fell thick. The soldiers sat watching around huge fires, 
 the flame lighting up their anxious faces, pallid with weariness. 
 Here and there were seen crouching on straw, women and children 
 detained as prisoners, their only crime having been that of passing the 
 threshold of their homes. Lyons was plunged into a silence, un- 
 blessed with repose, and interrupted only, at intervals, with a musket 
 shot, fired in the distance. All at once amongst the troops posted 
 in the Quartier St. Jean, there circulated a rumour that they were 
 about to pass over to the other side of the Saone, the leaders having 
 determined it indispensable to concentrate their forces. The Quartier 
 St. Jean was inhabited by several functionaries, and among others, 
 by M. Duplan, a man of great moderation, who in the exercise of 
 rigorous duties, had obtained for himself the esteem of his adversaries; 
 and who, probably on this account, had not been initiated so 
 thoroughly as his subordinate, M. Chegaray, into the mysterious in- 
 structions received from Paris. Having an intimation, in the course 
 of the night, that the military were about to abandon the Quartier 
 St. Jean, and that it was high time for him to take measures for his 
 own security, he immediately hastened to the prefecture, less alarmed 
 than surprised. There he found, stretched on a mattrass, with^ all 
 his clothes on, General Buchet, to whom he expressed his astonish- 
 ment. What irreparable checks, he asked, had the troops experienced, 
 that it was necessary so soon to concentrate them between the two 
 rivers, and to leave the west bank of the Saone a prey to insurrection? 
 Why encourage the insurgents of St. Just and St. George by this 
 retreating movement? Was there no danger that it would enable 
 the factions to obtain possession of the cathedral, to fortify them- 
 selves in it, to convert it into a citadel? And once they were es- 
 tablished there, would the authorities, employing artillery to dis-
 
 268 MASSACRES COMMITTED IN 
 
 gory streams covered the floor of the temple; eleven corpses lay 
 weltering in their blood. 
 
 Next day the last traces of insurrection disappeared from the heights, 
 and a proclamation informed the inhabitants that the town of Lyons 
 was pacificated! 
 
 Thus the Faubourg de Vaise had had its Days of September. Nay, 
 the terror of those days had here been surpassed; for when in the 
 month of September, the order was given to massacre the prisoners, 
 Paris heard the cannon of the invaders of France roaring at its gates ; 
 Paiis believed it was lost for ever, unless it took steps for hopelessly 
 compromising itself; Paris was mad with despair, and powerful 
 voices had sounded in its ear these words, comprehending every 
 virtue, every excess: " The country is in danger !" But here what 
 I will not say excuse, for excuse there is none for such atrocities, but 
 what pretext was there for these base and cowardly murders? Was 
 not the insurrection in the Faubourg de Vaise effectually quelled? 
 Had not the danger completely disappeared ? Was not the measure of 
 evil full to the brim? Was it possible to make even the most fana- 
 tical believe, that to illustrate, to improve the triumph, it was neces- 
 sary to offer up all this innocent blood? It maybe quite true; admit 
 it fully to be so, that no order to shed this innocent blood emanated 
 from the authorities, civil or military ; but the question is, why did 
 authority, after it had been urgently appealed to by the public, re- 
 main motionless, mute, apparently indifferent? Why, subsequently, 
 did it not deem it one of its most sacred duties to make a searching 
 inquiry into the whole matter? Fortunately, God did not permit 
 such fearful outrages to be sheltered from the judgment of history. 
 Attestations were drawn up with scrupulous care ; were authenticated 
 with all the legal forms, and constitute an imperishable and damna- 
 tory memorial.* 
 
 * These attestations are due to the zeal of a private individual, M. Chanier, who 
 had the courage to fulfil, after the frightful events at Lyons, the duty which the 
 public authorities neglected. We subjoin some verbatim copies of these documents. 
 
 "This day, 1st of May, 1834, we the undersigned, Bonnaventure Galand, dealer in 
 wood, Grande Route de Paris, and Berthelemy Dupernay, shopkeeper, Rue Projetee, 
 No. 8, and Honore Picotin, wine-dealer, Ancienne Route de Paris, and Jean Chagny, 
 innkeeper, Rue Projetee, No. 9, bear witness to this true fact: Marie Grisot, wife of 
 Louis Sanguier, workman in muslins, living at Vaise, Rue Projetee, No. 14, flying 
 from her own house to take refuge in that of the Sieur Coquet, locksmith, Route du 
 Bour bonnais, where she thought she should be in greater safety, it being not so much 
 in the faubourg, was shot in the street, without having given the least cause, in any 
 way, for being so treated, leaving her husband, a man of irreproachable character, 
 with four children, of whom three are quite young. In testimony whereof we have 
 here signed our names, at Vaise, tliis 1st of May, 1834. 
 
 " PICOTIN, DUPERNAY, CHANIER, GALLAND. 
 " Sworn at the Maine, this 1st of May, 1834. 
 " THE MAYOR, 
 " ERHARD, Mayor's Deputy." 
 
 " We, the undersigned, all inhabiting the district of Vaise, bear witness to this 
 truth, that Claude Seve, an old man, seventy years of age, living with his 
 daughter, Marie Seve, washerwoman, Route de Bourbonnais and Rue Proje- 
 tee, in the house of M. Sourdillon, second floor, was, on the 12th of April, 1834,
 
 THE FAUBOURG DE VAISE. 269 
 
 With reference to the insurgents, there is one tribute of justice 
 even the vindictive passions of their enemies cannot refuse to 
 
 ' C " IETIER > SIMOXAUD, BENOIT NOEL, CHANTER, PLAGXE, ANTOINE VERNE. 
 Sworn, this 28th of Aril 1834 
 
 , , , LAGXE, NT 
 
 Sworn, this 28th of April, 1834, at the Maine. 
 
 "THE MAYOR, 
 "ERHARD, Deputy." 
 
 , 
 
 rf which we have here signed our names, the da/and hour above stated 
 
 " PICOTIN, CHANIER, GALLAND, FOCCRET. 
 " Sworn at the Mairie, &c. as above." 
 
 \ aise, 28th of April, 1834. 
 
 " CHANIER, ANT. VERNE, PICOTIN, VINCENT. 
 
 " Sworn, &c. as above." 
 We, the undersigned, bear witness that the Sieur Francois Lauvenrnat tho 
 
 " V aise, Faubourg of Lyons, 29th of April, 1834. 
 
 " J. PELAGAND, DAMET, GALLAND, BERTHAUD. 
 ' bworn, &c., this 30th of April, 1834, as above " 
 
 F EHenne Julien - silk > ***g 
 ^ tom from his home wh ere he was 
 
 nttincr nnito TVOO/U>V.I i u- -o-ji *. nuui ma Home wiiere nc was 
 
 whidf^eouSpfi' d 7 S T - f * he 28th ' and oth er regiments, to be shot, 
 
 "This 1st of May, 18,34, we the undersigned, Jean Cba^kr^Sj^'S j eai 
 
 tesKrirJ383aSSSSE
 
 270 MASSACRES IN THE FAUBOURG DE VAISE. 
 
 concede to them ; namely, that they all acted with rare moderation 
 and generosity, having the utmost regard for persons and property, 
 
 living in Vaise, Rue Projetee, No. 6, was dragged from the house of the Sieur Alex- 
 andra Markof, silk wearer, living in the Grande Route du Bourbonnais, No. 32, by 
 soldiers, who shot him in spite of all the explanations he offered. He left Marie 
 Seal, his wife, and soon about to become a mother, a widow, utterly destitute of 
 pecuniary resources. In testimony of which, &c. 
 
 " CHANTER, EMOUTON. 
 
 " Sworn, &c., as above." 
 
 " We, the undersigned, inhabitants of the district of Vaise, attest that the Sieur 
 Benoit Heraut, journeyman mason, living in Vaise, Rue Projetee, No. 7, Maison 
 Magni, was dragged from his home, where he was perfectly peaceable and inoffen- 
 sive, by soldiers of the 28th of the line, and other regiments, to be shot, without 
 having a word listened to of the explanation which he could have given of himself, 
 perfectly sincere and justificative; further, the soldiers broke open the cupboard 
 and destroyed all the things in it. He has left a wife, pregnant, and two children, 
 the eldest of whom is only five years of age. This poor family is thus reduced to the 
 greatest misery, unless some assistance is given. In testimony of which, &c. 
 
 " ANT. VERNE, CHANIER. 
 " Vaise, 28, April, 1834, 
 " Sworn, &c., as above." 
 
 " We, the undersigned, all inhabitants of the district of Vaise, bear witness 
 that Joseph Naudry, currier, living in Vaise, in the Route du Bourbonnais, in 
 the house of William Laroche, innkeeper, was on the 12th of April, 1834, dragged 
 from his home, where he was perfectly peaceable and inoffensive, by soldiers of the 
 28th regiment of the line, who, tearing him from the arms of his wife, shot him at the 
 entrance of the passage into bis house, without listening to a word of explanation; 
 he has left a child two years old, and a widow quite destitute, and the more so, that 
 the soldiers broke and carried off his goods, linen, &c. In testimony whereof, &c. 
 " LAROCHE, BENOIT NOEL, MARTIN, SIMONAITO, BARCEL. 
 " Vaise, 28th of April, 1834. 
 
 " Sworn, &c., as above." 
 
 " We, the undersigned, attest that Pierre Vairon Lacroix, aged 27, living in Vaise, 
 Rue Projetee, No. 7, Maison Magni, was, though perfectly peaceable and inoffen- 
 sive, torn from his home by soldiers of different regiments, to be shot, without 
 being permitted to say a word in his own justification. In witness, &c. 
 
 " ANT. VERNE, PLANCHE, J. PELUGAUD, DCPERET. 
 " Vaise, 27th of April, 1834. 
 
 " Sworn, &c." 
 
 The circumstances attending this last mentioned murder were atrocious in a de- 
 gree amounting to the improbable, though the fact is but too true. When the mili- 
 tary presented themselves before Vairon, he declared that he was a soldier, invited 
 them to sit down at his table, and ate and drank with them. They nevertheless in- 
 sisted upon conducting him to their officer, and it was while he was unfolding hia 
 leave of absence to show this person, that he was shot. 
 
 We have now before us this leave of absence stained with the blood of the victim! 
 
 To complete this mournful series of documents, we will add the petition which was 
 addressed to the king by the father of the unfortunate Lauvergnat. 
 
 " Sire, the reign of truly great kings is one of justice ! Monarch elected by the 
 nation, King of the Barricades ! I demand justice in the name of my unfortunate i 
 son , I demand it in the name of a hundred persons, victims like hi msefr, of the most ,' 
 criminal attrocity ! 
 
 " On Saturday, 12th of April, between twelve and one o'clock, my son, taking some 
 money with him, set out to rejoin his mother and my eldest son, who had left Lyons , 
 for the village of Ecally. Before he had long left his house he was met by some j 
 neighbours and friends, who asked him where he was going; he went to speak for a; 
 moment with the Sieurs Veron and Nerard, in the house No. 7, Rue Projetee, where 
 he found another friend, the Sieur Prost ; these individuals had their wives with them. 
 Meanwhile the troops entered. Vaise, and took possession of all the outlets; the sol-
 
 MILITARY CONSPIRACY AT LUNEVILLE. 271 
 
 protecting the weak, sparing the lives of the conquered, and inva- 
 riably abstaining from devastation as a means of either offence or 
 defence. They were at one moment, indeed, on the point of setting 
 fire to the Minimes Barracks, but desisted, on an inhabitant telling 
 them, which was a falsehood, that they were about to destroy pri- 
 vate property. The representatives of power, it has been seen, had 
 not allowed themselves to be stopped by any such scruples. 
 
 Accordingly, the blood which stained the streets of Lyons was 
 not yet effaced, when property demanded with loud cries compensa- 
 tion for the losses it had sustained. A committee was appointed to 
 inquire into the nature and amount of these losses, and, in support 
 of the claims which they were directed by their fellow-citizens to 
 make upon the government, a memorial was drawn up, the follow- 
 ing passage in which will evince the spirit of the whole document : 
 " The government cannot wish that the triumph of order should be 
 the source of tears and regret to the friends of order. It knows, 
 that time, which insensibly effaces the grief which is occasioned by 
 personal losses, even of the most afflicting description, is powerless 
 to remove the recollection of losses of fortune, destruction of pro- 
 perty." Yet the persons who drew up this precious memorial, were 
 of the class which had now become all-important in France, ere while 
 the land of chivalry, of poetry, of imagination ! ! 
 
 As to other points, it was set forth in the memorial that the 
 national guard at Lyons, being dissolved, the town had been placed, 
 for its protection, under a purely military jurisdiction; that the iso- 
 lation of the citizens had been complete, all circulation in the 
 streets having been rigorously interdicted, and the inhabitants 
 having been forbidden, under pain of death, to open, even partially, 
 their doors or windows; that, finally, the garrison had added to 
 the effect of its numerical force, by means of devastation and in- 
 cendiarism. 
 
 While the movement at Lyons was in course of extinction, a mili* 
 tary insurrection was preparing at Luneville. To raise the three 
 regiments of cuirassiers in garrison there, to dash with them, sword 
 in hand, to Nancy and Metz, to stir up the people in both these 
 places, with the cry of Vive la Republique ! then to push straight 
 on to Paris, rolling before them the ever swelling wave of revolted 
 troops and people, such was the design formed by the sub-officers, 
 Thomas, Bernard, Tricotel, de Regnier, Lapotaire, Birth, Caill, and 
 
 diers of the 28th, the 15th Light Infantry, and the Sappers then burst into the houses 
 in every direction, and amongst the rest into that where these persons Avere. My 
 son, Veron, and Prost, having been pierced with bayonets, and received several balls, 
 expired in the passage at the bottom of the stairs. The Sieur Nerard alone escaped, 
 as if by miracle : at the same moment a number of other innocent persons perished 
 in the immediate neighbourhood. The Sieur Coquet, locksmith, Rue Tarare, No. 9, 
 was killed in his house with Dame Saunier ; he was an old man of 62." 
 
 " (Signed) LAUVEBGNAT, coverlet maker, Vaise, Faubourg of Lyons, 12tlx of May, 
 1834."
 
 272 MILITARY CONSPIRACY AT LUNEVILLE. 
 
 Stiller, all men of resolution and courage. On the 12th of April, 
 1834, the very day wherein at Lyons, civil war was throwing out its 
 last fires, every thing was ready at Luneville for the execution of the 
 plot. The sub-officers had opened a correspondence with Epinal; 
 they had an understanding with active men in Nancy; the com- 
 mittee of the Societe des Droits de IHamme were acquainted with 
 their projects ; and Thomas had made very successful use of the in- 
 fluence which the comprehensive and commanding character of his 
 mind gave him over the soldiers; inflaming some of them with 
 topics of patriotic and professional indignation ; opening to them the 
 prospect of a brilliant future under a different government, in- 
 spiring all with an enthusiasm for country, for glory, for liberty, 
 and for a republic as the means of saving the country, of gaining 
 liberty, and of opening the road to glory. But it was hardly to be 
 expected that the secret of such a conspiracy should not, in some 
 way or other, transpire ; and it appears that for some time past, the 
 authorities had managed to get scent of it. On the 13th, Guary, 
 ex-quarter-master of the 7th dragoons, was suddenly arrested at 
 Epinal, and important disclosures were extracted from him. They 
 were communicated to the military authorities at Luneville, and 
 Thomas was directed to appear before General Gusler. This officer, 
 however, was well acquainted with his resolute character, his as- 
 cendancy over his comrades, and he had considerable doubts as to 
 the fidelity of his troops. He therefore contented himself with ad- 
 dressing to the person whom he might have arrested as a conspira- 
 tor, remonstrances which he took care to convey in language of very 
 modified severity. Thomas replied firmly and cautiously ; but his re- 
 solution was immediately taken. Perfectly well convinced that all 
 this excessive mildness and moderation merely covered a plan to en- 
 trap him, and that, at the first favourable moment, the utmost 
 rigour would be exercised, he determined to hasten the catastrophe. 
 On the morning of the 16th, the National and the Tribunal having 
 brought to Luneville the erroneous information that the garrison of 
 Befort had proclaimed the republic ; Thomas, Bernard, and Tricotel 
 met, and, after a brief deliberation, decided upon action. Tri- 
 cotel, in full uniform, immediately set out for Nancy, where his com- 
 rade Stiller was to place him in communication with the chiefs of 
 the republican party. An unusual agitation soon pervaded the 
 quarters of the three regiments; the rumour spread that they were 
 about to march on Paris. Directed to keep themselves in readiness 
 to mount, the soldiers saddled their horses, packed and mounted 
 their havresacks, and brought provisions and flints. The conspira- 
 tors no longer made any secret of their intentions . Seeing a cuiras- 
 sier engaged in polishing the handle of his sabre: " You'd better ' 
 sharpen the blade," said Regnier. Meantime Thomas and Bernard | 
 occupied themselves in going round to all the other sub-officers, 
 inviting them to attend a meeting in the Champ de Mars, in the '
 
 ABOHTIVE ATTEMPTS AT INSPECTION ELSEWHERE 973 
 appeared to hesitate " "WWII * fi /6rS e 10th alone 
 
 C^Sf4SS^SS? 
 
 T> , -i J r ' .^^"IJ bu cdcn otnerr At Tmrl'nio-V>+ " 
 
 Jjllt nOXV rrroo-f Trr J.1. , n i ** -LUAU-UlJJIJt. 
 
 s,,h- 
 tt IT 5S SSs? s - s! * a 
 
 *ai.S?rflSS? T^ d and ^T 31 ^ to Na <=y. 
 
 
 
 that we should desm'hp 
 VOL. e * Y " ai/ ' "*iusi; mis universal ai- 
 
 rp J"*
 
 274 BLUNDER OF M. THIERS. 
 
 tation, was the situation of Paris. Following the old established 
 and most deplorable rule of misrepresentation and bad faith in such 
 cases, each party there had given to the events at Lyons, before the 
 real facts and results were known, the aspect suggested by its own par- 
 ticular hopes and fears ; and thus while the enemies of government 
 exaggerated the gravity of the danger to which authority was ex- 
 posed, in order to dispose men's minds elsewhere to revolt, the Mo- 
 niteur, surpassing any thing it had ever achieved in the way of im- 
 pudent mendacity, dared, m its number of the 12th, to publish the 
 following announcement: " By four o'clock on Wednesday," (Wed- 
 nesday, it will be borne in mind, being the 9th), " the action was 
 over. Some two or three musket shots, indeed, may have been 
 heard here and there in the little streets in the centre of the town, 
 but the troops did not find it necessary to take any further steps." 
 
 On this same 12th of April M. Tliiers rushed to the tribune for 
 the purpose of giving the He direct to the triumphant assertions of 
 the government paper; and, in the course of his speech, whether 
 from imprudence or design, he said that Lieutenant-general Aymar 
 occupied, at Lyons, an impregnable position; implying that insur- 
 rection had been acting on the offensive. If the phrase was in* 
 tended to alarm the bourgeoisie, and, by operating upon its fears, to 
 obtain its sanction for the strong measures which were in contem- 
 plation, it was eminently successful. Never was an adult assembly 
 seized with such general consternation, and the efforts made by M. 
 Thiers to modify the impression he had produced, only served as 
 usual to aggravate it. Every body looked at every body with horror 
 and affright depicted on his countenance. It was Cataline at the 
 gates of Rome over again. 
 
 Soon the fearful word, getting out of doors, was transmitted from 
 mouth to mouth, and some members of the committee of the So- 
 ciete des Drdts de THomme learned from M. Marchais what had taken 
 place in the Chamber. The question instantly presented itself.. 
 Could they hesitate? Had they not undertaken to aid the Lyonese by 
 an energetic diversion in the capital? And ought they to draw back, 
 now that an inexorable concurrence of circumstances called upon them,, 
 vehemently urged them to try the fortune of arms ? They determined; 
 that they could not in honour withhold their active co-operation, and 
 a proclamation accordingly was hastily drawn up. But in violently; 
 suppressing the Tribune, M. Tliiers had deprived insurrection of its! 
 Moniteur; a brutal order had deprived of his printer's licence, M. Mie, 
 a man who had already made courageous sacrifices to the republican 
 cause; M. Marrast had been compelled to get out of the way of an 
 order for arrest which had been issued against him, so that all the 
 printers in Paris were completely panic struck. It became necessary 
 therefore, to take the proclamation to the National office, and it woulc" 
 have appeared in that paper the next morning, had Armand Carre 
 given less way to the hesitation and mistrustings which his soul 
 as irresolute as it was heroic, was subject to. So that, on this verg
 
 INSIGNIFICANT DISTURBANCE IN PARIS. 275 
 
 of a crisis, the insurrectionary spirit -was without an organ in a 
 country where the press alone has the privilege of letting loose suc- 
 cessful revolutions ! 
 
 There was another source of weakness for the republican party 
 The direction of the Societt des Droits de FHomme had a public 
 character, and this, as we have before observed, was a capital 
 defect, on the eve of a contest. It is indeed true, that in anti- 
 cipation of the fate which menaced the leaders, they had taken the 
 precaution of establishing a secret committee; but even had its 
 sphere of action been more definite and determined, its importance 
 was not sufficiently recognised. The result was, that in order to 
 knock the insurrection on the head, government had only to carry 
 into effect at the proper moment, a certain number of arrests; and 
 the temerity of its enemies lending effectual aid to its policy, it 
 laid hands upon all those whom it was important to it to reach. 
 
 Meantime, an order had been given to several sectionaries to go 
 into the streets and squares, to remain for a few moments in cau- 
 tious attitude, and then to retire. " What you have to do," said 
 the chiefs to these men, "is not to commence the attack; but to 
 throw straws into the air, whose agitation will show what is the 
 disposition of the people." This order was ill understood, or ill 
 executed. On Monday, the 13th of April, in the Rues Beaubourcr, 
 Geoffiroy Langevin, Aubry-le-Boucher, Aux Ours, Maubuee, 
 Transnonain, Grenier St. Lazare, barricades were constructed by a 
 handful of enthusiasts, whose ardour it is well known was trea- 
 cherously urged to its height by agents of police.* 
 
 Forthwith, there arose on all sides the sound of arms, and the 
 monotonous but terrific roll of the drum; the patrol went their 
 rounds with redoubled care and caution, and ever and anon horse 
 soldiers dashed along the streets in various directions, the bearers of 
 terribly orders. For the government had determined to make an- 
 other display of all its resources on this occasion; and it was with an 
 army of nearly 40,000 men, with the assistance of the suburban 
 National Guard, with thirty-six pieces of artillery mounted in dif- 
 ferent quarters, that Generals Tourton, Bugeaud, Rumixmy, and 
 De Lascours, took the field. 
 
 The attack commenced about seven o'clock in the evening, and 
 such as it was, involved several families in mourning. An officer of 
 the staff of the National Guard, M. Baillot, jun., was carrying some 
 orders to the Maine of the 12th arrondissement, attended by four 
 chasseurs, when a ball mortally wounded him. M. Chapins, colonel 
 >f the 4th legion, was severely hurt in the arm. Soldiers and in- 
 surgents fell, never to rise again, but the struggle was a very short 
 one. At nine o'clock, the main part of the afiair was quite over, 
 and the authorities, in all security, put off till the next morning the 
 capture, now obviously a perfectly easy affair, of the barricades 
 
 * The reader will find, further on, in the April trial, the proofs of this assertion. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 INFAMOUS BUTCHERY COMMITTED 
 
 which still remained in the Rues Transnonain, Bcaubourg, and 
 Montmorency. 
 
 Add, that at this moment the committee of the Sodete des Droits 
 de VHomme no longer existed for any practical purpose; that, vic- 
 tims of a sudden violation of their homes, the majority of the leaders 
 were already expiating in dungeons their blind confidence; that the 
 order to fight, issued by those who still remained at liberty, could 
 not reach the sections, the messengers entrusted with the transmis- 
 sion of such directions being all arrested or dispersed. Thus, thanks 
 to all sorts of misconceptions, to an utter want of proper discipline 
 and organisation, to the suppression of the Tribune, the indecision of 
 the National, the inconsiderate ardour, the rash daring which de- 
 livered over numbers into the hands of an arbitrary power which 
 foresaw every thing, and employed police agents to aid in bring- 
 ing about that which it foresaw, and which it desired to accomplish, 
 the materials for a powerful resistance to the government vanished in 
 an hour or two ; and it was no longer possible to assemble, in one 
 common effort, the members of that Sodete des Droits de fffomme, 
 which once believed itself to bear, and which in reality did bear, a 
 revolution in its bosom. 
 
 The consequences may readily be imagined. The executive easily 
 gained the day over an army which did not present itself on the field 
 of battle. On the 14th, during the morning, it enjoyed the glory and 
 satisfaction of triumphantly clearing away the stones which obstructed 
 a few streets of the metropolis And would to God that nothing 
 had occurred to sully this facile victory ! But, alas ! it was destined 
 that the house No. 12, Rue Transnonain, should be the scene of 
 scenes still more abominable than those of the Faubourg de Vaise; 
 the voice of destiny had said, that in the 19th century, in the heart 
 of Paris, in the centre of a city which piques itself upon being the 
 capital of the civilised world, the re-establishment of order should be 
 disgraced by all the horrors of savage warfare, should furnish work 
 for assassins ! 
 
 Will the reader have the courage to go through to the end, details 
 which we, whose rigorous duty it is to set them forth, are hardly able 
 to transcribe? The facts relative to the massacre which took place in 
 the Rue Transnonain, in Paris, on the 14th of April, 1834, were col- 
 lected together by M. Charles Breffort, brother to one of the victims, 
 and recorded in a memorial, which M. Ledru Rollin invested with 
 the authority of his name, and which is not sufficiently known ; they 
 enforced an inquiry; they gave rise to a judicial proceeding. We 
 extract two or three pages from this terrible record : 
 
 "Madame d'Aubigny: At five o'clock the soldiers came from the Eue de Mont- 
 morency; after a sustained fire, they got possession of the barricade. 
 
 " A short time after another party of voltigeurs came down the Rue Transnonain. 
 preceded by sappers; they endeavoured, but in vain, to break open the door of GUI 
 house, which is unusually solid. 
 
 " ' It is the line!' exclaimed the people in the house; ' Ah, there are our liberators 
 we are saved!'
 
 IN THE RUE TRANSNONAIN. 277 
 
 "M. Guitard, my husband, and myself went down stairs, in all haste, to open the 
 door. Being quicker than the two gentlemen, I ran before them to the porter's 
 lodge, pulled the rope, and the door opened. The soldiers rushed into the passage, 
 and, turning half round to the right, shot my husband and M. Guitard, at the mo- 
 ment they had reached the last step of the staircase. They fell amidst a shower 
 of balls. The explosion was so great that the windows of the lodge, which I had 
 not had time to shut before the soldiers ran in, were all broken to pieces. A giddi- 
 ness seized me for a moment, and when I came to myself, it was to see the lifeless 
 body of my husband stretched near that of M. Guitard, whose head was nearly se- 
 parated from the neck by the numerous shots he had received. Quick as lightning 
 the soldiers, headed by an officer, ran up to the second floor. A folding door soon 
 gave way before them; a second door, one with glass windows, presented itself; 
 they knocked at it furiously and it was immediately opened by an old man, M. 
 Breffort, senior. 'We are,' he said, to the officer, 'pe'aceable people here; we have 
 no arms of any sort. Do not assassinate us.' The words had scarcely passed his 
 lips ere he fell, pierced with three bayonet wounds. He uttered a cry: 'You old 
 ragamuffin,' exclaimed the officer, ' if you don't hold your tongue, Til finish you.' 
 Annette Besson rushed from an adjacent room to assist him. A soldier turned 
 round, plunged his bayonet into her neck just beneath the jaw, and then, firing 
 his musket at her, blew her head to pieces, the fragments sticking against the 
 opposite wall. A young man, Henri Lariviere. was following her. He was fired 
 upon so close that the powder set his clothes in flames; the ball was buried deep in 
 his lungs. As he was falling, mortally wounded, a bayonet stroke cut open his fore- 
 head deeply, and exposed the skull; twenty other wounds were added to despatch 
 him. The room was already a mere pool of blood; M. Breffort, senior, notwith- 
 standing his wounds, had managed to crawl to an alcove; he was pursued by soldiers, 
 when Madame Bonneville came forward, and covering him with her body, her feet in 
 the blood on the floor, her hands raised to Heaven, exclaimed: 'All my family are 
 stretched at my feet, there remains only myself to kill, only myself!' And five 
 bayonet wounds cut open her hands. On the fourth floor, the soldiers who had just 
 killed M. Lepere and M. Robiquet, said to their wives : 'My poor souls! you are 
 sadly to be pitied, as well as your husbands. But we are ordered to do this, we are 
 compelled to obey, though it makes us as wretched as you can be.' 
 
 " Annette Vache : At half-past ten in the evening, Louis Breffort came to sleep with 
 me. We past a restless night. At five o'clock in the morning M. de Lariviere, who 
 had passed the night on the second floor, in the apartments of M. Breffort, senior, came 
 up to wish us good morning; he told us he had slept very badly, and had heard cries 
 and noises all night long. A voice from below called Louis; it was his father's. 
 Louis was dressing; I was scarcely dressed myself, when, hearing aloud noise on the 
 stairs, curiosity attracted me up stairs to the next floor. ' Where are you going?' 
 cried the soldiers. I was in a stupor of fright, and did not answer. ' Open your 
 shawl,' said they. I did so, and a musket was fired at me, which missed me. 
 
 * Stop !' they cried, and a second shot was fired at me. I uttered a piercing scream, 
 and could scarcely reach Louis's door. ' Are you wounded?' he asked, closing the 
 door after me. ' I don't think so,' I said, ' they fired so close upon me that they 
 could not have missed me, so that I imagine they had no bullets, but only fired with 
 powder. ' What! no balls? Why your shawl is pierced in several places!' ' Ah, 
 good God, they will kill us, Louis !' I exclaimed, hearing them advancing ; ' Let us 
 hide ourselves! Let us try and get out on the roof ! We can help one another!' ' Oh, 
 no,' said Louis, ' they don't kill harmless people in that way. I'll speak to them.' 
 The soldiers were knocking at the door, Louis opened it. ' Gentlemen,' he said, 
 
 * what do you require? Do not kill us. I am here with my wife. We have just 
 risen. If you make inquiries, you will find that I am no malefactor.' As he was 
 speaking a soldier aimed at him and fired; Louis fell flat on his face, uttering a long 
 
 cry of agony: ' Ah! ,' the soldier gave him several blows with the butt-end of 
 
 his musket over his head, and then turned him over with his foot to see whether he 
 was dead. I threw myself on the body of my lover. ' Louis ! Louis ! Ah, if you hear 
 Die !' A soldier threw me on the floor. When I came to myself the soldiers had 
 disappeared. I listened and heard steps advancing; they were coming back to the 
 room : I was terribly frightened and liid myself under the mattrass. ' Is there any 
 other person to be killed here?' exclaimed a voice. ' Look under the mattrass.' 
 ' No,' said another man, ' I've looked; there was one person here, but he's dead 
 enough.'
 
 278 CARNAGE IN THE RUE TRANSNONAIN. 
 
 " Madame Hu : The evening before there were sixteen men and women^assembled in 
 the room occupied by Madame Bonton. We had retired there when the insurgents 
 threatened to break into the house, for it was them we were afraid of : we little 
 thought we should have any reason to dread the military. We were crowded toge- 
 ther. M. Bonton had so often talked to us about his campaigns, the dangers he had 
 escaped, that we believed ourselves safer with him; that was quite natural There 
 were still thirteen of us there when the troops tried to break open the door. At that 
 moment we had not a drop of blood in our veins. Madame Godefroy was nearest 
 the door. She had an infant fifteen months old in her arms; next to her was M. 
 Hu, my husband, who held an infant. Madame Godefroy would not open the 
 door. ' Open it! open it!' said my husband; ' let these gentlemen see (and he held 
 the child forward). We are here, you see, with our family, my friends ! my brothers! 
 We are all peaceable mothers and fathers of families. I have a brother who is a 
 soldier, fighting under our standard in Algiers.' Madame Godefroy was pushed out 
 into the passage. M. Hu mortally wounded, fell with his son under him; the child 
 had its arm broken with a ball. A mother's instinct made me catch the child from 
 its dead father's arms, and staggering back I fell faulting into a corner. At the 
 same moment, my husband, though lying dead on the floor, was stabbed in the back 
 with twenty-two bayonet wounds. You can still see his clothes, which were so torn 
 to pieces by the cuts and blows, that they are a mere heap of rags stiffened with 
 blood. M. Thierry was killed; Loisillon and theporteress fell beneath a shower of 
 blows, together with several other persons, who were grievously wounded, Loisillon 
 himself crying out. ' Ah, rapscallion,' exclaimed the soldiers, ' arn't you done for 
 yet?' and they stooped and finished him. They then perceived M. Bonton, who had 
 hid himself under a table. As they had no muskets loaded, they ran him through 
 and through with their bayonets. His cries were such that I seem to hear them 
 now. By and bye some other soldiers came in and shot him outright." 
 
 Let us not delay the admission, that, among the soldiers employed 
 on this nameless work, there were some who, inspired by the noblest 
 generosity of sentiment, made every effort to baffle the barbarity 
 of their comrades. As to the murderers themselves, that they acted 
 under strict orders, and with the full conviction that they had been 
 fired at from a window of No. 14, was testified by abundant evi- 
 dence, it is a fact it would be frightful to be obliged to doubt, it is 
 one we are most willing to believe, and do believe; but, admitting 
 the fact, that they had this conviction, shall it be said that, to punish 
 an aggression, the author of which did not happen to be known to 
 them, they were justified in heaping murder upon murder, con- 
 founding in one indiscriminate massacre the innocent and the guilty, 
 the old and the young, men, women, and children? that they were 
 justified in superseding the judge, by putting themselves forward as 
 unauthorised executioners? in doing that which the most barbarous 
 warfare avoids, making victims, instead of prisoners? It is too 
 horrible ! Indignation takes possession of me, and I must leave off. 
 Unhappy period ! to which one cannot recur, without, by a violent 
 effort, repressing the bitter anger which rises from the heart ! of 
 which the historian can only retrace the revolting history, by 
 stifling, for a time, all the natural feelings of passionate horror 
 which fill the soul at such atrocities ! 
 
 On the 14th of April, while the carnage of the Rue Transnonain 
 was still smoking, the dignitaries of the kingdom went to congratu- 
 late the monarch, and M. Guizot mounted the tribune to insult from 
 thence the fallen enemy. On the 15th, M. Persil, keeper of the 
 great seal, proposed to the Chamber of Deputies a Draconian law
 
 THE GOVERNMENT TYRANNISES AND TRUCKLES. 279 
 
 asrainst the holders of arms of war. The same day, an ordinance, in 
 utter violation of the charter, transformed the Chamber of Peers 
 into a court of justice, and fourteen millions of extraordinary supplies 
 were demanded to enable the government to keep up the effective force 
 of the army at 360,000 foot and 65,000 horse. Assuredly a strange 
 demand ! for how could a power which boasted itself so firmly based 
 in the true interests and good will of the people, require so many 
 soldiers to keep that people in order ? But ministers were eager to 
 take advantage of the public stupefaction. Affecting terror which 
 was no longer justified by the danger, they surrounded royalty 
 with the miserable lie of anxious solicitude for its safety, fostered 
 and encouraged in it the desire to usurp the dictatorship, and offered 
 it the whole nation to trample under foot. 
 
 The impulse once given, the reaction was rendered perfectly 
 furious, by the eagerness of the base wretches who had been watching 
 to see the turn of affairs. In the intoxication of success and of their 
 own passions, the conquerors formed the idea of comprehending in 
 one vast prosecution, the whole of the movements of the month of 
 April. A monstrous blunder, which threw out into perfect relief 
 the mediocrity of the men who were at the head of affairs. For in 
 placing all at once for solemn trial before the Chamber of Deputies, 
 now constituted a court of justice, so many enemies, who, taken in 
 detail by the various local tribunals throughout the kingdom, might 
 have been crushed without creating very much public attention, they 
 gave them, in the aggregate, an unprecedented importance, and from 
 the ashes of civil war, thus imprudently stirred up, they ran the risk 
 of educing fresh calamities. But anger is a bad counsellor. Re- 
 publican after republican, real or reputed, was hunted out, and the 
 prisons were speedily gorged with this species of offender. 
 
 Still the executive retained sufficient discretion to bear in mind that 
 policy required a certain amount of caution and management to be 
 observed towards certain parties. M. Voyer d'Argenson, for instance, 
 was a man of high position and brilliant connexions ; it would never 
 do to implicate him in the charge of conspiracy, which was brought 
 against so many of his friends. There was another consideration; 
 each defendant being liable for the whole amount of the costs, as far 
 as his means would go, there was reason to fear that this liability 
 would swallow up the whole of M. d'Argenson's fortune. It so hap- 
 pened that he had M. de Lascours, peer of France, for a son-in-law; 
 it would never do to strike such a blow at M. de Lascours. In the 
 same way, in order to save themselves the extreme embarrasment of 
 placing the illustrious Lafayette at the prisoner's bar, they resorted 
 to the expedient of omitting from the prosecution, even the most 
 deeply compromised members of the association for the Liberty of 
 the Press, and among others, MM. Andre Marchais, and Etienne 
 Arago. 
 
 Death, however, soon delivered the executive from the apprehen- 
 sion with which it constantly viewed him, who, on the 31st of July,
 
 280 CONCLUSION. MARSHAL MAISON'S EMBASSY 
 
 1830, gave Louis Philippe, on the steps of the Hotel-de-Ville, the 
 investiture of royalty. On the 20th of May, 1834, Lafayette 
 breathed his last sigh. His dying moments were filled with bitter- 
 ness; the ingratitude with which his services had been repaid, had 
 been the slow poison of his old age ; and words of malediction not 
 unnaturally 'marked his parting adieus. His funeral was rendered 
 truly magnificent, by mourning hearts, and tearful downcast eyes. 
 In M. de Lafayette the republican party lost that which had been 
 almost more useful to it than even an active chief a name. 
 
 Thus every thing turned out advantageously for the House of 
 Orleans; and all that the followers of that dynasty now wanted, was 
 moderation ; but for this they had not sufficient strength of mind. 
 We have mentioned with what eagerness they availed themselves of 
 an hour of triumph to obtain authorisation to levy, in the height of 
 peace, an army large enough for a vigorous and extensive war. The 
 spirit of the reign was here fully manifest. 
 
 And all this while the bourgeoisie, the rival power of royalty, 
 looked on and applauded with imbecile ardour, not seeing that every 
 thing that was taking place tended to undermine and destroy its own 
 domination. Had it been less profoundly blind, it would have com- 
 prehended that in the service of one man, soldiers became, sooner 
 or later, satellites ; that, if one day they are called upon to preserve 
 order, they may be to-morrow called upon to protect tyranny ; that 
 there is no longer liberty, no longer security for the people, no longer 
 any distinction between legitimate resistance and flagitious rebellion, 
 when repression may strike where it will, without giving a reason 
 for it ; that parliamentary authority ceases to be independent when, 
 in place of its military, the national guard, the executive power, at 
 its will may substitute the army; that, in a word, the intervention 
 of the war-men in the arrangement of domestic affairs, is utterly 
 irreconcileable with the political preponderance of a class which is 
 based upon and supported by industry. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LET us now turn our regards from this mournful picture and see 
 how France was represented; abroad while at home, with its own 
 hands, it was thus tearing itself to pieces. 
 
 The representative of the cabinet of the Tuileries at St. Peters- 
 burg was at this period Marshal Maison, who, in the beginning of 
 the year 1833, had been appointed successor there of Marshal Mortier. 
 The treatment of the latter, throughout the whole of his embassy, 
 had been a mere series of cruel mystifications. While loading the 
 old soldier with attentions and kindnesses, the Emperor Nicholas had
 
 TO ST. PETERSBURG. 281 
 
 made a point of humiliating the diplomatist; he would talk to Mar- 
 shal Mortier by the hour of Napoleon, his projects^ his battles; he 
 said no more to the ambassador of France about Louis Philippe than 
 if there were no such existence in the political life of Europe, or in the 
 family of sovereigns. Marshal Maison would by no means have any 
 thing to do with such a part as this. Before accepting the embassy 
 he demanded whether his diplomatic character would be equally 
 respected with his person, and he would not set out for St. Peters- 
 burg until he had obtained from M. Pozzo di Borgo the most ex- 
 plicit assurances on this head. His stay at Berlin was marked by 
 several significant circumstances; one of these deserves to be related. 
 The marshal had a habit, whenever any thing of importance had 
 happened, of boasting that he had foreseen all along it would be so 
 and so. One day he had given way once or twice to this habit, in the 
 presence of the Prussian princes: " Well, M. le Marechal," said, 
 jestingly, the youngest of these; " since you are so well acquainted 
 with futurity, tell us what will happen in the next five years." " Sir," 
 replied the marshal, drawing himself up with the air of an old soldier, 
 addressing a flippant lad, " we shall see in the next five years what 
 we have seen hitherto : a great deal of barking, but no bite." This 
 little touch perfectly characterises the marshal. At Vienna he was 
 firm, almost haughty; and by a happy combination of these qualities 
 with polished urbanity, he more than once disconcerted the Princess 
 de Mctternich, who, conceiving a great dislike to him, took it into her 
 head to declare a war of words against him. Habitually rough and 
 abrupt from his soldier's life, but retaining all the shrewdness of an in- 
 telligent peasant, he had no sooner arrived at St. Petersburg than he 
 formed the resolution of taking his stand there as an independent, 
 plain dealing, plain spoken man. His first interview with the 
 emperor passed off auspiciously. A number of Russian orncers 
 and noblemen were waiting in an ante-room, where were also 
 the marshal's two aides-de-camp, MM. Delarue and Chasseloup-Lau- 
 bat; but, though the former had before visited Russia, and formed 
 an intimacy with several persons of the court, none of them ven- 
 tured to recognise him until they had taken their cue from the looks 
 of the emperor. By and bye, their master entered, looked gra- 
 ciously at the two aides-de-camp, advanced towards M. Delarue, 
 whom he had known as aide-de-camp to the Duke de Ragusa, 
 and taking him apart into the embrasure of a window, conversed 
 with him in a marked tone of favour. The next moment, M. 
 Delarue was the object of the most eager and universal attentions; 
 every body came up to him, every body asked him questions, every 
 body remembered that he had seen him on a former occasion, every 
 body remembered that M. Delarue had honoured^ him with his 
 friendship. This scene, the very puerility of which is fruitful of re- 
 flections, distinctly announced that the French embassy was about to 
 assume, at the court of St. Petersburg, a better attitude than before.
 
 282 MARSHAL MAISON AT ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 And so it turned out, for the position of Marshal Maison, from 
 the very first day, grew more and more important. Certain private 
 circumstances contributed to this effect, which, at first sight, might 
 seem to have been calculated to produce quite a different result. 
 One day, at a grand dinner party given by the French ambassador, 
 the conversation having fallen upon the first wars of the revolution, 
 the marshal found occasion, incidentally and without the least af- 
 fectation, to mention that he was the son of a peasant of Epinay. 
 It is easy to imagine the effect produced upon a circle of aristo- 
 crats, nurtured in idle vanities, by an admission such as this, made 
 with perfect ease of manners, nay, with the pride of a man justly 
 proud of having owed all to himself. The emperor was very 
 speedily made acquainted with what had taken place, and it pro- 
 bably increased his esteem for the marshal. Even the very faults of 
 the marshal were of service to him. He had retained, from his sol- 
 dier's life, a licence of manners which he took no pains to conceal, 
 and age had not extinguished in him the fires of youth. At St. 
 Petersburg, a passion for a dancer took possession of him, and he 
 disdained to make a secret of it. The imprudence of this was great; 
 for Nicholas, careful of his dignity, affected extreme austerity. But 
 he liked the marshal's open ways, his military frankness; and the 
 escapade was not only overlooked, but there was established between 
 the emperor and the marshal, an intimacy, wherein a freedom of 
 conversation was permitted, which no Russian courtier, however 
 great his credit at court, ever dreamed of aspiring to. There is a 
 severe chastisement which pride in high places receives at its own 
 hands, ennui ; and'the haughtiest sovereigns are so much the wearied 
 slaves of their own lofty and isolated majesty, that, to relax a little, 
 they are sometimes compelled to descend. Whether from this 
 weariness of supreme rank, or from exceptional tolerance, the em- 
 peror came at last to lend an affable ear even to the most free spoken 
 temerities of Marshal Maison, and the latter profited, as ambassador, 
 by the influence which was accorded him as soldier. 
 
 There at this time prevailed at the court of Russia, not precisely 
 two hostile parties, but two different tendencies. One of these was 
 directed by Marshal Paske witch, Prince WolkonsM, the minister at 
 war, Tchernichef, and some others, who brought to the considera- 
 tion of national questions an exclusive and violent spirit : they were 
 true Russians. The others, such as MM. Nesselrode, Orloff, and 
 Bellendorf, wished that in all things Russia should take into account 
 the general state of Europe, and make, as far as possible, common cause 
 with it. These were Russians softened and polished by contact with 
 the diplomatists of the different courts. Nicholas inclined towards 
 the former; the latter found an auxiliary in the French ambassador; 
 and as his influence went to promote their views, far from seeking 
 to lessen it, they endeavoured to render it still greater, by a syste- 
 matic deference in all things to the opinions of the marshal.
 
 THE SPANISH COURT. 283 
 
 The position of the French embassy at Madrid was far less diffi 
 cult to keep up. 
 
 M. Zea Bermudez no longer directed the affairs of Spain; he had 
 len under the reprobation with which his system had been pub- 
 
 hcly assailed by two captains-general, Llander and Quesada 
 
 When this event took place, M. Martinez de la Rosa was living 
 
 at a short distance from Madrid, absolutely concealed under tht 
 
 shadow of a studious retreat, though even /rom his literary leisure? 
 > foUowed with an anxious eye the destinies of his country A 
 
 world ad , .P roduced a great impression upon the political 
 
 mind, that hatred of brute forre, which the worship of &e muses 
 never laiis to inspire. A man of high probity but timid- a lovpr 
 of hberty, but deeply impressed with the necessity of keepina it 
 un bounds; courageous, but not rashly daring m his opinions 
 titute of that prompt fearlessness which, in stormy times is 
 ^-"jS* mOSt ^-^ghted wisdom, the fire of southern ma- 
 ion did not sufficiently compensate in him for the absent 
 energy of popular passions; and the vivacity of his sentiment 
 Qly served to throw out in more highlyc-oloured relief the 
 extreme moderation of his ideas. He wi one of those men 
 have just the peculiar faculty and force for initiating revolu- 
 f, wbch it is for other men, often much inferior to themselves 
 M P rec ^P ltate > or bring to a close. 
 
 ' Mar ^f ^ k ^ P ointed out to Christina, as the natural 
 successor of M. Zea But it was not known where he lived ; he was 
 sought for in vain throughout Madrid, and it was not till two days 
 had expired, that they succeeded in withdrawing him from his volun- 
 tary retirement, and placing him in the front place of one of the 
 tost agitated scenes in Europe. The Spaniards had been eao-erlv 
 iting the inauguration of a constitutional regime: thenew 
 1 not keep them long in suspense. Under the title of 
 oyal Statute, he published a sort of forced and laboured counter- 
 art ol that French ckarte, which is itself but an awkward imitation 
 ol the British Constitution. Strange contradictions ! France whose 
 is covered with the ruins of the aristocracy, borrowed the'funda- 
 lentals of its political constitution from England, a country possessed 
 d overrun, in its length and breadth, by the aristocracy? Ld now 
 b ranee, wherein the industrial bourgeoisie is every thing, trans- 
 3 the same boon to Spain where the industrial bourgeoisie is no- 
 . 1ms double incongruity is of itself a sufficient condemnation 
 ot the plan of M. Martinez de la Rosa, nor was it adopted in Madrid 
 having first undergone some very severe attacks. An 
 qually active opposition was made to the decree organising the 
 .- ihe ministers were bitterly reproached for restricting the 
 to have a local militia, to districts with at least one hundred 
 *; with excluding the poorer citizens from the ranks of that 
 aonal army, an exclusion highly offensive to the people, and
 
 284 HOSTILITY OF MARTINEZ DE LA ROSA TO DON MIGUEL. 
 
 which seemed to deliver the revolution defenceless into the hands of 
 Carlism, now doubling its strength and multiplying its blows. The 
 reproach was just, though exaggerated. The direction of a ship in 
 a storm should never be entrusted to men whose cheeks grow pale 
 at the sight of the tempest. The safety of revolutions is in the active 
 employment of all the resources ; too much circumspection compro- 
 mises them, distrust is destruction. As to the charges with which 
 M. Martinez de la Rosa was assailed for having sought to put a 
 check upon the newspapers, they were all destitute of honesty, and a 
 knowledge of the subject. The liberty of the press is the grand 
 force in times of peace : it is, if we may use the expression, the move- 
 ment of societies in a state of repose. But in a period of civil war, 
 amidst the shock of armed factions, the absolute liberty of the press 
 is the commencement of weakness, for it is the aliment of anarchy. 
 But leaving this question aside, the tendencies of the measures taken by 
 the Spanish ministry were evidently of a nature to create between it 
 and the cabinet of the Tuileries, a community of interests of the 
 closest description. But though friendly to France, M. Martinez de 
 la Rosa could not view so near a neighbour without a certain dis- 
 trust and dislike of its power, without apprehensions of its ascendancy. 
 England, at a greater distance, was more to his taste, from the very 
 circumstance that it was farther removed from the opportunity of 
 getting a hold upon Spanish independence. Hence the relations 
 which resulted in the Quadruple Alliance. 
 
 Whether, in the quarrel which agitated Portugal, right lay on the 
 side of Doiia Maria, or on that of Don Miguel, was a point about 
 which M. Martinez de la Rosa felt very indifferent. He merely 
 hated, and had sworn energetically to combat in the youngest son of 
 the modern Agrippina, the protector of Don Carlos, the felon sub- 
 ject, and the rebel prince of Spain. But this sufficed to make him 
 take against Don Miguel the most vigorous measures. Thus the policy 
 of Spain, with reference to Portugal, underwent an entire alteration. 
 Don Miguel, who just before had been highly favoured by M. Zea, 
 now found himself pursued with the fiercest hostility by the new 
 minister of Spain. And there was this curious circumstance in the 
 sudden change thus operated, that the same instrument which had 
 been prepared for the accomplishment of one design was now made 
 use of for the precisely opposite purpose. M. Zea Bermudez had 
 collected a Spanish army, which he proposed to despatch against Don 
 Pedro ; M. Martinez de la Rosa resolved to march it against Don 
 Miguel; and as the British ambassador eagerly supported this deter- 
 mination, he requested of him further the co-operation of an English 
 army. The minister replied that the cabinet of St. James' could 
 not possibly undertake so serious a step ; that its influence with the 
 parliament was too powerfully disputed, its very existence too uncer- 
 tain for it to risk such a proceeding. " Well," said M. Martinez de 
 la Rosa, " at least let England furnish us with money, for our treasury 
 is empty." " Even that," replied the British representative, " my
 
 TREATY OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE. 285 
 
 government could not do." Excessively mortified, M. Martinez de 
 la Rosa then declared that Spain, by herself, would interfere, but 
 when she chose, and how she chose. The position was urgent; the 
 order to pass the frontier was despatched to Rodil, and the Marquis 
 de Miranores was instructed to communicate the step which had been 
 taken to the cabinet of St. James's. 
 
 The English were too jealous of their exclusive patronage of Por- 
 tugal, to permit any other power, without their prominent concur- 
 rence to take in hand the affairs of that country. On the other hand, 
 Spain was perfectly aware how great a moral force would be infused 
 into its enterprise by the adhesion of the English solemnly conse- 
 crated by a treaty. This mutual feeling gave rise to a diplomatic 
 negotiation between the two powers, to which, naturally, the envoy 
 extraordinary of Don Pedro was admitted, and which resulted in the 
 drawing upof a treaty, entitled that of the Triple Alliance. It washerein 
 stipuated : 1. that Don Pedro should use every means in his power, 
 to compel the Infant Don Carlos to quit the territories of Portugal. 
 2. that Queen Christina, having just causes of complaint against the 
 Infant Don Miguel, in the assistance he had given to the pretender to 
 the crown of Spain, should send into the Portuguese territory a body 
 of Spanish troops, whose number should be fixed on a subsequent 
 occasion, who should be maintained entirely at the expense of Spain, 
 and who should return home immediately upon the expulsion 'of Don 
 Miguel and Don Carlos. 3. That England should assist these opera- 
 tions by a naval force ! 
 
 The whole character and meaning of this treaty was manifest. By 
 it England maintained, with reference to Portugal, that attitude and 
 protection, approaching to the nature of suzerainty, which she had 
 no inclination to lose ; and Spain obtained the means of more effec- 
 tually prosecuting its hostility to Don Miguel, not as the usurper of 
 the crown of Portugal, but as the ally of Don Carlos. The ques- 
 tions of legitimacy and a constitution were kept out of sight with all 
 possible care. The parties even carried their cautious foresight so 
 far as to stipulate in favour of the two infants, immediately upon 
 their quitting the states which their presence now disturbed, for 
 " a revenue suitable to their birth and rank." 
 
 There was nothing in all this, it is obvious, resembling an express 
 alliance of constitutional against absolute monarchies. The funda- 
 mental idea of the Triple Alliance let it be kept clearly and con- 
 stantly in mind was nothing more nor less than to authorise and 
 give regularity to the entrance of the Spanish troops into Portugal. 
 This was its sum and sole substance. 
 
 In order to avoid complicated difficulties, of an obvious nature, 
 the contracting parties had not thought fit to give any information 
 of the treaty to Austria, Russia, or Prussia; but it is to be remarked, 
 that as little had they thought proper to communicate the affair to 
 France. M. de Talleyrand was neither summoned, nor consulted, nor
 
 286 THE TRIPLE BECOMES THE QUADRUPLE TREATY. 
 
 sounded, nor had a word been said to him about it ! It was by mere 
 chance that he heard of the negotiation, just as it was on the point 
 of being published to the world. He immediately took steps to 
 enter into it, fearing, on the one hand, that the absence of his signa- 
 ture from a treaty in which three constitutional powers figured, 
 would betray to the eyes of Europe the secret of the subordinate 
 part which he was playing in London, and delighted, on the other 
 hand, at the opportunity which thus presented itself, of making 
 common cause, in a prominent matter, with Great Britain. Lord 
 Palmerston, the Marquis de Miraflores, and M. de Moraes Sormento, 
 had fully intended to dispense with M. de Talleyrand; but he having 
 made the proposition, they had no serious reason for rejecting it; 
 and, after all, the adhesion of France strengthened the cause of 
 Isabella and of Doiia Maria. They accordingly granted to M. de 
 Talleyrand the required favour. The signature which he offered 
 was accepted ; the Treaty of the Triple Alliance became the Treaty 
 of the Quadruple Alliance (22d of April, 1834), and a fourth ar- 
 ticle was inserted, as follows : 
 
 " In the event of the co-operation of France being deemed neces- 
 sary, by the high contracting parties, to the full attainment of the 
 object of the treaty, His Majesty the King of the French undertakes 
 to do that which, for this purpose, may be mutually agreed upon 
 between him and his three august allies." 
 
 Thus the co-operation of France was only put into the light of a 
 remote contingency, subject altogether to variable circumstances, 
 and to the ulterior decision which might happen to be mutually 
 agreed upon. Such an engagement as this was absurdly vague and, 
 as the result showed, calculated seriously to compromise the party 
 in whose behalf it was entered into; but then M. de Talleyrand had 
 the honour and glory of seeing his name figure beside Lord Pal- 
 merston's at the bottom of a treaty with a pompous title ! 
 
 Meantime Rodil had entered Portugal, towards the middle of 
 April, 1834. On the 16th of May, he obtained the victory of As- 
 seicerra, which was immediately followed by the capitulation of 
 Evora, and led subsequently to the embarkation of Don Miguel 
 and Don Carlos. The latter would have fallen into the hands of the 
 Spaniards, but for the English who saved him, and gave him refuge 
 in London. This city, in which he obtained encouragement and 
 assistance from the aristocratic party, he soon secretly quitted, and 
 traversing France incognito, passed the Pyrenees, and presenting him- 
 self suddenly before his astonished partisans, restored to them confi- 
 dence and hope. More formidably menaced than ever, the Spanish 
 government "biecame very anxious to extend to Spain the benefits of 
 the quadruple alliance. But this time England was excessively 
 cool and reserved in the matter, for now it was not called on to pro- 
 tect a kingdom subject to its immediate influence. The cabinet 
 of the Tuileries, for its part, trembled at the idea of engaging in a
 
 FRESH PROOF OF TALLEYRAND'S INEFFICIENCY. 287 
 
 line of policy which it deemed somewhat over adventurous. It was 
 with the utmost difficulty that M. Martinez de la Rosa managed to 
 obtain from these two powers additional articles by which the for- 
 mer undertook to furnish Spain with arms and _ ammunition; and 
 the latter to prevent any similar supplies from being sent, from the 
 French territory, to the Spanish insurgents. 
 
 Such is the true history of the famous treaty of the quadruple 
 alliance. 
 
 Many who did not even know its clauses set about exaggerating 
 its importance to a most ridiculous extent. If they were to be be- 
 lieved, it was nothing less than a vast and durable confederation of 
 the constitutional monarchies, formed for a really European purpose. 
 A counterpoise had been found for the holy alliance for the whole 
 policy of the continent. The era of modern diplomacy had begun. 
 To such a pitch were these delusions carried, that, thanks to the 
 commentaries of some ill-informed scribblers in the newspapers, 
 and to the gossiping of some diplomatic understrappers, a mere 
 everyday treaty, which regulated only transient interests, and which, 
 evidently, had no great or lasting import, was represented under im- 
 posing proportions; but the most extraordinary thing of all was that 
 M. de Talleyrand obtained by this stroke the very acme of his re- 
 nown. People failed not to see in a feat, which was far from being his 
 own, the result of his profound meditations and the crowning labour 
 of his diplomatic life. Now so humble, so secondary, so conforma- 
 ble in a word to his meidocrity had been the part assigned him in 
 the negotiation, that Louis Philippe was, for a moment, disposed to 
 express his ill humour to M. de Miraflores upon the subject when 
 there was a question of allotting the usual honorary distinctions to 
 the signers of the treaty. 
 
 After all, this English alliance, the merit of having formed which 
 was ascribed to him with equal absurdity and falsehood, was not 
 such a special favourite with M. de Talleyrand that he was not ready 
 to sacrifice it at the first impulse of his ofiended pride, and we shall 
 see him by and bye himself trampling under foot his pretended titles 
 to immortality, simply for the purpose of reeking his spite upon Lord 
 Palmerston, who had been pleased to leave him waiting an hour in 
 his antechamber. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE Chamber of Deputies had been dissolved at the termination 
 of the session and new elections had been called for. Now the re- 
 sult of these could not be doubtful. The republican party, which had
 
 288 SECRET DIVISIONS IN THE CABINET. 
 
 just been beaten, obtained but a small number of suffrages in the 
 electoral body. The government, on the contrary, entered the 
 lists strong in the lustre of its recent victory. It had upon its side 
 all those who adulate prosperity; a vile race, everywhere very nu- 
 merous, but particularly conspicuous in monarchies for its unblush- 
 ing baseness. Nevertheless, this government, so strong in appear- 
 ance, bore within it active causes of dissolution; and, perhaps, 
 the reader will thank us for here bringing to light some private 
 scenes that tend remarkably to demonstrate how paltry and miserable 
 is the secret life of monarchies. Nothing more sad, and, often, no- 
 thing more instructive than the history of power in undress ! 
 
 M. Guizot, agreeing in this with M. de Broglie, saw in Marshal 
 Soult only a rude soldier proud of a renown which his capacity did 
 not justify; affecting a pride always mingled with craft, and loading 
 the budget beyond measure by the costly caprices of his adminis- 
 tration. Marshal Soult professed, on his part, for M. Guizot, 
 M. de Broglie, and the doctrinaires, a sort of disdain natural to a 
 man of the sword. He was vexed at their cold and sullen haughti- 
 ness, and above all at their talents. Throughout the secret struggle 
 occasioned by these antipathies, M. Thiers had long been, not the 
 marshal's ally, but his officious defender; for M. Thiers, filled as he 
 was with the recollections of the Empire, could never shake off a 
 certain respect for the uniform. Unfortunately Marshal Soult had a 
 subaltern's taste. He was fond of being surrounded with obscure 
 hangers on ; and the latter, to give themselves importance in his eyes, 
 laboured to exasperate him against all his colleagues. The result 
 was a jealousy on his part, among the objects of which M. Thiers 
 himself soon became included. Hence there was formed ere long in 
 the cabinet a sort of league, under which it was impossible but that 
 the marshal should succumb sooner or later. Such were the real 
 causes of his fall; the following was its immediate occasion. 
 
 Public opinion was at that time very much engaged with the 
 affairs of Africa.* Our conquest in that region was dragging along 
 painfully since 1830, and was not becoming consolidated. Our 
 brave soldiers were worn out with numberless and fruitless expe- 
 ditions against wild horsemen, masters of the burning soil, who 
 laughed at all attempts to seize them. Our efforts cost us much 
 gold and the best of that generous blood which has always boiled 
 in the veins of France. Intense anxiety ensued. Men asked each 
 other did not the evil flow from the excessive frequency of the excur- 
 sions, and consequently from the predominance of the military spirit 
 in Africa? They asked would it not be well, in order finally to 
 consolidate our conquest at Algiers, to send thither a civil governor 
 to whom the general should be subordinate. This opinion gathered 
 
 * If we have not yet spoken of our expeditions in Algeria, it is because we have 
 judged it expedient, in order to avoid confusion, to postpone the history of France in 
 Algiers since the conquest, till the end of our work. Indeed, that history naturally 
 forms a tableau apart.
 
 STRUGGLE BETWEEN SOULT AND GUIZOT. 289 
 
 strength, it spread widely, and took hold of the Chamber after 
 having prevailed in the press. It was indirectly subservient to the 
 viewsor rather the repugnances, of the doctrinaires with respect to 
 Africa. " Algiers," said M. de Broglie, " is a box at the opera. 
 France is rich enough assuredly to have a box at the opera, but 
 this one costs too dear." Now, since M. de Broglie had left the 
 council, his notions had been represented there by his friend 
 M. Guizot. As for M. Thiers, the occupation of Africa agreed 
 with all his instincts of nationality; it flattered the share of old 
 imperial pride that formed a part of his nature; but his mind was 
 in a state of uncertainty as to the advantages of the civil govern- 
 ment. The affair was brought before the council. Marshal Soult, 
 fancving that the army was insulted in his person, resisted; and per- 
 ceiving that his resistance would not be successful, he turned the 
 whole force of it upon the subject of choosing the governor. 
 
 MM. Thiers and Guizot had cast their eyes upon M. Decazes, who 
 was recommended to them by his political importance, by his expe- 
 rience in managing men, by the services he had rendered the oppo- 
 sition of fifteen years under the Restoration, and also by the em- 
 barrassments of his private fortune. But M. Decazes had for his 
 declared enemy in the Chamber of Peers, M. de Semonville,^ Mar- 
 shal Soult's intimate friend and influential adviser. M. de Semon- 
 ville averted the choice of the Minister of War from M. Decazes, 
 and turned it upon the Due de Bassano. Imagine the surprise of 
 MM. Thiers and Guizot when the Due de Bassano was proposed to 
 them! They had no personal antipathy to that individual, but 
 they more than suspected his capacity. The marshal insisting for 
 the Due de Bassano, they insisted more than ever for M. Decazes, 
 and there was an open split in the council. The king, not seeing 
 clearly how he could in any way turn to the advantage of his 
 personal government a dispute, in which Marshal Soult figured 
 on the one side, and MM. Guizot and Thiers on the other, wished 
 to let the quarrel die away; he therefore thought of making an 
 excursion to the Chateau d'Eu his favourite retreat. The names 
 of MM. Decazes and Bassano ceased in fact to be pronounced; but, 
 if the conflict no longer existed, the acrimony produced by it sur- 
 vived. Impatient to get rid of the minister of war, M. Guizot 
 pressed M. Thiers to unite with him to that end, representing to 
 him that the marshal was a permanent cause of division in the 
 council and a source of perplexity in the Chamber. M. Thiers still 
 hesitated: "A marshal of France is not to be dealt with lightly," 
 he said, musingly. Nevertheless, he consented to lend himself at 
 least passively to his colleague's views, and it was with his consent 
 that M. Guizot set out for the Chateau d'Eu, whither the king had 
 preceded him. 
 
 The king held by Marshal Soult, first, because he had in him a 
 minister as docile as he was laborious; secondly, because he thought 
 him the only man capable of securing to the throne the strong sup- 
 VOL. II. " U 

 
 290 SOULT RETIRES. GERARD SUCCEEDS HIM. 
 
 port of the army. Besides it was not a light thing to affront a 
 man who had held a distinguished position in war, even at a period 
 when the lustre of Napoleon's glory had made all others pale; and 
 Louis Philippe was in the habit of saying of Marshal Soult, " He 
 serves to keep the wind off me." 
 
 For all these reasons Guizot's proceedings were hazardous. The 
 king desired an explanation with Thiers, and a courier being de- 
 spatched in all haste to the minister of the interior, the latter re- 
 paired to the king and to his colleague. The discussion was a long 
 one, but Thiers having undertaken to bring Marshal Gerard into 
 the cabinet, if Marshal Soult were previously excluded from it, the 
 king yielded. The president of the council was therefore deemed 
 to have voluntarily given in his resignation. M. de Semonville was 
 chastised in his turn, and the victorious ministers thought it a plea- 
 sant freak of vengeance to assign as his successor in the dignity 
 of grand referendary of the Chamber of Peers that same M. Decazes, 
 whom his imprudent hostility had retained in Paris. 
 
 The opposition journals exhausted themselves in vain conjectures 
 respecting the cause of Marshal Soult^s retirement, the secret of 
 which was carefully preserved. The ministerial press made no 
 scruple of assigning the decline of the old war-beaten soldier's health 
 as the cause of his retirement; the truth is that he was overthrown 
 by his colleagues. His hatred against the doctrinaires increased in 
 consequence, and M. Thiers, upon whom he had counted for a 
 moment, having become particularly odious to him, his resent- 
 ment was testified in the most rancorous expressions. M. Thiers 
 had not presumed too much upon his influence over Marshal Gerard. 
 He succeeded in persuading him to enter the council, in which the 
 place of his old comrade in arms awaited him. It was now the 
 18th of July, 1834: Marshal Gerard felt no liking for office; what 
 decided him to accept it was his hope of honouring his entry into 
 the ministry by procuring a general amnesty. M. Thiers held out 
 some prospect to him of the possible fulfilment of his desires upon 
 this subject, but no positive engagement was made, nor any fixed 
 time appointed. Now, here begins a series of intricacies still more 
 curious and instructive than those which we have just sketched. 
 We have seen in what manner, instigated by their imbecile anger, 
 the ministers had been induced to load the peerage with that fearful 
 burden of the April trials. The consequences of this blunder, one 
 of the grossest ever committed by a government, were already be- 
 coming conspicuous. The attempts made in 1834 in different parts 
 of the kingdom being considered but as so many episodes of one 
 plot, it had been necessary to give colossal proportions to the pro- 
 secution ; it had been necessary, in order to collect the materials for 
 the trial, to display an inquisitorial pomp which was truly unpa- 
 ralleled. Prosecutions were heaped upon prosecutions, arrests upon 
 arrests, 2000 persons were apprehended, 4000 witnesses were exa- 
 mined, and 17,000 documents were laid before the commissioners of 
 inquiry (commissaires instructeurs).
 
 AN AMNESTY PROPOSED BY MARSHAL GERARD. 291 
 
 To proclaim an amnesty under such circumstances would have 
 been an act at once of wisdom and of generosity. Accordingly, no 
 sooner was the idea promulgated, than it seized irresistible hold upon 
 public opinion; it became the favourite topic of the press; it was the 
 theme of conversation alike in the salon and in the workshop. If it 
 aroused some feelings of rebellious pride amongst the prisoners, on. 
 the other hand it awoke pleasing hopes in the bosoms of their child- 
 ren, their wives, and their mothers. Lastly, the most moderate friends 
 of the government believed that the moment was come for it to re- 
 nounce with honour an impossible prosecution, and to hide under the 
 splendour of its clemency whatever there had been rash and dangerous 
 in the promptings of its rancour. 
 
 But it is the malady of weak governments to be everlastingly 
 mistaken, both as to the nature and the outward signs of strength. 
 Strength ! Nothing better evinces it than the power of being clement 
 with impunity; and those men make a very humiliating avowal of 
 their weakness who declare themselves unable to be generous with- 
 out peril. 
 
 Marshal Gerard was the only man in the council who compre- 
 hended this; and, strange to tell, his principal adversary was not M. 
 Guizot, it was M. Thiers. Nevertheless, M. Thiers was far from 
 being cruel, and he had sufficient enlargement of mind to know that 
 in all matters of violent repression, whatever is not absolutely neces- 
 sary is injurious: but he gave way to the impulses of a vanity 
 which was not exempt from childishness. Because the press haugh- 
 tily demanded the amnesty; because the imperilled republicans 
 proudly disdained to sue for it, he was persuaded that there would be 
 want of energy and courage in granting it ; and though he was by no 
 means fond of courting unpopularity after the fashion of M. Guizot, 
 that is to say ostentatiously and with affected disdain, he forgot him- 
 self on this occasion, even to the length of tasting, with still more 
 satisfaction than M. Guizot himself, the delight of scorning public 
 opinion. The king, too, was averse to the amnesty; and as it was 
 proper that on so delicate a topic the king should appear as little 
 prominent as possible, M. Thiers was pleased to " screen him." 
 
 Marshal Gerard for his part had nobly bound up his ministerial 
 existence with the adoption of the amnesty, nor had he any lack of 
 encouragement. There had lately been formed, within the majority 
 in the Chamber, a small league of aspirants known under the name 
 of the tiers parti, which might have more properly been called the 
 intrigue party. Opposed to the gauche by its way of thinking, 
 and to the ministers by its ambition, the tiers parti laboured hard 
 to fight its way to office by fraud and stratagem. It urged Mar- 
 shal Gerard to be firm, being well assured that to divide the cabinet 
 was to break it up. 
 
 The conduct of the journals was in general more frank, and 
 [arshal Gerard, backed by the press, counted among his most reso- 
 ite partisans the Constitutionel, a journal which expressed the 
 
 u 2
 
 292 THE AMNESTY REJECTED. GERARD RETIRES. 
 
 feelings of a considerable portion of the bourgeoisie. M. de St. 
 Albin, the editor, published a spirited letter on the subject in dis- 
 cussion, which he signed with his name, and which boldly stepped 
 beyond the beaten track of newspaper polemics. He cited those 
 noble words of a Roman emperor, " I would not have it thought that 
 I had so many enemies." He called to mind in what terms the 
 Vieux Cordelier had protested against the revolutionary vce victis, and 
 he invoked blessings on the memory of Camille Desmoulins, ex- 
 claiming within two paces of the scaffold and at the risk of mount- 
 ing it for having sought to pull it down, " Let us institute a com- 
 mittee of clemency." 
 
 Meanwhile Marshal Gerard was growing weary and indignant at 
 a resistance upon which he had not counted. His patience being 
 quite worn out, he had a note drawn up by M. Linguet under his 
 own inspection, the object of which was to bring the council to a 
 definite decision. The advantages of the amnesty were set forth in 
 that note with profound good sense, and Marshal Gerard disclosed 
 his whole soul in it. He did not hesitate to declare therein that he 
 would willingly exchange a part of the warlike renown he had 
 acquired at the cost of his blood upon fields of battle, for the honour 
 of having consoled so many poor mothers. The note concluded 
 with a characteristic and affecting anecdote. After the victory of 
 Marengo, Bonaparte having asked his officers to what causes they 
 attributed his successes, some talked of his ability in the direction 
 of home affairs, others of the battles he had gained ; but he replied, 
 "Every thing has succeeded with me because I am in the eyes of 
 all the world a living amnesty." 
 
 The lesson was a striking one, and the circumstances of the times 
 rendered it solemn ; for, after all, was not the amnesty imperiously 
 called for, even by that policy whose glory it is to be heartless and 
 unfeeling? Was it prudent to stir up the ashes of civil war, to 
 enter into discussion, in presence of the attentive people, upon the 
 revolt of the poor against the rich, to disclose the manner in which 
 military fidelity is tampered with, to blow the smouldering fire 
 of so many ill-extinguished hatreds? And what downright mad- 
 ness it was to conduct the crowd into that Rue Transnonain all filled 
 with assassinations, and before that fatal and too celebrated No. 1 2 ! 
 
 All such considerations were of no avail; the government chose 
 to appear strong; it dreaded to show itself timid, and then, if the 
 truth must be told, the president of the council was grudged the 
 honour of carrying out tne plan which public opinion attributed to 
 him alone. Had the amnesty been passed, would not the marshal's 
 friends have everywhere cried out, " At last, M. Gerard has got the 
 upper hand ; he has vanquished his colleagues, he has vanquished the 
 king?" Therein lay, for whoever knows the heart of man. the 
 real cause, the philosophic cause of the rejection of the amnesty; for, 
 as for the arguments that were used against it, nothing could be 
 less serious. Its opponents dared to assert that, according to the
 
 HOPES OF THE TIERS PARTI. 293 
 
 constitution, the king could not do before condemnation what he 
 could do after it, by exercising the right of pardon; a subtlety which 
 was unworthy of refutation, an attorney's chicanery opposed to the 
 views of the statesman. They pretended to fear the indignation of 
 the supreme magistracy, were its functions interfered with, and that 
 of the national guard, if those who had troubled its repose were pro- 
 tected from its rancour; a sophism which calumniated France. The 
 real motives were carefully concealed: we have exposed them. The 
 project of the amnesty was therefore definitively rejected, and Mar- 
 shal Gerard quitted the ministry. 
 
 His retirement opening the breach to the ambitious, the most 
 eager rushed to the assault and to the antechamber of the royal palace 
 The passages to the Palais Bourbon, the offices of the several minis- 
 ters, and the political salons, became so many centres of intrigue 
 The tiers parti was all astir; already the subalterns were drawino- U p 
 new lists and composing the ministry of their choice. The leaders 
 with more circumspection, were struggling to defend themselves 
 rom the intemperate impatience of their subordinates; but they en- 
 joyed the movement of which they were the centre; and MM. Dupin 
 ame, Passey, and Sauzet, suffered themselves to be borne alon^ by the 
 flood of so many various agitations, with all the delight of avenged 
 pride. Remarks were then thrown out upon the last address votedby 
 the Chamber, the inevitable and intended result of which was to in- 
 cense ministers, to spur them on, to provoke their pride to some rash 
 overt act, and to shake the strength of that support they mio-ht hence- 
 forth reckon upon from the majority. The address had mentioned how 
 jsirable it was that a reconciliation should take place between 
 parties; was not this as much as to tell ministers that their policy 
 had been foolishly cruel? The address had urged the crown to 
 choose enlightened and faithful agents; doubtless there was in this 
 i pointed and sarcastic allusion. The address had expressed the 
 nope that the budget would be reduced to less disastrous propor- 
 How was it possible to mistake the censure implied in this 
 son of economy? Suggestions like these excited the minds of the 
 members, kindled the ambitious, and every thing seemed tending 
 to a change of ministry. 
 
 The ministers took no heed of all this. In the intoxication of their 
 recent victories, they smiled at the pretensions of the tiers parti 
 d at its turbulent weakness. They readily persuaded themselves 
 the tiers parti, once in office, would break down under so 
 eavy a burden, and would soon become the object of public deri- 
 sion. Nay, so strong was their conviction in this respect, that they 
 determined even to resign their portfolios for a time. " Let our 
 rivals have a trial," they said; " the bourgeoisie, having beheld the 
 ill display of their impotence, will all the better know what is their 
 real worth, and how well grounded is our right to be its leaders, 
 les, the opposition of these men wearies and teases us more and 
 more; if it were to go on, it would at last raise up serious obstacles
 
 294 INTRIGUES. THIERS, GUIZOT, DE BROGLIE, 
 
 against us; let us silence it by our retirement, winch, by rendering 
 apparent the inferiority of our adversaries, will only serve to bring 
 us back to office in a triumphant manner." 
 
 This project was naturally calculated to please the disdainful soul 
 of M. Guizot. M. Thiers, for his part, longed for a few days of 
 repose, for he was one who readily grew weary of office, precisely 
 because it was in his nature to exercise it with such ardour. The 
 cabinet, therefore, was about to be dissolved ; but there was one of 
 the ministers who did not relish his colleagues' plan ; this was M. 
 Persil. the garde des sceaux, who had but recently taken office. It 
 was by no means agreeable to him to sacrifice his ambition, after so 
 short a career, and for so uncertain a hope. His resistance, therefore, 
 was obstinate, and when his colleagues offered their resignation, 
 the most violent altercation took place between him and M. Thiers 
 in the king's presence. 
 
 The ministerial crisis continued, as often happens, for several days 
 suspended upon a variety of contingencies. Though the ministers, 
 as we have said, enjoyed the idea of covering the tiers parti with 
 ridicule by making way for it, still various arrangements were at- 
 tempted with a view to uphold the existing cabinet; but who was 
 to take the lead in it? This was unquestionably the greatest diffi- 
 culty in the case. M. Thiers was too young at that period, he was 
 too new in office to allow of his being thought of as president of the 
 council. M. Guizot might have pretended to that dignity, in con- 
 sideration of his importance and his age; but he was a doctrinaire. 
 But though that designation had no political meaning; though it 
 expressed a manner of being, rather than a manner of thinking, still 
 there adhered to it some indescribable tincture of unpopularity 
 which was totally indelible. Thus, M. Guizot and M. Thiers were 
 both alike out of the question for the presidency. What, then, was 
 to be done? They admitted no one to be their superior in talent; 
 they would have owned no authority but that of a name. It was 
 necessary, therefore, to find some one in whose train they might 
 walk without too great a sacrifice of their pride ; but Marshal Ge- 
 rard was retiring, Marshal Soult had fallen beneath their blows, M. 
 de Broglie was hateful to the king. What was to be done? There 
 remained M. Mole. Hope was for a moment entertained of in- 
 ducing him to join the cabinet; they talked of giving him the port- 
 folio of foreign affairs. But here was a new source of embarrass- 
 ment. That same portfolio had been accepted provisionally by M. 
 de Rigny, only with a view for opening a way for M. de Broglie 
 into the council. To have given the office of foreign affairs to M. 
 Mole, would have been to render M. de Broglie's return, for a very 
 long time, impossible. M. Guizot could not consent to it. During 
 this time, Guizot himself was a target to all the ambitious in the par- 
 liament, and to the familiars in the royal palace. They had all 
 gathered round M. Thiers, and sometimes inciting him by false 
 reports, sometimes flattering him to excess, in order to kindle his
 
 LOUIS PHILIPPE. 295 
 
 jealousy, they urged him with one accord to break with the doc- 
 trinaires. How else could he establish his political fortunes upon 
 an unassailable footing? and upon what false point of honour could 
 he think of rendering his own destiny subordinate to the ambition 
 of some men, puffed up with their own merits, and overflowing with 
 rancour? Such, above all, was the language of those courtiers, who 
 exerted themselves with most ingenuity to promote the secret wishes 
 of the king; for the king passionately desired to see the cabinet 
 weakened. M. Guizot and M. Thiers, combined together, too com- 
 pletely counterpoised the royal will. The king wished to divide 
 them, and to make use of the one to subjugate the other; and he 
 felt that he could never govern at his ease until the discord be- 
 tween the most influential and most able men should become intense 
 enough to furnish him with a repeated succession of ministries. It 
 would scarcely be worthy of history to enter into the detail of all 
 the dark manoeuvres employed to effect the triumph of the court 
 system. What we have related upon the subject will suffice to 
 show by what an inevitable descent the representative regime had 
 come to be but a gross farce. 
 
 M. Thiers, as we shall see, was in the end the dupe of these 
 manoeuvres ; but upon the present occasion it is but justice to own that 
 he contrived to evade them. He even carried his resistance much 
 further than was supposed, and the following was the result of his 
 union with M. Guizot. 
 
 M. Thiers, as we have seen, had only opposed the amnesty that 
 he might not appear in the light of a beaten man as regarded Marshal 
 Gerard and public opinion. He thought there would be no in- 
 convenience in calling back the marshal into the council, and in 
 giving way upon the question of the amnesty, if on the one hand 
 any seeming feebleness from such a concession were concealed, by a 
 measure openly in defiance of all parties, and if, on the other, the 
 forms and the manner of the amnesty were modified, so that it should 
 no longer pass for the exclusive work of the marshal, and might not 
 prove matter for triumph upon his part. In order to attain this 
 double purpose M. Thiers had thought first of calling M. de Broglie 
 into the cabinet; secondly, of making the so-much desired amnesty 
 emanate from the Chamber instead of from the king. 
 
 It was not that the presence of the Due de Broglie in the council 
 did not inspire M. Thiers with a secret uneasiness, but he saw in it 
 both a defial given to public opinion, and a force to be used against 
 the king. M. Guizot and he, therefore, agreed to send Marshal 
 Gerard, who was then in the country, a note to the following effect: 
 
 " The amnesty shall be granted by a law. The ministry shall be 
 composed as follows: Marshal Gerard, War Minister ; M. Guizot, 
 Public Instruction M. Thiers, Interior; M. de Rigny, Marine; 
 M. Humaun, Finance; M. Persil, Justice; M. Duchatel, Com- 
 merce. M. de Broglie consents to the presidency of Marshal Gerard.
 
 296 THE CABINET DISSOLVED. 
 
 The king feels the utmost antipathy for M. de Broglie, it shall be 
 overcome." 
 
 Marshal Gerard refused to accede to a scheme, the secret purport 
 of which he guessed very clearly; but that scheme encountered a 
 still more serious obstacle. When the plan agreed upon was laid 
 before the king, his dissatisfaction broke forth vehemently. The 
 amnesty and M. de Broglie together were too much by half. MM. 
 Guizot and Thiers insisted ; the word resignation was uttered, where- 
 upon the king replied, with an excitement of manner he could not 
 control, " Very well, messieurs, I will see to it," and so the cabinet 
 was dissolved. 
 
 Some hours afterwards the retiring ministers met at table at M. 
 de Rigny's, where one would have supposed that they had assem- 
 bled to make merry over their retirement. Relying upon his youth, 
 his talents, his good stars, and the need that would sooner or later be 
 felt of his varied mental resources, M. Thiers gave himself up wholly 
 to the delight of feeling himself delivered from a thorny situation. 
 M. Guizot too wore a radiant countenance, incapable as he was of 
 betraying his regret for office, supposing he had felt any. The retiring 
 ministers, filled with a sense of their superiority, did not imagine that 
 they could be easily replaced, and they secretly chuckled over the 
 perplexities that were about to assail royalty. The hours of the re- 
 past wore away in merry discourse, from which politics were 
 banished, and a decorous, though intrinsically ironical gaiety pre- 
 vailed in the looks and language of the whole party, with the single 
 exception of M. Persil. He was sombre and taciturn, and on leav- 
 ing the house he spoke to M. Thiers of his surprise at conduct which 
 seemed to mark contempt for the monarch. The scene of the dinner 
 became soon known in the royal palace through him (so at least 
 his colleagues supposed), and as usual the story passing from mouth 
 to mouth was changed, magnified, and presented in a still more of- 
 fensive aspect, till it excited the indignation of the royal family to the 
 highest degree. And now M. de Rigny on his part gave way to 
 extreme resentment, and meeting M. Persil in the Tuileries, he 
 turned his back upon him in a manner pointedly insulting; things 
 were come to such a pass that a duel would probably have ensued had 
 not strong efforts been made to hush up the quarrel. 
 
 The king naturally applied to M. Persil to form a new cabinet, 
 and that gentleman's taste for office, and his personal devotion to 
 Louis Philippe, did not allow him to hesitate. He went that same 
 night to M. Dupin aine. The latter refused to enter a ministry 
 which was evidently destined to play a doubtful game, but being 
 urged by M. Persil to assist the king with his advice, he took up 
 the almanack royal, ran his eyes over the lists of peers and deputies, 
 and marked a few names. Such was the burlesque origin of the 
 ministry of three days. 
 
 The next day, in order to bind M. Dupin aine to the new cabi-
 
 THE THREE DAYS' MINISTRY. 297 
 
 net, the ministry of marine was offered to his brother, M. Charles 
 Dupin. M. Passy, who was selected for the finance department, 
 was at Gisons. M. Teste set out thither at M. Persil's request, and 
 brought back M. Passy on the night of the 9th of November. 
 M. Passy testified no wish to take office, but the garde des sceaux 
 represented the necessity of his doing so, in such urgent terms, that 
 his objections were overcome. Still he wished to consult his friend, 
 M. Calmon. The two called, therefore, upon the latter gentleman, 
 and from his house they proceeded to that of M. Dupin aine, who, 
 at sight of M. Passy, cried out, almost throwing himself upon his 
 neck, " Well, you accept ? Now, then, they will not say that we are 
 hermaphrodites ;" the phrase reveals the real nature of the feelings 
 excited by all these frivolous agitations. 
 
 The ordinances were sent to the Moniteur on the 10th of 
 November, 1834. They announced, as president of the council and 
 minister of the interior, the Due de Bassano ; minister of foreign 
 affairs, M. Bresson; minister of finance, M. Passy; minister of 
 marine, M. Charles Dupin ; minister of war and, pro tempore, of 
 foreign affairs, Lieutenant-general Bernard; minister of commerce 
 and, pro tempore, of public instruction, M. Teste; M. Persil retained 
 the portfolio of justice and ecclesiastical affairs. 
 
 It would not be easy to conceive the king's satisfaction at the 
 birth of this queer ministerial bantling. He was about to enjoy at 
 once the splendour of the old royalties and their power ; he had come 
 at length to burst the swaddling bands imposed upon him by that 
 insolent maxim, ' the king reigns and does not govern.' It was his 
 victory of Austerlitz. Unfortunately public opinion cut short these 
 pleasant triumphs of the court. The Moniteur had no sooner an- 
 nounced the names of the new ministry, than they were assailed 
 with one huge shout of laughter. Though the cabinet of the 10th 
 of November contained men of incontestable merit, the mockery 
 heaped upon it was universal and pitiless. 
 
 On the very second day a messenger was sent by the Due 
 d'Orleans to M. Thiers, urgently requesting him to repair to the 
 palace. He hesitated to do so, lest he should be suspected of 
 intriguing to get back into the ministry, but upon further pressing 
 solicitations he yeilded. The Due d'Orleans was waiting for him with 
 impatience ; he asked if he would not consent to undertake to form 
 a new ministry, and upon his refusal, he wished to know if _in any 
 case it would not be agreeable to him to see the king. M. Thiers was 
 beginning to explain the impropriety of such an interview under 
 existing circumstances, when the Due d'Orleans interrupted him, 
 pointing to the door, which was in the act of opening. The king 
 appeared ; he had a smile upon his lips, and advanced with an un- 
 embarrassed air to M. Thiers. "Well," said he, "here I am, 
 2atcn I must confess, but with very sorry soldiers : ah ! what men !" 
 In fact the new ministers had been unable to stand their ground 
 jainst public derision. Some gave way through fear of ridicule
 
 298 VOTE OF CONFIDENCE. 
 
 and the sense of their own impotence; others, M. Passy particu- 
 larly, through disgust at the servile honours which were thrust 
 upon them. 
 
 M. Thiers being requested to resume office, would consent to 
 nothing without having first had an understanding with M. Guizot. 
 As Marshal Gerard wished to remain out of office, there was no neces- 
 sity for recurring to the question of the amnesty. As for M. de Broglie, 
 it would have been a very hard thing to force him upon the king. 
 Marshal Mortier's devotedness put an end to all difficulties. A 
 gallant man, but neither possessing nor pretending to any parlia- 
 mentary capacity, he accepted the presidency of the council, in 
 which he was called on only to act as a lay figure. The question of 
 removing M. Persilwas mooted for a moment, he being guilty, in the 
 eyes of his colleagues, of the threefold fault of having made common 
 cause against them with the king, of having exerted himself very 
 much in favour of the formation of the ministry of three days, and 
 of having himself accepted a place in it. This was an easy vengeance ; 
 it was renounced, and Admiral Duperre having been called to the 
 department of marine, the ministry was reconstituted. That of 
 the 10th of November had but passed through the council chamber 
 as it were; it was destined to remain known in history under the 
 name of the three days' ministry. But it was not enough 
 for MM. Thiers and Guizot to have vanquished the king; they 
 chose to have their victory solemnly consecrated by the Chamber. 
 Questions having been put to them upon the causes of the last 
 crisis, they evaded the danger of subjecting the royal prerogative 
 to discussion by the vagueness of their rhetoric. But, despite the 
 efforts of the tiers parti, despite the speech of M. Sauzet, wherein 
 he openly accused them of insulting the crown by subjecting the 
 king's choice to the control and approbation of parliament, they 
 obtained from the majority an order of the day, wholly approving 
 their proceedings. Thus then, at their instigation as it were, the 
 Chamber set its foot upon the most precious of the royal preroga- 
 tives. 
 
 Thus were revealed, after four years of reign, the thousand impos- 
 sibilities of a constitutional regime. What had been the facts dis- 
 played in that interval? The crown labouring to make tools of 
 ministers by dividing them; the ministers coalescing to throw ob- 
 stacles in the way of the personal government of the king; all the 
 ambitious subalterns of the parliament leaguing together to snatch 
 at place; an obstinate struggle on the part of the crown against 
 the Chamber, of the Chamber against the crown ; in short, there was 
 anarchy in every direction, and under every possible form anarchy 
 of a ludicrous kind, if we look only to its episodic manifestations, 
 but which, if we consider its causes, furnishes the gravest subject of 
 meditation to the statesman and the philosopher. How in fact could 
 & ministry, engrossed by such intrigues, by such wretched trifles,
 
 MONARCHICAL TERRORISM. 299 
 
 Lave had the will or the leisure to seek other remedies for social 
 disorder than grape shot and conflagration? Impotent to prevent, by 
 sage and skilful means, the revolt of interests, the refractory violence 
 of^passions, it needs had recourse to savage extremities, and it was 
 alas ! in the very nature of things that the ridiculous scenes played 
 in the Tuileries should have for corollaries the butcheries of the 
 Rue Transnonain and of the Faubourg de Vaise. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WE have for a while suspended our narrative of the fearful and 
 violent scenes in Lyons, in order to lift the veil from before the in- 
 trigues of the court; we must resume our melancholy narrative at 
 the point where we broke off. Lyons had been under a reign of 
 terror since the month of April; the executive had abandoned there, 
 to its vilest agents, the task of dishonouring its victory. ^ The police 
 were supreme in the town. When a government triumphs and 
 appears all-powerful, degraded souls rush to lackey its chariot 
 wheels. At such a moment those who were ready to declare them- 
 selves its enemies when they saw it tottering, become all at once its 
 obsequious servants, the flatterers of its strength, and the ferocious 
 ministers of its vengeance. The victors in this case failed not to 
 enjoy this usual support of baseness. Again, the military spirit had 
 received a disastrous impulse upon the recking ruins of _Lyons. 
 Some of the officers grieved in spirit over the rigour of the duties they 
 had discharged, and nobly shunned all occasion of awakening such 
 lamentable recollections; but others, revelling in all the insolence of 
 success, threatened the opposition writers with their swords, treated 
 the vanquished as banditti, and strutted about in the public places 
 with looks and language of haughty disdain. It is true that no effort 
 was spared to keep alive the animosity of the soldier; the_ police 
 had recourse to the basest and darkest manoeuvres ^ to this end. 
 Musket shots were frequently heard breaking the silence of the 
 night; frequently attempts were made to disarm sentinels, and the 
 next day the government organs did not fail to declare that these 
 were the last frantic convulsions of hopeless revolt. Fortunately Pro- 
 vidence did not leave the respective morality of parties to be always 
 determined by calumny. One evening, a sentinel, in defending himself 
 against an unknown assailant who had attempted to disarm him, 
 wounded the man with his bayonet. The wounded man was car- 
 ried away ; it was the same man whose life Lagrange had jsaved in the 
 Place de Cordelier; it was the wretch who had sold his preserver; 
 was Corteys the police agent. 
 The monarchical terrorism, set up by the government in Lyons,
 
 300 STATE OF THE PRISONS. 
 
 had spread all over France. The Commission of Nine showed an 
 implacable spirit. Individual liberty, the inviolability of the do- 
 mestic hearth, every thing was trampled under foot. Woe to the 
 citizen whose house had been pointed at by informers; his dwelling 
 was beset by shoals of police agents in his absence, at any hour and 
 upon the most frivolous information. To break in the doors, force 
 open the locks, break up the furniture, examine family papers and 
 expose to the filthy curiosity of blackguard spies, the most unrestricted 
 effusions of thought and the most cherished secrets of the heart, all 
 this was but a sport to the police. In Lyons, Rouen, Niort, and 
 in the department of Sa6ne-et-Loire, domiciliary visits were made 
 with an incredible ostentation and violence of oppression. The 
 house of a citizen, named Pichonnier, had been pointed out to the 
 police in Paris ; it was beset by sergents de ville, while he was from 
 home, and the most minute searches were begun. At this moment, 
 M. Mugner, a friend of the master of the house, came in; he was 
 questioned, and replied that he came to pay a visit to his friend; 
 thereupon the questions came thicker and faster, and upon his hesi- 
 tating to reply in his astonishment, the fellows seized him and dragged 
 him to prison. There he remained in solitary confinement for several 
 days, waiting till the authorities should be pleased to recognise his 
 innocence. He had a wife and two children depending for sub- 
 sistence upon his labour. 
 
 It would occupy us too long were we to cite ah 1 the facts of a 
 similar kind we have collected. Never had arbitrary power so mul- 
 tiplied its blows : and what is to be thought of the mode adopted in 
 making arrests and removals of prisoners? The unfortunate men 
 against whom the Commission of Nine issued its writs, upon con- 
 jectures whether true or false, were immediately sent to Paris, with 
 chains round their necks, and there were some who were thrust into 
 gaols, and forced to sleep upon damp unwholesome straw, by the side 
 of robbers and murderers. A soldier of the 57th, arrested in Lyons 
 for having said that he would never turn his weapons against the 
 men of the people, his brethren, was tied to a horse's tail and dragged 
 to Perigueux. M. Poujol, a member of the Societe des Droits de 
 rHomme, had been for some time confined to his bed by a very pain- 
 ful illness, when the agents who were ordered to arrest him pre- 
 sented themselves. " I will not answer for my patient's life di 
 his transference to prison," exclaimed the dismayed physicu 
 His remonstrances were unheeded ; M. Poujol was laid upon a hanc 
 barrow and carried to the prison of Roanne. 
 
 It may easily be guessed what was the state of the prisons in the 
 height and violence of such a re-action. A political prisoner, ovei 
 come by the excess of his suffering, starved himself to death ! Anc 
 ther was shot dead by a sentinel as he was approaching the b 
 his windows to read a letter he had received from his family ! 
 murderer was punished with fifteen days' imprisonment, and that 
 was all ! Had the sword that threatened them even not hung so
 
 REMARKABLE LETTER OF A PRISONER. 301 
 
 long suspended over the heads of the prisoners ! But what bitter- 
 ness must have rankled in the hearts of those who, certain of being 
 acquitted when their time for trial was come, were compelled in the 
 meanwhile to undergo all the tortures of the longest preventive de- 
 tention ever known ; and how easily may this bitterness have been 
 changed into despair upon the part of those who, being the sole sup- 
 ports of their family, thought, within their prison bars, of an old 
 sick father, of a wife worn out with toil and watching, of poor un- 
 happy children wanting bread ! We must here cite a letter, written 
 in September, 1834, to M. Pasquier, by an unfortunate workman, 
 named Durdan. It is assuredly worthy of having a place in history, 
 for it is a chefcCoeuvre of eloquence and of compressed indignation. 
 
 " MONSIEUR LE BARON, I have, within the last six weeks, written you two let- 
 ters, to which you have not replied. I have now been five months in prison on a 
 charge of conspiracy. I need not tell you that there is no deposition against me ; you 
 know it well. Before my arrest, my wife and my children subsisted by my labour; 
 since I have been in prison they have been hi want of every thing; they have fallen 
 rapidly into the deepest misery, because my savings are very little, and the wife of a 
 working man, who has three children to take care of, cannot herself earn her bread. 
 But all this is nothing to the court of peers and affect it little. I knew this, and I 
 waited without complaining. Six weeks ago two of my children were attacked with 
 small-pox ; my wife, worn out by privations and fatigues, was soon unable to take 
 care of them and fell ill by their side. Sunk into the most frightful destitution, they 
 had not a single stay; I wrote to you then, I asked permission of you to go out for 
 half a day in order to secure them some resources; to find them, at least, a protector 
 among my friends. You did not even reply to me. What was it to you, Monsieur 
 le Baron, the despair of a working man, the misery and ruin of his family? What 
 right have such people to have affections, to have families? On the 27th of July 
 my son died, and his unfortunate mother, without aid, without advice, ignorant of the 
 formalities to be fulfilled, remained three days unable to have him buried. I remained 
 a week without receiving any news, and my position became intolerable when I 
 knew that our little household goods had been sold one after the other to supply the 
 wants of my family. I wrote to you again; I asked once more for permission to go 
 out and sell my loom, my secretary, and my bed. This is all I have left to save my 
 wife and my daughters from dying of hunger. To this second letter you no more 
 replied than to the former. I now send you a third; I have made it as moderate as 
 possible. You must perceive that I have not spoken out all that is in my heart; I 
 should be unwilling to indispose you against me, Monsieur le Baron, particularly at 
 a moment when I ask a favour of you. I request permission of you to go out for a 
 few hours, not upon parole, you do not believe in such things, but escorted by gens- 
 darmes, to secure a roof and bread to what remains of my family. I know not what 
 will be your decision, Monsieur le Baron, but I know that nothing can ever change 
 the sentiments I have vowed towards you. 
 
 " DCRDAN, journeyman -lacemaker. 
 
 "St. Pelagie, September, 1834." 
 
 Undoubtedly in a society ruled by philosophical institutions, the 
 gaoler's functions ought to be regarded upon the footing of the most 
 respectable public employment, and none should be called to fulfil 
 them but men of noble character and tried worth : for what a fund 
 of moderation, dignity, calm firmness, and toleration is requisite for 
 the discharge of duties which consist in watching over despairing or 
 ulcerated minds, and in restraining within due bounds the longing 
 regret of liberty ! But in a society such as the government of the 
 bourgeoisie had made it, imprisonment was not merely an affair of 
 security but one of vengeance ; accordingly none were employed in
 
 302 STATE OF THE PRISONS. 
 
 the business of the prison, generally speaking, but beings of a harsh, 
 temper, without education, pitiless, accustomed to regard prisoners 
 but as enemies, and taking a personal pleasure in exaggerating all 
 the offensive necessities of their office. 
 
 Truth, however, compels us to admit, that it was only in the early 
 period of reaction that the authorities seemed to take delight in 
 making those detained in St. Pelagie upon political charges, feel all 
 the oppression of captivity. The order for subjecting those who 
 were most deeply implicated to the frightful torture of solitary im- 
 prisonment being once removed, their imprisonment became very 
 tolerable for all the accused. M. Prat, the director of St. Pelagie, 
 was a man who seemed to reserve for ordinary prisoners all the keen- 
 ness and severity of his functions, whereas ne was not wanting in 
 complacence and indulgence towards political prisoners. He was 
 easily alarmed by any thing that foreboded riot, for he was averse to 
 have recourse to the bayonet ; besides, some of the prisoners acquired 
 great influence over him. Among the rest, M. Armand Marrast 
 swayed him through his wit and pleasantry, with a force which 
 was nothing short of despotic. M. Gisquet himself, though prefect 
 of police, did not refuse, when occasion offered, to mitigate the con- 
 dition of the prisoners ; such of them as had need of a few hours of 
 liberty for important business more than once obtained permission 
 from him to go out without escort, nor did all the letters addressed 
 to persons of importance remain without reply like the one we have 
 cited above. 
 
 Unfortunately, the moderation of the superior officers was fre- 
 quently neutralised by the brutali ty of their subalterns, and the pri- 
 soners were then subjected to the most odious treatment. Truly bar- 
 barous punishments were often inflicted upon them for veiy trifling 
 faults. Eleven young men, the oldest of whom was not twenty, 
 were one day transferred from the prison of St. Pelagie to that of 
 La Force, for having infringed an order which prohibited their sing- 
 ing in the yard of the new building. Now, as their comrades re- 
 marked in a letter which was published, to cast those lads into the 
 prison of La Force, was to initiate them into a school of crime and 
 prostitution; it was to give them, for bed-chamber companions, assas- 
 sins, robbers, and polluted beings, and to expose them to infamous 
 proposals almost always backed by violence. 
 
 A second order of transferment given towards the close of Sep- 
 tember excited revolting scenes. The restoration of some prisoners 
 from La Force to St. Pelagie occasioned a turbulent delight in the 
 latter prison ; the prisoners marched about arm in arm singing the 
 Marseillaise. In the evening handsful of straw were burnt in each 
 of the yards, and dancing was kept up round the fires. Lastly, the 
 agitation continuing the next day, the prisoners forced the two wickets 
 leading from the middle yard into that of the debtors' side, and into 
 that of the new building. Such a breach of order could easily have 
 been put down, but besides that there was involved in it no idea of
 
 SCENES OF VIOLENCE. 303 
 
 revolt, the authorities themselves seemed to have countenanced it, 
 by having given the prisoners permission, upon the preceding day, 
 to remain at large till ten at night, and by complying with their 
 request that the doors of the corridor should be locked during the 
 night. What then was the astonishment of the prisoners when, as 
 they were all walking quietly the next morning in the middle yard, 
 they suddenly heard an alarm given, and saw police officers, ser- 
 gents de ville, and municipal guards, ranging themselves in order of 
 battle before them. Had resistance been practicable, still no one 
 thought of it. This apparition of bayonets, however, was only for 
 the purpose of announcing an order of transferment and the presence 
 of the inspector Olivier Dufresne. M. Guinard in vain endeavoured, 
 in the name of his comrades, to obtain some explanations; the order 
 was speedily given and became the signal for unheard-of acts of bru- 
 tality. Each prisoner, singly beset by policemen, was torn from his 
 cell, unmercifully beaten, pushed down the stairs, and hunted into 
 the yard with blows from the cudgel or the musket-stock. M. 
 Guinard, incensed and indignant, declared that he would only open 
 his door to the director, but the door was broken in, and several 
 sergents de ville, foaming with rage, threw themselves upon the 
 prisoner. Being a man of great strength and intrepidity he made a 
 long resistance, but at last, overcome by numbers, he was knocked 
 down, loaded with irons, and put into a fiacre that was waiting for him 
 at the prison gates. Some of his companions were dragged along by 
 the hair, others were driven at the point of the bayonet; the whole 
 prison resounded with cries of murder! M. Landolphe had been 
 confined to his bed for two months by a dangerous illness ; he was 
 dragged from his bed, forced to cross the yard, pale, emaciated, 
 with his clothes hanging in shreds, and the blood gushing from his 
 mouth and nostrils. Beholding this sight, M. Berrier Fontaine, 
 M. Landolphe's companion in captivity, and his physician, ran to 
 the commissioner Lenoir, " Monsieur, do you want to have a mur- 
 der upon your head? Landolphe is not in a condition to endure re- 
 moval; I declare this to you as a physician." M. Landolphe was, 
 nevertheless, removed, and M. Berrier Fontaine had the same fate, 
 for having sought to protect his patient. 
 
 It was impossible that such scenes should remain concealed within 
 the obscurity of the prisons. Being laid before the public in all the 
 horror of their details, they added to the prevailing ferment, and be- 
 came the theme of inflammatory comments, and sometimes of syste- 
 matic exaggerations. Thus all parties schooled themselves to mutual 
 implacability. It was not to be wondered at that the language of 
 the republican press ran at this period into invective. The Tribune 
 had been suppressed by a coup d'etat after the events of April, and 
 the National had ever since been subjected to numberless persecu- 
 tions. Four of its responsible editors, Armand Carrel among the 
 number, had been successively deprived of their liberty, and yet the 
 National, far from showing any weakness, daily assumed a more
 
 304 ARMAND CARREL'S ATTACK ON THE PEERS. 
 
 menacing attitude. On the 10th of December, 1834, it published 
 the following article upon the subject of the competency of the 
 Court of Peers. 
 
 " A fine chapter might be written upon the arguments for the incompetency of the 
 Chamber of Peers with regard to the April traversers. These arguments might be 
 drawn, above all, from the presumed resentment entertained 'against the opinions 
 cherished by the April traversers, all of them men of July, by 'the Chamber, which 
 the revolution of July itself treated as traversers ; that Chamber which it deprived 
 of its hereditary succession, of its most important prerogatives; which it brought 
 before the bar of democracy, which it half convicted of being an accomplice with the 
 Restoration, and into which it still strikes terror every day, by demanding back of it 
 Marshal Ney judicially assassinated by its emigrants, by its men of Ghent, and its 
 military and civil parvenus, renegades from the revolution. 
 
 " No: in the eyes of eternal justice, in the eyes of posterity, upon the testimony 
 of their own conscience, Bonaparte's old senators, his spoilt marshals, the procu- 
 reursgeneraux, the new-made nobles of the Restoration, its three or four generations 
 of ministers sunk under public hatred and contempt, and stained with our blood, all 
 these seasoned with a few notabilities thrown in by the royalty of the 7th of August, 
 upon condition of never opening their lips but to approve their master's words; all 
 this farrago of servilities of various origins is not competent to pronounce upon the 
 culpability of men accused of having sought to enforce the consequences of the revo- 
 lution of July. Such has not been the feeling of the committee of the Chamber of 
 Peers, whose business it was to present the report, from which we have this day 
 published several extracts, each more amazing than the other. The chapter with 
 which we shall conclude our extracts aims at establishing the competency of the 
 Chamber. This production is attributed to M. Portalis, formerly minister of the 
 resistance under Charles X. We shall beg leave of M. Portalis to blush for him 
 at his own handy work." (Here follows the extract) : 
 
 " Of course we cannot let pass this hetereogenous mass of constitutional heresies, 
 of violations of all the principles of criminal jurisprudence admitted amongst civilised 
 nations, these antiquated maxims of your provost's courts, these asinine notions of 
 Bridoison, councillor of the star-chamber, without marking them with all the inexpres- 
 sible disgust which every honest heart, every enlightened mind, must feel at reading 
 such a production. It is not necessary to particularise every objection upon the ground 
 of common sense, of truth, and of decency, which arises at every phrase of this infamous 
 rhapsody; but the extent of this document, which so well characterises that abject 
 apostasy, which it is the fashion of the legislative tribune pompously to denominate 
 the system of resistance, obliges us to postpone our observations to a subsequent 
 number. We here only speak of our first impression, and we will lay it aside in 
 order to bring back into the most painful, the most irritating of refutations, that 
 calmness which should never be lost sight of, even in confronting the basest iniquity." 
 
 This article was contumelious to excess, and was therefore at vari- 
 ance with the literary habits of the National. The Chamber of 
 Peers took offence at it, and upon the motion of M. Philippe de 
 Segur, which was vainly resisted by MM. Dubouchage, de Lan- 
 juinais, Pontecoulant, and Excelmans, it called M. Rouen, the re- 
 sponsible editor of the paper, before its bar. M. Rouen having im- 
 mediately demanded permission to be aided in his defence by Ar- 
 mand Carrel, who was then a prisoner, his request was granted, and 
 they both appeared before the Chamber of Peers on the 15th of 
 December. 
 
 M. Rouen only spoke a few words, which were remarkable for 
 their moderation and dignity. Armand Carrel then rose. His 
 countenance betrayed all the emotion of his mind, and expressed a 
 sort of manly and slightly disdainful urbanity. He began in these 
 terms: " I know not, Messieurs les Pairs, if you are astonished at
 
 ARMAND CARREL'S SPEECH BEFORE THE PEERS. 305 
 
 being our judges, for our part we ask by what overthrow of prin- 
 ciples, by virtue of what unperceived changes, are we become the 
 objects of your jurisdiction ! That there may have remained in some 
 obscure corner of the code relating to the press, though no one 
 hitherto suspected it, something conferring upon the two chambers 
 the tempting privilege of pronouncing judgment in their cause upon 
 the irregularities of free discussion ; this we will not take upon us to 
 deny. Yes; the thing is in print, just as are 40,000 laws of ven- 
 geance, by the aid of which parties have made havoc of each other for 
 the last twenty years, and which it has not been deemed necessary ex- 
 pressly to abolish, because it was thought they would not dare again 
 to show themselves before the face of a civilised and free nation. 
 We have none to blame but ourselves, men of the revolution of July, 
 for the forgetfulness which has left such weapons in the hands of the 
 new authorities ; we are now taught at our own expense, that liberty 
 is not to be defended by moral force and by public opinion, how- 
 ever advanced this may be, but by the clearness, the cogency, and the 
 perfect harmony of the guarantees obtained before laying down arms. 
 " The revolution of July has been highly lauded for its extreme 
 clemency, and we are not the men who will blame it for this; for if 
 we have inculcated audacity upon it in the moment of the conflict, 
 we have likewise preached humanity in its ears ; but posterity will 
 reproach it for the incredible simplicity of its confidence. No sooner 
 was it saved from the bayonets of the Swiss, than it fell into the un- 
 seemly alliance under which it is now suffocated. We have had our 
 share in these errors of inexperienced courage, and we endure the 
 penalty. The fact was that the Restoration had formed us only to 
 hatred, and the semitheocratic nature of its means of operation had 
 confined us within the common-place limits of Voltarian incredulity. 
 This was almost the whole sum of our liberal education. We had 
 plebeian and philosophic antipathies, but scarcely any fixed political 
 opinions; we know how men may re-conquer their lost liberty, we 
 had not sufficient knowledge how they may avoid losing it again. 
 Hence there remains to us of our July conquest only an emblem, 
 the tri-coloured flag, a word, the national sovereignty, and an 
 immortal example to remind us that we should never despair 
 of a great and holy cause. Imprudent and young, that we were, 
 upon the morrow of our victory! we gazed straight before us, 
 and took no heed to secure our point of departure; we ad- 
 vanced towards the conquest of new reforms; we rushed forward 
 to the discovery of a glorious and unknown future, and when the doc- 
 trines and the men of the Restoration were pointed out to us issuing 
 from the gory mud into which we had plunged them, and forming 
 themselves again into battalions in our rear, we answered with a 
 shrug of pity. When we were pointed out the archives of the police, 
 the criminal records of the old parliaments, the decrees of the com- 
 mittee of public safety, and of the imperial inquisition over which 
 the legists of the new order of things w6re poring day and night ; 
 VOL. II. X
 
 306 ARMAND CARREL'S SPEECH BEFORE THE PEERS. 
 
 when we were told, there is in that mountain of papers enough to 
 stifle all the liberties of the human race, all the rights of thought, all 
 the generous inspirations of the heart, we had but one reply a re- 
 ply that was just at first, but which has since become an absurdity; 
 so glaringly have facts given it the lie. We said, they will not dare ! 
 The people has not given in its resignation; public opinion is awake; 
 the revolution of July is not so old a thing; they will not dare ! 
 
 " They have dared, for the genius of your practical men is sure 
 to corrupt all it touches, to discover, whenever it pleases against 
 every right of the country, a right of the government more ancient 
 and more imprescriptable still. Thus we have beheld Paris declared 
 in a state of siege, political writers handed over to the jurisdiction of 
 Serjeants of infantry, the liberty of the individual subjected to the 
 caprices of the least agents of the public force ; the sanctity of the 
 private dwelling first universally violated, then sullied with blood; 
 private correspondence become the first matter of judicial in- 
 vestigation ; association, the principle of union, of mutual protection 
 between all the citizens of one same class, or of one same political 
 opinion, transformed into treason against the state. Thus have we 
 ourselves been despoiled of our rights as writers and as citizens, and 
 our liberties and our fortunes assailed, for having sought to preserve 
 the existence of a journal which put forth the first appeal in favour 
 of the Orleans dynasty (a thing for which I implore pardon, upon 
 my own behalf, of liberty, and of my country)." 
 
 Proceeding then to speak of the recent insults for which the 
 Chamber of Peers proposed to take vengeance, Armand Carrel called 
 to mind the fact, that one of his former contributors, M. Mignet, 
 had not hesitated to say of the peerage, in February, 1830, that it 
 was " The retreat of superannuated deputies, the reioard of every act 
 of truckling, the hospital of all the wounded in office" He then cited 
 the words in which another of his former fellow-contributors to the 
 National, M. Thiers, had denounced the Chamber of Peers in 1830: 
 " MM. les Pairs have evidently no other care, than to watch fortune, 
 and to see which side she will finally adopt. * We must deal 
 
 vigorously with all these poltroons." According to the orator, these 
 attacks upon the part of M. Mignet, now counsellor of state, and of 
 M. Thiers, now minister, had never been since surpassed in vio- 
 lence. " As for us," he went on to say, " we have never gone out 
 of our way to look for occasions for renewing these hostilities, which 
 we are now charged with systematically pursuing. Those occasions 
 were abundantly presented to us by the determination to persist in 
 maintaining the hypocritical sorrows of the 21st of January; in re- 
 jecting the rights of the military of the hundred days; in throwing 
 out the law of divorce twice ineffectually voted by the Chamber; 
 and by what appeared to us the acme of wilful wrong, the obstinate 
 refusal of all inquiry into the matter of Marshal Ney's trial." At 
 the sound of that name a slight agitation appeared in the assembly. 
 The public in the galleries redoubled their attention. " Here I
 
 ALLUSION TO MARSHAL NET PERTURBATION. 307 
 
 pause," continued Armand Carrel, " from respect for a glorious and 
 a lamentable memory. It is not for me to say whether it were more 
 easy to legalise the sentence of death, than the revision of an unjust 
 process. Time has pronounced its verdict; at this day the good 
 name, fame, and memory of the judge, have more need of restora- 
 tion than those of the victim ." The president sprang to his 
 
 feet in alarm, and cried out: "Advocate for the defence, you are 
 speaking before the Chamber of Peers; take heed, your expressions 
 may be considered as a contempt of court." Thereupon, with the 
 loftiest tone of pride, courage, and indignation, Armand Carrel re- 
 plied: "If, among the peers who voted for the death of Marshal 
 Ney, if, among the j>eers who sit within these walls, there be one 
 who feels himself aggrieved by my words, let him make a motion 
 against me; let him denounce me at this bar; I will appear to the 
 charge. I shall be proud of being the first man of the generation of 
 1830, to come here and protest, in the name of indignant France, 
 against that abominable murder." The audience in the gallery 
 sprang up in a transport of enthusiasm, the peers were overwhelmed 
 with consternation; "Advocate for the defence," cried M. Pasquier, 
 " I silence you." But at that very moment, in a voice issuing from, 
 the very depth of the heart, General Excelmans cried out: "I share 
 the opinion of the advocate for the defence; yes, the condemnation 
 
 of Marshal Ney was a judicial assassination; I say this, I " 
 
 Immense cheering ensued. The sitting was suspended; an inex- 
 pressible perplexity possessed the judges of 1815 ; the shade of Mar- 
 shal Ney was in the hall. Armand Carrel resumed his discourse in 
 the midst of the general anxiety, but the terrible name every mo- 
 ment^ recurred tojhis lips. Interrupted once more by the president, 
 he said: " I consider the defence impossible." 
 
 M. Rouen having been declared guilty by a majority of 138 to 
 15, the peers proceeded to vote upon the application of the penalty. 
 As the sole favour he would accept at their hands, Armand Carrel 
 requested the Chamber to apply the minimum penalty to M. Rouen, 
 and to reserve all its severity, if it wished to be severe, for the jour- 
 nal. A sentence of 10,000 francs fine and two years imprisonment 
 was the reply of the peerage judging in its own cause. 
 
 This was the last of all the important and deplorable events that 
 marked the year 1834. 
 
 x2
 
 308 FUNCTIONS OF THE CROWN AND OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IN pronouncing the order of the day well founded, the Chamber 
 had sought to confirm for a long time the ministry of the llth of 
 October; and yet, the year 1835 was hardly begun, when the mi- 
 nistry already seemed tottering. The majority which had so ener- 
 getically upheld it, had been wrought upon by secret intrigues. 
 The tiers parti numbered among its ranks, men such as MM. 
 Sauzet and Passy, who were deficient neither in talent nor in per- 
 sonal consideration. Now this league/ of which M. Dupin aine, 
 was the soul, exerted itself in every direction; plotted in the half 
 daylight of the corridors ; obstructed the course of business ; harassed 
 the cabinet by continual skirmishes, and kept the opposition in 
 heart by the floating support it afforded it. 
 
 But what most endangered the existence of the ministry, was the 
 dislike felt for it in the royal pakce. There, the right to govern 
 openly pretended to by MM. Thiers and Guizot, was thought im- 
 pertinent in the highest degree. What? was the king to submit to 
 be a mere automaton? To figure for the benefit of some leaders? Wag 
 he to go back to the habits of the rois faineants, and foster the am- 
 bition of the modern mayors of the palace under the wing of his 
 slumbering majesty? The king's ministers ought to be his servants, 
 not his masters. If instead of belonging to royalty, they belonged 
 to the parliamentary majority, what was the use of royalty? The 
 sovereignty in that case devolved upon the Chamber ; it was the 
 Republic with the addition of a He and a civil list of 12,000,000. 
 
 A pamphlet by M. Roederer, published at this period, disclosed 
 the feelings of the court. According to M. Roederer, a parlia- 
 mentary minister was a heresy; the king having, by the terms of 
 the charter, the right of choosing his ministers, his will ought to be 
 their 's. The king was the president born of the council, its only ef- 
 fective and legitimate president. 
 
 M. Roederer's pamphlet was read in the palace in Madame Ade- 
 laide's apartment, amidst the most lively testifications of enthusiasm. 
 It did not meet with the same reception among the public. The 
 republicans, constituting themselves umpires of the field, prepared 
 with smiles upon their Hps, to look on at a combat which so clearly 
 revealed the absurdity of a constitutional regime. The partisans of 
 the famous maxim, " the king reigns, and does not govern," were 
 loud and bitter in their complaints. M. Fonfrede, whom the king 
 had not yet won over by granting him the honour of corresponding 
 directly with him, attacked Roederer's pamphlet with no ordinary 
 tartness of style. Lastly, the Chamber was deeply incensed at the 
 threatened attack upon its prerogative. At the outposts of the par- j 
 liamentary party, stood M. Duvergier de Hauranne, a man remark- 
 able for a great precision of ideas and marked predilection for politi-
 
 IN CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHIES. 309 
 
 cal strife, a solid eloquence, and a shrewdness of mind ennobled by 
 the loftiness of his heart. Sprung from a family which had given 
 the Abbe de St. Cyran to Jansenism, M. Duvergier de Hauranne 
 possessed qualities perfectly in accordance with his origin. An 
 enemy to courtiers, in him were equally revived the independence 
 of the old parliaments with regard to the crown, and their disdain as 
 regarded the people. He persisted more than any one else in truly 
 stono-e illusions. He would have had constitutional France assume 
 a proud attitude in presence of the foreigner, an attitude courageous 
 without provocation, prudent without weakness, and he did not pei 
 ceive that a government cannot manifest strength abroad, when at 
 home, divided between two rival forces, it is forced to wear itsel 
 out in efforts to maintain its position amidst endless oscillations. 
 Precisely in order to obviate the inconvenience of this duallism, tins 
 inexhaustible source of anarchy, he would have had the majority of 
 the Chamber governed through the medium of the ministers under 
 the shade of a passive royalty; and he did not perceive, that to re- 
 quire the king to take up a second-hand majesty, is to demand of 
 him an impossibility. The quarrel between the parliamentary and 
 the court party stood thus: the former said with M. Duvergier de 
 Hauranne, Since the ministers cannot govern without a parhamentary 
 majority, the ministers of our choice should be accepted by the 
 crown. Without this, what would the Chamber be? A: *f 
 voting taxes. And the other part y> exclaimed with M. Roederer, 
 What? The king is to name the ministers, whilst, m reality, it i. 
 by the Chamber they are chosen and commanded! 
 cie, what would royalty be?-A machine for signing ordinances 
 The two parties both had right on their side as regarded each oth 
 they were both wrong in the eyes of reason ;> and this ^ very contest 
 proved to what a degree the constitutional regimens vicious .bvery 
 government which is not founded upon the principle of unity, must 
 of necessity live in anarchy and die in corruption. Now, monarch- 
 ical unity had ceased to be possible from the time elective and per 
 manent assemblies had become the order of the day ; from the time 
 when the throne had been isolated by withdrawing from it the ne- 
 cessary support of a territorial aristocracy; from the time when 
 hereditary descent of the crown had,been continued only as an ex- 
 ceptional fact, everypolitical hereditary right having been proscribed 
 even that which constituted the strength of the peerage Lmty 
 through the means of monarchy had ceased to be possibl e from the 
 time when the bourgeoisie had inherited the spoi s of the feudal 
 regime; and from that period there had been logically and regul rly 
 nothing possible but unity through the parliament, that 
 through the republic.* 
 
 In creating man, God did not intend that the arms should be at liberty -to con- 
 trol the decisions of ihe head; the head wills the a, execute L^Sted'Soltep? 
 possible for a man to act, if, when the head wills one thing. . th e arni^med anomcr 
 Yet such is the constitutional regime; unless the king be in it, according tc
 
 310 THE ENGLISH SYSTEM UNSUITED TO FRANCE. 
 
 A very little reflection will enable us to see that the French bour- 
 geoisie ought of its own nature, and in accordance with its own in- 
 terests, to have been republican. It was, in fact, quite obvious, that 
 being absolute mistress in social order through its wealth, its intel- 
 lectual activity, and its industry, it should seek to rule supremely in 
 political order through representatives taken from its own body. 
 That it should have concentrated the elective power in its own hands 
 to protect itself from popular incursions, was, certainly, a very 
 natural course, though one sullred with selfishness and injustice. 
 But how was the bourgeoisie brought to surrender a part of its 
 political authority for the benefit of a king? What motives urged it 
 to set up against an elective principle upon which its power was based, 
 an opposite, rival, hostile principle, that of hereditary succession? 
 By what mysterious inconsistency did it come to pass that, after 
 having overthrown the aristocratic edifice, it set about reconstruct- 
 ing its summit, which is royalty? I do not think that among the 
 numerous contradictions that mark the history of the human mind, 
 there can be cited one more glaring than this. A monarchical 
 bourgeoisie is nonsense. 
 
 Now this was precisely the very reason why the publicists of the 
 French bourgeoisie had contrived the system which they summed 
 up in these terms, the king reigns and does not govern. Accord- 
 ing to this phrase, they would have had monarchy without any 
 of the conditions of monarchy. They declared royalty necessary, 
 provided it kept itself motionless as a statue in its niche ; they recog- 
 nised the king as the head of the state, provided he was but the 
 mute servant of the parliament. Pitiable illusion! What avail 
 the devices of the sophist and the artifices of the rhetorician against 
 the force of things ? The time was approaching when the bourgeoisie 
 which had desired a king for its slave should have one for its master. 
 
 M. Duvergier de Hauranne and his friends fully foresaw this, but 
 had they really determined to anticipate the danger, they ought to have 
 renounced idle fictions; and they had not the courage to be logical. 
 They continued, therefore, to plead the cause of royalty, whilst Took- 
 
 parte's expression, un cochon a Tengrais (a styed pig), which the king will never con- 
 sent to be if he is intelligent, and which none will ever consent for him that he should 
 be, if he is an idiot. The example of England is constantly cited upon this subject, 
 the fact not being considered, that in England royalty can subsist as a symbol merely, 
 because in that country it really expresses the hereditary power of the dominant 
 class; because in that country it is really a symbol of the transmission of political 
 power in virtue of the right of birth. But where is the aristocracy in France? The 
 hereditary descent of political power has been so formally condemned in that country, 
 that even an hereditary peerage has not been tolerated. Will any one tell us, then, 
 how royalty could subsist as a symbol merely in a country where what it is called 
 upon to express exists no longer? 
 
 We cannot insist too strongly upon a point of view which we have set forth at 
 the beginning of our third book, and which we believe to be new. In England, hi 
 spite of appearances, there is unity hi the executive, and this is what constitutes its 
 force. In England the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Crown are, 
 in reality, but three diverse manifestations of a single power, the power of the aris- 
 tocracy; they are three functions and not three powers.
 
 PECUNIARY CLAIM MADE BY RUSSIA. 
 
 in* out for means to restrict and subjugate it. Provoked by a vi- 
 fcTrous pamphlet, they determined to reply to it by lengthening 
 fhe cabinet; and they talked of nothing but bringing back the 
 Due d r Broglie into the council, thus centring their predictions 
 upon the man whom the king liked least and feared most. 
 
 P The Du^ de Broglie's return to office was favoured by the complete 
 numty of MarsharMortier, who was little more than a respectab] 
 
 ppet If questions were put to him in the Chamber he drew 
 hrmSf up "to the full height of his gigantic stature, gazed round m 
 Snfol confusion upon the assembly, opened his mouth, and could 
 ^ stammer. TMs was of itself a source of disfavour and almost 
 of ridSSe for the cabinet. Marshal Mortier was himsetf aware of 
 it As a brave soldier, and as a man of honour he felt his dignity 
 Llfcompxomised, and he was quite determined not ^carry out 
 any further the sacrifice wonfrom his monarchical zeal ^November^ 
 Thus deprived of a leader, the ministry floated about at hazard th 
 more so I Thiers and Guizot both abstained from taking the leading 
 part being; restrained by their watchful jealousy of each other. 
 Hfc f t this time that Russia made pecuniary claims upon the 
 cabinet of the Tuileries which were altogether groundless. 
 ld not he been very diplomatic to refuse all ne~n ^ 
 this subject. The cabinet consented to negotiate with a ^eteirnma 
 tion, however, not to give way to unjust exactions But the Affair 
 soon got wind and the opposition press seized upon it as a fceme tar 
 
 mthe tribune, and the question upon which explanations were about 
 > be demanded, was one difficult enough to clear up. The aid of 
 
 , 
 
 M. Thers, whose versatile 
 The facts of the case were laid before him by M. 
 
 e acs 
 
 formed and practical man, who had long been 
 matters, and who was the managing man in the 
 M Thiers was careful not to refuse his aid. The portfolio 
 lirs tempted him, although he had not *^* 
 even to himself; and the king who had ^^f^J 
 by and bye, used complaisantly to say to him,/' You, at ^t, know 
 your map." The fact is, that in the discussion occasioned byM. 
 Lmber/s questions, M. Thiers filled ^^3*^55 
 and maintained a conflict with MM. Isambertand ^^f*2 
 which M. de Rigny appeared omy in a s^ondary embarmssed rx^ 
 tion. The discSssio/led to no decision, only it served to revea 
 quite new capacities in M. Thiers. His friends eagerly cned 
 Lcess, and E de Rigny, humiliated ^^^Ct^T^ 
 a dislike of M. Thier?, which was exasperated by the sense 
 >wn incompetence.
 
 312 DE BROGLIE AND TRIERS. 
 
 Thus party feeling and circumstances seemed to concur towards 
 bringing the Due de Broglie prominently forward, but he was op- 
 posed both by the king and by M. Thiers. The king could not en- 
 dure the idea of having incessantly before him a man of no sup- 
 pleness. M. Thiers feared the strength which M. de Brogh'e would 
 afford M. Guizot in the council, and he was apprehensive that his 
 own influence would WAne by the side of those two men. It was 
 necessary to try other arrangements. Overtures were made to M. 
 Mole, who did not feel disposed to brave the rancour which his ac- 
 cession would excite. Negotiations were entered into for the pur- 
 pose of inducing M. de Montalivet, who was a peculiar favourite 
 with the king, to accept a portfolio, but M. de Montalivet dreaded 
 taking a place in a cabinet, which, not having MM. Thiers and Gui- 
 zot for members, was in danger of having them for adversaries. 
 
 In the course of all these matters M. Thiers showed the most per- 
 fect indifference to office. To accept the D uc de Brogh'e as colleague, 
 appeared to him inconvenient and hazardous; he refused to do so, 
 but he offered to retire, and that with a good grace and outward 
 show of indifference, the sincerity of which the king very much sus- 
 pected. The matter was tediously prolonged. Marshal Mortier had 
 given in his resignation as president of the council and minister of 
 war, on the '20th of February; it was full time to come to some 
 decision. In order to conciliate M. Thiers, a portfolio was offered him. 
 for. M. Mignet, his best friend. This was tantamount to giving him 
 two votes in the cabinet ; but M. Mignet preferred the tranquillity of 
 his literary life to the storms of politics, and this refusal offended the 
 king; for when office is proffered, to disdain it is an act of su- 
 periority. 
 
 While all these things were passing in the usual obscurity of such 
 intrigues, the world abroad were lost in conjectures. As the crisis 
 was prolonged, public curiosity rose to the highest pitch: the press 
 was on tiptoe ; the Chamber, heated by the tiers parti, grew vexed at 
 so long an interregnum. It was in the midst of this general agi- 
 tation, that the llth of March, 1835, arrived, the day fixed for the 
 questions of which M. de Sade had given notice upon the 7th. 
 The debate was very animated, very stormy, but the ministers, as 
 might have been expected, evaded all explanation. Some impres- 
 sive words from De Sade and Odillon Barrot, upon the discredit which 
 every such crisis entailed upon the constitutional system ; a vigorous 
 attack by M . Mauguin upon the mystery in which the government 
 shrouded itself; some allusions, full of pithy wit and good taste di- 
 rected by M. Gamier Pages against the august personage, whose name 
 was pronounced by no one, though he was in all men's thoughts; 
 such was the whole sum of what this discussion produced. 
 
 But by the reception he met with from the majority M. Thiers 
 could judge of the dissatisfaction his refusals occasioned. Another 
 overture made to him in the morning by MM. Guizot and Duchatel, 
 had completely failed, and this obstinacy was generally blamed as in-
 
 AMERICAN CLAIM. 313 
 
 jurious to a man of importance ; for M. Thiers had taken good care 
 not to avow the real motive of his conduct. If he refused to coalesce 
 in an arrangement by which he would have been associated with the 
 Due de Broglie, it was solely, he said, because M. de Broglie was 
 not popular either with the country or with the Chamber, and might, 
 consequently, create too many difficulties for the cabinet which should 
 accept him for its president. The pretext was well chosen, and M. 
 de Broglie's unpopularity was incontestable. 
 
 Such a singular state of things could not be suffered to go on for 
 ever. When M. Thiers left the Chamber on the llth of March, 
 it was in a doubtful wavering state of mind. _ In- the evening 
 the deputies of the majority met at M. Fulchiron's, and there 
 it was determined that a deputation should be sent to the mi- 
 nister of the interior to acquaint him that the Chamber^ had 
 made up its mind to support the Due de Broglie as president 
 of the council. This proceeding put an end to the crisis; M. 
 Thiers gave way at last. M. Delarue was sent to Marshal Mai- 
 son, ambassador in Russia, to recall him and offer him the portfolio of 
 war, which was intrusted, pro tempore, to M. de Rigny, who was re- 
 tiring. The cabinet upon the eve of its dissolution rallied apin 
 under the presidency of M. de Broglie, to the great annoyance of the 
 king, and the panic-stricken court now thought of nothing but how 
 it might poison the fruits of a victory which it did not look upon as 
 
 definitive. 
 
 It was, as the reader recollects, the rejection_ol the treaty ot the 
 25 millions which had occasioned M. de Broglie to retire from the 
 cabinet; his return to office naturally tended to bring the question 
 again on the tapis; but, unfortunately, circumstances had occurred 
 greatly to complicate this question, of itself so delicate and thorny. 
 Moreover, there were mixed up with it, it was said, some ugly job- 
 bing tricks, and a thousand rumours were abroad upon the subject. 
 
 Immediately after the rejection, the king had hastened to make 
 known to Mr. Livingstone, American minister at Paris, that the 
 United States were not to consider the vote of the Chamber of 
 Deputies as definitive; that the treaty should be again brought for- 
 ward, and that its ultimate acceptance could not be doubted; that 
 the bourgeoisie would never consent to incur the chances of a war, 
 fatal to commerce, for the idle pleasure of persisting in its refusal; 
 and that as for him, the King of the French, he formally pledged 
 himself as a king and as a man, to make every exertion to obtain the 
 prompt execution of the treaty. Language of such a tenor very 
 clearly indicated to Mr. Livingstone the course he had to pursue. 
 Strong in the personal inclination of the king, and convinced from 
 Jl heheard that it was only necessary to frighten the Chamber to 
 obtain whatever was required of it, he wrote to that effect to his 
 government, and advised it to adopt the language of menace. 
 
 Furnished with this hint as to the attitude it was advisable he 
 should assume, the President of the United States failed not to speak 
 
 L terms of offensive vehemence as regarded France, and he addressed
 
 314 PRESIDENT JACKSON'S MESSAGE. 
 
 a message to Congress on the 1st of December, which contained 
 the following words: 
 
 " Since France, in violation of the pledges given through her 
 minister here, has delayed her final action so long, that her decision 
 will not, probably, be known in time to be communicated to this 
 Congress, I recommend that a law be passed, authorising reprisals 
 upon French property, in case provisions shall not be made for the 
 payment of the debt at the approaching session of the French 
 
 Chambers If she (France) should continue to refuse 
 
 that act of acknowledged justice, and, in violation of the law of 
 nations, make reprisals on our part the occasion of hostilities against 
 the United States, she would but add violence to injustice, and 
 would not fail to expose herself to the censure of civilised nations, 
 and the retributive judgments of Heaven." 
 
 Never had the French nation, illustrious and respected among all 
 the nations of the world, been treated with such excessive insolence. 
 General Jackson's message was no sooner known in Paris than indig- 
 nation was kindled in every mind. What? It was with menace and 
 insult upon his lips, almost sword in hand, that he dared to demand 
 of France the payment of a debt, the lawfulness of which was not 
 yet proved. That the American government should so soon have 
 forgotten to what generous auxiliaries America had formerly owed 
 the conquest of its independence and the establishment of its na- 
 tionality, was a thing that might well be wondered at; but that pro- 
 vocation should be added to ingratitude ; that America should think 
 of frightening us ; should come and dun us peremptorily was this 
 conceivable ? Most of the organs of public opinion took fire, and war 
 was for a moment thought to be imminent; but Mr. Livingstone had 
 been but too well informed by his interviews with the king. Above 
 the nation, palpitating with wrath and longing to avenge the national 
 dignity, there were men whose souls were devoted wholly to lucre; 
 they were the same men who had caused Belgium to be refused for 
 the sake of the mines of Anzin and the cloths of Elbeuf ; they beset 
 all the avenues to office, they formed the parliamentary majority, 
 and they were once more about to bend the honour of France be- 
 neath the yoke of their mercantile selfishness. Nevertheless, it is 
 right to admit that all the members of the majority did not without 
 exception combine in so shameful a movement of fear and tergiver- 
 sation. Some of them, though approving of the treaty, were of 
 opinion with M. Duvergier de Hauranne, that it would be a shame 
 and public calamity to yield to a threat; unfortunately their coun- 
 sels were lost in the tumultuous din of private interest. 
 
 As for the ministers, divided between the fear of kindling war 
 and that of suffering the name of France to sink too low, they had 
 come to the determination, first, of demanding once more of the 
 Chamber the credit necessary for the payment of the American debt ; 
 secondly, of immediately recalling M. Serrurier, French envoy to the 
 United States, and of sending Mr. Livingstone, the American mi- 
 nister in Paris, his passports. The despatches addressed to M. Ser-
 
 SECRET MESSAGE FROM THE FRENCH COURT. 315 
 
 rurier savoured of the double uneasiness that possessed the ministry. 
 The language of those despatches had been weighed with minute 
 and scrupulous prudence, and yet they were not altogether devoid of 
 firmness. The king took alarm at them; the ministry refused to 
 yield, and then, if we may believe the testimony of men of weight 
 and respectability, of persons whose position gave them a thorough 
 insight into the most secret details of policy, things of a very strange 
 character took place. 
 
 A mysterious emissary embarked in the brig cTAssas, which con- 
 veyed the despatches of the French government to America. He 
 was charged with a special mission independent of the ministerial in- 
 structions, and the object of which was even to destroy the effect of 
 the latter. Care had been taken not to let M. Serrurier into the 
 secret, accordingly he must have been extremely surprised at the re- 
 ception given by the American government to the despatches of 
 France. However pointed and energetic were their contents, they 
 were received with a sneering indifference, which proved that a 
 secret hint had been given that they were not to be taken in a serious 
 light ; in fact from that moment, the temper of the American go- 
 vernment appeared notably changed, as if it had found that it was 
 enough to have just shown the flash of the sword from a distance, 
 and that it was advisable not to make the quarrel worse by carrying 
 the threat further. 
 
 The Congress, without disavowing General Jackson's^words, had 
 thought it right, before publicly seconding them, to await the result 
 of the efforts to be made by the King of the French towards securing 
 a full and entire execution of the treaty ; and such had been the tenor 
 of the language held in the senate by Mr. Clay, president of the 
 diplomatic committee. After the arrival of the brig d' Assets, and 
 despite the insulting reception given to the French officers by the 
 mob, despite the hostile tone assumed by the American press, General 
 Jackson appeared much less disposed to unsheath the sword. This 
 change of attitude was officially announced to France in a note from 
 Mr. Livingstone, which was approved, in the name of the president 
 of the United States, by Mr. Forsythe, American secretary of state 
 for foreign affairs. 
 
 Nothing then remained but to obtain from the Chamber the vote 
 so laboriously prepared. The grounds upon which were founded 
 the American claims upon France had already been long the theme 
 of discussion among the journals. Every thing connected with those 
 claims, from first to last had excited vehement debates, for they went 
 back to a remote period, and were connected with circumstances in- 
 volved in much obscurity. It is well known that by the Berlin and 
 Milan decrees of 1806 and 1807, Napoleon had put England under 
 the bann of the maritime powers, and sentenced to confiscation every 
 vessel convicted of having been in relation with the British govern- 
 ment, territory, or commerce. The Americans pretended that they 
 had suffered from the application of those decrees. They had claimed
 
 316 ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST THE AMERICAN CLAIM. 
 
 an indemnity which had been granted them by a treaty signed, in 
 1 831, by M. Horace Sebastiani, the sum specified being 25 millions; 
 and for this it was now sought to obtain a vote from the Chamber. 
 
 The controversy was very keen; the partisans of the treaty re- 
 marked that the demand of the Americans was just; that it had 
 been admitted in principle ,by the Empire, and evaded, but not di- 
 rectly disputed by the Restoration; that the France of 1830 would 
 rise in the esteem of the world by proving herself true to sacred en- 
 gagements; that there was no ground for pausing at the haughty 
 language of General Jackson, that language having been disavowed 
 by the Congress; that the treaty of 1831 was a consummated act, 
 and that the French nation could not dispense with doing honour to 
 the signature of its king; that the treaty, moreover, was not without 
 compensation, since the Americans, on their part, engaged to clear 
 off a sum of a million and a half claimed by France, and consented 
 to admit French wines at reduced duties into the ports of the Union 
 for ten years; that it would be an act of madness to lose, for an affair 
 of money, the friendship of a generous people; that our refusal 
 would, perhaps, bring on a war that would cost us much more than 
 the sum demanded, to say nothing of the effusion of blood, and that 
 even admitting a less gloomy supposition, we should close an im- 
 portant market for our wines and silks, and turn out into the streets 
 a multitude of workmen, without employment and without bread, to 
 swell the ranks of revolt. 
 
 None of these arguments moved the opponents of the treaty. 
 The justice of the claim was assumed in the first place? So then, 
 the imperial decrees which had given occasion to it were to be con- 
 sidered as illegitimate ! Now the decrees of 1806 and 1807, which 
 had been brought to bear more particularly against the Union in 
 1810, what other purpose had they had, but to compel the United 
 States to fulfil duties of neutrality which it had been prompted to 
 violate by greed of gain, and by a compliance of which England 
 could not reap the benefit without giving France a right to take 
 offence at it? Had not the decrees of 1806 and 1807 possessed a 
 wholly European character in their tendency to purge the ocean of 
 the tyranny of the Union- Jack ? Were they not an epitome of the 
 grand crusade which Napoleon had undertaken in order to reconquer 
 the freedom of the seas for the benefit of civilised nations ? And 
 what after all were those losses which the American specuktors pre- 
 tended to have sustained compared with the enormous advantages 
 they had derived from an audacious violation of the treaties ? If the 
 Empire had not refused to admit the principle of the American claims, 
 it was because, under the overwhelming circumstances of 1814, it . 
 was unwilling to multiply the number of its enemies ; it was, in 
 fine, because America had this claim to Napoleon's gratitude, that it 
 was at that time a thorn in the side of England. And as for the 
 Restoration, had it not clearly shown what account it made of the 
 claims of the United States, by the invincible obstinacy with which
 
 ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST THE AMERICAN CLAIM. 317 
 
 it had intrenched itself behind technical demurrers? Undoubtedly 
 a people was bound in honour and duty to fulfil its engagements, 
 but its dignity imperiously commanded it not to pay what it did not 
 owe, especially when demanded of it at the point of the sword. 
 Nor was it true that the Congress had disavowed the insolent words 
 of the president of the United States; the Congress had merely 
 postponed expressing its sentiments, in the hope that the King of 
 the French would prevail over the French Chamber. What? The 
 treaty of 1831'was appealed to as having irrevocably pledged the 
 nation? As if 'that treaty itself had not been a barefaced violation 
 of the fundamental principle of the constitutional system. Had the 
 rights of parliament been reserved ? No. The nation, therefore, 
 had not given its signature. To say that the United States, in re- 
 turn for 25 millions, which they demanded from us, would not re- 
 fuse to pay us 1,500,000 was a downright mockery. The promised 
 reduction of duties upon our wines was a real advantage, but why- 
 was no mention made upon this subject of the treaty by which 
 France had ceded Louisiana to the United States in 1813, and of 
 the stipulations acceded to in our favour by the 8th article, and 
 their violation. For, after all, America was our debtor, not our cre- 
 ditor, and, in fact, of the 260 millions at which Louisiana was va- 
 lued, 80 millions alone had been paid us by the United States; so 
 that the advantages stipulated for France, and of which she had been 
 infamously disappointed, amounted to a sum of 180 millions. We 
 had a right upon our part to demand their repayment. War ! It 
 was not a thing to be desired, but it was not customary with the 
 French people to fear it, and cowardice is a sure means of bringing 
 it down upon a nation. The American market ! A people as shrewd 
 in business as that of the United States would never think of refus- 
 ing our produce, since it knew well that it would thereby bring 
 down the price of its own. Riot ! If to let it loose in our towns, 
 the foreigner had but to inflict upon us the humiliation of his un- 
 just exactions, or of his threats, we should be the last and the most 
 miserable of nations. 
 
 Such were in substance the arguments put forward on either side, 
 whether in the press or in the Chamber of Deputies, where the 
 discussion commenced upon the 9th of April, 1835. It gave occa- 
 sion to an oratorical tilting between the Due de Fitz-James and M. 
 Thiers which made a great deal of noise. The motion of ministers 
 was warmly supported by MM. de Broglie, president of the council, 
 Ducos, Tesnieres, Jay, Avisson, de Tracy, Dumon, de Lamartine, 
 and Realier-Dumas; it was powerfully combated by MM. Desabes, 
 Glaiz-Bizoin, Charamaule, Lacrosse, Au<mis, Isambert, and Mau- 
 guin; but no one dealt it such terrific blows as M. Berryer. We 
 think we see him still, sometimes leaning over the tribune with^both 
 arms stretched out over the assembly, and forcing ^his adversaries to 
 own to the sway of his potent eloquence; sometimes catching up 
 yith one hand the documents put forward in support of the treaty,
 
 318 THE APRIL TRIALS. THE COURT OF PEERS 
 
 and with the other marking, as it were, upon the marble, every error 
 in figures, every false estimate, every double entry, and making as 
 it were a sort of living arithmetic flash upon the eyes of his daz- 
 zled audience. Never had Mirabeau, fulminating against bank- 
 ruptcy, appeared more vehement, more indignant; never had he 
 exercised the power of eloquence with more sovereign sway. All 
 was in vain. On the 18th of April, 1835, the adoption of the 
 treaty was voted by 289 voices against 137. It was likewise 
 adopted two months afterwards by the Chamber of Peers, notwith- 
 standing the energetic opposition of the Due de Noailles. The 
 grave effect of this vote upon the honour of France was mitigated 
 only by an amendment, carried by MM. Valaze and Legrand, which 
 was to the effect that no payment should be made until the French 
 government should have received satisfactory explanations respect- 
 ing President Jackson's message. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 WHEN a government has the will and the power to dare every 
 thing; if it speak of justice while obeying only the promptings of 
 its rancour ; if it invoke the sanctity of the laws whilst trampling 
 them under foot, there is in the falsehood of such an attitude some- 
 thing afflicting to the conscience of honest men. And yet, the statesman 
 who loves the people derives from this spectacle a subject of pride and 
 hope, for this timidity of might is a grand homage paid to liberty, 
 and it is a fine thing to see the victors belie their own triumph, and 
 lacking the courage that should accompany their violence even 
 while fully assured of their impunity. 
 
 It was by a mere royal ordinance, that the Chamber of Peers to 
 which the April prosecutions had been evoked, had been constituted 
 a court of justice. 
 
 Now the charter had thereby been violated in the most audacious 
 manner. The charter stated in fact, None shall be withdrawn from his 
 natural judges : and as if to take away before-hand from tyranny the 
 resource of false interpretations, the legislators had added, conse- 
 quently , it shall not be allowable to create extraordinary commissions 
 and tribunals upon any pretext, or under any denomination whatever. 
 Is it possible to imagine any thing more explicit ? 
 
 It is true that an exception to the principle was embodied in the 
 28th article, which ran thus: The Chamber of Peers has cognizance of 
 the crime of high-treason and of the offences against the safety of the 
 state which shall be (qui seront) defined by the law ; but that law, 
 which was to define the offence, and without which, the 28th article 
 was as though it did not exist, that law had not yet been laid
 
 CONSTITUTED A TRIAL IN THE TEETH OF THE CHARTER. 319 
 
 down. The high jurisdiction of the Chamber of Peers could not 
 therefore come into operation, but by a barefaced violation of the 
 fundamental laws of the realm. 
 
 This reasoning, founded upon positive facts, and further confirmed 
 by a memorable precedent,* was absolutely unanswerable. 
 
 The Chamber of Peers, however, did not hesitate to disregard 
 it. In vain M. Debouchage nobly protested against so flagrant an 
 usurpation; the peerage pronounced its own competence, after lend- 
 ing a complacent ear to the sophisms of MM. de Broglie, Portalis, 
 and Seguier, sophisms so pitiable, that we shall abstain from repeat- 
 ing them. 
 
 It was on the 6th of February, 1835, that one hundred and 
 thirty-two members of the court drew up and signed, the war- 
 rant for putting the prisoners upon their trial. This warrant de- 
 clared all the facts which had occurred at Lyons, Paris, Marseilles, 
 Saint-Etienne, Besan^on, Arbois, Chalons, Epinal, Luneville, and 
 in Isere, to be mutually connected together. It declared the court 
 to be competent with regard to all those facts; it directed, that those 
 amongst the accused, against whom no evidence had been found, 
 should be set at liberty ; that the others should be put upon their 
 trial; and that the president of the court should at a future time 
 appoint a day for the opening of the trial.f 
 
 The court then caused copies of the report of M. Girod de 1'Ain 
 to be distributed among the accused, the deputies, and the members 
 of the Council of State ; and the solicitor-general, M. Martin du Nord, 
 began to prepare an indictment, which could be, and was, nothing 
 else than a brutal resume of the report of M. Girod de 1'Ain. 
 
 * M. de Lavallette was condemned to death in 181 5, by the Court of Assizes of the 
 department of the Seine. He appealed en cassation, alleging the incompetence of the 
 Courts of Assizes ; and that, seeing the high functions which he was accused of 
 having abused, against the safety of the State, he ought, by the terms of the charter, to 
 be judged by the peers of the realm. 
 
 The following is the explanatory part of the judgment by which the Court of Cas- 
 sation rejected M. de Lavallette's appeal, December 15th, 1815 : 
 
 " Seeing that the appellant was indicted before the Court of Assizes of the Seme, 
 as an accomplice in a high crime against the safety of the State; that the article 33 
 (afterwards article 28 of the charter, 1830) of the constitutional charter, does not 
 attribute, without distinction, to the Chamber of Peers, the cognisance of all crimes 
 against the safety of the State; that it restricts the Chamber's cognisance to those 
 crimes against the safety of the State, which shall be defined by laio ; that no law has 
 yet determined which of the said crimes are to be submitted to the Chamber of Peers, 
 in conformity with this article of the charter; that they remain, therefore, still 
 within the scope of the common kw, and that the Court of Assizes of the Seine was 
 competent to hear evidence, and pronounce upon the accusation laid against the 
 appellant 
 
 " The court rejects the appeal" 
 
 It is needless to observe, that what was true in 1815, with respect to M. de Laval- 
 lette was equally so in 1834, with regard to the persons implicated in the affair of April, 
 the law having been the same at both periods. 
 
 f The court of Peers had been seized by royal ordinance, of the offences com- 
 mitted at Lyons and Paris, audit had of its own authority become seized, by several 
 decrees of connexity, of the offences committed in other parts of the kingdom; but 
 this had not been the case with respect to the conspiracy of Luneville. The court
 
 320 PREPARATIONS OF THE PRISONERS FOR THEIR DEFENCE. 
 
 Whilst their enemies were thus preparing to annihilate them, the 
 Parisian traversers detained in St. Pelagic, were impatiently await- 
 ing the moment when they might prove before the face of all men 
 the superiority of their doctrines. Their first thought had been to 
 take advantage of the opportunity to hold real republican assizes in 
 the very heart of the Chamber of Peers. " What we have to do," 
 they said, " is not to maintain our cause in the judicial trial, but to 
 achieve a political victory; it is not our heads we ha veto defend, but 
 our ideas. Let us teach Europe; let us teach the world what kind 
 of faith is ours, and for what principles we have chosen to play the 
 formidable game. What matters it, that our enemies have van- 
 quished by the sword, and may complete their success by the scaf- 
 fold; we shall be the victors, if it remains demonstrated that upon 
 our side were truth, love of the people, and justice." This was a 
 noble and grand design. In order to realise it the prisoners resolved 
 to convoke to Paris, from all quarters of France, all those who by 
 their talents, their virtues, their renown, and their services, were in a 
 condition to defend, and worthily to represent the republican party. 
 
 But it was to be feared that the defence would be damaged by im- 
 portunate differences of opinion, if every thing was left to the ca- 
 prices of personal feeling. The traversers endeavoured to prevent 
 this danger by forming a committee of their own body, which should 
 mark out the course to be pursued, and give a character of unity tx> 
 the defence. This committee consisted of MM. Godefroi Cavaignac, 
 Guinard, Armand Marrast, Lebon, Vignerte, Landolphe, Chilman, 
 Granger, and Pichonnier. They then wrote to their co-traversers of 
 Lyons, recommending them to choose defenders upon their part, and 
 to form their own committee of defence ; and this the accused of 
 Lyons did by the nomination of MM. Baune, Lagrange, Martin 
 Maillefer, Tiphaine, and Cauissidiere. 
 
 And now those men over whom the threat of a fearful judgment 
 impended, were seen suddenly rising above the danger, and above 
 their passions, and devoting themselves to the study of the driest pro- 
 blems. The Parisian committee of defence began by distributing 
 among the ablest members of the party, the principal branches of the 
 science of government ; assigning to one the philosophic and religious 
 part ; to another the administrative ; political economy to a third ; the 
 arts to a fourth ; all became occupied with the boldest meditations, 
 
 being absent when this plot was known, the committee of instruction had, of its own 
 accord, taken it into its consideration, without being authorised by a decree of con- 
 nexity; there was, therefore, ground for a special inquiry as to the legality of this 
 proceeding. The commission had an immense majority of the peers in its favour; 
 those who voted against it were MM. Berenger, de Flahaut, d'Authouard, de Ses- 
 maisons, Latour-Dupin, Montauban, Lanjuinais, Dubouchage, de Biron, and de 
 Vogu6. 
 
 As to the competence of the court relatively to the affairs submitted to it by 
 the royal ordonnance, or of which it had become seized by decrees of connexity, there 
 were only five votes for the negative. They were those of MM. Dubouchage, de 
 Biron, de Sesmaisons, Lanjuinais, and de Vogu. The names of these five peers of 
 France deserve to be recorded here; the gratitude of history is due to them.
 
 DELIBERATIONS OF THE ACCUSED. 321 
 
 the most impassioned researches, but all were not called to fulfil the 
 same career in this intellectual race. Theoretic differences oc- 
 curred between MM. Godefroi Cavaignac, Guinard, and Armand 
 Marrast upon the one side; and MM. Landolphe, Lebon, and Vig- 
 nerte on the other. Intensely animated discussions ensued; the 
 bodies of the captives belonged to the gaoler, but their spirits ranged 
 in tameless freedom over the boundless domain of thought. Within 
 their dungeon walls they busied themselves anxiously about the 
 future destiny of nations; they conversed with God, and, with their 
 feet treading the path to the scaffold, they were flushed and intoxi- 
 cated with hope, as though they were marching to the conquest of 
 the world. Touching and singular spectacle, the memory of which 
 deserves to be preserved for ever ! 
 
 That petty thoughts and feelings may have mingled with this 
 great movement; that emulation may sometimes have given place 
 to frivolous or rancorous rivalry; that minds, too weak to 
 soar with impunity, may have lost themselves in the region of 
 dreams, all this cannot be denied. But these too inevitable results 
 of the infirmities of human nature are not enough to efface from the 
 general fact we have recounted all its solemn and imposing features. 
 
 If the intellectual agitation of the republican party was vehement 
 in the interior of St. Pelagic, it was much more so abroad; for 
 the members of the congress convoked to the capital by the 
 accused had flocked thither from all quarters, and the questions 
 . to be resolved were submitted to them as they arrived, so that the 
 subjects of dissension went on multiplying day by day. Though 
 all were sincerely attached to the cause of the republic, some re- 
 garded it with fear ; these were such persons as possessed more pre- 
 cision than boldness of mind, or who had not a sufficiently lengthened 
 experience of parties to know that the difficulty of leading them by 
 bringing them into discipline, is always less in reality than in ap- 
 pearance. After all it must be admitted, the meetings of those en- 
 gaged for the defence wore a strange aspect. Composed of men, who, 
 for the most part, knew each other only by reputation, or even not 
 at all, they brought together the most heterogeneous elements, be- 
 fore the bond which should unite them had yet been discovered ; 
 they brought the deliberate firmness of the men of the north in con- 
 tact with the fiery impetuosity of the southerns. The deliberations 
 were rather confused; the vanity of some members broke out in 
 noisy pretensions; frequently, the most vehement ruled the discus- 
 sion, and drowned the most respected voices with their noise. The 
 consequence was, therefore, that a deep sense of uneasiness and per- 
 plexity took possession of a certain number of the defenders ; among 
 others MM. Jules Favre, St. Romme, and Ledru-Rollin. Ex- 
 aggerating the unfavourable side of the drama enacted before their 
 eyes, they thought they were on the verge of chaos, and strove 
 with all their might to bring back to the proportions of a judicial 
 
 VOL. II. Y
 
 322 ORDONNANCE IMPOSING PROFESSIONAL ADVOCATES 
 
 trial, what, in the opinion of an immense majority of the defenders, 
 ought to have the scope of a political struggle. 
 
 Meanwhile the decisive day was approaching ; the Lyonnese tra- 
 versers had been transferred from Lyons to Paris, where the Con- 
 ciergerie had been assigned them for their prison; whilst the tra- 
 versers of Luneville were confined in the Abbaye. The govern- 
 ment was not unaware of the sort of listed field into which the re- 
 publicans sought to force it. After having heaped falsity on fal- 
 sity, and scandal on scandal, in order to enhance its victory beyond 
 measure, and to smite the whole republican party in the persons of 
 the traversers, it felt itself all at once frozen with terror at the sight 
 of that party advancing en masscj to sustain the fight. On the 
 20th of March, 1835, M. Pasquier, President of the Court of Peers, 
 decided that official avocats should be imposed upon the traversers, 
 and the next day M. Felix Faure repaired to St. Pelagic, where he 
 made known this decision to the prisoners severally. Thus the go- 
 vernment had come to the pass of violating the right of defence; 
 that right which, in worn out and perishing societies, had been re- 
 spected by tyrants. 
 
 The traversers energetically protested, and they wrote as follows 
 to the avocats officially nominated by M. Pasquier: " Judge, gentle- 
 men, for yourselves, if your own dignity, or that of the order to 
 which you belong, can permit you to force yourselves upon the tra- 
 versers against their wishes, and to render yourselves accomplices of 
 an unexampled judicial iniquity, and of the passions of an enemy , 
 devoid of shame." At the same time, they chose three of their com- 
 rades, MM. Armand Marrast, Lebon, and Landolphe, to go and de- 
 mand an explanation of M. Pasquier as to a persecution wholly 
 novel, even in the annals of arbitrary power. The interview was a 
 curious one. Arming himself with a cold politeness, M. Pasquier 
 saluted the three republicans, when they entered, in the style of a finished 
 courtier. The republicans bowed very slightly, and were advancing 
 with indignation depicted upon their proud faces, when M. Pasquier 
 threw himself into his easy chair, and made them a sign to be seated. 
 They smiled at this puerile spite, and expressed themselves in a brief 
 and business-like tone. They had been instructed to apply to the 
 President of the Court of Peers, not for the purpose of making him 
 recall what they knew very well was irrevocable, but that they 
 might tell him what were the feelings with which they regarded it. 
 Accordingly, they spoke the language of threat, and that the more 
 pointedly and uncompromisingly, for that they were the weaker, and 
 their enemies were seconded by the executioner. The interview 
 being ended, they rose so abruptly, that one of them, M. Landolphe, 
 almost ran down a man who was stuck behind the door, and had 
 not time to withdraw ; this eaves-dropper was M. Decazes. 
 _ The avocats officially appointed by M. Pasquier, having unani- 
 mously resolved not to comply with requisitions, which tended to
 
 UPON THE PRISONERS PROTEST OF THE BAR. 323 
 
 dishonour their profession, the Moniteur of 30th of March 1835 pub- 
 lished an ordonnance investing the Court of Peers and its president 
 with all the powers, as regarded avocats which belonged to the 
 Courts of Assizes, and to the presidents of those courts. 
 
 Such is the headlong course of arbitrary power ! A government 
 once impelled upon that fatal course may vainly strive to moderate 
 its speed ; it must always go on, though at every step it see a 
 fresh abyss opening before it. The traversers wrote thus to the bar 
 of Paris : 
 
 " They no longer set up against us merely the discretionary power of a special 
 court; it is mere will and pleasure that now pronounces finally and retrospectively 
 on judicial questions. Thus, it is not enough that we are subjected to all the caprices 
 of an exceptional tribunal without appeal and without control; if a contempt for all 
 laws is not sufficient to enable it to rob us of our last security, an ordonnance inter- 
 poses, arbitrary force is added to arbitrary force, and all kinds of iniquities league 
 themselves together against us. Policy, our enemies have the assurance to say, ought 
 not to fail justice at its need; we will not be wanting to our duty, and we call upon 
 you, gentlemen, to fulfil yours with a firmness becoming your profession, with the 
 promptitude which circumstances demand." 
 
 An appeal, so manly as this, moved the whole bar ; there was but 
 one voice among the avocats against the illegality of the ordonnance 
 of the 30th of March. On the 6th of April, 1835, an extraordi- 
 nary meeting was held of the council of the order, and a committee 
 consisting of MM. Philippe Dupin, batonnier of the order, Parquin 
 and Odilon Barrot drew up an opinion, of which the following is 
 an extract: 
 
 " Without going into the question of the illegality of the ordonnance, without ex- 
 amining whether the mandate given them is obligatory, the avocats must persist in de- 
 claring that an appeal to their humanity, to the fulfilment of the duties of their pro- 
 fession shall never be addressed to them in vain ; that, however, if the traversers 
 consent to it, or retract their refusal, they will be ready to render their tribute to mis- 
 fortune; but, if the traversers persist in their resistance, it is impossible to enter with 
 them into an unseemly and undignified struggle. 
 
 " Under these circumstances, the council, simply expressing an opinion, deems that 
 the most suitable course to be taken by the avocats is to make themselves fully as- 
 sured of the wishes of the traversers, and to write, in case of refusal, to the Pre- 
 sident of the Court of Peers, stating that they would freely accept the task that has 
 been assigned them, but that the resolution of the traversers makes it their duty to 
 abstain from doing so." 
 
 The document was signed by MM. Philippe Dupin, batonnier, 
 Archambault, doyen ; Parquin, Mauguin, Thevenin, Conture, Col- 
 met-d'Aage, Gaubert, Hennequin, Berryer fils, Gaudry, Lavaux, 
 Delangle, Marie, Chaix-d'Est-Ange, Duvergier, Crousse, Paillet, 
 Oclilon Barrot, Leroy, and Frederich, members of the council. 
 
 On the same day, the Rouen bar drew up a protest against the 
 ordonnance of the 30th of March, which appeared with the signa- 
 tures of MM. Lenard, batonnier, and Desseaux, secretary. It only 
 differed from that which we have given above, in the even greater 
 precision and energy of the language. 
 
 The example given by the bars of Paris and of Rouen, was fol- 
 lowed by almost the whole bar of France. From every part of 
 
 T2
 
 324 EMOTIONS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 the country arose the indignant protests of the profession. On the 
 other hand the attorneys-general, as well at Rouen as at Paris, 
 thundered against the order of advocates, and appealed against them 
 to the Cours Royales, but with the effect of eliciting opinions 
 which virtually annulled the ordonnance of the 30th of March. 
 Never had such a sudden impulse arisen in the bosom of society; 
 never had such anarchy been evolved in the very bosom of power. 
 In a secret sitting, the Chamber of Peers confirmed its resolution 
 not to allow the defendants to have counsel of their own selection ^ 
 but it decided against compelling any counsel to plead for them, 
 not venturing to enter into a contest with the body of advocates. 
 The chamber at once exhibited the excess of violence, and the ex- 
 cess of fear. 
 
 And now, how shall we describe the effect produced upon the 
 public mind, by all this surprising complication of events ? The 
 names of the defendants flew from mouth to mouth, every one 
 sympathising with their danger, every one lauding their firmness. 
 It became a question of universal interest and anxiety, how far 
 would these daring men carry their daring ? Would they act up to 
 the magnanimous resolves they had announced ? Even in the salo)is y 
 where the doctrines they advocated were abhorred, their intrepid 
 bearing touched the hearts of the fair sex; prisoners, they irresistibly 
 governed public opinion ; absent, they were in every one's thoughts. 
 And is this to be wondered at? They had every claim to the sym- 
 pathy of a generous nation: courage, defeat, misfortune. That 
 was, indeed, a tempestuous period, yet one to be looked back to 
 with regret ! How the blood then boiled fiercely in our veins I 
 How intensely did we then feel that we lived ! How tho- 
 roughly then did it show itself, with all the attributes which God 
 has assigned it, that French nation which assuredly will cease to- 
 exist on that day when it shall cease wholly to experience high emo- 
 tions ! Short-sighted politicians are ever alarmed at the manifesta- 
 tion of any unwonted ardour or excitement in the society to which 
 they belong ; and, as far as they are concerned, they are in the 
 right of it ; for he who would direct, would control force, must be 
 himself endowed with force. And this is why statesmen of the 
 mediocre sort, always make it their business to try to enervate a 
 nation. They need to cut it down to their own level, for otherwise 
 they could not hope to direct it. It is not thus that men of genius 
 act. These never desire to extinguish the passions of a great 
 people ; they seek, on the contrary, to excite them, to give them a 
 noble aim and impulse, knowing full well that the worst symptoms 
 which a nation can manifest, the most indicative of decay, are 
 supineness and lethargy. 
 
 Prevented from defending themselves in the way they thought fit, 
 in the manner to which they were of clear right entitled, the pri- 
 soners of St. Pelagic resolved to oppose to their judges no further
 
 DISSENSION AMONG THE PRISONERS. 325 
 
 resistance than that of contemptuous silence. " You may condemn 
 us, but you shall not try us," said MM. Lebon, Marrast, and Lan- 
 dolphe, with one accord to M. Pasquier, on taking their leave. It 
 now remained for the defendants to keep their word, and to confine 
 themselves to the important object of investing with dignity that 
 position as victims, in which they had been placed by the low-minded 
 hostility of the government. 
 
 Unfortunately there were differences of opinion on this subject 
 amongst the various bodies of prisoners. 
 
 The Parisians, in common with the sub-officers of Luneville, 
 thought that when violence was thus taking the upperhand of jus- 
 tice, nay, was thrusting her altogether off the scene, it was their 
 duty, at all events, to take no part in the outrage ; they considered 
 that a silent protest was preferable to a mutilated defence ; that since 
 the Chamber of Peers thus daringly sought to avail itself of the ad- 
 vantages of despotism, it was but reasonable that it should also be left 
 to reap all the embarrassment and all the odium resulting from such 
 a course ; that, in a word, it was essential to tear from the govern- 
 ment party that mark of legality with which it sought to veil its 
 vengeance. 
 
 The Lyonnese prisoners viewed their position under another aspect. 
 Not to offer any defence was to lose the opportunity of reading, with 
 emphasis to attentive France, one of the most memorable pages in 
 the history of Lyons : could they consent to this ? Men who, like 
 Lagrange, had immortalised resistance by their moderation and their 
 courage, did they reflect so little honour upon their party, that all 
 they had done and suffered might, without the grossest injustice, be 
 passed over unnoticed ? Besides, the Lyonnese insurrection had been 
 calumniated, and it was necessary that the real truth of the matter 
 should be made known ; it was fitting that France should learn how the 
 struggle had commenced, what base and relentless manoeuvres on the 
 part of government had prolonged its disastrous duration, and by 
 what fearful cruelties misguided soldiers had sullied their victory. 
 
 It was obvious that these differences of opinion could not be re- 
 moved until the various bodies of defendants had an opportunity of 
 seeing each other, and of discussing the points in dispute. The Pa- 
 risian defendants accordingly demanded to have transferred to St. 
 Pelagic, where they were themselves confined, their comrades from 
 Luneville, who were at the Abbaye, and their Lyonnese associates, 
 who were at the Conciergerie. Nothing could be more reasonable, 
 yet the application was summarily rejected. The Parisian defend- 
 ants, thereupon, addressed a letter to the attorney-general, in which 
 their various subjects of complaint were set forth in the most striking 
 manner. 
 
 " You will not permit us to resort to the ordinary and legitimate method of de- 
 fending ourselves, because it is your object to suppress the truth. 
 " It is on this principle that, while you have been occupied a whole twelvemonth
 
 326 PLAN OF DEFENCE. 
 
 in complicating the indictment against us, we are expected to make ourselves masters 
 of the voluminous charges, affecting our lives and our honour, in the course of a 
 week or two. 
 
 " You have raked together, as accusations which we are to meet, every circum- 
 stance of our past career, every act of the whole republican party. Yet we are not 
 to have counsel of our own selection to assist us in our defence, but are to be com- 
 pelled to accept such men, known or unknown, possessing our confidence or not, as 
 you think proper to assign to us! That which is freely permitted to the humblest 
 citizen, in the most trifling police case, you deny to men whom you bring before a 
 special, irresponsible tribunal, on a capital charge! 
 
 " We claim to have witnesses called on our behalf, a right common to every other 
 citizen, but you take measures which render it impossible for us to enjoy it. 
 
 " We are charged with having created a vast plot, embracing within its ramifica- 
 tions, Paris, Lyons, Chalons, Arbois, Marseilles, Epinal, Lun6ville; yet the co-ac- 
 cused have hitherto been prevented from placing themselves in communication with 
 each other, and we are on the eve of trial without having been enabled, as of com- 
 mon right and justice we ought, to organise a common defence, to reply to a common 
 accusation!" 
 
 An interview for one single day, between the two committees of 
 defence of Paris and Lyons, was all that the prisoners could obtain. 
 It took place at St. Pelagie, on the 18th of April, (1835,) and the dis- 
 sensions, to which we have referred, then manifested themselves in the 
 most decided manner. In contending that the trial should be accepted 
 by the traversers, even though only with the ex-officio counsel, the 
 Lyonnese seemed to be pleading the cause of their own town rather 
 than that of the party at large, an impression which operated strongly 
 against them in the discussion. To secure the success of their views 
 the Parisians had only to appeal to those exalted sentiments of inspired 
 devotion to a great cause, which, in the presence of men of a 
 particular standard of mind and heart, are never invoked in 
 vain. The result was, that the meeting resolved that the whole- 
 body of prisoners, should conform to the decision of the meeting 
 of defenders ; and the following declaration, involving that de- 
 cision, was accordingly drawn up by a member of the Paris 
 committee. 
 
 " Being informed that M. the President of the Chamber of Peers intends to refuse 
 them permission to employ, as counsel, men not belonging to the order of advocates, 
 the two committees of Defence of Paris and Lyons, protest, together and unani- 
 mously, against any violation of the right of all men to a free defence; they declare 
 that their formal resolution is to present themselves before the Chamber of Peers, 
 accompanied by the advocates of their own choice, being supported in their determi- 
 nation, not only by the principles of justice common to men of all parties, but also 
 by the declared opinion of the whole bar of the country, which has fully sanctioned 
 the right claimed by them, that, namely, due and accorded to every accused person, of 
 being defended by those in whom he himself places his confidence." 
 
 It was not precisely stated in this declaration that the traver- 
 sers, if debarred from the employment of defenders of their own se- 
 lection, would unanimously refuse to be tried at all ; but the result 
 was inevitable. One of the members of the Lyons committee, M. 
 Caussidiere, for some time hesitated to sign, fearing that they were 
 engaging themselves beyond what was desirable ; but, pressed by 
 his associates, he at length gave way ; and the declaration was pub- 
 lished with the signatures of MM. Baune, Lagrange, Martin Mail-
 
 M. FAVRE'S VIEWS. 327 
 
 fefer, Tiphaine, and Caussidiere, members of the Lyons committee; 
 and of MM. Chilman, Granger, Vignerte, Landolphe, Pichonnier, 
 Roziere, Lebon, Guinard, and Armand Marrast, members of the 
 Paris committee. 
 
 The traversers' chosen advocates, whose names had been set 
 forth in the public journals of the preceding day, next assembled for 
 the purpose of definitively settling the question which had arisen 
 between the Paris defendants and those of Lyons. The feeling of 
 the large majority on this occasion was, that they ought not to 
 accept the trial, if a free defence was not granted them. The con- 
 trary opinion was represented by MM. Ledra Rollin, Sainte-Romme, 
 and more especially by M. Jules Favre, who maintained it with the 
 most unflinching perseverance. Armand Carrel, who, in the first 
 instance concurred with M. Jules Favre, afterwards went over to the 
 majority; but M. Favre, none the more discouraged, continued to 
 point out, as before, that if all the prisoners would consent to defend 
 themselves personally and by counsel, this would inevitably render 
 the trial impossible, the number of the accused being so large that 
 the majority of the judges, laden as they were with years and infir- 
 mities, would be disabled from further attendance long before the 
 proceedings approached their termination. This would have been 
 all very well, had the object been merely to save the accused from 
 the condemnation which threatened them ; but the question 
 had been placed on much higher ground than this : it was the 
 republican party seeking, as a party, to enter the lists with their 
 opponents. And this was precisely what M. Jules Favre could not 
 be brought sufficiently to comprehend. He put forward also in 
 objection his quality of advocate, and the duties imposed upon him 
 by that sacred mission. For the sake of promoting the success of 
 party combinations, the advantages of which appeared to him ques- 
 tionable, he would not, he said, neglect the appeal of men who 
 might be pleased to confide to him the defence of their liberty, or 
 their lives. 
 
 Mistrust is the distinctive characteristic of political parties in times 
 of strife ; they are ever ready to suspect the worst of an associate 
 who may differ in opinion from the general body. Although the 
 views of M. Jules Favre were susceptible of a highly honourable 
 explanation, the more vehemently zealous of the party at once con- 
 demned them as the offspring of selfishness and egotism. A member 
 of the bar of Lyons, where, though still quite young, he had already 
 distinguished himself by rare ability, by superior eloquence, M. Jules 
 Favre, was now openly accused of having attached himself to the 
 party, merely with the view of seeking at Paris, under circumstances 
 calculated to bring him into immediate notice, an arena more worthy 
 of his talents ; and Armand Carrel, in whom he had at first found 
 a warm ally, now went the length of saying to him, with bit- 
 ter emphasis, " Well, sir, since you persist in your deterrnina-
 
 328 VIOLENT DISPUTE BETWEEN FAVRE AND MICHEL. 
 
 tion, we'll turn the whole thing into a simple correctional police 
 business." 
 
 It only now remained to send messengers to the Lyons defendants, 
 to acquaint them with the result of the day's deliberation. The 
 meeting nominated for this purpose M. Jules Favre and two of his 
 adversaries, MM. Michel (of Bourges) and Dupont. They could not 
 have pitted against him two more uncomprising opponents. 
 
 Endowed with a powerful but rude eloquence, combined with 
 much soundness of penetration, M. Michel was the model of a tri- 
 bune of old : all his attributes, his accent, gestures, look ; his sudden 
 inspirations, his vehement and unlooked for apostrophes, every 
 thing about him partook closely of that character. 
 
 As to M. Dupont, his voice was all influential with the repub- 
 licans, and often produced the most marked effect upon his adver- 
 saries. Taking the lead in all measures which required more pecu- 
 liarly the aid of elevated generosity of sentiment and high moral 
 courage, none better than he knew how to ensure their success by 
 the masterly employment, as the case needed, of acute logic, of 
 cutting sarcasm, of piercing invective, of resistless passion. There 
 was no one who did not dread the expression of his contempt; and 
 even the unqualified rudeness of his speech in his most violent phi- 
 lippics never excited disgust in the minds of the hearers, so manifest 
 was it that the speaker, in all he said, was influenced by none but 
 public and national feelings ; that his whole conduct was governed 
 by the noblest abnegation of self, and of selfish interests ! 
 
 It was now close upon the 5th of May (1835), the day fixed for 
 the opening of the trial; and the various classes of prisoners were 
 accordingly transferred from their respective places of confinement 
 to the prison of the Luxembourg, as being nearer the place in 
 which they were to be tried. On the 4th of May, MM. Dupont, 
 Michel (of Bourges), and Favre, repaired to the quarter assigned 
 to the Lyonnese ; and M. Baune, having been appointed chairman of 
 the meeting, the two former gentlemen stated to the assembled de- 
 fendants the decision which the committee of defence had come to ; 
 but when they proceeded to enter into the considerations which, in 
 their opinion, justified that decision, M. Jules Favre interposed, and 
 strenuously contended against it, declaring it to be of no obligatory 
 force whatever, and that he was ready to give his best assistance to 
 any one who might be disposed to resist it. This led to a scene of 
 extraordinary violence, wherein M. Michel (of Bourges) more par- 
 ticularly yielded to the excess of passion, of aggressive fury ; and 
 the interference of M. Baune became necessary to put an end to the 
 discreditable exhibition, the occurrence of which, however, was but 
 too natural, at a period when all men's minds were in a state of 
 fierce agitation and excitement. 
 
 The 5th of May arrived. The contest was about to begin. As- 
 sembled at the house of M. Auguste Blanqui, the advocates se-
 
 COMMENCEMENT OF THE TRIAL. 329 
 
 locted by the defendants awaited with anxiety the commencement of 
 a Struggle, of which it was impossible to foresee the result. On a 
 sudden, M. Jules Favre presented himself. He was received with a 
 general murmur of dissatisfaction and anger, but at length obtained 
 a hearing. No sooner, however, had he announced his intention of 
 appearing professionally before the Chamber of Peers, and there 
 doing his utmost for his clients, than the room was filled with tu- 
 mult. From every part of it arose vociferous reproaches. M. 
 Michel (of Bourges) rushed up to the Lyonnese orator, and assailed 
 him in the most vituperative language, and as he would not give way, 
 it became necessary for M. Jules Favre to quit the assembly, which 
 he at length did, leaving behind him a scene of utter confusion. 
 
 Meantime, the approaches to the Palais du Luxembourg were, 
 from an early hour in the morning, blocked up by eager and anx- 
 ious multitudes. Permission to be present at the proceedings having 
 been inhumanely refused to the friends of the accused, these, 
 pale with care and indignation, were seen foremost in the ranks of 
 the crowds who pressed round the doors. In the garden of the 
 Luxembourg, bayonets glittered amid the orange trees and shrub- 
 beries. The troops were ordered to keep within their barracks; ball 
 cartridges were given out to the soldiers on duty; four magazines of 
 ammunition were formed in the garden of the Luxembourg ; not 
 a national guard was to be seen on the theatre of the anticipated 
 disturbances ; all these were signs which clearly indicated with what 
 fears the government was filled, and in whose hands, should danger 
 actually present itself, it proposed to confide its destinies. 
 
 The judges, too, trembled. Whether from timidity, or out of 
 respect for the eternal laws of justice, many peers adopted the re- 
 solution of taking no part in the proceedings, at the risk of draw- 
 ing upon themselves the resentment of their colleagues, whose re- 
 sponsibility thus became so much the more aggavated. 
 
 At a quarter past one, the defendants were brought into the 
 Chamber, and the municipal guards distributed themselves in large 
 numbers around them. At two o'clock, the President Pasquier en- 
 tered, preceding the peers, escorted on his right by MM. Portalis 
 and de Bastard; on his left by MM. Seguier and Boyer. The 
 crown officers, MM. Martin (du Nord), Attorney-general, Franck- 
 Carre, Plougoulm, Chegaray, de la Tournelle, were in their red robes. 
 M. Barbe-Marbois was brought into the Chamber in his arm-chair, 
 his head covered with a black cap, and his person enveloped in a 
 dressing gown. Nothing could be at once more strange and more 
 striking that the aspect of this assembly: on the one hand, dig- 
 nitaries with bald heads and sinking frames, the fire of whose eyes, 
 wellmgh extinct, had become reanimated for the moment by the 
 combined effects of fear and of passion, frail representatives of a 
 half-century of glory and of shame ; celebrated, most of them, in 
 the annals of diplomacy or of war, some of them infamous in those
 
 330 STORMY SCENES IN THE 
 
 of treason ; on the other, men of various conditions in life, and 
 differing not less in intellect and in education, but thrown 
 together by the chances of civil discord ; some of them good, 
 some bad, but all alike radiant in youth and daring ; making with 
 scornful levity, a jest of the danger impending over them ; far less 
 concerned at the position in which they stood than were the spec- 
 tators, and prepared rather to heap condemnation on the judges, 
 than to be themselves condemned. One hundred and sixty-four 
 peers were present ; the number of those who did not answer to 
 their names was eighty-six, among whom were Marshals Maison, 
 Grouchy, Gerard, the Marquis de Castellane, the Marquis de Deux- 
 Breze, and Count Excelmans. There were one hundred and twenty- 
 one defendants, eighty from the provinces, forty- one from Paris. 
 
 M. Pasquier having proceeded to call over the names of the 
 prisoners, the Lyonnese answered to theirs, the Parisians refused to 
 do so. M. Baune then rose. " I demand a hearing," said he, " to 
 complain of the cruel orders which have been issued, by which our 
 wives, our mothers, our sisters, are deprived of the places which 
 ought to be assigned them here. I pray you to reflect that in the 
 worst times of the Revolution, the families of accused persons 
 were always allowed to be present in the body of the court where 
 their friends were "being tried. The privileges of rank and birth 
 should ever yield to the rights of nature, to the claims of misfortune. 
 For myself, I claim immediate admission here for my wife, who has 
 travelled a hundred and twenty leagues, to share my perils and my 
 captivity. I address this appeal at once to the impartiality of judges, 
 to the generosity of enemies." The demand was just, and nobly ex- 
 pressed: let us see in what terms M. Pasquier rejected it. " The 
 application you have made is altogether foreign to your defence. 
 It is quite out of place." Quite out of place, indeed, before a judge, 
 who could so respond to such a request ! At three o'clock, the sitting 
 was suspended, the court retiring to the council chamber to deliberate 
 upon the question, whether thirteen citizens, whose names had been 
 handed in by M. Maillefer, should be allowed to plead before it, 
 on behalf of the accused.* At five o'clock, the court resumed, and 
 M. Pasquier pronounced its decision, which rejected the application, 
 on the pretext " that the persons named did not appear on the roll 
 of either attorneys or barristers." Thus did justice disappear, to 
 make way for all but undisguised war. The advocates thus rejected, 
 published next morning an energetic protest: " Considering that the 
 undoubted right of prisoners to be defended has been outrageously 
 
 * These were : General Tarayre, MM. Voyer d' Argenson, Audry de Puyraveau 
 La Mennais, Trelat, Raspail, Carnot, Carrel, Bonchotte, Pierre Leroux, Keynaud, 
 F. Degeorge, and de Cormenin. " These," said the requisition put in by M. Mail- 
 lefer, " are the thirteen names we have the honour to submit to the court. We de 
 mand that the court take this requisition into its deliberation, without prejudice to 
 any others that our comrades may make. We protest against any decision contrary 
 to this just demand."
 
 COURT OF PEERS. 331 
 
 violated, and highly approving of the course adopted by the ac- 
 cused, who, by their silence have thrown a permanent stigma on 
 the principle of drumhead jurisdiction; we, the undersigned, selected 
 by the accused as their counsels, deem it necessary publicly to express 
 our grief at being prevented from affording our best services to our 
 friends ; and protest with all the energy of our hearts and consciences 
 against the abominable iniquity now about to be consummated in 
 the face of the nation." 
 
 This fermentation of men's minds made it obvious that a vigorous re- 
 sistance would be entered upon; and accordingly, the very next 
 day, at the sitting of the 6th of May, it burst forth with a vehemence 
 and unanimity, a concentration of purpose, which absolutely over- 
 whelmed the judges. M. Godefroi Cavaignac having demanded to 
 be heard against the decision of the previous evening, and his de- 
 mand being refused, the whole body of the defendants arose with a 
 spontaneous, simultaneous movement, and with arms upraised, and 
 eyes darting fire, exclaimed: " Speak! Cavaignac! speak!" The 
 municipal guards were ordered to check the tumult, but over- 
 whelmed with sudden stupor, they advanced not a step. The cries 
 redoubled. The president, who" seemed quite confounded, sought 
 alternately to conciliate and to bully the clamourers, but equally in 
 vain. He then, after consulting with the keeper of the seals, and 
 with the vice-president, M. de Bastard, intimated to the court that 
 it was desirable to retire for the purpose of deliberation. The words 
 had scarcely quitted his lips, when the peers rushed towards the 
 council chamber, manifestly labouring under the strongest agita- 
 tion As the doors closed upon them, the recent uproar was suc- 
 ceeded by the most profound silence. Outside the troops were under 
 arms. After four hours' of solemn expectation, the spectators be- 
 held the judges resume their seats. A decision against M. Cavaignac 
 was read, and the municipal guard lead away the defendants^ 
 
 Next day the tempest raged again, and with increased violence. 
 An advocate, M. Crivelli, had begun a speech, having for its pur- 
 pose the challenging of such peers as had taken part in the indict- 
 ments, when he was interrupted by the defendants themselves. His 
 claim was perfectly valid, it being alike contrary to the formal rules 
 of the code of criminal prosecution, and to the elementary princi- 
 ples of justice, that men who have preferred the charge, who have 
 issued the indictment against a person, shall afterwards sit in 
 judgment upon him. But it was in the highest degree important to- 
 the accused that the trial should not proceed as the matter then 
 stood. They therefore sought by their outcries to stifle the nascen 
 discussions, and it became necessary, in consequence, to remove 
 them to the waiting-rooms below, while the court drew up the < 
 cision by which M. Crivelli's demand was rejected. The defendants 
 were then brought back, and the decision just formed having been 
 read to them, M. Cauchy, the Clerk of the Records, began to recite 
 the indictments. No language can describe the various aspects ex-
 
 332 
 
 TUMULT REQUISITION PROTEST. 
 
 hibited at this moment by that assembly. As on the previous even- 
 ing, all the defendants rose en masse, and with one voice, exclaimed: 
 " Our advocates! our advocates!" The colonel of the muni- 
 cipal guard, M. Feisthamel, issued orders of a menacing charac- 
 ter. The president essayed in vain to conceal the emotion which 
 agitated him. The crown officers, from their seats beneath, ad- 
 dressed to him words of exhortation, but all were lost in the tumult 
 of the peers, some standing up in a state of great excitement, were 
 adding by their vociferations to the general clamour ; others had 
 thrown themselves back in their arm-chairs, as if panic struck. The 
 shorthand- writers had laid down their pencils in despair, while from 
 the galleries, the spectators, their bodies bent as much forward as 
 possible, watched with eager and disquiet gaze, the progress of this 
 strange drama. All at once, the attorney-general rose to read a re- 
 quisition ; but at the same moment, M. Baune, on his part, rose in 
 the name of the accused to read a protest. The two voices made 
 themselves heard above the tumult, that of M. Martin (du Nord), 
 sharp and piercing, though somewhat faltering from weariness; 
 that of M. Baune, grave, deep, solemn, reverberating. We can only 
 give an idea of this scene by placing in parallel columns, the re- 
 quisition of the attorney -general, and the protest of M. Baune, as 
 they concurrently proceeded from the lips of the respective gentle- 
 
 men: 
 
 M. BAUNE. 
 
 " The undersigned defendants, inhabit- 
 ants of Lyons, Paris, St. Etienne, Arbois, 
 Luneville, Marseilles, Epinal, Grenoble . 
 
 " After the events of grave import 
 which have taken place at the two first 
 sittings in the case wherein they are 
 concerned, hold it due to their own ho- 
 nour and to the public welfare, to address 
 to the Chamber of Peers the following 
 declaration : 
 
 " The court has, by its decision of yes- 
 terday, violated the undoubted right of 
 the subject to a free defence. (Loud cries 
 of hear! hear! hear! from the defendants' 
 bench.) 
 
 " A supreme court armed with exor- 
 bitant powers, judging without control, 
 proceeding without law, it deprives of 
 the most sacred of securities men whom, 
 as its political opponents, it has kept in 
 prison fourteen months, and whom it now 
 calls upon to come before it to defend 
 their honour and their lives. 
 
 " Yesterday it went still further than 
 ever, and contrary to the practice in all 
 criminal courts, where speech is never 
 forbidden until after the final termination 
 of a case, it has pronounced a decision 
 against the defendant Cavaignac, with- 
 out allowing him, or any one for him, to 
 say a word in his defence. 
 
 M. MARTIN (DU NORD). 
 
 " The King's Attorney-General in the 
 Chamber of I 3 eers. 
 
 " In pursuance of the decree dated the 
 sixth of the present month, which orders 
 that all necessary steps for assuring to 
 justice its free course shall be taken in 
 the event of any further disorders being 
 committed .by the defendants." (Loud 
 outcries from the defendants' bench, 
 which grew more and more vociferous as 
 the reading of the requisition proceeded. 
 At times the voices of particular defend- 
 ants predominated, and we shall give 
 the more striking of their interpella- 
 tions.) 
 
 " And whereas, in point of fact, instead 
 of attending to our caution, certain of the 
 defendants by violent manifestations, by 
 a series of tumultuous clamour, evidently 
 the result of a prearranged system, seek 
 to render the regular progress of the trial 
 impossible, so that it appears clear that 
 the proceedings cannot go on in the pre- 
 sence of such defendants." (" Cut off our 
 heads at once!") 
 
 " And whereas if defendants were per- 
 mitted with impunity, by any means they 
 might adopt, to impede the progress of a 
 case, the whole power of government 
 would become vested in their hands, 
 anarchy would usurp the place of justice;
 
 TYRANNOUS DECISION. 
 
 333 
 
 and tolerance accorded to such rebellion 
 against the law, would constitute a de- 
 nial of justice towards society at large, 
 and towards those defendants who, in 
 the exercise of their rights, demand their 
 trial." (" No! no! we protest against it! 
 all of us! all! all!") 
 
 " And whereas it is the manifest duty 
 of the court to prevent the recurrence of 
 such scandalous proceedings, and to as- 
 sure the full course of justice to the public 
 and to such of the defendants as demand 
 a trial." (" We none of us demand it! ") 
 
 " May it therefore please the court, in 
 pursuance of the discretionary power 
 vested in it as indispensable to the carry- 
 ing out its proceedings, to authorise M. 
 le President to expel from the Chamber 
 and have reconducted to prison, all such 
 defendants as shall seek to create a dis- 
 turbance ; (" We'll all go back to prison !") 
 so that, the clerk having it in charge to 
 make a note of the proceedings, and com- 
 municate the same to such expelled de- 
 fendants at the close of each sitting, the 
 trial may proceed as well with reference 
 to those defendants whose conduct has 
 necessitated their expulsion, as with re- 
 gard to those who are actually present." 
 ("You may be our butchers! our judges 
 you shall never be! ") 
 
 " Finally M. le President has actually 
 sought to begin the reading of the indict- 
 ments before the identity of the defend- 
 ants had been established, and ere they 
 had a single counsel in court. 
 
 " All these acts constitute judicial out- 
 rages, which are the natural antecedents 
 to those administrative outrages at which 
 they regard the Chamber of Peers to be 
 aiming. 
 
 " Under these circumstances the un- 
 dersigned declare that, in the ; absence of 
 counsel to plead their cause, the forms 
 even of justice are wanting, that the acts 
 of the Chamber of Peers are no longer 
 in their eyes any other than measures of 
 brute force, whose only sanction is in the 
 bayonets by which it has surrounded 
 itself. 
 
 " In consequence they refuse hence- 
 forth to take any share, by their presence, 
 in this so-called trial (Hear! hear! hear!), 
 where speech is forbidden both to the 
 defendants and to their chosen advocates. 
 Convinced that the only resource for free- 
 men is hi unalterable firmness, they de- 
 clare that they will not again present 
 themselves before the Chamber of Peers, 
 and that they make the Chamber perso- 
 nally responsible for any ill results that 
 may attend this their determination." 
 ("Hear! hear! hear! that is the deter- 
 mination of us all! ") 
 
 Thus, by a chain of ' monstrous circumstances, had matters come to 
 
 this pass, that in a country calling itself free, a public officer dared to 
 
 come before the supreme tribunal of the state, and propose to it to 
 
 pass sentence on men who were not present to defend themselves. 
 
 That which the revolutionary tribunal had scarce ventured upon 
 
 against Danton and Camille Desmoulins, in the name of Terror, M. 
 
 Martin (du Nord) required at the hands of the peers of France, 
 
 against republicans of the days of Louis Philippe, in the name of 
 
 a constitutional monarchy! That the attitude _ assumed by the 
 
 defendants tended to render a trial impossible, is true; but then, 
 
 thanks to the arbitrary steps taken in the first instance by the 
 
 peers, it was no longer justice, it was, on the contrary, the utter 
 
 violation of justice in its principle, and in its forms, which the 
 
 travelers resisted. We must admit, that the Chamber of Peers 
 
 hesitated on this occasion ere it drew the weapons which were held 
 
 out to its grasp. The descendants of the Pasquiers and of the 
 
 Moles were reluctant, let us suppose, to cast too great a stain 
 
 on names prominent among the most honoured in the annals of 
 
 the French magistracy. The propositions of M. Martin (du Word) 
 
 were vigorously combatted in the Council Chamber. I heir 
 
 adoption, in an unqualified form, would have been the signal for 
 
 the withdrawal of more than thirty peers, and government was
 
 334 TRACTABLE AND UNTRACTABLE PRISONERS. 
 
 not in a position to run any further risks. Yet, by an order, 
 ultimately agreed to, and which was a long step towards the ac- 
 complishment of his views, a formidable advance towards the highest 
 iniquity, it was decreed that, in the event of tumult arising, the tra- 
 versers might be brought before the tribunal separately, and that 
 the act of accusation having been intimated to each of them per- 
 sonally, it might then be read officially in court, even in the absence 
 of those, who by their conduct might have justly incurred their own 
 exclusion. It was at this point of the proceedings that MM. de 
 Talhouet and de Noailles retired from participation in the trial. 
 " Monsieur le President," wrote M. de Noailles to M. Pasquier, " I 
 have to request that you will offer my excuse to the Chamber; I 
 am unable to take any further part in the trial upon which it is en- 
 gaged. My reasons may be found in the decision to which it has 
 just come. Doubtless the supremacy of justice must ever be as- 
 serted;' but, I would ask, is it not force alone which triumphs, when, 
 from the absence of all the ordinary forms, there is, in fact, no longer 
 ordinary justice? It is, in my opinion, no indication of weakness 
 to stop short, when one finds that one is not going hand in hand 
 with the law." 
 
 In reserving to themselves the power of separating in court those 
 whom the indictment had taken such pains to bring together, for 
 the scaffold, the prison, or exile, the Chamber of Peers contemplated 
 opportunities of benefitting by their internal divisions, which care 
 had, for some time past, been assiduously taken to keep up and ag- 
 gravate. The ministry was not ignorant that, among the Lyonnese 
 defendants, there were men who in reality cared very little about 
 politics, one way or the other, chance recruits whom insurrection 
 had picked up here and there in its way, and whom there would be 
 no difficulty in inducing to take their trial if they were removed for 
 a time from the influence of their co-defendants. The most active 
 intriguing was resorted to with a view to this object, and matters 
 were so arranged as to derive an advantage from such of these was 
 seemed most docile. In the sitting of the 9th, the reading of the 
 indictment having been again interrupted as before, the whole of the 
 defendants were removed, and but twenty-nine of them, belonging 
 to the Lyonnese list, were brought back, as being men who were 
 thought less firm than the rest in their projects of resistance. With 
 regard to one of these, however, M. Lagrange, it turned out that 
 government had made a most singular miscalculation. He had no 
 sooner taken Ms seat, than he demanded a hearing, for the purpose 
 of protesting ; and when M. Pasquier rejected the application: " I 
 take leave, whether you will or no," he exclaimed, rising impetuously, 
 and addressing the court in the most vehement tone; "yes; we 
 protest in the face of your burlesque requisitions, as we have pro- 
 tested in the face of your grape-shot ! We protest fearlessly, as men, 
 faithful to their oaths ; as men, whose conduct puts you to shame,
 
 THEIR DIFFERENT TREATMENT. 335 
 
 you who have sworn so many oaths, and violated them all !" The tall 
 stature of the speaker, his martial air, the lofty elevation of his 
 countenance and bearing, gave the fullest effect to this violent 
 apostrophe. On the order of the president, several municipal 
 guards surrounded and seized him; while he proceeded, in a 
 voice of still increasing exaltation: " As you please, gentlemen! 
 condemn us without a hearing ! Send to their death, without 
 having allowed them a counsel to defend them, the stay, the sole 
 support of a hundred and fifty families of the people. I, in my 
 turn condemn you to live, knowing well that our blood will not wash 
 out the disgrace impressed upon your foreheads by that of the bravest 
 of the brave." And with these words on his lips, and his defying 
 gaze fixed on his judges, he withdrew, roughly pressed back by the 
 guards. When he had quitted the Chamber, the reading of the in- 
 dictment was resumed without interruption. During the succeeding 
 sittings, up to the close of the day, on which the reading of the vo- 
 luminous act of accusation was completed, there was only one other 
 attempt at interruption. But, on the other hand, at the sitting of the 
 13th of May, the number of defendants whom it was thought ad- 
 visable to produce in court, had become reduced to twenty-three, 
 and it was naturally to be expected that the tumult would recom- 
 mence when the trial itself should open. 
 
 It is quite melancholy to contemplate the means which power had 
 recourse to, in the interval, with the view of averting this contin- 
 gency. It sent back to the Abbaye the sub-officers from Luneville; 
 the Parisians to St. Pelagic, and the refractory Lyonnese to the Con- 
 ciergerie, retaining in the prison of the Luxembourg only such of 
 the defendants as it had hopes of gaining over. For these the prison 
 discipline was modified as much as possible ; towards these the coun- 
 tenances of the gaolers assumed a less ferocious aspect ; to them a 
 more agreeable and nourishing diet than that usually meted out to 
 prisoners was given with a liberal hand. At the same time, the un- 
 fortunate inmates of St. Pelagic, the Conciergerie, and the Abbaye, 
 were treated systematically with unwonted rigour. Did any one of 
 them, however, exhibit the least sign of indecision, the slightest indi- 
 cation of giving way under the hardships to which he was subjected, 
 the agents of power, ever closely on the watch, immediately made him 
 the object of their most assiduous attention, of their most soothing 
 kindness. Each feeling of the human heart, as it appeared to them 
 to predominate for the time in the bosom of this or that unhappy 
 prisoner, was relentlessly worked upon by these men, if it seemed at 
 all likely to answer their purpose. The Abbe Noir, for instance, a 
 Lyonnese defendant, lost his mother while in prison; the government 
 agent no sooner heard of the circumstance than he broke in upon the 
 weeping solitude of the bereaved son, and sought to wrest from his 
 affliction a consent which he had hitherto pertinaciously refused; but 
 he once more failed in his object. Of the prisoners upon whose ac-
 
 336 ADHESION TO THE CAUSE OF THE PRISONERS. 
 
 quiescence the government relied, some, though but a few, were of the 
 very dregs of society, caring not one straw for the question which they 
 had thrown up their hats for, and who had merely joined the repub- 
 lican party in the hope of creating that public disorder which they 
 thought might prove profitable to their vices. Yet these were the 
 men whom power glorified, while the truly honest and good men of 
 the party were held up by it to execration. 
 
 On the other hand, the republicans took all possible pains to keep 
 up the courage, and retain the adhesion of those prisoners who, not 
 being warm party men, threatened to give way. In a series of articles 
 which seemed written with the point of a sword, Armand Carrel 
 celebrated the devotion, the magnanimity, the noble courage of the 
 defendants; their portraits were exhibited about the streets; their 
 biographies were drawn up in encomiastic terms and extensively dif- 
 fused ; letters of congratulation, of cordial sympathy, were addressed 
 to them from every part of the country, and printed in the Radical 
 newspapers; advances were made to the poorer among them, out of 
 a subscription of twenty thousand francs, which was opened on their 
 behalf, and rapidly filled ; and, in order that it might be clearly ma- 
 nifest in the eyes of all France, that the defendants would not be 
 left unsupported, the more enthusiastic among their advocates re- 
 solved to attach themselves to their fate by a striking act of fraternity. 
 They accordingly assembled one day to the number of twenty-five 
 or thirty, in the Rue des Ma9ons Sorbonne, where was read aloud a 
 letter which it was proposed to address publicly to the accused par- 
 ties, and which had been drawn up by M. Michel (of Bourges). 
 The letter was approved of, those present affixed their names, and 
 some of them signed for absent friends, of whom they doubted no 
 more than of themselves, and it was determined that the letter should 
 be forthwith published. M. Trelat, who had acted as chairman on 
 this occasion, suggested on behalf of those whose names had been ap- 
 pended by friends, that it was hardly fair thus precipitately to involve 
 them in an obligation of so grave a nature, ere they had been con- 
 sulted upon the subject. But the decision adopted was ad- 
 hered to; M. Trelat accordingly sent the letter to the republican 
 journals, and it appeared the next morning, in the Tribune and the 
 Reformateur, with the names of the subscribers.* It said: " Go on, 
 citizens; continue to show yourselves as hitherto, calm, high-minded, 
 inflexible, energetic ; you are the defenders of your country's rights. 
 That which you seek to attain France also aims at ; all generous souls 
 sympathise with you. Your native land will never consent that 
 tnere shall be judges where advocates are excluded. No doubt, in 
 the position which matters have now attained, the Chamber of Peer?, 
 blindly pursuing the fatal path into which power has led it, will, 
 after depriving you of the means of defending yourselves, have the 
 
 * The Tribune gave 91 signatures ; the Reformateur 109.
 
 EMBARRASSMENT OF THE PEERS. 337 
 
 deplorable courage to condemn you. But you will submit with 
 noble resignation to this fresh iniquity crowning so many others. 
 The infamy of the judge is the glory of the prisoner." 
 
 Brought under the notice of the Chamber of Peers, on the 12th 
 of May, 1835, by M. de Montebello, this new defiance hurled at 
 it, threw the Chamber into the greatest agitation. It immediately 
 went into secret committee. Should the subscribers to the letter be 
 summoned to the bar of the house? This would be piling one trial 
 upon another, already too full of difficulty and danger : it would 
 be involving themselves in a fresh struggle, while they hardly knew 
 how to extricate themselves from that in which they were then en- 
 gaged. No; let the House of Peers rise superior to ordinary re- 
 sentments ! dignity demands it. Prudence counsels it ! If the ad- 
 vocates of the defendants are themselves made defendants, the 
 Chamber, the government must make up their minds to hear, and to 
 have the public hear, over and over and over again, that exposition of 
 republican doctrines, which they would so fain have buried in silence. 
 And if the advocates should become defendants, select advocates, 
 and these, in their turn subject themselves to trial, what a spectacle, 
 at once ludicrous and odious, would be presented to the world I 
 And, after having heaped case upon case, interrogatory upon inter- 
 rogatory, pleading upon pleading, decree upon decree, would not 
 the Chamber succumb, breathless, exhausted, undone? Were things 
 to go on in this way, until one-half the nation was sitting in judg- 
 ment upon the other half? Were they to add one cumbrous pro- 
 secution to another, until they had arrived at civil war? These 
 were the questions put by the less rash and daring, MM. Gauthier, 
 Barbe-Marbois, Dubouchage, Berenger, Villemain, Tripier, Roe- 
 derer. But they were met in a high tone by MM. Cousin, de Mon- 
 tebello, Lallemand; and here, as everywhere else, passion speaking 
 much louder than reason, had by far the best of it. M. Argout, 
 after a protracted discussion, said: " The question is a very difficult 
 one, and we have not, to-night, time enough to give it due consi- 
 deration." The debate was, thereupon, adjourned, and the house 
 separated. 
 
 At the bottom of the letter appeared the names of MM. de 
 Cormenin and Audry de Puyraveau, members of the lower house.* 
 Here was another complication of the difficulty ! For, in summon- 
 ing two deputies to appear at its bar, the Chamber of Peers ran the 
 risk of affronting the Elective Chamber, and of experiencing a re- 
 fusal at its hands, which would necessarily give rise to a conflict, 
 peculiarly to be avoided at this crisis. Yet it was this very circum- 
 stance which actually hastened the peers' decision. The promoters 
 of the trial reflected that MM. de Cormenin and Audry de Puy- 
 raveau, belonging to the minority in the lower house, the majority 
 
 * The name of M. Gamier-Pages, by a singular chance, did not appear in tho 
 published list, having, accidentally, slipped out of the form at the printers, 
 VOL. II. Z
 
 338 MESSAGE FROM THE PEERS TO THE DEPUTIES. 
 
 would not hesitate either to impose upon them the humiliation of a 
 disavowal, or to give them up to the demand of the peers; the hatred 
 of a republic, in the minds of that majority, servile supporters of 
 ministers, getting the better even of their esprit-de-corps ; and it was 
 clear, that if the Chamber of Deputies did thus consent to surrender 
 two of its members to the rancorous hostility of a rival assembly, 
 this would, in the eyes of the public, present an appearance of union 
 between the three powers of the state, which would give the peers, 
 in the storm which now raged, that moral force which it so needed, 
 and contribute greatly to reanimate its expiring courage. It was 
 accordingly resolved : 
 
 1. That the Chamber of Peers should summon to its bar the edi- 
 tors of the Tribune and of the Reformateur, and the subscribers to 
 the letters including MM. de Cormenin and Audry de Puyraveau; 
 2. That this resolution should be communicated to the Chamber of 
 Deputies for its concurrence. Such was the result of the votes of 
 the peers, assembled in secret committee, on the 13th of May, 1835. 
 
 The Chamber of Deputies was immediately informed of the reso- 
 lutions so passed, by message from the peers. The next day but 
 one it took the subject into consideration, and after an animated dis- 
 cussion, referred the requisition made to it by the other house, 
 with reference to two of its members, to a commission, consisting of 
 MM. Fra^ois Delessert, Sapey, Bessieres, Sauzet, de Remusat, 
 Jacqueminot, Augustin Giraud, Parant, and Salvandy. 
 
 MM. de Cormenin and Audry de Puyraveau having been called 
 upon, by the commission, for an explanation of their participation in 
 the letter referred to, the former declared that he had neither signed 
 it nor given any person authority to sign for him ; the latter refused 
 to give any positive answer, repudiating the right of the Elective 
 Chamber, of which he was a member, to authorise or compel his at- 
 tendance at the bar of the House of Peers. The commission was 
 thus under the necessity of separating two cases which had seemed 
 so indissolubly united. It finally resolved upon granting authority 
 to the other Chamber to compel the attendance of M. Audry de 
 Puyraveau, refusing it in the case of M. de Cormenin; and M. Sauzet 
 was ordered to report its decision. His argument contained all that 
 a close and subtle analysis of ill-understood texts could suggest of 
 titter sophistry. 
 
 M. Audry de Puyraveau had not signed the document any more 
 than M. de Cormenin had done ; yet they had taken different lines 
 of conduct when questioned on the matter, though more might have 
 been expected from the latter than from the former, considering the 
 relative positions they had occupied. The subject became, amongst 
 the republicans, one of general comment, wherein passion predomi- \ 
 nated. The conduct of M. Audry de Puyraveau was lauded in the 
 highest terms, while M. de Cormenin, on the contrary, was severely 
 reproached for the want of energy he had displayed. More accurately, 
 the reproach cast upon him should have been that of having com-
 
 M. DE CORMENIN. 339 
 
 mitted a great political blunder. For as to courage, of all its va- 
 rieties the most genuine and the rarest is that which enables a man 
 to argue and to act in opposition to his own party, when he sincerely 
 believes them to be in the wrong. 
 
 Yet, after all, judging from appearances, when you looked at the 
 man and observed his countenance, impressed with a reserve which 
 suggested to your mind somewhat of the studied, the ironical; his 
 deportment so full of retiring modesty ; his unimpassioned gesture ; 
 his slow movements; his gentle, pensive smile, you might well have 
 I been disposed to assign to M. de Cormenin far more of circumspec- 
 tion than of daring. In his conversation, inexpressibly charming 
 from his manner, but made up, for the most part, of unfinished sen- 
 tences, he was constantly hesitating; and the presence of a large as- 
 semblage was almost always sure to call up into his face a sort of 
 scared look, the effect of which, however, was modified by the ge- 
 neral sweetness of his expression. We have seen him in the tribune : 
 his hands trembled on the marble, his voice died away in broken sen- 
 tences, and every movement of his frame betrayed his agitation. It is 
 easy to conceive what would be the attitude of such a man in the very 
 midst of unexampled excitement and agitation. In fact, he had, in the 
 first instance, altogether restricted his attention to those peaceful 
 studies, wherein it was his mission to become the creator of admi- 
 nistrative science, the luminary of the council of state. Every thing 
 about him, even his domestic habits, and his literary scrupulosities, 
 seemed to announce in him a man born for the silence of the cabinet. 
 Never was there a writer who combed out, as it were, his sentences 
 with more complacent assiduity, who set forth his style with more 
 exquisite coquetry. Yet, all the while, in this man without assurance, 
 this orator without address, this solitary logician, this retiring legist, 
 this finical polisher of phrases, Nature had, moreover, produced a 
 pamphleteer, as violent as Juvenal ; as severe, as cutting, as uncom- 
 promising as Milton. The deplorable tendency manifested by mo- 
 narchies to absorb the public wealth, is their least fault; it is their 
 endeavour to debase the public mind, which above all things should 
 be charged upon them as a crime ; for it is not sufficient to inspire 
 nations with strong and even legitimate hatreds, it is necessary still 
 more to inspire them with high-souled hatred, to ennoble the passions 
 which you excite. To the great object we have here referred to, M. 
 de Cormenin occasionally applied himself in his pamphlets, but, per- 
 haps, not often enough. For it was more especially the cupidity 
 displayed by the court, which it was his wont to attack, aware as he 
 was, that in a corrupt age, questions of money have a commanding 
 importance. And most effectively did he treat these questions, giving 
 life to figures, eloquence to calculations; by turns gravely reasoning 
 and impetuously assailing; proving his case by the most elaborate 
 computations, and then overwhelming those against whom he had 
 proved it, with the bitterest sarcasm. His adversaries fell around 
 him, pierced through and through at once with the barbed arrows 
 
 z 2
 
 340 DEBATE IN THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES 
 
 of logic and of raillery. Skilful in seizing to the purpose the popular 
 discontent of the day, M. de Cormenin had very soon rendered him- 
 self inimical to all the enemies of the people, and in this he gloried. 
 But, as we have already said, it was only as a pamphleteer, that he 
 was thus terrible. When he laid aside the pen, he became the gen- 
 tlest, nay, the most timid of men. 
 
 On the present occasion, however, he displayed an altogether un- 
 expected daring. Desirous of showing by his plain speaking that, 
 in denying the authenticity of the signature attributed to him, he 
 had been solely actuated by his veneration for truth, that he was 
 neither ashamed nor afraid to avow the opinions which he held, 
 he, on the 22nd of May, 1835, ascended the tribune and opened the 
 debate in a speech full of power and unanswerable reasoning. 
 
 " This, gentlemen," he said, " is not one of our internal dis- 
 putes, between the majority and the opposition. It is a question of 
 representative government, of the constitution ; between prerogative 
 and prerogative, Chamber and Chamber. The deputy here be- 
 comes effaced before the legislature; the member before the body, 
 and every individual person disappears in the greatness of the cause 
 in which we all are concerned. 
 
 " What, gentlemen ! you would not put under accusation before 
 the Chamber of Peers, a minister of the crown, though no member 
 of your house, until after an inquiry of the most searching descrip- 
 tion, and only upon the gravest presumptions; and yet you would de- 
 liver up to that Chamber, a member of your own body, without 
 inquiry, without proof, and upon the slightest possible evidence. 
 Think you it could ever have entered the heads of the legislators of 
 1822 to make the Chamber of Deputies subordinate to the Chamber 
 of Peers? Do you not feel the enormous difference there would be, 
 to inculpated members of your house, between the safeguard of a 
 jury and the perils of a rival jurisdiction, admitting of no control upon 
 its proceedings? What! you would consent to place your colleagues 
 at the bar of an assembly which claims to sit in judgment upon us, 
 if we offend it, but which we are not to judge in our turn, if it offends 
 us ? Of an assembly, every member of which would be challengeable, 
 upon just suspicion, who should seek to sit in judgment upon mem-, 
 bers of your house, as myself for example, who, the first among you 
 attacked the hereditary succession of the peerage, its endowments, j 
 its very existence ! Of an assembly, the majority of whom are the' 
 political adversaries of the opposition in this house, in thought, 
 word, and deed! Of an assembly, which, in its own cause, unites 
 in its own aggregate person, by a monstrous commixture, the cha- 
 racters of denunciator, accuser, drawer of indictment, judge, jury, 
 witnesses, prosecutor, counsel, and client ! Of an assembly which, 
 give it but once its way, would soon hold you tightly down under! 
 the yoke of your own precedents, and which, kept constantly up tci 
 the mark, in point of numbers, by renewed batches of ministerial 
 creatures, would stifle, under the ever-impending menace of an im- 

 
 ON THE MESSAGE FROM THE PEERS. 341 
 
 peachment,the generous impulses and the energies of an enlightened 
 
 >P "No- I cannot believe but that you would feel yourselves out- 
 raged in having any of your members subjected to the provostal ju- 
 risdiction of the other Chamber. I cannot believe that you will sub- 
 mit to so humiliating a position. (Loud murmurs from the centre.) 
 " I for one would not. My constituents did not send me here to 
 aid in your political degradation, to sanction your prostrating your- 
 selves at the footstool of the Chamber of Peers ! They might have 
 me before them as a simple citizen; never as a member ol the 
 Chamber of Deputies ! I would give my adversanes, alter they 
 had enjoyed the satisfaction of claiming and pursuing me, the satis- 
 faction likewise of my retirement from the Chamber of Deputies; 
 and, guardian of your honour, I would have more care for you than 
 you seem to have for yourselves." 
 
 Following thisimpetuous outburst, one of the most grave andiearned 
 civilians in the kingdom supported the views of M. de Cormemn by 
 the weight of an opinion respected by all parties. M. Sauzet, in his 
 report, had appealed to the law of the 22nd of March, 1822, which 
 gave to the two Chambers, generally, the right of doing themselves 
 lustice when aggrieved: M. Nicod proved, that this law did not 
 apply to the present case. He reminded the house, that by the terms 
 of Article xxix. of the charter, peers, in' criminal matters, were 
 only amenable to the peers, he asked if, while peers could not be 
 compelled to appear at the bar of the Elective Chamber, the house 
 consented to allow of its members being taken before the bar ol the 
 Chamber of Peers, what would be the result? Clearly, that the equa- 
 lity between the two branches of the legislature would be destroyed; 
 that the equilibrium of power would cease to exist; that the majesty 
 of the elective principle would receive a mortal blow; that the con- 
 stitution would be violated in its very essence. There being no 
 reply to this reasoning, the partisans of power shifted to another 
 ground. " You would not, gentlemen," exclaimed M. Duvergier 
 de Hauranne, " you would not, surely, gratify this party by ap- 
 pearing to mix yourselves up in any way with their guilty attempts ! 
 No ; you will prove to the Chamber of Peers, that the Chamber oi 
 Deputies is ever ready to assist it in its struggles to repress faction. 
 This was, at all events, putting the matter in a clear and candid 
 point of view. For, according to this gentleman, it was thence- 
 forth to be the business of government to defend itself against attack, 
 not by means of thelaw, but by the violation of the law, by crushing its 
 opponents beneath an accumulation of measures not less arbitrary in 
 their character than brutal in their operation. The court had formed 
 its determination, had arranged all its plans. Between the speak- 
 ers who next followed, M. Pages (of L'Arriege), who essayed 
 to bring the house to a true sense of what it owed itseli, and M. 
 Persil, who hallooed it on to the indulgence of its present ha- 
 treds, regardless of consequences, the majority did not hesitate lor
 
 342 M. ARAGO'S ALLUSION TO THE EXECUTION OF NEY. 
 
 a moment ; its cheers at every sentence uttered by the latter, were 
 perfectly enthusiastic ; to the former, it listened in utter silence. M. 
 Arago, then, in his turn rose. Evoking a deplorable reminiscence, 
 he said : 
 
 " It was December, 1815, a great trial was going on in the same 
 court whither it is now sought to drag M. Audry de Puyraveau. On 
 the 6th of that month the date will never be effaced from my me- 
 mory the right of defence was outrageously violated. In the morn- 
 ing of the 7th I ran over the list of members of the Chamber of 
 Peers. I marked with a pencil the names of all those who, from my 
 knowledge of circumstances, it seemed to me, would, and ought to 
 pronounce a verdict of acquittal The majority thus indicated was 
 immense ; it consisted of the marshal's brothers in arms ; of a crowd 
 of statesmen grown gray in the experience of affairs, tried by ten 
 revolutions ; of savans, of literary men whom the production of im- 
 mortal works had elevated to the highest dignities ; of magistrates ; of 
 men of good hearts, bearers of illustrious names, whose excellent, social 
 qualities rendered it impossible to doubt on which side they would 
 vote. I was reviewing with the highest satisfaction, with the most 
 elated confidence, the list I had thus made, when, under the very 
 window at which I sat, a fearful discharge of musketry taught me 
 by a cruel lesson, that political justice is a vain word, even when 
 exercised by the most honourable men. 
 
 " Infamous shouts, infernal vociferations, that immediately followed, 
 taught me another lesson : that men educated amidst all the refine- 
 ments of modern civilisation, become thorough savages, cannibals, 
 when under the influence of party spirit. 
 
 " The general whom power had just immolated, was the pacifi- 
 cator of Switzerland, the conqueror of the Tyrol, the hero of El- 
 chingen, of Friedland, of the Moscowa ; was he whom the Grand 
 Army had saluted by the title of Bravest among the Brave ; and 
 yet his body was left amid the mud and filth in which it fell, as 
 though it had been the carcass of an unclean thing. These events 
 passed under my very eyes. Gentlemen ; you will not wonder 
 that they left upon my mind an impression, never never to be 
 effaced ! 
 
 " Anathema ! Eternal anathema, to political bodies, who sit in 
 judgment upon political offences !" 
 
 As he uttered these words, M. Arago's frame quivered with agi- 
 tation ; his whole soul manifested itself in his countenance, so ma- 
 jestic, so expressive ; his eye darted fire. The sitting was suspended 
 for a moment. The assembly, for a time, lived only in its recollec- 
 tions. The next day, however, passion renewed its sway, and 
 shutting its ears to the voice of its president, M. Dupin, the ma- 
 jority recorded its votes against M. Audry de Puyraveau, handing 
 over to the tender mercies of Charles X.'s peers, the man who first 
 threw open his house to the revolution of 1830. 
 
 In this critical situation, M. de Puyraveau was not wanting to
 
 PROCEEDINGS AGAINST THE R&FORMATEUR. 343 
 
 himself. He wrote to the President of the Chamber of Peers, to de- 
 clare, that not recognising in the Chamber of Deputies the right of 
 authorising any proceedings against him, he should not appear before 
 the peers, unless under actual compulsion. As it was not deemed 
 by any means advisable to resort to violence, M. de Puyraveau did 
 not appear. 
 
 The epoch at which we are now arrived, was of such a character 
 that its historian cannot advance a single step without having to 
 record some scandalous fact or other. The discussion, of which we 
 have just sketched an outline, was not yet terminated, when a new 
 and deplorable affair sprang up in the same arena. In the sitting 
 of the 22nd of May, M. Jaubert having complained of certain of- 
 fensive manifestations, which he conceived to have emanated from the 
 reporter's gallery, the president ordered the gallery to be cleared, 
 and this lead to a furious altercation between the opposition and the 
 ministerialists. When the disturbance had somewhat subsided, the 
 gallery was again thrown open to the reporters, but they refused to 
 enter it, and remained grouped outside the hall. On the adjournment 
 of the house, one of them advanced towards M. Jaubert for the pur- 
 pose of representing to him that a mistake, attended by an act of 
 injustice, had been committed. Several deputies, apprehensive of 
 a collision, or, perhaps, desirous of creating one, surrounded M. Jau- 
 bert with an ostentatious protection, accompanied by an air of 
 menace, which was at once taken up by the other party, and a 
 scuffle ensued which speedily became a regular fight; several gen- 
 tlemen of the press were taken into custody, handed over to the 
 municipal guard, and almost immediately afterwards released. The 
 Reformateur, a republican journal recently established under the 
 direction of M. Raspail, gave an account of the affair in an article 
 breathing the utmost indignation, and pointed out as the aggressors 
 certain members of the majority, among others MM. Augustan Giraud 
 and Kenouard. This was more than enough to offend the majority. 
 Upon the motion of M. Jolivet, and after an animated debate which 
 bristled with recriminations, the Reformateur was summoned to 
 appear at the bar of the house. The defence presented by M. Ras- 
 pail, did not overpass, in the slightest degree, the bounds of calm 
 and becoming discussion, philosophical and dignified. But all the 
 powers of the day seemed carried away by some resistless frenzy. 
 M. Jaffrenou, acting editor of the Reformateur, was sentenced to 
 one month's imprisonment, and to pay a fine of ten thousand francs 
 (400/.). 
 
 Thus the political world seemed to have fallen into the most fear- 
 ful confusion; kw and justice equally set at nought; no man's rights 
 recognised; in every direction power committing outrage; nowhere 
 the slightest security for accused persons; defence forbidden or made 
 a mockery of; lawless power taking the place of justice, insulting 
 the whole nation ; debates in parliament wound up, in the court- 
 yard of parliament, by a vulgar boxing match; vengeance lurking
 
 344 THE " DEFENDERS;" THE LETTER; 
 
 beneath the aegis of the law. No, never before was there such a com- 
 plication of disorders witnessed in the world's history ; never had go- 
 vernment environed itself, by its incapacity and violent rashness, 
 with more imminent danger. 
 
 If the defenders of the April prisoners, had known how to take 
 advantage of the favourable opportunity now offered to them, if, 
 braving the chance of imprisonment, strong in fraternal courage, 
 they had presented themselves before the Chamber of Peers, and 
 said, " We are all of us, all, the authors of that letter which you 
 are pleased to direct your vengeance against; strike us, if you dare !" 
 there is every appearance that all would have been over, both with the 
 Chamber of Peers and with the monarchy itself. For at the poinfc 
 which matters had now attained, it is clear that the process could 
 not have been enlarged without touching closely upon the brink of 
 civil war, without driving the monarchy to outlawry. But among 
 the defenders there were men who, at the bare idea of actual risk, 
 felt all the blood freeze in their veins. The thoughts of one became 
 at once awfully intent upon his confiscated property, upon the per- 
 sonal dangers into which he might involve himself ; another grew 
 pale at the thought of continued, perhaps eternal, separation from 
 his children, his wife, his mother. Several meetings were held, and 
 the timid were the less scrupulous in avowing their objections, 
 from the circumstance, that not having actually signed the paper, 
 they were furnished with a colourable pretext, sufficient, as they 
 deemed, to veil their want of patriotism and want of heart. 
 
 Be this as it may, the fact that unanimity was impossible, altered 
 the whole question ; and men whose intrepidity and devotion to the 
 cause were above all suspicion, men such as Armand Carrel were 
 decidedly of opinion, that under these circumstances, every one of 
 them ought, without disavowing the principle of the letter, to de- 
 clare that he had neither signed nor published it : as there 
 were dissentients among them, whose objections could not be 
 obviated, it was desirable, at all events, to conceal from the knowledge 
 of power, the wounds with which the republican party, within 
 itself, was afflicted. Why should the party be disgraced in the eyes of 
 the state, even though the shame applied to but a few of its mem- 
 bers? Since, by affirmation, they ran an imminent risk of show- 
 ing the discord which prevailed among them, it was better they 
 should all concur in a negative. And, after all, there would be 
 great detriment in peopling the dungeons of the peerage with all the 
 more energetic, intelligent, devoted, illustrious men of the party r 
 who, while retaining their liberty, would serve the cause more 
 powerfully than they could do as victims and prisoners. More- 
 over, there was danger that the interest excited by the April de- 
 fendants might become extremely weakened, should the scene of 
 trial be occupied only by their defenders, themselves elevated to 
 the prisoners' bench. 
 
 These considerations, specious but destitute of a sound founda-
 
 TIMOROUS COUNSEL; DISPUTES. 345 
 
 tion, were met by invincible arguments. Was it possible that true 
 republicans should ask of their party to abandon its reputation for 
 inflexibility; and, full of courage as it was, tc surround itself with 
 all the appearances of fear? Grant that the majority of the printed 
 signatures had not been actually appended by the persons indicated: 
 what of that? Did not all the defenders fully concur with each 
 other in entire approval of the letter? Yes: then all had morally sub- 
 scribed their names; the material fact here not making the slightest 
 difference as to the moral act. To produce a striking effect upon 
 public opinions by throwing themselves fearlessly in the very front 
 of danger, to terrify Power by proving to it that they were deter- 
 mined not to drawback a single step; to overwhelm the peers 
 tinder the indelible ridicule of an interminable, unmanageable pro- 
 cess; to sow agitation in the very heart of agitation; to_ call forth 
 from the large and constantly increasing number of families made 
 desolate by political oppressions, a combined and^ formidable cry^of 
 indignation and terror; this was what the republicans should aim 
 at. It was said : Do not expose to a privation of their liberty, men 
 who can make so good a use of it, in your cause. But how, if the 
 most effectual mode of rendering power universally odious, was pre- 
 cisely the exposing it to the shame of throwing virtue and genius 
 into an unmerited prison? As to those dissentients who should per- 
 severe in their opposition, there could surely not be a moment's 
 hesitation between publicly disowning and throwing them off", and 
 submitting to their yoke. 
 
 The violence of the discussion may be easily conceived. M. Du- 
 pont made himself more especially conspicuous by the energy of his 
 convictions, and the impetuous eloquence with which he supported 
 them. He was, indeed, so severe in his attacks upon Armand Car- 
 rel, that a personal rencontre must inevitably have taken place, had 
 not mutual friends exerted themselves with the utmost ardour, with 
 the most impassioned energy, to reconcile two men so worthy to 
 remain united. The intense excitement of all, may, however, be 
 fully accounted for and justified, by the high importance of the ques- 
 tion in agitation. For, in fact, the dignity and credit^of the whole 
 party were involved in the result, and this was what M. Dupont 
 fully comprehended and pointed out with bitter emphasis. " This r 
 he exclaimed, " is not merely a matter of logic; it is also a matter 
 of feeling. Put it to women, so well qualified to decide all ques- 
 tions of the heart, and I will venture to say that not one wilUeply, 
 You should draw back !" But, on the other hand, according to 
 M. Armand Carrel, it was no indication of weakness in a party, 
 any more than in an army to have recourse to a little manoeuvring 
 on occasion, or to decline allowing its enemies to impose their own 
 plan of operations upon it. However right he may have been in 
 his general theory, he was mistaken in applying it to the case before 
 him, wherein clearly the best tactics were to carry matters with a 
 high hand, to go to the extreme of daring ; and, at bottom, he himself
 
 346 THE LETTER AVOWED BY TR6LAT AND MICHEL. 
 
 felt this, for ere the discussion was terminated, he frankly avowed 
 himself to have been wrong in the point, and went over to the 
 other opinion. Unfortunately, such admissions require a nobility of 
 character, a superiority of mind, which but very few men are en- 
 dowed with ; and, accordingly, so far from following the high-souled 
 example of M. Armand Carrel, those present who were anxious to 
 avoid the responsibility of the letter, redoubled their clamour, and 
 it soon became manifest that it was necessary to give way to 
 them. 
 
 M. Trelat had observed in silence the progress of this deplorable 
 dispute. Foreseeing, at an early period, the result, he made up his 
 mind to encounter the whole responsibility, by declaring himself 
 alone guilty. Yet he did not determine upon this step until after 
 a severe internal struggle. He was tenderly attached to his wife; 
 his family required his active support ; and, moreover, he had good 
 reason to doubt whether, after all, his party would thank him for 
 the sacrifice he should make. But the first impulse prevailed. 
 M. Michel (of Bourges), however, had drawn up the letter; it was 
 he, therefore, who was entitled to claim the honour of the necessary 
 act of devotion which M. Trelat contemplated, and he claimed it; 
 as neither would absolutely yield to the other in this generous con- 
 test, MM. Michel and Trelat at last agreed that they would 
 together appear before their enemies, and jointly expose themselves 
 to whatever consequences they might incur, the one as author, the 
 other as 'publisher of the letter. They accordingly wrote to the 
 President of the Chamber of Peers in the following terms : 
 
 " SIR, The letter denounced in the Chamber of Peers by a minister of the crown, 
 was written by one of us M. Michel (of Bourges), and was sent forth to the public by 
 the other, M. Trelat; the signatures appended at the bottom of the letter are fictitious. 
 It was urgently necessary to send some words of consolation and encouragement to 
 our friends in prison, and we took upon ourselves to print, after our own names, 
 those of certain colleagues, who, we were sure, would fully sanction us in so doing. 
 Now that the letter is made the object of prosecution, it becomes our duty to state 
 the truth of the matter, and to claim for ourselves the entire moral and legal respon- 
 sibility arising out of the inculpated letter. We are ready to appear before the 
 Chamber whenever it shall think fit 
 
 (Signed) " TRELAT, MICHEL." 
 
 The body of defenders did not hear of this declaration until it was 
 too late to offer any obstruction to it. Several of them, however, 
 then expressed extreme dissatisfaction at what had taken place ; 
 some, because they saw in the resolution thus taken independently 
 of them, an indirect reproach to their pusillanimity; others, because 
 they envied the eclat of so honourable a position ; others, because 
 they were affronted at the proceeding as, according to their notions, 
 insulting to the body at large, which had not been called upon for 
 its assent nor even for its opinion. The storm, however, cleared off 
 by degrees ; and ultimately it was agreed unanimously to deny the 
 authenticity of the signatures ; and the responsibility remained con- 
 centrated upon the heads of MM. Michel (of Bourges) and Trelat. 
 
 It was on the 20th of May, 1835, that the defenders appeared
 
 INQUIRY RESPECTING IT BY THE CHAMBER OF PEERS. 347 
 
 before the Chamber of Peers. Their position was so undefined, was so 
 flagrant a derogation from the ordinary forms of justice, that the pre- 
 sident knew not how, or did not venture, to address them by any other 
 designation than that of appeles, a word so entirely new in judicial 
 lano-ua^e, that it appeared for the first time in this case, the neces- 
 sities of which occasioned its adoption. M. Michel applied himself 
 in the first instance, to the demonstrating that it was as the Chamber 
 of Peers, and not as the Court of Peers; as a branch of the legislature, 
 and not as an exceptional tribunal, that the peerage was invested, under 
 the law of 1822, with the right of avenging its own Avrongs. The 
 House of Peers, therefore, he contended, was not competent to pro- 
 ceed in the present matter, the contents of the inculpated letter at 
 which offence was taken, being addressed only to the Court of Peers. 
 This proposition, M. Michel expounded in the most brilliant manner, 
 and supported it by a series of irrefragable arguments ; but what 
 avails reason against force ? The peers who had voted themselves 
 competent to deal with the defendants, now voted themselves com- 
 petent to deal with the defenders. Nor did they stop here. In the 
 terms of the law, a citizen cannot be put on his trial for an offence 
 committed by the medium of the press, unless his autograph signa- 
 ture can be set up against him ; the present was the first instance in 
 which a court of justice had called upon accused persons to declare 
 themselves, upon their own honour, guilty or not guilty. M. Armand 
 Carrel protested against this new outrage in the most noble and ener- 
 getic language, but to no purpose ; the peers had forced their way 
 so far, by means of the most monstrous irregularities, and they 
 were resolved, that to the very last the statue of justice should remain 
 veiled. 
 
 The president accordingly proceeded to interrogate each appek 
 in these terms : " Did you sign the letter ? Did you publish it ? 
 Did you authorise its publication?" In pursuance of the decision 
 unanimously formed, each successively replied in the negative. 
 But some of them could not repress the cry of their wounded con- 
 science. " I am utterly indignant !" exclaimed M. Reybaud, " at 
 the insult which is offered to all of us by the Chamber, in pre- 
 venting us from fulfilling our ministry as defenders; and in con- 
 signing us to the prison door, the court has been guilty of a gross 
 violation of our rights. We are the persons against whom an 
 offence has been really committed. The sentiments of that letter, 
 I entirely concur in, and if I declare here that I did not sign it, I 
 do so purely out of regard to truth, and not at all from deference 
 to you!" When called upon in his turn, M. Raspail replied, | 
 shall give you the letter, and not the spirit ; I shall give you twice 
 two letters. No! no!" M. Flocon briefly, but forcibly contrasted 
 the conduct of the Chamber of Peers, which had not refused 
 counsel to the defenders, with that of the Court of Peers, which 
 had refused defenders to the defendants. MM. Jules Bernard, 
 David de Thiais, Auguste Blanqui, Franque, Antony Thouret,
 
 348 SENTENCES. 
 
 Frederic Degeorge, Bergeron, Gazard, Armand Barbes, Grouvelle, 
 Voyer d'Argenson, Laurent, Gervais (of Caen), Ferdinand Fran- 
 c_ois, Rittiez, Demay, and Dornez, either refused to give a cate- 
 gorical answer at all, or accompanied their replies each with a daring 
 and contemptuous reservation. The assembly already began to 
 be deeply excited, when it came to the turn of M. de Lamennais to 
 be catechised by M. Pasquier. For there lie was, hitherto lost 
 amid the crowd of the vanquished, he whose name filled all Europe, 
 the powerful priest who had set before Papacy, as the true aim and 
 object of its divine mission, the sanctification of liberty, and the 
 enfranchisement of mankind. As the question was put to him, all 
 eyes became fixed upon the illustrious man, with a deep sentiment 
 of curiosity and respect. He, his high forehead pale as marble, 
 his noble head somewhat bent forward upon his frail, small frame, 
 replied in a voice which, though scarcely above his breath, made 
 the judges tremble. " Gentlemen, that which is passing here at 
 this moment, presents some lessons of gravest import, which ought 
 never to be lost sight of by France or by Europe. Nor will they ! 
 As far as my efforts will go, gentlemen, I give you my word that 
 they shall not !" 
 
 The examination concluded, the Chamber passed a decree set- 
 ting at liberty those of the appeles who had confined themselves to 
 a simple negative. As for those who had given utterance to vehe- 
 ment commentaries upon the proceedings, they were remanded 
 for future judgment, which gave rise to new pleadings. M. Du- 
 pont appeared as counsel for MM. Jules Bernard and David de 
 Thiais, M. Germain Sarrut for the Tribune, and M. Raspail for the 
 Rtformateur. The latter, a gentleman of high intellectual dis- 
 tinctions, celebrated more especially in the annals of science, excited 
 the astonishment of the court by the picturesque force of his lan- 
 guage, and by the facility he displayed in passing from considerations 
 of the most elevated kind, to the most familiar reflections. M. 
 Gervais (of Caen) then rose. He was a practised orator, a man 
 endowed with incomparable presence of mind and sangfroid, and 
 who combined with the utmost energy and with ample ability, that 
 grace of manner, that imperturbability of deportment, that command 
 over the passions, that exquisite something, which is acquired by 
 long familiarity with the higher classes of society. M. Gervais 
 took occasion to enter into an argument with M. Pasquier, on the 
 question of the forms which had been so grossly violated, and M. 
 Pasquier very speedily found himself vanquished in the contest. 
 Confused by the firm and definite replies of an adversary, who 
 knowing better far than he did the whole range of the laws and 
 their formalities, made at every turn a pitiless exposure of the 
 president's shallowness, M. Pasquier at length lost all countenance, 
 and could only stammer out hesitating rejoinders. A humiliation 
 he had but too justly merited. 
 
 As M. Gervais' address drew nigh its close, a terrible moment for
 
 M. TRELAT'S HARANGUE. 349 
 
 the peers approached: it was M. Trelat's turn to speak next. This 
 gentleman possessed in the highest degree that tranquil courage, 
 that inflexible calmness, which give to menin his position so eminent 
 an advantage. He had long since made up his mind to the sacrifice 
 of his liberty, of his life, and he came forward now, strong in that 
 superiority which arises from the deliberate contempt of death : those 
 who called themselves his judges he was himself about to condemn. 
 " I have long felt that it was necessary, that it was inevitable, we 
 should meet face and face : we now do so. 
 
 " Gentlemen, our mutual enmity is not the birth of yesterday. In 
 1814, I, in common with many, many others, cursed ^ the power 
 which called you or your predecessors to help it in chaining down 
 liberty. In 1815 I took up arms to oppose the return of your gra- 
 cious master of that day. In 1830 I did my duty, in promoting 
 the successful issue of the event which then occurred, and eight days 
 after the revolution, I again took up my musket, though but little in 
 the habit of handling warlike instruments, and went to the post which 
 General Lafayette had assigned us, in sincenty or otherwise, lor the 
 purpose of marching against you personally, Messieurs les Pairs. 
 
 "It was in the presence of my friends and myself that one of your 
 number was received, who brought the revocation of the ordon- 
 nances to the Hotel de Ville ; and it is not impossible that we had 
 some influence in occasioning the very limited success ol his embassy. 
 It was then he who appeared before us, imploring, beseeching wit] 
 tears in his eyes: it is now our turn to appear before you but we 
 do so without imploring, or beseeching, or weeping, or bending the 
 knee. We had utterly vanquished your kings, and they being gone, 
 you had nothing left. As for you, you have not vanquished the 
 people, and whether you hold us as hostages for it or not, our per- 
 sonal position troubles us very, very little; rely upon that. 
 
 r * * * * * 
 
 " Who then but must perforce see in that which is passing, the 
 aonal, the striking, the unmistakeable prediction of that which is 
 preparing A blind fury leads astray all the governing powers ol 
 the state? There are no longer legislators, there are no longer judges ; 
 but on all sides authority passionately taking vengeance on those 
 whom, having previously injured, it looks upon as its enemies. 
 After a revolution, throughout which the most magnanimous senti- 
 ments were trumpeted forth, at a period when manners are becom 
 ing gentler and more refined, day after day, the victorious party 
 does not hesitate to demand a reeking sacrifice of one hundred and 
 sixty-three victims! Let no man deceive himself about the matte 
 the most touching homilies, the most love and peace-breathing pro- 
 testations, are utterly futile, after this sanguinary requisition * lo 
 one has forgotten, no one will forget, that since the revolution ot 
 1830 the scaffold was set up for Lepage and Cuny, and that it was 
 the people who threw it down.
 
 350 M. TREAT'S HARANUGE. 
 
 " Five years ago M. Persil demanded the head of the noble Prince 
 Polignac, on account of the revolution. This year, one of M. Persil's 
 deputies demands the heads of those whose history he was to 
 write by decision of the revolutionary government of 1 830. 
 
 " There is among you a man sitting in judgment upon us, who 
 devoted ten years of his life to the development and fostering 
 of republican sentiments in the minds of young persons, whom for 
 that purpose he collected around him. I myself have seen him brand- 
 ishing a dagger, as he sounded forth a high-flown eulogium on 
 Brutus. Does not this man feel that he has some share of respon- 
 sibility for these acts of which we stand accused before him? How 
 can he tell that we should all have been here, had it not been for his 
 republican eloquence? I see before me, among you, men who here- 
 tofore were zealous Charbonniers. I have here, in my hand, the oath 
 sworn by one of these men, an oath to the republic! And these men 
 are about to condemn me, because, unlike them, I have remained 
 
 faithful to the oath I vowed. 
 
 ******** 
 
 " If I were now addressing the men of the Court I would say to 
 them, Be of good courage ! You may be so; all this place is full of 
 recollections peculiarly adapted to animate your hearts. We are 
 here only two hundred paces from the Observatory ! But, on the 
 other hand, I think also, I wouldgoon to say, that every thing comes in 
 aid of our cause ; it has even advanced the more vigorously, the more 
 rapidly, the more obstacles have been placed in its way. 
 
 " Your prisons open to receive within their dungeons all who 
 retain a free heart in their bosoms. He who first placed the trico- 
 loured flag on the palace of your old kings,* they who drove 
 Charles X. from France, are handed over to you as victims, on 
 account of your new king. 
 
 " Your sergeant has touched with his black wand the courageous 
 deputy who, the first amongst you all, opened his door to the revo- 
 lution, f The whole thing is summed up in these facts. 
 
 " It is the revolution struggling with the counter-revolution; the 
 past with the present, with the future; selfishness with fraternity; 
 tyranny with liberty. Tyranny has on her side bayonets, prisons, 
 and the embroidered collars of MM. les Pairs. Liberty has 
 God on her side, that is to say, the force which impels the world 
 on its onward movement; which enlightens the reason of man, 
 and suffers him not to draw back from the great work. It will be 
 seen with whom victory will abide ; this will be seen, not to-morrow, 
 not the day after to-morrow, nor the day after that; it may not be 
 seen by us at all what matters that? It is the human race which 
 engages our thoughts, and not ourselves. Every thing manifests 
 that the hour of deliverance is not far distant. 
 
 * M. Guinard. t M. Audry de Puyrayeau.
 
 M. MICHEL DE BOURGES. 351 
 
 " It will then be seen whether God will permit the lie to be given 
 him with impunity. 
 
 " Messieurs les Pairs, I did not stand up with the purpose of 
 defending myself. You are my political enemies, not my judges. 
 In a fair trial it is necessary that the judge and the accused should 
 understand, should, to a certain extent, sympathise with each other. 
 In the present case this is quite out of the question. We do not 
 feel alike; we do not speak the same language. The land we 
 inhabit, humanity itself, its kws, its requirements, duty, religion, 
 the sciences, the arts, industry, all that constitutes society, heaven, 
 earth, nothing appears to us in the same light that it does to you. 
 There is a world between us. 
 
 " You may condemn me, but I accept you not as judges, for you 
 are unable to comprehend me." 
 
 An inexpressible agitation pervaded the whole assembly for some 
 moments after the close of this address, so eloquent, so lofty in its 
 simplicity. M. Michel (of Bourges) then advanced. As all present 
 were well acquainted with his impetuous enthusiasm, _ a solemn 
 silence prevailed throughout the hall when he opened his address, 
 which he did in deep, distinct tones. Bending forward over the 
 railing, which served as a bar on the occasion, he sometimes made it 
 tremble under the convulsive pressure of his hands; sometimes, with 
 an impetuous movement, he traversed its extent to and fro, in a 
 state of excitement similar to that of Caius Gracchus, of whom it is 
 said, that it was necessary when he spoke, to have a flute-player in 
 attendance to moderate, "by a gentle symphony, the too passionate 
 fervour of his eloquence. Yet M. Michel did not display the same 
 terrible, restless daring that M. Trelat had exhibited. He defended 
 himself, which M. Trelat had not condescended to do, and the attacks 
 which he directed against the peers were not altogether exempt from 
 precaution. While abiding by the spirit of the letter^ he seemed 
 disposed to stickle less than others did for forms, and he incidentally 
 so far complimented the peers as to admit that, judging from what 
 he had seen in the course of the past three days, they were indivi- 
 dually better than their body. But as to the trial itself, he was in- 
 flexible. " You cannot judge the accused without hearing them. 
 And if you judge them in their absence, listen while I tell you what 
 will take place. Before ten years have passed away, the garden ^ of 
 the Luxembourg will be enlarged by the whole space now occupied 
 by your hall of justice, and on its site the people will have erected 
 a memorial, which will give forth these words: THE INFAMY OF 
 THE JUDGE IS THE GLORY OP THE JUDGED." His concluding 
 
 sentence ran thus: "Amerce me, if you please; take my whole 
 fortune; I shall be proud thus to consecrate, in the cause of the 
 accused, what I have gained by the exercise of my profession. As 
 to your dungeons, I bear in mind the saying of the republican who 
 died at Utica: ' I would rather be in prison than be seated here beside 
 thee, Csesar!'"
 
 352 SENTENCES. 
 
 The Chamber then resolved itself into secret committee, and re- 
 solving that it had been insulted, it condemned M. Trelat to three 
 year's imprisonment, and to a fine of 10,000 francs (400/.); M. Mi- 
 chel (of Bourges), Bichat, editor of the Tribune, and JafFrenou, 
 editor of the Reformateur, each to one month's imprisonment, and 
 to pay a fine of 10,000 francs; M. Reynaud to one month's impri- 
 sonment, and a fine of 500 francs (207.) ; and MM Gervais (of Caen), 
 Jules Bernard, David de Thiais, and Audry de Puyraveau, each to 
 one month's imprisonment, and a fine of 200 francs (8Z.). By shifting 
 off the responsibility of the letter, the assembly of defenders had re- 
 duced within the dimensions of an ordinary incident, ended by a 
 judicial decree, a struggle which might have been rendered of the 
 most formidable character; it had fallen short of the mark; it had 
 been wanting to itself. 
 
 The peerage having obtained this triumph, resumed the prin- 
 cipal trial with a determination which it had previously been 
 totally deficient in. Taking advantage of the presence of such 
 of the Lyonnese defendants as had accepted a trial, the witnesses 
 were heard, and hence a fresh source of excitement was thrown 
 open. One of these witnesses charged the government with 
 having knowingly and wilfully involved Lyons in civil war ; 
 another proved the police to have been actually engaged in fan- 
 ning, with their impure breath, the incandescent passions of the 
 people, creating guilt that they might furnish their masters with 
 victims ; a third manifestly showed, that insurrection had been pur- 
 posely allowed to stalk for several days through a city, where its 
 ravages might have been easily suppressed within as many hours; 
 and the question asked by all was, why it had been deemed neces- 
 sary to oppose to a handful of men, wretchedly armed, and to their 
 moveable ramparts, battalions upon battalions of disciplined men, with 
 an immense apparatus of cannon, shells, grape-shot, and the terrible 
 ravages of all-involving conflagration? The provocations systema- 
 tically offered to the people by the Mercets, the Picots, the Corteys, 
 the whole of their base artifices were denounced, with rare power, by 
 M. Carrier, who, after having refused to take his trial in the first 
 instance, had afterwards allowed himself, insensibly, to yield to the 
 temptation of unmasking these treacherous wretches, and holding 
 them up to universal execration, by the revelations which it was in 
 his power to make. A bereaved parent related, in accents which 
 caused a shudder of horror to pervade the assembly, how his son 
 had been pierced with seventy-two bayonet wounds, many of them, 
 made by his ferocious assailants while he was at the last extremity. 
 The torrents of innocent blood poured out in the Faubourg of Vaise, 
 had also a prominent place in the frightful picture now displayed 
 before the Chamber of Peers. And just in proportion to the over- 
 whelming precision and exactitude of the evidence against govern- 
 ment, were the depositions put forward to meet it vague and in- 
 conclusive. In the answers made by M. Aymard, for instance,
 
 THE RECALCITRANT DEFENDANTS. 353 
 
 there was remarked a scarcely credible ignorance of the most esta- 
 blished facts; indeed, from the indecision of the general's memory 
 on the subject altogether, from the utter astonishment into which 
 he was thrown by some of the questions, from the honourable and 
 evidently sincere warmth with which he exclaimed against the pos- 
 sibility of abominations, which, unfortunately, were too clearly 
 proved by other testimony, it was evident to every hearer, that an- 
 other hand than his had directed events. The evidence which the 
 Court of Peers received most graciously, was that of Colonel du 
 Perron, which went to affirm, that the soldiery had displayed much 
 moderation and generosity. In some quarters of the city, in point 
 of fact, this was the case; but Colonel du Perron had, doubtless, 
 not seen all that took pkce ! Besides, why had not the government 
 authorities hastened to direct a searching inquiry into the massacres 
 at Vaise? From reiterated and animated attacks on M. Che- 
 garay, by M. Jules Favre, it resulted, that the public functionary 
 at Lyons, had taken no steps to discover the murderers, but had 
 wilfully remained in a state of utter impassability, though from all 
 parts around there arose the cry for vengeance ! M. Pasquier ven- 
 tured even to say, on this subject, that the assassinations so vehe- 
 mently denounced were, after all, supposing them to have been com- 
 mitted, nothing more than the usual accompaniments, the inevitable 
 results of civilVar, the responsibility of which, Crested with those 
 who had created the public disturbances. As if the having com- 
 menced the struggle, properly subjected the defeated people to any 
 barbarities which the victors might think fit to exercise upon them, 
 beyond the necessity of the case. 
 
 And now the list of the more docile traversers being exhausted, 
 the time was come for quelling, somehow or other, the refractory. 
 Here, full of sadness, of disgust, we pause for a moment ! How 
 can we retrace, without the blood rushing painfully to the forehead, 
 the means employed for compelling the appearance of the prisoners 
 at the bar? The guards who were sent to their cells for the^ pur- 
 pose, proceeded almost at once from the formal summons, to insult 
 and abuse, from these to actual physical violence; the contest of one 
 against many could not last long, and when, enfeebled by imprison- 
 ment, overpowered by numbers, the prisoner could no longer oppose 
 any effectual resistance, he was thrown to the ground, and two guards 
 seizing hold of his feet, he was pitilessly dragged along the_ passages, 
 up or down the stairs, as it might be, his head striking against every 
 step. Fruitless brutality ! For when thus brought to the bar, each 
 defendant stood proudly, defyingly as ever, before the peers ; nay, 
 rendered still more proud, still more defying, by his wounds, by 
 the blood-stained dust with which he was covered; and louder, more 
 vehement, even than before, were the cries of indignation which 
 Went forth from the mouths of those daring unconquerable men. 
 
 Let us not do human nature the injustice of supposing, that the 
 peers looked on indifferently at these outrageous proceedings. No ; 
 VOL. II. 2 A
 
 354 FALSE POSITION OF THE PEERS. 
 
 it is certain that the majority of them were deeply grieved at what 
 they saw; but an inevitable necessity weighed upon them, and they 
 were commanded and fain to repeat with M. Martin (du Nord) : " The 
 obstinacy of a prisoner must not be permitted to stay the course of 
 justice." Doubtless, justice must not be stayed in her course ; but 
 whose fault was it, that so many honest and honourable men had 
 been thus brought to glory in a revolt against the apparent progress 
 of the law ? Woe to the country where it becomes permissible of 
 doubt, whether, in the insult offered to a judge, justice herself is 
 outraged. Where such a doubt as this exists, there is an end to any 
 possible distinction between arrogance and courage, between anarchy 
 and lofty, generous, patriotic daring ; between the spirit of disorder 
 and the devotion to great principles. Arbitrary power, when it does 
 not produce sheer tyranny, leads to chaos. And the Chamber of 
 Peers experienced this in a very disagreeable way. Laudable 
 thoughts and scruples favourable to the defendants came over it ; 
 and these symptoms of yieldingness operated against it. It was 
 all in vain that it, in the most exemplary manner, armed itself 
 with the patience requisite for hearing out to the end the in- 
 sulting harangues which were directed against it by one de- 
 fendant after another ; in vain did M. Pasquier repeatedly do 
 himself the violence of assuming that forbearance which is due to 
 misfortune : nothing could calm the exasperation of the defen- 
 dants ; nothing turn them from their determination. The Chamber 
 of Peers had refused them the free defence they had of right 
 claimed; it was now fain to listen to vehement declamations, full of 
 condemnation upon itself. It had refused the temperate use of the 
 right ; it was now constrained to submit to its abuse. Miserably did 
 it find itself " cribbed and cabined in" by the consequences of the 
 compact which it had entered into with despotism. Like a traveller 
 who has lost his way in a marsh, every step it took sunk it deeper 
 in the slough of iniquity, and it dragged its wearisome way on, 
 panting, sinking under the load of its omnipotence. I do not 
 know that history ever presented mankind with a more profound and 
 useful lesson, than that afforded by the French Chamber of Peers on 
 this occasion ! 
 
 Meantime, strange and secret preparations were going on in the 
 interior of St. Pelagic, the prison assigned to the Parisian de- 
 fendants. In the part of the prison called the Batiment de la Dette, 
 and close to the staircase which leads to the cells of the defendants, 
 there was a small cellar, facing the door of the yard, from which it 
 was only separated by a narrow passage. Some of the prisoners 
 among others, MM. Guinard, Cavaignac, and Armand Marrast 
 had observed this cellar, and considering it favourable for affording 
 the means of escape, had immediately procured the necessary im- 
 plements for making their way into it. Unfortunately, the keepers 
 had their eyes constantly upon the passage, the door of the yard 
 being always open. By getting up a game at ball, the prisoners,
 
 PLAN OF ESCAPE FROM ST. PELAGIE. 355 
 
 whenever it was necessary, furnished themselves with a sufficient 
 pretext for closing the door, without giving rise to suspicion. The 
 sister of one of them brought under her dress the instruments which 
 were required for piercing through the cellar, and the operations 
 forthwith commenced. To avoid the danger arising from indis- 
 cretion on the part of an associate, the framers of the project ab- 
 stained from taking the larger portion of their comrades into their 
 confidence ; in fact, the only one to whom they communicated their 
 design was Fournier, a man of singular address and activity. The 
 work proceeded with unlooked-for success. While one party 
 worked in the cellar, by the light of a lamp which stood close to 
 one of them, ready to be extinguished at a moment's notice, the 
 rest acted as sentinels outside, engaged at once in diverting, by 
 a thousand devices, the attention of their fellow-prisoners and the 
 vigilance of the keepers. By a fortunate coincidence, workmen at 
 this particular time were employed in the prison upon some urgent 
 repairs, the noise made by whom served to cover that which pro- 
 ceeded from the cellar. But whither led the path which they were 
 thus laboriously creating? They had reason to believe thalj it 
 would pass under the prison walls, into a garden that adjoined it. 
 The point, then, was to ascertain the exact position of this garden, 
 its different outlets, and the name and opinions of the proprietor. 
 For this purpose, recourse was had to M. Armand Barbes, who, in 
 his turn, addressed himself to an artist of his acquaintance, in whom 
 he had the fullest confidence. This artist accordingly went to call 
 upon his sister, a girl at school, and, taking her out for a walk, 
 directed their steps towards the garden in question. On arriving 
 opposite the door, he requested his sister to faint away, which she 
 obligingly complied with, and he then proceeded to call out for 
 help. The people of the house ran out, and M. Vatrin (the pro- 
 prietor) had the fainting girl carried in, and carefully attended to. 
 When the young lady came to herself, a walk in the garden was 
 proposed. This was precisely what the brother had desired and an- 
 ticipated. The examination of the spot was made with a practised 
 eye, and a plan drawn out in his mind, and next day the conspi- 
 rators in the cellar knew all that they wished to know. The house 
 of M. Vatrin was situated between the garden and a court opening 
 into the Rue Copeau; to get out of the garden, which was enclosed 
 by high walls, it was absolutely necessary to pass through the 
 house, the master of which was a declared partisan of the govern- 
 ment. These were not very encouraging prospects, but the miners 
 did not give way to despair. The earth which they dug out was 
 carefully spread over the floor of the cellar, and stamped down, so 
 as merely to raise it, without altering its general appearance; 
 and they had, by practice, succeeded in so exactly covering over 
 the opening, that it would have been well nigh impossible, even in 
 their absence, to discover any trace of their labours. The activity 
 which they displayed was so prodigious, that at the end of a very 
 
 2 A2
 
 356 ILLEGAL DECISION OF THE PEERS. 
 
 few days the operations were terminated ; the hidden path-way ex- 
 tended beyond the limits of the prison, and there was nothing but 
 a thin surface of earth in the garden of M. Vatrin, between the 
 prisoners and liberty. 
 
 And yet (remarkable proof of the power of certain convictions !) 
 the very men who had with such pains and labour achieved the 
 means of liberty, of their own accord determined to remain cap- 
 tives, so long as any hope of successfully combating their enemies, 
 by the aid of speech, remained. Up to that point of time, escape 
 was adjourned, and the secret passage regarded merely as a means 
 of safety in the last extremity. 
 
 But the peers very speedily relieved the prisoners from their noble 
 scruples, by an aggravation of arbitrary conduct. The proceedings, 
 with reference to the Lyons defendants, approached their termination. 
 MM. Lagrange, Reverchon, Martin, Albert, Hugon, and Baune, 
 had successively declared to the peers, that they did not recognise 
 them as judges ; and each had expressed himself in so doing, accord- 
 ing to the impress of his character : some of them, as MM. Reverchon 
 and Lagrange. with the most excited vehemence, others, as MM. 
 Baune, Albert, and Martin,* with dignified contempt. It had 
 become manifest that a new plan of proceedings was necessary ; 
 and a grave question now presented itself : should they enter upon 
 the interrogating of the defendants of Paris, Luneville, Chalons-sur- 
 Saone, St. Etienne, Marseilles, Arbois, Epinal ? Or rather, should 
 they proceed at once to pass judgment upon the Lyons defendants? 
 
 After such strenuous and persevering efforts to connect together, 
 as forming one vast plot, a multitude of particular facts, after such 
 exertions to establish the conviction of the various offences and of- 
 fenders, to separate them into different classes, for the purpose of 
 trying them, one after another, one apart from another, was trampling 
 tinder foot all logic and common sense. Besides, it could not be done 
 without a direct violation of the law. For the Article ccxxvr. of the 
 Code of Criminal Procedure declares, that the accusing Chambers shall 
 always pass judgment, by one and the same decree, upon connected 
 offences. And to pretend, as was attempted, that the rule did not apply 
 to the final decree, was dishonest ; the spirit of the law involving the 
 second case as well as the first. And then, again, upon what principle 
 of equity was the Chamber justified in thus indefinitely prolonging the 
 rigours of preventive detention, towards men whom they had refused, 
 illegally refused, permission to select counsel of their own to defend 
 them, who had not been heard, and who, treated as though fully con- 
 victed of guilt, before their innocence had been disproved or even 
 discussed, had already, for many months, groaned in the dungeons, 
 which suspicion, directed by political hatred, had thrust them into ? 
 But, as we have already said, the Court of Peers laboured under the 
 
 * MM. Albert and Martin had not been arrested. They had been generous enough 
 to surrender themselves as prisoners.
 
 THE ESCAPE FROM ST. PELAGIE. 357 
 
 domination of the evil genius which had led it astray in the > first in- 
 stance: notwithstanding, the protest of M. Baune, speaking m the 
 name of all his companions, it pursued its fatal course, and on theap- 
 puTation of the attorney-general, M. Martin (du Nord), it gave on 
 
 I: 
 
 from any further share in the business, as did the Marquis dAux 
 
 u 
 
 an obvious nature. By this measure, the Court ot Peers gave itself 
 a bre Sg space between whiles ; it lessened the opposing Jbrce 
 of public opinion, by breaking up the one "^ 
 concentrate^ against it the Phonal as well as 
 of the whole nation, into a series of detached 
 personal point of view, only affected a particular locality at a 
 
 ants 
 
 , 
 
 ft threw discouragement among the defendants ^^ 
 prived their resistance of that character of unanimity wh ich 
 could render it permanently imposing. The prisoner s at St. P 
 at once ; and thenceforth, convinced that their 
 
 saw all this at 
 
 saw a ts at once ; an , 
 
 would not even permit them to derive from their courage the moral 
 advantage to which it fairly entitled them, those among them who 
 had prepared all things for their escape, now only thought of securing 
 
 ^The execution of their project was fixed for the evening of the 
 12th of July, and all the preliminary steps were taker .for ensunng 
 the complete success of their so well commenced effort. Their 
 co-operators outside, received their final instruct! ons. Tojbm 
 the keeper of any suspicion or mistrust, several of the prisoner 
 made applications to him which manifestly presupposed the extension 
 of their tay at St. P61agie ; and on the morning of the 12th, 
 M. Arrnand 7 Marrast, who was in the habit of taking a bath every 
 evening, ordered it to be ready at ten o'clock as usual ISothing 
 whatever had transpired of the project, and yet those who > formed 
 it, lived in aburning alternation of anxiety and hope At mg] 
 aU the arrangement? were complete. M. Dornez had sent the pr 
 duce of the sSbscriptions to be divided among the P^^' *f* 
 destined for their reckon on their quitting the pnson, were 
 spatched to their destination outside ^^.^^^ 
 Barbes proceeded, accompanied by the wife of one of th W^* 
 towards M. Vatrin's, where it was essential to take up a portion, 
 under some pretext or other; finally, MM. Etienne Ai'agc , Kkm 
 and Fulgence Girard, installed themselves in an apartment facing 
 M. Guinard's room, for the purpose of letting him ^ow ty t 
 medium of signals previously arranged, when the P^rol had made 
 
 e. On his art 
 
 meum o sgnas prevous , 
 
 its round, and the streets were safe for his purpose. On his part,
 
 358 THE ESCAPE FROM ST. P&LAGIE. 
 
 by way of informing their friends outside that all was proceeding 
 successfully inside the prison, M. Guinard was to walk in front of 
 his lamp, and to raise it at arm's length, when he was on the point 
 himself of descending into the cellar. 
 
 The prison clock struck eight. At that moment, the men in 
 possession of the grand secret, went severally amongst their com- 
 panions whom they had hitherto not admitted into their confidence, 
 and said to the one and the other, " Do you wish to be free ? Here 
 is money. To the cellar !" A few, from motives which we shall 
 explain further on, rejected the offer ; but the large majority re- 
 ceived it with a stupor of joy. Whilst these hastened one by one to 
 the mysterious rendezvous indicated to them, a small group, for 
 the purpose of blinding the keepers, formed itself in front of the 
 door of M. Armand Marrast's chamber as usual, it being the custom 
 of the prisoners to assemble there every evening for the purpose of 
 hearing the Messager read out to them by one of their number. In 
 a very short time, the fugitives were assembled in the cellar, and 
 were presently joined by the group from above. For a time, all 
 was agitation, confusion ; men jostling each other in the utter 
 darkness, and the newly initiated, bewildered with an aspect of 
 things as unexpected as inexplicable, and doubtful whether they 
 were not all the while the sport of some dismal phantasmagoria. M . 
 Landolphe, however, had taken the precaution to bring with him a 
 match, and suddenly a lamp dispersed the obscurity, and lit up 
 with its unsteady light, the pallid, wonder-stricken, anxious faces 
 around. It seemed as an assembly of ghosts. M. Guinard was 
 now the only one of them absent, with the exception of such as had 
 determined to remain ; and he, having made the arranged signal 
 for departure to Messrs. Etienne Arago and Klein, now joined his 
 companions. 
 
 Before proceeding further, MM. Roziere, Vilain, Founder, and 
 Landolphe, were sent on to pierce through the crust of earth which 
 still closed up the issue from the subterranean passage. This task, 
 which was completed in a few seconds, seemed to the expectants in 
 the cellar to occupy centuries. " All is ready," cried M. Landolphe, 
 from the excavation, and, forthwith, the fugitives threw themselves, 
 one after another, into the dark, narrow, stifling way that led to 
 light, to life, and liberty ! They had to pass under the road pe- 
 riodically traversed by the patrol, and as they went on they heard, 
 over-head, the heavy, measured tread of the sentinel, and the clat- 
 tering of the muskets as they were piled by the soldiers, who had 
 just completed their round. One by one the fugitives reached the 
 outlet, one by one they stepped forth into the open air, and pro- 
 ceeded towards the house through which they had to make their 
 way. However great their courage, they advanced cautiously, and 
 full of anxiety ; for the night was very clear and they discerned, at 
 the top of the prison, a sentinel, who, his body leaning over the 
 parapet, seemed fixedly and menacingly regarding them, though ap-
 
 SOME PRISONERS VOLUNTARILY REMAINED. 
 
 

 
 360 JULES FAVRE'S SPEECH. 
 
 the demands in a decree which ought never to be lost sight of by 
 posterity. 
 
 The proceedings being thus simplified by so extraordinary a vio- 
 lation of the hitherto most inviolable forms of justice, the trial was 
 rapidly got through. MM. Martin (du Nord), Chegaray, and de 
 la Tournelle having, in turn, argued with much vehemence, all 
 three of them, and not without ability, the portions laid down in 
 the bill of indictment, the counsel on the other side, in turn re- 
 plied; and none of them with more elevation and eloquence than 
 M. Jules Favre. After having defined in striking terms the true 
 character of the Lyons insurrection, and completely demolished the 
 elaborate scaffolding which fools had constructed on the basis of the 
 alleged plot, he thus recapitulated the main features of the case: 
 
 " You accuse us of having sought to endanger the safety of the 
 state ; I charge the executive with having wilfully neglected to frus- 
 trate any such attempt in its outset ; with having even fostered and 
 encouraged the popular manifestation, by taking various means 
 for enticing the insurgents into overt acts, at a time when it would 
 have been perfectly easy to repress the outbreak. 
 
 " You accuse us of having constructed barricades; we charge you 
 with having deliberately suffered them to be erected, under the 
 eyes of the agents of police and of the civil authorities, and with 
 having sent hired agitators amidst the previously peaceable groups 
 of people. 
 
 " You accuse us of having made use of force against the de- 
 fenders of order; I charge you with having trampled under foot 
 the law which protects the lives of citizens; with having issued a 
 military order in itself sufficient to excite the flame of insurrection 
 in the hearts of an indignant population; with having gratuitously 
 compromised the lives of women, children, and old men; with 
 having prolonged the struggle far beyond the necessity of the case; 
 with having buried beneath the ruins of their houses, families who 
 had made no attempt whatever to assail you; with having turned 
 an utterly deaf ear to the cry for truce and conciliation which was 
 raised in every direction, and with having refused quarter, with 
 having slaughtered, basely and cruelly, the vanquished and the de- 
 fenceless. 
 
 " You have made your statement, I have made mine. They will 
 both of them remain, posted as it were, for public examination, on 
 the door of this hall, and we shall see which of them will excite the 
 most permanent attention, which of them France will read with the 
 greatest indignation !" 
 
 It was on the 13th of August, 1835, that the Court of Peers gave, 
 in the absence of the defendants themselves, their judgment, passing 
 condemnation upon the Lyons prisoners.* 
 
 * Sentences of the Lyons defendants, 13th of August, 1 835 : Beaune, Antide Mar- 
 tin, Albert, Hugon, Marc Reverchon, Lafond, Desvoys, to transportation : Lagrange,
 
 THE SENTENCES. 361 
 
 The sentence upon the eight sub-officers of Luneville* was not 
 pronounced until the early part of December. Their attitude had 
 been throughout admirable, exciting the warmest sympathy in the 
 minds of all beholders. 
 
 After these came the lists of Lyons, St. Etienne, Arbois, Mar- 
 seilles, Grenoble, Chalons,f Paris,} which exhibited but twelve ac- 
 quittals, and a very considerable number of condemnations. 
 
 In the last stage of the proceedings, the defendants showed them- 
 selves in general perfectly calm. MM. Caussidiere, Kersausie, and 
 Beaumont, however, revived, by their indomitable energy, scenes, 
 the intense excitement produced by which, had not yet subsided. 
 
 Tourres, to twenty years' detention : Mollard-Lefevre, Huguet, Drigeard-Desgarniers, 
 to fifteen years' detention : Caussidiere, Laporte, Lange, Vuliard Mangne, Rock- 
 ziuski, Thion, Despinas, Benoit-Catin, to ten years' detention: Pradel, Chery, Cachot, 
 Dibier, to seven years' detention: Carrier, Arnaud, Morel, Bille, Boyet, Chatagnier, 
 Julien Mercier, Gavet, Genest, Didier, Ratignie, Charmy, Charles Mazoyer, Blanc, 
 Jobelv Rafgio Cha'gny, to five years' detention : and all to be under the surveillance 
 of the police for the remainder of their fees.-Roux, Berard, Guichard,^ three 
 years' imprisonment, and Jive years' surveillance: Butet, Adam, to one years impri- 
 sonment and Jive years' surveillance: Girard, to one year's imprisonment and two years 
 
 '"^Sentences of the Luneville defendants, 7th of December, 1835 : Thomas, to 
 transportation : Bernard, to twenty years' detention : Stiller, Tricotel, to ten years impri- 
 sonment: Regnier, Caillie, Mathieu (of Epinal), to Jive years detention and all to be 
 under surveillance for the remainder of their lives: Lapotaire, Bechet, to three years 
 imprisonment and Jive years' surveillance. 
 
 t Sentences upon the defendants of St. Etienne, Grenoble, Marseilles, Arbois, and 
 Besancon, 28th of December, 1835 :-Marc Caussidiere, to twenty years detention: 
 Pierre Reverchon, to ten years' detention : Gilbert, called Miran, and Riban, to five 
 years' detention, and to be all under the surveillance of the police for the remainder of 
 their lives: Rossary, Offroy, to three years' imprisonment : Tiphaine and Froidevaux, 
 to one year's imprisonment, and all/owr to five years' surveillance. 
 
 t Sentences upon the Paris defendants, 23d of January, 1836 : Beaumont, Ker- 
 * .. .r_^_^- . r-ro* T>n-,t tn ton Hours' rtptp.ntion. and to surveillance all 
 
 went, and all to Jive years' surveillance. 
 
 Sentences upon the contumacious Paris defendants, same day :-Cayaignac, B< 
 ryer-Fontaine, Vignerte,Lebon, Guinart, Delente, Deludre A. Marrast, to transpor- 
 tation : Fouet, Granger, Villain, and Boura, to fifteen years detention : MatW, Lenor- 
 mand Yvon, Aubert, Pichonnier, Gueroult, Souillard, called Chiret, to ten years 
 detention- Herbert, Chilman, Pornin, Rozieres, Poirotte, Tassin, Fournier, to Jive 
 years' detention, and all to be under surveillance for the remainder of their lives 
 
 S The April trials having been cut short, as we have shown, many important re 
 velations which would otherwise have been made public in their progress, remained 
 undisclosed. We subjoin one of these, to which the illustrious M. Arago, had the 
 opportunity been opened to him, intended to have called general attention. 
 
 He one day happened to be in the studio of M. David, of Angers the sculptor 
 who was engaged u^on a statue of Madame de Stael. The conversation havmg turned 
 upon the fighfs which took place in the Rue Transnonain, the woman who was at- 
 tending as amodel related, that on the 13th of April, as, accompanied by one of her 
 mpanion S ,she was returning to her home, near the Fontaine Maubug, s^ saw her 
 lover, who was in the police, helping to construct the barricades She ran up to 
 him and expressed her astonishment at finding him thus employed, 
 you," exclaimed the policeman, in a perfect rage ; " if you say a word abc his, 
 
 1 sPArTgolmmediately afterwards went to the place indicated, and obtained in- 
 formation wliich fully bore out the woman's statement. The policeman s name is 
 Chenedeville.
 
 362 GENERAL REFLECTIONS 
 
 The April trials were, for the republican party, which the revo- 
 lution of J uly had given birth to, a signal, but not a decisive defeat. 
 One portion of the public as usual exaggerating the merits of this 
 party, while the majority was pleased equally to exaggerate its defects, 
 the judgments formed of it have been as erroneous as they have been 
 various. If the republican party had not sufficient leisure and ma- 
 turity of reflection to penetrate by study into the profundities of 
 social order, so as to draw thence the solution of great problems, it 
 contributed, at all events, and in a powerful degree, to bring them pro- 
 minently forward for solution. It sowed agitation around it, but it 
 ever took care that the ardour which it sought to excite should be of 
 a generous character. It knew how to ennoble disorder by high-souled 
 devotion; it exhausted itself by the continuous efforts of its magna- 
 nimous enthusiasm, and it struggled against the systematic humilia- 
 tion of France with such energy, that it was on the point of compel- 
 ling her to maintain her just greatness of position. Its efforts put 
 off for a time, in this kingdom, the full reign of sordid speculations, 
 of mean mercantile manreuvring the reign of the Carthaginian spirit; 
 and it earned for itself the glorious distinction of being hated by all 
 the old enemies of the French name. In the affair of the April 
 trials, its adversaries displayed such utter littleness, and employed in 
 combating it weapons at once so unfair, and so fragile, that it 
 would, doubtless, have come off victorious in the struggle, had all 
 the members who composed it been more firmly united by the bond 
 of convictions and ideas. But the republican party had, unfortu- 
 nately, opened its ranks to certain persons totally unworthy to take 
 their place there. The result was, a confused and heterogeneous med- 
 ley without example : disinterestedness and entire selfishness ; self- 
 satisfied ignorance, and modest talent, eager to learn ; enthusiastic ap- 
 preciation of a brother's qualities ; a habit of carping at, and aspersing 
 every thing, and everybody; cowardice and courage; the deliberate 
 contempt of death, and abject terror at its very name; a vain -glo- 
 rious desire to shine ; a retiring modesty, amounting to the heroic. 
 Such a confusion of opposite elements could not do otherwise than 
 bring about the ruin of the party, the vices of the one class neutral- 
 ising the virtues of the other, either directly or indirectly, by involv- 
 ing them in their own discredit. If, then, the republican party 
 succumbed, the reason was, that its enemies got the better of it by 
 the skilful combination of their vices, the entirety of their corruption. 
 And thus it was, that the party came to disperse, to dissolve, leav- 
 ing behind it, to sit in judgment upon its conduct and its motives, 
 the intolerance of folly or of hatred. But individuals are only instru- 
 ments destined by God to devote themselves to the service of ideas. 
 At the very moment when the party was thought for ever extinct in 
 France, the opinion which it had personified displayed itself with 
 renewed power. Nor is this to be wondered at. Among the re- 
 publicans, as we have said, there were men of brilliant talents, of a 
 chivalrous bravery, ever ready to devote themselves to their cause,
 
 ON THE APRIL TRIALS. 363 
 
 full of the gayest animation in the time of danger, and reproducing, 
 before the public eye, with more accurate fidelity, more eclat, than 
 the legitimatist party itself, the ancient national type; but then, at 
 the side of these, were to be seen men who piqued themselves on an 
 absurd resemblance to, or a still more absurd imitation of, the tur- 
 bulent tribunes of old Rome, and others, vagabonds of no principles, 
 or, still worse, traitors, in the pay of the police, whose business it 
 was to convert, if possible, the spirit of patriotism, into a spirit of 
 tumultuary disorder, and thus discredit the republican party^ in 
 the eye of the law, and in the opinion of the community; 
 and, although these three classes formed a very small majority, yet 
 they sufficed to effect this great object of government, by involving 
 the whole party in the responsibility for their absurd, their prepos- 
 terous harangues, their ignorance, their insolence, and their ^tendency 
 on all occasions to parody, without in the least comprehending them, 
 the high- wrought passions which animated the men of 1793. Thus, 
 because a small section of agitators, destitute of intelligence, inca- 
 pable of moderation, or actually hired for the purpose by govern- 
 ment, choosed to call themselves republicans, and to define repub- 
 licanism according to their own blind ignorance and passion, or ac- 
 cording to sinister instructions from their employers, it began to be 
 doubted in many quarters whether republicanism was not a mere 
 chimera, or, if a possibility, a calamity. In order that just and 
 well-intentioned minds should be brought back to a sound apprecia- 
 tion of things, it was necessary that the party should be^or appear 
 to be, for a time, dissolved, so that it might reconstitute itself, in a 
 body more homogeneous, more studious, more calm, and further ad- 
 vanced in the science of social revolutions. Upon a party thus con- 
 stituted, the future smiled most favourably. For we cannot too 
 often repeat it the monarchical principle put face to face with the 
 elective principle, must, sooner or later, devour it, or be devoured 
 by it. The skilful employment of corruption may put off this con- 
 summation from time to time, but it cannot prevent its ultimate re- 
 alisation. " Let force remain with the law ! " exclaims the government 
 de facto, in the intoxication of its present triumph. But to this, the 
 men whose only political faith is in the immortality of justice, the 
 true, and upright, and sincere men, rejoin: "Who knows whether 
 the law of to-day will be the law of to-morrow? No! no! force will 
 remain with the truth !"
 
 364 SPANISH AFFAIRS. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 SPAIN was beginning to faint under the continued weight of her 
 civil war. The Carlists were increasing in force, and the prospects of the 
 Spanish revolution seemed seriously compromised. General Cordova, 
 a daring and brilliant officer, had not concealed from the cabinet of 
 Madrid, that the situation of affairs was so very critical, as to render 
 the intervention of France well nigh absolutely necessary. But the 
 head of the Spanish administration, M. Martinez de la Rosa, enter- 
 tained the strongest possible repugnance to the intervention of a 
 French army. The idea that Spain should acknowledge herself too 
 weak to provide for her own safety, hurt his sensibilities as a Spa- 
 niard, and he trembled at the thought of purchasing the liberty of 
 his fellow-citizens at the price of their independence. The evil, how- 
 ever, grew worse and worse, every day perils multiplied around the 
 throne of the youthful Isabella, and it became essential to take a de- 
 cided step. The result was, that, notwithstanding the resistance of 
 M. Martinez de la Rosa, the Madrid cabinet resolved to address 
 itself to France on the subject, and M. Martinez in pursuance of 
 this determination, was called upon to forward to the French minis- 
 try a demand for its intervention ; but, in doing so, he at the same 
 time resigned liis portfolio, and requested that a successor might be 
 appointed to relieve liim at the earliest possible moment. 
 
 The demand for intervention embarrassed and disconcerted Louis 
 Philippe. In the excess of his ardour for peace, he grew uneasy at 
 the slightest movement tending, however remotely, the other way. 
 But amongst his ministers, there was one whose political views 
 were wonderfully aided by this application. 
 
 Brought up amidst the ideas and feelings of the Empire, and 
 easily wrought upon by the eclat of grand operations and designs, 
 M. Thiers groaned in secret at the subordinate part which France 
 had of late been condemned to play, in consequence of the perti- 
 nacious, timid policy of the Chateau. To reinstate, indeed, after the 
 events of 1830, imperial grandeur; to oppose to the longer domination 
 of the insolent treaties of 1815, the veto of revolutionary France; to 
 claim once more the boundary of the Rhine; to accept Belgium, 
 which offered herself to France, or, at all events, to call imperatively 
 for a continental congress, to regulate anew the affairs of the world ; 
 these were ideas which, though entering largely into the day and 
 night dreams of some of the more enthusiastic of his countrymen, 
 M. Thiers by no means contemplated the possibility of realising. 
 He perfectly comprehended that the heroic part played by hxs 
 country, in 1830, produced, as one of its most permanent results, 
 that of placing monarchy for the future in the chapter of accidents ;
 
 POLICY OF M. THIERS. 365 
 
 and there was something in the progress of democratical ideas, 
 which made a deep impression on the incertitude of his heart. But 
 M. Thiers did not consider Fiance strong enough to raise herself 
 quite above that profound humiliation in which she had been sunk 
 for fifteen years strong enough to stand erect and armed, as there- 
 tofore; yet he did not conceive her to be so feeble, that she must 
 fain crawl servilely in the train of all the courts of Europe. He 
 thought that, without resorting to menaces, without rushing upon 
 war, without aiming at the contingent advantages of a new Eu- 
 ropean arrangement, his country might, by assuming a firm atti- 
 tude, realise the modest ambition of creating for herself, in European 
 diplomacy, a position entitled to, and receiving respect. Observing 
 that, in every state where the interests of the house of Bourbon had 
 formerlv prevailed, the course of events had brought about a revo- 
 lutionary interest; observing that everywhere, and especially in 
 Spain, in Italy, and in Belgium, the revolution had appeared to 
 result from the progress thither of French influence, and was, at all 
 events, of a nature to preserve it, M. Thiers thought that, in serving 
 the interests of the revolution in Belgium, in Italy, and in Spain, 
 we did not depart from the traditions of our old policy, since the 
 interests of the revolution were, all around us, neither more nor less 
 than the ancient interest of the house of Bourbon in another shape. 
 In this category of ideas, the natural support and ally of France, 
 according to $L Thiers, was England. The English alliance was 
 accordingly the ground- work of his policy. 
 
 To form a diplomatic union with the cabinet of St. James's, and, 
 by its assistance, to maintain the line of demarcation made between 
 Holland and Belgium, by the days of September, to prevent Austria 
 from putting down, by the exercise of arbitrary tyranny, the agita- 
 tion surging in Italy, and to hold out the hand of encouragement to 
 revolution in Spain, represented by Christina: such were the out- 
 lines of M. Thiers' policy at this period. 
 
 These views were deficient in soundness and accuracy in more 
 than one point; it is evident, for instance, that in Belgium, the 
 alliance between France and England could not be based upon any 
 community of interests. They were, moreover, totally deficient in 
 grandeur; for, notwithstanding the prodigy of that double epopea, 
 the Revolution and the Empire, France being much less in 1 830 than ^ 
 she was in the middle ot the eighteenth century, while Russia, 
 Prussia, Austria, and England, had made, since that epoch, consi- 
 derable advances, it was confining the ambition of France within 
 very narrow bounds, to limit its aspirations to paltry diplomatic 
 manoeuvrings, having for their entire object the independence of 
 Belgium declared neuter, the triumph of Christina at Madrid, and 
 for the Italians, the power of moving, without being immediately 
 trampled under foot by Austria. 
 
 The policy would appear sufficiently diffident, and circumspect, 
 and retiring, we apprehend, to most people; the king, however, re-
 
 366 THE KING'S DISLIKE TO INTERVENTION IN SPAIN, 
 
 garded it as fearfully adventurous. As it was not altogether inert, 
 he considered it audacious; as it did not absolutely lead us to 
 nothing, he was as appalled as though we had been dragged towards 
 an abyss. 
 
 The demand for intervention, accordingly, gave rise to some 
 very decided and very stormy dissensions between Louis Philippe 
 and M. Thiers. 
 
 The king was endowed by nature with an incomparable winning- 
 ness of manner; in the relations of private life, he charmed his 
 ministers by a ready flow of conversation, an apparently unaffected 
 good-nature, an unforced familiarity, the most graceful and the 
 most gracious oblivion of all the rights, privileges, and preroga- 
 tives conferred by royal majesty; but in the council chamber, on 
 all questions of importance, nothing could be more absolute than 
 his will. The policy, all made up of circumspect management, of 
 cautious manoeuvring, which he had adopted, he there maintained 
 imperiously. With as much ardour as Napoleon exhibited in 
 seeking glory, did Louis Philippe, his intimate friends tell us, avoid 
 it. " M. Thiers said of him, sharply enough, that " Louis Philippe 
 was the intaglio, Napoleon the cameo." 
 
 M. Thiers had on this occasion to bear up against very formidable 
 cabalism, on the part of the king and those who, as usual, thought 
 the king's thoughts ; but, as in the case which he argued, reason 
 was evidently on his side, even with reference to the peculiar inte- 
 rests of the Orleans dynasty itself, he displayed much firmness and 
 perseverance in maintaining his ground. 
 
 The considerations which he urged were tolerably decisive. Was 
 not Louis Philippe, he asked, impelled by manifest self-interest, to ex- 
 clude from the throne of Spain that Don Carlos, whose pretensions 
 were so intimately connected and bound up with those of Henry V.? 
 And if you passed from the dynastic question to the national ques- 
 tion, could there be a moment's doubt of the enormous advantage 
 which would be conferred on France by the consolidation of her in- 
 fluence in Spain ? Had not this been the constant policy of Louis 
 XIV., fully adopted by Napoleon ? Could France, perpetually ex- 
 posed as she was to attacks from the north, leave in the south, 
 without running the risk of her very existence, a power whose alli- 
 ance was uncertain, Avhose friendship was doubtful ? What was it 
 'that constituted the principal force of Russia ? Precisely her local 
 position, which enabled her to march forwards, when she thought fit, 
 without being obliged to look anxiously back. What was it that 
 lost Napoleon ? The fatal necessity which kept the troops of Suchet 
 in Spain, at the very moment when the coalition was invading Cham- 
 pagne. 
 
 These reasonings were not urged without making some impression 
 upon the king. More than once, he seemed shaken in his resolves, 
 but, on each occasion, he very speedily returned to his favourite 
 system, inaction. The recollection of the misfortunes which had
 
 AND THIERS' EFFORTS TO OVERCOME IT. 367 
 
 befallen the French in Spain, under Napoleon, seemed strongly 
 fixed upon his imagination. Was it likely that the expedition 
 demanded by M. Thiers would succeed? Would not the troops, 
 when once beyond the Pyrenees, find themselves involved in all 
 the perils of that partisan warfare, which had paled the star of the 
 greatest captain of modern times? Such were the apprehensions 
 which the king opposed to the views of his minister; and he 
 listened with cold incredulity to all the latter urged, as to the im- 
 possibility of Don Carlos maintaining any position whatever, when 
 he should be hemmed in between a French invasion and the troops 
 of Christina. " Spain is now nothing more than an exhausted La 
 Vendee/' repeated M. Thiers, incessantly; " it is now no more in 
 her power to renew the prodigies of that resistance which so 
 astonished Napoleon, than it was in the power of La Vendee to 
 rouse itself effectually at the voice of the Duchess de Berri, so as to 
 show itself, what it had shown itself under Cathelineau, Bonchamps, 
 Larochejacquelin, and Lescure. In support of his opinion, M. 
 Thiers cited that of M. de Rayneval, ambassador of France at 
 Madrid, who, in all his despatches, forcibly insisted upon interven- 
 tion, declaring that the government of Christina was lost, if the 
 storm which growled around her was not turned away by a step, 
 the importance of which, he said, was all decisive, while the risk 
 was absolutely none at all. 
 
 But the king did not understand venturing his own repose and 
 the security of peace, upon the hazard of such a judgment of mat- 
 ters. Perhaps, too, he had a private reason for the pertinacity of 
 his resistance. It has been confidently stated, that Don Carlos had 
 secretly conveyed to him the assurance that if he consented to remain 
 neuter, he, Don Carlos, would engage to give no assistance whatever 
 to Henry V. 
 
 However this may have been, it is certain that M. Thiers soon 
 found himself reduced to the necessity of openly breaking with 
 Louis Philippe. To conquer the king's will, he had had recourse 
 to every species of argument ; after urging all the reasons which 
 were to be drawn from grave political interests, he invoked those 
 which derived their force from sentiments of honour ; he re- 
 minded the king that the intervention, after all, was only the 
 accomplishment of a sacred promise, the inevitable execution of 
 the treaty of quadruple alliance, the natural, matter of course 
 consequence of the political friendship which united France to 
 
 England Vain efforts ! After exhausting all his powers 
 
 of reasoning, all his eloquence, he was fain to yield ; in doing so, 
 he spoke very unequivocally of offering his resignation. 
 
 The point was then to ascertain what, after this termination of 
 the disputes between the king and the prime minister, were the 
 views, the attitude of the other members of the cabinet On being 
 sounded by M. Mignet, M. de Broglie replied, that his own opinion
 
 368 ENGLAND CONSULTED. 
 
 as to the necessity of intervention in the affairs of Spain, was not 
 altogether made up ; that he saw equal inconveniences and advan- 
 tages in taking such a step ; but these were his own words 
 but that under the circumstances, he who was most thoroughly 
 convinced ought to take the lead ; and that consequently he 
 should act with M. Thiers. As for M. Guizot, he brought towards 
 the solution of the problem more than indecision ; he was perfectly 
 indifferent about the matter. " They may do just as they like," 
 said he ; " intervene or not intervene." And herein M. Guizot was 
 only true to himself. For, while passionately fond of power, he re- 
 garded with the most entire apathy all the ideas which power 
 serves to realise. "What he liked in office, was command, influence ; 
 differing from M. Thiers, who cared for nothing in office but the 
 power of action which it affords. 
 
 The council having assembled for the purpose of coming to a defi- 
 nitive decision on the point, the dissolution of the cabinet seemed 
 imminent, when M. de Broglie pointed out, that by the very terms 
 of the treaty of quadruple alliance, France was not boiind to engage 
 in any intervention, until after she had come to an understanding 
 on the subject with the other allied powers. It was accordingly 
 necessary, said M. de Broglie, in the first instance, to refer the ques- 
 tion to England, and wait for her answer. 
 
 M. Thiers could not dispute this view of the case, since it was 
 supported by the text of the treaty ; but he saw clearly, that from 
 that moment, the cause which he advocated was lost. The cabinet 
 of St. James's was at this period represented at Madrid by George 
 Villiers, since Lord Clarendon, a man more or less the slave of long 
 habits of elegant frivolity, and who occupied himself with state 
 business, in the same way that he went to a party, for the purpose 
 of amusing himself and passing away the time. A rivalry, which 
 had nothing whatever to do with politics, having sprung up between 
 George Villiers and M. de Toreno, a member of the Madrid cabinet, 
 the English ambassador had detached himself almost unconsciously,, 
 as happens in such cases, from the party of which M. de Toreno 
 was one of the chief, and had got himself surrounded by the 
 Exaltados. His despatches gave evidence of this, and naturally 
 rendered the cabinet of St. James's more reserved upon the subject 
 of the Spanish ministry, and the more so that it followed with jealous 
 eyes, the progress of French influence at the court of Madrid. 
 This disposition, in combination, no doubt, with the skilful manner 
 in which the question of intervention had been drawn up by the 
 Tuileries, determined England to reply in the negative. This was 
 precisely what Louis Philippe had hoped. M. Thiers was again con- 
 quered, and had not even a pretext left for again tendering his resig- 
 nation, which for that matter, had it been unattended with other 
 resignations, the king would have been but too happy to accept. 
 
 Thus, the assistance which Spain had demanded was refused
 
 REGICIDE PLOTS INTREPIDITY OF TIIIERS. 369 
 
 her ; but by the time the intelligence reached Madrid, M. Mar- 
 tinez de la Rosa was no longer in office, having been replaced in 
 the presidency of the council by M. de Toreno. 
 
 Internal events of painful importance, speedily withdrew the at- 
 tention of the French ministry from Spain. 
 
 For some time past, every step the king had taken in Ms daily 
 life, seemed to have been amid traps and pitfalls. Dark projects 
 had entered the souls of certain fanatics, and several incipient plots, 
 successively detected, gave ample reason to suspect that poignards 
 had been sharpened against Louis Philippe's life, and awaited only 
 what might appear a fitting occasion. But as the proofs in none of 
 the cases had been sufficient to bring the matter home to the accused 
 parties, these had merely passed before the seat of justice, and then 
 gone forth again amid the crowd, successively deepening the dark 
 shadow which thickened around the throne, besetting it with fears. 
 
 Not that the king himself displayed any apprehension ; on the 
 contrary, his calmness appeared imperturbable. Those who make it 
 their business to undervalue every thing, have asserted, that the 
 courage manifested by Louis Philippe on these occasions was a mere 
 piece of acting, like all the rest of his life, suited to the calculations 
 of his policy. But we are quite ready to believe that it was a part 
 of his nature to set danger at defiance. Perhaps, too, he was not 
 without a tolerably clear notion, that the men who were charged with 
 the responsibility of his life, systematically exaggerated the dangers 
 which threatened him, in order the better to establish their own im- 
 portance, and exalt the value of their sendees. 
 
 Certain it is, however, that each day furnished a new subject of 
 alarm. How was the evil to be cut off by the roots ? How were 
 the conspirators to be deterred by fear of the punishment inflicted 
 upon one of the number? To effect this object, it was necessary 
 that any conspiracy which might come to the knowledge of govern- 
 ment, should not be stifled in its birth, but be allowed to proceed, 
 until the parties could be taken in the very fact. Accordingly, M. 
 Thiers having learnt that, during the occasion of a journey which 
 the king intended to make from Neuilly to Paris, certain conspirators 
 had formed the design of throwing a lighted projectile into the 
 royal carriage, he at once proceeded to the king, and stating the fact 
 which had come to his ears, requested that on the day appointed, the 
 royal carriage should proceed on its way with the king's aides-de-camp 
 in it, not a word having previously transpired, other than that his ma- 
 jesty himself accompanied them. Louis Philippe having exclaimed 
 against this singular proposition : " Sire," replied M. Thiers, " it is 
 their duty to expose themselves for the safety of your person; and 
 they surely cannot compkin, when they find the minister of the 
 interior by their side in the menaced carriage." It must be admitted, 
 that, even supposing the police to have been instructed to take every 
 possible precaution against the actual consummation of the horrible 
 design, the offer of M. Thiers, displayed indisputable devotion to the 
 VOL. II. 2 B
 
 370 RUMOURS OF AN APPROACHING CATASTROPHE. 
 
 service of his sovereign. The king, however, nobly rejected the 
 proposition, and declared that he himself would go through with it. 
 His resolution having been vainly combated by M. Thiers, the pre- 
 parations for departure were ordered. But at the very moment when 
 the king was about to get into the carriage, the queen and the prin- 
 cesses suddenly presented themselves in an agony of terror and of 
 tears; it is impossible to say, whether a skilful indiscretion on the 
 part of the minister had initiated them into the secret of what had 
 taken place, or whether they had received no other intimation than 
 that supplied by the instincts of the heart; however this may have 
 been, on finding that Louis Philippe would not abandon his intention, 
 the queen insisted upon accompanying him, and it was quite impos- 
 sible to dissuade her from this determination. M. Thiers then soli- 
 cited the honour of a seat in the menaced carriage, and the journey 
 was risked. The results contemplated did not take place, the con- 
 spirators, who felt themselves to be under the eye of government, 
 having renounced their design ; but nothing could afford a better 
 illustration of the domestic anguish to which royalty was condemned 
 in France at this period. 
 
 Strange and sinister rumours continued to be spread, both in 
 France and abroad. The anniversary of the revolution of July ap- 
 proached, and it was generally whispered that the anniversary would 
 be marked by an attempt upon the king. A letter from Berlin, 
 dated July 26, 1835, inserted in one of the public prints, stated: 
 " A rumour is current here, that a catastrophe will take place on the 
 anniversary of the three days." The same intimation had been given 
 the day before, in an article in the Correspondant de Hambourg. At 
 Coblentz, at Turin, at Aix, at Chambery, the words infernal machine , 
 had been heard. Lastly, it was related, that two travellers passing 
 through a village in Switzerland, had written upon the register kept 
 in the inn, after the name of Louis Philippe and his sons, Requies- 
 cant in pace. 
 
 In the evening preceding the 28th, the day on which the solemn 
 procession of Louis Philippe through Paris was to take place, a young 
 man named Boireau, in the employment of M. Vernert, lamp maker, 
 was visited by two gentlemen, handsomely dressed, and soon after- 
 wards, a clerk in the house, to whom Boireau had confided the cir- 
 cumstance of this visit, said to his father, in speaking of the review 
 next day, " If you take my advice, you wont go there." The sus- 
 picions awakened by these words were communicated at once to the 
 Commissary of Police in^the Chaussee d'Antin, M. Dyonnet; but, 
 besides that the indications were so extremely vague, fatality did not 
 permit the authorities to lay their hands upon the only man who 
 could have solved the formidable enigma. 
 
 On the 28th of July the sun rose upon the city already perplexed 
 with fears and doubts, oppressed with sinister reports and rumours. 
 The drum which summoned the national guards early in the 
 morning, beat for some time in vain; a heavy apathy, in which there
 
 EXPLOSION OF THE INFERNAL MACHINE. 371 
 
 mingled a sort of morbid distrust, weighed upon every one. At ten 
 o'clock the legions stretched in an immense line along the Boule- 
 vards, facing 40,000 of the regular troops, horse and foot. The 
 Boulevard du Temple having been pointed out, in the rumours to 
 which we have referred, as the theatre of the contemplated crime, 
 the police had orders to parade it with peculiar watchfulness, and to 
 keep a close eye upon the windows. It appears, indeed, that 
 M. Thiers, the evening before, had had a number of the houses in 
 this quarter searched; but the remonstrances of the inhabitants had 
 assumed so violent an aspect, that he was fain to abandon the idea he 
 had entertained of having every house there regularly examined. 
 
 The clock of the Chateau was striking ten when the king issued 
 from the Tuileries on horseback. He was accompanied by his sons, 
 the Dukes of Orleans, Nemours, and Joinville ; by Marshals Mortier 
 and Lobau ; by his ministers, and by a numerous body of general and 
 other superior officers and dignified functionaries. Along the whole 
 line which he traversed there prevailed a dead silence, broken only 
 at intervals by the ex officio acclamations of the soldiers. At a few 
 minutes past twelve, the royal cortege arrived in front of the 8th le- 
 gion, which was stationed along the Boulevard du Temple. Here, 
 near the end of the Jardin-Turc, as the king was leaning forward 
 to receive a petition from the hands of a national guard, a sound was 
 heard as of the fire of a well-sustained platoon. In an instant the 
 ground was strewed with the dead and dying. Marshal Mortier 
 and General Lachasse de Verigny wounded in the head, fell bathed 
 in their blood. A young captain of artillery, M. de Villate, slid 
 from his horse, his arms extended at full length as though they had 
 been nailed to a cross ; he had been shot in the head, and expired 
 ere he touched the ground. Among the other victims were the co- 
 lonel of gendarmerie, Raffe ; M. Rieussec, lieutenant-colonel of the 
 8th legion; the national guards, Prudhomme, Benetter, Ricard, and 
 Leger; an old man upwards of seventy years of age, M. Labrouste; 
 a poor fringe-maker, named Langeray; and a girl scarcely fourteen, 
 named Sophie Remy. The king was not wounded, but in the con- 
 fusion his horse reared, and he received a violent shock in the left 
 arm. The Duke of Orleans had a slight contusion on the thigh. 
 A ball grazed the croup of the Due de Joinville's horse. Thus, the 
 odious attempt failed in its object; the royal family was saved. No 
 language can express the utter horror which this frightful and cow- 
 ardly attack created in the minds of the assembled multitudes. An 
 aide-de-camp immediately galloped off to reassure the queen, and the 
 king continued his progress amidst the most ardent manifestations 
 of sympathy and enthusiastic loyalty. A perfectly natural reaction, 
 and which, for the hundredth time, proved that the theory of 
 removing a grievance by assassination, is not less stupid than it is 
 odious. For, even though the assassination be completed, we have 
 already said it in this work, and we repeat it here : where political 
 evil exists, it is in things that it exists; and in things alone that it 
 
 2 B2
 
 372 ARREST OF THE ASSASSIN. 
 
 must be punished and assailed; by getting rid of the man -who 
 for die tune being bodily represent the evil, you do not destroy the 
 personification, you merely renew it: the murdered Caesar arose 
 more terrible in Octavius. 
 
 It has been gravely related, and on the alleged authority of Mar- 
 dial Maison, as a striking exemplification of the sangfroid of Louis 
 Philippe, that, immediately after the fatal occurrence, and while aH 
 around were overwhelmed with dismay and grief, his mind rapidly 
 glanced over afl the possible advantages which might be drawn from 
 the event, and he exclaimed: " Ah I now we shall be sure to get the 
 apanages !" But this anecdote should be received with all the dis- 
 trust which should ever attend relations in themselves improbable. 
 
 Meantime, at the moment of explosion, clouds of smoke were seen 
 to issue from a window on the third floor of the house, No. 50. A 
 man got out of this window, and seizing a doable rope, which was 
 fastened inside, slid down it upon the roof of a lower building. This 
 man was but half dressed, and his face streamed with blood. A 
 flower-pot, which was caught in the movement of the rope when he 
 quitted hold of it, fell on the pavement, and the noise attracted the 
 attention of an agent of police who had been posted in the court- 
 yard of the house. " There is the sgijgin escaping on die roof!** 
 exclaimed the policeman; and one of the national guards at once 
 called upon the fugitive to surrender, threatening to fire if he re- 
 fused to do so. But the man, wiping away, with his hand, the veil 
 of blood which obscured his sight, dashed on, and made his way 
 through an open window into an adjoining house. To knock 
 down a terrified woman, who, with dishevelled hair, ran shrieking 
 before him, and to rush down stairs was, lor the assassin, the affair 
 of a moment; but a track of blood indicated his route, as though 
 his own crime pursued him. He reached the court-yard too late to 
 escape unobserved, and was at once taken into custody. 
 
 In the room whence he had fled were found the amnHi^r remains 
 of the machine which had served to perpetrate his crime. It wasl 
 raised upon a sort of scaffolding, on four square legs, connected to- 
 gether by strong oak cross-pieces. Twenty-five musket barrels were 
 fastened by the breech upon the cross-piece at the back, which was 
 higher than the front traverse by about eight inches. The ends of 
 die barrels rested in notches cut in the lower traverse. The touch- 
 holes were exactly in a line, so as to take fire at once by means of a 
 train of gunpowder laid along the whole range. The guns Bad been 
 placed so as to take the procession slantingly, embracing a lain 
 range, and rising from the legs of the horses to the heads of the riders. 
 The charge in each barrel was a quadruple one. Fortunately thflt 
 calculations of die ! were frustrated. Two of the barrels did 
 not go of four of them burst, and to these chances the king, doubt- 
 less, owed his life. 
 
 There was an alcove in the room, and in the alcove a mattrasa, 
 doubled up, in one corner of which was the name Girard, appa-
 
 NARROW ESCAPE OF SOME OF THE KING'S ESCORT. 373 
 
 rently that of the person renting the chamber. Girard, according 
 to the information received, had lodged in the house for several 
 months. He stated himself to be a machinist. The porter had 
 never been inside the room since it had been thus occupied. There 
 had been but one man to see Girard, whom he represented as his 
 uncle, and three women, who, he said, were his mistresses. On the 
 morning of the 28th he had been noticed to go in and out, up and 
 down, in a visible state of agitation, and once he went into a neigh- 
 bouring cafe to drink, altogether contrary to his usual habits, a small 
 glass of brandy. At the guard-house, where he was taken upon his 
 arrest, a national guard having asked him: "Who are you?" 
 " What's that to you," replied he, boldly ; " I shall answer such ques- 
 tions when they are put by the proper people." Some gunpowder was 
 found upon his person : he was asked what it was for? " For glory !" 
 said he. Further on, when we come to his trial, we shall make our 
 readers more fully acquainted with this wretch, whose real name was 
 Fieschi, and we shall, moreover, lay bare the disgraceful tricks and 
 manoeuvres which were had recourse to for the purpose of extract- 
 ing certain confessions from him. We shall arrive, unfortunately, 
 but too soon at these details, which we cannot think of without the 
 blood mounting our forehead ! 
 
 The deplorable news soon spread all over Paris, and created a 
 consternation which is more easily understood than described. The 
 affliction was deep and universal, and in some quarters, aggravated 
 by intense fear. In the squares, in the streets, in the byways, the 
 utmost anxiety prevailed. Every one asked, what can it all mean? 
 What can have led to this act of blind, undiscriminating ferocity? 
 Is it possible that so monstrous an outrage can have been perpetrated 
 in the country which was once France ? And people dwelt piteously 
 upon the number of victims, and how they differed in age, and upon 
 the distinctions of rank and renown which so widely separated them 
 while in life, and upon the appalling novelty of the crime which had 
 now united them for ever ! In connexion with the irreparable cala- 
 mities which had actually occurred, those which might have happened 
 were dilated upon. People talked of the Due de Joinville, so nearly 
 threatened ; of the Due d'Orleans slightly wounded ; of M. de Broglie 
 only saved by the circumstance that the ball which struck him 
 having glanced off from his badge of Grand Cross. Many shuddered 
 when they thought of the disorders which the sudden death of the 
 kin<* might have let loose upon France. For such is the grievous 
 condition of monarchies, such the gross defect of the machinery of 
 which they constitute the main spring, that the fate of a great people 
 seems thereinto depend on the existence of a single man, that is to 
 say, on a dagger stroke, on an attack of fever, on the wheel of a car- 
 riage breaking down, on a horse running away ! So that it may be 
 truly said, the monarchical principle lowers in an excessive degree, 
 the level of humanity ! 
 
 As to the responsibility of the outrage, parties for a time seemed 
 disposed pretty equally to throw it upon each other, on tactics the
 
 374 ATTEMPT TO FASTEN FIESCHI J S CRIME ON THE 
 
 constant recourse to which does not render them the less discreditable. 
 Thus because in the chamber of the assassin, there was found a litho- 
 graph portrait of the Due de Bordeaux, the legitimatists were openly 
 charged with the crime ; while in their turn, certain of the legitimatist 
 prints dishonoured themselves by making, with reference to the 
 republicans, allusions, the cruelty of which was alone equalled by 
 their utter absurdity. Let us hasten to add, for the glory of the French 
 nation, that these mutual recriminations were transient; and that, in 
 a very short time, thanks to a generous sentiment of public decency, 
 the cry which prevailed was, " It is the crime of a solitary fanatic I" 
 But this view of the case, so consonant with the dignity of human 
 nature, and with the high-souled character of the French people, the 
 courtiers, a race fixedly base-minded, were not able to appreciate. 
 They could not understand that, in seeking to extend the sphere of 
 responsibility, they were slandering their country; and, as it was the 
 republican party which they most feared, it was upon the republican 
 party that they unhesitatingly endeavoured to direct public suspi- 
 cion. A loyal soldier, General Morand, having demanded an au- 
 dience, intimated that certain details, communicated to him, tended 
 to fix the origin of the plot upon the legitimatists, and that he was 
 ready to impart the particulars to the administrators of justice. The 
 intimation was received in the most ungracious,", nay, resentful 
 manner, and the general was sharply cross-questioned. The court 
 would not listen to any other suggestion than that which involved a 
 party, which it conceived itself especially interested in damnifying 
 in public estimation, in the odium of this atrocious crime. " It's the 
 republicans," cried they; and a voice which was not wont to be con- 
 tradicted, said with them: " We know whence the blow proceeded ; 
 the legitimatists had nothing to do with it. It's the republicans 1" 
 in like manner exclaimed Bonaparte, after the attempt of Nivose. 
 
 As to the ministry, they lost no time in putting the mournful 
 event to the best political advantage they could think of. Without 
 any other guide than vague suspicion, on no other principle than 
 blind hatred, they ordered a host of domiciliary visits, anticipatory 
 arrests, prosecutions. Among other proceedings, one took place 
 which, peculiarly under the circumstance that M. Thiers was mi- 
 nister, struck all observers with astonishment : Armand Carrel found 
 himself implicated in a prosecution, having for its object, or for a 
 pretext, the discovery of the assassin's accomplices. Yet M. Thiers 
 had been the intimate friend of Armand Carrel, and, more than that, 
 knew him to be scrupulously true and honourable. Whether he 
 arrested Armand Carrel from calculation or from spite, it is not 
 worth while to inquire; in either case, the fact does not admit of 
 excuse, and will remain a blot upon the memory of M. Thiers. 
 
 Ministers did not stop here. There are, in the life of a people, 
 moments of stupor so overpowering, that there is nothing which 
 designing men may not then obtain from its imbecility. Ministers 
 clearly saw that France was now in one of these fits, and they took 
 advantage of it, for the purpose of still further depriving the country
 
 REPUBLICANS PARALLEL CASE OF LOUVEL. 375 
 
 of its liberties " My government knows its duties, and will fulfil 
 1ml'' tt king had heretofore said in one of his proclamafcons; 
 and the material journals now proceeded to expand the implied 
 menace: the time had manifestly come when it was essential no 
 longer to delay providing for the safety of the head of the state by 
 energetic measures; it had become obviously necessary to render 
 See more prompt in its actions and more ternble in its punish- 
 Tents ; T render P the institution of the jury more strict towards 
 accused persons; to gag the press, and distinctly, once for a 1, to 
 ^abo^e all discusfion whatever, not only the P^n of the bn 
 but the constitutional monarchy itself. Why any further delay in 
 taking these so necessary steps? Had not the attempt of the 28th 
 
 madman were a sufficient ground for placing human reason unde 
 
 ^ie was not even any novelty of invention displayed in this 
 device of turning to profitable account the momentary stupefaction 
 ofTpeope: th? mirdsters of Louis Philippe were * 
 copyists of those of the Restoration. After the murder of the Due 
 Kd by Louvel, the royalists cried out in just the same way : 
 "It was the opposition press that directed the blow!. The prince 
 has been the victim of the liberals !" The persons ?^ 
 this calumny were precisely, among . others of the then hberai 
 partv MM. de Broglie, Thiers, Guizot, now ministers ot^ the 
 Sown' Nay, the latter Vas personaUy struck by the blow aimed 
 TM Decaz^'s, his patron at L time, whom M. Clauzel de Cous- 
 sergues denounced as the accomplice of Louvel. And now M 
 SSunblushingly permitted himself to be J^, .^j 
 of an iniquity, the counterpart of which he had himseK erewhile 
 sufiered from I If this be politics, I cannot express how d 
 
 Pi 7t^tr determined o give the victims of the 28*of ** 
 magnificent funeral, obsequies truly national. An august and touch 
 
 IT^Te 
 
 . 
 
 disturbed by any unexpected tempest, and which rolled slowly o
 
 376 SINGULAR SPEECH OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS. 
 
 The first was that of the young girl, so cruelly cut off by an appall- 
 ing chance; the last, that of the old imperial soldier whom death 
 had surprised amidst the amusements of a holiday festival, after 
 having spared him in so many a desperate fight ! After him came, 
 all covered with funeral trappings, his war-horse, accompanying its 
 illustrious master for the last time. The church of the Invalides re- 
 ceived within its walls, hung in black, and lit up by innumerable 
 sepulchral tapers, the sad remains confided to it. The king, followed 
 by his sons, having then sprinkled holy water over the bodies, the 
 crowd gradually dispersed, grave, thoughtful, silent. 
 
 The attitude of the clergy in the circumstances under considera- 
 tion, manifestly indicated hostility to the dynasty of Orleans. After 
 much hesitation, very far, indeed, from flattering to royalty, the 
 Archbishop of Paris had at length prevailed with himself to pay the 
 king a visit of congratulation, and even to officiate at the funeral 
 service about to be celebrated in the church of the Invalides. But 
 the respect of the clergy for the elder branch, betrayed itself 
 in these singular words, addressed by the archbishop to the king: 
 " In seeing as it now does, sire, the chief and the governing bodies 
 of the state, doubly warned by misfortune on the one hand, and by 
 a providential interposition on the other, offer up at the sacred 
 altars of their church, a most just tribute of homage and thanks- 
 giving, Religion is filled with hope ! It is filled with hope for 
 France ! For if ingratitude towards God draw down upon man 
 as his punishment the withdrawal, for a greater or less period, of 
 the divine blessing, the manifestation of humble and grateful faith, 
 on the contrary, will be attended by heavenly goodness with a mul- 
 tiplication of its blessings upon princes and peoples !" 
 
 If there be one rule of sound and moral wisdom more imperative 
 than another in legislation, it is that the legislator, when about 
 to enter upon the forming of a law, shall avoid all precipitancy, 
 all passion ; shall deliberately and carefully disengage" his mind 
 from any impressions calculated to disturb the serenity and fairness 
 of his judgment. Yet, as early as the 4th of August, at a period 
 when all men's minds, in and out of parliament, were in a state of 
 excitement at the event which had occurred but a few days pre- 
 viously, the Chamber of Deputies had laid before it a number of 
 bills, founded upon that and other recent events, drawn up and enforced 
 in the full spirit of ministerial polemics. In introducing them to the 
 house, M. de Broglie, in a speech which quite belied the idea which 
 the public had formed of his character, drew a picture of the state of 
 France under the empire of the press, which presented the most 
 striking analogies with the famous report of M. de Chantelauze in 
 1830. On the conclusion of his address, three bills were laid before 
 the house by M. Persil. 
 
 The first of these, relating to courts of assizes, invested the minister 
 of justice, in reference to citizens accused of rebelling, with the power 
 of constituting as many courts of assize as the occasion required ; and 
 every attorney-general with the power of abridging in case of need,
 
 THE " LAWS OF SEPTEMBER." 377 
 
 the usual formalities of prosecutions. It gave also to the president 
 of the court of assize, the right of removing by force any prisoners, 
 who should be guilty of disturbing the proceedings, and of continuing 
 the trial in their absence. 
 
 The second, relating to juries, gave them the power of secret voting, 
 and reduced the number of votes necessary to constitute a majority 
 against a prisoner from eight to seven. It also rendered the punish- 
 ment of transportation more penal than before. 
 
 The third bill, relating to the press, enacted that any one publishing 
 any thing offensive to the person of the king, or assailing the principle 
 of the established government of France, should be liable to impri- 
 sonment, and to a fine of from 10,000 to 50,000 francs. It forbade 
 citizens, under penalties, less than these, but still exorbitant, to take 
 the name of republican, to mix up the person of the king with dis- 
 cussions upon the acts of the government ; to express a hope or a 
 wish for the destruction of the monarchical and constitutional order 
 of things established, or for the restoration of the deposed dynasty, 
 to speak of any member of that banished family as having any right 
 or title whatever to the crown ; to publish the names of jurors, before 
 or after a trial, or any report of the deliberations of jurors amongst 
 themselves ; to get up or have any thing to do with subscriptions 
 in favour of journals condemned in any penalties. It further took 
 away from editors of newspapers, the privilege of giving^ blank sig- 
 natures; it obliged them to denounce the authors of articles which 
 should be subjected to prosecution ; it deprived them of the manage- 
 ment of their journals while they should be undergoing any impri- 
 sonment under the act. It declared that no drawing, emblematical 
 representation, print, or lithograph, should be published or offered for 
 sale, until it had been first submitted to the censorship ; and on the 
 same condition alone, it declared, might a spectacle be produced, or 
 a dramatic piece be put upon the stage ! 
 
 When wereflect, that this appalling body of despotic enactments, was 
 based upon the solitary atrocity of one frantic wretch ; that an entire 
 nation was in this way punished for a crime which the entire nation 
 viewed with horror ; that it was a wholly exceptional case, quite unlikely 
 to recur, which was made the pretext for the permanent imposition of 
 such laws as these, upon a people, the most civilised in the world, the 
 most jealous of its liberties, the most tried by revolutions the mind 
 is perfectly astounded, and one asks if it is not all a dream. 
 
 It is equally mournful to record that the Chambers responded with 
 a sort of savage impatience to the demand thus made upon them. 
 The government measures met with an absolutely convulsive appro- 
 bation in the three committees named to take them into considera- 
 tion, whose reporters were respectively : for the law as to courts of 
 assize, M. Hebert; for that as to Junes, M. Parent; for that as to 
 the liberty of the press, M. Sauzet. Nay, such was the_ infatuation 
 now prevalent in the Chamber, that the latter commission actually 
 took upon itself to add to the proposed enactments others which ag- 
 gravated their rigour, excessive as that already was ! It proposed to
 
 378 THE " LAWS OF SEPTEMBER." 
 
 declare punishable, with fine and imprisonment, all attacks upon 
 property, and all remarks calculated to lessen respect to the oath 
 taken by citizens, and to the laws; it demanded that the amount of 
 security given by each newspaper should be raised from 48,000 
 francs to 200,000 francs (100,000 [4000/.] was the sum ultimately 
 adopted by the Chamber); that this amount should be deposited in 
 cash, and that the editor of no paper should be permitted to enter 
 upon his functions until he had paid up one third of the sum in his 
 own name. 
 
 The discussion on these bills opened, in the Chamber of Deputies, 
 on the 13th of August. It gave rise to a fierce but brief struggle, 
 and experienced the anticipated result ; the house had deliberated, if 
 we may use the term, under the influence of passion, and the mi- 
 nistry obtained even more than it had asked. The co-operation of 
 the Chamber of Peers was a matter of course; and that assembly 
 accordingly hastened to give its sanction to those laws which were 
 destined to remain fixed in the memory of the people, and on the 
 page of history, under the appellation of the Laws of September. 
 Among those who lifted up their voices in condemnation of these 
 enactments was M. Royer-Collard, who, on the occasion, broke a 
 long parliamentary silence by a speech which inflicted upon minis- 
 ters their first chastisement for the outrage. 
 
 The laws of September deprived accused persons of their most 
 precious security against injustice. They falsified, rendered null and 
 void the institution of the jury. They brought within the same 
 culpable category the actual commission of a crime and the discussion 
 of a theory. They converted the power of the press into warfare 
 exclusively available by the wealthy bourgeoisie, stripping the poor 
 man and his sacred interests of every possible organ of defence. A 
 fine consummation of the glorious revolution of July ! 
 
 The laws of September, moreover, re-established the censorship, 
 that censorship against which the liberals, now in power, had so 
 energetically raised their voices in the time of the Restoration. That 
 an attempt should be made to give the theatres a social direction 
 was, in our opinion, altogether desirable. Of all the means of go- 
 verning, there is none more efficacious and more legitimate than the 
 theatre. To permit a private individual to act, as his caprice dic- 
 tates, upon an assembly of men, by the seductions of the stage, the 
 interest of 4he drama, of whatever kind, the beauty of the women, 
 the talent of the artists, the magnificence of the decorations, the 
 flood of light, this is handing over to the first corrupter who shall 
 present himself the souls of the people as his food ; it is abandoning 
 to the casual passer-by the right of poisoning the sources of human 
 intelligence. In a country whose government were worthy of the 
 name, the state could not relinquish the moral direction of society 
 by means of the theatre, without abdicating its functions altogether. 
 But if the ministers in office, on this llth of October, 1835, had 
 proposed to themselves, as their true object, the realisation of so 
 noble a design, instead of reverting to all that the censorship had
 
 THE " LAWS OF SEPTEMBER." 379 
 
 heretofore exhibited in the way of arbitrary oppression and utter in- 
 efficiency for any good purpose, they would have demanded of the 
 legislature to withdraw the management of the theatres from mere 
 speculators, and to transfer this important, this natural charge to 
 thT state; and they would then have left the details to a committee 
 or lury, a truly national jury, elected by the people, elected only for 
 a limited period, and removable, meantime, by the people They 
 did precisely the reverse of all this, dominated as they were by low- 
 minded passions and narrow views. 
 
 Thus, then, the rights of reason and those of the press_ were 
 trampled under foot in the most brutal manner: by M. Iniers, 
 whom the press had elevated to the high position which he occu- 
 pied- by M. de Broglie, who, under the Restoration, had openly 
 Secla'red himself the defender of the freedom of written thought; 
 by M. Guizot, who, as publicist and as professor, had incessantly 
 proclaimed the sovereignty of reason. And these three very men 
 now gravely affirmed, in the face of the world, that beyond the 
 monarchy which it suited them to uphold, there was no progress 
 whatever to be thought of; that mental intelligence stopped short 
 within the limits which it had pleased them to mark out; that hu- 
 manity must submit to remain imprisoned within the barrier of 
 forms they had chosen to draw up; that it was, in short, a crime to 
 interrupt them even by the utterance of a hope, a wish, a sigh, 11 
 the enjoyment of their constitutional success ! And, what is worse 
 than all, these monstrous pretensions of theirs, this utter burlesque 
 became, by the infatuation of the Chambers, the law of the land! 
 And what is more remarkable than all, these things were passing 
 amidst the ruins of five or six governments successively overthrown 
 and lying prostrate, because each had successively had the insolence to 
 exclaim f " I am inviolably immortal, not to be questioned ! 
 order truly was at its height. The anarchy of beliefs .had been de- 
 creed in France, but the peaceful examination of political systems 
 was declared to be factious ! A man was no longer permitted to style 
 himself republican in the very country where he might go ab 
 proclaiming himself an atheist with entire impunity I To entertain 
 doubts about God was a legitimate exercise of ones rights; 1 
 suggest a doubt about the king was a cnme ! 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE year 1836 opened under the most favourable auspices for 
 Louis Philippe. TheTieschi outrage, by the horror which it excil 
 throughout France, had greatly strengthened the monarchy. *ome, 
 sincere in their apprehensions, pressed more closely than ever around 
 the throne so remarkably saved; others affected to recognise the
 
 380 COURT INTRIGUES FOR THE PURPOSE OF 
 
 finger of God in the preservation of the king's life in the very midst 
 of such appalling destruction; others exerted themselves to convert 
 into an indignation, favourable to the existing dynasty, <the grief 
 which so largely pervaded the community, by making, with repulsive 
 ability,* a commodity of the unhappy victims of Fieschi, and repre- 
 senting his atrocity as the' result of the encouragement given by the 
 opposition press to the spirit of revolt. 
 
 Though thus grossly maligned, the opposition restrained its just 
 anger, postponing till a more favourable opportunity the expression 
 of its resentment. The legislation of September was in full vigour, 
 and might not be gainsaid. Society languished in morbid repose, 
 and power triumphed, deriving its accession of strength from public 
 calamity and mourning. 
 
 At the Chateau, however, the satisfaction was not yet complete, 
 the same impatience prevailed there as ever, to arrive at the long 
 sighed for sweets of a Personal government, and this desire naturally 
 became all the more vivi'd when any juncture of circumstances 
 seemed to render less essential the necessity for a cabinet strongly 
 constituted. The sobriquet Casimir Premier, given to Casimir 
 Perier, sufficiently manifested how insolent the ministerial dictator- 
 ship of that arrogant man had been deemed, and how galling it had 
 been to the king. That this dictatorship should be continued by 
 MM. de Broglie, Guizot, and Thiers, a triumvirate acting as one 
 man, was, if possible, still more insupportable. The king could 
 bear it no longer, and the courtiers accordingly set about putting an 
 end to the thing. 
 
 To sever the bonds wherein friendship had united the Due de 
 Broglie and M. Guizot, was a task ultimately effected, but which, in 
 the outset of the business, presented such slight chance of success, 
 that it was not for a time entered upon. At this period the two 
 chiefs of the Doctrinaire party were considered perfect inseparables ; 
 so much so, that the king used, with a bitter smile, to call them the 
 Siamese Twins. 
 
 All the machinations of the intrigants, therefore, were brought 
 to bear upon M. Thiers; into whose ears were breathed, with an air 
 of mystery, the most daring hopes. 
 
 M . de Broglie had long been tottering under the weight of uni- 
 versal unpopularity. The king hated him cordially ; he had given 
 much dissatisfaction to the foreign ministers by the stiffness of his 
 manners, so that M. de Talleyrand had said of him in his impertinent 
 way, It is M. de Broglie s vocation not to be minister for foreign 
 affairs. Needed there more to prepare the way for his downfall? 
 In anticipation of that downfall, the tempting prospect of inheriting 
 the brilliant position he occupied, was insidiously held out to M. 
 Thiers. Instead of an office which rendered him responsible, in 
 times like these, for the life of the king; which brought him into 
 compromising intercourse with the police; which condemned him 
 to an incessant and harassing struggle with indefatigable plotters; 
 which kept him involved in a chaos of degrading cares; he had
 
 DISSOLVING THE MINISTRY. 381 
 
 displayed before him the prospect of an office which would at once 
 exalt him to a position eminently dignified and splendid, giving 
 him a part in the grand game which sovereigns play amongst them- 
 selves. What higher fortune could be promised to his proud am- 
 bition! And with what a thrill of joy must he have opened his 
 mind to the intoxicating idea of seeing the haughtiest representatives 
 of aristocratic Europe salute in him the modern ascendancy of ple- 
 beian merit. One apprehension alone, it was conceived, might, 
 perhaps, arrest him at the threshold of a world for which he did 
 not seem made, and in which, consequently, he might fear that he 
 should not be able to hold his own, as the phrase is; but here too 
 care was taken to smooth the way for him. " M. Thiers," said 
 M. de Talleyrand, " n'est point parvenu, il est arrivt" And every 
 body bowed down before the oracle, and M. Thiers, authenticated 
 by so eminent a master of the ceremonies, became at once the thing 
 in society. 
 
 Accordingly, no one was now seen more frequently in the com- 
 pany of Madame de Dino, and of Madame de Lieven, those charming 
 queens, who together governed diplomacy with despotic sway. Was 
 the drawing-room influence thus set in motion, made use of to de- 
 tach M. Thiers from the English, and bring him over to the conti- 
 nental alliance? The friends of M. Guizot have thought so, but the 
 subsequent facts have shown, either that no such attempt was made, 
 or that it failed. What is quite certain, however, is that ere he had 
 been long amidst the circle who now beset him with their seductions, 
 M. Thiers had with great facility accustomed himself to the eclat of 
 the brilliant position which had been suggested to him. 
 
 It now only remained to detach him from his colleagues, by creat- 
 ing first a cause, and then an occasion for conflict. The rivalry 
 which already existed between M. Thiers and M. Guizot was ac- 
 cordingly inflamed. Offensive remarks were assumed or actually 
 invented, and made use of to sow distrust, and to exasperate sell- 
 love, ever credulous and touchy. Mere passing jests were swollen 
 into deliberate and deadly insults, into unpardonable wrongs. In a 
 word, the whole despicable machinery of court intrigue was set ac- 
 tively at work. 
 
 M. Thiers offered but a very feeble resistance. He was all the 
 more disposed to yield, from the circumstance that he found his 
 portfolio peculiarly troublesome to him at the moment. As supreme 
 head of the police, it was his business to be ever on the watch, to 
 turn aside any arm which should threaten the king's life. Now it 
 happened that just before this, he had been very anxious to get 
 relieved fora while from this charge, in order that he might snatch 
 a brief holiday at Lille, but he had not been able to prevail upon 
 either of his doctrinaire colleagues to perform the duty for him mean- 
 time; and, as he had not chosen to aggravate his responsibility by 
 retaining it at a distance from the field of action, he had been forced 
 to remain at Paris. The necessity, however, was most galling, and had
 
 382 THE POINT OF THE WEDGE INSERTED BY M. HDMANN. 
 
 given rise to much bitterness of feeling on his part against the col- 
 leagues who had been so uncomplying. A fine principle, truly, with 
 messieurs the doctrinaires, to throw upon his shoulders the whole 
 weight of all the inconveniences and annoyances of power, and to re- 
 serve to themselves all its pleasures and advantages. So grumbled 
 M. Thiers, partly out of genuine annoyance, partly, perhaps, by way 
 of colouring the hostile feelings tending to rupture, which had been 
 infused into his mind. 
 
 Still the thought of betraying his colleagues had not yet en- 
 tered his head. He took no steps for precipitating the fall of 
 the cabinet of which he was a member. All that he did was to 
 habituate himself gradually to the idea of doing without his col- 
 leagues, should fortune throw actual advancement in his way, should 
 he find himself raised to the presidency of the council by the natural 
 course of events. 
 
 But if M. Thiers took no steps, others did. The famous ministry 
 of the llth of October, secretly undermined, was about at length to 
 fall. All that was wanted now was an occasion, and this was not 
 long in presenting itself, whether by chance or by management we 
 cannot undertake to decide. 
 
 On the 14th of January, 1836, the minister of finance, M. Hu- 
 mann, took the house entirely by surprise, in presenting to it the 
 budget for the ensuing year, by a declaration that the present was a 
 favourable moment for reducing the interest on the national debt. 
 As the words quitted his lips, indescribable astonishment manifested 
 itself on the treasury bench. The Due de Broglie indicated by an 
 expressive gesture his utter, his stupified amazement, his indigna- 
 tion, and was hastily rising, when M. Thiers whispered: " Be quiet, 
 my dear duke; something will come of this." And, indeed, nothing 
 could have been at once more unexpected and more serious than the 
 declaration now made by M. Humann. To propose the reduction 
 of the interest was to alarm the whole body of fundholders, to throw 
 the Stock Exchange into excessive agitation, to call up the tempest 
 of a financial crisis. We shall enter more fully upon this question 
 further on, when we come to give an account of the debates which it 
 occasioned; at present, we shall merely observe, that it was one of the 
 very highest importance, involving all the principles upon which 
 credit rests. And yet it was without the concurrence of his col- 
 leagues, without having consulted them, without having given them 
 the slightest intimation of what he was about to do, and with the 
 full knowledge that it was utterly contrary to all their opinions and 
 views, that M. Humann submitted this proposition to the Chamber, 
 to France ! The situation was striking, dramatic ! More peculiarly 
 wounded in his privileges as president of the council, M. de Broglie 
 was perfectly furious. So little had M. Humann's declaration been 
 anticipated by his colleagues, that at the opening of the house that 
 same day, M. Fould having asked M. Persil whether it was intended 
 to make any reference to a reduction of the debt in the statement of 

 
 HE IS TURNED OUT OF THE CABINET. 383 
 
 the budget, received a very sincere and very decided answer in the 
 negative. But the humiliation of ministers became still deeper and 
 more galling, when M. Augustin Giraud announced his intention of 
 putting some formal questions to them on the subject on the 18th 
 of January, with the view of ascertaining what reasons there were 
 to prevent the official introduction of a measure, deemed by their 
 own chancellor of the exchequer beneficial and opportune. 
 
 To the questions with which they were thus threatened, the col- 
 leagues of the minister of finance had to reply, first and foremost by 
 thedismissal of M. Humann himself, and this was accordingly deter- 
 mined upon. M. Thiers, indeed, was disposed to a reconciliation 
 with his indiscreet colleague, and even endeavoured to negotiate it; 
 but, besides that the conduct of M. Humann towards the cabinet 
 of which he was a member really merited condemnation, it was ne- 
 cessary to sacrifice a victim to the resentment of the doctrinaires, 
 men essentially haughty and implacable. A ball given by M. de 
 Broglie just immediately after this affair, made matters still worse. 
 The friends of M. de Broglie clustered around him, whilst those of 
 M. Humann kept themselves apart, and thus inflicted an additional 
 wound upon the duke's self-love. The bitterness of feeling was thus 
 exasperated beyond the possibility of reconciliation; and, accord- 
 ingly, on the 18th of January, the day fixed for M. Giraud's ques- 
 tions to be put, a royal ordonnance replaced M. Humann by M. 
 d'Argout. 
 
 The explanations called for by M. Giraud altogether disappointed 
 public curiosity. M. Humann sought to make out his case in a very 
 embarrassed manner, and with a humility altogether equivocal. M. 
 Giraud insisted upon a clearer statement; and, at last, M. de Broglie, 
 in a fury of arrogant passion, jumped up and exclaimed: " We are 
 asked whether it is the intention of government to propose this mea- 
 sure? I answer: No! Is that clear enough?" 
 
 This was precisely what the Thiers party had been looking for. 
 In a system where the most sacred interests are never thought of by 
 the government or the legislature, except with reference to their own 
 miserable ends, where the highest questions of policy and morals 
 are only regarded by those who bring them forward as the means of 
 making and unmaking ministries, it was quite a matter of course to 
 view the reduction of interest question simply as a machine which 
 might be employed against the cabinet. The chief of the doctrinaire 
 party would not consent to such a measure; their parliamentary 
 rivals, therefore, took it up vigorously; andM. Humann had opened 
 a breach in the ministerial fortifications through which the ambitious 
 and discontented hastened to rush. 
 
 M. Thiers reckoned, amongst the parliamentary majority, a certain 
 number of partisans who loved him with all the hate with which 
 they hated MM. de Broglie and Guizot. All those who burned to 
 suppknt or mortify the doctrinaires, now rallied round M. Thiers. 
 The opportunity was favourable; the road all marked out. M.
 
 384 M. THIERS ON THE PROPOSED REDUCTION OF INTEREST. 
 
 Gouin was to take the initiative by expounding, from the tribune, 
 the advantages to result from a reduction of the interest; the subject 
 was then to be proposed for discussion, and, on a division, the 
 Tliiers party was to unite with the opposition in favour of the pro- 
 position; the cabinet of the llth of October, overthrown by the ma- 
 jority thus obtained, would give place to a ministry, selected from 
 among the conquerors, and headed by M. Thiers. Such was the 
 plan of the campaign. M. Thiers did not himself take any part in 
 it, either because he could not as yet dare altogether to break with 
 the doctrinaires, or because, more probably, he shrank from the dis- 
 honour of such treachery. He did more ; he induced several of his 
 friends, and amongst others M. Ganneron, to vote for the cabinet; 
 and, for himself, stood prepared to meet the shock of the tiers- 
 parti on this question with honourable energy. 
 
 And he did so: on the 4th of February, 1836, the contest 
 having been begun in the Chamber by an able and erudite speech 
 from M. Gouin in favour of the reduction of the interest, and M. 
 Passy having warmly supported his views, M. Thiers ascended the 
 tribune. " The measure is just," he exclaimed, " but it is harsh and 
 oppressive." And he proceeded to develop this argument in a 
 brilliant speech. His case was a bad one; for, viewing it with 
 reference entirely to its intrinsic merits, and independently of the 
 party which took it up for party purposes, the measure opposed by 
 M. Thiers was in every respect unassailable. We shall have an oppor- 
 tunity of proving this further on. And yet, never had M. Thiers 
 displayed more genuine oratorical power. But, at the same time, 
 never had he been met with more determined resistance on the part 
 of the assembly he addressed. As he was speaking he seemed to 
 feel it vibrate with anger and impatience. Successively combated 
 by M. Humann, his colleague of the previous evening, by M. Ber- 
 ryer, by M. Sauzet, by M. Dufaure, he was fain to give way. 
 On the oth of February the adjournment of the question was nega- 
 tived by a majority of two. On the rising of the house, all the 
 ministers proceeded to tender their resignations to the king. And 
 the next day the Chamber accepted these resignations by a second 
 vote, confirming that of the day before, declaring that the question 
 should be taken into consideration. 
 
 There was something very remarkable in all these proceedings. 
 Now is it possible, for instance, to suppose that M. Humann merely 
 obeyed his own personal impulses, in throwing into the Chamber and 
 into the cabinet this brand of discord, just at a time when the go- 
 vernment was beginning to work freely, and when the bourgeoisie 
 were enjoying unaccustomed tranquillity? What could have induced 
 M. Humann to take his colleagues by surprise in this way, at the im- 
 minent risk, nay, at the certainty of creating utter confusion ? The most 
 perspicuous friends of MM. de Broglie and Guizot were decidedly of 
 opinion, that the whole movement was the result of a secret impulse 
 given by the hand of an august personage. It is certain that several
 
 ILL FEELING BETWEEN THIERS AND GUIZOT. 385 
 
 habitues of the Chateau voted on this occasion against the cabinet, 
 and it is pretty well understood that negotiations took place between 
 M. de Montafivet, one of the king's most devoted adherents, and 
 M. de Malleville, a member of the Tiers-Parti. One thing, beyond 
 any manner of doubt, is that the ministers of the llth of October, 
 notwithstanding all the unhesitating services rendered by them to 
 the dynasty of Orleans, weighed terribly heavy upon the head of 
 that dynasty, who had never felt himself truly king, until the day 
 when he found it possible to make M. Guizot afraid of M. Thiers, 
 and M. Thiers of M. Guizot. 
 
 The bundle remained to be taken quite to pieces and broken up 
 for good and all. The following circumstances favoured the views 
 of the Chateau in this direction : 
 
 M. Guizot was about to lose the pecuniary advantages of office, and 
 he was not rich ; his friends were, therefore, anxious to place him in 
 some position which should raise him above all vulgar anxieties, 
 and, for this purpose, they took active measures to secure for him 
 the Presidency of the Chamber. M. Thiers, who had not been 
 taken into their confidence in the matter, when he heard of what 
 was going on was deeply offended. Why, in an affair which 
 so nearly interested him, had he been thus completely passed over? 
 The affront touched him all the more sensibly, that he had just 
 sacrificed himself for the doctrinaires, and that he should have been 
 by no means disinclined to the arm-chair now held out to rival ambi- 
 tion. 
 
 One day, as M. Guizot was with M. Thiers in his carriage, and 
 while the latter could scarcely conceal the irritation which was 
 working within: " Several of my friends," said M. Guizot, " destine 
 the Presidency of the Chamber for me, and I shall try for it." " I 
 shall not," sharply returned M. Thiers, touched to the quick by this 
 introduction of the subject; "the intimation, however, comes some- 
 what late : supposing I had entertained the idea ;" and thereupon the 
 colleagues separated, excessively dissatisfied with each other. The 
 project was abandoned; but it had created in the bosom of M. 
 Thiers a feeling of resentment, which those about him contrived to 
 fan into a flame, by working upon his vanity. It was intimated to 
 M. Thiers, and the king was not the last person to convey the 
 intimation, that public opinion held him incapable of sustaining the 
 weight of office, unaided by the able heads and firm hands of the 
 doctrinaires. Why, he was insidiously asked, why did he lose any 
 time in proving how utterly unfounded was a supposition so inju- 
 rious to his reputation, by seizing with a bold hand the unoccupied 
 reins of power? The effect of such suggestions as these upon a 
 man, confident in his destiny, greatly moved to excitement, and 
 who had hitherto lived amidst all the intoxications of flattery, may 
 be easily imagined. Moreover, it happened that, from a too com- 
 mon ignorance of the intrigues and manreuvrings at court, the oppo- 
 sition journals at this time very unintentionally assisted the secret 
 VOL. II. 2 C
 
 386 THE THIERS CABINET. 
 
 policy of the Chateau. In an article upon the ministerial crisis, 
 Armand Carrel, in reference to the future career of M. Thiers, 
 when separated from his old auxiliaries, had expressed the most 
 provoking doubts of his success. M. Thiers had been the literary col- 
 league of Armand Carrel ; he regarded him with admiration largely 
 mixed up with fear, was peculiarly sensitive to any judgment passed 
 upon him by his former ally, and his pride had often and often been 
 previously wounded by the arrows launched at him from that manly 
 hand. Driven to extremity in this way, he resolved to show the 
 world what he could do. His ambition, too, was everywhere 
 sneered' at as a futile absurdity, by M. Piscatory, M. de Broglie's 
 particular friend. On hearing this last indignity, he at once 
 made up his mind. "They defy me," he exclaimed, with pas- 
 sionate energy, " they defy me to form a cabinet ! From this 
 moment it is formed !" And he made his word good. On the 
 22nd of February, 1836, the Moniteur published ordonnances, 
 naming MM. Thiers, president of the council and minister of 
 foreign affairs ; Sauzet, keeper of the seals, and minister of 
 justice and public worship; De Montalivet, minister of the in- 
 terior ; Passy, minister of trade and public works ; Pelet de la 
 Lozere, minister of public instruction; Marshal Maison, minister 
 of war; Admiral Duperre, minister of marine; and d'Argout, 
 minister of finance. 
 
 A grand fault had been here committed, peculiarly surprising 
 on the part of a man who had adopted the famous maxim: The 
 king reigns not governs. While MM. de Broglie, Guizot, and 
 Thiers remained united, M. Mole would have sought in vain the 
 materials of a cabinet, independent of and able to stand against 
 that triumvirate. As to the Tiers- Parti it had shown the extent of 
 its strength in The Three Days' Ministry. So that, while M. Thiers 
 continued the ally of the doctrinaires, there was but one ministry 
 possible, that could be formed so as to endure. In separating from 
 his old colleagues, M. Thiers entirely changed the face of things: 
 he effectually put an end to all parliamentary discipline; he enabled 
 the king to choose amongst several cabinets equally possible, though 
 all feeble, and he placed himself quite at the mercy of royal autho- 
 rity, now all-powerful. The king might well think that his star at 
 length prevailed, when there seemed no other limit to his power 
 than his own will. And he was more than half right; with the 
 ministry of the llth of October, parliamentary government ceased to 
 exist; the personal government became then established. 
 
 And here was a proof of the entire fallacy of the publicists, who, 
 like Benjamin Constant, had rested their theories on the chimera 
 of an automaton monarch, submitting placidly to the despicable 
 part of enacting the mere show and paraded majesty, deriving, finally, 
 all power from himself, but never himself exercising it ; constantly 
 engaged in deceiving the people, as to the necessity for him and 
 his eternal idleness, and, in fact, merely occupying the highest place
 
 ARGUMENTS AGAINST LIMITED MONARCHY. 387 
 
 by himself and his descendants, in order to prevent the minds of 
 ambitious men from dwelling on too exalted hopes. How could 
 it be ever imagined, that a king would content himself with so im- 
 becile a character? Or, if he were despicable enough to be so 
 contented,*] that he would not be overwhelmed with universal 
 contempt? 
 
 Royalty should be either a force or a symbol. If, in England, it 
 needs not, for the maintenance of its existence, to act and govern 
 directly, this is, because it is there simply the head of an aristocracy, 
 which acts and governs for all; because it there represents apolitical 
 association of which, as of itself, hereditary succession is the essence; 
 because, in a word, it is there identical in nature with the ruling 
 class. But in France, as every one knows, the aristocracy has been 
 utterly destroyed ; the privileges of the middle ages have been abo- 
 lished for ever; in every direction, except that of the throne itself, 
 the transmission of political power has been put an end to, and the 
 superiority of the claims of merit over those of birth, has become the 
 constitutive principle of the ruling class. In France, therefore, 
 royalty is an exception, instead of being a symbol; it is the repre- 
 sentative of that which it has been thought expedient to destroy, 
 instead of being the expression of that which exists ; it personifies 
 the idea of repose, in the face of a bourgeoisie, which has only achieved 
 power by dint of activity ; it stands immoveable on a pedestal, around 
 which rushes, in constant agitation, fretting, fuming, excited, the 
 most restless community of Europe. As a matter of course, it is 
 necessary, in France, for royalty to be all, or it perishes ; it must 
 annihilate the elective principle, that weapon of the bourgeoisie, or 
 it will fall crushed under the ruins of overthrown hereditary suc- 
 cession. The court perfectly understood this. Hence its eagerness 
 to place the throne above all questioning ; hence the dark machina- 
 tions which we have recorded. But to sow division amongst the 
 leaders of the majority, to render the majority among themselves 
 a prey to fatal jealousies and rivalries, was not enough: the majo- 
 rity could be thoroughly subjected only by corruption, by assimi- 
 lating its position to that of a master, whom his chief slave has sent 
 utterly intoxicated to bed, that he may command in his place ; the 
 progress of this corruption is the sad picture which it remains for 
 us to set before our readers. A sad picture, indeed ! for from the 
 Chamber downwards, corruption was destined to fall, drop by drop, 
 upon every portion of society, to penetrate its innermost recesses, and 
 to reduce it to a state of degradation which has no example, but in 
 the history of the Lower Empire. 
 
 2C 2
 
 
 388 TRIAL OF FIESCHI AND HIS ACCOMPLICES. 
 
 BOOK THE FIFTH. 
 
 FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1836 TO THAT OF THE YEAR 1840. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON the 30th of January, 1836, the doors of the Palais du Luxem- 
 bourg were thrown open for another trial. The Court of Peers was 
 about to sit in judgment upon the assassin of the 28th of July, and his 
 accomplices. In the body of the court, in front of the clerks' table, 
 were displayed, among other proofs against the prisoners, a machine, 
 sustaining a number of guns in an inclined position, an extinguished 
 firebrand, a dagger, a shot belt with a quantity of bullets in it, 
 an iron gauntlet, and a blood-stained rope. The crowd assembled 
 in the galleries, looked on with a mixture of wild curiosity and 
 intense horror. 
 
 The prisoners were brought in. They were five in number, of 
 whom three more especially fixed the attention of the spectators. 
 
 The first of these was a man of under size, exceedingly impetuous 
 in his movements. His face, disfigured by recent wounds, expressed 
 at once cunning and daring. The forehead was narrow, the hair 
 short, the left corner of the mouth was raised by a scar ; his smile 
 was fawning and insidious, while his lips were full of a character 
 of impudence and grossness. He kept constantly moving about, 
 evidently for the purpose of attracting all the attention to himself; 
 insulting every now and then, some person or other amongst the 
 audience with a familiar recognition, and ostentatiously making 
 the most of his odious importance. 
 
 The second was a pallid, sickly-looking old man, but with an 
 austereness of physiognomy, a dark fire in his stern eyes, an in- 
 flexible calmness in every feature of his Roman face, which told 
 that the heart within was not sickly or weak like the frame which 
 held it. He advanced slowly to the bar, seated himself in the 
 place pointed out to him, without manifesting the slightest sign of 
 emotion ; and, with his head resting on his emaciated hand, re- 
 mained in exactly the same motionless position throughout the pro- 
 ceedings, his eye fixed, but on no apparent object, indifferent to 
 all that was passing around him, intent, as it seemed, on the con- 
 templation of the world of thought within him.
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE AFFAIR CONTINUED. 389 
 
 The third -was only remarkable for the utter abjectness, the pros- 
 tration of his despair. 
 
 Before we give an account of the proceedings, it is necessary to 
 resume our narrative of the affair itself, from the point at which we 
 left in the preceding volume. 
 
 The reader is acquainted with the details of the horrible catas- 
 trophe which, on the 28th of July, 1835, threw all Paris into con- 
 sternation. A few moments after the explosion, a girl, coming 
 from the Salpetriere Hospital, crossed the Boulevard at the 
 top of the Jardin-Turc. A mortal pallour overspread her face, 
 and with wild and haggard looks, mil of anguish, she seemed 
 to interrogate each person she passed. On arriving at No. 50, and 
 learning that in that house had the explosion taken place, she pre- 
 cipitately retraced her footsteps ; and, having merely remained in 
 the Salpetriere long enough to change her clothes, hastily quitted 
 that asylum, and ran on. She wept and trembled, incessantly 
 repeating, in a half stifled voice, " It's all over with me !" This 
 was the assassin's mistress, Nina Lassave. 
 
 In her fear and confusion, she rushed direct to the house 
 of an old harness-maker, named Morey, with whom her lover had 
 been in frequent communication. He received her with the utmost 
 kindness, did his best to reassure her, took her to a house in 
 which he thought she would be able to remain perfectly secure, 
 and, on quitting her, promised to see her again next day. He 
 accordingly returned on the following morning, accompanied by a 
 porter with a box, and it was this which led to the full discovery of 
 the whole business. This box belonged to the assassin, and had 
 been carried some hours before the perpetration of the deed, to the 
 lodgings of a journeyman stonemason known to the parties, with 
 instructions that it should be given up to no person but to Morey. 
 There was no difficulty, of course, in tracing the progress of this 
 box from one place to another, by means of the ticket porters to 
 whom it had been successfully entrusted ; and, accordingly, on the 
 3rd of August, 1835, the asylum in which Nina Lassave had been 
 placed, was entered by the police. On seeing men approach, she 
 attempted to kill herself, but the impulse of despair was frustrated 
 by the agents of government. She then drew from her bosom, 
 probably for the purpose of destroying it, a note, which on being 
 taken possession of, was found to contain these words : " You are 
 requested not again to come to see Nina ; this evening she 
 will have ceased to exist. She leaves in her chamber the thing 
 deposited in her charge. This comes of having abandoned her. 
 Adieu!" On being interrogated, she for some time refused to 
 enter into any explanations ; but she at length confessed, that it was 
 Morey who had brought the box to her lodgings, and that it was 
 to him the note was destined. 
 
 Morey cherished towards kings and kingship an implacable and
 
 390 DESCRIPTION OF THE CULPRITS. 
 
 concentrated animosity. A strong and energetic soul in a worn- 
 out body, he said little, but possessed, in a remarkable degree, 
 that command over himself and others, which one sole passion, 
 aided by an utter disregard of life, gives for good or for ill. 
 He was arrested and taken before the magistrate ; but here he 
 displayed such immovcable firmness, such entire presence of mind, 
 and replied with such coolness to the questions which were put 
 to him, that he was set at liberty. When justice, thinking she 
 had given him too easy a bargain, determined to repossess herself 
 of his person, he opened his door to her agents himself with the 
 utmost tranquillity, and as tranquilly accompanied them to the 
 prison gates. 
 
 The most important arrest, after that of Morey, was that of a 
 grocer named Pepin, a man constitutionally most feeble-minded, 
 most timid, most uncalculated, to all appearances, for a hero or an 
 assassin ; but who had somehow or other got mixed up with the distur- 
 bances of June, and had been, notwithstanding the solemn verdict of 
 acquittal which he had received, ever since under the vigilant eye 
 of the police. A search was made in his house by only three agents 
 of police ; he had managed to get out of their way and make 
 his escape. Where could he be hid ? The police were for a long 
 time unable to answer this question, and some false intelligence 
 designedly conveyed to the papers, and rapidly spread by them 
 throughout the kingdom, made it generally supposed that the fugi- 
 tive had quitted France ; when all at once, M. Gisquet received 
 information that his agents had got scent of him ; that he had 
 sought a retreat in the depths of the Forest of Cre9y, between 
 Meaux and Coulommiers ; and, accordingly, in a very short time 
 afterwards, Pepin was arrested at Magny, where he was found in 
 his shirt, concealed in a false cupboard, in a recess, sinking almost 
 out of his senses with fear. 
 
 Besides the other two men, Boireau and Bescher, common la- 
 bourers or mechanics, who figured in the trial, the police laid hands 
 on several other individuals, of whom, however, the public heard 
 nothing more in the affair. At Peronne, for instance, in the night 
 of the 30th and 31st of July, 1835, it is related that, availing him- 
 self of the moment wherein one of the town gates was opened to 
 admit a diligence, a man slipped privately into the town. He was 
 without hat, and without passport, or authenticating papers of any 
 description. On being seized and conducted before the chief officer of 
 gendarmerie, he could give no satisfactory account of himself, and 
 it being especially remarked that one of his hands, which he stu- 
 diously endeavoured to keep from observation, bore the mark of a 
 recent wound, apparently made by a rope passing through it 
 swiftly and roughly, he was forwarded to Paris, but no further in- 
 dications at all connecting him with the plot were made out. 
 
 Meantime, however, the mystery which had in the first instance
 
 FIESCHl'S HISTORY. 391 
 
 enveloped the assassin himself, gradually dissipated. He had him- 
 self given in the name and description, Girard, native of Lodeve; 
 but upon information acquired by M. Olivier Dufresne, inspector of 
 prisons, M. Lavocat was taken to see him, and at once recognised 
 him. His true name was Fieschi. 
 
 Endowed with an energy and shrewdness which, in him, merely 
 served to promote the aims of an inveterate and grovelling turpi- 
 tude ; vain in a degree which amounted well nigh to insanity, 
 this man's life had been stained with every infamy. Having under- 
 gone his sentence as a convicted thief and forger after having in 
 his earlier days fought bravely as a soldier he quitted the prison 
 at Embrun, the lover of a woman, whose daughter he afterwards 
 seduced. In him, every thing seemed monstrous, even his origin. 
 He was a native of Corsica, a land which prides itself, and justly, 
 on the high-souled race to which it gives birth ; yet never did a 
 baser scoundrel dishonour any country. For a long time after 
 leaving Embrun, he carried from one town to another his restless- 
 ness of spirit, his vices, and his poverty ; his knavery, all the while, 
 never doing more for him than to procure sustenance on his way. 
 Coming to Paris in 1830, attracted by the excitement of the 
 period, which promised him occupation, he managed, by his shrewd- 
 ness, to obtain employment in several ways, almost all of them pro- 
 ductive of more profit than honour. For instance, by means of 
 forged certificates, he got the government to extend to him the 
 favours they reserved for such political offenders as chose to give in 
 their adhesion. Prepared to be the agent of any atrocity, he offered 
 his murderous services to those who were pleased to patronise him. 
 Having sold body and soul to the police, he now mixed himself up 
 with the discontented, and, fanning the flame of revolt, threw him- 
 self in a safe position behind the barricades of insurrection, brandish- 
 ing a dagger, and declaiming with incendiary violence against the 
 government, whose slave he was; until, detected by those whom he 
 was urging on to destruction, he became useless to his employers, and, 
 being dismissed by them, was once more reduced to utter distress, 
 aggravated by the personal danger to which his treachery exposed 
 him, at the hands of those whom he had sought to betray. In this 
 position, so full of misery, of ignominy, of peril, abandoned by one 
 of the two women whom he dishonoured with an incestuous affec- 
 tion, desperate, furious, impotent for all but for crime, he now 
 meditated some terrible blow; what that blow was, and how it 
 failed to accomplish its purpose we have related. 
 
 There probably never existed such a thing as a thoroughly com- 
 plete villain : a man without some one good quality or other, and 
 accordingly Fieschi possessed one virtue : gratitude. _ M. Lavocat, 
 director of the Gobelins manufactory, had gained his esteem by 
 treating him kindly in some employment, which Fieschi had by his 
 specious manner succeeded in obtaining from him, a considerable 
 time before the commission of the crime of July. It was conceived
 
 392 DISGRACEFUL TAMPERING OF THE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 by the authorities, judging from the turn of mind manifested in all 
 that had fallen from the prisoner since his arrest, that the surest way 
 of extracting a confession from him would be to subject him to the 
 personal influence of him whom he frequently mentioned as his be- 
 nefactor. The Court of Peers had delegated the preparatory ar- 
 rangements of the trial to M. Pasquier, and the peers whom he had 
 named for that purpose, and by these M. Lavocat was requested to 
 pay a friendly visit to Fieschi, and see whether he could induce him, 
 to make the desired confession. A commission most painful and 
 objectionable, and which no man, especially in a country like France, 
 can accept without incurring the censure of public opinion, without 
 inflicting a grievous wound upon the most susceptible of human 
 instincts. 
 
 With M. Lavocat Fieschi enacted a part composed for the occa- 
 sion, the hypocrisy of which became afterwards apparent. He ex- 
 aggerated the expression of his gratitude in the most inflated, in the 
 most burlesque terms ; and, in fact, by dint of so emphatically setting 
 it forth to M. Lavocat, he conceived a notion that it might be con- 
 verted into a safeguard for himself, and, with this impression, in 
 order that the man from whom he thus looked for protection might 
 acquire with the government the necessary influence and power, he 
 gave out that it was he, in fact, who had been the preserver of the 
 king's life. " At the moment of accomplishing the fatal design," 
 said he, " I perceived my benefactor, and I became agitated; my 
 hand shook, the machine got lowered two or three inches, and missed 
 its aim." 
 
 As to the confession required from him, he at first refused to make 
 any. Then beginning with vague hints, he led his examiners into 
 a perfect maze of subterfuges and lies, of half disclosures contradicted 
 the moment after they were made. It was evident that his object 
 was to keep what secrets he had to himself, until he was offered an 
 equivalent, and the administrators of justice accordingly so grossly 
 forgot their duty as to hold out to him the prospect of a pardon, 
 which they had fully made up their minds he should never receive.* 
 Did M. Lavocat, it will be asked, contribute to encourage in him the 
 dastard hope of purchasing his life by the betrayal of his accom- 
 plices ? We think we may affirm the contrary. But certain it is, as 
 will be perceived further on, that Fieschi, up to the very last, enter- 
 tained the conviction, that even on the scaffold his head would be 
 denied to the executioner. What is also certain is, that the repre- 
 sentatives of justice were not above speculating upon the vanity of 
 this miserable wretch. He was systematically surrounded with at- 
 tentions, the dexterity of which was pretty much on a par with the 
 dishonour. In order that he might be able to send money to his 
 mistress, fee the gaolers, and, in common with Pepin and Morey, 
 
 * In page 1 13 of the Examination we read : " You are, of course, attached to your 
 family, and to life : be assured you have no other way of benefiting your children 
 and yourself than by telling the truth."
 
 FIESCHI'S EGREGIOUS VANITY. 393 
 
 improve the prison fare by some purchased articles of luxury, various 
 sums were successively given him, amounting in the whole to no less 
 than 4000 francs (160/.), which he took. great delight in disposing of 
 in a pompous and ostentatious manner. Then again how often did 
 he hear himself addressed as Monsieur and Man cher! His health was 
 daily inquired after, with a solicitude and an urbanity which perfectly 
 enchanted him ; and, on every occasion, he was given to understand, 
 and not very indirectly, that his superior intelligence was held in 
 proper estimation by those who were unhappily compelled to treat 
 him as a prisoner ! And he, as was anticipated, received all this 
 mock homage as a sort of amende honorable, offered by society thus 
 readily to the genius of the man whom it had so long refused to re- 
 cognise amongst its ornaments ! From his prison cell he persecuted 
 the highest personages in the kingdom with long letters, written in 
 a jargon entirely his own, wherein the most ludicrous and preposte- 
 rous adulation was interspersed with snatches of a grotesque erudi- 
 tion, picked up it is impossible to say where. In one of these he drew 
 a parallel between Pepin the grocer and Pepin-le-Bref ; another was a 
 regular dissertation, wherein he compared himself with SalvatorRQsa. 
 " When Talleyrand heard me," said he, " he was confused, agitat 
 for my voice recalled to him that of Napoleon, whoi^ne betrayed !" 
 Thus morbid had become the vanity, the self- adoration of this 
 wretch, the vilest, perhaps, who ever disgraced hunfcanity.* 
 
 * We have before us several autograph letters of Fieschi; ;iad if we transcribe 
 here, verbatim et literatim, one of these written by him to M. Pasquk-r, it is, in the 
 first place, because, at once so crafty and so burlesque, it affords a ^pfirfect- insight 
 into the character of the man who wrote it, and, secondly, because it prorqg. with, ^ 
 what especial attentions this ruffian was treated, attentions naturally giving him 
 ample reason to deem himself all licensed: 
 
 " A Monsieur le President Pasquier. 
 
 " Monsieur le President, Pourege laisser glice en silence la triste nouvelle que 
 j'ait apri qu'il m'a etait sucgerS par Mosieur Zangiacomi, mon digne juge d'is- 
 truction. 
 
 " Vottre delegue au pre de moi depui long temps, et que meme que 1'istruction 
 soit finie vous avait la bonte, de le prier de venir au pr de moi pour qu'il puise vous 
 doner de me nouvelle; Mosieur, conviens cet atention et grand de votre part, car je 
 suis persuade que le mine, serons pour vous, sadisfecente, je me porte a mervegle ? 
 
 " Mais le votre il sont ette pour moi desagreable ; Davoir appri que vottre santet 
 et Emparfait. 
 
 " Monsieur le President, conviens cet nouvelle ma plonge dans une profonde re- 
 verie ; conviens il at attriste mon faible coeur ; et jen fait point de difficult^, que 
 vous puisse le croire, parceque vous este en meme de juger les homme. Mais la 
 circonstance si funeste pour moi et d'autre victimes que je regret plus que ma vie, 
 qu'il a etait la cause que vous avait eu a istruire en si gros couppable comme moi. 
 Au reste vous savait que je nen suis pas flacteur, car tout flacteur est un traitre, et 
 moi cet mon coeur qui parle avecque la plus grand sincerity sans reserve. 
 
 " Monsieur le President, Cet lettre elle et ecrite san aucoun but aucoun senti- 
 ment de flaterie pour aspirer vottre protection ni eel de persone, car ma conduite 
 merite le mepri de tous le monde. 
 
 " Monsieur le President, Empossible a moi de garder mon silence, sans que je 
 puise vous dire voila l'homme. vottre aute sagesse sous totis le points et principale- 
 ment pour nen mettre jamais apperue a vottre age que le travaux legislatif vou 
 fus a charge.
 
 394 GROTESQUE LETTER. 
 
 To derive the full desired advantage from this frenzied intoxication 
 of self-conceit, it only remained now to render odious to Fieschi the 
 
 " Que le gran nombre san plagnerait jusque a dire, c'est un fardeau plus pesent 
 que le Mont Etena que moi je conais tre bien. Pour moi je vous admire et que je 
 vous ai bien ettudie dans mes enterogatoir. 
 
 " Car tout saison de la vie a ses eppine pour qui conque qu'il travaglerait, si seri- 
 eusement, depuis long temps pour la patrie car un homme en negligent ses traveaux 
 particuliers nen crain le reproche de persone. 
 
 " Mais celui qu'il est sincere a son pay neglige la famigle et ses affaire pour prouver 
 la douce sadisfactions qu'il nen neglige riens pour lui ettre utile. Monsieur le Pre- 
 sident rhomme devait sa gloire a sa patrie et non a lui-meme. Le inellieurs arme 
 de la viellesse sont le lettres et la vertu, cultive dans le cours de sa vie. 
 
 " Elle produisent a la fin des fruit bien prcieux non solement parce que elle- 
 meme sont pas abondante, pas dans 1'arriere saison. cet qu'il est deja beaucoup Mais 
 encore parce que le temoignage d'un conscience pure Et le souvenir de plaisir action 
 vertueus sont des grand sadisfaction pour L'homme. 
 
 " Monsieur le President, Quel sadisfaction determiner une vie pure et tranquille 
 par un vieglesse heureuse et douce, tel fut cele de Platon qu'il mourue a lage de quatre 
 vinct un ans ; tenant la plume a la main. Tel fut la fin de Isocrate que quatre vinct 
 14 ans composa son panathainaige, et, qu'il vecut encore cinq ans! 
 
 " Son maitre Gorgias de Leonse vecque cent 7 ans sans abandonner ses occupation 
 ordinaire. 
 
 " A repondit a quelqu un, 
 
 " Je vous voudrais vivre encore Ion temps parce que je nais pas de reproche a me 
 faire. 
 
 " E bien Monsieur le President, 
 
 " Ja madrece et je exorte au pres de lettre supreme que vous pusie terminer une 
 si belle carriere. 
 
 " La sadisfaction que j'ai prouve en voyant Monsieur Zangiacomi mat empeche 
 de dormir et je me suis leve pour vous ecrire tres presse une lettre de trois page. 
 
 " av 
 " vottre ser embreet obests ST. FDSSCHI." 
 
 To M. the President Pasquier. 
 
 " Mr. President. Could I allow to go over in silence the sad news I have had 
 hinted to me by M. Zangiacomi, my worthy friend the mareshale. 
 
 " Your delegate with me for a long while past, and who, till the trial is ready to 
 come on, you've been good enough to desire to come and see me, that he may let you 
 know how I am going on; Monsieur, you'll admit this attention is uncommon kind 
 in you, and I'm sure you'll be glad to hear I'm doing capital well in health. 
 
 " But this news I hear about you is very unpleasant; only to think you're so 
 shakey. 
 
 " Mr. President. You'll agree this news must needs have thrown me quite into 
 a regular study; my poor heart, that's regular as weak as a child's, is quite upset 
 about it, and I'm sure you'll believe me when I say so, for you're an uncommon good 
 judge of men. But the circumstance I'm so vexed about, and for the other victims 
 that I regret more than my own life, is that it's been the cause of your being bothered 
 with such a great criminal as me. Any how you know I've nothing of the flatterer 
 about me, for what I always say is a flatterer is a traitor, and for me it's my heart 
 that speaks with the greatest sincerity without any reserve. 
 
 " Mr. President, This letter's been written without any object, without any 
 notion of coming round you with flattery to get your protection nor that of any 
 body else, for my conduct merits the contempt of all the world. 
 
 " Mr. President, It's quite impossible for me to keep quiet any longer, I must and 
 will out with it, whenever I think of you, I say to myself, that's the man for my 
 money. Only to think of your wonderful wisdom in every thing you do, and prin- 
 cipally in not letting any body perceive that at your age the legislative labour was a 
 burden to you. 
 
 " Though the most of them would grumble at it everlastingly, and say, it's a 
 burden heavier than Mount Etna, which I know it very well For me, I admire you 
 and I've regular studied you while being examined.
 
 FIESCHl'S CONFESSION. 395 
 
 accomplices whom the government had seen reason to assign him. 
 Accordingly, Nina Lassave having stated that she had been told by 
 Morey, that it was he who in the night of the 27th had loaded the 
 machine, care was taken to remind Fieschi of this circumstance, 
 in connexion with the explosion which had brought him within an 
 inch of the grave. There could not be a doubt about the matter : 
 Morey had evidently charged some of the barrels in such a manner as 
 to ensure their bursting, for the purpose, as clearly, of forestalling 
 any possible treachery on the part of his accomplice, by making him 
 himself a victim at the same moment with the king and the other 
 persons destined for destruction. These insinuations had the anti- 
 cipated success: on the llth of September, 1835, the assassin made 
 a full confession. 
 
 The substance of it was : that Fieschi had invented the fatal 
 machine with views entirely strategic; that the idea of making use 
 of it to kill the king had emanated from Morey; that Pepin had 
 furnished the money for hiring the room and purchasing the materials 
 of the machine. As to Victor Boireau, who had appeared, from the 
 very outset, as intimately connected with the affair, the informer 
 denied that he had had any thing to do with it ; and as to Bescher, 
 all that he had done to commit himself in the business was the having 
 lent Fieschi, at the request of Morey, his certificate and his passport. 
 
 Such was the position of things, when, on the 30th of January, 
 1836, as we have already stated, the trial commenced. 
 
 Morey maintained throughout the precise deportment we have 
 described. There was something singularly striking in the demeanour 
 of this old man. Amongst so many persons, so variously agitated, 
 he alone exhibited no haste, or anxiety, or wonder, or fear ; he seemed 
 
 " For every season of life has its thorns for whoever works so uncommon hard for 
 such a time for his country, for a man in neglecting his own private business doesn't 
 fear the reproach of any body. 
 
 " But he that's true to his country neglects his family and his affairs to earn the 
 sweet satisfaction that he doesn't omit any thing to be useful to his[country, Mr. Pre- 
 sident, man owes his glory to lu's country, and not to himself. The best arms for 
 old age are honour and virtue, cultivated in the course of a man's life. 
 
 " They produce in the end fruits very precious, not only because they are not 
 themselves very plentiful, not even in the latter season of life, even in old age, but 
 because the testimony of a pure conscience, and the recollection of many virtuous 
 actions, are great satisfactions for man. 
 
 " Mr. President, What a satisfaction to end a pure and tranquil life with a happy, 
 quiet old age. Such was that of Plato, that he died at the age of 81 with the pen in 
 his hand. Such was the end of Isocrates, who when 94 years old composed his 
 panathainaige, and lived five years after that! 
 
 " His Master Gorgias of Leonse lived a hundred and seven years without aban- 
 doning his usual occupation. 
 
 " He said to somebody, 
 
 " I should willingly live a longtime to come, for I've no reproach to make myself. 
 
 " Well, Mr. President, 
 
 " I continually address myself to the Supreme Being, and pray Him that you may 
 end in that way your grand career. 
 
 " The satisfaction I felt in seeing M. Zangiacomi prevented me from sleeping 
 and so I got up to write you in a great hurry a letter of three pages long. I have 
 the honour to remain your obedient servant, ST. FIESCHI."
 
 396 FIESCHl'S MOUNTEBANK AIRS BEFORE THE COURT ; 
 
 utterly indifferent to all that was passing around. Silent and motion- 
 less, he only, as it were, formed a part of the assembly, during the 
 time he was undergoing his examination. He then replied to the 
 questions put to him, denying the offence charged upon him, but 
 coldly, and in as few words as possible, without any parade, or without 
 any embarrassment, and appearing in no way desirous of impressing 
 the matter upon his judges. When openly denounced by Fieschi, 
 this extraordinary impassability did not forsake him. His face 
 remained perfectly unruffled, and not even a smile of contempt was 
 detected on his lips. 
 
 Pepin, on the contrary, alternated between feverish excitement 
 and prostrate dejection. At the slightest questions he became 
 agitated, threw imploring eyes, filled with tears, over the assembly, 
 spoke piteously about his wife and four children, and stammered out 
 wild words, evidently the product of a mind disordered by fear. " I 
 am innocent! I am innocent!" he started up and exclaimed, 
 almost shriekingly, every five minutes : " I am the victim of an infernal 
 plot ! they have sworn to ruin me !" And then he would once more 
 sink back into his seat, exhausted, overwhelmed. 
 
 As to Fieschi, it is impossible to give any adequate description of 
 the bearing assumed, the part played by him on this deplorable 
 occasion. His head erect, his countenance inflated with pride, a 
 triumphant smile on his lips, his every gesture carefully studied, he 
 raised for himself, as it were, a throne on his very infamy, whence he, 
 to his own immense satisfaction, amused his judges by low buf- 
 foonery, held forth in constant harangues, wherein he set up, in the 
 most absurd manner, for an orator and a man of erudition, watching, 
 as he went on, the effect he was producing, and at each period, 
 which he thought more peculiarly happy, pausing for applause, like 
 a mountebank at a fair. And among the judges, there were found 
 some who did not deny him the applause he sought ; there were found 
 some who, at every revolting attempt at jest that quitted his lips, 
 gave an approving, an encouraging laugh. Whenever the assassin 
 rose to speak, opera glasses were directed upon him from every part 
 of the assembly, as upon a favourite actor in a play. Did he indicate 
 by a theatrical gesture that he wished to speak ? The gesture was 
 instantly seconded by eager voices: " Fieschi demands to be heard ! 
 Mr. President, Fieschi is in possession of the house !" They would 
 not lose a word of what might fall from the lips of the great man ! 
 As for him, he was perfectly beside himself with pride and delight. 
 His bloody hand, every now and then, sought in the crowd around 
 him other hands publicly to press it and found them. At intervals, 
 he exchanged with his mistress, who had been provided with a pro- 
 minent seat in the gallery opposite, signals of mutual intelligence 
 and affection. He threw himself into all sorts of burlesque attitudes, 
 by way of appearing grand, imposing. And, in fact, he was the 
 principal person present ; it was, in fact, he who managed the whole 
 affair, who encouraged or reprimanded the witnesses, who exercised
 
 ENCOURAGEMENT GIVEN TO THEM. 397 
 
 the functions of public prosecutor, who superintended the proceed- 
 ings. There was nothing which was not permitted him to do. 
 At one time, for instance, in order to give an idea of the manner in 
 which guns should be levelled at a mark, he cried out to M. Pas- 
 quier, familiarly aiming at him at the same time with his fingers, 
 as with a gun: " Now, Mr. President, we'll suppose you're a duck," 
 &c. At another time, rallying the wretched Pepin, who seemed 
 struggling with himself to bring out a confession: " Keep yourself 
 up, friend Pepin," said Fieschi, with a disgusting laugh. " Never 
 say die ; women are brought to bed, sometimes at nine months, 
 sometimes at seven. It's seven months with Pepin he'll be 
 delivered presently." With all his impudence, Fieschi did not 
 venture, even while denouncing Morey, to offer him the slightest 
 insult; but seeing the excessive timidity of Pepin, he indemnified 
 himself, and seemed to take a ferocious pleasure in it, by over- 
 whelming the wretched man with outrage and contumely. As to 
 himself, he complacently accused himself to the fullest extent ; loudly 
 insisted that he was the very greatest of criminals, and was inces- 
 santly declaring how happy he should be when the time came for 
 him to offer up his blood as an atonement for the lives of the unfor- 
 tunate persons who had fallen beneath his discharge. But the more 
 he talked about the fate that awaited him, the scaffold erecting for 
 him, and so forth, the more it was manifest, to all thinking ob- 
 servers, that in his own mind he was convinced he should be 
 spared. It was this idea which prompted him to the outrageous 
 flattery with which, on every possible occasion, he overlaid those 
 upon whom he conceived his life to depend. 
 
 In the course of the scandalous scenes illustrating this ruffian's 
 temporary triumphs, a few incidents of a different character stood 
 out in agreeable relief. Among the witnesses against Fieschi, 
 there was one whose forehead was partly covered with a silver plate. 
 When he had concluded his deposition, Fieschi cried out insolently, 
 " What would you have me say to a crack-headed fellow like this ?" 
 " Yes," returned the witness, coolly, but at the same with a look 
 which made the murderer slink back to his seat abashed. " Yes, 
 'tis true my head has been shattered, but 'twas in battle, and not 
 when engaged in assassination." 
 
 The proceedings had already occupied twelve sittings without 
 throwing much more light on the matter than had been obtained 
 ere the trial began, when the position ot one of the prisoners was 
 considerably deteriorated by an unexpected circumstance. Irritated 
 by something that had fallen from Pepin, and which seemed to 
 have been directed against himself, influenced further by the en- 
 treaties of his mother, who had been imploring him from the out- 
 set to tell all he knew, Boireau stated, on the llth of February, 
 1836, that if, as imputed to him, he had on the evening of the 27th 
 of July, ridden on horseback before Fieschi's house, in order to 
 enable that miscreant to adjust the aim of his barrels, he had done
 
 398 REMARKABLE CHANGE IN PEPIN J S DEMEANOUR. 
 
 so at the request of Pepin, who, in the first instance, was himself to 
 have done it. 
 
 This confession fell upon Pepin like a thunderbolt. And yet 
 this very circumstance, so appalling to him at the moment, operated 
 as the signal for the entire and truly astonishing change, amounting 
 to a phenomenon, which took place in him at this juncture. One 
 of his two counsels, M. Marie, calling upon him in person, imme- 
 diately after the rising of the court for the day, found him full of 
 calmness, resolution, and dignity, the very reverse of all he had 
 hitherto shown himself. " Boireau has condemned me to the scaf- 
 fold," said he ; "I might easily avenge myself upon him, but 
 no .... I will not provoke him to involve Morey, too, in the fate 
 that awaits me." From this moment, Pepin was another man. 
 His countenance assumed an expression of unaffected and touching 
 firmness ; his language became full and lucid ; a new and extended 
 horizon seemed to have opened itself to that intelligence hitherto so 
 limited. 
 
 The compassion which he had generally excited, increased. It 
 seemed clear, that if a man of Pepin's temperament had really 
 become attached in a plot such as that now under investigation, it 
 could only have been from fear or sinister impulse working upon a 
 weak mind. He was charged with having supplied the funds neces- 
 sary to the perfecting of the crime ; but who could say whether the 
 money given by him had been offered spontaneously, or had been 
 wrested from him by some terrible influence, which his pusillanimity 
 did not enable him either to overcome, to shake off, or to fly from. 
 The public had got hold of the examination of the prisoners, and 
 this document, sent forth under the authority of the President of 
 the Court of Peers, showed that Pepin had exerted every effort, 
 compatible with the natural timidity of his character, to dissuade 
 Fieschi from the contemplated crime ; that not being able to 
 destroy the machine itself, never, indeed, having seen it, he had at 
 all events destroyed the model ; that up to the very latest moment he 
 had sought to induce Fieschi to give up his intentions, by pointing 
 out to him the number of victims he would inevitably sacrifice. All 
 this was shown, even in Fieschi's own statement, in the presence of 
 Pepin. Truly there were here some extenuating circumstances ? 
 At least so thought many of the more moderate thinkers, though by 
 them, as by every body else, the atrocity of the 28th of July itself 
 was regarded with just horror. 
 
 The attorney -general, M. Martin (du Nord), had now concluded 
 his case, having sustained with much energy and ability, the full 
 charge against Fieschi, Pepin, and Morey, abandoned it in the 
 case of Bescher, and so modified it in that of Boireau, as to sub- 
 ject him to but a slight punishment. The case for the prisoners 
 then opened. 
 
 Entrusted with the defence of Fieschi, a defence utterly impos- 
 sible to make out, M. Patorni, in sheer despair, was fain to set to
 
 SPEECHES OF COUNSEL FOR THE PRISONERS. 399 
 
 work upon an argument to show, that in a community conducted 
 upon sound and intelligent principles, Fieschi's faculties would 
 have found scope for action beneficial to himself and to society, and 
 so forth. "Whereas and he was proceeding to reproach the go- 
 vernment with having been itself the means, by its unsound admi- 
 nistration, of driving Fieschi to this act of despair when he was 
 interrupted by a movement of disapprobation on the part of the 
 house. Hereupon Fieschi, true to his part, had the effrontery to 
 call his own counsel to order, an indirect compliment to the judges, 
 and the climax of his base servility. 
 
 M. Dupont, counsel for Morey, next addressed the court. After 
 having branded Fieschi on the forehead, as with a hot iron, and 
 effectively compared the empty vapouring of the informer with the 
 calm, true courage of his client, M. Dupont pointed out the num- 
 berless contradictions which pervaded the testimony of the various 
 crown witnesses, and the depositions of the principal prisoner. He 
 then applied himself to show, that Fieschi had an accomplice whose 
 name he concealed, and to whom the statement applied by him to 
 Morey actually referred ; that the latter was merely a victim selected 
 to take the place of the unknown accomplice, thus shielded by Fieschi ; 
 that, in a word, Fieschi and Nina Lassave had entered into an atro- 
 cious conspiracy for the destruction of the old man. This view of 
 the case, argued with the utmost ability, the most logical perspi- 
 cuity, produced a deep impression upon the auditory; and this im- 
 pression became still more decided, when, in a raised voice, and 
 with emphatic gestures, M. Dupont exclaimed: "Think you the 
 advocate's duty ceases when judgment is pronounced? Ay, if by 
 that judgment his client be acquitted; but if he be condemned, the 
 advocate who knows his client innocent of the guilt imputed to 
 him, has still duties to perform. For myself I will say this: if 
 Morey be condemned, there shall not a day of my life pass over, 
 wherein I do not continue my search after the real accomplice of 
 Fieschi, until that accomplice is discovered and brought to justice. 
 And you, Messieurs, after you had sent Morey to the scaffold, 
 would you not be in constant fear lest my efforts should be suc- 
 cessful; lest, one day, I should come before you, and shout forth in 
 your hall the name of him who really did that, for which you had 
 doomed to death this innocent old man?" 
 
 Not less was the sensation, when, in the course of his sj>eech 
 for Pepin, M. Marie pronounced these energetic words: " Fieschi, 
 aiming at such glory as he does, may well be satisfied with that 
 which he has attained here. You admire him, you make much of 
 him, you give him every sort of encouragement ; you've been 
 openly told of the warm interest which it is said he has raised in 
 the breasts of some of your house. It seems as though, if you 
 cannot decently pardon mm, you are determined that, at least, his 
 progress to the scaffold shall be a triumphal march ! But public 
 morality will protest against this attempted outrage upon all it holds
 
 400 FIESCHl'S HOPES OF PARDON. 
 
 sacred. Your protege will undergo, amid universal anathemas, the 
 penalty of his atrocious crime, and his name, if it pass down to pos- 
 terity, will pass down accursed, among the most accursed !" 
 
 Other counsel were then heard: for Fieschi, MM. Parquin and 
 Chaix-d'Est-Ange; for Pepin, M. Dupin, junior; for Boireau, M. 
 Paillet ; and for Bescher, M. Paul Fabre. These gentlemen 
 having completed their respective tasks, Fieschi himself rose, and 
 held forth for some time in an extraordinary harangue, wherein he 
 insisted with complacent emphasis upon the enormity of his crime; 
 the immensity of his remorse; the courage with which he would 
 meet his fate ; introducing an episode about posterity, which would 
 canvass his conduct; and, notwithstanding his extreme desire to 
 atone for his crime by offering up his own life as a sacrifice and 
 boon, concluding with some fulsome flattery of him, on whom his 
 life depended, affirming that he considered Louis Philippe fully 
 the equal of Napoleon, and admired, esteemed him quite as much. 
 
 Next day, 15th of February, 1836, the court gave its judg- 
 ment, which acquitted Bescher, and condemned Fieschi to death, as 
 a parricide; Pepin and Morey to death; and Boireau to twenty 
 years' imprisonment.* 
 
 MM. Philippe Dupin and Marie, on going to visit Pepin, after 
 sentence had been pronounced, found him in his strait-waistcoat, and 
 surrounded by gaolers, as master of himself as though he had been 
 at perfect liberty, and in the midst of his family. He talked with 
 them about the arrangement of his private affairs, with a clear- 
 headedness and a precision of language which quite astonished 
 them. 
 
 Morey 's tranquil firmness had all along been such, that his utterly 
 unmoved reception of his sentence surprised no one. A friend 
 having contrived to bring him poison, he rejected it. " No," said 
 he, "I will be guillotined; I will have my blood on their heads, 
 not on my own." 
 
 As to Fiesclii, he still retained the confident hope that his life 
 would be spared. And there was every reason why he should do 
 so. Considering the marks of extreme attention and interest which 
 were daily lavished upon him, he might well calculate that a person 
 so admired, would not be suffered to die before his time. He 
 was requested, on several occasions, to sit for his portrait; his 
 miserable jokes were treasured up ; his memoirs were an object 
 of anxious inquiry ; his autographs were a lucrative stock in 
 trade for his mistress. Even some of his judges were un- 
 
 * It ought to be recorded here, that previous to the final deliberation, M. Pas- 
 quier did not hesitate to question Boireau as to another conspiracy, unconnected 
 with that for which he was at this time under trial. So that justice did not think 
 it unbecoming to take advantage of the terror which naturally distracted the mind 
 of a young man at the so near prospect of the scaffold, for the purpose of wringing 
 from him confessions which did not at all concern the crime then under consi- 
 deration.
 
 HIS INCREDULITY WHEN TOLD HE WAS TO DIE. 401 
 
 disguisedly eager to possess a scrap of his writing, a specimen of his 
 bad orthography. Nay, more, to receive visits from the daughter of 
 his former mistress, Laurence Petit, to pass whole- hours with her, 
 to share his meals with her all this was permitted him ! 
 
 As a further illustration of the man, we may add, that there was 
 no form which his ostentatious repentance did not assume. By way 
 of climax, he wrote one day to the Archbishop of Paris, begging 
 permission to attend mass, reminding his grace that the first mass 
 was served by the Penitent Thief. 
 
 Accordingly, the surprise of Fieschi was necessarily extreme, 
 when his confessor came, and told him to prepare for death. " It's 
 impossible !" he exclaimed, and the result proved that he was perfectly 
 sincere in this exclamation. The very evening before the execution, 
 he told his counsel, M. Patorni, that government would make up a 
 little stock in trade for him, and send him off secretly to America. 
 When M. Patorni sought to prove to him that he was cherishing 
 fallacious hopes, he became uneasy, and looking at Nina Lassave, 
 who was sitting at the table, said : " At all events, Nina shall go 
 and throw herself at the feet of Madame de Trevise, who will not 
 refuse to speak to the king for me." He repeatedly stated that pro- 
 mises had been made him that his life should be spared ; and his 
 counsel having lent him some books : "I will write," said he, " ex- 
 actly what they promised me ; and, if I die, you will find what I 
 have written between the leaves of one of your books, when they are 
 returned to you." The books were returned, but there was no 
 such writing found in any one of them. 
 
 The fatal hour approached ; the scaffold had been raised during 
 the night on the Place de la Barriere St. Jacques ; all was ready ; 
 the condemned men were looked for by an anxious multitude. 
 Fieschi, in the morning, requested the Abbe Grivel to offer on his 
 part a cigar to Morey, in token of reconciliation. Morey refused the 
 cigar ; it was accepted by Pepin. 
 
 The apartment destined for the funeral preparations received at 
 the proper time the three condemned criminals. Fieschi, amidst all 
 his swaggering, was evidently much agitated ; Pepin, was resigned ; 
 Morey, indifferent and austere. While their hair was being cut, 
 Fieschi had his eyes constantly directed, Avith a deeply anxious expres- 
 sion, towards the door ; at last, he exclaimed: "But, M. Lavocat! 
 Isn't M. Lavocat coming ?" He was told that he might at once give up 
 all idea of seeing him. At this intimation, with flashing eyes, his 
 face quivering, his body agitated with a convulsive, furious, fearful 
 struggle, he cried out : " Ah ! if M. Lavocat does not come, I die 
 damned ! damned !" 
 
 Three coaches, destined to convey the criminals and their confes- 
 sors, the Abbes Grivel, Gallard, and Montes, were stationed in the 
 Cour de 1'Orangerie. As Fieschi was getting into that reserved for 
 him, Colonel de Pozac said to him : " Fieschi, put your trust in 
 God, and remember the soldier of Gaeta." Fieschi explained to his 
 
 VOL. II. 2 D
 
 402 THE EXECUTION. 
 
 confessor, that this referred to a Corsican soldier, who, at the siege of 
 Gaeta, had displayed extraordinary courage. And he himself, till 
 the last moment of his existence, manifested the greatest intrepidity. 
 While he had thought he should preserve it, he had clung to life ; 
 but now that he knew to a certainty that all hope was at an end, he 
 contemplated death unmoved. " I ought to be superstitious," said he, 
 to the Abbe Grivel, as they were rolling on towards the scaffold ; 
 " for when I was in Calabria, a gipsy told me I should die by the guil- 
 lotine, but with a contented spirit : she told me true." 
 
 At about eight o'clock, the dismal cortege arrived at the place of 
 execution. The triple rank of soldiers which guarded the access to 
 it, opened to give admission to the condemned men and those who 
 accompanied them, and then closed up again. Pepin, Morey, and 
 Fieschi, got out of their coaches. Morey, bowed down by physical 
 suffering, was supported towards the scaffold by two soldiers, to whom 
 he had said : " Assist me. The spirit is strong, but the body is 
 weak." The three men placed themselves, their hands tied behind 
 them, at the foot of the instrument of death, the priests, meantime, 
 presenting to each repeatedly a crucifix to kiss. At this awful mo- 
 ment, an agent of police came up and intimated to Pepin, that if he 
 had any statements to make, his execution would be postponed. He 
 replied with firmness that he had nothing to say. 
 
 Another moment of intense anguish passed on. Then, the crowd 
 perceived a pale, wan man, a long yellow cloak on his shoul- 
 ders, ascending the steps of the scaffold with a firm tread : it was 
 Pepin. Arrived on the platform, he exclaimed : " I die innocent, 
 I die a victim ; farewell to you all !" Then raising his eyes for a 
 moment towards Heaven, he yielded his head to the executioners. 
 
 Next came Morey. There was not the slightest change perceptible 
 on his features, not the least quiver of emotion, and he addressed no 
 observations to the crowd. The only words that passed his lips, were 
 directed to the executioners, to whom, as they were roughly pulling off 
 his upper garments, he said gently : ' ' What occasion is there to spoil 
 this waistcoat ? It may be useful to some poor man." When the old 
 man's silk cap was taken off, his white hair floated in the breeze. 
 And there was a movement, a murmur throughout the crowd at the 
 sight. 
 
 It was now Fieschi's turn to undergo the sentence of the law. 
 Accompanied by the worthy Abbe Grivel, whom he had entreated 
 * ! not to quit him till he was as near as he could be in this life to 
 eternity," he ascended the scaffold with a firm, proud step ; then 
 throwing himself into an oratorical attitude, he addressed to the mul- 
 titude a few words, bidding them farewell, and expressing his repent- 
 ance. This done, he turned to his confessor, and said in his ear : " How 
 I should like to be able, in five minutes from this time, to come and 
 tell you how I feel then." He then turned quickly round, and 
 placing himself without assistance on the fatal plank, the knife of the 
 guillotine, for the third time that day, fell, and secured its victim.
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF JULY AND ABSOLUTE MONARCHIES. 403 
 
 Two days after this, an immense crowd of people were struggling 
 and elbowing each other to try which should get nearest to the 
 doors of a cafe on the Place de la Bourse. Those who achieved 
 this important object, saw gravely seated in a comptoir, adorned 
 with rich carving, made beautiful with costly draperies, an ordi- 
 nary-looking woman, blind of one eye, and possessing, in fact, 
 no other external merit than that of youth.. It was Nina Lassave. 
 Ay, there she was, her forehead radiant, her lip quivering with 
 delight, her whole expression that of unmingled pride and pleasure 
 at the eager homage thus fixed to her celebrity ! A circumstance 
 eminently characteristic of an epoch ! Here had a creature, only 
 known to the world as a base and treacherous informer, as the 
 incestuous mistress of an assassin, been caught up for a show by a 
 speculator, as a certain source of revenue. And more remarkably 
 characteristic still, the public took it all as a perfect matter of course, 
 and amply justified the speculator in his calculations. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE revolution of July had held the world in suspense. And it was 
 a marvellous thing that awakening, once more, of the French nation ! 
 When, towards the end of the eighteenth century, she showed her- 
 self capable of making all around her tremble, all around her give 
 way, at the very time when she bore within her own soil, the seed 
 ready to burst forth of twenty civil wars ; and when afterwards, 
 though she had been meanwhile decimated by war and by the scaf- 
 fold, though her energies might well have been exhausted by the en- 
 thusiasm, the fury of the Revolution, she sufficed, with what re- 
 mained to her of fire and of blood, for all the enormous fatigue of 
 the Empire, for all its miracles, there was in these evidences of 
 power, ample subject for the world's utter astonishment. But the 
 efforts of France having been thus stupendous, when, in 1815, she 
 was seen to fall wearied, worn out, at the feet of a king brought 
 back by a million of foreign soldiers, every one looked upon her as a 
 nation which had completed its course, as a nation at an end. And 
 yet, after fifteen other years of an enervating rule, when motionless, 
 humiliated, prostrate beneath the double yoke of courtiers and of 
 priests, she seemed more than half dead, in the year 1830, had 
 this nation suddenly raised itself and stood again erect, younger than 
 ever, more full of youthful vigour, drunk with daring, with ra- 
 diant front, and able and willing once more to give proof to the 
 thunder-struck powers around, of its exhaustless strength ! 
 
 In such circumstances, a great man having the foundation of a 
 
 2 D2
 
 404 UNWISE FOREIGN POLICY OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 
 
 dynasty for his object, had but one course, as it seems to us, to 
 pursue. 
 
 Far from aiming at the annihilation of the revolutionary and 
 democratic spirit, he should have applied himself to simply 
 keeping it within due bounds by gentle and judicious guidance ; 
 and thus, instead of converting it into an obstacle, he would have 
 rendered it a stay and support. After having said to France, 
 " Liberty is impossible, unless in conjunction with peace. Let us, 
 therefore, while keeping Europe in respect, carefully avoid any thing 
 tending to alarm or provoke her," he should have then addressed 
 himself to Europe : " Render my dynasty popular by refusing no- 
 thing to my country which is her legitimate due, and make up 
 your minds to honour her in my person. For I hold the tempest in 
 my hands: compel me to send it forth, and your thrones will be 
 shaken !" In this position, commanding on the one hand France 
 by means of Europe, and on the other, Europe by means of France, 
 he might have raised himself, perhaps, in his character of moderator, 
 far above the glory of the most illustrious conquerors, and, at least 
 as far as it is possible to do so in a monarchy, have established the 
 greatness of his house in that of his country. 
 
 It was a policy precisely the reverse of all this which the royalty 
 of July, from the very outset, thought fit to pursue. In order to 
 conciliate the continental powers, it declared war to the knife 
 against the revolutionary principle, to which it owed its existence. 
 This was nothing less than to deprive itself of solid support for the 
 sake of gaining hollow patronage; to fall at once from the character 
 of moderator down to that of vassal ; to encourage in the European 
 sovereigns all sorts of unjust and injurious caprices, after having lost 
 the strength which would have enabled it to resist them ; it was, in 
 fine, as regarded the dynasty which it was sought to establish, the 
 undermining it within by unpopularity, and without by dependence ! 
 Twofold folly, involving twofold danger ! 
 
 And yet, preposterously enough, the instigators of this policy so 
 utterly remote from ability, gravely announced themselves as able 
 men. But facts will not, for any length of time, permit a people so 
 to stultify itself as to mistake the miserable calculations of selfishness 
 for indications of mental power, craft for genius. The truth is, that 
 selfishness is at the least quite as much a proof of a weak head as of 
 a cold heart. Trickery is the implement of incapacity, the poor 
 resource of mediocrity. 
 
 M. Thiers might readily have convinced himself of all this, at the 
 time of his accession to the Presidency of the Council. At this 
 period, all was silence around the throne of Louis Philippe ; there 
 were no insurrections, no outbreaks; assassination had been rendered 
 vulgar and out of the question by Fieschi ; the press scarcely respired 
 under the laws of September; France was in a state of calm, 
 amounting to stagnation. And what was the result of all this? 
 That the cabinets of St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Berlin, became
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF CRACOW. 405 
 
 twice as haughty, twice as insolent, twice as exacting as before, in 
 reference to the court of the Tuileries. So that, placed between 
 revolutionary France and monarchical Europe, the government of 
 July had only, by its base efforts to weaken the former, drawn upon 
 itself more and more the despotic insolence of the latter, and irritated 
 still more and more its imperishable hate. Let us now proceed to 
 this melancholy episode in our history. 
 
 In the address voted by the Chamber of Deputies, in the opening 
 of the year 1836, of which we are about to sketch the leading fea- 
 tures, the sympathy of France with Poland was introduced in 
 touching but cautious terms. Adopting an amendment proposed by 
 M. de Mornay, the Chamber had said, with reference to our foreign 
 relations: "This happy concord inspires us with the hope, that, 
 in combination with Great Britain, and the powers whose interests 
 are united with our own, you may be able, sire, to re-establish that 
 balance of power in Europe, so necessary to the maintenance of peace; 
 and that the first pledge of this may be the preservation of the 
 old Polish nationality, consecrated by treaties." 
 
 These words expressed, with all due moderation, the feelings and 
 wishes of the French people. They were, moreover, but a natural 
 response to a speech addressed by the Emperor Nicholas to the 
 municipality of Warsaw, a speech full of passionate arrogance, and 
 which betrayed sentiments altogether hostile to the cabinet of the 
 Tuileries. Yet the continental courts took offence, and as daring 
 now as they were the very reverse of daring in 1830, they formed 
 the determination of bearding, by a collective manifestation, both 
 Great Britain and France. 
 
 Our readers are aware how the Congress of Vienna, that congress 
 of kings, was the cradle of the Republic of Cracow. Europe 
 having become, in 1815, a prostrate prey, whose bleeding limbs were 
 being parcelled out amongst the strongest of those who remained 
 dominant, Austria and Prussia warmly disputed with each other the 
 possession of Cracow, which the one wanted for the purpose of 
 closing in Gallicia, the other for a similar purpose as to Silesia. On 
 its part the cabinet of St. Petersburg regarded the litigated city 
 with an anxious eye. It was found impossible to come to an under- 
 standing upon the matter, and so, in order that Cracow might 
 belong to nobody, it was determined that she should belong to her- 
 self. Thus exiled into a republic by the wilful selfishness and 
 jealousy of three rival monarchs, it was not long ere Cracow became, 
 by its "political institutions, its language, its religious beliefs,^ its 
 university, the sanctuary of Polish nationality. Neutral in^ 1830, 
 and in 1831, occupied, ransacked, trampled under foot by General 
 Rudiger, she had yet received within her confines and preserved the 
 last wrecks of poor crushed Poland. It was by the brutal violation 
 of her independence that the cabinets of St. Petersburg, Vienna, 
 and Berlin, resolved to insult the French government. 
 
 The project of occupation was communicated to M. de Broglie
 
 406 OCCUPATION OF CRACOW. 
 
 in the early part of the month of February, 1836. He was then on 
 the point of quitting office, and was accordingly merely in a posi- 
 tion to receive the communication, leaving his successor to reply to 
 it. But as the continental powers had fully made up their minds to 
 take no counsel but their own in the matter; without waiting for 
 any answer at all, they at once proceeded to outrage. On the 9th 
 of February, creating a pretext out of some ephemeral disturbances 
 to which the fete of the Emperor of Russia had given rise, they 
 ordered, by their presidents, the senate of Cracow to expel from 
 their territory within eight days all the refugees, Poles, and others, 
 whom they chose to describe as dangerous. Resistance would have 
 been mere madness; hesitation, even, was out of the question. M. 
 Wieloglowski, president of the senate, accordingly was fain to content 
 himself with representing, in a note of the most respectful, suppliant 
 character, that among the refugees upon whom they were about to 
 inflict so terrible and unexpected a blow, there were several highly 
 respectable men, who had for some time past been connected with 
 Cracow itself by ties of family or business. Could not these, at 
 least, have enough time allowed them for the regulation of their 
 affairs? No; the three courts were inflexible. Not an hour more than 
 the period first named was allowed, and as that period was abso- 
 lutely insufficient, on the 17th of February, the Austrian troops 
 entered Cracow, fully equipped for battle, and with,aaenace on 
 every feature. 
 
 This was an utter outrage. Never had solemn treaties been so 
 flagrantly violated in the face of the whole world. And it is to be 
 remembered, that the treaty more especially violated here, was pre- 
 cisely that upon whose inviolability Russia, Prussia, and Austria 
 rested their usurpations of 1815. For by Article VI. of the act 
 of the Congress of Vienna, Cracow was declared a free, inde- 
 pendent, strictly neutral city, under the protection of the three 
 powers; and, in order beforehand to take away any pretext for bad 
 faith, it was declared by Article IX., that no military force should 
 be introduced into the city, under any pretext whatever. True, the 
 same article set forth that Cracow was not to afford refuge or pro- 
 tection to fugitives or deserters, or to persons flying from the law, sub- 
 jects of either of the three powers ; and it was upon this clause that 
 the respectable governments in question relied, as their justification 
 for occupying by a military force, contrary to solemn treaty, a city 
 declared independent by solemn treaty! As if refugees were to 
 be confounded with malefactors ; as if the prohibition to the inha- 
 bitants of Cracow to receive among them deserters, involved the 
 right of invading their territory, such invasion being forbidden by 
 treaty in the most absolute and unequivocal terms ; as if it were 
 lawful for the Russian, Austrian, and Prussian governments to 
 extend to Italians, for instance, or to Frenchmen, their rights of 
 sovereignty and their measures of constraint ! 
 
 But when force looks to force for impunity in its outrages, what
 
 SUPINENESS OF FRANCE. 407 
 
 avail the terms of conventions and the laws of justice ? The more 
 monstrous, the more audacious the proceeding, the better did it 
 answer the end of the continental despots, which was to humiliate 
 France and England, and to make the old monarchical principle 
 once more ascendant in Europe. 
 
 The affair was thus conducted with an arrogance, an abruptness, 
 a contempt of all diplomatic usages, a disregard of the ckims of 
 unresisting weakness and misfortune, of which history furnishes but 
 few instances. The Austrian troops had been the first to pour 
 into unhappy Cracow ; these were followed by the Russians, and 
 the Russian soldiers by those of Prussia. The Cracow militia 
 was immediately dissolved, the refugees were hunted after with 
 ferocious eagerness ; several of the inhabitants were grievously ill- 
 used ; fine and imprisonment were denounced against any person 
 who should conceal a fugitive ; the hand of foreign power weighed 
 heavily upon the Cracow government, too feeble to offer any 
 resistance, and very speedily the independence of that city was 
 completely at an end. 
 
 The military occupation of Cracow took place on the 17th of 
 February ; it was on the 22nd that M. Thiers was appointed 
 minister of foreign affairs. What determination would he adopt ? 
 Would he honourably signalise his accession to his new office by 
 an act of decision and vigour ? No such an apprehension was enter- 
 tained either at St. Petersburg, or at Berlin, or at Vienna. The 
 cabinets at all these places trusted for the maintenance of peace to a 
 more potent will than that of the new minister ; and besides, M. 
 Thiers himself, for reasons which will be seen further on, began at 
 about this time to lean towards the policy of the continent, and to 
 detach himself from England. To impel him still further in this 
 direction, were the orders given to MM. de Werther, d'Appony, 
 and de Pahlen. These diplomatists accordingly intimated to him 
 in the most conciliatory manner possible, the occupation of Cracow, 
 begging him clearly to understand, that no similar communication 
 had been, or would be made to the cabinet of St. James's, it being 
 the object of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, to manifest to the French 
 government, by this difference of proceeding, how highly they 
 esteemed the moderation and wisdom which pervaded the Tuileries. 
 Thus, on the one hand, they sought to veil under a hollow affec- 
 tation of deference, the extreme insult conveyed by their late out- 
 rages, and, on the other hand, to sow the seed of distrust and 
 jealousy between M. Thiers and Lord Palmerston. The trick 
 was palpable ; but whether M. Thiers was really the dupe of it, or 
 merely feigned to be so, we cannot, of course, take upon ourselves 
 to say. Certain it is, that to the universal indignation of France, 
 he raised no protest, expressed no dissatisfaction at an act wliich his 
 countrymen rightly regarded as a deliberate attack upon the revo- 
 lutionary principle. 
 . In England the popukr feeling was equally awakened by the
 
 408 FRENCH INTERVENTION IN SPAIN PROPOSED BY 
 
 outrage, and the strongest terms were made use of in parliament 
 in questioning the Whig cabinet respecting it. But, without the 
 co-operation of France, Lord Palmerston did not consider himself 
 in a position to head the English nation in speaking the language 
 of menace; he declared, indeed from his place in the House of 
 Commons, that the entry of the Austrians, Russians, and Prussians 
 into Cracow, appeared to him a flagrant violation of treaties; but no 
 vigorous measures were taken by him to carry this declaration into 
 effect. 
 
 It was easy to foresee the result of all this. The insolent assump- 
 tion of the enemies of the July revolution soon knew no bounds. 
 In the absolutist journals, the military occupation of Cracow was 
 vaunted as a grand and conclusive answer to the declarations of the 
 English and French parliaments, as a glorious retaliation for the 
 occupation of Ancona. The German court papers seemed absolutely 
 insane on the subject; in a correspondence published in the Augs- 
 Iturg Gazette, a Prussian actually flung Rosbach in our teeth; he 
 could not surely have forgotten Jena ! 
 
 If at this juncture, France and England, closely drawing together 
 the bonds of alliance between them, had determined upon interven- 
 tion in Spain, there is no doubt that the victory just achieved by 
 continental diplomacy would have fully and efficaciously counter- 
 balanced. This was clearly seen by Lord Palmerston. 
 
 The situation of Spain had, besides, become the source of very 
 great auxiety to the cabinet of St. James's. While it looked upon 
 the cause of Don Carlos as tottering, it rather feared than desired 
 intervention on the part of France, as calculated to cramp it in its 
 proposed management of the affairs of the Peninsula. And this was 
 precisely the reason why English diplomacy assigned to France only 
 an expectant part in the famous Treaty of Quadruple Alliance, 
 respecting which we may be permitted to express an opinion, that 
 M. de Talleyrand signed it without having taken any previous trouble 
 to understand it. But the progress of the Carlist insurrection had 
 changed the whole aspect of the question in an English point of view. 
 The presence of the French south of the Pyrenees, before so incon- 
 venient, had now become extremely desirable. For it was essential, 
 above all tilings, to get rid of Don Carlos, to dry up the sanguinary 
 source of civil war; it was necessary, before England could realise 
 the benefits of exclusive guardianship, that she should first devise 
 means to achieve the guardianship itself. Now the Whig ministry 
 was quite aware that Evans's legion, consisting as it did of a col- 
 lection of plundering vagabonds of the worst description, would 
 merely serve to disgrace the English name in Spain, without in the 
 slightest degree contributing to confirm Isabella on her throne. 
 Soldiers were wanted to replace these fellows, and Lord Palmerston, 
 accordingly, turned towards the Tuileries, invoking the Treaty of 
 Quadruple Alliance, and demanding aid. 
 
 But the reason which had influenced Louis Philippe in resisting
 
 ENGLAND THE KING AND HIS MINISTERS DUPED. 409 
 
 intervention, in 1834, now appeared to him still more powerful and 
 decisive than ever; and two circumstances, frivolous in appearance, 
 served to render him perfectly intractable. 
 
 On the day on which Lord Palmerston, with impertinent levity, 
 made him wait in his antechamber, M. de Talleyrand swore im- 
 placable hatred to the Whig cabinet; a petty insult being quite suf- 
 ficient to detach this weak-minded man from that very English 
 alliance to which he had been previously so favourable, and on which 
 he had, however groundlessly, plumed himself in the eyes of Europe. 
 M. de Talleyrand accordingly resisted intervention in Spain, for the 
 sole purpose of humiliating Lord Palmerston; a piece of miserable 
 spite which admirably suited the repugnance which the king felt 
 towards the English minister. It so happened, that Lord Pal- 
 merston combined within himself all the defects regarded with most 
 antipathy by Louis Philippe : pert foppishness, self-opinionativeness 
 in the management of affairs, a taste for noise and excitement, a 
 rash, meddlesome activity. His lordship, in fact, was regarded at 
 the Tuileries as a mere firebrand mischief-maker and peace-marrer, 
 and the same opinion was entertained of him at nearly all the courts 
 of Europe, to which in one way and another he had managed to 
 make himself generally odious. 
 
 Moreover, the king had imperceptibly allowed himself to be de- 
 tached from the English alliance by the adroit flattery of M. de 
 Metternich. The old Austrian courtier had it ever on his lips that 
 Louis Philippe was the greatest man that had for a long time past 
 occupied the throne ; that his glory was in his wisdom ; his power 
 in that inflexible attachment to peace, that noble firmness of pur- 
 pose, to which monarchical Europe owed her repose. The bait was 
 so delicious, that though the trap was gross and palpable, Louis 
 Philippe fell into it. He opened a complacent ear to flatteries, all 
 the more charming to him that they came from a distance, and thus 
 seemed borne on the wings of fame ! He became intoxicated with 
 the hope of at length taking rank among potentates who had 
 hitherto affected to look down upon the princes of the house of 
 Orleans as mere political mischief-makers, mere kings of the kennel, 
 proteges of the populace. He believed every word that was told him 
 about his sagacity, his wisdom, his genius, by men who found it 
 useful to draw him over to their policy : and yet, a thing worthy of 
 remark, this very king so easily gulled, piqued himself above all 
 things upon his knowledge of human nature, and was ever ready at 
 other times to suspect deceit and chicanery in all men and things. 
 
 M. Thiers was cajoled in just the same way. Scarcely entered 
 upon his office as minister for foreign affairs, he found himself 
 the object of attentions most kind and familiar on the part of 
 great personages. His plebeian ambition was elated in the nighest 
 degree at seeing, as he thought, the aristocracy of Europe placing 
 itself, as it were, under his protection, whereas, in reality, it was 
 merely making a tool of him. It had done just the same thing
 
 410 THIERS REFUSES TO INTERFERE IN SPAIN. 
 
 to M. de Talleyrand, creating for him a factitious reputation, 
 which has operated as one of our greatest misfortunes. M. Thiers 
 was rewarded with encomiums and encouragement: how glorious 
 for him if through him, a minister still so young, the repose of 
 Europe should be assured ! How original, how striking the part 
 to be played in the sight of the world by a man who, himself 
 the offspring of tempests, should make use of his well-earned 
 exaltation to appease those tempests, now and for all time ! In- 
 stances, doubtless there were, of ripened age having immor- 
 talised itself by acts of daring; but how much nobler, how much 
 more imposing the aspect of youth immortalising itself by the 
 exercise of prudence, the result, not of fear, but of sound judg- 
 ment! 
 
 M. Thiers, without admitting the fact even to himself, was under 
 the full influence of these charming delusions, so adroitly adminis- 
 tered, when, in the name of the Quadruple Alliance, Lord Pal- 
 merston formally invited France to co-operate with England for 
 the welfare and safety of Spain, by occupying the port of Passage, 
 Fuentarabia, and the valley of Bastan. 
 
 The embarrassment of M. Thiers at this demand must have been 
 immense. On the one hand, the proposition itself had ever been 
 the object of his most cherished hopes, had ever formed the basis of 
 his policy. But, 011 the other hand, to intervene in Spain, even 
 only to the extent required, would not this involve an entire seve- 
 rance from the policy of the continent? And if so, was it worth 
 while to sacrifice to Lord Palmerston the honoured friendship of 
 M. de Metternich ? Intervene in Spain ! What would the bou- 
 doir diplomatists, whose approbation had become so dear to M. 
 Thiers, think of such a proposition? What would the king think 
 of it? What would M. de Talleyrand think of it he who was 
 now the most determined enemy of English alliance? It was 
 clear to M. Thiers, that no member of the council but himself and 
 M. Passy would hear of such a thing; and, making up his mind 
 accordingly, he, on the 18th of March, addressed to General Se- 
 bastiani, who had succeeded M. de Talleyrand at London as am- 
 bassador, a despatch, whereby the demand of intervention was 
 rejected. 
 
 The despatch set forth that a co-operation of the nature pointed 
 out, would inevitably involve France in further and more decisive 
 steps; that intervention, and the immense sacrifices which would 
 necessarily attend it, appeared to France equally without tangible 
 object and without dignity; unless there were, which there was 
 not, some reasonable expectation of thereby pacifying Spain, and 
 the various parties by which she was torn in pieces ; that even if the 
 idea of intervention or co-operation had seemed practicable at a 
 former period, the case was no longer the same, now that increasing 
 anarchy and scenes of horror incessantly recurring, had thrown 
 every thing in Spain back into its original confusion.
 
 TRIUMPH OF CONTINENTAL DIPLOMACY. 41 1 
 
 "Whether or not he had expected a refusal, Lord Palmerston 
 could not help being extremely angry when it actually came ; and 
 from that day, the alliance between the cabinet of the Tuileries and 
 that of St. James's, if not absolutely broken up, was very seriously 
 impaired. 
 
 On the other hand, M. de Metternich and his now perfectly re- 
 assured associates were triumphant, and a series of pacific measures 
 were, thereupon, graciously conceded. In the first place, the Augs- 
 burg Gazette, which had not long before grossly insulted France 
 in letters from a Prussian correspondent, printed towards the end of 
 March a letter from an Austrian correspondent, making the most 
 friendly, the most coaxing advances to the French government ; next, 
 the Austrian Observer of the 19th of April published a proclama- 
 tion, in which General KaufFmann announced the early departure 
 from Cracow of a major part of the troops then occupying it; the 
 Austrian army itself was reduced to proportions, which placed it 
 once more upon the same footing as before 1830; finally, the 
 cabinet of St. Petersburg seemed disposed to give a proof of its 
 moderation ; and, accordingly, the Journal de Paris of the 22nd of 
 April, announced the reduction of the Turkish debt, and the eva- 
 cuation of Silistria by the Russians. 
 
 This was more than enough to revive in the court of the Tuileries 
 a hope, which it had never had the courage altogether to abandon. 
 After the service it had just rendered to continental policy, it 
 felt itself entitled to demand a place in the family of sovereigns; 
 and the July royalty hereupon became entirely absorbed in plans 
 how to realise this romantic and blissful vision, its thought by day, 
 its dream by night. 
 
 The Due d'Orleans, the king's eldest son, was young, well made, 
 with agreeable parts, a regular face, and features pleasing, though 
 inexpressive. Destined, according to appearances which human 
 pride never condescends to imagine may be fallacious, to wear one 
 day the most brilliant crown in the world, he had early been in a 
 position to command all the enjoyments that are to be found in that 
 elegant but empty grandeur, that frivolous eclat, which has ever 
 such magic influence over the hearts of women. The pleasures and 
 the poetry of single life having become exhausted for him, he had 
 begun to think of some marriage whose splendour should compen- 
 sate for any dull restraint in which it might involve him ; and his 
 wishes became directed towards an archduchess of Austria. Nothing 
 
 could be more gratifying than this desire to the royal family, who 
 
 * p i * i_ i- * i 
 
 were eager to get into favour and connexion with monarchical 
 
 Europe. But was not the idea too audacious, even as a hope? 
 And should they risk the humiliation of a refusal? M. Thiers had 
 too much sagacity to give himself altogether up to illusions; he 
 was, at all events, alive to those of other people. In the present 
 case, he anticipated an answer full of haughty disdain, and he felt 
 it to be his duty not to shut his eyes to this impression. Had he
 
 412 JOURNEY OF THE DUKES OF ORLEANS AND 
 
 possessed the moral courage, the elevated soul, which ought so par- 
 ticularly to characterise those who fill the important office which he 
 then administered, he would have given the royal family the only 
 counsel which ought to have been acted upon ; he would have repre- 
 sented to it, that to seek counter-revolutionary Alliances, was a gra- 
 tuitous degradation of itself; that, after such a revolution as that of 
 July, and in a country like France, monarchy had nothing to do 
 with, nothing in common with, nothing it could borrow from, the old 
 Gothic monarchies ; that it could only exist, if at all, on the condi- 
 tion of sufficing to and for itself; that a Frenchwoman, the daughter 
 of some considerable citizen, was quite as good, and better, for a 
 French prince, than a princess of foreign, of hostile blood; that 
 Rome ruled the nations of the world, because it deemed the least 
 of its citizens superior in nobility to the greatest kings; that Na- 
 poleon, in running, under the influence of a trumpery, upstart 
 vanity, after the alliance of the Germanic Caesars, in the eyes of the 
 world morally abdicated his throne, and actually prepared the way 
 for his downfall: this was what M. Thiers either did not understand, 
 or did not venture to say. He contented himself with pointing out 
 that there was no occasion for haste in the matter ; that new families 
 should marry late, so as not to lose by precipitation what good luck 
 might otherwise offer; that, at all events, it was desirable to select 
 some petty princess of Germany, provided only she had royal 
 blood in her veins. The objections advanced by M. Thiers did not 
 go beyond this; and the court found no difficulty in getting the 
 better of his resistance. Whether from management or from con- 
 viction, the king, in the presence of his minister, had hitherto but 
 half seconded the ambitious desires of the Due d'Orleans, and a slight 
 coolness had consequently sprung up between father and son. One 
 day, taking M. Thiers aside, Madame Adelaide urged him to put an 
 end to hesitations, which she said threw discord, to some extent, into 
 the family; and M. Thiers gave way. At bottom, he was by no 
 means sorry to mark his accession to his new office by a notable 
 event; and, moreover, how could he be otherwise than infinitely 
 flattered at the homage paid to his importance, by those who consti- 
 tuted him, a man of obscure origin, the introducer of the house of 
 Orleans into the family of the old sovereigns ? 
 
 Resolutely forming his determination, therefore, he contrived a 
 private interview with MM. de Werther and d'Appony, ambas- 
 sadors of Prussia and Austria, spoke to them about an excursion into 
 Germany, projected by the Due d'Orleans, requested them to obtain 
 the sanction of their respective courts, and recommended them to 
 keep the thing a secret for the present. 
 
 It is always the interest of an ambassador to promote mutual good- 
 will and intimacy between the power which he represents and that 
 to which he is accredited : MM. de Werther and d'Appony received 
 the communication of M. Thiers most favourably. Special messen- 
 gers were immediately placed at their disposal, and answers contain-
 
 NEMOURS TO BERLIN AND VIENNA. 413 
 
 ing all that could be desired were speedily received from the two 
 courts. The surprise, the anger, of the Russian ambassador on dis- 
 covering what had taken place, without any reference to him, may 
 readily be imagined. But M. Thiers, who was intimately acquainted 
 with the Count de Pahlen, undertook to soothe him, and found no 
 difficulty in doing so. Thus far all had succeeded perfectly. The 
 Due d'Orleans was in an ecstasy of joy ; the Due de Nemours, his 
 brother, was chosen to accompany him, and the king, laying aside 
 his economical habits on an occasion affecting his dynastic interests, 
 placed at the disposal of his sons as much gold as they needed, to 
 enable them to make a princely figure. 
 
 At the same time, M. Thiers wrote to M. de St. Aulaire a letter 
 which had all the importance of a despatch, without having the 
 character of one ; and which was only to be read to M. de Metter- 
 nich in case of necessity. It was not desired, in fact, that this family 
 affair should resemble a cabinet affair; and it had been arrange'd 
 that the Due d'Orleans should himself personally conduct the nego- 
 tiation up to a certain point, the French ambassador being called 
 upon to give officially his crowning aid only when success became 
 probable. In his letter M. Thiers had not failed to marshal forth in 
 imposing array the various advantages held out to Austria in the 
 august friendship of France. A conviction very difficult to impress 
 upon a court where such a subject naturally awakened deeply pain- 
 ful recollections ! For when Maria Louisa became the bride of the 
 all-conquering emperor of the French, was it not as a pledge of the 
 protection accorded to Austria by a resistless soldier of fortune? And, 
 going still further back, was it not from the heart of Germany that 
 the fair and imprudent daughter of Maria Theresa came to measure 
 the distance which, in France, separates the throne from the scaffold, 
 came, poor thing, so soon to be the victim of a revolution, inevitable 
 and powerful as destiny, and as terrible as pitiless? 
 
 The reception which the Dukes of Orleans and Nemours met with 
 at Berlin was extremely gracious, and in its graciousness more sin- 
 cere than it was generally believed to be throughout Europe. The 
 King of Prussia was a moderate-minded man, who, to the childish 
 pleasure of affronting France, preferred the solid advantages which 
 might be derived from his attaching her to his interests, by a calm 
 and conciliatory course ; and although formerly engaged in a war of 
 extermination against us, he did not share, with reference to the 
 French government, either the fierce and haughty resentment of the 
 Emperor of Russia, or the systematic distrusf of the old Austrian 
 diplomacy. He accordingly offered to the two French princes, a 
 right royal welcome; and this was quite sufficient at once to bring 
 around them the whole troop of courtiers, a base tribe, ever ready 
 to cry aye or no, at the least whisper from the monarch, in whose 
 shadow they live. 
 
 It was the aim of the princes to surround themselves with an air 
 of splendour, enhancing the most assiduous courteousness of de-
 
 .ft 
 
 414 THE HAND OF AN AUSTRIAN PRINCESS REFUSED TO TH2 
 
 meanour, by the charms of a well-directed profusion. On the otKf 
 hand, for those Germans who had, in visits beyond the Rhiae, 
 caught the heroic contagion of modern ideas, for those who ware 
 agitated by a vague desire for liberty, there was something very 
 exciting in the arrival among them of two princes who, in despite 
 of themselves, bore about with them the living image of a revolu- 
 tion, of which, though they might have abjured its policy, they 
 were forced, after all, to parade the colours. 
 
 From Berlin they proceeded to Vienna. Here, too, they met 
 with a reception calcukted to encourage their secret hopes ; here, 
 too, the crowd manifested, whenever they showed themselves, a sort 
 of passionate curiosity. It is related, that in reference to this cir- 
 cumstance, M. de Metternich went the length of saying: " You 
 have ruffian revolutionists in Paris; those we have here are merely 
 simpletons." 
 
 The Due de Nemours was not a man to make himself liked, for 
 his deportment was excessively stiff and supercilious. But his bro- 
 ther was charming. Ere he had been long at Vienna, the ladies 
 talked of nothing but the amiability and good looks of the Due 
 d'Orleans; and the incense of this drawing-room popularity readily 
 got into his head, and intoxicated him. The Princess Theresa, 
 daughter of the Archduke Charles, had pleased him ; he insinuated 
 himself into the good graces of the father, into the friendship of the 
 son; and when matters seemed in a fair way for success, he, without 
 further hesitation, made a proposal, which the archduke seemed 
 not indisposed to accept. But other approbation than his had to be 
 consulted. Instantly on hearing what was going on, M. de St. 
 Aulaire hastened to the Austrian minister, and repeating what he 
 had just learned, showed him M. Thiers' letter. M. de Metternich 
 listened very attentively, and with apparent interest, to all that M. 
 de St. Aulaire urged upon the subject, and then calmly replied, that 
 it was entirely matter which the family must decide upon. This 
 seemed very like the commencement of a refusal; to wan-ant a re- 
 fusal objections were not wanting. Would it be worthy of the 
 illustrious house of Austria to accord the distinction and benefit of 
 its connexion to a sovereign of date so recent, and who had well 
 nigh lost his original titles of nobility amongst the barricades ? What 
 would the Austrian aristocracy, the haughtiest, the most sensitive 
 of the aristocracies of Europe, think of such a misalliance? It is said 
 that, more especially on the part of the Archduchess Sophia, the 
 opposition was vehement, and the negotiation ultimately failed. 
 " It is quite out of the question for an Austrian princess to be sub- 
 jected to ride within a carriage, which, the chances are, will be 
 pierced with bullets on its way !" Such was the pretext under which 
 was veiled the insult now offered to the house of Orleans. 
 
 Surprised, humiliated, eager to heal the wound thus inflicted on 
 his pride, the eldest son of Louis Philippe immediately set out for 
 the courts of Italy, where he hoped for better fortune. It so hap-
 
 DUC D'ORLEANS HIS MEETING WITH MARIA LOUISA. 415 
 
 pened that at this very moment, Maria Louisa was approaching 
 Vienna by the same road which carried the Due d'Orleans from 
 that capital. A meeting necessarily took place, and the nature of 
 such a meeting may be easily imagined. In a prince radiant with 
 youth, in a prince but newly come from the banks of the Seine, it 
 was natural that, despite all her wrongs as wife and as widow, the 
 mother of the Due de Reichstadt, should have called up before her, 
 through the dark clouds of memory, the image of a beloved and 
 departed son. The youth whom she now saw, was posting over 
 Europe in search of heirs for a throne which, in reality, Napoleon, 
 when he fell, left for ever vacant ; the other slept the sleep of eternity 
 in the dark vault, into which the Empire had gone down with him. 
 At sight of the Due d'Orleans, Maria Louisa was deeply affected : she 
 essayed to speak, but her tongue refused its office, until a passion of 
 tears had relieved her. There was an omen in this meeting ! Six 
 years afterwards, a funeral cortege, truly mournful, passed along the 
 way leading from Paris to Dreux, a small town where the Orleans 
 family lie in death. A young prince had shattered his skull 
 against a road-side pavement, leaving a doubtful crown suspended 
 over the head of an infant. 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 THE Due d'Orleans and his brother had arranged to prolong 
 their stay abroad, when they were recalled to Paris by bad news 
 from that capital. 
 
 On the 25th of June, 1836, at half-past six in the evening, just 
 as the king had quitted the Tuileries, on his way to Neuilly, there 
 was a terrible commotion at the corner of the Pont Royal. A walk- 
 ing-stick gun had just been discharged into the royal carriage, at 
 the moment when his majesty was bending forward to return the 
 salute of the guard. A rapid movement of the head saved the 
 king's life, but the wadding lodged in his hair. The assassin was 
 instantly seized, and a poignard having been wrenched from him, 
 with which he was attempting to stab himself, he was taken to the 
 next military post, amidst general execrations. 
 
 By a singular contradiction, the young man who had dishonoured 
 himself by this odious attempt, had something extremely gentle and 
 prepossessing about his whole appearance; his face, shaded by a 
 quantity of dark, flowing hair, was soft in expression, and of re- 
 gular beauty; his blue eyes were full of tenderness, and his physiog- 
 nomy exhibited a remarkable combination of melancholy, of fe- 
 minine graces, and of proud determination. He was assailed, as he
 
 416 ALIBAUD'S ATTEMPT ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 went on, with reprobation and invective, but he did not heed it; 
 his countenance manifested but one feeling, that of having 'exhausted, 
 in a vain effort, the concentrated powers of his soul's passion ; his 
 demeanour was firm but unassuming; at times, a smile of grave 
 contempt passed over his lips at the furious denunciations hurled at 
 him, but he was otherwise unmoved. One of his guards having 
 committed the outrage of tearing a quantity of hair from his bald 
 head: " There's courage for you," said he, with bitter scorn, "you 
 are a brave fellow !" The person who first ran in upon him after 
 the attempt, was a gunsmith, named Devisme. " I know him," ex- 
 claimed this man, in an agitated voice; " his name is Louis Alibaud. 
 It was I who sold him the Aveapon he has just made use of. Wretch! 
 
 was it for this abominable purpose then ! " Alibaud gently 
 
 and civilly requested him to be silent. A colonel having exclaimed, 
 " Monster, I would have given you bread had you asked for it!" 
 his eyes glared fiercely, and he replied: " Bread ! I do not beg for 
 it, I seek to earn it, and he who prevents me from gaining it, I kill 
 him." Taken subsequently to the Conciergerie, he was placed in 
 the cell formerly occupied by Fieschi, and those who accompanied 
 him remarked, that he ran over Avith contemptuous indifference the 
 inscriptions which the vanity of his predecessor had scrawled upon 
 the walls. At a later period, it became perfectly clear that as to 
 Alibaiad, no desire for notoriety had operated upon him. Within 
 himself, sad and resigned, with reference to others, firm, inflexible, 
 but without the least tendency towards insolence or assumption, he 
 sought not to defend himself in any way ; all he asked was to die as 
 soon as possible. 
 
 He had, in truth, endured much suffering; but true to his repub- 
 lican creed, he had not deemed himself warranted in withdrawing 
 from life merely for the purpose of avoiding mental or physical 
 pain ; it was solely in the hope, the insensate, the deplorable hope, 
 of rendering his suicide useful to the nation, to the world, by pre- 
 facing it with the murder of a king, that he had quitted Perpignan. 
 It is related, that on the eve of departure, he, in the course of a quar- 
 rel, publicly received a blow. The friends, who knew him to be 
 endowed with extraordinary courage, saw him to their utter sur- 
 prise receive this insult in silence. His assailant equally astonished 
 at his conduct, and generously anxious lest his character might re- 
 ceive a stigma, besought him to vindicate his honour. " If you 
 would have me beg your pardon," replied Alibaud, with mournful 
 calmness, " I will do so. But as to fighting, I have something else 
 before me !" A few days after this he reached Paris. Here he 
 lived several months, the prey of unutterable anguish, pursued, 
 beset, by his fatal design, watching that enemy of his thought whom 
 he had vowed to himself to immolate; and meanwhile, poor, humi- 
 liated, scarcely able to procure food from day to day, and even 
 treated as a government spy by several honourable citizens, whom 
 the hints he daringly threw out to them rendered at once suspicious
 
 LOUIS PHILIPPE HIS TRIAL. 417 
 
 and indignant. Such was his utter poverty that in order to procure 
 the instrument of his contemplated crime, he was compelled to offer 
 his services to a gunsmith, who at length gave him some walking- 
 stick guns to dispose of. A fortnight afterwards, Alibaud sent them 
 all back, with the exception of one, which he pretended to have 
 lost, and said he would pay for as soon as he could. Yet his prin- 
 ciple of honour was most delicate; he had, in this same fortnight, 
 obtained a humble employment, and lost it almost immediately after- 
 wards, because he had refused, in some matter that arose, to asso- 
 ciate his name with a falsehood. His disgust for mankind and for 
 life itself was hereby aggravated. The rest has been told. 
 
 Ministers hastened to remove from public observation a man 
 whom they saw they could make no use of. On the very day of the 
 attempt, the Chamber of Peers had constituted itself a court of 
 justice for the trial of the case, and no delay took place in pro- 
 ceeding with the matter. Alibaud answered the various questions 
 that were put to him firmly, energetically, but with perfect respect. 
 He had, in the outset, declared: " The head of the conspiracy is my 
 head; the accomplices are my arms;" and throughout the business 
 he did not utter a word which was not entirely consistent with this 
 statement. By the most careful reserves, he guarded from suspicion 
 every person with whom he had at any time been, however slightly, 
 connected or acquainted. For himself he was perfectly inaccessible 
 to remorse or regret. Yet there was one bnef period when his 
 firmness abandoned him. Having been led to speak of his family, 
 the unhappy man was all at once overcome with agitation, the 
 nascent words expired on his lips, his countenance fell, and he burst 
 into tears. The following extract from the trial (proceedings of the 
 27th of June, 1836), will describe the scene: 
 
 M. Pasquier. " Having failed in your efforts, what did you 
 next?" 
 
 Alibaud. "My family proceeded to Perpignan, where they now 
 reside." 
 
 (Here the interrogatories were suspended for some minutes by the 
 tears and sobs of the accused.) 
 
 M. Pasquier. " The affliction you exhibit would seem to be 
 the result of good feeling. What is it that causes so deep an emo- 
 tion?" 
 
 Alibaud." Nature." 
 
 M. Pasquier. " Is it not also the thought of the injury you 
 have done your relations, and of the anguish your conduct has 
 caused them?" 
 
 Alibaud. " Yes." 
 
 M. Pasquier. " Well, then, should not these feelings induce you 
 to extenuate by the sincerity of your confession the horror which 
 your crime everywhere inspires?" 
 
 Ah" baud. "It is the king who is the author of my crime; 
 
 VOL. II. 2 E
 
 418 ALIBAUD'S TRIAL UNWORTHY ARTS 
 
 it is he who made me an assassin, it is he who is the source of my 
 father's misfortune and misery." 
 
 We have mentioned that Alibaud had formed the determination 
 not to offer any defence whatever, and he adhered to this resolution 
 so long as he thought he had nothing but the executioner to fear. 
 But he soon discovered that his prosecutors were seeking to impute 
 to him dishonourable acts which he had never committed, unworthy 
 propensities of which he was wholly unconscious; that, in short, 
 whether merely to blacken the regicide's character, or from a mi- 
 serable adulation of the monarch, endeavouring to make out a 
 case that no one but an utter wretch could seek his life, the autho- 
 rities aimed at first loading with opprobrium the head which they 
 designed to cut off. Some passages in the bill of indictment ran 
 thus: " Human institutions have influence only over the future; it is 
 rarely they can retroact upon the past. It is quite possible then to 
 meet with one of those peculiar organisations, which, by a species 
 of anomaly, combine within themselves all the conditions neces- 
 sary to a crime, of which the cause now no longer exists ; the fac- 
 tious views of a demagogue with the vicious inclinations of a base 
 and wicked minded man ; want and idleness, with the desire to have 
 money, but not the industry to earn it by honest exertion; igno- 
 rance and vanity, an immoderate grasping after ends, but without 
 either the ability or the wish to attain them patiently by creditable 
 means." Moreover, M. le Comte Bastard, in the report which he 
 had been charged with the drawing up of, represented Alibaud as 
 having been discharged for misconduct by the tradesman who had 
 employed him : an imputation notoriously false, and which con- 
 verted an honourable sacrifice, made at the dictate of conscience, 
 into a merited punishment. 
 
 In his natural resentment at these accusations, which manifested 
 an intention of throwing a stigma, if possible, over his whole life, 
 Alibaud accepted the judicial contest which he had in the first in- 
 stance wished to avoid. He selected an advocate, and prepared for 
 his use a sketch of his past career, with such of its particular fea- 
 tures as presented points for the defence. In this narrative there 
 was no trace of a desire to shine forth a hero, no outbursts of 
 angry passion. The writer even omitted several incidents which 
 he might have introduced with high honour to himself, and which 
 would have remained unknown to the public, had they not come 
 out in the course of the trial. 
 
 The first sitting was held on the 8th of July, 1836. Alibaud 
 appeared before his judges in an attitude alike exempt from 
 weakness and from assumption. A shade of sadness was on his 
 brow, but it was none the less obvious that he preserved entire 
 the fierce, inexorable faith which had rendered him, in thought, 
 in word, and in attempt, a murderer. The president having asked 
 him how long since he had entertained his deplorable design, he
 
 OF HIS PROSECUTORS. 419 
 
 replied: " Since the king declared Paris in a state of siege, since 
 he sought to govern instead of reigning: since he caused the 
 citizens to be massacred in the streets of Lyons and in the Cloitre 
 St. Mery. His reign is a reign of blood, an ever infamous reign. 
 And that's why I would kill the king." Such was the dark fan- 
 aticism of the man, such his indomitable resolution. The evi- 
 dence began; and its course showed that, to a political fervour 
 amounting to the furious, the frenzied, Alibaud joined an ex- 
 treme gentleness of manner and disposition, exquisite sensibility, 
 an all-daring love of truth and honesty, and that impulsive 
 energy which renders a man regardless of his own life when 
 he can serve others. While yet a mere child, without an idea 
 of swimming, he threw himself into the water to rescue another 
 child of his own age, and both nearly perished; at the age of seven- 
 teen, at Narbonne, he saved a girl whp was sinking for the last 
 time beneath the devouring waves, and brought her on shore amid 
 the acclamations of a large crowd of anxious spectators; when a 
 non-commissioned officer at Strasburg, he exposed himself to, and 
 underwent, a severe military punishment, by throwing himself re- 
 gardless of all personal consequences into the midst of a struggle in 
 which some of his comrades had involved themselves with superior 
 numbers. These facts were borne testimony to by several wit- 
 nesses, some of whom did not hesitate boldly and openly to avow 
 the friendship in which they still held him. On hearing the in- 
 sinuations directed by one of the prosecuting counsel against the pri- 
 soner's private conduct, one of his old military comrades impetuously 
 denounced them as calumnies; and when the assembly manifested 
 various excitement at this expression of fearless conviction : "Yes, 
 gentlemen," the witness energetically proceeded, " I swear that 
 Alibaud has been calumniated, and no power on earth shall make 
 me say any thing to the contrary." 
 
 Only one day was occupied in the hearing of evidence, for the 
 prisoner had not been allowed time to summon all those whom he 
 wished to call in his behalf, the Council of Peers having, notwith- 
 standing the emphatic protest of his counsel, arbitrarily shortened 
 the period which the law gave him for preparing his case. 
 
 It was in the sitting of the 9th of July, that M. Martin (du Nord) 
 made his speech against the prisoner. He pointed out in able 
 and energetic language, how savage and senseless a thing political 
 assassination is ; but he forgot the grave importance of his mission, 
 and the respect due to truth, when he exclaimed : " Consult the docu- 
 ments before you, and you will find this Alibaud to be a man who, 
 swayed by the most vicious inclinations, plunged into misery by his 
 idleness and self-conceit, cursed an existence which had become to 
 him only a burden and a disgrace." The documents to which the 
 attorney-general appealed, showed the precise contrary of all this. 
 
 M. Charles Ledru could necessarily do nothing more than im- 
 plore the clemency of the judges in behalf of his unhappy client, 
 
 2 2
 
 420 SPEECHES OF M. LEDRU AND OF ALIBAUD. 
 
 and this he did in eloquent and touching language. He impres- 
 sively urged upon them that, with the exception of the points 
 wherein he was misled by political fanaticism, the prisoner was 
 proved upon clear evidence to be a man of noble sentiments, of 
 pure and virtuous tendencies. " Gentlemen !" exclaimed the advo- 
 cate, in closing his address, " I entreat you to honour yourselves by 
 an act of clemency. The prisoner, indeed, solicits it not, he rejects 
 it ; but heed him not ; manifest your high-mindedness by extend- 
 ing your pardon to the unthinking man. You must, after all you 
 have heard, feel with me, that he ought not to perish. You will 
 not doom that noble head to fall, even amid the apprehensions 
 which the firm bearing of Alibaud may for the time have inspired 
 you with. But one word more : last night, in the agitation where- 
 with this terrible affair has filled my soul, unknowing how best to 
 address you on behalf of this man, perceiving nought but an abyss 
 before me, I cast my eyes upon a book ; I took it down and opened 
 it ; it was Corneille, and therein I read these words, addressed by 
 Augustus to Cinna, whom he had loaded with favours, and whom 
 he now found conspiring against him: 
 
 " ' Tu veux m'assassiner demain au capitole 
 Pendant lo sacrifice; et ta main, pour signal, 
 Me doit, au lieu d'encens, donner le coup fatal.' 
 
 " Augustus, the destined victim and the judge, was merciful 
 
 From that time forth, no murderer's poi^nard ever sought his 
 heart." 
 
 M. Charles Ledra had scarcely completed the last sentence of his 
 defence when Alibaud rose. 
 
 He began thus: " Gentlemen, I have never entertained the idea 
 of defending my head. Having forfeited it to the law, I offered it 
 freely and honestly to the law, in the expectation that you would 
 have contented yourselves with taking it in the same spirit wherein 
 it was offered. A conspirator succeeds or dies. I, whether I 
 succeeded or not, perfectly well knew that death would be my por- 
 tion." He then applied himself to repelling the disgraceful accu- 
 sations with which he had been outraged. Coming, subsequently to 
 the attempt which had brought him now well nigh the foot of the 
 scaffold, he exclaimed, " I had with reference to Philippe I., the 
 same right which Brutus exercised against Caesar." Interrupted 
 for a moment by exclamations from every part of the Chamber, he 
 resumed: "Regicide is the right of all men who are debarred 
 from any justice but that which they take into their own hands." 
 
 This language exciting intense sensation on the peers' benches, 
 the president ordered the prisoner to be silent. He again gave him 
 leave to speak, after the reply of the attorney-general ; but as 
 Alibaud still came back to the expression of his fierce hatred of 
 the king, M. Pasquier, for a second time, and finally, enjoined him 
 to silence. Yet the regicide Louvel was heard by his judges to the 
 end of all he had to say.
 
 VARIOUS SENTIMENTS OF THE PUBLIC. 421 
 
 There could not be a moment's doubt as to what would be the 
 result of the trial : Alibaud was condemned to the guillotine. 
 
 The trial and the condemnation produced a deep impression upon 
 the public. Some feared they should be adding to the contagious 
 force of fanaticism, were they to give expression to the least senti- 
 ment of compassion for the guilty man; they were apprehensive 
 lest the weak-minded should see, in any interest manifested in the 
 criminal, an apology for the crime; and under the influence of 
 this fear, they abstained from showing any interest they may have 
 felt. Others, more prejudiced, cursed Alibaud for his virtues, as 
 they had cursed him for his crime : had he acted less from convic- 
 tion, had he displayed less courage, they would have pursued him 
 with a less inveterate hatred. Others, again, deeming truth in- 
 violable under all circumstances, and that murder is in itself so 
 odious, that we may well dispense with being unjust upon other 
 points even towards an assassin, commiserated the youth of Ali- 
 baud, so deplorably misguided, his perverted sensibility; they ad- 
 mired his firm courage ; they thought piteously of all he had suf- 
 fered, of the fearful expiation he was about to make. The 
 accusations of theft and imposture cast upon him, alike grieved and 
 astonished all generous minds. What! was Alibaud to be stig- 
 matised as a robber, because the weapon with which he was armed, 
 when he threw himself into the teeth of certain destruction, had 
 not been yet paid for ; because, after all the destitution in which 
 he had been involved, he had left a few, a very few, debts for his 
 friends to discharge ? What a contrast was here : Fieschi had met 
 at the hands of government with every kind of attention, had been 
 flattered, fostered, fawned upon! Alibaud received at its hands 
 every species of insult and outrage ! Besides, to what end heap in- 
 dignities upon a man for whom the executioner's knife was being 
 sharpened, whom God was about to judge? Armand Carrel re- 
 minded the authorities, in the National, that even amongst the 
 savages of Lake Erie, it is not deemed just to insult the prisoner 
 whom they are about to sacrifice; and against the vehement de- 
 clamation of M. Martin (du Nord), as to the base turpitude inhe- 
 rent in the idea of regicide, he set these words of M. Thiers, since 
 become minister of state : 
 
 " Republicans who thought they beheld another Caesar, might 
 arm themselves with the steel of Brutus, without being assassins. 
 To call them so, were an abuse of words, to be treated with silent 
 contempt."* 
 
 The discussion becoming animated, and assuming greater exten- 
 sion, the court writers designated political assassination a repub- 
 lican conception. Armand Carrel thus replied to the imputation: 
 " There have been, within the last fifty years, a tolerable number 
 of kings and princes assassinated. Let us run over a few of these, 
 
 * History of the French Revolution, by M. Thiers. Narrative of the 18th of 
 Brumaire.
 
 422 CONCLUDING SCENES OF ALIBAUD'S LIFE. 
 
 and see by whose ideas have the regicide weapons been whetted, 
 or loaded, as the case may have been. Grustavus III., King of 
 Sweden, was assassinated by the Swedish aristocracy. Paul I. was 
 slain like an ox in the slaughter-house, by his own family, because 
 he had been in treaty with the First Consul, and threatened 
 to unite with him in defence of the freedom of the seas against 
 the British aristocracy. Sultan Selim was cut in pieces by his own 
 soldiers, at the instigation of the emissaries of England and Russia, 
 because he was the friend of France. Murat, the admirable Murat, 
 after having been recognised king by the whole of Europe, was 
 shot like a highway robber, by the miserable dynasty which now 
 rules at Naples. Napoleon, Sovereign of France, as legitimately its 
 sovereign as any of those who have, since his fall, occupied the 
 Tuileries, Napoleon, anointed king by a pope, elevated to the 
 throne by the voluntary suffrages of six millions of Frenchmen, 
 died at St. Helena, the victim of an assassination, the most pro- 
 tracted in its agony, the most horrible and cold-blooded in its 
 cruelty, that ever mortal man perished under, in ancient or modern 
 history ; and in that atrocious regicide all the crowned heads of the 
 world were accomplices." 
 
 In the afternoon of Sunday, the 10th of July, Alibaud received, 
 in presence of the director of the prison, M. Valette, and of the 
 chief of municipal police, M. Joly, a farewell visit from his counsel. 
 After having expressed to this gentleman, in the most earnest and 
 touching language, the deep gratitude he felt for all he had done 
 in his behalf, he charged him to convey his heartfelt thanks to 
 those witnesses who had vindicated his honour; and among others, 
 more especially to MM. Leon Fraisse, Bothrel, Wattelier, and Les- 
 pinasse. He seemed, also, greatly touched by the manner in 
 which M. Cauchy, clerk of the court, had notified to him the sen- 
 tence of death. " Thank him earnestly in my name," said Ali- 
 baud. " Ah, how kind, how gentle was his voice ! How I felt 
 for that excellent man, whose lips well nigh refused to utter the 
 words it was his duty to repeat." He also mentioned, that as he 
 was being led out of the court, a lady clasped his hand in the pas- 
 sage, with an air full of benevolence and sorrow. " That moment," 
 added he, " fully compensated me for all the invectives of M. 
 Martin." His father being referred to, he became so much affected, 
 that he was fain to retire, and accordingly took leave of his advo- 
 cate for the last time. 
 
 Not having been able to prevail upon Alibaud to petition for 
 mercy, M. Charles Ledru himself presented a memorial, couched 
 in the following terms : 
 
 " Sire, Alibaud having long since made up his mind to die, has 
 bequeathed to me the charge of consoling his aged father. In ful- 
 filment of this sacred mission, I supplicate you to cast an eye of 
 pity and forgiveness upon a criminal whose immovable resolution 
 would confer additional lustre upon your high-souled clemency. It 

 
 CONCLUDING SCENES OF ALIBAUD'S LIFE, 423 
 
 has been proved impossible to overcome the pertinacy of my client, 
 a man holding life in too great contempt to seek to prolong it by 
 a single day; but I have deemed that if it is the duty of every 
 citizen to pardon his enemy, it is worthy of the first citizen of the 
 state to pardon his assassin." 
 
 The petition was rejected. Upon ascertaining this fact, M. 
 Charles Ledru hastened, accompanied by M. Gervais de Caen, to 
 M. Sauzet, keeper of the great seal, whom he requested to receive 
 an appeal against the judgment, for it was Sunday, and the courts 
 were closed. M. Sauzet, however, told him that there was no 
 appeal against a judgment of the Court of Peers ; that such an 
 idea was quite out of the question. 
 
 Alibaud passed this same Sunday, sometimes plunged in mourn- 
 ful reverie, sometimes singing the songs of his childhood, of his 
 home. He was to be executed on the morrow. On the morrow, 
 accordingly, at daybreak, the excellent Abbe Grivel entered the 
 prison. The condemned man lay in a deep slumber. A lamp 
 burned near him, throwing its light upon his face, which was per- 
 fectly serene and unruffled. The confessor awoke his penitent, 
 and addressed to him, beneath the eye of God, the solemn words 
 befitting the occasion. Alibaud listened with profound respect ; 
 but the terrible thought which had, so to speak, entered into his 
 very blood, was destined to remain fixed there immovably to the 
 latest moment. Just before he was summoned for the toilet of 
 death, the abbe asked him whether he would not once more taste 
 the wine of his native province. A glass of it was brought, but 
 Alibaud had scarcely put it to his lips, ere his countenance changed, 
 and his eye bespoke anger and apprehension. The worthy abbe" 
 divining his thoughts, took the cup, and draining its contents, reas- 
 sured his penitent, The water which the gaoler had deemed it 
 prudent to mix with the proffered beverage, had suddenly impressed 
 Alibaud with the idea that they sought, by means of a narcotic, to 
 prostrate his energy at that last moment, and thus afford themselves 
 a pretext for impugning his courage. At four o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, the executioner having arrived, the condemned man was taken 
 down stairs. His countenance was pale, but full of calm, unosten- 
 tatious resolution. When the executioner, in arranging his dress, 
 touched his neck, a slight shudder passed through his frame, but 
 it was at once succeeded by a smile at this momentary weakness. 
 The white gown and black veil, the dismal costume assigned by 
 the law to parricides about to expiate their crime, but which Fieschi 
 had been exempted from wearing, having then been thrown over 
 Alibaud, he was led away to death. 
 
 The scaffold, which is so much cried up as a medium for striking 
 terror by example, the scaffold which, according to the law, ought 
 to be set up where all may see it, was in this case hidden as it were, 
 in the Place St. Jacques, far from the centre of Paris, at an hour
 
 EMILE GIRARDIN. 
 
 when in the streets all is solitude, silence, and gloom. Around it 
 crowded, in a triple rank, thousands of soldiers. 
 
 Placed at the foot of the instrument of decapitation, and relieved 
 from the black veil which had covered his face, Alibaud listened 
 without emotion to the formal reading of his sentence. Just before 
 submitting to the mortal stroke, he exclaimed in a clear, sonorous 
 voice, " I die for liberty !" Then, having first slowly cast his eyes 
 along the rank of soldiery, silent and motionless witnesses of the 
 scene,] he resigned his head to the block. 
 
 At five o'clock, the sharp ring of horses' feet was heard along 
 the street which leads to the graveyard where the bodies of exe- 
 cuted criminals are interred. It was the military, escorting the 
 decapitated regicide to his last home. The body was taken from 
 the basket, but ere it was committed to the earth, the sexton, in 
 observance of the hideous custom in such cases, took the head up 
 by the hair, and holding it forth at arm's length, exclaimed: " You 
 see, this is Alibaud !" 
 
 The press was still under the influence of this drama, when it 
 was suddenly called from that topic by the necessity of looking to 
 its own condition ; for a great revolution was about to take place 
 in journalism. 
 
 Among the authors of this revolution prominently figured M. 
 Emile Girardin, a speculator. 
 
 To reduce the price of the chief daily newspapers, and by the 
 inducement of this reduction in price, to increase their subscribers, 
 and to cover the loss resulting from the diminution of price by the 
 augmentation of the revenue derived from advertisements, which 
 would flow in more and more extensively, as the publicity afforded 
 by increased circulation became greater, such was M. Emile de 
 Girardin 's plan. 
 
 In other words, it was proposed to convert into a vulgar trade, 
 that which, justly considered, justly administered, is a magistracy, 
 nay, a priesthood; it was proposed to enlarge the portion hitherto 
 allotted in newspapers, to mendacious announcements, to the self- 
 commendations of quackery and imposture, at the sacrifice of space 
 which should be devoted to philosophy, history, literature, the arts, 
 to all which elevates, while it delights the mind of man. Jour- 
 nalism, in a word, was to be made the speaking-trumpet of specu- 
 lation. No doubt, that in this point of view, the new principle was 
 highly objectionable. On the other hand, it called into public life 
 a vast number of citizens who had been too long excluded from it 
 by the high price of newspapers ; an advantage which it was mani- 
 fest injustice not to recognise. But men's personal interests are ever 
 despotic and exclusive in their resentments. M. Emile de Girardin, who 
 had opened the attack, was assailed in his turn, and with most 
 blamable violence by some of the journals, which conceived their 
 prosperity, nay, their existence, menaced by the competition now
 
 CONTROVERSY BETWEEN HIM AND ARMAND CARREL. 425 
 
 so unexpectedly announced. And singularly enough, it was the Bon 
 Sens, a democratic newspaper, that took the lead in the movement 
 against M. Emile de Girardin. At this particular period, however, 
 great disunion prevailed among those who had the direction of the Bon 
 Sens, and it may have been the circumstance of the consequent dis- 
 order and irregularity, which enabled one of its editors, M. Capo di 
 Feuillide,to indulge in his somewhat intemperate attacks upon a cheap 
 press and M. Emile de Girardin. The articles published by him were 
 written with much spirit and ability, but in a tone quite unfitting the 
 grave importance of the subject. M. Emile de Girardin, though he 
 had a journal at his command, where he could have fought his an- 
 tagonist at his own weapons, had recourse to an action for defa- 
 mation, thus placing himself under the protection of a law which 
 does not permit the accuser to prove the justice of his accusation. 
 This led to an irreparable catastrophe. 
 
 Armand Carrel had not thought it consistent with his duty to 
 remain a silent spectator of a quarrel into which a journal of his side 
 of the question had entered; and accordingly, on the 20th of July, 
 1836, he published in the National a few lines in which he main- 
 tained that M. de Feuillide did perfectly right to find fault with 
 M. de Girardin's propositions, and censured the latter for having 
 had recourse to the September laws. 
 
 M. de Girardin replied by an article which seemed to call in ques- 
 tion the good faith of the chief editor of the National, and intimated, 
 in general terms, the writer's intention of returning to the attack. 
 
 Armand Carrel was placed in so elevated a position with re- 
 ference to the person who thus took upon himself to challenge him 
 to the lists, that he might well have received the bravado with silent 
 contempt. But he allowed himself to be carried away by the 
 warmth of his temperament. 
 
 Let me here pause to explain what was at this time the condition 
 of Carrel's mind. It was agitated with the most painful uneasiness, 
 torn by doubts and fears. For, while saluting him head of a party, 
 opinion had furnished him with no solid body on which to support 
 the character, and this he felt bitterly. It being in his nature to 
 have a dread of popular outbreaks, and the possibility of a vast social 
 reform scarcely appearing to him in the far distance, he would pro- 
 bably have been disposed to throw himself upon the bourgeoisie, 
 had he deemed it worthy to enjoy a republic, and capable of a taste 
 for great things. But finding it, in general, the slave of gross pas- 
 sions, charmed with a repose destitute of grandeur, fond of medio- 
 crity in all things, servile from the basest cupidity, he had turned 
 away from it with mixed regret and indignation. He entertained, 
 moreover, for him whom the bourgeoisie had selected as its leader 
 and guide, a hatred almost amounting to the personal, a hatred 
 which each new circumstance in that leader's policy had only con- 
 tributed to envenom and deepen.
 
 426 ARMAND CARREL'S POSITION WITH HIS PARTY. 
 
 On the other hand, he was ill at ease with his own party. He 
 was alarmed at having to act as the leader of certain members of 
 that party, who in their very obedience, were violent and impe- 
 rious: he conceived them to entertain an eager impatience to com- 
 mence the work of reprisals, tending to a despotism, at which his 
 moderation stood aghast. Amid the exciting temptations of the 
 crisis which they were looking forward to, would they be able so to 
 command themselves as to respect individual liberty ? Would they 
 consent to proclaim forthwith the reign of Common Right? These 
 were the questions which, under the influence of his high-souled 
 anxiety for his country's welfare, he was wont to ask himself. 
 Meantime, the men who excited these apprehensions were ever 
 around him, urging him on to a more daring course, energetically 
 exhorting him to march on and conquer, without troubling himself 
 meantime as to the future limits to their progress ; for victory once 
 secured, the essential thing is not so much to acquit it with the 
 conquered, as to complete and establish it. This was what Armand 
 Carrel himself could not but see, especially when he had presented 
 before him, from time to time, the excesses of a government which 
 ruled only according to the dictates of blind rage. The thoughts 
 of the statesman, and the feelings of the oppressed citizen struggled 
 therefore in his breast with those of the knightly soldier, and his 
 soul had become filled with manly sadness. 
 
 He mourned, too, over the utter disappointment of the cherished 
 wishes of his youth. His early aspirations had been for military 
 glory, a life in the tented fields, or death on the bed of honour ; but 
 he was fain to employ his energies in journalism, a species of war- 
 fare, the occasional and transitory excitement of which, was far 
 from compensating, in his estimation, for its monotonous anxieties, 
 its common-place laboriousness. 
 
 Nor was this all: he was, moreover, the object amongst his own 
 party, of the most galling distrust; on the part of some, not going 
 beyond sullen suspicion, but carried by others into active male- 
 volence. The former murmured at his not having, what they con- 
 sidered proper respect for the people, and at his not being sufficiently 
 eager for their triumph. The latter went further : they loudly com- 
 plained of his air of military elegance, of his patrician hauteur ; 
 they could not forgive his superiority to themselves, the graces and 
 high qualities by which he had won the esteem even of his adversaries. 
 This, indeed, is what is least of all pardoned in first class men by 
 the envious mediocrity, which in a free country constitutes the 
 grumbling and grovelling base of all parties in the state. But in the 
 service of liberty, such men as Armand Carrel hesitate not to incur 
 the risk of that gravest of her dangers, ostracism. 
 
 To complete this picture of the moral agony of a great heart, we 
 may add that Armand Carrel had for some time past been receiving 
 anonymous letters, full now of menace, now of insult ; they called
 
 HIS QUARREL WITH GIRARDIN. 427 
 
 him bully, and foretold as the just chastisement of the dictatorship 
 exercised by his fearless courage, his approaching and tragic death. 
 Some of these letters had ominous emblems drawn in them; a pistol 
 and sword crossed, for instance. In former days, Armand Carrel 
 would have regarded these base and cowardly insults with a spirit 
 of contempt ; but in the depression which had now taken possession 
 of him, they filled him, despite his efforts to repel their influence, 
 with dark forebodings. One day he thus related to an intimate friend a 
 dream, the recollection of which haunted him: " I saw my mother 
 in my sleep. She was dressed all in black, and her eyes were full 
 of tears. I asked her with affright : For whom are you in mourn- 
 ing ? Is it my father? No. Is it my brother? No. For whom 
 then ? For you, my son." It was on the day after this pro- 
 phetic dream that Armand Carrel wrote in the National the article 
 mentioned above, as having elicited from M. Emile de Girardin the 
 reply which led to the fatal consequences we are about to narrate. 
 
 The question for the parties to consider was, had the dispute as- 
 sumed such a form, that, if it remained unmodified, a meeting must 
 necessarily take place? Carrel, with his high susceptibility on the point 
 of honour, did not hesitate. Accompanied by M. Adolphe Thibau- 
 deau, his particular friend, and a man of rare talent, he, upon read- 
 ing M. Girardin's reply, at once proceeded to that gentleman's house, 
 determined upon having either a public retractation, or personal sa- 
 tisfaction. He entered M. Girardin's room holding open in his 
 hand the journal containing the offensive article. By a strong effort 
 over himself he was quite calm, and his manner and his language were 
 alike courteous. Pie had no sooner, however, stated the object of 
 his visit than M. de Girardin begged leave to have one of his own 
 friends present during the discussion, and accordingly sent forthwith 
 for M. Lautour-Mezeray. But pending the arrival of that gentleman 
 some sharp words were interchanged. Armand Carrel conceived that 
 he was justified in regarding the course adopted by M. de Girardin, 
 as indicating an intention to bring the matter to a duel, and on his 
 suggesting as much M. de Girardin replied: " A duel with such a 
 man as you, sir, would be quite a bonne fortune" " Sir," replied 
 Carrel, " I can never regard a duel as a bonne fortune" A few mo- 
 ments afterwards M. Lautour-Mezeray arrived; his presence served 
 to give the discussion a more conciliatory tone, and-it was ultimately 
 agreed that a few words of explanation should be published in botn 
 journals. On M. de Girardin's proposing to draw up the note at 
 once : " You may rely upon me, sir," said Armand Carrel, with 
 dignity. The quarrel seemed almost at an end : an incident reani- 
 mated it. M. de Girardin required that the publication of the note 
 should take place simultaneously in the two journals. Carrel, on the 
 contrary, held that it ought to appear first in the Presse, Girardin's 
 paper, but he experienced on this point the most obstinate resistance. 
 It was then that, carried away with indignant emotion, wounded to 
 the quick, utterly unable to adhere longer to the moderation which
 
 428 FATAL DUEL BETWEEN ARMAND CARREL 
 
 with so noble an effort he had hitherto enforced upon himself, Carrel 
 rose and exclaimed: " I am the offended person ; I choose the pistol," 
 and he was quitting the room, when, with a laudable impulse, M. 
 Lautour-Mezeray ran after him* and sought to stay and appease him. 
 But an inexorable fatality seemed to weigh upon the whole of this 
 affair: M. Lautour-Mezeray 's mediation failed. Again, in the even- 
 ing, when a meeting took place between MM. Ambert and Thibau- 
 deau, as friends of Carrel, and MM. Lautour-Mezeray and Paillard 
 de Villeneuve, as representatives of M. de Girardin, it was found 
 impossible to come to an understanding, and the duel proceeded. 
 
 It is often given to superior natures to have impressed upon 
 them intuitively presentiments, the infallibility of which cannot 
 be denied, though reason is quite incompetent to penetrate the 
 mystery of their birth. Armand Carrel, in former affairs of honour, 
 had ever hastened to meet danger, with an extraordinary heed- 
 lessness, a sort of buoyant indifference, as a man implicitly trusting 
 to fortune ; nay, as one who took a pleasure in thus stoutly questioning 
 destiny. But on the present occasion, a remarkable change was ob- 
 served in him in this respect. He was still, indeed, calm and com- 
 posed ; but his conversation with his friends seemed to breathe, as it 
 were, the words of parting consolation; his smile conveyed the im- 
 pression of an eternal farewell ; his thoughts seemed intensely con- 
 centrated upon the friends who were more especially dear to him. 
 In further illustration of the fatal presentiment which filled his soul, 
 he returned, with singular precipitation, a deposit which had been 
 entrusted to his care, and a thing he had never before done, made 
 his will. 
 
 It was early on the morning of Friday, the 22nd of July, 1836, 
 that Armand Carrel, and M. de Girardin found themselves once 
 more face to face, in the Bois de Vincennes. The former was 
 attended by MM. Maurice Persat and Ambert ; the seconds of 
 the latter, were MM. Lautour-Mezeray and Paillard de Villeneuve. 
 While the pistols were being loaded, Carrel said to M. de Girardin, 
 " Should the chance be against me, sir, and you afterwards write 
 my life, you will, in all honour, adhere strictly and simply to the 
 facts ?' "Yes, sir,' : replied his adversary. The seconds had 
 measured a distance of forty paces ; the combatants were to advance 
 to within twenty of each other. Armand Carrel immediately took 
 his place, and advanced, presenting, despite the urgent entreaties of 
 M. Ambert, that he would show less front, the whole breadth of 
 his person to his opponent's bullet. M. de Girardin, having also 
 advanced some paces, both parties fired at nearly the same instant, 
 and both fell wounded, the one in the leg, the other in the groin. 
 
 Amongst the most devoted friends of Carrel, was M. Gregoire, 
 who had accompanied him to the entrance into the wood, where he 
 awaited the result in an intense state of anxiety. Suddenly the 
 wheels of a tilbury were heard rolling rapidly down the avenue. 
 It stopped at the gate, and two friends of M. de Girardin, got out.
 
 AND EMILE GIRARDIN. 429 
 
 These were MM. Cleeman and Boutmy, who, on the part of Carrel, 
 came for M. Gregoire. From them he learnt the fatal issue of the 
 combat, and with them he hastened to the spot where it had taken 
 place. On reaching it, he saw the two adversaries stretched upon 
 the ground, the one on the left of the road, the other on the right. 
 Carrel's wound was the deeper and more dangerous, the ball hav- 
 ing bruised the intestines. They hastened to him, and raised him 
 in a reclining position. As he passed M. de Girardin, he asked him 
 whether he was in much pain ; noble-minded and generous to the 
 last ! He himself was suffering acutely, and felt persuaded that he 
 should not survive. A man who was working in the fields close 
 by, having run up on hearing the report of the pistols, endeavoured 
 to reassure him, but he shook his head with a smile of incredulous- 
 ness and resignation. Conveyed to St. Mande to the house of one 
 of his old comrades of the Ecole Militaire, M. Peyra, he was 
 received with the most affectionate and touching kindness. For a 
 few hours his friends were cheered with a dim ray of hope. Drs. 
 Jules Cloquet, and Marx, were instantly in attendance, and watch- 
 ing with unremitting care, over that so precious life. 
 
 Meantime, the mournful intelligence having spread abroad from 
 mouth to mouth, excited universal, unutterable consternation. There 
 were many persons who absolutely refused to believe that a career 
 full of such high promise, could have been cut short by a vulgar 
 bullet ; others, as also happens under circumstances of overpower- 
 ing disquietude, dared not permit themselves to cherish a hope, 
 and in their anguish, they reproached Carrel for the magnanimous 
 puerility which had lead him to venture his life against that of a 
 man whom they deemed utterly unworthy of such an adversary. 
 The popular indignation against M. de Girardin, amounted in a 
 large number of instances, to frenzy; he was loudly accused of hav- 
 ing brought about the duel, merely because he knew that it would 
 excite general attention, and thus attract, somehow or other, the 
 observation of the public towards himself ; that, in short, he had 
 regarded it as a matter of speculation. All classes vividly recalled 
 to mind the past career of Armand Carrel, and the brilliant quali- 
 ties which had distinguished it. 
 
 In the night of the 23rd of July, the state of the wounded man 
 assumed a most alarming character. His sufferings had become 
 intolerable ; and, in a heart-rending voice, he entreated those about 
 him to have a bath brought for him. All at once he asked M. Gre- 
 goire, who had not once quitted him, ' ; if they had taken away the 
 
 lamp?" " Yes," replied M. Gregoire, with suppressed emotion 
 
 the lamp was burning, as before, at the wounded man's side; but 
 Carrel was already entering upon the night of eternity. The last 
 agony had come upon him. Amidst the dark shadows of death 
 rapidly hemming him round, in the presence of the friends who 
 encircled his bed wrapt in mournful silence, Armand Carrel passed 
 most of the moments which yet remained to him in a sublime deli-
 
 430 DEATH OF ARMAND CARREL. 
 
 rium, the while his hands, stretched out on either side, incessantly 
 sought those of the friends whom he loved, and whom he instinc- 
 tively knew to be around him. In his soliloquy, mysterious as a 
 dream, glowing as a prophecy, it seemed as though he was eager 
 to concentrate in those dying words all the thoughts and feelings of 
 his great soul. He spoke of France, and of Spain, whose destinies 
 had ever been closely connected in his aspirations, and in his regrets. 
 He sketched, with surprising distinctness, an imaginary description, 
 of the streets of Madrid, a city he had never seen. He complained 
 briefly of the injustice of his enemies; and called up the memory 
 of several of his departed friends in language of impassioned elo- 
 quence. Speaking of one of these, an officer named Maille, who 
 died in Africa, he exclaimed: " He was killed by a pistol-shot no 
 it was by a sword thrust; he was a gallant fellow!" This dying 
 improvisation, this true song of the swan, was made up of fragments 
 having no connexion with each other, but each complete in itself, 
 and presenting in a few striking sentences, his opinions and feelings 
 on the particular point. From time to time, he interrupted himself 
 to ask. more and more earnestly, for his bath; and at length the 
 wish was complied with, there being, unhappily, no reason for with- 
 holding it now that death was inevitable, imminent. By and by, 
 just after he had described how he desired to have the bath prepared, 
 Carrel became motionless, speechless. It was a solemn moment. 
 Did he sleep or had death come upon him ? The assembled friends 
 remained for some time where they stood, mute and motionless well 
 nigh as the beloved form before them, chained to their places, as it 
 were, by respect and fearful suspense. Suddenly the bath was 
 heard on the stairs, and Carrel, who for a full quarter of an hour 
 had given no sign of life, raised himself in his bed, with an excla- 
 mation of delight. "Ah!" said he, "there's the bath! Come! 
 Come ! " His friends took him in their arms and lifted him to the 
 bath ; but he had scarcely touched the water ere he was seized with 
 suffocation: he murmured a few words, France! Friend! Republic! 
 sent forth a feeble cry, and then rendered up his soul to God. It 
 was a scene never to be forgotten. I saw him as he lay, his pale 
 features all expressive of passion in repose, death in him seeming 
 thoughtful; his attitude was firm, inflexible, martial, like that of a 
 soldier who slumbers on the eve of battle. 
 
 All parties united in lamenting him, in doing honour to his 
 memory. MM. Arnold Scheffer, Thibaudeau, and Martin Maillefer, 
 in the name of all France, delivered eloquent and touching orations 
 in his praise ; while Chateaubriand, Arago, Cormenin, Beranger, were 
 seen bathed in tears around the grave which had received, and 
 which still retains, the honoured remains. The illustrious sculptor, 
 David, has resuscitated Carrel in speaking bronze; his tomb has 
 become the object of solemn pilgrimage. His loss is still deeply felt 
 by the party on which he reflected such honourable distinction ; but 
 which has not with him lost its courage and its fortune.
 
 SUBSERVIENCY OF FRANCE TO AUSTRIA. 431 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE administration of M. Thiers, comprehends two phases, two 
 perfectly distinct the one from the other. 
 
 In the first, M. Thiers was seen the fervent ally of absolute mo- 
 narchies, seduced by the intoxicating advances of the continental 
 diplomatists, and by the hope of procuring for the Due d'Orleans 
 the hand of an archduchess of Austria. 
 
 In the second, become sensible of the illusions by which he had 
 been so cruelly played upon, he endeavoured, but too late, to resume 
 a revolutionary attitude in Europe ; and it was then that, by reviving 
 the question of intervention in Spain, he sought to return to the 
 English alliance. 
 
 Before we proceed to the latter period, it is proper that we should 
 succinctly exhibit the sacrifices which, in 1836, were made by the 
 French government to the counter-revolutionary principle, which it 
 so mistakenly sought to conciliate. 
 
 The country which had ever prominently engaged the attention 
 of M. de Metternich, was Italy; and next to Italy, Switzerland. 
 Placed between Austria and France, Switzerland might, in fact, 
 become, to the one or the other of these countries, a great support, 
 or a great danger. M. de Metternich, therefore, entertained a very 
 strong desire to withdraw the twenty-two cantons from French in- 
 fluence, more especially since the cantonal revolutions of 1830, and 
 1831, had begun to sap the foundation of the Helvetic aristocracy. 
 
 So long as France was represented in Switzerland by M. de Ru- 
 migny, our authority there preponderated. But on the arrival of 
 M. de Montebello, the aspect of things changed. Feebly supported 
 by Mr. Morier, the English minister, a person who appeared to re- 
 gard every thing with entire indifference, M. de Montebello had to 
 contend with rivals of unremitting activity, in M. Severin, the re- 
 presentative of Russia, and M. de Bombelles, the Austrian envoy, 
 whose influence was especially ascendant in the cantons of Uri, 
 Unterwald, and Schwitz. 
 
 But it was not enough for Austria, Prussia, and Russia, leagued 
 together, to undermine secretly and by slow degrees the credit of 
 France. They were impatient to inflict a decisive blow, under 
 some pretext or other, and this pretext was readily found in the hos- 
 pitality afforded by Switzerland to the refugees from different 
 countries, who resorted there. 
 
 M. de Bombelles had been for some time writing despatch after 
 despatch to his government, with most alarming accounts of the pro- 
 ceedings, which he alleged to be on foot amongst the Italian refugees.
 
 432 OPPRESSIVE MEASURES AGAINST SWITZERLAND. 
 
 He at length spoke of an armed body of these men being about to 
 invade the Grand Duchy of Baden. Austria, hereupon affected the 
 utmost terror; and energetic representations were made to the ca- 
 binet of the Tuileries, as to the necessity of breaking up the focus of 
 conspiracy thus threatening all Europe from its very heart. " It is 
 in Switzerland," said the Austrian ministers, " that the enemies of 
 monarchy hold their regicide school; this bloodthirsty school must 
 be closed, without delay. And what prince more interested in the 
 matter than Louis Philippe, surrounded as he is by assassins?" 
 
 At the same time, M. de Metternich intimated, that if France 
 refused to act against Switzerland, Austria, for its part, would not 
 hesitate. 
 
 M. Thiers, was anxious, without giving offence to Austria, to 
 prevent the intervention of that government in Switzerland, and 
 ne, therefore, taking the task upon himself, addressed the Directory 
 in the most haughty and menacing language. 
 
 Thus had M. de Metternich succeeded beyond his hopes. France, 
 suddenly become the police of the absolute kings, consented to take 
 upon herself the entire odium of initiating the contemplated out- 
 rages; she was about to persecute, in the last asylum open to them, 
 a lew unhappy exiles, to annoy, to irritate Switzerland, perhaps to 
 render her for ever an enemy ; a double triumph for the Austrian 
 cabinet, which had thus at once brought the government of July 
 to arm itself against liberty, and to do that which would, in all pro- 
 bability, detach from it, and throw into the embraces of Germany, 
 a people whose friendship was so essential to its welfare. 
 
 The French government forwarded grievous complaints of the 
 conduct of the refugees, assembled in Switzerland, of the manner in 
 which they abused the hospitality accorded them, of their under- 
 hand correspondence with the Parisian conspirators. 
 
 Now nothing could be more utterly unjust than these accusations, 
 at least as far as France was concerned. So far from being in cor- 
 respondence with the Haute Vente Universelle, at Paris, the prin- 
 cipal members of the association called Jeune Europe, denounced it 
 as the most dangerous of all the political societies. They charged 
 it with contemplating the absolute unity of Europe, with the inten- 
 tion of confiscating the rights of all for the benefit of one single 
 country, France, and even of one single city, Paris; they charged 
 it with having conceived the audacious and tyrannical design of 
 erecting in the middle of the nineteenth century, a republican 
 papacy, all-devouring as the universal monarchy to which, in former 
 times, Charles V. and Philip II. aspired. Was it not clear, asked 
 Jeune Europe, that such were the aims of the Haute Vente Univer- 
 selle 9 Its theories of centralisation, its dictatorial aspect, the pro- 
 found, the formidable secresy maintained as to its main spring, and 
 nucleus, the art with which it had managed to disjoin and break up 
 the strength of the revolutionary party in different countries, so as 
 to prevent that party from acting in concert against any measure,
 
 FALSE STEP OF THE DIRECTORY OF BERNE. 433 
 
 from -within which might appear dangerous or oppressive. Did not 
 these circumstances thoroughly show what were the projects enter- 
 tained by the men who aimed at governing the whole of republican 
 Europe, by a conclave sitting at Paris? And upon this distrust, 
 evidently sincerely felt, though unfounded, the leader of Jeune 
 Europe acted; it was federalism in conspiracy. The efforts of Jeune 
 Europe were accordingly directed, not towards France, but towards 
 Germany and Piedmont, so that in calling upon Switzerland to 
 expel the refugees, the French ministry was merely, at its own risk 
 and peril, doing the work of the Austrian monarchy. 
 
 And it was the very consciousness of this which decided the 
 court of the Tuileries to act as it did, so great was its eagerness to 
 be admitted into the favour and confidence of the league of abso- 
 lutist powers ! 
 
 Things were in this state, the powers only awaiting some pretext 
 for further proceedings, when, on the 22nd of June, 1836, the Direc- 
 tory* of Berne addressed a note to the Due de Montebello, wherein it 
 requested the French government to receive within its territory the 
 refugees whom Switzerland might find herself under the necessity 
 of expelling. 
 
 Switzerland herself thus supplied the powers with even more 
 than was required for their present purpose. Delighted with their 
 success thus far, the northern cabinets, who were impatient in every 
 possible way to compromise France, to disgrace her in the eyes of 
 the world, and, more immediately to alienate from her the affec- 
 tions of the Swiss, were not content with compelling the royalty of 
 July to do penance for its origin, by an open declaration against the 
 revolutionary principle; and accordingly, a thing scarcely credible, 
 M. de Montebello, at their instance, was ordered by his govern- 
 ment to reply to the advances of the Directory of Berne, by a note 
 drawn up at the foreign office at Paris, and of a character so 
 menacing, so impertinent, that had it been addressed to one of 
 the great powers, it would have at once been returned without 
 a reply. After intimating that the French government was satis- 
 fied with the recent proceeding adopted by the directory, adding: 
 "It is necessary that the measures ordered by the Vorort be punc- 
 tually carried into effect," the writer of the note reminded the direc- 
 tory of the expedition attempted in 1834 against Savoy, and of the 
 other attempts which had threatened the security of some of the Ger- 
 man states, and then went on in the following terms to make, as in 
 the times of the Inquisition, even hopes, desires, thoughts, criminal : 
 " The ;mdersigned has thus far only spoken of Sardinia and Ger- 
 many, as having their security menaced by these conspiracies, these 
 flagitious enterprises ; but 1 ranee herself is also eminently intc- 
 
 * Our readers are aware that, in Switzerland, the Vorort, or chief directory, a 
 alternately enjoyed by Zurich, Berne, and Lucerne. At the period ht re in question, 
 Berne was the directing canton. 
 
 VOL. II. 2 F
 
 434 FERMENT IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 rested in this important question of international right, when she 
 has reason to believe that the refugees in Switzerland axe in close 
 correspondence and connexion with the French anarchists; when 
 the indiscretions of those refugees themselves, in point of fact, so 
 evidently attest the knowledge they have of the abominable pro- 
 jects of French regicides ; when, in fine, it is demonstrated that 
 their designs are mixed up, at all events, in hope and intention, with 
 the crimes recently attempted in France." The note^ then required 
 the federal government to propose to the diet such means as it might 
 deem most efficacious for carrying out, in each canton, the measures 
 ordered to be taken against the refugees, and it enforced the de- 
 mand with this menace: " The directory must doubtless see, that 
 should the pledge of good faith which Europe requires at its hands, 
 be limited to mere declarations, unattended by any active measures 
 for carrying those measures into practical effect, the powers in- 
 terested in having them fulfilled, will be fully at liberty to rely 
 only upon themselves for punishing the refugees who conspire, 
 within the territories of Switzerland, against their tranquillity, and 
 for putting an end to the toleration of which the incorrigible 
 enemies of the repose of constituted governments shall continue to 
 be the object." 
 
 Never had the independence of a free state been more openly set 
 aside, more shamelessly trampled under foot. Throughout Europe, 
 the note excited general indignation. When energetically ques- 
 tioned in the House of Commons, by Dr. Bowring and Mr. Hume, 
 Lord Palmerston declared, that the English government had taken 
 " no efficacious steps upon the subject." La France, all generous 
 minds revolted against the outrage. " The diet," said the Sons 
 Sens, a democratic journal, " the diet might have reminded the 
 ambassador of Louis Philippe, that his master, when a sufferer 
 under revolutionary tempests, was, heretofore, but too thankful 
 to find food and shelter in those tranquil valleys, which all parties, 
 conquerors or conquered, ought alike to respect as a sanctuary, 
 protected by the conscience of mankind." 
 
 As to the shuddering excitement which the note produced in 
 Switzerland, it is scarcely possible to give an idea of it. At 
 Reiden, ten thousand confederates from the cantons of Berne, Lu- 
 cerne, Schwitz, Soleure, Basle, Campagne, and Argau, met to 
 protest against it. In a large and ardent assembly held at Mun- 
 zingen, Major Clias, having spoken of applying for the recall of the 
 Due de Montebello, his proposal was hailed with one immense 
 shout of enthusiastic approbation. At Flawil, a district of St. 
 Grail, M. Hume, a popular orator, had already sent forth words, 
 whose eloquence and spirit well merited for them to be repeated by 
 all the echoes of Switzerland. At Viedikon, near Zurich, twenty 
 thousand men met on the vast federal shooting-ground there; and 
 when, from a platform decorated with the flags taken in the wars
 
 TIMIDITY OF THE DIET ITS CONCLUSUM. 435 
 
 against Burgundy, M. Zehnder exclaimed : " Are you all resolved, 
 at the risk of your lives, to resist unjust aggression?" twenty thou- 
 sand manly voices thundered forth: "We are! we are!" and an 
 address, in unison with this determination, was voted to the diet, as 
 guardian of the rights and the independence of the country. 
 
 But the diet, acting under the sordid influence of a mean-souled 
 and timid prudence, did not respond to the popular impulse. A 
 commission had been named by it to consider the subject, which 
 seemed to hesitate between honour and fear. At this juncture, M. 
 Thiers wrote word to the Due de Montebello, that if the proceed- 
 ings adopted by the diet were not satisfactory, Switzerland would 
 be immediately placed in a state of blockade. This was proclaiming 
 the abuse of superior force an established right; it was heaping up 
 the measure of outrage. Yet it failed to rouse the commission, the 
 majority of which remained under the influence of fear. The report 
 to the diet proposed by the commission accordingly recommended 
 that a central police should be established; that the obligation of 
 expelling the refugees who should be shown to have compromised 
 the international relations of Switzerland, should be imposed on the 
 respective cantons; that the directory should call upon the various 
 cantons to make the necessary arrangements, and itself watch over 
 their fulfilment; that, in the event of a dispute on the subject, be- 
 tween the directory and any particular canton, the directory should 
 be empowered, with the assistance of a council of federal repre- 
 sentatives, to decide upon the matter in dispute; and if the canton 
 still continued recusant, that the directory should have authority to 
 effect the execution of its orders within the district, at the expense 
 of the contumacious community. So that, in violation of the 
 federal compact, the cantonal sovereignty was completely sacrificed 
 to a central power, itself placed practically under the sway of 
 foreign diplomacy. 
 
 When submitted to the diet, on the 9th of August, 1836, the 
 report was vehemently assailed by M. Steiger, member for St. Gall, 
 the most democratic of all the cantons; but it was supported by 
 the Avoyer Tscharner, a man peculiarly responsible for the honour 
 of Switzerland, by reason of the dignified office which he held. 
 M. de Chambrier went still further than the report. Member for 
 Neufchatel, and acting under the influence of Prussia, he ventured 
 to demand, that the directory should be invested with the right of 
 directly pointing out suspected persons, and ordering their expul- 
 sion. Vainly was it urged how disgraceful it would be for the 
 diet, yielding to menace, to set aside a solemn compact, to renounce 
 the right of affording an asylum to the unfortunate, to make 
 itself the instrument of the hate of foreign despots. Thirteen states 
 and a half adopted the report: Zurich, Uri, Unterwald, without re- 
 servation; Zug, Soleure, Schaffhausen, Valais, NeufchjUel, Orisons, 
 Fribourg, Lucerne, Berne, Bale-Ville, and Schwitz, with a reserva- 
 
 2F2
 
 436 AFFAIR OF THE FRENCH SPY CONSEIL. 
 
 tion as to local ratification in the respective cantons; Appenzell, 
 Thurgau,Bale-Campagne, and Vaud voted against it; Geneva, Glaris, 
 Argau, did not vote at all, as was the case with St. Gall, whose mem- 
 ber wished by an express declaration, to reserve to his canton its 
 sovereign rights. 
 
 At the news of this result, Switzerland was agitated to her centre; 
 and in the grand councils, summoned in each canton to ratify the 
 decision of the diet, the discussions were renewed with increased 
 energy. Sixteen cantons concurred with the diet ; but among those 
 which rejected its decision, were St. Gall, Thurgau, Vaud, and 
 Geneva, four of the most considerable, and all of them frontier 
 cantons. Vaud and Geneva forming the principal portion of French 
 Switzerland, their resistance to the unjust pretensions of the French 
 government was the object of more especial remark and approba- 
 tion on the part of Europe ; and hereupon arose a question of grave 
 import for the consideration of the majority. Was the conclusum 
 of the diet obligatory? In creating a central police; in depriving 
 the cantonal sovereignty of the right of giving refuge to such as 
 might be deemed worthy of it; in subjecting to the decisions of the 
 directory and the federal representatives, the diet, the supreme au- 
 thority of the confederation, had not the majority set an impious 
 hand upon the solemn pact which bound them altogether ; had they 
 not done that which, if persisted in, would overthrow the whole 
 system under which they lived; and, to alter the condition of that 
 sacred compact, to change that system, was it not essential to first 
 obtain the unanimous consent of the cantons? Such were the 
 views urged with much force and ability by M. Gaulheim, in the 
 Nouvelliste Vaudois, the faithful organ of the Swiss patriots. 
 
 Such was the position of things, such the condition of men's 
 minds, when an odious machination was suddenly brought to light. 
 
 On the 19th of July, 1836, M. de Montebello, addressed a note to 
 the directory, demanding the expulsion of a person named Conseil, 
 whom he, the French ambassador, denounced as an accomplice of 
 Fieschi. Now, at ten o'clock on the night of the 10th of August, 
 the prefect of Nidau received intelligence, that among several 
 strangers who were lodged in the H6tel-de-Ville, there was a spy. 
 "Thereupon the prefect of Nidau commanded the production of 
 passports. Two were delivered to him bearing the names of Ber- 
 thola and Migliari, Italians, and a third with that of Hermann, 
 a Frenchman, native of Strasburg, commercial traveller, journeying 
 over Switzerland on commercial business. This latter passport had 
 been delivered by the French embassy, November 13, 1835, and 
 was signed Le charge- d'affaires de France, G. de Belleval. The same 
 functionary received also several papers belonging to the pretended 
 Hermann, among which were, 1st, a passport in the name of Auguste 
 Cheli Conseil, dated Ancona, April 22, 1834 ; 2nd, another passport in 
 the name of Corelli, delivered at Besancon by the prefect at Doubs,
 
 AFFAIR OF THE FRENCH SPY CONSEIL. 437 
 
 August 4, 1836, good for one year. Being arrested and taken 
 before the prefect of Nidau, the pretended Hermann avowed that his 
 name was Conseil; he acknowledged the three passports, and finally 
 confessed that he had been for some time in the service of the 
 French police. On the 12th, he was handed over to the police of 
 Berne with his two travelling companions, Berthola and Migliari; 
 and, on the 16th, an investigation was ordered, the result of which 
 was the following report, which we here quote exactly, as an im- 
 mortal testimony to the morality of monarchial governments. 
 
 " Conseil declares, that he has been in the service of the police of 
 Paris since the beginning of last June. Immediately after Ali- 
 baud's attempt at murder, he was summoned to one of the offices of 
 the minister of the interior. A secretary named Jacobin told him 
 he must set out for Switzerland, where they were arresting politi- 
 cal refugees to transport them through France to England. He 
 told him that a letter should be written to the French embassy 
 at Berne, pointing him out as an accomplice of Fieschi and Alibaud, 
 in order to have him arrested and transported out of the territory; 
 that by that means he would become acquainted with the Germans, 
 French, and others who should be expeUed; that he should seek 
 to gain their friendship and confidence, so as to ascertain whether 
 they were meditating any attack upon the royal family of France ; 
 that if need were he should manage so as to be arrested and sent to 
 England, in order to continue his mission in that country ; and that 
 it was expected he should make an exact report of every thing he 
 could learn. He was given the address of the under-secretary of the 
 ministry of the interior. Thereupon a passport was given him in 
 the name ofCheli Napoleon, and a sum of 450 francs (as police 
 agent he drew a fixed salary of 300 francs a month, with 150 francs 
 additional when sent on distant service). Directions were given 
 him, at the same time, that immediately on arriving in Berne he 
 should go before the police and declare his real name, Auguste Con- 
 seil, adding that by a concatenation of unfortunate circumstances 
 he had been implicated in the charges against Fieschi and Alibaud; 
 that, after the prosecution against the latter, he had been forced to 
 quit Paris to escape imprisonment; that he came to Switzerland in 
 search of an asylum ; that for this reason he requested a permis de 
 sejour (licence to reside); and that, furthermore, the means of ex- 
 istence were secured to him by his family, so that there was no 
 danger of his becoming a burden to any one. 
 
 " On the 4th of July, Conseil took a place in the diligence from 
 Paris to Berne for the next day, when he actually set out. On the 
 8th he was at Besanc,on, on the 9th at Neufchatel ; on the 10th 
 he arrived in Berne where, he remained until the 15th of August. 
 He lodged, at first, at the Abbaye des Gentils Homines, afterwards 
 at the Croix Federate; he entered his name in the strangers' regis- 
 ter as Napoleon Cheli. 
 
 " On tie day of his arrival, the 10th, Cheli repaired at noon to
 
 438 AFFAIR OF THE FRENCH SPY CONSEIL. 
 
 the platform ; it was Sunday, there was music, and the place was 
 crowded. There he entered into conversation with the Italians, 
 Boschi and Primavesi, whom he heard speaking his own language; 
 he gave them immediately to understand that he was implicated in 
 the affairs of Fieschi and Alibaud, a thing which, according to 
 their declaration, excited their surprise as coming from a man whom 
 they saw for the first time. Conformably to the instructions given 
 him in Paris, Conseil presented himself at the police-office of the 
 town. 
 
 " The permis de sejour was refused him, and he was ordered to quit 
 Berne. 
 
 " Notwithstanding this he continued to reside until the 22nd in 
 that capital, under pretext that he was waiting for funds for which 
 he had applied to his relations. During his stay in Berne he fre- 
 quently went to the Jews' tavern, situated in the Rue d'Aarberg, 
 watched, as he says, the refugees, in accordance with the orders 
 given him, had frequent interviews with the Roman count Ber- 
 thola, and the Venetian Maxata, whom, according to the declara- 
 tion of the two latter, he wished to persuade to enter the Societc des 
 Families newly organised in Paris on the model of the Societe des 
 Droits de FHomme, and for which he was endeavouring to procure 
 members in Berne, most of whom should be students. Thus did 
 he overstep the limit which separates the office of spy from that of 
 agent provocateur (instigator), a practice common enough with those 
 who are once entangled in the bonds of depravity. 
 
 " During this time, Conseil confesses that he several times addressed 
 reports to a Sieur Jacobin of Paris, from whom he alleges he received 
 two replies, which were addressed to him, paste restante, by that person. 
 These two replies, he tells us, are the mutilated letters, without 
 address or signature, (the address appears to have been torn up), which 
 will be found with the other papers, and are in the following terms : 
 
 " No. 1. ' Accept all the proposals which shall be made to you 
 by your fellow-countrymen. Give your address where you are to 
 be, so that the correspondence may be continued.' 
 "'Paris, July 16, 1836.' 
 
 "No. 2. 'July 16, 1836. If they want to force you to quit 
 Berne, learn among your friends where you can find a place to 
 retire to in a neighbouring canton, where you cannot be molested, 
 and where you will be among friends. If you are expelled from 
 Switzerland, cast yourself on Providence.' 
 
 " Being annoyed by the police, Conseil quitted Berne on the 22nd 
 of July, passed the night in Neufchutel, took post for Pontarlier the 
 next day, and arrived at Besa^on on the 24th. He wrote instantly 
 to Paris for fresh instructions, which did not immediately arrive. 
 As soon as they came, he went to the prefecture, where a new 
 passport was delivered to him in the name of Napoleon Cheli, and 
 one hundred and fifty francs in silver (for his inn charges and 
 travelling expenses), with orders to repair to Berne by way of
 
 AFFAIR OF THE FRENCH SPY CONSEUL 439 
 
 Morteau, Neufchatel, and Locle, and to call for new instructions at 
 the French embassy. On his objecting, that he had received orders 
 in Paris not to set nis foot within the doors of the embassy, he was 
 told in reply, that counter orders had been received. He pointed 
 out that a quite new passport might give rise to suspicions as to 
 whether he was really a refugee, but no regard was paid to this 
 observation. 
 
 " He immediately set out again, and arrived once more in Berne, 
 on the 6th of August. On alighting at the Aarberg gate, he 
 inquired where was the Sauuage inn ; there he signed his name 
 Corelli, in the strangers' register. 
 
 " Conseil had excited the suspicions of the refugees Migliari, 
 Boschi, and Primavesi, who resolved secretly to search his trunk, 
 and seize his papers. Conseil's arrival baffled this design, and a 
 breakfast was appointed for the next day, August 7, at which 
 Conseil was to be present. The intention of the refugees was to 
 clear themselves in each other's eyes at this meeting, from the 
 imputation of espionnage. 
 
 " On the night of the 6th of August, Conseil repaired, at a very 
 late hour, to the French embassy. The following is his statement 
 on this subject: ' On arriving at M. de Montebello's I told a 
 servant to announce me ; he desired my name, wanted to know 
 my business, &c. ; but as I insisted, I was introduced directly into a 
 room on the ground floor, in which there was a party of ladies and 
 gentlemen. The duke immediately came up to me and led me 
 into a little cabinet, where I saw a desk and papers. There I de- 
 tailed to him the position in which I was, and the duke replied to 
 me nearly in these words : ' Do you know that this position is 
 an extremely bad one ? What is to be done ? The police are in 
 search of you since I denounced you. You must quit Berne. I 
 will give you a passport in another name, and you must try to 
 escape.' The duke then sat down, told me to take a seat, and sent 
 for his secretary. As the latter was not to be found, the duke told 
 me to call on him again at five next morning. Upon my observing 
 to him that a visit at so unusual an hour, might cause me to be 
 detected, he changed his mind, and desired me to call the next 
 day at nine in the evening, at the chancery of the embassy, where 
 he would give me a fresh passport and money for my journey. 
 The duke dismissed me with these words : ' I will give my first 
 secretary the necessary orders, and he will arrange the affair with 
 you.' Whereupon I went back to the Sauvage.' 
 
 "On Sunday, August 7, at six in the morning, Berthola, Migliari, 
 Boschi, Primavesi, and Conseil repaired to the appointed break- 
 fast. 
 
 ' f Conseil was ordered to give up the key of his trunk, which he 
 immediately threw on the table. Berthola took it up along witli 
 the passport, and it was determined that the party should go back 
 to the Sauvage to examine Conseil's baggage.
 
 440 AFFAIR OF THE FRENCH SPY CONSEIL. 
 
 " It was then, they say, that the examination of the trunk took 
 place. If one of them is to be believed, they went so far as to 
 search Conseil's person, on which they found seven or eight francs 
 in silver. Berthola seized all the suspected papers to the number 
 of ten, the same which were afterwards put into the hands of the 
 Prefect of Nidau. 
 
 " At that moment Conseil renewed his avowals, and to give proof 
 of his good intentions and his wish to repair his fault, he made known 
 to his companions, that he was to go that same evening at nine to the 
 secretaryship of the French embassy , to receive a new passport, money, 
 and instructions, which he promised to communicate to them. 
 
 "At the hour appointed, Conseil. followed by Berthola and Mig- 
 liari, who went with him to the Place de la Cathedrale, proceeded 
 to the ambassador's chancery. 
 
 " ' I found M. de Belleval there,' says Conseil ; * he exchanged 
 some words with me, and said, among other things, ' Well, how 
 shall we arrange the matter ? it is an awkward one.' He then took 
 a blank passport, filled it up in my presence, put his signature at the 
 foot, and told me to add mine, which I did immediately. He had 
 put the date of November 15, 1835, to the passport, which was 
 made out in the name of Francois Hermann. He gave me also 
 two hundred French francs in gold napoleons, with orders to quit 
 Berne and go to other Swiss towns, where it would be easy for me 
 to pass for a traveller, and to watch several refugees of different 
 nations. The names of these refugees were in my pocket-book, in 
 which I had written them down ; but the leaves containing them, 
 were destroyed by me at Nidau, where my pocket-book was not 
 taken from me until the day after my arrest. The only names I 
 remember are those of Mazzini, and the two brothers Rufnni.' 
 
 " Immediately after this last confession (dated 26th of August), 
 Conseil drew fro in his breast a paper he had contrived to conceal until 
 then, and which was no other than that just spoken of. It contains 
 in two different handwritings several names of persons and places,, 
 among others: 
 
 " liauschenplatt, Ruffini, due fratelli. 
 
 " Genevra, Duperey, Dumoler. 
 
 " A Zuriche, Gragne (doubtless Granier). 
 
 " A Lusana, M. de Ludre. 
 
 " A Interlachen, Chancel. 
 
 " A Bal Champagne, Liestal. 
 
 " According to Conseil's confession, the words Rauschenplatt, 
 de Ludre, Interlachen, Chancel, were written by M. de Belleval. In 
 the word Duperey, M. de Belleval changed the initial S written by 
 Conseil into a D which now begins the word. 
 
 " Conseil ran immediately from the chancery of the embassy to 
 the Ober Thor, where the four Italians were waiting for him, as had 
 been agreed on. He made known to them the passport he had 
 received in the name of Francois Hermann, commercial traveller of
 
 AFFAIR OF THE FRENCH SPY CONSEIL. 441 
 
 Strasburg, and the instructions he had received, namingt ot hem the 
 persons that had been pointed out to him ; he spoke also to Ber- 
 thola and Migliari of the money he had received, and showed it in 
 gold pieces. After promising not to betray any of the Italians that 
 had been named to him, Conseil returned into the town with the 
 Italians, and following the advice of Berthola, instead of goinw to 
 the Sauvage, he went to lodge at the Cigogne, where he enrolled 
 himself in the strangers' register by the name of Hermann. 
 
 " Meanwhile, Migliari had resolved to disclose the purpose of 
 Conseil's mission, and to make him publicly known as an agent of 
 the French police. 
 
 " With this intention he bespoke at the post-office two places 
 for Fribourg (whither he was to go again to get his papers for the 
 journey he had previously projected), paid for them with a go\d 
 napoleon he had received for that purpose from Conseil, and wrote 
 to M. Bandelier, formerly an employe in the Jeune Suisse, at 
 Brienne, that he would bring some one on Wednesday, August 10, 
 to Nidau. At noon he set out with the post. His companions 
 waited for him at the Ober Thor, on the road, where Conseil got 
 into the carriage. 
 
 " From that moment Migliari never lost sight of Conseil. He 
 lodged in the same hotel, and passed the night on a bench placed 
 before the door that separated his chamber from Conseil's, keeping 
 watch to frustrate any attempt at escape which the latter might make." 
 
 What need we add to these overwhelming disclosures? 
 
 Meanwhile no reply except the Condusum had been made to the 
 too famous note of the Due de Montebello; it was amidst the in- 
 dignation and disgust excited by Conseil's affair that the diet 
 began its deliberations on a draft of a reply concluded and summed 
 up in these words: " The office of M. de Montebello does not suffi- 
 ciently respect the legitimate susceptibilities of Switzerland, when it 
 supposes a case in which she would be untrue to her international 
 obligations. The confederation has shown by deeds that it knows 
 its duties without being reminded of them, and fulfils them without 
 being called on to do so. But it likewise knows its rights, which its 
 geographical position does not weaken. Accordingly, it cannot admit 
 the pretension that others than itself should arrogate the right of doing 
 justice on tJie refugees who conspire in Switzerland, and of putting an 
 end to the toleration she exercises. The diet would repudiate, in the 
 most energetic manner, such a violation of the federal sovereignty, 
 confident m the rights of a sovereign and independent state, and in 
 the support of the whole nation." 
 
 Such language would have been sufficient, strictly speaking, to 
 protect the dignity of Switzerland, but for the previous adoption of 
 the Condusum. But after so deplorable an act of submission, what 
 signified a few pompous phrases on the inviolability of a sovereign 
 independent nation? The diet ought to have comprehended, that
 
 442 CONSEIL'S MISSION KEPT SECRET FROM THIERS. 
 
 the recall of the ambassador who had insulted it was not too much 
 to demand for the re-establishment of the old equality of honour 
 between the two countries. But this it did not comprehend : for 
 inane as it was, the draft was adopted by eighteen cantons. Three 
 thought the reply too energetic ! These were Uri, Unterwald, and 
 Schwitz. 
 
 Again, if the Conclusitm had not been rigorously executed ! But 
 on the 24th the Vorort enjoined all the cantons to expel the stran- 
 gers who came under the scope of the first article. Orders were 
 given to convey to the French frontiers the refugees Mazzini, Ruf- 
 fini, Rauschenplatt, Peters, and Litzius; Harro Harring was arrested 
 in Berne; Strohmeyer was sent to England, and Boschi found him- 
 self subjected to a decree of expulsion on mere suspicions, not on 
 proved facts. 
 
 Thence a redoubling of threats, pushed to the degree of insolence, 
 on the part of the northern powers. " We learn from authority to 
 be relied on," said the Augsburg Gazette, " that the troubles of 
 Switzerland have given occasion to a treaty between the powers of 
 the east and west of Europe, who have chosen France as the expo- 
 nent of their demands. ... If the Helvetic diet does not accord 
 with good grace ichat diplomacy requires of it, the most severe coer- 
 cive measures will be taken against the confederation. The syndic 
 Thomas has laid before the senate of our free town the plan of ope- 
 rations prepared." Such is the part the government of France 
 was made to play in Europe six years after the revolution of 1830 ! 
 Not thus had Napoleon dealt with Switzerland, of which he was 
 almost the legislator, and which owed so much to the protection of 
 his genius. But the time of great conceptions and of great men 
 was passed away. 
 
 Here it is necessary to suspend the narrative we have begun, for 
 we are close upon the fall of M. Thiers, under whose ministry the 
 quarrel with Switzerland had commenced. 
 
 What was the share of responsibility resting on M. Thiers in this 
 disastrous and shameful quarrel? The truth is, that he was not 
 cognisant of the whole matter in all its bearings, as he afterwards 
 distinctly declared. For instance, he was ignorant, he, the prime 
 minister, of the utterly ignominious mission committed to the spy 
 Conseil. But what he may with justice, and what he must be re- 
 
 E reached with is, that he crushed Switzerland, a friendly country, a 
 md of liberty; that he pretended to take in a serious light pre- 
 texts, the falsehood of which his keen intelligence must have seen 
 through; and that, in consequence, he leagued himself with the 
 enterprises of absolute kings against the democratic principle. 
 
 It is true he repented of this in the end, but not until the affront 
 put upon the eldest son of Louis Philippe by the court of Vienna 
 made it clear and manifest how artificial were the caresses of M. 
 de Metternich, and how invincible were his feelings of repugnance. 
 M. Thiers then wished to retrace his steps up hill; a vain attempt!
 
 SPANISH AFFAIRS MENDIZABAL. 443 
 
 The state of things, such as he had contributed to make it, was 
 stronger than he, and, as we shall see, bore him down. 
 
 It was the Spanish question which was to overthrow M. Thiers. 
 Now the situation of the Peninsula, during the year 1836, had been 
 as follows: 
 
 It was governed, in the beginning of 1836, by M. Mendizabal, a 
 man of volcanic temperament, with a head full of schemes and ex- 
 pedients, a man unequalled in Spain for quick and shrewd appre- 
 hension, and boldness in enterprise, but who knew not how to 
 make the most of his successes or of fortune ; a brilliant adventurer, 
 had he moved in a minor sphere, and in office an impassioned revo- 
 lutionist. He combined, moreover, all those qualities that speak 
 mightily to assembled bodies of men; tall stature, a glance of fire, 
 a peremptory bearing, and such a proneness to emotion, that one 
 day he even burst into a fit of sobbing in the very tribune. 
 
 To dazzle the minds of men by announcing the possession of a 
 secret that would save Spain; to obtain a vote of confidence from 
 the chamber of procuradores ; to order, at all risks, a levy of a hundred 
 thousand men ; to direct discussion to a remodelling of the electoral 
 law ; to break down the first resistance of the Cortes amidst the cheers 
 of the people ; to set up the national estates for sale ; to authorise the 
 redemption of dues accruing to the religious communities ; to decree 
 the suppression of convents in Spain, the old country of the Inqui- 
 sition ; all this was for Mendizabal the business of a few months. On 
 the matter of the suppression of convents, it is alleged, that having 
 presented himself one evening to the regent Christina, he said to 
 her, pulling out his watch, u Madame, couriers are in readiness on 
 all the roads; they will set off in an hour if the regent deigns to 
 approve of the measure I propose;" and in the contrary case he 
 would have resigned. Christina signed the decree, that is to say, a 
 whole revolution. 
 
 It was impossible but that such a minister should be hateful to 
 the court of the Tuileries; the more so as the reforms attempted by 
 him were completed in the very height of the strange alliance con- 
 tracted by the French government with the absolutist courts. Thus, 
 whilst M. de Rayneval, our ambassador at Madrid, was studying to 
 damage Mendizabal in the opinion of the regent, pains were taken 
 in Paris to have him thought guilty of selling himself to British 
 interests. Nothing, however, that he had sacrificed to them was 
 particularised ; but appearances were made use of against him : he 
 nad lived long in England, was attended by an English servant, 
 retained certain English usages, and received muskets, ammunition, 
 and money, from the court of St. James's, to fight against Don 
 Carlos. 
 
 The court of the Tuileries had, besides, special motives for ruin- 
 ing the Spanish minister, which it is good to make known. 
 
 Mendizabal and this was a deplorable inconsistency on his part 
 had brought with him into office, along with the desire of revolu-
 
 444 MENDIZABAL'S SYSTEM. 
 
 lionising Spain, that of strengthening the foundations of the mo- 
 narchy. But this latter consummation depended on the solution of 
 three problems : it was necessary, first, to extinguish the civil war, 
 at the same time preserving the throne from the too great po- 
 pularity of a victorious general; next, to provide for the case in 
 which the regency should become vacant before the majority 
 of Isabella ; and, thirdly, to anticipate the diplomatic difficulties 
 which the marriage of the young queen could not fail to create. 
 Mendizabal proposed secretly to Christina, to melt the three pro- 
 blems into one, by the immediate marriage of Isabella. In that case 
 there would be no further cause to fear, on behalf of the monarchy, 
 the ascendancy of a triumphant general^ since the supreme chief of 
 the army would be the queen's husband ; the regency becoming 
 void, supreme authority would then be in the hands of a prince 
 elevated above ambitious rivalry ; and as for the matrimonial embar- 
 rassments to be avoided, the best course was not to give them time 
 to arise, by settling the matter at once. 
 
 There remained the task of choosing a prince who should combine 
 the various qualities required by the circumstances, viz. : military 
 habits, in order that he might be able to put himself at the head of 
 the troops; exalted birth, so that the sovereigns might not scruple to 
 accept him; such a condition in Europe that his marriage might 
 not excite an outbreak of the mutual jealousy of the principal powers; 
 lastly, wealth, that he might not be reproached with having come into 
 Spain to enrich himself. The prince who in Mendizabal's opinion 
 united all these qualifications was the Duke of Leuchtemberg :* he 
 did not hesitate to propose him to Christina. 
 
 The regent seemed to regard this plan with favour : but it could 
 only be rendered successful by promptitude and secrecy in the means 
 of its execution. Now M. de Rayneval was made acquainted with 
 the scheme, and this was quite enough to defeat it. The Duke of 
 Leuchtemberg had one insuperable defect in Louis Philippe's eyes, 
 that of belonging to the Bonaparte family. Mendizabal had conse- 
 quently alarmed a dynastic interest, and it was not long before he 
 knew what influence was undermining his credit, what hands were 
 preparing his fall. So then, that French intervention which he re- 
 pudiated as a Spaniard and a revolutionist, Mendizabal was like- 
 wise interested as a minister in rejecting. 
 
 And yet how many fearful evils had civil war heaped on Spain 
 since Mendizabal haa taken office! In 1835, the Carlists had lost 
 in Zumalacarreguy a man as competent to organise an army as to 
 lead it against the enemy, an indomitable soldier, an experienced 
 officer, a hero. Yet great as was this loss for Don Carlos, the insur- 
 rection had kept its ground and gained more strength. Encamped, 
 in 1836, in a territory more than thirty leagues in extent, comprised 
 between the Pyrenees, the Arga, the Ebro, and the ocean, it occu- 
 
 * The same who has since married the eldest daughter of the Emperor of Russia.
 
 HIS SUCCESSOR ISTURITZ. 445 
 
 pied formidable inaccessible positions there, was backed by a com- 
 pact mass of nearly forty thousand men, and radiated to a distance 
 by means of bands under daring leaders, drunk with rage, strong in 
 their audacity, activity, and cunning, and everywhere leaving bloody 
 marks of their passage, in Catalonia, Lower Aragon, La Mancha, 
 Old Castile, Gahcia, and the Asturias. Accordingly, there were no 
 pitched battles, but ceaselessly recurring attacks, ambuscades at every 
 step, towns surprised, villages plundered, horrible acts of vengeance, 
 incendiary fires, and butcheries. Cabrera's old mother, shot at Tor- 
 tosa, and immediately avenged by the murder of eighty women whom 
 Cabrera shot in his turn ; what more is wanting to portray the cha- 
 racter of that bloody struggle in which a brave and unfortunate 
 nation was desperately engaged? Had the arena even been circum- 
 scribed ! But the excesses of armed brigandage that desolated the 
 rural districts, were responded to by the savage howlings and fright- 
 ful holocausts of insurrection in the towns. One shout was often 
 sufficient to raise the multitude : Death to the Carlists ! At Barce- 
 lona, for instance, on the night of January 4, 1836, the people ran 
 by torch-light to the citadel, scaled the walls, massacred a hundred 
 and twenty Caiiist prisoners, threw Colonel O'Dounell from the 
 ramparts, dragged his corpse about the streets at the end of a rope, 
 and then burned it in the open square, with bellowings of frantic 
 applause. 
 
 How were all these horrors to be cut short? How was Spain to 
 escape from the bloody lists in which she had so long been turning? 
 To those who were not afraid of the importance of counter-revolu- 
 tionary ideas ripened in the court of France, the question was not 
 dubious, and they loudly called for intervention. But on this point 
 Mendizabal was not a man to bend. All he had made up his mind 
 to sanction was the system of franslimitation, intended solely to de- 
 prive Don Carlos of the succours transmitted to him by the northern 
 powers : and we have stated the causes that induced M. Thiers to 
 reject that system in his despatch of March 18, 1836. 
 
 About two months after the sending of that despatch, Mendizabal 
 fell a victim to this mistaken belief, that the prosperity of a popular 
 revolution was compatible with the consolidation of a monarchy; he 
 fell under court intrigues, notwithstanding the support of the cham- 
 ber of procuradores and the sympathy of the people. And it was 
 Isturitz who governed Spain when M. Thiers endeavoured to renew 
 by intervention that English alliance which he himself had broken oft'. 
 
 The opportunity seemed favourable. Gained over by Christina, 
 Isturitz, on taking office, had put himself forward without scruple, 
 as the adversary of his old friends, and of the principles he had till 
 then upheld, as a deserter from the revolutionary cause; and, lastly, 
 as a partisan of intervention. M. Thiers, in interfering in Spain, 
 had no longer, therefore, to fear either a collision with a hostile mi- 
 nistry, or the danger of giving aid to democratic ideas. 
 
 The foreign legion, composed of three thousand soldiers, had been
 
 446 INTERVENTION IN SPAIN. 
 
 formed and destined to succour the Peninsula. Thiers resolved to 
 augment it to twelve thousand men, and thus to protect Christina in 
 a more efficacious manner. To this end it was necessary to enrol 
 picked soldiers in the legion, and to put it under the command of 
 an officer of great energy and boldness. M. Thiers cast his eyes on 
 M. Bugeaud, whose military qualifications he esteemed most highly, 
 and on whose devotedness he relied. He wrote, therefore, to him to 
 Africa, where that general had just won the battle of Sickah, and 
 so adroitly set before him the ad vantages of the expedition committed 
 to his zeal, that M. Bugeaud accepted the appointment, though it 
 went much against his feelings to fight under a foreign cockade. 
 
 The king's consent was yet to be obtained, and Thiers had a very 
 hard battle to fight with the monarch on this ground. But clearly 
 foreseeing this resistance, he had managed to procure himself sup- 
 porters in the royal family itself. The queen desired, though timidly, 
 that Christina should not be left exposed to the chances of civil war ; 
 the Due de Nemours had let himself be gradually overcome by the 
 persuasive eloquence of M. Thiers; but of all the members of the 
 royal family the one who most warmly supported the prime minister's 
 policy was the Due d'Orleans. 
 
 That prince, a mixture of good and bad qualities, was full of craft, 
 but full also of valour. The interests of liberty gave him but slight 
 concern, though with a dissimulation common to heirs-apparent, he 
 affected some outward show of liberalism; but the interests of na- 
 tionality held an enormous share in his thoughts and feelings. He 
 was passionately fond of military France, and abhorred Europe. 
 Accordingly, no one took more pleasure than he in the manoeuvres 
 of camps, and in the government of the army. He entered readily 
 into familiarity with the soldier, accommodating himself with a 
 cleverly assumed appearance of heartiness to the habits of army life, 
 gaining good will by the freedom of his language, and the bluntness 
 of his demeanour, attentive to the grumblings of the barracks, and 
 a skilful fisher for the favour of military men. Thus he made 
 his preparations for a reign which he intended to devote to stormy 
 issues. For, the disdain with which his family had been treated by 
 the great courts; the insolent language in which they indulged against 
 it ; his sisters doomed to desire husbands and to wait for them ; the 
 humiliating refusals he had himself endured ; all this rankled in his 
 breast. His pride as a young man and a prince revolted against 
 afironts, to which his father's prudent philosophy submitted with 
 resignation. 
 
 The struggle began then between the king and M. Thiers, backed 
 by the Due d'Orleans. It was long and obstinate, and Thiers spoke 
 at last of resigning. 
 
 The king, who possessed a rare sagacity when his decision was 
 required in small matters, possessed in other respects no administra- 
 tive knowledge. No one had a mind less capable of generalisation, 
 and yet, strange to tell, he had no idea whatever of practical details.
 
 THE KING UNYIELDING. 447 
 
 Seeing the fruitlessness of the attempts made by Christina's agents 
 to recruit auxiliaries in France, he fancied that it would not be 
 found possible to march nine thousand volunteers across the Pyre- 
 nees, and it was with this expectation that he at kst consented to let 
 his minister take his course. Thiers instantly set to work. Applica- 
 tions were made to the regiments forming the corps of observation 
 sent to the Pyrenees under General Harispe ; a call was addressed to 
 such as were well inclined ; and such was the warlike impatience of 
 the soldier, that in a short space of time the auxiliary legion was or- 
 ganised and ready for action. They were superb troops, full of 
 ardour, intoxicated with confidence, and there was reason to expect 
 every thing of their courage. 
 
 The king had not looked for this result ; it alarmed and discon- 
 certed him. But his uneasiness redoubled when he learned that 
 General Bugeaud was disposed to take the command of the legion ; 
 for he had a misgiving of the military impetuosity of the general, 
 whom he disliked for his rude and arrogant manners. 
 
 Meanwhile, Spain was in a state of extremity, and party rancour, 
 superexcited by a continual state of troubles, had assumed there a 
 character of fanatic exaltation more and more dangerous. What was 
 to be the fate of the revolution in that country ? The cabinet of St. 
 James's ceased not to insist on the fulfilment of the Quadruple Treaty. 
 Christina sent a monk in disguise to M. Thiers, soliciting aid, and 
 promising the hand of Isabella to the Duke d'Aumale. 
 
 But the king still resisted. The offer of the crown of Spain for 
 one of his sons tempted him little : he would never have consented 
 for the sake of aggrandising his family to alarm the great courts, 
 which he was determined to keep quiet at all cost. Besides, he 
 thought, or appeared to think, that in order to maintain a footing in 
 Spain it was necessary that the French influence there should be 
 more carefully masked. According to him a French prince on the 
 throne of Spain would have given too much umbrage to the Spanish 
 people, and this view was not without truth. As for the danger to 
 which the Spanish revolution was exposed, the king was not the man 
 who, for the sake of saving it, would sacrifice his pacific system and 
 the good- will of the continent. 
 
 A ministerial crisis was approaching; it was inevitable. However, 
 as the king valued the services of M. Thiers, who shared his own 
 notions and repugnances in matters of home politics, he made some 
 efforts to keep that minister in office, by making him yield. 
 
 M. de Talleyrand was then in France, where he was dragging out 
 an useless old age. He had completely enthralled himself to the king, 
 who had contrived to win upon him by flattering his servile vanity, 
 and by standing, for instance, before the arm-chair in which he insisted 
 that the lame diplomatist should remain seated, on account of his infir- 
 mity. It was M. de Talleyrand whom the king employed to bring 
 M. Thiers over; but it was a cause which the very history of the ne- 
 gotiator's life rendered very difficult to plead. " What!" said M.
 
 448 GUIZOT SEPARATES FROM DE BROGLIE. 
 
 Thiers to the Prince de Talleyrand, "it is you, the signer of the 
 Quadruple Alliance Treaty, who urge me to trample on its clauses ! 
 It is you, first ambassador of the revolution of July to London, who 
 seek to withdraw me from England, and to connect me with the 
 continent !" 
 
 The negotiation failed therefore, and secret steps were taken for 
 the formation of a new cabinet, after all the means of seduction had 
 been in vain exhausted on M. Thiers. For Louis Philippe liked in 
 him the creature of the regime inaugurated in 1830, the new man, 
 and he had never much taste for ministers who had served another 
 
 government besides his own. Thus, strange as it may seem, what 
 e most disliked in M. Guizot was his journey to Ghent. He re- 
 proached him, in fact, with not being sufficiently blue, and he has 
 been known more than once to say: " M. Guizot discolours me." 
 To him, nevertheless, he resolved to turn. 
 
 Unfortunately M. Guizot had for friend and for necessary colleague 
 the Due de Broglie, whom the court would not have at any price. 
 To part those two men became the grand business of the moment. 
 M. Guizot found himself surrounded with assiduous and flattering 
 attentions. To him thenceforth belonged the glory of securing the 
 policy of the 1 1 th of October, by the maintenance of peace ; but to 
 fit himself for properly fulfilling so high a destiny he ought to have 
 the courage to sacrifice his personal affections to the good of the 
 state, by separating from M. de Broglie, a stiff, proud man, whom the 
 diplomatic body did not like, and who was capable of putting every 
 thing in jeopardy. M. Guizot held out for some time. Besides 
 that he was called on to lower himself in his own eyes by a sort of 
 treachery not exempt from ingratitude, lie felt plainly that he was 
 about to commit a blunder, and to deprive himself for ever of a 
 support, without which he could never fill office with more than 
 subaltern authority. His impatient ambition at last prevailed, and 
 the king had the satisfaction of hearing him say one day: " From 
 this moment your majesty may consider me as free." This was a 
 great victory for the Chateau, and care was taken to make it com- 
 plete. M. Guizot, in separating from M. de Broglie, whom he 
 liked, had consented to be minister under the presidence of M. 
 Mole, whom he disliked. More than this was effected. M. de Mon- 
 talivet was sounded, still in secret, and was easily prevailed on to 
 second the views of the court. The colleague of M. Thiers, to whom 
 he had given a right to reckon upon him, he held himself in readi- 
 ness to abandon him and take office by his rival's side, when the 
 proper time should arrive. Thus the cabinet led by M. Thiers was 
 undermined some time before its fall, and the court became so much 
 the more intractable, knowing that it could not be taken unawares 
 or unprovided. 
 
 Things were in this state when news arrived of a great event in 
 Spain. 
 
 At the time of Mendizabal's fall, the insurrection of Navarre was
 
 REVOLT OF LA GRANJA. 449 
 
 suffocating within a circle of 100,000 bayonets. But that perilous 
 situation had been of short duration. Villareal, the Count do Casa 
 Eguia's successor in the command of the Carlist army, lost no time in 
 baffling the plans of Cordova, the commander-in-chief of the enemy's 
 forces ; and whilst the latter was hurrying to Madrid to take part 
 in the cabals fomented by a new ministry, the Carlist general, 
 Gomez, followed by 5000 intrepid adventurers, was breaking down 
 the line of blockade towards Balmaceda. There was something 
 sparkling in the expedition of Gomez. Pressed on by Espartero, 
 who panted in his track, he overran with the rapidity of lightning 
 the Asturias, Galicia, and the mountains of Leon, crossing rivers, 
 escaping from the combined movements of generals Manso, Latre, 
 and de la Puente, traversing the capitals with victorious steps, levy- 
 ing contributions, and everywhere scattering terror and the seeds 
 of revolt. During this time, another corps was invading the pro- 
 vince of Soria ; Cabrera and Serrador were extending their ravages 
 on all sides; the English general, Evans, was rapidly withdraw- 
 ing from Fontarabia which he had threatened, and withdrawing in 
 a panic; Cordova, now returned to the camp, was bustling about 
 in impotent restlessness; Carlism, in a word, seemed already lifting 
 itself up before Madrid like a bloody, inevitable phantom. And, 
 as a climax of evils, the Isturitz ministry, pushing the counter- 
 revolution to extremes, was setting men's passions on lire. Then. 
 Spain distracted, exasperated, and palpitating, was seized all at 
 once with a fearful movement. At Malaga, a junta was formed 
 over the still warm corpses of the Count de Donadio, and M. San 
 Just, who had been mercilessly butchered. Cadiz, Xeres, the Isle 
 of Leon, Seville, Cordova, Saragossa, Badajoz, Valencia, Cartha- 
 gena, Lorca, Alicante, Murcia, rose by a common impulse. From 
 one end of the Peninsula to the other, one cry resounded: the 
 constitution of 1812 was proclaimed, that democratic constitution 
 formerly voted under the invader's fire, and on a rock, the last 
 refuge of Spanish freedom. 
 
 Amidst this immense tempest the city of Madrid alone remained 
 silent and unmoved. Subjected to martial law, it seemed to trem- 
 ble under the hand of General Quesada, who was encompassed with 
 the insignia of a bloody dictatorship. Suddenly, at some distance 
 from the town, almost at the gates of La Granja, the palace inhabited 
 by the queen, the regiment of provincial militia put itself in 
 march, singing Riego's nymn. This was on the 12th of August, 
 1836, at eight in the evening. The soldiers of the fourth regiment 
 of the guard, swelled the mass of the military sedition. A few mi- 
 nutes afterwards, some sergeants forced their way into Christina's 
 apartment, and at their dictation, and under their eyes, the regent 
 signed a paper containing these words: "The queen authorises 
 General San Roman to permit the swearing of the constitution until 
 the meeting of the Cortes." Less than this would have been enough 
 to produce an explosion in Madrid. In vain the ministry prepared 
 
 VOL. II. 2 G
 
 450 THE REVOLT OF LA GRANJA DETERMINES THE 
 
 to make a furious resistance; in vain Quesada ran through the 
 streets, sword in hand, with threatening and indomitable aspect: the 
 revolt had fully infected the city ; a boding murmur rose from the 
 Porto del Sol, the usual focus of disturbance ; from hour to hour 
 the commotion of the mob increased the ministry could not but 
 fall. Calatrava was named president of the council of ministers, 
 and General Seoane, captain-general of New Castile. It was in the 
 very house of the latter that Isturitz concealed himself from the 
 pursuit of the vindictive populace. General Quesada, less fortunate, 
 had left Madrid, and proceeded towards the village of Hortaleza. 
 He was recognised by a scar on his face, and his flight having been 
 announced in Madrid, General Seoane instantly despatched horse- 
 men to protect him. They arrived too late; outstripped by some 
 frantic men, they found only a lifeless body, with which they has- 
 tened to Madrid, to hawk about its gory fragments. 
 
 Such was the news brought to the Tuileries. The king made 
 use of it against M. Thiers. Was it possible to succour a govern- 
 ment that had sprung out of such a revolt? Was it decent to em- 
 ploy the monarchical sword of France in the service of the corporals 
 who had vanquished Christina? M. Theirs might have replied to 
 the king, that the insurrection of La Granja proved peremptorily 
 how urgently necessary it was to extirpate civil war in Spain ; that 
 it was by civil war that the fury of parties was kindled and kept 
 glowing ; that it was from the prolongation of these dismal disorders 
 that the enemies of Christina derived boldness enough to declare 
 their intentions, and to lay their hands on her crown; in a word, 
 that to abandon Spain to herself was to dig her a grave between 
 anarchy and war. M. Thiers chose rather to admit that the scenes 
 of which Spain had just been the theatre called for adjournment. 
 He desired only that the auxiliaries assembled at Pau should not 
 cross the Pyrenees until the situation of Spain should be more dis- 
 tinctly defined. 
 
 Things were in this position when it was learned, that on arriving 
 on the 12th of August, 1836, at Pampeluna, to take command of 
 the foreign legion, General Lebeau had published an order of the 
 day in which, after saying, " honoured by the King of the French 
 with the command of the foreign and French legions in the service 
 of Spain," he added, " I precede numerous auxiliaries whom France 
 in her alliance with Spain, is sending in addition for her service. The 
 month will not have elapsed before their arrival." General Lebeau was 
 assuredly authorised by circumstances to hold this language, especially 
 at the moment of entering on a campaign, and almost under the 
 enemy's fire. He was disavowed, nevertheless, and that by a few 
 lines inserted in the Moniteur, contrary to the wishes of the president 
 of the council. Then came the question, what was to be done with 
 the auxiliaries assembled at Pau. According to MM. Thiers, Passy, 
 Duperre, Maison, Sauzet, and Pelet de la Lozere, the corps ought 
 to be kept together until a clear insight into events should be ob-
 
 FALL OF THE THIERS CABINET. 451 
 
 tained. The king, on the contrary, was for dissolving it. There 
 was the knotty point of the difficulty. 
 
 Thiers felt plainly that he was tottering ; but wishing to make 
 a last effort, he assembled his colleagues. Until then, he had pro- 
 ceeded in harmony with them ; and in spite of numerous warn- 
 ings, and foretokens of many kinds, he flattered himself to the last 
 moment that M. Montali vet's support would not fail him. He 
 was, therefore, equally surprised and irritated when he heard Mon- 
 tali vet declare firmly in favour of the king's system. Giving way 
 to his anger, he said, in a passionate voice, "And pray, sir, who 
 has taught you this lesson ? You did not know it so well eight 
 days ago." Montalivet retorted haughtily, and Thiers replied, 
 " W ell then, let us go to the king, he will explain himself." In 
 the king's presence Thiers continued the dispute, and had the satis- 
 faction to find himself strongly supported by Marshal Maison. The 
 marshal was not in favour of intervention in Spain, but he thought 
 that since France was engaged by a treaty, the honour of her signa- 
 ture ought to be preserved. He spoke to this effect with a firm- 
 ness and a military frankness, that affected the king without persuad- 
 ing him. From that moment the cabinet of the 22nd of February 
 was dissolved. 
 
 M. Thiers, on quitting office, had serious grounds for self-accusa- 
 tion. The scandalous occupation of Cracow long endured; the ad- 
 vances of Metternich lightly accepted ; England dissatisfied by the 
 despatch of March 18; Switzerland odiously persecuted in the name 
 and for the benefit of the most cruel enemies of the French revolu- 
 tion ; here were unquestionable capital faults, faults worthy of ever- 
 lasting reprehension. The honourable portion of M. Thiers' admi- 
 nistration, is that which relates to his efforts on behalf of Spain. 
 Here he showed not only firmness, but lofty and courageous disin- 
 terestedness. It was not, it is true, the cause of real democracy he 
 proposed to support beyond the Pyrenees; but it would not be just 
 to charge upon his character and conduct what was but an error 
 of opinion. 
 
 It was without regret he surrendered that power, the enjoyment 
 of which had been greatly embittered for him by certain influences 
 not easily to be overcome. He had involved himself in the Swiss 
 business, because he had been given to understand that at that price 
 he should have the intervention in Spain conceded to him, and he 
 had found his expectations disappointed ; he had supposed that 
 nothing would be kept secret from him, and the affair of the spy 
 Conseil had shown him that there was another police besides that 
 belonging to the ministry : what grounds for disgust ! Attacked 
 by the press, battled against by the king, goaded by England, 
 deceived by the other cabinets of Europe, it was natural that he 
 should be wearied out. So he turned his eyes towards Italy, 
 whither his lively imagination invited him, and where he wished 
 for some months to forget the vexations, of politics. But when he 
 
 2G2
 
 452 THE MOLfe CABINET. 
 
 found the negotiations for the formation of a new cabinet tediously 
 prolonged, he expressed his displeasure, and dreaded lest during the 
 ministerial interregnum there should happen in Spain some disaster 
 of a nature to involve his responsibility. According to the king, it 
 was a minister's duty to remain in office until a successor should 
 have been found for him; but to this M. Thiers replied very justly 
 that if he was left the responsibility of office, he ought also to ex- 
 ercise its functions, and that it was competent to him, so long as he 
 \vas not superseded, to march an army into Spain if he thought fit. 
 
 The king, fearing some self-willed act on the part of M. Thiers, 
 pressed forward the negotiation, and at last made known its result. 
 But not wishing to make an enemy of a man who had just been 
 minister, he commanded the attendance of M. Thiers, received him 
 at Neuilly with lavish marks of regard, and let fall by design some 
 apparently casual expressions that seemed to hold out to him the pros- 
 pect of a return to office. M. Thiers took leave of the monarch 
 and the queen and set out for Italy, leaving to his successors an 
 authority without independence, and honours which were in the 
 end to prove only a pompous servitude. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IT was on the 6th of September, 1836, that the king signed the 
 ordonnances appointing a new cabinet. These ordonnances bestowed 
 the presidency of the counsel and the ministry of foreign affairs on M. 
 Mole" ; justice and public worship on M. Persil ; the interior on M. 
 Gasparin ; marine on M. de Rosamel ; finance on M. Duchatel ; 
 and public instruction on M. Guizot. Some days afterwards, Lieu- 
 tenant-general Bernard having been named minister of war, and 
 M. Martin (du Nord) minister of commerce and public works, the 
 ministry was completed. 
 
 People were generally surprised at not seeing in it the name of 
 M. de Montalivet. It was, indeed, singular that that person had 
 derived no benefit from his disagreement with M. Thiers, and from 
 a rupture in which the king had been so much interested ! But 
 M. Montalivet was strongly bent on having the portefeuille of the 
 interior, which was one much too important not to be coveted by 
 a man like M. Guizot. Thence arose a disagreement to which Mon- 
 talivet was sacrificed. 
 
 It was not that M. Guizot desired the ministry of the interior for 
 himself. Earnestly pressed to accept it, both by MM. Duvergier de 
 Hauranne, and by the leaders of the doctrinaire party, he had con- 
 stantly refused to do so ; but it was his purpose to occupy it through 
 one of his creatures : he applied for and obtained it for M. Gasparin,
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE SWISS AFFAIR. 453 
 
 of whom he was sure. For it pleased this proud man to rule the 
 cabinet in a secondary position. 
 
 Among the foremost of the difficulties bequeathed by Thiers to 
 the new ministry, Mole found the Swiss question. 
 
 We have made known the reply of the diet to the note of M. de 
 Montebello ; but after the arrest and confession of Conseil it was 
 impossible that Switzerland should confine herself to a timid pro- 
 test. On the 9th of September, 1836, there was read before the 
 diet a report on the affair of Conseil, drawn up by MM. Monard, 
 dan Keller (the one already cited), which contained these words: 
 " Let what will be thought of the employment of spies by govern- 
 ments and embassies ; let it be held to be true or false that the limit 
 between what is allowable, and what is not so, is not marked out 
 for diplomacy and police in accordance with the ideas of ordinary 
 men as to honour and probity ; nevertheless, we shall never be able 
 to persuade ourselves that acts like those here in question, that fraud 
 and forgery which in all countries of the world are designated 
 crimes, and are abandoned to public contempt, are ordinary and 
 every- day acts when they emanate from diplomacy, whose high 
 mission it is to draw together and unite nations. The honour of 
 the Confederation does not allow of its silently enduring such conduct. 
 And all this has taken place in Switzerland in the name of France 
 and of her king! and these facts have given occasion to a judi- 
 cial inquiry. The honour of France and that of her king are 
 alike compromised. But France and her king do not fabricate 
 false passports; France and her king do not commit crimes, and 
 they have not ordered any one to commit them in their name ; and 
 any one who dared to commit them in their name would have 
 ceased to act as their representative. . . . They must be made 
 aware of the truth. . . . May it please the high Diet to instruct the 
 Vorort to inform, through the Swiss charge-d'affairs at Paris, or any 
 other sure channel, the King of the French and his government of 
 the real state of the affair, and to join to that communication certi- 
 fied copies of the documentary evidence." 
 
 Terrible as were such conclusions from their veiled meaning, M. 
 Bruggiser, deputy of Argau, opposed them as tame and feeble, 
 M. de Chambner, on the contrary, declared them excessively offen- 
 sive and full of danger. After a very animated discussion ten 
 states only the requisite majority was twelve pronounced for the 
 report. Several cantons had called for the referendum.* But the 
 cantons of Fribourg and St. Gall having, without delay, given their 
 adhesion to the conclusions, the federal directory had to think of 
 executing the decision of the diet. 
 
 Who would believe it? M. Mole was deceived respecting this 
 disgraceful affair of Conseil just as M. Thiers had been. He made 
 
 * That is to say, an adjournment in order to receive the command* of the con- 
 stituents.
 
 454 NOTE OF THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT. 
 
 inquiries of those who were most competent to enlighten him, and 
 he did not learn all. A significant smile of M. Appony's having sub- 
 sequently caused him strange suspicions, he at last became aware of 
 the truth; but the mischief was already done; a scandalous iniquity 
 had already been perpetrated against Switzerland. Confident, in 
 fact, that there was no truth in the spying mission attributed to 
 Conseil, and that the report adopted by the diet was but the result 
 of a plot laid by the refugees to ruin the French ambassador, Mole 
 had not hesitated to strike at Switzerland; and, on the 27th of Sep- 
 tember, 1836, he addressed a note to the federal directory breaking 
 off all diplomatic relations between Switzerland and France. 
 
 The note of the 27th of September, acknowledged in the first 
 place an avowal singularly imprudent that France was not directly 
 implicated in the discussion that had arisen. Then came violent at- 
 tacks upon the internal regime of Switzerland, which was represented 
 as under the sway of insensate conspirators. The affair of Conseil 
 was regarded in the note merely as a plot got up against the am- 
 bassador of France. It concluded thus: " France believes firmly, 
 that Switzerland will lose no time in rediscovering, in her remi- 
 niscences, in her interests well understood, in her real interests, 
 motives that will preserve her from the dangers to which she is ex- 
 posed by a handful of foreign conspirators. Should it unfortunately 
 prove otherwise, strong in the justice of her cause, France will 
 nearken only to her offended dignity, and will then decide alone 
 on the measures she must take to obtain just satisfaction. Lastly, 
 she will know how, without compromising the peace of the world, 
 to show that she will never have an outrage unpunished." 
 
 This was placing Switzerland between the shame of a reparation 
 and the disasters of a commercial blockade. 
 
 It would be hard to express how painfully astonished was the 
 sensitive portion of the French people; and as for Switzerland, a cry 
 of malediction burst from the depths of its most peaceful valleys. 
 What! they had begun by addressing to the diet injunctions mani- 
 festly contrary to the law of nations, derogatory to the principle of 
 the sovereignty of the states ; then, in order to quicken those same 
 plots which the federal government was accused of having too long 
 tolerated, they sent a vile spy, an instigator, to Berne. And when, 
 after a minute judicial investigation, Switzerland made complaints, 
 and offered proofs, it was with violence they replied to her, and 
 they blushed not to insist on her asking pardon for the insults they 
 had inflicted upon her ! Switzerland was too weak to withstand the 
 power of France: the more reason why France should acknow- 
 ledge herself in the wrong; for there was double honour in yielding 
 with justice against one, and might on one's side. To the effect of 
 language like this, disseminated among the people, was added the 
 agitation produced and kept up by the discussions in the political 
 assemblies. " What power," exclaimed M. Stettler, in the great 
 council of Berne, " wnat power is it that insults us? That one for
 
 FERMENT IN SWITZERLAND. 455 
 
 which we have shed blood enough to redden the Rhine from its 
 source to the sea." The journals, too, inveighed vehemently. 
 M. Gaullieur lavished encouragement, in the Nouvelliste Vaudois, 
 on those of the deputies, such as Baumgartner and Bruggiser, who 
 bravely stood forth to shield with their own persons the nonour of 
 their country; and he was unceasing in his attacks on those who 
 evinced a less lofty punctiliousness: De Chambrier (of Neufchatel), 
 Schmid (of Uri), Burckhardt (of Bale). "It is remarked," said 
 the Federal, " that among the members of the French administra- 
 tion, there are actually three ministers brought up in Switzerland, 
 or by Swiss: MM. Guizot, Gasparin, and Duchatel; one func- 
 tionary sprung from a Swiss family, M. Delessert; and the presi- 
 dent of the council, M. Mole, who, during the emigration, came to 
 Switzerland to seek an asylum, and obtained it; not to mention 
 his Majesty, Louis Philippe I., who more than once has boasted of 
 the hospitality the Due de Chartres received in Switzerland." Thus 
 every thing seemed to concur to precipitate the rupture, and even 
 to render it terrible. Some persons remarked that the commercial 
 blockade would, after all, be no less disastrous to France than to 
 Switzerland; they proved, by unanswerable calculations, that it 
 would entail on French commerce a loss of more than forty millions 
 of francs; and they pointed to the intensely anxious and nervous 
 condition of the towns of Marseilles and Lyons. Others, antici- 
 pating war, recalled to the minds of their fellow-citizens a long past 
 history of martial heroism : the Burgundian flying along the blood- 
 stained Granson road, with the trumpet of Uri and the horns of 
 Lucerne pealing in his rear; a peasant of the victorious cantons 
 trying on his head, upon the field of battle, the hat of the rival of 
 Louis XI.; the charnel-house of Morat, and that frozen pond in 
 which the house of Burgundy was sunk, in the person of Charles 
 the Bold. 
 
 At the same time preparation for resistance was made in acts and 
 deeds. A national subscription was opened in favour of the citizens 
 against whom the Due de Montebello's manifesto was levelled. 
 And that it might be clearly evinced, that in the eyes of the Swiss, 
 the French nation was not implicated in the faults of its govern- 
 ment, there was circulated in the canton of Vaud an address con- 
 ceived in these terms : 
 
 " Frenchmen of July, you are about to make war on us, on us 
 who are united to you by six centuries of brotherhood, on us who 
 have hailed with enthusiasm your glorious revolution, who have 
 given asylum to your proscribed, who have mingled our blood with 
 yours in battle. And what is our crime? That of having shaken 
 off the yoke of a faction that was laying our old independence at 
 the feet of the monarchs of Europe; of having torn the veil that 
 covered infamous and audacious schemes ! An inexcusable crime, for 
 the expiation of which we are challenged to a sacrilegious combat ! 
 But God is just; he will give us courage and strength, if your
 
 456 PROSECUTION OF A SWISS NEWSPAPER. 
 
 soldiers are hurried against us. With what grief should we shed 
 their blood ! Ah ! may they at least remember, should fortune de- 
 liver to them any portion of our territory, that the men against 
 whom they are impelled, are their brethren, and that they ought to 
 redeem by their humanity this unjust and cruel war." 
 
 But amidst all this vast commotion, the government of Berne 
 showed only indecision and dismay. The resistance party was there 
 represented only by M. Stockmar. The avoyer, Tscharner, was for 
 submission; M. de Tavel advised that recourse should be had to the 
 mediation of England. Some voices were shamefully raised against 
 the prefect of Nidau, who had arrested Conseil; against MM. Bille 
 and Luft, who, in obedience to superior orders, had conducted the 
 proceedings against the spy. Lastly, that the measure of humilia- 
 tion might be full, the council of state of the canton of Vaud did 
 not hesitate to prosecute the Nouvelliste Vaudois, at the request of 
 the French ambassador, and to please a government which, not 
 content with keeping Switzerland blockaded, suspended the pay- 
 ment of interest on stock due by France to Swiss. The Nouvelliste 
 Vaudois had spoken of the deserter of Famars, of the apostate of the 
 Hotel-de- Ville, and M. de Montebello founded his complaint on the 
 assumption, that the journal had designated Louis Philippe by these 
 expressions. As it was feared that the condemnation of the journal 
 would not be carried to the length of imprisoning the editor, the 
 legal functionaries of Lausanne caused M. Gaullieur to be arrested 
 preventively, on the pretence that he had not furnished the extraor- 
 dinary recognisances required in such cases. The event proved that 
 the functionaries of Lausanne had done well to hasten the accom- 
 plishment of the vengeance of which they made themselves the in- 
 struments, for M. Gaullieur was sentenced only to a slight fine. 
 The judgment of the court was given in terms of rude and insulting 
 flippancy, and contained these words: " Seeing, that although the 
 King of the French was not designated by name in the incriminated 
 article, there was no mistaking him in the expressions deserter and 
 apostate ; seeing, especially as to the former, that according to the 
 History of the French Revolution, by M. Thiers, the Duke of 
 Orleans was the only general officer who passed over with Dumouriez 
 into the enemy's camp," &c. 
 
 An extraordinary diet had been convoked. It assembled on the 
 17th of October, 1836, and the perilous honour of preparing a reply 
 to the ultimatum of M. de Montebello, was intrusted to a commis- 
 sion consisting of seven members: Tscharner, Monnard, Keller, 
 Amrhyn, Kern, Nagel, and Maillardoz. From the labours of this 
 commission, there soon emanated three drafts of reply, all three 
 devoid of energy, and presented, the first by the majority of the 
 commission, the second by M. Tscharner, the third by M. Mail- 
 lardoz. The discussion took place with closed doors, and it was 
 not until after several stormy sittings, that the diet put together a 
 definitive reply out of the three different drafts. In that docu-
 
 LANGUAGE OF THE AUGSBURG GAZETTE. 457 
 
 ment Switzerland formally retracted its previous decisions, and de- 
 clared, that the diet had in no wise intended to offend the French 
 government, in deciding that the documents in Conseil's affair should 
 be sent to it. Thus the bad cause triumphed, both by the violence of 
 the stronger party, and the pusillanimity of the weaker : sad con- 
 summation of so many scandals ! 
 
 Now on the very eve of the day when the diet so far forgot what 
 was due to the dignity of a republic, the following statement was 
 put forth (doubtless with the intention of conveying a side-wind 
 insult) in the Augsburg Gazette, the organ of the chanceries, pub- 
 lished under the control of the censorship: "The small republic 
 of San Marino, which makes so little noise in the political world, 
 wrote a letter of congratulation to Louis Philippe, on the occasion 
 of Alibaud's criminal attempt. The monarch replied, in very 
 gracious terms, that the republic of San Marino might be assured 
 of the continuance of his good will ; but that, to merit the same, it 
 would do well to remove out of its territories eight refugees who 
 had been received there. The letter mentioned, among other indi- 
 viduals to be expelled, Doctor Bergonzi, of Modena. The gon- 
 faloniere replied, in the name of the republic, that the request of 
 the King of the French could not be complied with, and the re- 
 fugees specified had won the esteem of the citizens of the republic 
 to such a degree, that the latter would not hesitate to oppose their 
 expulsion, even by force. It is to be observed, that France has 
 taken the initiative in this demand, and that hitherto no similar in- 
 sinuation has reached San Marino on the part of any other power." 
 
 The French government having intimated to Switzerland that it 
 was satisfied, the quarrel was thus appeased ; but a bitter and legiti- 
 mate resentment remained in the hearts of the Swiss. Arid Austria 
 had the double satisfaction of having created new enemies to the 
 monarchy of July, and of having humbled it in the face of the 
 world, to the extent of arming against the democratic principle, 
 on behalf of the interests, animosities, and jealousies of the old 
 despotisms. 
 
 Meanwhile, a plot was in hand, which was to cause much surprise 
 and agitation in France. Of the two sons of the ex-king of Hol- 
 land, Napoleon's brother, the elder, we have seen, had perished in 
 the Italian troubles, by a death as mysterious as premature. The 
 young one had retired to Switzerland, where he applied himself un- 
 ceasingly to the preparation of projects that flattered his pride, and 
 responded to the most earnest aspirations of his soul. Nephew to him 
 whom France called the Emperor, the Emperor par excellence (Impera- 
 tor), and condemned to the vexations of an obscure youth; having to 
 avenge his proscribed kindred, while himself exiled by an unjust law 
 from a country he loved, and of which it might be said, without exag- 
 geration, that Napoleon still covered it with his shadow, Louis Bona- 
 parte believed himself destined at once to uphold the honour of his
 
 458 CHARACTER AND PROJECTS OF 
 
 name, to punish the persecutors of his family, and to open to his 
 disgraced country some way to glory. 
 
 Furthermore, though he put himself forward as a pretender to 
 the crown, democracy appeared to him too formidable a power to 
 allow of his thinking himself free from the necessity of reckoning 
 with it. His design, therefore, was to make trial of the prestige of 
 his name to overthrow the Orleans dynasty, after which he would 
 convoke the people, consult, and obey it. 
 
 Nothing is more certain than that this respect for the principle of 
 the sovereignty of the people was perfectly sincere and honest on 
 the part of the young prince ; but the hopes with which he flattered 
 his ambition were not the less grand on that account. Heir to the 
 imperial tradition, might he not be the choice of the people, espe- 
 cially when he should appear surrounded with the lustre of a 
 successful revolt? Louis Bonaparte made no doubt of this, being 
 well assured, that in times of ignorance and uncertainty, every revo- 
 lution is accomplished according to the programme, adopts the flag 
 with which it has been begun, and easily turns to the profit of the 
 provisional government which presents itself the day after the fight. 
 
 Had he been better prompted and more magnanimous, he would 
 have sought glory in absolute disinterestedness, and he would, per- 
 haps, have found success. But the education which princes receive 
 does not dispose them to such lofty thoughts. 
 
 Be this as it may, the enterprise was hazardous, and the prince, 
 who had conceived it, did not yet possess all he was afterwards to 
 derive from the lessons of adverse fortune. 
 
 To know how to command one's own heart, to be insensible and 
 patient, to care for nothing but the end in view, to dissemble ; not 
 to expend one's daring on mere projects, but to reserve it wholly for 
 action; to urge men to devotedness without putting too much faith 
 in it; to traffic with baseness whilst seeing through it; to despise 
 men; to seem strong in order to become so; and to make oneself 
 creatures less through gratitude which wearies zeal, than through 
 hope which stimulates it : such is, in the egotist and vulgar meaning 
 of the phrase, the genius of the ambitious. Now, Prince Louis 
 Bonaparte possessed scarcely any of its constituent elements whe- 
 ther good or evil. His easily moved sensibility exposed him un- 
 armed to the spurious officiousness of subalterns. Through haste 
 or good-nature he sometimes erred in his judgment of men. The 
 impetuosity of his wishes deceived him or hurried him away. En- 
 dowed with a straightforwardness injurious to his designs, he exhi- 
 bited in rare combination the elevation of soul that loves the truth, 
 and the weakness of which flatterers take advantage. He was pro- 
 digal of himself to augment the number of his partisans. He pos- 
 sessed, in a word, neither the art of husbanding his resources, nor 
 that of dexterously exaggerating their importance. But, on the 
 other hand, he was generous, enterprising, prompt in military exer-
 
 LOUIS BONAPARTE. 459 
 
 cises, and the uniform sat upon him with a manly grace. There was 
 no braver officer, no more gallant cavalier. Though the expression 
 of his countenance was gentle rather than energetic and imperious, 
 though there was an habitual langour in his looks, often dashed with 
 thought, no doubt the soldier would have loved him for his frank 
 bearing, his honest and hearty speech, his small figure resembling 
 his uncle's, and the imperial lightning which the passion of the 
 moment kindled in his blue eye. What a name too was his ! 
 
 Accordingly, it was his wish to make the army his main support ; 
 and it was in order to make himself known to it that he had published, 
 under the title of Manuel cTArtillerie, a work in which the results of 
 the highest science were set forth in a firm, clear, and precise style. 
 
 But how was victory to be won without the co-operation of the 
 people? And when won how was it to be maintained without the 
 consent of the bourgeoisie? Brought up in exile, and not knowing 
 his own country, Louis Bonaparte persuaded himself that in the 
 memory of the bourgeoisie the Empire was connected only with 
 the Revolution held in check, order restored, the civil code es- 
 tablished. As for the people, he thought no more would be re- 
 quisite to fascinate it than the sight of the eagle on the standards 
 and the sound of the trumpets. A double mistake ! What the bour- 
 geoisie, addicted to the arts of peace, remembered best in the his- 
 tory of Napoleon, was his despotism coloured by war; and the most 
 intelligent among the people, those whose beck the rest followed, 
 well knew that if Napoleon had sowed the seeds of democracy in 
 Europe by conquest, he had left nothing undone to stifle them in 
 France. 
 
 Continue the emperor ! But it was because his work was ended, 
 his mission exhausted, that he was left to die on that rock where, as 
 Chateaubriand said, he was visible from the whole surface of the 
 earth. 
 
 And then if Louis Bonaparte desired to please the bourgeois 
 class in France, he would be irresistibly constrained to forego his 
 warlike ideas. In that case what had he to offer to the army? 
 what to the people? The continuation of Napoleon's work, war 
 excepted, would have been, there was reason to fear, the imperial 
 despotism without the imperial triumphs, courtiers over our heads 
 with no Europe at our feet, a great name without a great man, the 
 Empire without the Emperor. 
 
 Louis Bonaparte, however, was in haste to be doing. By means 
 of trusty agents he sounded the dispositions of the troops and their 
 officers, entered into communication with important personages, and 
 obtained information as to the position of parties. The result of his 
 investigation was neither quite favourable nor quite discouraging: 
 there were germs of fermentation in the army; no doubt it was 
 attached by recollections to Napoleon; some of the commanding 
 officers promised their swords, but that only for the day when the 
 first victory should have been already won; and the persons of note
 
 460 LOUIS BONAPARTE'S PLOT. 
 
 to whom overtures had been made, showed themselves well disposed 
 rather than hostile. As for the republican party, the only one 
 Louis Bonaparte feared and was resolved to court, was it not re- 
 duced to the necessity of postponing its hopes for want of a name 
 and a leader? The young prince flattered himself with this belief 
 on the strength of some words of Armand Carrel which had been 
 reported to him, and the scope of which his illusions exaggerated. 
 
 He quitted, therefore, the chateau of Arenenberg, and escaping 
 from the gentle bonds which the vigilant fears of a fond mother had 
 cast around him, he repaired to the waters of Baden-Baden, a place 
 he found suitable to his purpose, from its vicinity to Alsace, and 
 from the opportunity it afforded him of covering his ambitious 
 views under the mask of pleasure. 
 
 It was there the principal arrangements of the plot were made, 
 and there the prince gained the co-operation of Colonel Vaudrey, 
 who commanded the 4th regiment of artillery in Strasbourg; a 
 valuable acquisition for Louis Bonaparte, since Strasbourg stood in 
 the foreground of the plan he had sketched. 
 
 That plan was bold, and well understood. The Alsacian demo- 
 crats were first to be gained over, by holding out to them a prospect 
 of a fair convocation of the people, the garrison of Strasbourg was to 
 be captivated by the cry of " Vive TEmpereur!" the citizens were 
 to be summoned to liberty, the young men of the schools to arms, 
 the ramparts were to be intrusted to the keeping of the national 
 guards, and then the prince was to march at the head of the soldiers 
 to Paris. And then the pictures that naturally presented themselves 
 to the mind of Louis Bonaparte, were towns surprised, garrisons 
 carried along with the movement, young men eagerly enlisting 
 among his adventurous followers, old soldiers quitting the plough 
 from all quarters, to salute the eagle on its way, amidst acclamations, 
 caught up by echo after echo all along the roads, and the bitter 
 recollections of the invasion, the proud ones of the great wars, re- 
 viving in every spot of the Vosges, Lorraine, and Champagne. 
 
 What could the government do then? Would it shut itself up 
 in the capital, amidst the increasing agitation of the faubourgs? Or 
 would it advance into the open country, with the troops that serve 
 commonly to keep the capital in order, and trust itself to their 
 dubious fidelity, leaving Paris in revolt behind it? In either case, 
 the state of things would be terrible for it. 
 
 But a decisive blow was to be struck in Strasbourg. Louis Bona- 
 parte had formed arrangements there; and he went in secret to judge 
 personally of the state of things in the town, convoke his friends, and 
 hear their opinions. These disappointed him. He found men un- 
 decided, though strongly devoted to his uncle's memory, and with 
 but a half faith in success ; and he recrossed the Rhine, with some 
 misgivings of mind. But men do not readily renounce hopes so 
 dear to them. Besides, the prince was surrounded by persons who 
 urged him on, because they played upon the chances of fortune.
 
 GENERAL VOIROL MADAME GORDON. 461 
 
 The department of Bas Rhin was commanded at this period by 
 an old soldier of the empire, Lieutenant-general Voirol. Louis 
 Bonaparte had counted on him, and had requested a meeting with 
 him, in an affectionate and pressing letter. The general forbore to 
 take a step which could not but compromise him; and he even 
 thought it his duty to speak to M. Choppin d'Arnouville, prefect of 
 Strasbourg, of the projects that seemed to him to be entertained on 
 the very frontiers of France. The prefect replied according to 
 the subsequent declaration of General Voirol that he had an agent 
 about the person of the young prince. The government likewise 
 was put on its guard by an intimation from another quarter. A 
 captain, named Raindre, had received from Louis Bonaparte over- 
 tures, which he was not content with merely rejecting, but which 
 he communicated to M. de Franqueville, his commanding officer, 
 who reported the matter to General Voirol. The latter, who had 
 not sent Louis Bonaparte's letter to the minister, now no longer de- 
 layed to do so, and Captain Raindre set off with it for Paris. But 
 whether it was that the schemes denounced were not looked on as 
 at all of a serious character, or that the government was not sorry 
 to let a plot, which it felt sure of being able to crush without 
 difficulty, develop itself to a certain extent, no obstacle was offered to 
 the secret proceedings of the conspirators, and the denoument became 
 inevitable. 
 
 The ardour of the conspirators went on increasing, and, had they 
 not possessed resolution and daring of their own, there was a 
 woman among them who would have set them a bold example. 
 Madame Gordon, the daughter of a captain in the imperial guards, 
 and brought up in the worship of Napoleon, had been initiated, in 
 Lille, into the projects of Louis Bonaparte, without the knowledge 
 of the prince himself; and immediately plunging into the conspi- 
 racy, with the characteristic impetuosity of female zeal, she had 
 hastened to Strasbourg. She appeared as a professional singer in 
 Baden, and gave concerts there; and one day Louis Bonaparte 
 learned with astonishment, mingled at first with uneasiness, that he 
 had no reason for concealment as regarded the lady whose talents 
 he admired, and that she knew every thing. From that day 
 Madame Gordon had but one thought, that of success; and as she 
 possessed much intelligence and passion, she speedily acquired an 
 influence, which she devoted wholly to the advancement of the plot. 
 
 On the 25th of October, 1836, Louis Bonaparte, who had returned 
 from Baden to Arenenburg, again quitted the maternal asylum, 
 under pretext of a hunting party in the principality of Hechmgen. 
 A rendezvous had been assigned in the grand duchy of Baden to 
 some important personages on whom he counted. He found no one 
 at the place appointed, waited three days, and at last resolved to set 
 out for Strasbourg, where he arrived October 28, at ten P.M. The 
 next day he had an interview with Colonel Vaudrey, which would 
 have made a man of more patient temperament hesitate. The
 
 462 LOUIS BONAPARTE MILITARY 
 
 colonel urged in objection the rashness of the enterprise, the number 
 of chances against it, the extreme uncertainty of success amongst so 
 many interests prompt to take alarm, and so many hostile passions, 
 and the impropriety of exposing the Emperor's nephew to such 
 great dangers. These prudential counsels had the more weight, as 
 coming from a man full of courage, who had been long proved in 
 battle; but Louis Bonaparte thought he had gone too far to re- 
 tract, and the colonel gave way. Then, the pnnce having shown 
 him a paper by which an income of 10,000f. was secured to each 
 of his two children, the brave soldier tore up the paper, saying: " I 
 give my blood, I do not sell it." 
 
 Louis Bonaparte found much less difficulty in persuading the 
 commandant, Parquin, an officer in whom were revived the tone 
 and habits of the old guard, and that superstitious enthusiasm 
 which Napoleon had made a part of the life of the camp. 
 
 On the 27th of October, 1836, at eight in the evening, the 
 prince called his principal partisans around him, and the deliberation 
 began. 
 
 The garrison of Strasbourg consisted of three regiments of in- 
 fantry, a battalion of engineer workmen, and three regiments of 
 artillery; but it was on the artillerymen there was most reason to 
 count. The course to be pursued seemed thenceforth ready traced. 
 The third regiment of artillery was the only one of that arm which 
 was in actual possession of its horses and guns; it should have been 
 the first applied to, and its adhesion would have ensured success. The 
 4th regiment of artillery would not have hesitated to obey the voice of 
 its colonel, who was in the plot. There were friends in the corps of 
 pontonniers, and their adhesion was not doubtful. Lastly, Colonel 
 Vaudrey held the keys of the arsenal. So then, the artillery once 
 gained over, all that remained was to enter the place (farmes, and 
 point the cannons of which the insurgents might be masters. The 
 infantry, even if they did not join, could do nothing against such 
 an array of force, and the town would obey. It was true that the 
 insurrection thus conceived, was only a revolt of the soldiery; but 
 when people attempt a military plot, they must not stop half way in 
 the execution of it. Since soldiers were to be put in motion, the 
 essential thing was to seize on power, after which there would be 
 time enough to reassure the people as to the use that would be made 
 of that power. 
 
 Another scheme prevailed, and it was the worst. It was resolved 
 to go first to the Austerlitz quarters, occupied by the 4th regiment of 
 artillery, whence, if well received there, the conspirators were to push 
 on straight to the 46th of the line, that is to say, to Finkmatt barracks, 
 situated at the extremity of a line of ramparts, along which were 
 ranged the H6tel-de-Ville, the prefecture, the military division and 
 subdivision, posts which were to be taken possession of as the con- 
 spirators proceeded. Thus every thing was made to depend on a 
 venture made with insufficient forces, upon a regiment of which
 
 INSURRECTION IN STRASBOURG. 463 
 
 they were not sure, and all the advantage was thrown away that 
 would have arisen from the decisive aspect of streets filling with 
 cavalry, and open places covered with cannon. 
 
 But Louis Bonaparte had confided his secret to citizens beloved 
 by the people ; he counted on their support, would fain have given a 
 democratic colour to the movement, and was loath, at the very open- 
 ing of the enterprise, to assume an attitude of a nature seemingly 
 offensive to liberty. These sentiments were more honourable than 
 discreet, for the movement was to begin early in the morning, at an 
 hour when there was no reason to reckon on the presence and assist- 
 ance of large masses of the people. 
 
 The council having broken up, the night was spent in assem- 
 bling the rest of the conspirators in a house adjoining the Auster- 
 litz quarters, in drawing up proclamations, regulating the details of 
 the plan agreed on, and distributing the several parts. 
 
 The signal was given at five in the morning of the 30th of 
 October; Colonel Vaudrey had the call sounded in the quarters of 
 Austerlitz. The weather was bleak, the roofs covered with snow. 
 The soldiers, awakened by the trumpets, jumped up hastily, seized 
 their arms, and went down into the court-yard. The opportunity 
 so long desired by Louis Bonaparte is at last arrived, and seems 
 pressing him to seize it; while he, engrossed with thoughts of his 
 absent mother, writes to her two letters, one of them a letter of 
 triumph, the other of eternal farewell ; both which he deli vered to 
 his aide-de-camp, with a trembling hand and swimming eyes. 
 Then, collecting his thoughts, and bending them all upon his pur- 
 pose, he proceeds with his companions to reach that goal to which 
 he believes himself called by destiny. 
 
 The soldiers of the 4th were waiting, drawn up face to face, in 
 two lines, and with their eyes fixed on Colonel Vaudrey, who stood 
 alone in the centre of the yard. Suddenly the prince appears in 
 the uniform of an officer of artillery, and hurries up to the colonel, 
 who presents him to the troops, crying out: " Soldiers, a great revo- 
 lution begins this moment. The nephew of the Emperor is before 
 you. He comes to put himself at your head. He is arrived on the 
 French soil, to restore to France her glory and her liberty. It is 
 now to conquer or to die for a great cause, the cause of the people. 
 Soldiers of the 4th regiment of artillery, may the Emperor's nephew 
 reckon on you?" At these words an indescribable transport seizes 
 the soldiers. " Vive VEmpereur!" cries every man ; and they brandish 
 their arms, and loud, protracted shouts are sent up to the sky. Louis 
 Bonaparte, deeply affected, makes signs that he wishes to speak : 
 "It was in your regiment," he said, "the Emperor Napoleon, 
 my uncle, first saw service; with you lie distinguished himself at 
 the siege of Toulon; it was your brave regiment that opened the 
 
 fates of Grenoble to him on his return from the Isle of Elba, 
 oldiers, new destinies are reserved to you!" And taking the 
 eagle from an officer who carried it, " Here," said he, " is the
 
 464 LOUIS BONAPARTE. 
 
 symbol of French glory, which must become also, henceforth, the 
 symbol of liberty." The applauding shouts were redoubled, and 
 mingled with the sounds of martial music, and the regiment put 
 itself in march. 
 
 But a part of the town was still asleep; nothing that could feed 
 enthusiasm presented itself in the silent and solitary streets ; only 
 here and there a door opened, and showed a glimpse of wonder- 
 stricken inmates gazing from the threshold. And if among the 
 few stragglers that were met, some, inflamed by the sight of the 
 eagle, joined impetuously with the cortege, others followed it me- 
 chanically, or stood gaping to see it pass. 
 
 At head-quarters the guard presented arms, crying out, " Vive 
 VEmpereur /" and the column having halted, Louis Bonaparte went 
 up-stairs to General Voirol. Some have supposed that the general 
 was very strongly, but secretly, inclined to the cause of the prince, 
 and that if he would not participate actively in the plot, he at least 
 suffered himself willingly to be made unable to resist it. But this 
 conjecture is refuted, both by the general body of the facts, and by 
 direct testimony deserving of the fullest credit. It is certain, that 
 being called on by the prince to take part in the movement, the 
 general refused in energetic terms to do so, and was kept prisoner 
 in his own hotel, by artillerymen under the orders of Commandant 
 Parquin. 
 
 : Up to this time, all things seemed to concur towards the success 
 of the enterprise. With a cry and a gesture Lieutenant Laity car- 
 ried the battalion of Pontonniers; the officers, Dupenhoet, Gros, 
 Petri, de Schaller, Couard, Poggi, and Lombard, had successfully 
 acquitted themselves of the tasks confided to them ; the telegraph 
 was in the hands of the insurgents ; the cannoneers commanded by 
 M. de Persigny had just arrested the prefect; proclamations were 
 rapidly printed; the 3rd regiment of artillery was mounting; the 
 city was awakening in the midst of rumours that had assumed a 
 formidable character, and the column that followed Louis Bonaparte 
 was now close to the Finkmatt barracks. But things very soon put 
 on a different face. 
 
 The Finkmatt barracks are situated between the faubourg de 
 Pierre and the rampart, on a line parallel with them. Connected 
 with the faubourg by an extremely narrow lane, which leads up the 
 principal entry of the quarters, it is separated from the ramparts only 
 by a long yard, at one end of which is an iron gate. Now it had 
 been settled that the insurgents should take the rampart road, the 
 only route that allowed their forces to be deployed in an imposing 
 manner, and would enable them to retreat in case of ill success. But 
 by an inexplicable fatality, the head of the column went astray, and 
 entered the lane, leaving the bulk of the troops in the faubourg de 
 Pierre; and Louis Bonaparte found himself entangled with a weak 
 escort in a yard, which, if fortune failed him, might become his prison 
 or his grave.
 
 FAILURE OF THE INSURRECTION. 465 
 
 Nevertheless, hearing the magic name of the emperor pronounced, 
 the foot soldiers hasten up from all sides; an old sergeant cries out 
 that he had served in the imperial guard, and stoops down to seize 
 the hands of the prince, whom he embraces with tears. Emotion 
 seizes the soldiers at this spectacle; already they surround Louis 
 Bonaparte with marks of sympathy, already the cry is raised of 
 " Vive VEmpereur!" when suddenly a strange rumour is heard among 
 them: it is positively asserted, that it is the nephew of Colonel 
 Vaudrey who presents himself under the name of Louis Bonaparte, 
 which he has vilely usurped, and a lieutenant, named Pleignier, 
 rushes forward to make the prince his prisoner. Himself arrested 
 by the artillerymen, he struggles bravely, whilst his soldiers advance 
 to rescue him. The moment was critical and decisive. A pistol 
 shot would, perhaps, have sufficed to allay the danger, but Louis 
 Bonaparte could not make up his mind to fire it. He even ordered 
 the release of the lieutenant, who, returning to the charge, provoked 
 a fresh conflict. Things were in this state when Lieutenant-colonel 
 Taillandier arrived, and at his voice distrust became changed into 
 rage. The court resounded with menaces, and swords were flask- 
 ing. The artillerymen who had been left in the faubourg de Pie" rre, 
 hearing of the prince's danger, had put themselves in motion : sud- 
 denly they were seen rushing in crowds into the barracks, and with 
 them entered pell-mell, sixty mounted cannoneers. The infantry 
 then driven back violently to both ends of the yard uttered shouts 
 of fury, formed again, and returned fiercely upon the prince's par- 
 tisans, who were pushed and knocked down by the horses against 
 the curtain of the rampart. It was a terrible moment. Here stood 
 the foot soldiers with bayonets charged ; there, the artillerymen with 
 their carbines levelled, ready to fire ; above and along the ramparts the 
 people zealously invoking success upon the prince, and pouring 
 volleys of stones on the infantry, amidst confused clamours, the roll 
 of drums, the clash of arms, and the neighing of horses. 
 
 But all this was but of short duration. In an insurrection, not to 
 vanquish quickly is to be vanquished. A few musket shots fired 
 in the air, by order of Lieutenant-colonel Taillandier, intimidated 
 the people. MM. de Gricourt and de Querelles, proposed to Louis 
 Bonaparte to cut a passage for him sword in hand: he rejected the 
 offer and was made prisoner. " Surrender !" was shouted at the 
 same time to Colonel Vaudrey : he refused ; but M. Taillandier ap- 
 proaching him, and telling him in a whisper that the revolt was 
 regarded in the town as a legitimist movement, he at last ordered 
 his cannoneers to retire, and gave himself up. 
 
 It was all over : General Voirol had escaped. The commandant, 
 Parquin, presented himself at the Finkmatt barracks in quarter- 
 master's uniform, and had the mortification to sec one of his epau- 
 lettes torn off without being able to avenge such an insult. The 
 3rd regiment of artillery was on its march, but the news of the 
 prince's arrest dispersed it. The pontonniers, commanded by Laity 
 
 VOL. ii. 2 n
 
 466 ANOTHER MILITARY CONSPIRACY. 
 
 also disbanded themselves, and their officer, in a fit of noble despair 
 ran to share the disaster of the prince, whose fortunes he could not save. 
 Madame Gordon was surprised in the act of burning papers filled 
 with important secrets, and was arrested; but by her presence of 
 mind she contrived to keep the guards busy so long as to enable M. 
 de Persigny to escape. Soon nothing was to be seen in the town 
 but movements evincing the anger and uneasiness of the victors. 
 Tranquillity was then gradually restored, and nothing remained of 
 the revolt except that low agitation which follows every strong 
 commotion. 
 
 It happened by a singular coincidence, that on the same day some 
 soldiers of a hussar regiment, at Vend6me, were forming a plan of 
 mutiny, the object of which was to proclaim the republic. The 
 plot, denounced before the hour appointed for its execution, was 
 easily stifled. It had been conceived by a brigadier named Bruyant, 
 3 resolute man, and of no common stamp. Being arrested, he con- 
 trived to shake off his guards, killed a non-commissioned officer who 
 barred his way with a pistol shot, and swam across the Loire. But 
 his accomplices not having been able to imitate his example, he 
 would not withdraw himself from the fate that awaited them, but after 
 wandering some time about the country, he returned and surren- 
 dered himself a prisoner. 
 
 The Chateau was in consternation. In so long a series of con- 
 spiracies, riots, and disorders, the impotence of the government was 
 displayed in a glaring and sinister manner. Every device was put 
 in practice to cloak the important nature of the events. The minis- 
 terial journals insisted only on the puerility of the enterprise, which 
 they called une echaffouree, a hare-brained freak; the agents of the 
 government received orders to wink at a great number of the guilty ; 
 the authorities were not ashamed to affirm in official reports, that the 
 4th regiment of artillery alone had taken part in the movement, and 
 contented themselves with quietly cashiering two officers of the 3rd 
 regiment of artillery; and by way of replying to the suspicions with 
 which some jealous tempers regarded General Voirol, he was raised 
 to the dignity of peer of France, and thanks were given to the gar- 
 rison of Strasbourg, for its fidelity to the Orleans dynasty ! 
 
 As for Louis Bonaparte, it was decided that he should not be 
 brought to trial, several peers, old servants of the Empire, having 
 announced beforehand their determination not to sit in judgment 
 upon him, and a jury appearing to men who were trying their pren- 
 tice hands at monarchy, too subaltern a magistracy to decide the 
 fate of a prince. The doctrine of equality in the eye of the law, 
 had for all that been inscribed in the charter; but the council of 
 ministers was of opinion that it would be a bad example to treat 
 an emperor's nephew as a simple citizen. Innocent, they had con- 
 demned him to perpetual exile ; guilty, they placed him above the 
 laws. Monstrous principle assigned as a corollary to a monstrous 
 iniquity !
 
 LOUIS BONAPARTE SENT TO AMERICA. 467 
 
 On the 9th of November, 1836, Louis Bonaparte saw the pre- 
 fect and General Voirol enter his prison. A carriage was waitinw 
 at the gate; they made him get into it, without answering his 
 questions or listening to his remonstrances; and the horses set out 
 rapidly on the road to Paris. Finding himself thus hurried away 
 from his companions in misfortune, Louis Bonaparte experienced 
 some dismal forebodings. Too well reassured as to his own personal 
 danger he was seized with melancholy, and it is said that he could 
 not restrain his tears. He feared, besides, that his captors would 
 content themselves with sending him back to Switzerland, which 
 would have made him appear a conspirator of no importance, whose 
 rashness there was no need to punish, and whose enterprises could 
 excite no alarm. But the incapacity of his enemies saved him from 
 this humiliation : they decided that their prisoner should be imme- 
 diately transported to America in a ship of war. 
 
 Louis Bonaparte, in fact, passed but two hours in Paris. He 
 was received with due courtesy by M. Gabriel Delessert, prefect of 
 police, from whom he heard words that in some degree assuaged his 
 bitterness of soul; and in his too confiding frankness he wrote a 
 letter to the king, interceding for his captive friends, and adding 
 some expressions of gratitude on his own account. He did not see 
 that the courtiers, familiarised with falsehood, would distort this 
 step in an odious manner, and transform it into a solemn promise 
 on his part to remain for ten years in America. 
 
 It was on the 21st of November, 1836, that Napoleon's nephew 
 departed from that sacred land of France, towards which he had 
 been urged by every thing that could move the powers of his soul : 
 the pride of his name, thoughts of glory, legitimate resentment, and 
 love of country, blended with the fire of ambitious desires. Van- 
 quished, he left behind him calumny and sarcasm. But the repub- 
 licans who would have pursued, and perhaps brought him down in 
 the midst of his triumph, nobly protected his defeat, and demanded 
 respect for his misfortune. 
 
 Now, whilst a dynasty born of revolutions and combats was thus 
 smitten down in the person of its youngest representative, old 
 Charles X. was on the verge of the grave, and was about to carry 
 thither with him the fragments of that Capetian monarchy, which 
 had been in vain consecrated by successive ages. 
 
 Received in the chateau of Prague, after a painful abode on the 
 English soil, Charles X. had resolved at last to quit Bohemia. 
 Goritz offered him attractions in the salubrity of its waters, the 
 mildness of its climate, and also in its proximity to the warm sun of 
 Italy: the family accordingly set out. Would they reach the de- 
 sired goal, through all the vicissitudes of exile? It is related, that, 
 casting a farewell glance on the Moldau, on the bridge that crosses 
 it, on Prague and its Gothic spires, the fugitive king was seized 
 with melancholy, and said: "We quit the chateau, hardly knowing 
 whither we are going; almost like the patriarchs, who knew not 
 
 2H2
 
 468 DEATH AND BURIAL OF CHARLES X. 
 
 where they were to pitch their tents." He reached Toeplitz, and 
 was beginning to enjoy some repose there, when he learned that the 
 King of Prussia was expected in the house he occupied. He was 
 obliged to move on further; and as the cholera was advancing, he 
 was forced to stop at Budweiss, in a small and miserable inn. There 
 the Due de Bordeaux was taken ill, and his malady, which was 
 very painful, long left its effects behind in extreme paleness; for he 
 who was born in the palace of the kings of France, was near 
 dying in silence and neglect in an obscure hostelry in Bohemia. 
 From the chateau of Kirchberg, where he had sought refuge on 
 quitting Budweiss, Charles X. was driven, by the rigour of the 
 climate, which was augmented by the approach of winter; and in 
 the latter part of October, 1836, all the members of the family 
 were assembled at Goritz, in Styria. 
 
 They were hardly arrived there, when the temperature became 
 perfectly icy ; the Bora, an exceedingly violent wind, had set in ; 
 the snow overspread all the surrounding mountains, and the old 
 king had soon about him nothing but the most sinister images of 
 desolation and woe. His health, however, had never appeared 
 better, and he took long walks. But his heart was mortally 
 touched; the idea of death frequently recurred in his conversation. 
 " The day is not far distant," he said, " that shall witness the 
 funeral of the poor old man." And it was remarked, that he 
 abandoned himself more and more every day to grief for the loss of 
 country. 
 
 On the morning of November 4, 1836, St. Charles's day, he was 
 seized with a chill during the celebration of mass ; he was unable to 
 appear at dinner, according to the account of M. Montbel, one of 
 his companions in exile; and, in the evening, when he entered the 
 saloon, where the members of his family were assembled with some 
 who paid court to their misfortunes, his aspect filled them with 
 dismay. His features were strangely contracted, his voice was 
 dismally sonorous; he had aged many years in a few hours, and it 
 could no longer be doubted that death was upon him. The crisis 
 declared itself in the night. Doctors Bougon and Marcolini were 
 called, and Cardinal de Latil gave extreme unction to the dying 
 king. Mass was afterwards celebrated by his bedside. Exhausted 
 by cholera, Charles X. still continued to pray. The Bishop of Her- 
 mopolis having come to comfort and cheer him in his agony, he 
 showed himself tranquil, and resigned to depart, and he conversed 
 on the things of eternity without perturbation. Some minutes 
 .afterwards, the Due de Bordeaux and his sister were brought to 
 him to receive his blessing, when, laying his trembling hands on 
 their heads, he said: " God protect you, my children! Walk ia 
 the ways of righteousness. Do not forget me; pray for me some- 
 times." In the night of the 5th of November he fell into a deep 
 lethargy, a slight motion of the lips alone showing that he still 
 lived. They began to recite over him the prayers for departing
 
 DEATH AND BURIAL OF CHARLES X. 469 
 
 spirits. At last, at a quarter past one on the morning of the 6th, 
 at a sign from Doctor Bougon, all present fell on their knees, 
 stifled sobs were heard, and the Dauphin advanced to close his 
 father's eyes. 
 
 On the llth, the gates of Graffenberg \vere opened for the 
 funeral. The hearse, surrounded by servants bearing torches, was 
 preceded by the Prince Archbishop of Goritz. The dukes of An- 
 gouleme and Bordeaux followed in black cloaks, the one under the 
 | title of the Count de Marnes, and the other under that of the Count 
 de Chambord; then came a few Frenchmen, mingled with nume- 
 rous foreigners. Some poor persons walked in advance with flam- 
 beaux. The body was carried to the Franciscan convent situated 
 on a height at a little distance from the town. It was there that, in 
 an ordinary sepulchre, by the light of an expiring lamp, the friends 
 of the fallen monarch were admitted, for the last time, to gaze on 
 his face, white as the winding-sheet about him. The body had 
 been placed in a temporary coffin, from which it was transferred to 
 a leaden one, bearing this inscription : 
 
 HERE LIES 
 THE VERY HIGH, VERY PUISSANT, AND VERY EXCELLENT PRINCE 
 
 CHARLES X. OF THAT NAME, 
 
 WHO DIED AT GORITZ, NOVEMBER 6, 1836, 
 
 AGED SEVENTY-NINE YEARS AND TWENTY-EIGHT DAYS. 
 
 All the reigning houses of Europe put on the mourning prescribed 
 by etiquette, one alone excepted, the house of Orleans. 
 
 Such was the end of Charles X., of that prince who had under- 
 gone such manifold trials. Generous souls, reflecting on the source 
 whence his errors had flowed, and on the expiation to which God 
 had doomed him, forbore to recall how fatal had been his royal sojourn 
 in France. In the humiliation of his white hairs, in the miseries of 
 his old age that scarce could find a quiet resting place, in all the 
 dismal and poignant circumstances of his farewell to the earth, some 
 beheld but the natural consequences of the victory, won by the revolu- 
 tion over kings; and even they were affected by so great a misfortune. 
 
 Yet what was all this in comparison with the lingering agony of 
 the nations, perpetuated from century to century ? With what dif- 
 ferent measures of compassion ought history to bestow its tears on 
 the quarrels of disputants for a throne, and on the many nations 
 crushed beneath the wheels of coming or departing kings; the many 
 races unceasingly sacrificed to a small number of men, to their per- 
 sonal disputes, their caprices, their cruel pleasures, and their pride 
 that knows no pity? After all, when the emotion has passed away, 
 the lesson must remain. The series of tragic vicissitudes that have 
 filled sixty years, are a mighty and melancholy demonstration of the 
 decline of monarchies: the prison of the Temple, and Louis XVI. 
 on the scaffold ; the strange and unexplained death of Louis XVII. ; 
 all those sons, brothers, and nephews of kings, running bewildered
 
 470 GENERAL SURVEY OF THE STATE 
 
 over the roads of Europe, and begging their bread at the gates 
 republics; the Cossacks, riding to the overthrow of the Empire, on 
 horses marked with the imperial N ; Elba, St. Helena ; the duchess 
 de Berri's son reared in exile; Louis Bonaparte sailing to America, 
 burdened with the load of a defeat; and, in the heart of a distant 
 land, in I know not what nameless church, the requiem chanted 
 round the coffin of Charles X., by foreign monks. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE end of the year 1836, was marked by a painful and unexpected 
 event, one which obliges us to pass in rapid review, the state of our 
 affairs in Africa, from the day of the conquest. 
 
 So long as Europe was distracted with war, it was quite a thing 
 of course that the Algerine pirates should sweep the Mediterra- 
 nean with impunity. It happened under the Empire that a dis- 
 tinguished man of science, M. Arago, was taken and led into cap- 
 tivity by the corsairs. The noise of this event was drowned in a 
 period of tempests; but what indignation would not such a fact 
 have excited in our days, when the news was told amidst the silence 
 of Europe? To deliver the Mediterranean was, therefore, a glorious 
 necessity : and what people was more worthy, more capable than the 
 people of France to watch over the sea? By storming the last 
 stronghold of piracy France would show herself true to her assigned 
 part in history ; she would resume with more enlightenment and leas 
 fanaticism the tenour of the crusades ; she would once more throw her 
 protection over civilisation. There was something providential in 
 the slap with the fan ; it was not a cause ; it was a signal 
 
 Be this as it may, the French on arriving in Algiers, found them- 
 selves in a situation beset with obstacles and dangers. Over their 
 heads was a burning sky ; before them in a plain, shut in between 
 the sea and the first range of mountains, was a whole people of 
 warlike husbandmen, broken up into tribes. 
 
 In that northern part of Algeria, called the Tell, the towns were 
 thinly scattered and inhabited by a mixture of Moors and Jews, 
 who bore on their faces the impress of Turkish sway. But these 
 were not the true people of Algeria, the Arabs of the tribes. Far 
 removed from the towns, those dens of a despoiling government, the 
 Arab in the Tell, occupied a territory, the limits of which he did 
 not pass, but to which he was bound by none of those bonds, with 
 which our system of property entangles the men of Europe. Property, 
 in its personal and jealous aspect, was unknown to the Arab of the 
 Tell, in whose conceptions it existed only relatively to his flocks, his 
 plough, his arms, and his horse. As for the soil, he did not hold it
 
 OF THINGS IN ALGERIA. 471 
 
 to be transferable, either by sale or inheritance ; it was as a member 
 of the tribe, upon the designation of the sheikh, and without any 
 other right than that of labour that he cultivated the earth. For 
 according to the Koran, the earth belongs only to God and to the 
 sultan, his ex-vicar here below, and it is free to whoever fertilises it. 
 Accordingly, the Arabs of the Tell had no fixed habitations, but 
 tents which protected the harvest, and pits in which the corn was 
 stored. 
 
 Different were the habits of the tribes in the country of the 
 Palms, south of the last chain of mountains, and extending thence 
 to the desert. These tribes were pastoral, followed a regular yearly 
 course of peregrination, prescribed by the climate and the nature of the 
 soil and its productions. After passing the winter and the spring, 
 seasons favourable to pasturages, in their lowland plains, the moving 
 cities of the Sahara advanced northward at the end of spring, with 
 their camels loaded with woollen cloths and dates, and they ex- 
 changed these productions of southern Algeria for the corn of the 
 agriculturists of the Tell. 
 
 Hence followed a rule of the highest importance for the French 
 conquerors of the seaboard. Since every year a necessary and paci- 
 fic movement brought southern Algeria northwards, it was better 
 to attract it and wait for it than to go in search of it with hostile 
 intentions. Besides, how was it possible to penetrate by force of 
 arms into the interior? or to cross, without drenching them with 
 blood, the mountains, those natural and formidable ramparts de- 
 fended by the Kabyles, in whom were revived the daring and agility 
 of the ancient Numidians ? 
 
 The Turks, however, had succeeded in extending the sway of 
 their military aristocracy to the tribes of the Sahara: this they 
 had effected by a skilful combination of force and cunning. Dex- 
 terously taking advantage of the ascendancy afforded them over a 
 Moslem population, by the title of supreme chief of the faithful ac- 
 corded to the Emperor of Constantinople, they obtained from the 
 natives an obedience founded on opinion, and of such a nature as 
 fatalism infers. Again, finding an intense degree of mutual hos- 
 tility subsisting between some tribes, they secured their own su- 
 premacy upon the need of a kind of protecting unity, inflamed local 
 animosities instead of allaying them, and thus rendered themselves 
 equally necessary and hateful. 
 
 But means like these were not suited to the French, who repre- 
 sented Christian ideas. Success for them was contingent on justice, 
 and, thanks to Heaven, they could not dishonour their conquest with- 
 out running the risk of losing it. The Turks had divided the Arabs 
 to oppress them; France was to govern by uniting them: a noble 
 mission, and the more easy to fulfil, inasmuch as the first want of 
 the Arabs was a tutelary government, vigorous and just. There 
 was reason to hope then, that instead of undertaking a war of ex- 
 termination against the natives, France would endeavour to bring
 
 472 STATE OF THINGS IN ALGERIA. 
 
 them under the moral influence of her genius, that she would apply 
 herself to colonise Algeria, without, at the same time, neglecting the 
 means for its military occupation; and that, in the train of her sol- 
 diers, after a powerful and decisive demonstration, she would send 
 into Algeria associations of agriculturists formed by the state, 
 directed by it, and destined to aggrandise not the French domina- 
 tion, but the native land of Frenchmen. 
 
 The north of Africa once gained, the south would come to us of 
 itself, in consequence of the annual migrations for purposes of ex- 
 change, that led the pastoral nomades of the Sahara into the re- 
 gion of tillage. 
 
 Thus, then, the Mediterranean to make French, a fertile soil to 
 turn to account, the commercial relations of southern Algeria with 
 Morocco and Tunis to improve and extend, an issue to open to the 
 overflow of that tide of paupers that threatens our European societies 
 with speedy and deadly inundation; such were the advantages 
 which fortune offered us in 1830. All that remained for us was to 
 know how to profit by our strength, and to justify the investiture 
 we derived from victory. 
 
 Now if we brought to the Arabs along with power and unity, 
 our lights, our arts, a higher idea of humanity, gentler manners, a 
 delicate sentiment of things, perhaps they, too, in their turn, would 
 be able to induce us to modify some of our ideas, particularly those 
 related with that susceptible individualism, whence arises a secret 
 but implacable and permanent war in our towns and villages. 
 
 Certain it is, at any rate, that it was not enough to have sup- 
 pressed a focus of piracy by the conquest of Algiers, and to encamp 
 on the African coast, in order to insure the free transit of the Medi- 
 terranean : it was worthy of France to desire and to dare more. She 
 had to discover the link that is to unite the civilisation of the East 
 with that of the West. 
 
 Regarded in this point of view, what a magnificent aspect did our 
 conquest assume ! what a prospect did it open before us ! The ideas 
 that have been germinating since the beginning of the century in the 
 minds of generous thinkers, and which the instinct of the people 
 hails afar off, were about to find a vast field for their application; 
 Africa would become the precious ground on which trial might be 
 made without danger of those attempts at social renovation, which 
 the habits, prejudices, and political and industrial complications of 
 our old Europe cause to appear so formidable; armed France was 
 initiating the future peace to be one established among men by the 
 doctrine of brotherhood; and our conquests, even those made in war, 
 were but those of the human mind. 
 
 Unhappily the revolution of July had placed in power, men devoid 
 of genius. Africa, appearing to them but as a field of battle to be 
 overrun, all they thought of was, how to limit its extent with penu- 
 rious prudence. The first blunder of the French government 
 consisted in the insufficiency of the forces destined for the occupa-
 
 CLAUZEL. 473 
 
 tion, when it was expedient to strike, by a more imposing show, the 
 imagination of a people who respect only force. 
 
 It is true it was to Marshal Clauzel it entrusted the government 
 of Africa from the outset ; and in a military point of view, it could 
 not have made a better choice. Marshal Clauzel had received that 
 strong education which the Empire bestowed on its soldiers. He 
 had boldness of conception, and quick apprehension; mediocrity was 
 not to his taste; he was a man for great wars. 
 
 Nevertheless, he ought not to have relied entirely for African 
 conquest on European tactics; for the Arabs have a mode of fighting 
 peculiar to themselves. Mounted on nimble, fiery horses, they manage 
 them with marvellous dexterity; they are fixed as in a frame, in 
 saddles, rising very high at the pummel and croupe ; and their broad 
 stirrups and short stirrup-leathers, supporting them firmly as they 
 rise in the saddle, they can make as free use of their guns on horse- 
 back as on foot. Their weapons consist of fusils, much longer than 
 ours, pistols, and a kind of cutlasses, called yataghans. To judge by 
 appearances, nothing can be more inconvenient than their costume, 
 composed of a burnous, and under it of a garment, which is gathered 
 close round the body by a girdle, and is prolonged above it, so as to 
 wrap the head to which it is fastened by several folds of a cord, made 
 of camels'-hair, forming a turban. Nevertheless, the Arabs wear this 
 dress with much ease and freedom. Intrepid in attack, rapid in 
 retreat, they possess impetuous valour, but attach no idea of disgrace 
 to flight, in which respect they resemble the ancient Parthians. They 
 charge confusedly, disperse, disappear, return suddenly to disappear 
 once more, harass the columns on their march, cut off' the heads of 
 the wounded that lie in their way ; these are their battles and their 
 triumphs. 
 
 Marshal Clauzel had no sooner set foot on the African soil, than 
 he declared France the legitimate heir of the dey, whose insolence 
 she had chastised. Then he conceived the idea of carrying the 
 French flag as far as the limits reached by the Turks. His system 
 was to throw garrisons into certain important towns, to connect them 
 one with another by entrenched camps, and to set up native beys de- 
 pending on us, in opposition to the hostile beys it would be impossible 
 or us to supplant directly. 
 
 The last part of this system, it is evident, was borrowed from the 
 Turks, and it was open to serious objections. Small, indeed, was 
 the glory which consisted in seeking the means of government, in 
 the propagation of trouble and anarchy. And ought it not to have 
 been foreseen, that in the eyes of the Arabs, every investiture by 
 Christians, that is, by Infidels, would be looked on with abhorrence 
 or scorn; that the beys of French creation would be regarded as 
 traitors and apostates; that the necessity of maintaining them would 
 force us into fatal expeditions; whilst they, compelled to uphold their 
 authority by violent means, would, perhaps, implicate the honour of 
 France in a responsibility for the most iniquitous and disgraceful
 
 474 ALGERIA MARSHAL CLAUZEL. 
 
 acts? But what was to be done? To forego making the hand of 
 France felt at every point of the territory, would be to jeopardise 
 the conquest To enable us to show ourselves everywhere, would 
 have needed a considerable amount of troops; and the forces at his 
 disposal were far from answering to the governor's ideas. The plan 
 was vast, the army weak there lay the evil; and events proved 
 this but too welL 
 
 Marshal Clauzel's presence in Africa from September, 1830, to 
 February, 1831, was signalised by two facts that perfectly characterise 
 his system. Bou Mezrag, bey of the province of Titery, having 
 preached the holy war against the Christians, the governor occupied 
 Medeah, and put an Algerine Moor, named Mustapha Ben Omar, 
 in the place of Bou Mezrag. Shortly afterwards, at the solicitation 
 of Hassan, Bey of Oran, who was menaced by an army from Morocco, 
 he occupied the town of Oran, and gave the bey lick to Khair Edden, 
 Prince of Tunis. Now, on the one hand, Mustapha Ben Omar, soon 
 became the centre of a formidable league; and, on the other hand, 
 the Tunisians created themselves implacable enemies by their greedy 
 and cruel sway. The consequence was, that when General Ber- 
 thezene was appointed successor to Marshal Clauzel, in 1831, the 
 very advantages won by the French had ended only in multiplying 
 difficulties. 
 
 General Berthezene, moreover, brought with him administrative 
 notions, directly opposed to those of Marshal Clauzel. The latter 
 had recommended the plain of the Metidja to the labours of the 
 colonists: his successor would rather have had them confine their 
 operations to cultivating the environs of Algiers. 
 
 As for the military side of the question, the government which 
 was then rocking in the midst of the general agitation of Europe, 
 had hastily recalled a part of the expeditionary troops, and the army 
 of Africa was reduced to an effective of 9300 men. 
 
 Thus, the time for vigorously acting on the offensive, seemed to 
 have passed away. But if prudence has its laws, honour has its duties. 
 The son of the bey of Titery, whom we had dispossessed, had just 
 reappeared, accompanied by numerous partisans, and favoured by 
 the memory of his father. Turks and Koulouglis rose in arms; 
 France was braved and insulted; the bey she had appointed was 
 hotly besieged in his own house; General Berthezene was obliged 
 to order a march on Medeah ; and 4500 men crossed the mountains 
 to rescue Mustapha Ben Omar. He was brought away safe and 
 sound ; but the result of the expedition did not compensate for its 
 losses. The expeditionary corps, hemmed in and stifled in a narrow 
 pass, and assailed from all quarters from the impending heights, had 
 sixty-three men killed or missing, and 1 92 wounded. The confidence 
 of the Arabs increased to an extraordinary degree. Emissaries spread 
 far and wide ; fanatical voices summoned the scattered tribes to the 
 sacred war; a confederation was formed by an Algerine Moor, named 
 Sidi Sadi, who was joined by Ben Aissa and Ben Zamoun, principal
 
 GENERAL BERTHEZENE THE DUG DE ROVIGO. 475 
 
 chiefs of the tribes of the east; the son of Bou Mezrag advanced 
 full of rancour: the signal was given for a general conflagration. 
 Vain efforts ! The courage of the French made head against every 
 assault : the tribes, too slow in concerting together, were anticipated 
 successively by General Berthezene, and the coalition was dissolved. 
 
 During this time the treaty which had given Oran to the Tunis- 
 ians had lapsed for want 01 ratification. The lieutenant of the 
 princes of Tunis, unanimously execrated, had abandoned the town; 
 the French entered it for the second time, and General Boyer, a 
 man systematically implacable, was raised to the independent com- 
 mand of the troops of the province. 
 
 Xot a vestige of what Marshal Clauzel had established, continued 
 to subsist under his successor; and the year 1831 was scarcely ended, 
 when General Berthezene made way for the Due de Rovigo. 
 
 The duke, however, was invested only with the command of the 
 army and the country. As for the civil authority, it had just been 
 decided that it should be independent, and should reside in the 
 person of a civil intendant: an unfortunate experiment, which had 
 no other result than to make authority vacillate between two rival 
 and soon hostile powers. 
 
 Thus there was nothing fixed or continuous in the administration 
 of the colony. Did dangers grow more urgent at the foot of Mount 
 Atlas? Decrees were passed at random in Paris for the reduction 
 of the expeditionary troops. Was the commander-in-chief begin- 
 ning to know the country, its resources, and the means of ruling it? 
 They immediately appointed him a successor. Deplorable thought- 
 lessness, which paralysed our action in Africa, discredited our power 
 in die opinion of Europe, and lavished the heroism of the army to 
 no purpose ! 
 
 In spite, however, of accumulated blunders, France maintained 
 her footing in Algiers. Under the command of the Due de Rovigo 
 the genius of Europe began to penetrate Africa, the civil portion of 
 the population increased, and men began to build and to plant in 
 anticipation of a long future. The conquest, indeed, was not without 
 its share of trash and scum. Sordid speculators had crept in even 
 there, and applied themselves to forms of traffic, the disgrace of 
 which was destined fortunately to disappear in the glory of our 
 battles. But war begot war, and it was the system of the Due de 
 Rovigo to show himself as harsh and pitiless towards the Arabs as 
 General Berthezene had proved clement. The tribe of El Ouffia, 
 naving been guilty of treason against us, was destroyed. 
 
 In consequence of this terrible execution a new coalition was 
 formed: it was destroyed. In the east 3000 men from Toulon 
 under the command of General Monk d'Uzer took possession of the 
 town of Bona, which Hajy Ahmet, bey of Constantine, one of our 
 most formidable enemies, had already taken and sacked. Tliis took 
 place in May, 1832, and in March, 1833, the Due de Rovigo was on 
 his way bade to France labouring under mortal disease.
 
 476 ABD-EL-KADER. 
 
 The following is the state in which he left the French occu- 
 pation. 
 
 In the province of Algiers we possessed the town and its out- 
 skirts; and our sovereignty was recognised in the territory com- 
 prised between the Arrach, the Metidja, the Mazafran, and the sea. 
 
 On the eastern side we had an establishment at Bona, which, in- 
 deed, did not extend beyond the walls of the town, but which 
 marked our point of departure for the conquest of Constantine. 
 
 Lastly, on the west, in the province of Oran, we occupied the 
 town of Oran, and a circle of a league radius round it; the fort 
 of Mers-el-Kebir was in our power ; we had an understanding with 
 the Turks of Mostaganem ; and at Tlemsen, if the Hadars who held 
 the town were hostile to us, we had for allies their rivals the Kou- 
 louglis who held the citadel. 
 
 But that province of Oran was to produce a man whom the most 
 brilliant destiny awaited, and of whose hostile power we ourselves 
 were to be the founders. The right of command, which is purely 
 political among the Arabs of the east of Algeria, and feudal among 
 those of the south, is little more than a sort of theocracy among the 
 Arabs of the west, and is hereditary in the families of the Mara- 
 bouts. Abd-el-Kader, the son of a Marabout renowned among the 
 Arabs for his piety, had early been presented to the tribes of the 
 country of Mascara as the future liberator of the land of Africa, as 
 the avenger of insulted Islamism ; and he did not fall short of the 
 character. He was warily ambitious, full of decision, intrepid and 
 crafty ; he had strong passions and fanaticism to aid him ; he was a 
 soldier and a prophet; his voice put fire into the hearts of his people. 
 The Arabs of the province of Oran who had bent beneath the iron 
 hand of General Boyer, breathed again under the milder govern- 
 ment of General Desmichels; but Abd-el-Kader, always attentive 
 to his purpose, continued to extend his influence. Having declared 
 himself, and assumed the title of emir, he suddenly marched his 
 partisans against the port of Arzew, had himself proclaimed bey 
 of Tlemsen, and advanced against Mostaganem as sovereign master 
 of the country. Had General Desmichels shut himself up in the 
 town of Oran the country would have been lost to us. Attack was, 
 in this case, equivalent to defence, and there was no alternative but 
 to push forwards or perish. General Desmichels sallied out of 
 Oran, seized Arzew, and hastened to Mostaganem where he secured 
 French supremacy. Twice impelled to battle by his ambition and 
 his hatred, the emir was twice beaten; and the valiant tribes of 
 the Douairs and the Smelas seemed disposed to acknowledge our 
 fortunes and make terms with us. 
 
 This, perhaps, was the favourable moment to pursue and anni- 
 hilate Abd-el-Kader; but, with more generosity than foresight, 
 General Desmichels thought fit to negotiate a peace with him. It 
 was signed on the 26th of February, 1834; and, in order to cement 
 it. General Desmichels ordered the chcf-d'escadron de Thorigny,
 
 HIS RECEPTION OF FRENCH ENVOYS. 477 
 
 and M. de Forges, orderly officers, to carry as presents to Abd- 
 el-Kader a hundred muskets and five hundred kilogrammes of pow- 
 der. Abd-el-Kader was then encamped on the Svg. He received 
 the envoys of General Desmichels very graciously, and, after in- 
 viting them to take some repose, he expressed to them his wish to 
 take them to Mascara, wishing thereby, no doubt, to exhibit to 
 them his power, and the ascendancy he possessed over the tribes. 
 The next morning, accordingly, at daybreak the camp was raised, 
 and the tents were laid on the backs of camels and mules. Abd-el- 
 Kader's little army was composed of about 3000 horsemen; it 
 began its march to the sound of strange music. Himself mounted 
 on his horse, which had been brought to him by four negroes, 
 amused himself for a while, like a bold and skilful rider, in making 
 it caracole over the plain. Numerous salutes of musketry announced 
 his approach, and one of his officers rode by his side, holding a 
 parasol of cloth of gold over his head to screen him from the sun, 
 whilst horsemen armed with small scyrnitars and shields beguiled the 
 tedium of the way by mimic combats. After several hours' march- 
 ing through rich valleys, beautiful glades, and vast olive forests, the 
 French envoys arrived at Mascara, the inhabitants of which, with 
 their bournouses, surmounted with white or black hoods appeared 
 to them, according to M. de Thorigny's expression, as so many 
 fiery-eyed and savage-visaged monks. The reception they met with 
 was perfectly kindly. In a final interview Abd-el-Kader questioned 
 them curiously as to the condition of France, and protested his 
 good will and his determination to maintain peace: " I have visited 
 the tomb of the prophet," he said, " and my word is sacred." 
 
 The narrative of this journey contributed not a little to confirm 
 General Desmichels in the hopes he built on his pacific policy. 
 Unfortunately, all this parade of pacific intentions on the part of the 
 emir, was but a cloak to his ambitious desires. The sovereignty of 
 France had not been expressly stipulated in the treaty of February 
 26, 1834; we seemed to treat in it with the emir on a footing of 
 equality, and the difficulties that might arise out of the question of 
 boundary between the territories were not even thought of by those 
 who drew up the treaty : Abd-el-Kader took advantage of all this 
 with superior intelligence. In treating with him, the French had 
 seemed to put him on a level with themselves; he made good use of this 
 fact among his own people, and profited by peace to procure himself 
 arms, to strengthen his iniluence, to depress his rivals, among others, 
 Mustapha Ben Ismael, and to lay down in the province of Gran the 
 bases on Arab nationality which might be reconstructed. 
 
 Now, supreme authority was fluctuating in Algiers between a 
 provisional commander-in-chief and a civil intendant: the latter 
 proud of his administrative capacity, the force of which he contrived 
 adroitly to make others feel ; the former too much distrusting his 
 own knowledge and acquirements, and making but a reserved use of
 
 478 ALGERIA REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS. 
 
 a power he knew to be transient. M. Genty de Bussi was an able 
 man, with a quick intellect and a taste for sway, and for some time 
 he ruled his superior, General Voirol. But he lost his influence at 
 last by overstraining it, provoked legitimate resentment, and was 
 recalled. General Voirol himself soon quitted Africa, where he left 
 fine roads opened up by him through the heart of Algiers, and a 
 name dear to the inhabitants. 
 
 Had the government resolved on abandoning Algiers? Already 
 this suspicion was implanted in many minds ; people went even the 
 length of asserting, that this was a sacrifice secretly insisted on by 
 the English. A commission sent to Africa, in the beginning of 
 September, 1833, and composed of Lieutenant-general Bonnet, MM. 
 d'Haubersaert, .de la Pinsonniere, Piscatory, Regnard, and Lau- 
 rence, gave a welcome contradiction to the public fears, by deciding, 
 after an investigation made on the spot, that the honour and interest 
 of France commanded it to retain its possessions on the northern 
 coast of Africa. On the 22nd of July, 1834, appeared an ordon- 
 nance committing the command, civil and military, to a governor- 
 general, under the control of the minister of war; it made the com- 
 mand of the troops subordinate to the authority of the governor- 
 general; appointed special chiefs to preside over each department of 
 the service ; and called the regency of Algiers, French possessions in 
 the north of Africa. A new era it was thought was about to dawn 
 on the colony. But the nomination of Count Drouet d'Erlon as 
 governor-general, did not fully correspond to public expectation: 
 he was sixty years of age, and there seemed reason to fear that his 
 hand was not strong enough to hold the helm. 
 
 In feet, his sojourn in Africa was marked by an oscillation of 
 views peculiarly deplorable in a country which required a decided 
 policy to bring it into orderly subjection. Count d'Erlon having 
 begun by declaring himself opposed to the policy of General Des- 
 michels, the latter was induced to resign the command of the pro- 
 vince of Oran, and was succeeded by General Trezel, the same who, 
 in 1833, had made himself master of Bougie, after a vigorous 
 assault. 
 
 The consequences of the treaty entered into with Abd-el-Kader 
 were rapidly developing themselves, when General Tre"zel entered 
 on his command. Emboldened by the too confiding system of pa- 
 cification pursued by General Desmichels, Abd-el-Kader had become 
 intoxicated by his success, and appeared on the banks of the Chelif, 
 a river that flows between the province of Oran and that of Algiers. 
 General Voirol had forbidden him to cross it, and the prohibition 
 was renewed by Count d'Erlon: the emir halted. But soon, invited 
 by the inhabitants of Medeah, who, for want of our protection 
 invoked his, he made up his mind, resolutely crossed the river, 
 received the submission of Miliana en passant, routed the chief of a 
 tribe who had advanced to meet him, entered Medeah in triumph,
 
 THE FRENCH DEFEATED ON THE 3IACTA. 479 
 
 and after taking measures for the government of the town, returned 
 to his residence, applauded and admired by the Moslem population, 
 whom he had dazzled by his victorious daring. 
 
 It was impossible that we could have been more openly braved, 
 and yet Count d'Erlon abstained from every violent step, being kept 
 in check by the minister's instructions, and also by the influence 
 that had been gained over his mind by a Jew, a sort of charge- 
 d'arfairs of the emir's. Abd-el-Kader now threw off all reserve. He 
 ventured to threaten, and attempted to displace tribes guilty only of 
 fidelity to France. This was too much. Applied to by the Douairs 
 and the Smelas, General Trezel generously hazarded his own respon- 
 sibility, and advanced to protect them. We were on the brink, not 
 of a defeat, but of a disaster. 
 
 On the 26th of June, 1835, General Trezel had arrived within ten 
 leagues of Oran, when he suddenly caught sight of the emir's army, 
 advantageously posted, and six times more numerous than his own. 
 Great as were the odds, the French general did not hesitate. The 
 Arabs being impetuously attacked, gave way, but not without resist- 
 ance. The French had opened themselves a passage : ought they to con- 
 tinue their bloody journey? Abd-el-Kader had pitched his camp a 
 league further on, ready to recommence the fight ; the victory had cost 
 the French dear ; Colonel Oudinot was killed ; the armed crowd under 
 the emir's flag was hourly increasing ; retreat was resolved on. The 
 steadiness and intrepidity of the French troops was admirable during 
 this trying inarch, continually harassed as they were by swarms of 
 fierce horsemen, hovering round them, and swooping down on them, 
 greedy of their spoils. Unfortunately, our men were obliged to 
 enter a narrow pass, lying along the banks of the marshes that 
 adjoin the Macta, and between them and the wooded hills. There 
 it was that Abd-el-Kader awaited the French column, which had no 
 sooner entered the fatal defile than it had to sustain the shock of se- 
 veral thousand Arabs, who rushed down furiously on it from all the 
 surrounding heights. The resistance was not less furious than the 
 attack. At last the Arabs having charged in a body towards the 
 point where lay the baggage and the wounded, the line was broken, 
 the ranks fell into confusion ; some of our men plunged into the 
 marshes, others into the thickets, and fell singly under the yataghan. 
 Meanwhile, the advanced guard, brought back to the rear by the 
 intrepid General Trezel, repulsed the enemy and rescued the bag- 
 gage. The column was able to resume its march and reached 
 Arzew. Thus a heavy blow had been given to the prestige of our 
 arms; and the Arabs erected a horrible trophy of heads on the 
 banks of the Macta, stained with the blood of our soldiers. 
 
 At this news a thrill of rage ran from one end of France to the 
 other; General Trezel having only been unfortunate, his country- 
 men were touched by his courage, and every one was thankful to 
 him for his determination; but exasperation was extreme against 
 the improvidence of the executive, the uncertainty of its plans, the
 
 480 MARSHAL CLAUZEL GOVERNOR A SECOND TIME. 
 
 incoherence of its ideas, and the feeble impulse it gave to the affairs 
 of Africa. To whom was the task to be committed of chastising the 
 emir ? Marshal Clauzel's name was on every tongue : for the 
 second time he was sent to Africa with orders to annihilate Abd- 
 el-Kader. 
 
 After a proclamation in which a desire to bring matters to an end 
 once and for ever was strongly expressed, and which was followed 
 by a blow struck against the recently revolted tribe of the Hadjoutes, 
 Marshal Clauzel resumed his old system with much vigour, of set- 
 ting up native beys against Abd-el-Kader and his lieutenants. This 
 was not enough ; and he resolved to push straight to Mascara. 
 
 From the gates of Oran extends a vast plain of about twelve 
 leagues diameter, bounded on the north by the sea, on the east by 
 the little stream of the Tlelat, and a lentisc forest, through which 
 some wild pines are thinly scattered. The mountain of the Beni 
 Amer is on the south, Oran on the west. In the centre of the 
 plain stands a solitary fig tree, venerated by the Arabs, whose caravans 
 have long enjoyed its welcome shade. This was the rallying point 
 of the expeditionary army, and hence it set out on the 26th of No- 
 vember, 1835. It included ten thousand men, and reckoned the 
 king's eldest son in its ranks. On the 29th it arrived close to the 
 Syg, lighted by the fires the Arabs had kindled on the mountain 
 tops, and halted there, full of still fresh and poignant recollections. 
 The march was successful, though transiently interrupted by rapid 
 attacks. The Arabs having twice approached too near the French 
 army, it passed over their bodies. At last the town was descried. 
 Marshal Clauzel led the way with the cavalry, two regiments of 
 light infantry, and some howitzers; the infantry came up at 9 P.M. 
 The night was gloomy, and a sullen silence hung over the unknown 
 town. The soldiers entered the suburb; it was deserted, and they 
 marched on between the closed and silent houses. But one living 
 creature, it appears, was found in the streets : this was an old woman 
 sitting on some rags of mats. One would have thought it a town of 
 the dead. 
 
 Abd-el-Kader had, in fact, just quitted it, leaving behind him 
 only devastation and carnage. The Jews had had their dwellings 
 pillaged for refusing to follow him, and those who had attempted 
 some resistance lay dead among the ruins. 
 
 To enable us to form an establishment at Mascara, we ought to 
 have had more forces than we possessed: the destruction of what 
 we could not keep was, therefore, completed, and the army resumed 
 its march by the light of a conflagration, and followed by the dis- 
 consolate Jews, who fled from Abd-el-Kader and their burning 
 homes. Their wives and children accompanied them, and the 
 march was saddened by scenes which the vigilant generosity of the 
 soldiers could not always prevent. Many an old man, worn out 
 with fatigue, lay down to die. Many a mother, with feet lacerated 
 by stones and thorns, exhausted her strength in carrying her son,
 
 MILITARY OPERATIONS. 481 
 
 and fell before the journey's end. It is said that a little child was 
 found in a corn-pit, and put under the protection of the Due 
 d'Orleans. 
 
 Thus the expedition had produced no other effect than that of 
 extinguishing the halo of glory, that seemed to the eyes of the Arabs 
 to encompass the head of Abd-el-Kader. But he, beaten, but not 
 put down, had fallen back in the direction of Tlemsen, appealing to 
 the sympathy of the Hadars, the masters of the town, and threaten- 
 ing the Koulouglis, our allies, who occupied the citadel. After his 
 return to Oran, Marshal Clauzel was compelled again to take the 
 field, on the 8th of January, 1836, and to march on Tlemsen, 
 which he occupied the 13th of the same month. The Hadars had 
 retired with Abd-el-Kader, carrying their wealth with them : the 
 Perregaux brigade pursued and brought them back. Abd-el-Kader, 
 closely pressed, owed his escape only to the speed of his horse. The 
 marshal had muskets distributed among the Koulouglis, imposed 
 on them a contribution, which was afterwards made the grounds of 
 violent accusations against him, and quitted the town, after placing 
 in the citadel a garrison of 500 men, under the orders of Com- 
 mandant Cavaignac, a heroic soul.* 
 
 Whilst these things were passing in the province of Oran, the 
 other parts of French Algeria were in a state of sullen agitation. 
 
 General d'Uzer had succeeded, by a sage and conciliatory ad- 
 ministration, in maintaining peace in the province of Bona; and yet 
 the bey of Constantina, Hajy Ahmed, constantly showed a threat- 
 ening aspect. At Bougie, French occupation remained without 
 effect, in the midst of the intestine quarrels of tribes vying eagerly 
 with each other for the advantages of our market. Lastly, in the 
 province of Algiers, none of the beys instituted by Marshal Clauzel 
 bad been able to make their authority recognised, whether at 
 Medea, Miliana, or Scherschel. 
 
 With reason, then, might it be asked, was there either the eclat 
 or the profit of a real conquest in this inevitable concatenation of 
 expeditions, these random excursions over mountains and deserts, 
 this career of destruction marked by desolated cities, this incessant 
 and tragic hunting of men? And what a picture would that be, 
 that should display all the consequences of so many deadly marches ! 
 for the knife of the Arabs was nothing in comparison with the 
 fevers and dysenteries that carried off our troops. Fortunate was 
 that soldier who, sharing in a campaign the burden of the provi- 
 sions with the camels, had only to toil and to fight. But how many 
 vvere there who, attacked with disease, perished miserably for want 
 >f a sufficient shelter under a tent, and of a little straw on the 
 lamp earth on which they lay ! 
 
 * Brother of M. Godefroi Cavaignac, whom we have seen figure so nobly in the 
 tjpublican struggles. 
 
 VOL. II. 2 I
 
 482 THE CAMP AT THE TAFNA. 
 
 The occupation, such as until then it had been understood, was, 
 moreover, of a nature to educate the soldier to ferocity. Joussouf 
 had been seen re-entering Bona, in 1832, at the head of a troop 
 which carried a Moor's head, surmounting the French flag. Among 
 the booty captured from the tribe of El Ouffia, under the govern- 
 ment of the Due de Rovigo, there were sold at Bab Azoun, ear- 
 rings stained with blood, and bracelets still attached to the severed 
 wrist ! The example, too, of burned harvests and razzias was some- 
 times contagious; and we did not always content ourselves with 
 imitating the Arabs merely in the costume of our zouaves or spahis. 
 Add to this all sorts of hideous speculations undertaken by traders, 
 who, in their savage greed, went the length, it is said, of using human 
 bones as raw materials, and building with the remains of tombs ! 
 
 The government ought to have sent troops enough into Africa 
 to bring it into subjection, and it had not done so; it ought to have 
 taken colonisation into its own hands, and it had abandoned it to 
 private speculators, who would of course be followed by bands of 
 hungry adventurers. Nothing, therefore, of all that was passing in 
 Africa, was what it was by the essential nature of things; yet it 
 will readily be guessed what weapons such a history furnished to 
 those who, like MM. Desjobert and Passy, had always augured ill 
 of our establishment. The Chamber, on its part, regarded the 
 question only in a narrow, and, consequently, false point of view: 
 instead of seeking to solve the problem by embracing it in its whole 
 extent, it limited credits with deplorable parsimony, was incessantly 
 calling for a reduction in the effective, and, in a word, higgled with 
 the conquest. The result was to perpetuate the irregularity of the 
 operations, the useless expeditions, the ravages, the alternations of 
 anarchy and oppression. 
 
 No one was more convinced than Marshal Clauzel, of the necessity 
 of a large and bold system. Impatient to enforce his views, he left 
 Africa in the beginning of April, and repaired to Paris. 
 
 Before setting out, he had decided that an intrenched camp 
 should be estabhshed at the mouth of the Tafna, so that the French 
 garrison of Tlemsen might communicate more promptly with the 
 town of Oran and the sea. It was to realise this project that 
 General d'Arlanges proceeded with 3000 men and eight pieces of 
 artillery to the mouth of the Tafna, which he reached, after vigor- 
 ously repulsing Abd-el-Kader in a glorious encounter. The works 
 were begun. But the Arabs blockaded the garrison of Tlemsen, which 
 began to stand in urgent need of being succoured and revictualled. 
 General d'Arlanges having advanced with 1500 men to reconnoitre 
 the enemy, was suddenly assailed at the distance of two leagues 
 from the camp, by nearly 10,000 men, Arabs and men of Morocco. 
 Unequal as were the numbers the battle was obstinate. Hemmed in 
 on all sides by the Arabs, who rushed upon them, furious and bel- 
 lowing, to seize them man to man, the French displayed singular
 
 MARSHAL CLAUZEL IN PARIS. 483 
 
 courage, strewed the earth with dead, and made their way back to 
 their camp under the command of Colonel Combes, General d'Ar- 
 langes having been wounded. 
 
 The state of things was critical: the camp was surrounded by 
 enemies; the coast was stormy, and vessels could not arrive; General 
 Rapatel, who supplied Marshal Clauzel's place for a time in Algiers, 
 was too weak, and himself too much threatened to send aid. France, 
 warned in time, did not forget her children in their hour of danger; 
 and whilst Colonel de la Rue was ordered by M. Thiers to demand 
 satisfaction of the Emperor of Morocco, 4500 men appeared on the 
 beach of the Tafna, commanded by General Bugeaud. 
 
 The vengeance taken was prompt and signal. General Bugeaud 
 visited successively Oran and Tlemsen and returned to the 
 camp of the Tafna, which he quitted again on the 5th of July, 
 1836, to lead a convoy of 500 camels and 300 mules to Tlemsen 
 under the protection of six regiments, a battalion, and the native 
 auxiliaries. The emir had prepared for a vigorous effort; and on 
 arriving at the ford of the Sickah, General Bugeaud found before 
 him 7000 men, including 1200 regular infantry. In vain Abd-el- 
 Kader displayed great bravery, combined with remarkable ability; 
 his army, driven back to a ravine, was cut to pieces. In order to 
 escape the death they saw before them, many of the Arabs threw 
 themselves pell-mell from a perpendicular cliff; but chasseurs and vol- 
 tigeurs awaited them below, and made a frightful slaughter of 
 them. The victory of the Sickah shook the moral force of the emir 
 to its very foundations : many of his allies abandoned him. 
 
 In Paris, meanwhile, Marshal Clauzel was urging the govern- 
 ment to a decisive resolution. " If we confine ourselves," he said, " to 
 occupying the seaboard, we may look to be pitched into the sea." 
 
 But many minds were appalled at the idea of a complete unli- 
 mited occupation. M. de Broglie's definition, " Algiers is a box at 
 the opera," had been prodigiously successful among the doctrinaires, 
 men who often wanted largeness of views, and who, in some mea- 
 sure, justified Talleyrand's saying, " Nothing is lighter than a heavy 
 doctrinaire." 
 
 As for the king, the possession of Algiers gave him less unea- 
 siness than his fondness for England, and his eagerness for peace 
 had made it generally supposed. For the English made little dis- 
 play of their jealousy, not thinking us capable of maintaining our 
 conquest; and the king well knew, that the war of Algiers was not 
 one of that sort which tends to become universal. " It matters 
 little," he said, with great happiness of expression, u if a hundred 
 thousand cannon shots be fired in Africa; they are not heard in 
 Europe." 
 
 There remained M. Thiers ; and of all persons of eminence he was 
 the only one who had strong inclinations on the subject of Africa. 
 The basis of his notions was imperialism ; he liked Algiers as a nur- 
 
 2l2
 
 484 THIERS' VIEWS AS TO ALGIERS. 
 
 sery for soldiers. If our troops did not learn there to stand im- 
 movable before the cannon's mouth, they would at least become 
 inured to fatigue, they would learn to make light of danger, to sup- 
 port privations, to lead the life of the bivouac, to surmount nos- 
 talgia. These were the considerations that attached M. Thiers to 
 Africa, the more so as our battles there brought into salient relief 
 true soldiers, men like Changarnier, Lamoriciere, Bedeau, Cavaignac, 
 and Duvivier, who might one day be opposed to Europe in arms, 
 with safety, confidence, and pride. 
 
 The conceptions of M. Thiers, we see, were not in every respect 
 worthy of the principle represented by France in the world. He had, 
 no more than the Governor-general of Algeria, raised his mind to 
 the idea of colonisation by the state, an idea which appeared im- 
 practicable, only because it was great. To extend the military pos- 
 sessions of France ; to secure her along the African coast maritime 
 positions, whence she might command the Mediterranean ; to protect 
 that sea in time of peace, and to let loose corsairs upon it in war; 
 nothing more than this was contemplated by M. Thiers as among 
 the consequences of the conquest. It was a great deal, and too 
 little. 
 
 But if he entertained only confined views as to the future destiny 
 of Algeria, at least he saw clearly what exertions it was important 
 to make in order to bring it under subjection. He was aware that 
 the mischief arose solely out of mismanaged war; that the flame 
 once kindled, there was no alternative but to extinguish it vigorously 
 or to run from it ; that half measures were an encouragement to the 
 Arabs, a cause of weakness to the army, of ruin to the budget, and 
 an infallible means of sooner or later wearing out the patience of 
 France and bringing her to abandon the conquest. He had, there- 
 fore, no difficulty in coming to an understanding with Marshal 
 Clauzel as to the measures to be adopted. Bending over the map of 
 Africa, he followed with satisfaction the details of the plan for a 
 campaign. He authorised the marshal to march on Constantina, 
 granted him more forces than he asked for, and fearing lest the 
 governor-general's daring should prompt him to undertake the ex- 
 pedition with slight resources, he enjoined him not to march from 
 Bona except upon a written order under his hand. As for the exe- 
 cution of the plan, this belonged to the department of the minister 
 at war, and it was to him the governor-general had to address 
 himself. 
 
 According to Marshal Clauzel, the first thing requisite to be 
 done in Africa was to wrest Constantina from Ahmed Bey. Ahmed 
 personified Turkish nationality in the east, as Abd-el-Kader per- 
 sonified Arab nationality in the west. Constantina was connected 
 with Tunis, and Africa with the Porte, by ties at which we could 
 legitimately express our displeasure. Should the sultan think of 
 disposing of the investiture of Tunis, this would be quite enough to
 
 COUNTER ORDERS SENT TO MARSHAL CLAUZEL. 485 
 
 lead to a rupture between France and the Porte. Thus the project 
 of conquering Constantina rested on considerations of the utmost 
 gravity. 
 
 But to attempt such an enterprise Marshal Clauzel had demanded 
 30,000 fighting men, a corps of native infantry of 5000 men, 4000 
 auxiliary cavalry, and that the campaign should begin on the 15th 
 of September at the latest ; above all, that 3000 or 4000 men should 
 be instantly marched for Bona. 
 
 With 4000 men at Bona we should have secured our camp at 
 Drehan from Ahmed; we could have proceeded to Ghelma, and 
 made it the depot for the troops and materiel required in the siege 
 of Constantina, and thus have gained several leagues of territory. 
 No doubt the Arabs would then have joined us, and would have 
 offered us the necessary means of transport, which would have given 
 a heavy blow beforehand from the other side of the Seybouze to 
 Ahmed's power and influence. These reasons, which Marshal 
 Clauzel urged with great force, were admitted, and the instructions 
 sent to General Rapatel were in accordance with them. 
 
 Some days afterwards, the marshal set out to resume the reins of 
 command ; but hardly had he touched the Algerine shore when the 
 cabinet of the 22nd of February tottered. Thereupon Marshal 
 Maison, as if fearing to leave after him the glory of the expedition 
 agreed on, hastened to write to Marshal Clauzel, that " the arrange- 
 ments ordered were indeed quite conformable to the verbal com- 
 munications had with several of the king's ministers, but they had 
 not undergone any deliberation in council; that it was for the new 
 cabinet to refuse or accord its sanction to them, and that until then, 
 it behoved to take no binding or compromising step, to keep strictly 
 within the limits of the actual occupation, and within those of the 
 disposable effective and the legislative credits." At the same time 
 the sending of the troops destined for Bona was suspended. 
 
 This counter order so strange, so little expected, threw Marshal 
 Clauzel into a stupor. He foresaw the mischief that would flow 
 from all this uncertainty and hesitation, and he had the pain to find 
 himself not mistaken. Bona harassed by Ahmed, the camp of 
 Orphan attacked, the tribes on which we counted detached from us 
 ind chastised by the bey of Constantina, the operations to have 
 been directed against Ghelma retarded at a period when every delay 
 idded to the sum of the chances against us, such were the fruits of 
 that ministerial instability, of that policy without vigour or conti- 
 nuity which characterises the constitutional regime. 
 
 While things were at this pass, M. de Ranee, Marshal Clauzel's 
 lide-de-camp, having brought from Paris the news of the formation 
 )f the Mole ministry, the governor's anxieties were redoubled. The 
 all of M. Thiers deprived his projects of a supporter; the winter 
 vas approaching; the general effective in the regency did not ex- 
 ceed 28,000 men, equivalent to scarcely more than 23,000 fighting 
 nen. Matters admitting of no delay, the marshal despatched M. de
 
 486 DOCTRINAIRE VIEWS AS TO ALGIERS. 
 
 Ranee to Paris with orders to apply for a reinforcement of 10,000 
 men. 
 
 The ministers of the 6th of September found themselves in a very 
 embarrassing position as regarded Africa. On the one hand, they 
 did not wish to exceed the credits, to compromise their respon- 
 sibility to the Chamber, and to let themselves be hurried, in pur- 
 suance of the course begun by M. Thiers, into a system, the boldness 
 of which appalled them. On the other hand, it seemed to them a 
 hard thing to have to abandon an enterprise from which the nation 
 promised itself glory and profit : should they not thereby run the risk 
 of augmenting the popularity of M. Thiers, and discrowning, as it 
 were, their own accession ? Thus, tossed about between conflicting 
 feelings, they decided that the expedition should take place, but 
 without any notable increase of means, and they confined themselves 
 to sending to Africa, in order to complete a general effective of 
 30,000 men, battalions which had already set out when M. de 
 Ranee arrived. 
 
 M. de Ranee having set forth the business on which he was sent, 
 was answered with a refusal founded on the fact, that the only figure 
 in the despatches was that of 30,000 men. In vain he explained, 
 that Marshal Clauzel had requested 30,000 fighting men, not 
 30,000 men inclusive of the sick and the wounded ; in vain he in- 
 sisted that the marshal had furthermore considered indispensable a 
 corps of native infantry and 4000 auxiliary cavalry : the ministers 
 invariably recurred to the written figures in opposition to the force 
 of verbal promises. 
 
 In other respects, and within the limits prescribed by themselves, 
 they were far from disapproving of the expedition, as is proved by 
 the following passage from a letter written by General Bernard, 
 minister at war, to the marshal, on the 22nd of October, 1836 : " Mon- 
 sieur le Marechal, I acquainted you by my telegraphic despatch of 
 yesterday, that I have learned with satisfaction that you are under- 
 taking the expedition against Constantina, and that you have no un- 
 easiness as to the result. I announced to you at the same time, that 
 His Royal Highness Monseigneur le Due de Nemours is entrusted 
 to your care, that the prince will arrive in Toulon on the 25th, and 
 will embark immediately for Bona." 
 
 The approbation was thus incontestable and explicit, inasmuch as 
 one of the king's sons took part in the expedition ; and if, in a sub- 
 sequent despatch of the 3rd of November, General Bernard remarked 
 to the marshal, that the government had not ordered but only au- 
 thorised the expedition against Constantina, the only conclusion to 
 be drawn thence is, that the ministry unfairly took measures either 
 to profit fry the success of the enterprise, or to rid itself of responsi- 
 bility for its defeat. 
 
 What was the marshal to do? Thus met by a refusal which frus- 
 trated his plans, and deprived him of means he felt to be indispen- 
 sable to his success, should he throw up his command? Should he
 
 FIRST EXPEDITION AGAINST CONST AN TIN A. 487 
 
 leave to the Count de Damremont, who had been sent to fill his 
 place if vacated, the conduct of an enterprise so ^portent, so deci 
 sive? Or else without surrendering his command, should he declare 
 that'the time for acting had passed away and that it was necessary 
 to postpone an expedition thenceforth rendered doubtful by a miserly 
 
 rS l ^SRL the best course; but the enterprise 
 had long been announced; it kept the public attention on the alert; 
 it was to be the crowning point of favourite projects; it attracted one 
 of the king's sons; it had already made so much noise among the 
 Arabs that it might seem imperative in honour to execute 
 marshal determined to proceed to the end. 
 
 Besides Joussouf, whom he had named bey of Constantma, had 
 never ceased to urge him to confidence: What was to be feared I 
 The affair would, m fact, be nothing more than a military prome 
 nade; the tribes were disposed to submit; Constantma would 
 wait for an attack, but would hasten to open its gates Such prc 
 mises flattered the marshal's secret inclinations, he yielded to them 
 and the troops received orders to rendezvous at Bona, which was 
 
 ^l! wa P sihe bej5n rf November, and the sky did not fail to give 
 us ominous warnings. The rain fell in torrents day and night: the 
 mountains were covered with snow. The soldiers, exhausted with 
 sea-sickness, were huddled together in unwholesome, ^Iterec 
 barracks, where they were seized with fever Sickness increased 
 irightfuljy; on the eve of the departure two thousand men wer 
 
 ^ And P thtn the inundation of the plain intercepted communication, 
 and prevented the bringing in of provisions and the purchase , 
 mule* Joussouf, from thorn fifteen hundred were expected, was 
 forced to confess that he would have difficulty in collecting five 
 hundred, and in fact that number was not completed. 
 
 But nothing could shake Marshal Clauzel's "^ U<~ 
 de Rigny had led the way with his brigade On the 1 
 vember, 1836, the rains had ceased, the marshal hailed th ^sun- 
 beam as^ a happy token, and the army be-an its march the f 
 day. It numbered in all seven thousand men, carrying pro^si 
 
 for fifteen days. . .-, n f 
 
 A horrible storm came down on the convoy in the camp ' 
 Drehan. Of two hundred and twenty oxen belonging t< the com- 
 missariat one-half ran away and escaped terrified by the.thunde 
 and lightning. The march continued, toibome and uncertain 
 hours were spet in dragging the artillery five miles over the 
 drenched clay ; and, to lighten the labour of dragging it through the 
 mud, some of the ladders, provided for the .purpose of escakdi: 
 Constantina, were thrown under the wheels On the 15th, the troops 
 reached the Roman ruins of Ghelma; on the 17th, they crossed th 
 Seybouze ; and on the 19th, they arrived at Raz Oed Zenati. Ihey
 
 488 FIRST EXPEDITION AGAINST CONSTANTINA. 
 
 had not yet encountered any enemies, and had seen but a few Arabs 
 here and there engaged in agriculture. But on the 20th, some horse- 
 men appeared on the heights, and shots -were heard. Then the bold- 
 est might well conceive some gloomy forebodings, the want of mu- 
 nitions and provisions rendered a long conflict impossible. Rain, 
 snow, and frost had prevailed violently through the night; several 
 soldiers had their feet frost-bitten, some had died of cold ; Constan- 
 tina, already perceived in the distance, seemed to recede before the 
 advance of our troops. At last at noon, the 21st of November, the 
 hills that concealed it having been surmounted one after the other, it 
 suddenly presented itself before the eyes of the soldiers, protected by 
 a ravine of immense depth, at the bottom of which roared the Oued 
 Hummel, and which presented for scarp and counter-scarp a perpen- 
 dicular rock. The marshal expected to find the gates open, an il- 
 lusion too obstinately fostered, which was soon dissipated by two 
 cannon shots from the ramparts, and the red flag hoisted on the 
 principal battery. 
 
 Now the army arrived before the town, exhausted by nine days' 
 march, during which they had to contend incessantly against the 
 unmitigated fury of winter, to cut down trees, break rocks, and 
 render the rugged sides of the mountains practicable for the artillery 
 and waggons. Their clothes were drenched in rain; there was no 
 bivouacking except in the mud. The baggage waggons remained 
 stuck fast half a league in the rear. The snow was falling in sheets. 
 Hardly any victuals remained. 
 
 Thus it was not a siege that could be attempted, but only a coup 
 de main. 
 
 The army had come upon a plateau connected with the town by 
 a very narrow bridge ; and it had in front a ravine sixty metres 
 (sixty-five yards) wide, rock walls, proof against mine and ball; and 
 a very strong double gate, which could only be reached by a narrow 
 way, exposed to the fire of the houses and the gardens. 
 
 The weak side of Constantina was on the south, where the only 
 defence of the city was a plain wall commanded by the plateau of 
 Koudiat Aty. 
 
 Unfortunately, it was impossible to convey the eight-pounders 
 thither, over ground in which the wheels sank to the axle, and 
 which^was cut by the Oued Rumniel, now unusually swollen by 
 the rains. 
 
 Marshal Clauzel determined, therefore, to direct the principal 
 attack against the gate of the bridge, whilst he ordered General de 
 Rigny to march with the brigade of the advanced- guard to the 
 heights of Koudiat Aty. 
 
 There were three water courses to cross besides the Rummel, 
 now converted into a torrent, and the soldiers were sometimes up 
 to the middle in water. The wind and hail, too, beat in their faces 
 so violently, that they were forced, from time to time, to halt and 
 turn their backs to the storm. Scarcely had they neared the hills
 
 DEFEAT. 489 
 
 that precede the plateau of Koudiat Aty, when they were assailed 
 with sharp volleys from various points of a Moslem cemetery. 
 Sheltered by the tombs, a great number of Arabs from the town 
 appeared resolved vigorously to dispute the passage of the French. 
 The latter were short of powder; they charged the Arabs with the 
 bayonet, carried the position, and established themselves on the 
 plateau. But, Ahmed Bey, who had left his lieutenant, Ben Aissa, 
 in command of Constantina, while he himself kept a-field with his 
 cavalry, fell upon the rear of the advanced-guard brigade, on the 
 morning of the 22nd, at the moment when the Kabyles were 
 attacking it in front, and the Turks were spreading themselves out 
 on its right flank. The situation was critical; the valour of the 
 French did not leave the victory for a moment doubtful, and the 
 enemy was repulsed on all points at once. 
 
 Whilst this was passing on the heights of Koudiat Aty, a new 
 misfortune befel the army. It having been found impossible to ex- 
 tricate the baggage that had remained behind from the mud, the 
 soldiers that escorted the waggons began to pillage before abandon- 
 ing them, and, drenching themselves with brandy to beguile the 
 hunger that tormented them, they fell an easy prey to the yataghans 
 of the Arabs. 
 
 The 22nd of November was employed by the main body in can- 
 nonading the gate of the bridge, and preparing to storm. On the 
 23rd the artillery continued to play; and the brigade of the ad- 
 vanced-guard, called once more to the fight, charged and over- 
 threw the bey's troops. 
 
 Night being come, two simultaneous attacks were ordered, one 
 on the Mansourah side, against the gate of the bridge, the other on 
 the Koudiat Aty side, against the gate Bab-el-Oued. In the 
 former, which was but an heroic effort against obstacles too numerous, 
 General Trezel was shot through the neck. The latter, led by 
 Colonel Duvivier, cost the lives of two officers of the highest hopes, 
 Captain Grand and Commandant Richepanse. It failed, too, for 
 want of sufficient means : axes were wanting to break down a gate 
 strengthened with iron, on which no impression could be made 
 with bayonets and butts of muskets. 
 
 The elements had conspired against the French; the supply of 
 victuals was reduced to a ration of rice and a biscuit per man ; there 
 remained ammunition scarcely more than enough for thirty cannon 
 shots; wherever the enemy had been met face to face, he had been 
 put to flight : the signal for retreat was given. 
 
 The commandant, Changarnier, formed the extreme rear with his 
 battalion. At the moment lie was reaching the plateau of ^ Man- 
 sourah, swarms of Arabs bore down on the French. He imme- 
 diately formed his battalion into square, and turning to his soldiers, 
 said to them: " My lads, let us look those fellows in the face. 
 They are six thousand; you are three hundred; it is a fair match." 
 This said, he waited until the Arabs were within pistol shot, when
 
 490 RETREAT FROM CONSTANTINA. 
 
 a volley from two ranks strewed the earth with men and horses. 
 The enemy, astonished and terrified, fled headlong, and thenceforth 
 followed the intrepid army only at a distance. 
 
 The retreat was admirable. The troops formed an oblong square, 
 in the midst of which a space was kept sufficient for the ambulance 
 and the waggons. The spahis marched at its head ; the two flanks 
 were composed of infantry. The rear, commanded by General de 
 Rifny, consisted both of infantry and cavalry. Lines of flankers, 
 supported by squadrons of chasseurs, protected all the faces of the 
 square. The hero of the Arapiles, the great warrior who had saved 
 20,000 Frenchmen from the attacks of the Duke of Wellington, 
 and brought them off safely from before a victorious army, now 
 appeared in all his old lustre. With steadfast look and calm coun- 
 tenance, Marshal Clauzel provided for every thing with wonderful 
 presence of mind, and diffused around him the unshakable con- 
 fidence with which he himself was animated. The soldiers, worthy 
 of their leader, ceased not to advance in good order, the horsemen 
 generously giving up their horses to the invalids, and the superior 
 officers holding the wounded by the hand to aid them in their 
 march. A story is told of a soldier who dropped down, exhausted 
 with fatigue, and who, when an officer asked him if he could not 
 go on, replied: " My head will be off in a few minutes; but take 
 my cartridges, I would not have the enemy use them against you." 
 Touched by the man's courage, the officer alighted, placed the poor 
 soldier on his horse, and led it himself by the bridle to Ghelma. 
 
 But it was impossible but that the retreat should have been a dis- 
 tressing one. Hunger was severely felt, and added to the fatigues 
 of the march; and whenever the word was given to halt, whole 
 battalions stretched themselves on the ground, like corn lodged by 
 rain and wind. The Arabs pursued the harassed column with 
 hideous avidity : every now and then soldiers who could go no fur- 
 ther, were left behind, and, covering, their heads, waited in mute 
 resignation until the enemy came up and decapitated them. Charges 
 were often made to snatch from certain death, wretches who had 
 fallen from weariness; but all could not be saved. 
 
 Towards dusk, on the 25th of November, the number of laggards 
 was increasing ; and it being observed by the officers, that the night 
 would deliver to the enemy some victims whom there would then 
 be no possibility of saving, General de Rigny, who commanded the 
 rear, sent to Marshal Clauzel to ask him to slacken his speed ; and, 
 receiving no reply, he went forward himself as far as the ambulance, 
 allowing some words to escape him that betrayed exaggerated un- 
 easiness; a real impropriety, no doubt, but which was magnified 
 beyond measure, and provoked, on the marshal's part, an order of 
 the day of crushing severity.* 
 
 The conduct of General de Rigny having been afterwards investigated by a 
 council of war, he was acquitted. He had, besides, displayed brilliant courage under 
 the walls of Coustantina.
 
 LIBERATION OF THE PRISONERS OF HAM. 491 
 
 On the 30th of November, 1836, the army passed the night at 
 Drehan, and on the 1st of December it re-entered Bona. 
 
 The losses sustained, amounted to 443 men killed or dead of 
 cold, and 228 wounded. But in France the magnitude of the evil 
 was measured less by the number of the dead than by the nature of 
 the occurrences that had, as it were, set a fatal seal upon this so 
 much longed for expedition. The telegraphic despatches, too, inter- 
 rupted by fog or night, had conveyed the dismal news only bit by 
 bit, and thus prolonged the public anxiety. But the saddest thing 
 was the use to which political passions, rampant on all sides, sought 
 to turn the event. Who was answerable for our misfortunes? 
 Such was theme of rancorous, unsparing controversy. In Marshal 
 Clauzel's conduct there had been the rash precipitation of a general, 
 whose plans had been overthrown, and the heroism of an old soldier: 
 his enemies insisted only on what afforded a handle to their hos- 
 tility, and were not ashamed to lacerate his heart. 
 
 After all, public opinion, far from being cast down, declared 
 more impetuously and energetically than ever for the preservation of 
 Africa. The whole French soul vowed from that moment the cap- 
 ture of Constantina. Even under the smart of the most cruel re- 
 verses, under the burden of the heaviest sacrifices, the instinct of 
 the people tended with astonishing accuracy and fidelity to the 
 greatness of France, and the accomplishment of her duties towards 
 the world ; and merely by the invincible ardour of our will, it might 
 be seen that it was by virtue of a really providential law that we 
 had the Mediterranean to render French, and Algeria to keep. 
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 AN act which seemed the prelude to an amnesty had marked the 
 accession of the Mole administration: the castle of Ham contained 
 no more prisoners. 
 
 Before this time three celebrated physicians, Rostan, Ferrus, and 
 Andral, had been directed by the government to visit the prisoners 
 in Ham, whose health was affected. Two only of the ex-ministers, 
 MM. de Peyronnet and de Chantelauze then consented to receive 
 the visits ot the physicians, who, after a conscientious investigation, 
 came to the conclusion, that they could not declare in their report 
 for the necessity of enlarging the captives. Afterwards, however, 
 on the 17th of October, 1836, MM. de Peyronnet and de Chan- 
 telauze, whose indispositions had increased, were authorised to 
 reside on parole, the former at Monferrand in the department of La 
 Gironde, the latter in the department of the Loire. As for MM. de 
 Polignac and de Guernon Ranville, they had refused to address to
 
 492 DISPUTES ABOUT SPAIN. 
 
 the government of Louis Philippe an application that seemed to 
 them incompatible with their oaths. But the death of Charles X. 
 having released them from their allegiance, they asked to be trans- 
 ferred to a maisonde sante, and on the 23rd of November, 1826, an 
 ordonnance appeared, which commuted the penalty pronounced on 
 M. de Polignac to twenty years' banishment beyond the realm, and 
 authorised M. de Guernon Ranville to reside on parole in the 
 department of Calvados. 
 
 JThus M. Mole seemed from the outset to separate himself from 
 the policy of his predecessors. Furthermore, the king had narrowly 
 escaped another attempt at assassination, on the very day of the 
 opening of the Chambers; and this persistent regicidal epedemic 
 proved plainly how ineffectual severity was for the preservation of 
 the throne. 
 
 The year 1837 began with keen parliamentary conflicts. MM. de 
 Dreux Breze and de Noailles put forth eloquent complaints in the 
 Chamber of Peers, and these were repeated and enlarged on in 
 the Chamber of Deputies. M. Thiers had a defeat to avenge, and 
 power to regain ; and surrounded by heated and panting friends he 
 awaited M. Mole in the Palais Bourbon, hoping to convict him of 
 helpless inefficiency and to put him down. 
 
 Spain, drowned in its own blood, was then the object on which 
 all eyes were turned. It was for having desired to preserve it from 
 civil war that M. Thiers had fallen: Spain, therefore, was the sub- 
 ject on which the dispute began. 
 
 The part filled by M. Mole in this quarrel had neither eclat nor 
 grandeur, as M. Thiers proved with great impetuosity. He proved 
 that the Quadruple Alliance, considered in its spirit, and not merely 
 in the letter, bound up with the conservation of Isabella's crown 
 the destinies of the constitutional monarchy, which had arisen in 
 France out of the storm of July ; that intervention in Spain was 
 imperatively commanded us by our alliance with the English; that 
 in grossing the Pyrenees to fight Don Carlos, the elect of abso- 
 lutism, it was the cause of constitutional governments we were to 
 have maintained in the face of nations, and in the way that be- 
 came Frenchmen, proudly, and sword in hand; that we could 
 not thus abandon the Peninsula without losing our influence there, 
 excessively lowering our consideration, and depriving ourselves 
 beforehand of that good and faithful rear-guard which the friend- 
 ship of Spain would afford, if ever an European coalition returned 
 upon us from the north. Replying to those who saw no difference 
 between the system of the llth of October, that of the 22nd of Fe- 
 bruary, and that of the 6th of September, which he was attacking, 
 ' The difference," he said, " is this: the first granted Spain but in- 
 efficient aid; the second wished to give her efficient aid; the third 
 will not give her any." Then dexterously availing himself of the 
 fears with which the French middle classes regarded the first cla- 
 mours of the Spanish democracy and its stormy proceedings, he
 
 CHARACTER OF M. M0l. 493 
 
 hinted to the French bourgeoisie what might be the possible chas- 
 tisement of its apathy. For after all, Spanish juntas springing 
 up tumultuously in all quarters; Torreno overthrown by Mendizabaf^ 
 Mendizabal by Isturitz; constitutional Spain driven per force into 
 the arms of the democratic party; the swords of the demagogues 
 striking at the gates of San-Ildefonso, because the government 
 could not put down the Carlists in Navarre ; in a word, riot in the 
 very apartments of Christina, and Isabella's monarchy on the point 
 of falling to the ground between the banded satellites of the old 
 despotism and the enraged insurgent partisans of the constitution of 
 1812: did not all this loudly argue the selfishness of those statesmen 
 who opposed the intervention, and the folly of their prudence? 
 
 These were impressive considerations: M. Mole urged in oppo- 
 sition to them the manifest elasticity of the terms in which the 
 treaty of the Quadruple Alliance was expressed, the mischiefs of a 
 random policy, the necessity of husbanding the gold and blood of 
 France for French interests, and the importance of avoiding war 
 where every thing was ruled by accident. Whatever weight such 
 arguments might have with an assembly long enslaved to^fear, M. 
 Mole would hardly have triumphed over his adversary if he had 
 not been able to array him against himself. In fact, M. Thiers had 
 varied in his policy with regard to Spain. Intoxicated by the flat- 
 teries lavished on him by Austrian diplomacy, he had repudiated 
 intervention in a despatch dated March 18, a fatal despatch which 
 M. Mole read from the tribune, extolling its wisdom with trium- 
 phant irony. 
 
 The discussion also revived the recollection of Conseil's affair, 
 that base intrigue in which the name of France had been impli- 
 cated. Vainly did M. Odilon Barrot ask for explanations respect- 
 ing a mystery, the disgrace of which attached to the last months of 
 the cabinet over which M. Thiers had presided. M. Thiers alleged 
 that he had not known all, and he cast the responsibility on M. Gas- 
 parin, who stammeringly cast it on M. de Montalivet, The latter 
 was not in the hall at that moment. The next day he contented him- 
 self with writing an arrogant letter to his colleagues, declaring that 
 he was ready to answer for his acts ; but he did not give the ex- 
 pected explanations; and the Chamber deemed itself satisfied when 
 it was thus braved ! whether it was that it was frightened by the 
 imminence of the scandalous exposure, or that it respected its secret 
 protector in the person of M. de Montalivet. 
 
 The ministry of the 6th of September came out victorious from a 
 most perilous trial; but its existence Avas not the more assured for 
 all that, since it contained within it the seeds of dissolution. 
 
 Sound judgment, an elocution without showy qualities, but ade- 
 quate and sober, much self-command, presence of mind and coolness 
 of temper, ability in dealing with men, all that is acquired in habi- 
 tual commerce in the great concerns of the world, experience in 
 business, a policy learned in the school of the Empire, and conse-
 
 494 MOLfc AND GUIZOT. 
 
 quently a taste for despotism, but joined with this a singular facility 
 for bending to the force of circumstances, little elevation of views, 
 no boldness in carrying those views into execution, a restless and 
 too easily irritated vanity: such were the qualifications and defects 
 with which M. Mole entered on office. 
 
 M. Guizot could have pardoned him had he occupied the first 
 place in the council, without pretending to lord it over it ; but 
 M. Mole, as prime minister, would take the lead of his col- 
 leagues, and this was intolerable to M. Guizot, who was jealously 
 bent on personifying the whole cabinet in a secondary post, and 
 claimed an influence proportioned to the dislike with which he 
 was regarded elsewhere. M. Mole, in presence of M. Guizot, was 
 patrician susceptibility at issue with pride. The former was vexed 
 at having to contend for supremacy; the latter affected, towards 
 the man who disputed it with him, a sort of contemptuous amaze- 
 ment than wliich nothing could be more insulting. Thence came 
 a secret implacable duel in which legislative conceptions, political 
 designs, the employment of agents, measures the most general in 
 appearance, served but as weapons for jealousy. We could adduce 
 a thousand proofs of this: a few will suffice, and, perhaps, the 
 reader will find the very puerility of certain details instructive. 
 
 It was M. Guizot, as we have seen, who had placed M. Gasparin 
 in the ministry of the interior, where he was to be all-powerful. M. 
 Gasparin's presence in the council was, therefore, very annoying to 
 M. Mole. Great, therefore, was the delight of the prime minister, 
 when, in the discussion on the address, he saw his unfortunate col- 
 league reduced to the extremity of letting fall from the tribune in- 
 significant, embarrassed excuses, that well deserved the murmurs 
 they excited. The case was plain ; M. de Gasparin was lost in the 
 opinion of the Chamber ; after so clear a demonstration of his orato- 
 rical insufficiency would M. Guizot still dare to uphold him? It was 
 evidently impossible ; the moment was come to strike a decisive blow 
 at a rival influence. So thought M. Mole ; and on the evening of 
 the day when M. de Gasparin had so broken down, he expressed his 
 sentiments on the matter very freely, in the house of Madame de 
 Boignes, whose salon had apolitical importance at that period. The 
 next day the prime minister went to M. Guizot's, to fasten upon him 
 the dilemma of either accepting the ministry of the interior or of suf- 
 fering M. de Montalivet to fill it in lieu of M. Gasparin. M. Guizot 
 had expected this, and his mind was already made up. The moment 
 M. Mole entered he cried out: " I know what you are come to 
 propose : the ministry of the interior? I accept it." At these words, 
 uttered with an imperious air, and in an arrogant tone, M. Mol 
 started, and with a sudden change of thought, asked to retain as his 
 colleague the very man on whose dismissal he had intended to insist. 
 
 Meanwhile, news was spread abroad that filled ministers with 
 trouble and confusion. The judicial proceedings as to the con- 
 spiracy of the 30th of October, 1836, had begun on the 6th of
 
 THE STRASBOURG TRIALS. 495 
 
 January, and the cabinet had received intelligence of the result 
 amidst the last rumours excited by the discussion of the address. 
 
 Among the accomplices of Napoleon's nephew, MM. de Persigny, 
 Lombard, Gros, Petry, Dupenhouat, and de Schaller were in default ; 
 seven prisoners appeared : Colonel Vaudrey, the chefs-d'escadron 
 Parquin and de Bruc, lieutenants Laity and de Querelles, M. de Gri- 
 court, and Madame Gordon. Since 1830, public curiosity had 
 certainly not been stinted of extraordinary trials, but all things con- 
 curred to give this one a peculiar and striking physiognomy : the 
 rank of the accused, most of them military men ; the glorious past 
 days of some, the youth and spirit of the others; that imperial revolt 
 which touched the chords of so many reminiscences; Louis Bona- 
 parte sailing unharmed to distant lands; among the physical evi- 
 dences the eagle with outspread wings; the court established in 
 Strasbourg, a city at once republican and warlike, placed on the high- 
 way of our victories, and with all its German externals perhaps the 
 most French among our cities; and to sum up all in a word, the 
 Rhine flowing some miles from the spot where the judges sat, that 
 Rhine which Napoleon had crossed ! Never was seen such a spec- 
 tacle: the sittings began at early morning, but before dawn the ap- 
 proaches to the palais de justice were always thronged with excited 
 groups, and women were seen pressing forward to the doors with 
 lanterns in their hands. 
 
 The demeanour of the prisoners corresponded to the interest they 
 excited. His devotion to the memory of the Emperor inspired 
 Commandant Parquin with words of singular force and truth. Ma- 
 dame Gordon, endowed with a natural eloquence, enhanced by the 
 energetic character of her beauty, redeemed whatever was offensive 
 in her unusual position as a conspirator by the vivacity of her poli- 
 tical convictions. MM. de Querelles, de Gricourt, and de Bruc, 
 sustained their examination with assurance, and Colonel Vaudrey, 
 with a firmness such as quite befitted a soldier, though now and then 
 mingled with embarrassment. But none of the prisoners excited a 
 stronger interest than Lieutenant Laity. He was a young man full 
 of courage, his looks were sad, his countenance transparent, serious, 
 impassioned. In throwing himself into an enterprise, in which there 
 was nothing but danger on all hands, he had felt that he gave pledges 
 to death. Beaten, he refused to defend himself, and he was only 
 prevailed on to do so by showing him how far his determination 
 would be prejudicial to his companions in misfortune. In presence 
 of the judges he was calm and indomitable; he expressed himself 
 nobly, without art or effort, and concisely like a soldier: " I am a 
 republican," he said, " and I followed Prince Louis Bonaparte only 
 because I found in him democratic opinions." The depositions of the 
 witnesses gave occasion to various incidents that added to the im- 
 pression produced by the whole affair. Colonel Tallandier having 
 related, that in arresting Commandant Parquin he had torn off one 
 of his general's epaulettes: " It is very true," cried the latter, " that
 
 496 TRIAL OF THE 
 
 M. Tallandicr insulted me, he could do so with impunity; I was his 
 prisoner." And these words occasioned an exchange of others and of 
 looks between the two soldiers, the meaning of which no one could 
 fail to guess. 
 
 Abroad, emotion was continually increasing. The whole town 
 rang with loudly expressed wishes for the acquittal of the prisoners. 
 " Vivent les opinions du Lieutenant Laity !" was shouted in the streets. 
 A trial won in a manner by the august shade of Napoleon, was in 
 the eyes of the Bonapartists a marvellous victory. The republicans 
 were most eager to have the authority of the reigning king weakened 
 and decried. Many pursued no other object than the humiliation 
 of the ministry. All agreed in masking the designs of hate, or the 
 promptings of passion, by appealing to the principle of equality : for 
 was it possible to lay hands on the accomplices of Louis Bonaparte, 
 when Louis Bonaparte himself was exalted above the reach of punish- 
 ment? The injustice in this case would be flagrant. Such were the 
 arguments noisily urged in the salons, the cafes, the hotels, and the 
 breweries; and the jurors could not move a step without encoun- 
 tering symptoms and expressions of feeling that could not but have 
 a contagious effect upon them. 
 
 There was nothing, even to the very choice of the avocats, but was 
 of a nature strongly to favour the prisoners. M. Ferdinand Barrot 
 was the bearer of a name rendered illustrious by political conflicts; 
 M. Parquin, a celebrated member of the Parisian bar, appeared to 
 defend the life or liberty of a brother ; M. Thierret enjoyed a great 
 reputation for learning; M. Liechtemberger, Madame Gordon's ad- 
 vocate, had acquired in Alsace the influence of virtue adorned by 
 talent. As for M. Martin (of Strasbourg) he had not yet attained 
 the reputation he was afterwards to acquire ; but already he might 
 be honoured and regarded as a republican without blemish, a man 
 in whom austerity of conviction and firmness of character were asso- 
 ciated with rare simplicity of manners and exquisite gentleness. 
 
 Attacked by the proaircur-general, M. Rossee, with an intempe- 
 rance that contrasted very unfavourably with the moderation of M. 
 Girard, the procureur du roi for Strasbourg, the prisoners were elo- 
 quently defended. Each of the avocats pleaded successively, and in 
 various forms, the principle of equality before the law. As for M. 
 Parquin he had but to give free course to his feelings of brotherly 
 affection to win all hearts : " O, my venerable mother !" he exclaimed, 
 at the conclusion of his speech, " thou, who at eighty-two years of 
 age hast fallen again on restless days and sleepless nights, thou who 
 accusest Heaven for not having sooner withdrawn thee from the earth, 
 I see thee, I hear thee saying, ' Parquin, what hast thou done with 
 thy brother?' Ah, my good and venerable mother, dry thy tears. 
 Thy son ! An Alsacian jury will restore him to thee." Sobs were 
 heard on all sides, and it was in the midst of an indescribable scene 
 of tender emotion that the court was adjourned. The next day, 
 January 18, 1837, at the moment the jury entered the court, many
 
 STRASBOURG PRISONERS. 497 
 
 cried out: " Acquit! Acquit!" Intense anxiety was depicted on 
 every face. But when, the jurors having resumed their sittings, 
 their foreman pronounced these words: " On my honour and ray 
 conscience, before God and before men, upon all the questions the an- 
 swer of the jury is : No, the accused are not guilty," there ran through 
 the audience a murmur of satisfaction that could hardly be suppressed 
 by the respect due to justice. Presently, the reading of the verdict 
 of acquittal by the registrar allowing all present to give free utter- 
 ance to their feelings, the late prisoners threw themselves into the 
 arms of their advocates ; every one thronged around them with con- 
 gratulations, and the hall rang with shouts of " Long live the Jury ! 
 The Alsace Jury!" The same enthusiasm prevailed outside the 
 court-house. The town of Strasbourg put on the appearance of a 
 holiday ; a sumptuous banquet was given to the ex-prisoners, and 
 the excitement was prolonged by a duel between Colonel TaUandier 
 and Commandant Parquin, in which the latter received a rather 
 severe wound, after having himself put his adversary in danger. 
 
 The issue of the Strasbourg prosecution struck the ministers 
 with consternation. The king was particularly mortified by it. 
 The non-commissioned officer Bruyant had recently attempted an 
 insurrection at Vend6me with the republican flag; the tendency to 
 plot was increasing; implacable animosities were germinatino- in the 
 darkness that shrouded secret societies; a journeyman mechanicfan, 
 named Champion, was detected in planning a scheme of reo-icide 
 and strangled himself in prison, before it could be ascertained whether 
 or not he left any accomplice behind. All these things hung heavy 
 on Louis Philippe's heart. Accustomed when he was but a prince 
 of the blood to the pleasure of solitary promenades, he groaned over 
 his lost freedom, and chafed at that vexatious caution with which 
 he was compelled to guard against the machinations of his many 
 invisible foes. That there should have mingled with his feelings of 
 depression bursts of indignation, and a desire to cut short every new 
 attempt by rigorous measures, was of course quite natural: but there 
 was abuse in this tendency to establish a vast system of repression, 
 and the blame devolved on ministers. Swayed by their mutual 
 jealousy, MM. Guizot and Mole kept incessant watch upon each 
 other about the king, vying for his preference, keenly looking out, 
 without perhaps confessing it to themselves, for the first symptoms 
 of his wishes to catch at his favour, and exaggerating whatever con- 
 ception entered his mind, with shameful emulation in subserviency. 
 Thus they vied with each other in nurturing the anxieties and 
 the vigilant cares of their master. To put down became, as it were, 
 the watchword of the council, and the best man was he who should 
 most promptly propose the severest measures. 
 
 M. Mole then conceived a project such as could never have been 
 executed except in a period of crisis, or under the sway of an abso- 
 lute authority. His scheme was to obtain for the ministry the right 
 
 VOL. II. 2 K
 
 498 THE "LAW OF DISJUNCTION." 
 
 of removing from Paris any one who should seem a little too dan- 
 gerous. It was a downright plagiarism of the loides suspects (law of 
 the suspected). M. Guizot did not approve of the proposal, but 
 feared that if he openly opposed it his rival would take advantage 
 of it in the race they were running for influence. He consulted, 
 therefore, with his fnends, and M. Duvergier de Hauranne under- 
 took to mediate with M. Mole. The interview had all the desired 
 success. M. Duvergier de Hauranne observed, that the measure was 
 one of incalculable scope; that it savoured of a system of coups 
 d'etat; that a crisis alone could justify the employment of such 
 means; that it was not expedient, after so many efforts, to exhibit 
 France as in a revolutionary condition. M. Mole yielded, but not 
 without ill-humour, and finally it was agreed to stop at three bills 
 evidently marked with the same impress. The first was to this 
 effect, tnat when crimes provided for by certain determined laws 
 should have been committed by military men and civilians jointly, 
 the latter should be tried before the ordinary tribunals, and the 
 former before the councils of war. The second bill was for the 
 establishment of a prison in the Isle of Bourbon for the reception of 
 transported citizens. The third menaced with imprisonment who- 
 ever having knowledge of plots against the king's life should fail to 
 give information of the same. 
 
 At the same time, as if to render profitable to the king's fortune 
 the dangers incurred by his person, ministers invited the Chamber 
 to bestow a rich apanage on the Due de Nemours, and to give the 
 Queen of the Belgians a dowry of 1 ,000,000 francs out of the money 
 of the tax-payers. 
 
 The first of these laws, which has remained famous under the 
 name of " law of disjunction," was a work of anger, a cruel revenge 
 for the Strasbourg verdict : it shocked the public conscience. What ! 
 different judges for the selfs-ame crime ! The causes divided when 
 the charges were identical ! And who knows but that within a few 
 paces of the tribunal by which soldiers should be condemned to death 
 for rebellion, another tribunal would acquit their accomplices? The 
 opposition in the Chamber was tremendous. M. Dupin aine, began 
 the attack with unequalled force and spirit, whilst his sentiments de- 
 rived peculiar weight from his well-known attachment to the govern- 
 ment, of which he made himself on this occasion the adversary. Never 
 had his physiognomy been more expressive, his gesture more viva- 
 cious, his voice more mordant, his eloquence more sparkling. Calling 
 to mind that the principle of indivisibility had been held sacred by 
 all criminalists, ancient and modern, he showed how this principle 
 was put beyond reach of assault in despotic states no less than in 
 turbulent democracies; he showed how it had been respected even 
 at a period when there were jurisdictions royal, manorial, provostal, 
 ecclesiastical, universitarian ; he showed it surviving revolutions, 
 traversing ages, and finally standing, always standing erect amid 
 all the ruins accumulated by history. Then going to the very
 
 DUPIN'S SPEECH AGAINST IT. 499 
 
 heart of the question, wherefore, said he, " when a crime is com- 
 mitted conjointly by military men and simple citizens, wherefore 
 have recourse to an exceptional jurisdiction with regard to the for- 
 mer? Are juries averse to discipline in the army? Do they prefer 
 disorder? Do you think the proprietor and the merchant are 
 not aware, that without order the fruit of their labour and industry 
 would be jeopardised, and that discipline in the army is the pledge 
 of their repose?" Passing on to consider consequences, " Military- 
 justice, Messieurs," he said, " requires to have its sentences promptly 
 executed. Will you execute the sentence? You forego the advan- 
 tage of confronting the witnesses. If, on the contrary, you post- 
 pone the execution, your witnesses in that case are men condemned 
 to death. And what can be more cruel than to hold the stroke of 
 death suspended over a man's head for three or four months? Do 
 you not see that his agony will be augmented, doubled? But I see 
 something mofaterrible still in these two trials carried on separately. 
 If those who are accused before the council of war are condemned, 
 the- public accuser will present himself before the jury with their 
 heads in his hand as it were, and call for the heads of the others !" 
 Rising to more general considerations the orator proceeded thus: 
 " Your law destroys the sentiment that makes the good soldier, that 
 sentiment which tells the soldier he is a citizen. What attaches the 
 soldier to the country is, that he thinks of his father's house, of his 
 field, of the cemetery where rest the ashes of his ancestors, and to 
 which his own are to be gathered. It is all belonging to his little 
 
 native land that renders the great one dear to him Good 
 
 citizens make good soldiers Justice is one in France, said 
 
 Napoleon; a man is a citizen before he is a soldier. (You under- 
 stand him Napoleon ! Such was his notion.) The offences of the 
 soldier must be subjected to the cognizance of the civil tribunals. 
 Yes, it must be so, except in the army, for the army carries every 
 thing along with it; it is the state journeying abroad. Another 
 capital point is, that society must not abdicate the functions of self- 
 guardianship. What ! when a crime shall have been committed, 
 in the suppression of which the whole state is interested, it is not 
 society that shall have the right of suppressing it ! Now the insti- 
 tution of the jury is society itself. .... If you make the army a 
 corporation, such as the clergy was formerly; if, after putting arms 
 into its hands, you invest it with the right of administering justice 
 under arms, you abdicate the functions of justice, you are no longer 
 JDCJety, you delegate your rights to armed men who may use them 
 against the country and yourselves." 
 
 To destroy the effect of this vigorous harangue, which was se- 
 conded by the speeches of MM. Delespaul, de Golbery, and Nicod, 
 a powerful orator was requisite, and M. de Lamartine presented 
 himself. He began by denouncing the unparalleled scandal of the 
 Strasbourg verdict. He was amazed and indignant at so much fa- 
 vour shown to such daring rebels; and as for toe impunity granted 
 
 2 K2
 
 500 DEBATE OX THE " LAW OF DISJUNCTION." 
 
 their leader by the royal clemency, he dwelt on the fact that Louis 
 Bonaparte had been put out of the pale of the common law from 
 the day, when punished by the glory of his name, he had been 
 visited, by the discretion of the state, with perpetual exile. What 
 injustice was there in allowing him to profit, when guilty, by an ex- 
 ceptional position from which he had suffered when innocent? And 
 supposing that the king's indulgence had been beguiled, by what 
 right did twelve jurymen summon the royal majesty to appear at 
 their bar? Was it their office to avenge violated principles, to 
 recall the executive to a sense of respect for slighted equality? Ac- 
 cording to M. de Lamartine, it was needful to take precautions 
 against such abuses, by adopting, at least as a transitory measure, 
 the proposed law, a law after all easy to justify, since offences 
 committed by military men, wore a character of special aggravation 
 which demanded a peculiarly severe jurisdiction. 
 
 A long tumult followed the delivery of this speech. M. Chara- 
 maule appeared upon the tribune to refute it, and the struggle went 
 on. The bill, supported by MM. Parant, Moreau (de la Meurthe), 
 Persil, Magnoncourt, and Martin (du Nord), was denounced by the 
 opposition with more and more vivacity. M. Chaix d'Est-Ange 
 called it a law of suspicion against juries. M. Teste placed it in the 
 same sinister category as the revolutionary tribunal, and the pro- 
 vostal courts. But the violence of the partisans of the bill grew 
 with the very vehemence of the attacks made upon it. Overstepping 
 the limits laid down by ministers, General Tirlet did not shrink 
 from proposing, that in cases wherein the crimes in question should 
 be committed by civilians in conj unction with one or more military 
 officers, all the parties implicated without distinction should be tried 
 by a council of war. General Bugeaud was of opinion, that armed 
 revolt should be cognisable by councils of war, whatever might be the 
 class to which the guilty parties belonged. Thus it was the overthrow 
 of the charter that the military speakers called for. The agitation 
 increased, when springing to the tribune, M. Berryer ironically ad- 
 jured the supporters of the ministry to imitate generals Bugeaud 
 and Tirlet, not to stop half way, but to be logical in their pernicious 
 designs. For the principle of disjunction appeared to him not less 
 absurd than cruel. What ! will you send men guilty of the same 
 crime before different judges! And you do not perceive what a 
 blow you deal thereby at the authority of justice, at its dignity, at 
 the respect due to its decisions? Suppose you had been in posses- 
 sion of this law the day before the outbreak at Strasbourg: what 
 would have happened? What would have happened if, whilst the 
 jury remained imbued with the opinions you deprecate, the council 
 of war had, on the contrary, been animated with the rigorous sen- 
 timent you expect of it? What would have happened after the 
 acquittal pronounced by one of the two tribunals, and the condem- 
 nation pronounced by the other? At the same hour, in the self-same 
 town, two gates would have been opened; here, you would have 
 had the funeral march of the men condemned to death ; there, the
 
 MINISTERS IN A MINORITY. 501 
 
 ovation bestowed on the acquitted criminals and on their judges ! And 
 you would have suffered the procession of the death-doomed to pass 
 along beside the noisy demonstrations of joy made by those who 
 were exulting in their triumph over justice !" 
 
 The moment M. Berryer closed his speech, a buzzing noise began; 
 the deputies left their places and formed groups in the passages and 
 the semicircle. The galleries were astir. The ministers were con- 
 certing together. At last M. de Salvandy, the reporter of the bill, 
 endeavoured to justify his own work ; but he was scarcely listened 
 to amidst the prolonged emotion, and the general discussion was 
 closed. 
 
 Next day, March 7, M. Jaubert dashed headlong into the melee. 
 In the opinion of this impetuous man, captious yet shrewd, keen, 
 and caustic, as incapable of weakness as of discretion, and who 
 maintained despotic theories with the factious impatience and in- 
 temperance of a tribune, the law proposed by the ministers was not 
 yet sufficiently harsh and absolute. He, therefore, supported the views 
 of General Tirlet, and flung a challenge to M. Dupin aine, who 
 was guilty in his eyes of the offence of being, for the moment, an 
 adversary of the executive, though a public functionary. M. Dupin 
 retorted with eloquent acerbity. This was the last episode of the 
 discussion. The ballot was taken, and the law was rejected by 211 
 votes against 209. That instant the roof rang with shouts of en- 
 thusiasm, such as had not been heard in that place for many a day. 
 The deputies interchanged impassioned congratulations ; hands which 
 had not been lifted up to plight the same oaths were clasped toge- 
 ther with cordial warmth, and the women waved their handkerchiefs 
 in the galleries. 
 
 A ministerial crisis appeared inevitable. And yet the following 
 note appeared in the ministerial evening paper: " The ministry of 
 the 6th of September, will not retire in consequence of the vote 
 of the Chamber. It was its wish to reinforce the discipline of the 
 army, and to prevent the recurrence of deplorable disorders : the 
 measures it proposed having been rejected, it is not on it the 
 responsibility falls." But evidently a crisis was approaching. 
 
 Now, whilst that crisis was gathering in the king's palace, distrust 
 and wretchedness were spreading far and wide. Sad news was 
 arriving from all parts of the kingdom. The cloth factories at 
 Rouen were in a state of extreme languor, after having been idle part 
 of the winter; the journeymen dyers had scarcely any work, and the 
 weavers were suffering cruelly from a recent diminution of wages ; 
 several unemployed workmen had carried their certificates to the 
 mayoralty; a few were employed by the town as scavengers, at 
 twelve sous a day. Famine was beginning to be felt in the rural 
 districts of the department of 1' Aude. Two cantons in the arron- 
 dissement of Limoux were mentioned, the famishing inhabitants of 
 which had emigrated, and spread themselves over the plains of 
 Roussillon and Bas Languedoc. It was even stated, that a family of
 
 502 DISTRESS OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
 the village of Chamus, situated in the heart of the mountains, find- 
 ing their provisions exhausted, had slaughtered a horse, and fed 
 upon it. In 1'Ariege, mendicancy had reached such a pass, that 
 the poor wandered along the roads in troops, with the wallet on '! 
 their back. Beggars in the canton of Aix died of starvation. Nor- i 
 mandy was desolated, about the same period, by a frightful calamity: 
 a violent north-east wind having forced the sea against the flood- 
 gates of Pont de Vcy, the waters of the Vire, swollen by the 
 melted snows, and by the abundant rains, suddenly burst the dykes, 
 and inundated the low grounds of Dommartin, Graignes, and St. 
 Fromond, sweeping away and drowning the cattle. Lastly, the 
 following lines were written from Lyons, and appeared in several 
 journals: " Want and wretchedness are now more than ever at the 
 full here. Does the government suppose that people die of starva- 
 tion as they do of a sword-thrust, without lingering agony ? Does 
 it suppose that the recent spectacle of that poor woman, who 
 dragged herself along the Place Bellecour, to die there, was of a 
 nature to inspire lessons of resignation? For six days that poor 
 creature, who had nothing to eat, continued to suckle her infant 
 At length her frame was exhausted, and her milk dried up. Then, 
 rallying her last remaining strength, she dragged herself along the 
 pavement, and died there, commending her boy to the compassion 
 of the passers by." Symptoms not less distressing were making 
 their appearance in the capital ; nothing was to be seen in the Place 
 du Chatelet but sales under process of law; bankruptcies were con- 
 tinually on the increase; and every day the open space before the 
 H6tel-de-Ville was thronged with journeymen, who, having vainly 
 offered the services of their hands, withdrew with curses on their 
 lips and rebellion in their hearts. The coffers of the savings' bank 
 could hardly meet the demands made upon them, those who were 
 less unfortunate hastening to withdraw from it the amount of their 
 savings ; so that, in the first week of April alone, the disbursements 
 made by the savings' banks amounted to the enormous sum of 
 l,766,000f. ! In great cities, the poor man is a being buried alive, 
 and struggling at the bottom of a tomb; men pass backwards and 
 forwards over his head without hearing his cries ; they trample on him 
 and know not of his existence : only from time to time, society seems 
 to open its close-pressed surface for an instant, to allow the prosperous 
 man to catch with dismay a glimpse of its secret depths. So it was now. 
 What singular dramas of profound meaning were now played before 
 the justice seat ! Now it was a mother, who, seeing her son dying 
 on his straw bed, had stolen for him a morsel of the bread so often 
 disdained by the sensuality of the rich; sometimes it was pallid 
 workmen, who, wanting employment, had caused themselves to be 
 picked up from the pavement of the streets as vagabonds, in order 
 that they might be convicted of the crime of poverty, and admitted 
 as culprits to the bitter banquet, at which they had been unable 
 to find a place as working men. The reader guesses what was
 
 THE 'APANAGE LAW PAMPHLET BY DE CORMENIN. 503 
 
 passing then in the courts of justice; these criminals were con- 
 victeofand sentenced, but by compassionating judges, in presence 
 of spectators that sometimes melted into tears; and when they set 
 out for prison, open-handed charity awaited them at the doors of 
 the court. Admirable protest against the vices of our social system ! 
 touching and philosophical homage to the power of the gospel, 
 amidst the woes and follies of a corrupted civilisation ! 
 
 Meanwhile, the law of apanage was presented. Not content 
 with asking for 1,000,000 francs, as dowry for the king's eldest 
 daughter, the Queen of the Belgians, and an increase of revenue of 
 1,000,000 francs for the Due d'Orleans, the heir-apparent, the 
 court desired that the Due de Nemours should be granted the domain 
 of Rambouillet, with the addition of the forests of Senonche, Chateau- 
 neuf, and Montecaut. But the proposal, received at first without 
 murmur in the committees of the Chamber, was no sooner made 
 known to the public, than an angry clamour arose on all sides. 
 The fact was adverted to, that the king enjoys a civil list of 
 12,000,000f; that the national munificence generously left him an 
 excess of 9,000,000 raised in the first months of his reign; that 
 he had been left free to preserve his private domain, unlike all his 
 predecessors, who made it their glory, on ascending the throne, to 
 add their own property to that of the state; that that private 
 domain was considerable; and that Louis Philippe, whose sons were to 
 be apanaged, and whose daughters were to be dowried by the nation, 
 was one of the most opulent sovereigns in Europe. While these 
 considerations were engaging men's minds, the rumour spread, that 
 in order to augment, unknown to all, the feudal grant reserved for 
 the Due de Nemours, the courtiers had not blushed to have recourse 
 to false valuations. This added to the public exasperation, and 
 soon nothing was talked of but a pamphlet from the formidable pen 
 of M. de Cormenin. 
 
 " You must confess," said M. de Cormenin to the Due de JNe- 
 mours, " you must confess, monseigneur, that the French nation is 
 a very generous nation, and that your family owes it unbounded 
 gratitude for the comforts, profits, and great benefits wherewith it 
 has been evermore filled and refilled, loaded and reloaded, charged 
 and surcharged. .... In the very first place, monseigneur, the 
 events of 1661, 1672, and 1692, took from the state and bestowed 
 on your ancestors, an apanage composed of so many fiefs, lands, 
 manors, towns, palaces, castles, farms, governments, principalities, 
 duchies, marquisates, counties, and baronies, field rents and feudal 
 dues, meadows, canals, woods, and forests, that I should weary 
 myself, and consume a hundred pages in enumerating them to you. 
 Your house, monseigneur, passed, in 1789, for the richest princely 
 house, not reigning, in Europe, since its capital was valued at 
 112,000,000f. an enormous sum, equivalent to 200,000,000f. in our 
 day, a sum too great, by all means, to be in the hands and at the 
 disposal of one man, prince though he be, and dangerous, according
 
 504 DE CORMENIN'S PAMPHLET ON THE 
 
 to the character of the times, sometimes to freedom, sometimes to 
 the executive itself. For history will be but just, monseigneur, 
 when it shall state, that the revolutionary use your grandfather made 
 of his prodigious fortune, contributed more than any thing else to 
 the overthrow of the throne of Louis XVI., his kinsman and his 
 master. This fatality of pecuniary good luck, which clings obsti- 
 nately to its steps, followed your family, even in exile. For whilst 
 the other emigrants were dying of starvation in the land of the 
 stranger, the Duchess of Orleans, your grandmother, was receiving 
 a large pension from the French republic; and about the same 
 time, the treasury was paying, on your emigrant father's account, 
 more than 40,000,000f. of debts. Forty millions ! what a brilliant 
 anticipation of a civil list ! Nor was this all. Louis XVIII. was 
 scarcely landed in England, before he delivered to you, at your 
 urgent entreaties, by an ordonnance of good pleasure, what re- 
 mained in the hands of the nation, of the unsold property of the 
 Orleans apanage, an apanage irrevocably abolished, not by the 
 laws of 1793, respecting emigration, but by Article II. of the law of 
 December 21, 1790, on apanages. To excuse this glaring violation 
 of the law, it has been asserted, that Louis XVIII. was then omnipotent. 
 But by the same fine process of reasoning, the first citizen that fell in 
 the way might have been plundered, as the state was plundered, to 
 
 enrich you The law on the emigrants' indemnity, which seems 
 
 to have been made expressly for your lucky family, still further aug- 
 mented its good points, commodities, eases, and profits, by giving 
 it an opportunity to repudiate its paternal inheritance, which was 
 riddled with debts, and to accept its maternal inheritance, which was 
 ablaze with gold and silver: by means of this ingenious division of 
 patrimonies, subtilely admitted by counsellors of state removable at 
 will, it got a bonus of 12,000,000 of crowns, good weight and tale, 
 duly committed to its coffers. Lastly, independently of the jewel 
 of the crown of France, the most magnificent jewel in the universe, 
 the Chambers, desiring to gorge your family with wealth, as they 
 gorged it with power, added to the immense riches of your father 
 the movable and immovable property of the royal dotation of 
 Charles X. I have too often summed up your account, mon- 
 seigneur, to make it again needful that I should here call to mind 
 that you are in enjoyment of the Louvre, the Tuileries, and the 
 Elysee Bourbon, with their appurtenances; of the chateaux of 
 Marly, St. Cloud, Meudon, St. Germain, Compiegne, Fontaine- 
 bleau, and Pau ; with the houses, buildings, factories, lands, meadows, 
 farms, woods, and forests belonging thereto ; of the woods of Bou- 
 logne and Vincennes, and the forest of Senart; of the diamonds, 
 pearls, precious stones, statues, pictures, engraved stones, museums, 
 libraries, and other monuments of the arts ; and of the chattels con- 
 tained in the Hotel du Garde Meuble, and in the several royal 
 palaces and establishments." 
 
 M. de Cormenin next proved, in a rapid and picturesque style,
 
 PROPOSED APANAGE FOR THE DUC DE NEMOURS. 505 
 
 bristling with deadly epigrams, and all glittering with bitter gaiety, 
 that the proposed law had a feudal physiognomy strangely out of 
 keeping with the times, for aristocratic institutions and feudal 
 manors had been deservedly swept away; that it was threatening 
 for the future, for it tended to concentrate in one family, and in a 
 country parcelled out by the principle of the division of patrimonies, 
 an entailed power without counterpoise ; that it was insolent, for it 
 went against the spirit of the revolution of July, the only source of 
 the majesty of the new throne; that it was absurd, inasmuch as it 
 provided a hereditary dotation for the sons of a king whose dotation 
 was but for life ; that it was contrary to the law of December 2 1 , 
 1790, which said, " For the future no apanage shall be granted in 
 real property;" that it was contrary to the law of 1832 on the civil 
 list, which admitted only contingent dowers and not apanages, and 
 that, moreover, in case the private domain should be insufficient. Now 
 to maintain the insufficiency of the king's private domain would 
 have been, according to M. de Cormenin, and by his calculations, 
 the height of effrontery. Finally, reflecting on the noble uses that 
 might be made of the enormous capital which the courtiers wished 
 to bestow on the Due de Nemours, the spirited pamphleteer con- 
 tinued thus : 
 
 " With the 40,000,000 of Rambouillet you could give popular 
 libraries to the 38,000 communes of France. 
 
 " You might institute 12,000 sewing schools for the poor women 
 in the country. 
 
 " You could defray the cost of establishing 10,000 halls of asy- 
 lum for little children. 
 
 " You could save 30,000 unemployed workmen from dying of 
 starvation during two winter months. 
 
 " You could furnish for five years, pensions of 100 francs each 
 to 5000 wounded, crippled, or otherwise disabled soldiers." 
 
 These were purely republican considerations; nevertheless they 
 took effect upon a bourgeoisie which thought and declared itself to 
 be monarchical. They did not comprehend, these inconsistent bour- 
 geois, that it is in the nature of things that royalty should surround 
 itself with lustre and burden the people. The sort of royalty they 
 wanted was one that should be obedient, modest, living on a little, 
 discreetly proportioning its demands to its wants, and even then 
 readily consenting to render accounts. A chimerical wish ! When you 
 have thought fit to place a man upon a giddy pinnacle, when you have 
 allowed him to regard future generations as the property of his race, 
 when you have declared him inviolable, and dared to tell him that 
 he can do no wrong, it is monstrous folly to wish to assign limits to 
 his pride and his cravings. You must bear with him as you have 
 made him. You must either not give yourself a master, or be pre- 
 pared to obey him when you have got him.
 
 506 CONTINUATION OF THE STRUGGLE 
 
 But the bourgeoisie desired a master whom it should have the 
 right of humiliating upon occasion; therefore it hailed with loud 
 applause the appearance of the pamphlet against the apanage law, 
 the success of which was prodigious. Twenty-four editions, of all 
 forms, were disposed of in France. It made its way into the most 
 lonely rural districts, into cabins into which no journal had ever 
 entered. In the villages of the north people stood up on the posts 
 in the streets to read it to the eagerly listening crowd. Translated 
 into foreign languages it taught the kings of Europe that the spirit 
 of emancipation still lived in France, suppressed but unconquered. 
 M. de Cormenin's triumph grew with the rancour it provoked : for 
 the men about court were loud and furious in their outcries, know- 
 ing that in such circumstances indignation is the best means of 
 flattering. 
 
 Since the rejection of the law of disjunction the ministry had 
 dragged on a feeble and divided existence. Between M. Guizot 
 and M. Mole there always subsisted the same rivalry, secret indeed, 
 and glossed over by mutual civilities ; but active, full of gall, excited 
 by perpetual contact, and exasperated by the language of their 
 underlings. It was a hard state of things for all, but particularly 
 for M. de Gasparin. Stifled as it were in the ministry of the inte- 
 rior, between M. Guizot, who loaded him with his protection, and M. 
 Mole, who pursued him with implacable jealousy, he was sorely 
 belaboured in every battle fought round him by the rival influences ; 
 but in proportion as he tottered, the doctrinaires redoubled the 
 vehemence of their language and the vivacity of their attacks. 
 They asked, by what right was it presumed to confine to the 
 ministry of public instruction, a position evidently secondary, a 
 man so considerable as M. Guizot, by his credit with the Chambers, 
 his talents, his passion and they might have added, by the large 
 share he had in men's aversion. It was for him, therefore, they 
 claimed the ministry of the interior, a post as good to occupy as it 
 was difficult to defend. M. Duvergier de Hauranne spoke openly 
 on the matter to M. Mole, in an interview they had one day together 
 in the garden of the Tuileries ; but the latter was fully determined 
 not to give way; and so great was the importance he attached to 
 these idle quarrels of personal vanity, that in relating his conversa- 
 tion with M. Duvergier de Hauranne to one of his confidants, he 
 even suffered this exclamation to escape him : " The eyes of Europe 
 are upon us; it wishes \ to see which will gain the day, M. Guizot 
 or myself" So then, ) in a country in which were agitated the 
 highest questions that jian stir the heart of a people ; in a country 
 in which men had appeared on the scene, towards the close of the 
 last century, governing amidst the most frightful perils, with a view 
 solely to the advantage of one moiety of the world enslaved by the 
 other, and without regard to their own repose, their own lives or 
 memories, so profound and heroic was their self-denial; in that
 
 BETWEEN MOL AND GUIZOT. 507 
 
 very country, now miserably dwindled down under the constitu- 
 tional regime, public life was but a child's play, and power but an 
 intrigue. 
 
 To complete the lesson, let us remark, that since the rivalry of 
 the leaders rendered them the slaves of their inferiors, they could 
 refuse nothing to the distributers of popularity, to the mere eulo- 
 gium-mongers. M. Loeve Weymar was judged to be fit for diplo- 
 matic functions, for having published, in the Revue desDeux Mondes, 
 an article more favourable to the president of council than to the 
 minister of public instruction. Thereupon arose a great clamour in 
 the opposite camp. Would M. Guizot any longer endure such a 
 system of under-ground attacks, and permit his enemies to attempt 
 the ruin of his influence by obscuring his fame? Why did he hesi- 
 tate to break with his colleagues, in whose eyes his superiority alone 
 was an offence? " Make up your mind," said M. Bertin, " and if 
 you fall I promise you that the Journal des Dibats will go into 
 opposition along with you." The measure of griefs was full on 
 either side : the struggle assumed a decisive character. Then might 
 you have seen (a spectacle that told more against institutions than 
 against men) the two principal personages in the state reduced to 
 the necessity of contending with each other for the monarch's lik- 
 ing, fawning upon him, guessing his wishes, and outbidding each 
 other with proposals, the real purport of which was hardly coloured 
 by the pretext of the public good. To testify his solicitude for the 
 safety of the royal person, M. Mole had wished to obtain the right 
 of removing suspected citizens from Paris. M. Guizot, in his turn, 
 demanded that the Courrier Franqais, guilty by his showing of 
 having insulted the sovereign, should be dragged before the excep- 
 tional jurisdiction of the court of peers. The council thought the 
 measure was one that required much consideration ; and as there 
 appeared to be a difference of views on the subject, it is related, that 
 the king poured out an eloquent flood of lamentations on the way 
 in which he was given up, disarmed, to the rage of parties. Such a 
 conspicuous move seemed to make the balance of royal favour 
 incline towards the side of the doctrinaires; they exulted in the suc- 
 cess of their tactics, but they had not foreseen every thing. 
 
 Between the majority by which Casimir Perier and his faithful 
 successors had been so violently supported, and the opposition led 
 by Odilon Barrot, there had grown up in the Chamber a party 
 which mingled certain laudable intentions with an ambition at once 
 impatient and timid. Headed at first by MM. Sauzet, Passy, and 
 Dufaure, it unsparingly harassed the old majority from which it 
 had separated, and yet differed from it in no sensible respect: for it 
 confined itself to wishing that the September kws should be mi- 
 tigated ; that a little more air and space should be granted to 
 extreme opinions; that the king's hand should be less discerned 
 in public affairs; and that the obstinate resentments produced by so 
 many armed revolts should be met by measures of obli vion and cle-
 
 508 THE LEFT CENTRE. 
 
 jnency. The accession of M. Mole to the ministry on the 6th 
 of September served to give some life to this coalition of cold 
 agitators. M. Thiers, who had need of their support to regain 
 office, did not hesitate to join them, became their leader, and 
 gave them a name that of Left Centre and imparted to them 
 his own warlike restlessness, his honourable caprices, and his dis- 
 position to brave Europe and the king from whim. Thus led, 
 the Left Centre came at last to have a considerable influence 
 upon important decisions, and thenceforth it could not be left 
 out of the account in any ministerial crisis. 
 
 Such was the division of the parliamentary forces when the 
 ministerial crisis occurred. Wrapping himself up more impene- 
 trably than ever in his outward cloak of good-nature, the king 
 commissioned M. Guizot to form a new cabinet, and led him to 
 believe that the ministry of the llth of October was still possible. 
 M. Guizot went, therefore, to M. de Broglie, who received his pro- 
 posals with a coldness in which there was some tincture of resent- 
 ment. Abandoned, on the formation of the cabinet of the 6th 
 of September, by a man he had till then regarded as a sure friend, 
 he was full of the recollection of that quasi treachery. He did 
 not refuse, nevertheless, to enter into the proposed arrangement 
 if M. Thiers acceded to it. But would M. Guizot go and humble 
 himself by ambitious obsequiousness and flattering offers to M. 
 Thiers, now become his most formidable adversary, his most 
 vaunted rival? Yet even this he did, to the great surprise of 
 those who knew the haughty cast of his character. Whether it 
 was littleness or greatness, immoderate love of power, or courageous 
 dignity, it is hard to say, either being conceivable of a soul 
 capable of all the extremities of pride. 
 
 M. Thiers gave his unexpected visiter a gracious reception. 
 They had long been actuated by the same principles, and braved 
 the same dangers. How many reminiscences tended to draw them 
 together ! But then how vehement had been their quarrels since 
 their rupture, and how dissimilar their alliances ! M. Guizot having 
 begun by saying to his old colleague, " I bring you the ministry of 
 the 1 1th of October." " You bring me the men," replied M. Thiers, 
 sharply, " but not the measures;" and he questioned him as to the 
 complete abandonment of Spain. Then he adverted to his recent 
 friendships, which he could not break off with either profit or ho- 
 nour. Could he, the leader of the Left Centre, enter office on con- 
 dition of forsaking for M. Guizot's friends his own friends, his allies, 
 and almost his soldiers of yesterday. Such were the grounds M. 
 Thiers assigned for his refusal. He regretted it perhaps; he would 
 have wished, perhaps, that the king, by a direct and pressing inter- 
 ference, had supplied him with some plausible pretext and relieved 
 his scruples. 
 
 M. Guizot's efforts having failed, a negotiation was begun be- 
 tween Marshal Soult, MM. Thiers, Humann, and Passy. It was
 
 VARIOUS NEGOTIATIONS TO FORM A MINISTRY. 509 
 
 true M. Passy had no great liking for M. Thiers, whose imperious 
 presidency he had had to endure in the cabinet of the 22nd of Fe- 
 bruary. But he had nothing of the kind to apprehend on this occa- 
 sion, Marshal Soult's age and his military renown assigning him the 
 first place in the cabinet that was about to be formed. 
 
 Great, therefore, was the commotion among the doctrinaires, and 
 they spared the new candidates neither disdain nor raillery. They 
 pointed them out as divided on almost all questions, though unani- 
 mous in sharing office between themselves; they affirmed that each 
 of them had made a reservation on some point; Marshal Soult on 
 non-intervention; M. Thiers on intervention; M. Humann on the 
 conversion of the rentes ; M. Passy on Algiers ; and they were inex- 
 haustible in their attacks on what they called the ministry of reserved 
 questions. ? 
 
 Meanwhile, M. Thiers had been commanded to appear at the 
 Chateau. The king received him most graciously, and seemed at 
 once to court an explanation. " I have two volumes to make," 
 said M. Thiers to him; " one on domestic, the other on foreign po- 
 licy;" and as he was aware that the latter was the subject that 
 occasioned the most serious differences in opinion, he began with 
 the former. He pointed out that society was advancing to a state of 
 tranquillity which authorised a less absolute policy; that the end 
 had been attained, and that care ought to be taken not to over- 
 run it; that the line to be followed was indicated by the breaking 
 up of that parliamentary majority which had been so coinpact and 
 inflexible, when riot knocked, as it were, daily at the palace-gates, 
 and the government was forced to give battle to it in the streets. 
 The king appeared to coincide in these views, and suffered M. 
 Thiers to indulge the hope that they would be adopted; but as for 
 those that related to foreign policy he postponed the consideration 
 of them to the next day. Here might be the breakers, and so M. 
 Thiers felt; accordingly, he was very reserved in the enunciation of 
 his projects. He gave up intervention in Spain, in the form in 
 which he had before proposed it, in deference to the decisions of the 
 Chamber; but he asked that Spain should at least not be refused 
 the benefit of naval assistance ; that the Russian and Dutch vessels 
 should be hindered from conveying munitions of war to Don Carlos ; 
 and that a stop should be put to the recurrence of such disgraceful 
 spectacles as that which had been witnessed when Bilboa was suc- 
 coured by the English fleet, before the eyes of our brave seamen, 
 who were forced to remain on board all the while inactive and hu- 
 miliated. This was not asking too much, and assuredly it was very 
 hard to suppose that the king deemed such measures dangerous to 
 the peace of the world. But as Europe believes, right or wrong, 
 that the principle of peace is represented in France by Louis Philippe, 
 and that of war by M. Thiers, some have imagined, that in order not 
 to appear beaten by one of his subjects, the king had need of keep-
 
 510 GUIZOT DEFEATED CABINET OF APRIL 15. 
 
 ing wholly intact the policy which was peculiarly his own, and 
 which he personified in the eyes of the sovereigns. 
 
 Be this as it may, M. Thiers retired, M. Guizot was recalled, and 
 sought the support of M. de Montalivet. The latter being a special 
 favourite with the king, his alliance was a danger, but at the same 
 time a source of strength for the doctrinaires. It was, therefore, with 
 satisfaction they learned that he seemed to meet M. Guizot's ad- 
 vances with a good grace, and had only asked twenty-four hours' 
 time for reflection. The king, on his part, had seemed much pleased 
 with the arrangement. Yet, after all, M. de Montalivet ended by 
 declaring, that he could not accept the presidency of M. Guizot. 
 The doctrinaires were violently incensed, and we are assured that 
 M. Duchatel gave way to his angry feelings on this subject so far 
 as to say with more wit than deference : ' ' The king has two ways of 
 ringing for M. de Montalivet. When he rings one way, he comes; 
 when it is the other way, he goes away." 
 
 Now, whilst intrigues were thus thickening round the throne, the 
 public was lost in conjectures as to the causes and probable duration 
 of the ministerial interregnum. The press had a thousand varying 
 stories to feed and baffle the curiosity of the idle. The discussions 
 in the Chamber no longer showed any vivacity or excited any in- 
 terest; the words fell still born from the lips of the disregarded 
 orators, and every one looked anxiously upon the empty places of 
 the ministers. At last, in the sitting of the 15th of April, 1837, 
 M. Guizot, by the act of resuming his place as an ordinary deputy 
 in the Right Centre, informed his colleagues that the crisis had 
 reached a denoument. Two lists had been simultaneously presented 
 to the king, the one by Guizot, the other by Mole. The former 
 contained the names of de Montebello, Guizot, Dumon, and de 
 Remusat. The latter gave the presidency of the council and the 
 department of foreign affairs to M. Mole; justice and public worship 
 to M. Barthe; the interior to M. de Montalivet; public instruction 
 to M. de Salvandy ; finance to M. Lacave Laplagne. This was the 
 one chosen by the king. It left the ministry of public works to M. 
 Martin (du Nord), that of marine to M. de Rosamel, and turned out 
 the doctrinaire party in the persons of MM. Guizot, de Gasparin, 
 and Duchatel.
 
 THE DUC D' ORLEANS' MARRIAGE. 511 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ON taking office, M. Mole had an important negotiation to follow 
 out. M. Thiers said to his predecessor in an interview he then had 
 with him: " The marriage of the Due d'Orleans is to be concluded, 
 and it is proposed to give the prince for wife either the Duchess 
 Helena of Mecklenburg- Schwerin, or a princess of Coburg; the 
 former less beautiful ; the latter of a less elevated mind, very young 
 too, and still, so to speak, playing with her doll."* 
 
 Princess Helena passed in Germany for a woman of great worth, and 
 it was this that determined the choice of the cabinet of the Tuileries. 
 The negotiation was concluded with remarkable address by M. Bres- 
 son ; but its success was for a long time uncertain, for Russia left no- 
 thing untried to defeat the efforts of the court of France. Prompted 
 by Russia, the brother of the Princess Helena manifested the most 
 insulting and obstinate repugnance for the alliance pressed upon 
 him, and a successor of Louis XIV. all but found himself haughtily 
 rebuffed by a petty German prince ; a thing which would certainly 
 have happened but for the obliging interposition of the King of 
 Prussia. 
 
 On the 18th of April, then, M. Mole was enabled to acquaint the 
 Chamber that the treaty of marriage was concluded. 
 
 A bill was at the same time presented for granting the prince 
 royal a supplementary dotation ; and lest the munificence of the 
 country should be wearied out by too many claims made simul- 
 taneously upon it, the ministry made the following declaration, 
 which produced a very strong sensation: "His majesty has deter- 
 mined that the demand presented on behalf of his second son, should 
 be postponed." The word postponed was significant, and bespoke 
 the persistency of an unappeased desire: public malignity seized 
 hold on it ; but it was allowed to waste itself in talk, and the court 
 awaited its own good time. 
 
 Pubh'c attention was, besides, momentarily diverted by the affairs 
 of Africa. The effective of the army having been augmented in 
 1836, the ministry demanded a supplementary credit of 5,647,000f.; 
 and M. Janvier presented a report on this subject, severely criticis- 
 ing both the policy observed in Algeria by the ministry of the 
 22nd of February, and the conduct pursued there by Marshal 
 Clauzel. The discussion began. 
 
 Marshal Clauzel was charged with having too eagerly forced on 
 war; of having borne down to the ground the Koulouglis of 
 Tlemsen, our allies, by the imposition of an enormous contribu- 
 
 * It was this latter who afterwards married the Due de Nemours.
 
 512 MARSHAL CLAUZEL'S DEFENCE. 
 
 tion, from which he had exempted our enemies the Hadars, and 
 the levying of which having been committed to foreigners and 
 Africans, had given rise to abominable extortions and jobbing. He 
 was also charged with having given up the province of Bona to 
 Joussoufs violence, and with having undertaken the expedition 
 against Constantina upon the faith of the wildest illusions. His 
 reply did not perfectly clear him ; but it was dignified, and there 
 was a melancholy grandeur in its tone. " I knew," he said, in the 
 beginning of his speech, " the fatality that clings to all services per- 
 formed at a long distance from home, especially to those which tend 
 to bestow new provinces on the country. Dupleix disgraced on the 
 report of interested commissioners, after having established our 
 power in India ; Labourdonnais loaded with disgusts and insult ; 
 Lally Tollendal dying on the scaffold with a gag in his mouth. 
 I knew all this, and I set out." Then he considered the accusa- 
 tions made against him, one by one. Yes; he had indeed desired 
 an energetic and decisive war in Africa, and with what reason 
 could that be charged upon him as a crime? Since Algeria was 
 not to be given up, was it not clear it should be subdued ? 
 And how was that to be done if the French rule was made 
 a laughing stock to the Arabs, by its wavering plans, the 
 puerility of its enterprises, and the inadequacy of the means it put 
 in operation? Earnestness of purpose, this was the grand thing 
 needed. He was asked for an account of the contribution levied 
 on the Koulouglis of Tlemsen. Now, in the first place, they had 
 bound themselves to pay the expenses of an expedition under- 
 taken for their own preservation, and they were applied to because 
 they were rich; because it was proposed to maintain a garrison for 
 their defence ; because they had pillaged the town, and pillaged the 
 Hadars; and it would not have been just to exact money from those 
 who had been robbed in favour of those who were enjoying their 
 spoils. The form in which the money was collected, was certainly 
 violent, but then the process was in accordance with the usages of 
 the country ; the French administration had in no wise interfered in 
 it, and its details were no sooner known than orders were given to 
 suspend it. As to the Constantina expedition, had it been a check? 
 Had it been a defeat? No; the inclemency of the weather, the 
 variations of which are so hard to be foreseen in Africa, was what 
 proved our enemy. And yet they had deprived him of his com- 
 mand, him a marshal of France, deprived him of his command for not 
 having been stronger than the elements ! Did the Directory deal so 
 with Bonaparte when he failed before St. Jean d'Acre? Did the 
 English government deal so with the Duke of Wellington for hav- 
 ing withdrawn from before Burgos? Did Louis XIV. deal so with 
 Conde for raising the siege of Lerida ? 
 
 These explanations called up M. Baude, who had been sent as 
 special government commissioner to Africa. He had received the 
 complaints of the Koulouglis, and accompanied the expedition to Con-
 
 DOTATION FOR THE DUC D'ORL^ANS. 513 
 
 stantina, and he did not hesitate loudly to declare himself the mar- 
 shal's accuser. His speech was but a more vehement repetition of 
 the charges already put forth, and provoked on the marshal's part 
 a reply, in Avhich was apparent the bitterness of a heart incurably 
 wounded. 
 
 Here the whole interest of the discussion ceased. The witty sallies 
 of M. Joubert on the subject of Algiers, " which possessed us in- 
 stead of being possessed by us;" M. Piscatory 's attacks on the system 
 of unlimited occupation, and those of M. Thiers on the ill-conduct 
 of the war; M. Guizot's vague remarks, and M. Lamartine's philan- 
 thropic protests; all these threw but little light on the problem, and 
 had little influence on public opinion. 
 
 The financial exigencies of the Chateau were the order of the day; 
 and royalty had reason to be satisfied with the generosity of the 
 Chambers. It was decided, despite the opposition of Gamier Pages, 
 Demar9ay, and Briqueville in the deputies, and that of Viscount 
 Dubouchage in the peers, that the dotation of the prince royal 
 should amount to 2,000,000f. annually, that the tax-payers should 
 furnish l,000,000f. to defray the cost of his marriage, and that the 
 settlement on the princess should be fixed at 300,000 francs. 
 
 This was doing too much for one family, yet more was asked for, 
 viz., a dowry of l,000,000f. for the king's eldest daughter, the Queen 
 of the Belgians. ^ MM. Dema^ay, Lherbette, Salverte, Larabit, 
 and Charamaule, in vain implored the Chamber to take into con- 
 sideration the misery of the people, the opulence of the royal house, 
 and the magnitude of the sacrifices already consented to; in vain 
 they called on those who asserted the insufficiency of the private 
 domain, to produce documents in support of their assertions the 
 Chamber lent a complacent ear to no one but M. de Montalivet, a 
 minister personally devoted to the king, and the most keen-set 'of 
 the court orators. M. de Montalivet began by laying it down with 
 ability, that the resources of the crown ought not to be separated 
 from their necessary application, the King of the French having, of 
 course, acts of beneficence to perform, recompenses to bestow, 
 encouragements to distribute among men of learning and artists', 
 and palaces to keep in repair and embellish. But when he came to 
 the attacks provoked by the presentation of the laws on behalf of 
 the royal family, he was captious and querrulous, and drew down 
 on himself a tremendous reply. In alluding to M. de Cormenin's 
 pamphlets, he let fall the word calumny. M. de Cormenin imme- 
 diately rose, and made signs that he wished to speak in his place. 
 It was well known how much he was intimidated by the tribune; 
 it was expected that he would be put to confusion if he ascended it' 
 and a cry was therefore raised from all the ministerial benches, " To 
 the tribune ! to the tribune !" Astonished and confused, M. de 
 Cormenin paused^ looked around him in dismay, and hesitated. 
 But the clamour increasing, and his friends encouraging him, he 
 ventured at length, and leaning his trembling hands on the marble 
 
 VOL. II. 2 L
 
 514 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES. 
 
 of the tribune, to which his friends had dragged him, " I fling back," 
 he said, addressing Montalivet, " the charge that has just fallen from 
 your lips. If there is calumny in the statement of figures put forth 
 by you, the calumny is of your making, not mine : for, it is in a 
 paltry police pamphlet, entitled The Civil List unveiled, that the 
 crown forests are made to contain 184,000 hectares. I have set 
 them down at only 162,000 hectares. Thus it would appear you 
 have calumniated yourself. I will not lose myself in the labyrinth 
 of your calculations ; dare to produce documents ; dare to do so ! 
 I accept the combat. The question is a very simple one. The 
 private domain brings in 74,000,000f: now, I ask whether with 
 74,000,000f. you cannot pay l,000,000f. dowry for the Queen of the 
 Belgians?" This harangue, so brief but so precise and peremptory, 
 had a prodigious success, which M. de Montalivet did but augment 
 by the excessive acrimony of his reply. Having said, in allusion to 
 M. de Cormenin, " the honourable member who spoke last," he 
 checked himself and repeated hastily, " the member who spoke 
 last," a gratuitous insult, which was looked on as the mere spite of 
 a courtier. No other incident enlivened the debate : the Chamber 
 was eager to show that its complaisance could not readily be ex- 
 hausted. After all, since it called itself monarchical, with what face 
 could it refuse when it was a king who asked ! 
 
 Meanwhile, M. Guizot's friends burned with vexation and im- 
 patience, and he himself in his unvarying pride lived only on the 
 nope of pulling down his feeble victors. But the real cause of his 
 rupture with M. Mole not being of that kind of which men are 
 disposed to boast, he was anxiously looking out for some vulnerable 
 point on which he might assail his adversary. When they were in 
 office together, had they not both professed theories of violence? 
 Had they not with a common ardour desired to aggravate the legis- 
 lation of September by the insolent and brutal addition of the laws 
 of disjunction, deportation, and non-revelation? If M. Guizot cried 
 to M. Mole, " You are guilty," could not the latter retort upon 
 him, " You are my accomplice?" What was to be done then? At 
 the pressing instigation of his intimate friends, M. Guizot adopted 
 a course which did not prove his sincerity, but which pleased his 
 audacitv. He resolved to give himself out as having been in the 
 late cabinet the special representative of the policy of Casimir Perier, 
 that old policy of resistance under which the revolutionary spirit 
 had bent. This was attributing to himself a monstrous part; for 
 since Casimir Perier's time society had never ceased to incline 
 to repose, and the languor of parties rendered a government of inti- 
 midation, to say the least of it, superfluous. But M. Guizot was 
 not ignorant that the civil war had left a burning mark impressed 
 on most of the men who composed the old majority; and he hoped 
 to make them subservient to his own ambition, by intoxicating them 
 with the recollection of their past triumphs, by representing to them 
 the revolutionary spirit, that constant bugbear, as always erect and
 
 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES. 515 
 
 in arms; in a word, by playing on their hatred and their fear. 
 One of two things would be sure to follow: either M. Mole would 
 suffer himself to be forced into a savage line of policy, and would be 
 destroyed by hs excess; or, he would make head against the impulse 
 given, and being too weak, would fall loaded with contempt. 
 
 The execution of this plan was followed up with singular impe- 
 tuosity. In the secret service committee, M. Guizot's friends impe- 
 riously called M. Mole to account for the withdrawal of the apanage 
 law, a pusillanimous concession as they declared; and he, puzzled 
 and bewildered, and not yet knowing m what part of the assembly 
 he was to look for his supporters, promised to be firm and resolute, 
 and never to let power be defeated in his hands. But the doctrinaires 
 had sworn to drive him along with such headlong speed in the career 
 of severity, that at last, panting and dismayed, he was forced to stop 
 and say, I will go no further. This was the very thing waited for, 
 in order to deliver him over to the mercy of a majority, which an 
 exaggerated notion of its dangers had thrown back on its former 
 violence of spirit. 
 
 M. Duvergier de Hauranne had been charged with the report on the 
 secret service money, and he executed his task with formidable ability. 
 He demanded aid and protection for ministers, but on certain con- 
 ditions ; and after adverting to what the throne owed to the vigorous 
 policy of the cabinet of March 13, continued by that of October 11, 
 he affirmed that the time was not come for relaxing ; thus he mingled 
 imperious hints with conclusions in favour of the cabinet, and warn- 
 ings^ of a stern and menacing character with offers of sympathy. 
 Mole now felt alarmed at having such allies ; not choosing to 
 have them for masters, he accepted them as enemies, and suddenly, 
 making up his mind, turned towards the Left Centre. 
 
 The position of both parties was, therefore, clearly defined and the 
 field of battle prepared, when the discussion on the secret service 
 money began. It was early in Majr; the ministry had been but a 
 month in existence, and the doctrinaires doubted not but that they 
 should easily get the better of a cabinet that dared to disregard the 
 importance of their support. The ministry had thus, from the very 
 first, to endure, after the assaults of MM. Havin, Salverte, and 
 Lacrosse, orators of the left, the importunate persiflage of M. Jaubert. 
 M. de Sade came next, and lastly M. Guizot. 
 
 However keenly that disdainful man felt the rankling wound of 
 offended pride, his bearing was more drooping than usual; despond- 
 ency dimmed the sombre lustre of his eyes ; he carried his head 
 with a stately, reserved air, and if his face showed marks of care, 
 they were not such as had their origin in political warfare. He had 
 just lost his son. But great afflictions exalt a soul that is not essen- 
 tially vulgar, and strengthen instead of depressing it. Raised for a 
 while, by the majesty of a father's grief, above the tactics he had 
 adopted, and the wretched tricks of ambition, M. Guizot gave utter- 
 ance to some passages of real eloquence. The assembly was intensely 
 
 2 L2
 
 516 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES. 
 
 affected when he said, in an almost choking voice: " I have already- 
 accepted and quitted oflice many times in my life, and as regards 
 myself personally I am utterly indifferent to these vicissitudes of 
 political fortune. The only interest I attach to them is the public 
 interest, that of the cause to which I belong, and which I deem it 
 an honour to uphold. You may believe me, Messieurs. It has 
 pleased God to make me feel joys and sorrows which leave the soul 
 very cold to every other pleasure and every other evil." He dilated 
 little on the causes of his rupture with M. Mole, for which he as- 
 signed an explanation in which there was more arrogance than truth ; 
 and, plunging into generalities, he continued to pursue the system of 
 attack agreed on between him and his friends ; always, however, 
 preserving a grave exterior, and carefully veiling and dignifying by 
 the magnitude of the motives what was the conventional result of 
 an intrigue. 
 
 The middle classes, according to him, had a right to make their 
 preponderance felt and respected, but they ought not to be either 
 envious or subaltern. They ought to have sufficient confidence in 
 their own destinies not to think themselves undone because an 
 apanage for one of the princes brought back an empty shadow of the 
 past amongst the forms of modern society. It was the part of the 
 middle class to govern, and it w r as its duty to place its heart on a 
 level with its fortune, by guarding it from every base jealousy and 
 frivolous distrust. The real danger for it was in the permanence of 
 the revolutionary spirit, that indefatigable enemy which even amidst 
 the apparent slumber and the fallacious silence of the passions, was 
 preparing fresh combats. The agitations that affected the world; 
 Spain drenched with the blood shed in war and in revolt ; the troubles 
 of Portugal; the convulsions produced in England by reform, itself 
 the offspring of our July revolution ; did not all this form a body of 
 symptoms that might well create alarm? Did not all this prove, that 
 there was in the general movement of modern civilisation something 
 that required to be repressed and held within bounds? People felt 
 reassured, because the clamours in the streets had ceased, and the 
 din of armed and contending factions was no longer heard. As if 
 the revolutionary spirit had but to moderate itself to be thought dead; 
 as if it did not exist everywhere; among the poor whom envy 
 gnawed; in the workshops and factories long filled with the noisy 
 theories of equality ; in the whole people who had now no other rein 
 upon them than that of labour; lastly, in the heart of the represen- 
 tative institutions which had organised the struggle (a glorious struggle 
 no doubt, and desirable, but a terrible one,) between the true and 
 the false, between wholesome instincts and anarchical passions. It 
 was necessary, therefore, to be on one's guard, to watch over the 
 maintenance of the coercive laws, to discipline the functionaries, and 
 strengthen the hands of government. 
 
 Thus, in the art of guiding society, M. Guizot beheld none other 
 than that of marshalling a battle. The crowd of the ignorant and
 
 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES. 517 
 
 the weak, of paupers and journeymen that groaned at his feet, was 
 one, he thought, that only required a little more squeezing to be 
 effectually kept down. Labour is a bridle, he dared to say, hoping, 
 doubtless, that hunger would be for the proletary of modern societies 
 what fatalism had been for the slave in ancient times, and the doc- 
 trine of resignation for the serf in the middle ages. And he did not 
 feel, that to prevent revolutions spares the necessity of calumniating 
 them, that eternity of suffering below is eternity of fear above. We 
 were present and heard that speech of his, and we remember, that 
 whilst the assembly was agitated by the orator's voice, we looked 
 round with bitterness of heart to see if there was one man, who at 
 the risk of encountering the most unjust murmurs, would have the 
 courage to confound such cold and cruel maxims. 
 
 Odilon Barrot spoke in the following sitting, but without going 
 beyond what the majority of the assembly wished to hear. He 
 harangued warmly against the doctrinaires, against 'their vindictive 
 and harsh policy, and their settled purpose to afford the middle 
 classes alone the fruits of the victory woiyby the entire people. 
 After all he was prepared to meet them actually at work, and he 
 wished that they might be restored to office, being well assured that 
 they would break down under the trial, an/i that the success of 
 their ambition would have the effect of exposing their incapacity. 
 Then turning to ministers, he said, " If you are not continuers of 
 the policy of the 6th of September, say so distinctly. Otherwise 
 I shall deem you mad for having separated from the men who 
 were the most capable, by their talents, of defending the policy that 
 is common to you both. In this incessant struggle, in these stormy 
 discussions, you must feel your own weakness in presence of a man 
 whom you have heard unfolding his views with so much loftiness 
 and firmness. Make haste, make haste to own the voice and the 
 arm of the master." 
 
 Excited by the attack, and animated by the eulogy, 1 M. Guizot 
 replied, that it had never entered into his thoughts to make the 
 middle class a class apart; that, far otherwise, it was the glory of 
 the existing regime to call to the highest eminence whoever showed 
 himself capable and worthy of ascending to it; that he himself who 
 was accused of tending towards a new aristocracy, that M . Odilon 
 Barrot, and every one who then heard him, had acquired their grades 
 by the sweat of their brows, and formed a living democracy; that 
 he knew how grateful were the charms of popularity, and that he, 
 too, had heard the applauses of the multitude, but that he preferred 
 to them the honour of inspiring with confidence the conservative 
 interests, the true interests of the country. 
 
 During this struggle, which possessed no intrinsic importance, 
 but derived great eclat from the talent of the adverse orators, from 
 the generous warmth of the one, and the secret emotion of the 
 other, from the animosities and passions of all, the ministers sat 
 crest-fallen, with leaden looks and motionless figures, as if over-
 
 518 THE MINISTRY SAVED BY THIERS. 
 
 whelmed by the consciousness of their own incompetence. They 
 were looked on as lost. " The battle has been fought over their 
 heads," was the remark on all sides, as the members withdrew; 
 and every one looked forward to see what course M. Thiers would 
 take. 
 
 It was he, indeed, who held the existence of the ministry in his 
 hands since he disposed of the Left Centre. He called a meeting of 
 his friends that evening. To which side should they lean? Opinions 
 were divided. Some were for taking advantage of the incapacity of 
 ministers, giving them battle, and supplanting them. Others remarked, 
 that the Left Centre was not yet near enough to power to lay hold 
 on it ; that by overthrowing M. Mole it would cause the rise of M. 
 Guizot; and that it is better to postpone a victory when one is not 
 yet in a condition to reap, all the fruits of it. But, according to M. 
 Thil, every power that lasts derives strength from its mere duration; 
 and, however feeble the Mole ministry appeared, to allow it to 
 subsist would be to commit a blunder and to throw away a chance. 
 
 With such discussions as these carried on around him, M. Thiers 
 was not free irom a certain uneasiness, the cause of which he did 
 not, perhaps, confess to himself. On the one hand, he was vexed to 
 see the affairs of state carried on altogether without him, by men to 
 whom he thought himself far superior; on the other hand, he 
 dreaded to fight for the advantage of the doctrinaires and their 
 leader, resolute and obstinate men who once in possession of office 
 would know how to keep and defend it. Accordingly, he felt him- 
 self disposed to lend a momentary aid to a cabinet which its 
 very incompetence delivered to the mer^ of its protectors, and 
 which could always be set aside when occasion served. Besides this, 
 he had promised the king to treat M. Mole forbearingly; and with 
 a weakness common to the hujkan heart, he thought he was obeying 
 the dictates of honour when he was yielding to the suggestions of his 
 ambition. 
 
 Nor were solicitations and encouragements wanting towards 
 him. M. Talleyrand tried his influence with him next day; he was 
 pressed with flattering entreaties; recourse was had against his re- 
 maining uncertainty to those saloon influences which are always so 
 potent in monarchies ; and in this way he was brought to promise, 
 not only that he would vote for ministers, but that he would sup- 
 port them in the tribune. 
 
 The doctrinaires had for a while counted, if not on an offensive 
 alliance with M. Thiers, at least on his neutrality. It was not, there- 
 fore, without keen vexation, that they saw him lend the cabinet the 
 aid of that facile and persuasive eloquence by which the Chamber so 
 readily suffered itself to be swayed. M. Thiers' speech was rather 
 insinuating than bold, skilful rather than warm; but its result was 
 decisive. The secret service money was voted by a majority of 250 
 against 112; and the Mole" ministry issued, at once humiliated and 
 strengthened, from a trial in which it had gone near to perish.
 
 AMNESTY THE PRINCESS HELENA. 519 
 
 The doctrinaires, however, were not discouraged, and were prepar- 
 ing to redouble their audacity, when an act as striking as it was 
 unexpected stupified them and put the seal to their defeat. In the 
 latter part of the preceding April, the king had granted a par- 
 don to Meunier who had been condemned by the Court of Peers 
 as a regicide; on the 8th of May, a report from the minister of 
 justice acquainted France, that an amnesty was granted to all per- 
 sons confined in the prisons of the state for political crimes and 
 offences. 
 
 In reality, the amnesty was a machine of war directed against 
 Guizot and his friends. In order to raise obstacles in the way of a 
 cabinet in which he no longer sat, Guizot had made it his business 
 to accuse ministers of supineness and cowardice; he had tried to 
 rekindle the cold ashes of civil discord; he had dared, in a time of 
 tranquillity, to inscribe the word intimidation on his banners. Mole, 
 in decreeing the amnesty, met his rival's manoeuvre with a counter- 
 manoeuvre; and what plainly proves this is, that when colleagues in 
 the ministry of the 6th of September, Guizot and Mole had been 
 agreed on the necessity of a system of rigour. But when an action 
 is good in itself it is unjust to take account only of whatever of a 
 personal nature may have mingled in the motives that prompted it. 
 The amnesty was an appeal to the reconciliation of parties; it was, 
 therefore, a grand and noble idea. M. Mole had the merit of having 
 conceived it, and the king of that of having acceded to it without 
 resistance. 
 
 Meanwhile, the arrival of the Princess Helena was impatiently 
 looked for in the Chateau. Not that such a marriage was a bril- 
 liant one; it had neither the prestige of a high monarchical alliance, 
 nor the heroic significance of a national and popular choice; but 
 after the insulting refusals inflicted on it by the sovereign families, 
 the house of Orleans thought itself lucky that its offers had not 
 been rejected by an. obscure and indigent German court. 
 
 Putting these matters out of consideration, the princess was said 
 to be a gracious personage, with much gentleness, sensibility, and 
 native dignity, and to possess a quick and cultivated understanding. 
 A Lutheran, "she was about to enter a Catholic family; but if this was 
 a subject of pious uneasiness for the Queen of the French, it was 
 not so for the king, who was not easily alarmed by religious scruples, 
 and was not sorry to find an opportunity of proving his tolerance. 
 
 The princess's hand was demanded of the reigning grand duke 
 by the Due de Broglie; it was granted, and the young princess 
 set out from Ludwigslust, the residence of her family. The jour- 
 ney was marked by some very interesting incidents. It is related, 
 for instance, that on her way between Hanau and Frankfort the 
 princess, who was accompanied by the French ambassador, stopped 
 her carriage opposite the heights of Berghem, which crowned the 
 horizon on the right, and sent off a messenger to say to the Due de 
 Broglie: " M. le Due, the princess begs to direct your attention to
 
 520 ARRIVAL OF THE PRINCESS HELENA. 
 
 the heights of Berghem. It was there your grandfather, Marshal 
 de Broglie, achieved a memorable victory." 
 
 On the 24th of May, the princess set foot on the soil of her new 
 country, and on the 29th she entered Fontainebleau. It was in that 
 great town, to which belong so many reminiscences of epic adven- 
 tures and illustrious downfalls in that palace, the walk of which 
 are still covered with the imperial N. in that halting-place on the 
 road, by which Napoleon travelled from Moscow to Elba, that they 
 waited for the young girl who was coming from Germany to give 
 heirs to the most brilliant but most menaced throne in the world. 
 At seven o'clock her carriage entered the gates, amidst the roll of 
 drums, the pealing of trumpets, and the welcoming shouts of the 
 spectators. Louis Philippe was standing on the balcony. On 
 seeing the princess, whom the Due d'Orleans had gone to meet at 
 the foot of the staircase, the king advanced, with an air of deep 
 feeling, and as she stooped to kiss his hand he raised her, and kissed 
 her fondly. 
 
 The next day, May 30, the civil ceremony of marriage was per- 
 formed in Henry II.'s gallery, the witnesses being, for the Due 
 d'Orleans the president and four vice-presidents of the Cham- 
 ber of Deputies, the four vice-presidents of the Chamber of Peers, 
 marshals Soult, Lobau, and Gerard, and Prince Talleyrand; and 
 for the Princess Helena, the Baron de Rantzau, the Due de Choi- 
 seul, and M. Bresson. Then came the religious ceremony, which 
 took place according to the Catholic rite, in Henry II.'s chapel; 
 and according to the Lutheran in Louis Philippe's hall. Sump- 
 tuous banquets, spectacles, brilliant cavalcades, and amusements of 
 all kinds prolonged the enchantments of a day so momentous to 
 the princess. But more profound emotions awaited her. 
 
 On the 4th of June the royal family left Fontainebleau for the 
 capital. They had reached a hill a little in advance of St. Cloud, 
 when the princess suddenly cast her eyes on an imposing confused 
 mass, half hidden in vapour. It was Paris. On approaching that 
 pleasant and tragical city, perhaps the Duchess of Orleans felt a 
 secret terror in the midst of her joy. Why was there none to say 
 to her : 
 
 " You are about to dwell, madam, amongst a loyal nation. The 
 people in France respect princesses, not because they are prin- 
 cesses, but because they are women. You come, it is true, into 
 a country which has been fatal to German queens, into a country 
 where the life of kings is full of torments, and where the multi- 
 tude has its ebb and flow like the sea. Yet fear nothing; there 
 are epochs that appear but once. The people of France has no 
 longer any tiling to sow in fear or in war; and its manners 
 are as mild as they are heroic. It has certainly been depicted 
 to you, as labouring under the malady of perpetual restlessness, 
 greedy of noise and bustle, weary ever of its own repose, and 
 unable to bear either freedom or servitude. You have been
 
 FESTIVITIES, &C. 521 
 
 deceived. The people of France is noisy in its joy, but its 
 turbulence conceals serious thoughts; it sometimes gives way to 
 tremendous bursts of anger, but these promote enduring and 
 gigantic projects; the apparent irregularity of its impulses takes 
 nothing from the continuous action of its genius. Only, being 
 made for great things, it must have chiefs who understand it, and 
 who are worthy of it. If it meets with none such, it drops down 
 and vegetates in an alternation of languor and convulsion, until 
 once more finding guides worthy to lead it, it resumes its pregnant 
 march in history. Thus our agitations, so dreaded by your Eu- 
 rope, are but the manifestations of a force ill-understood and madly 
 combated by those who ought to calm it by giving it employ- 
 ment. Oh, madam, could you but know that people so calum- 
 niated abroad ! But no ; between you and it there will be drawn 
 veils, that will conceal from your eyes all the treasures it comprises, 
 of intellect and enthusiasm, of gallantry and devotedness. What 
 you will know best, and too soon, is the little world of the court 
 you are about to enter. Hope not to find here the splendour of the 
 reigns of certain kings, knights, or heroes. Revolutions have 
 effaced the ancient names, and hidden them under names all un- 
 known, they have blended together, in the same places, remi- 
 niscences the most incongruous. Josephine has slept in the Trianon, 
 in the same bed in which the daughter of Maria Theresa had re- 
 posed. Do not, then, judge of the present by the past. Among 
 the courtiers of to-day, you will not find good breeding or good 
 taste, the grave eloquence of plebeian habits, or the delicacy of aris- 
 tocratic usages. Yoiir Lauzuns and your Richelieus will be men of 
 the Stock Exchange, jobbers and schemers. And if ever the mean- 
 ing of these strange words is explained to you, you will be horrified 
 at them. Look, therefore, to see the coarse paladins, by whom you 
 will be surrounded, make a political speculation of your marriage, 
 and wait upon you with the homage of French courtesy, only that 
 they may make a parade of their royalism, and thus poison the 
 purest and the most cherished delights of your heart. This is the real, 
 the only danger that threatens you." 
 
 And this was, indeed, what characterised the reception prepared 
 for the Duchess of Orleans. Her entrance into Paris was marked 
 by an immense concourse of spectators, an unusual assemblage of 
 soldiers, shouts and vehement demonstrations of curiosity and inte- 
 rest. But on the morrow, lest the reception she had met with should 
 be attributed to what had been said of her personal virtues, the 
 historiographers of the court took care to bestow on the king the 
 honour of all the homages offered to his daughter-in-law. It was 
 the better to prove the wisdom of the monarch's choice, that, after 
 extolling the Princess Helena's figure, the beauty of her complexion, 
 her flaxen hair, her graceful deportment, that they ascribed to her 
 more erudition than a woman of esprit cares to have, and more 
 esprit than a woman of good sense chooses to display. Then ex-
 
 522 OPENING OF THE VERSAILLES GALLERY 
 
 pecting, doubtless, by the pompous minuteness of their descriptions, 
 to revive the extinct adoration of monarchy, they began to recount 
 the life of the princes, hour by hour, without omitting the slightest 
 detail ; the particulars of every promenade, and how the king's sons 
 were dressed, and in what order proceeded the carriages, caleches, 
 char-a-bancs, or landaus, and how the gradations of rank had been 
 observed in assigning their several seats to the ladies of the court. 
 At the same time, with a rude violation of the mystery in which 
 female modesty finds its fitting shelter, they held up, as it were, the 
 contents of the princess's trousseau to the public gaze, and described 
 her toilet, from her head-dress to her garters ; and all this for the 
 purpose of showing that monarchy in France had not lost the 
 secret of dazzling, and in order to accustom the nation to live by 
 the breath in the nostrils of royalty. " Is it not clear to the plainest 
 common sense," said the Journal des Debats, " that the people 
 sought to honour the king's choice in the person of the Princess 
 Helena, and to give a new proof of attachment to his liberal dynasty; 
 a striking evidence of its reprobation of guilty passions?" This was 
 speaking too plainly, for it showed that motives of policy were at 
 tne bottom of all the gay doings that were professedly in honour of 
 the Princess Helena; whereas, in reality, her name was used merely 
 as a pretext. 
 
 Meanwhile, letters of invitation had been sent abroad, with well- 
 considered profusion, to announce the opening of the Versailles 
 Museum. In 1832, the king had conceived the design of bequeath- 
 ing to posterity the various epochs of our history in sculptured and 
 painted memorials, to be collected together in splendid galleries. 
 This was a noble idea, and the king applied himself to its realisation 
 with an ardour deserving of all praise. The hour was now arrived 
 for him to enjoy his work. On the 10th of June, round the palace 
 of Versailles, so long reduced to the majesty of its solitude and its 
 silence, thronged marshals, members of the Institute, ministers, 
 peers of France, deputies, artists, generals, poets, a glittering and select 
 multitude. The doors of the palace were opened at 10 A.M., display- 
 ing to view an immense series of pictures, portraits, statues ; in fact, 
 the history of France written by the arts. How is it possible to 
 describe the effect of such a spectacle? Here was seen the whole 
 series of grand admirals and constables, from Marshal Pierre to 
 Grouchy; there, the age of Louis XIV. in the saloons traversed by 
 so many brave captains, so many men of genius, so many fascinating 
 women, gilded saloons, whereon the grand age seemed to have left 
 the reflection of its wars and the perfume of its loves. Elsewhere 
 was seen our military history, from its commencement; the battles 
 gained, the towns taken by storm, the rivers swum across under the 
 enemies' fire, the jousts of chivalry, the naval victories, all that was 
 accomplished by the sword between Tolbiac and Wagram. Near 
 this, in the Salle de '92, was the rising en masse of the French 
 people, seized with a sublime intoxication, and rushing to defend,
 
 OF NATIONAL HISTORICAL PICTURES. 523 
 
 with the independence of their country, the liberty of the world. 
 Then followed an incomparable epopoea, the Empire; then the 
 Restoration, and its idle pomps; then the Revolution of 1830, and its 
 prodigies. Thus, how many were the old men who could follow the 
 events of their own history from hall to hall! How many, after 
 recognising themselves in the garb of the private soldier in the 
 republican armies, saw themselves again in general's uniform, fol- 
 lowing the fiery career of their Emperor, or assisting at his corona- 
 tion, or wearing mourning for his departure. The day then on 
 which the Versailles Museum was opened was one full of emotions; 
 nor had the king spared any thing to give it brilliancy, and to 
 impress upon it a monarchical character. 
 
 The banquet provided for the visitors afforded opportunity for 
 the display of a magnificence with which they seemed equally sur- 
 prised and delighted. After this there was a promenade through 
 the brilliantly illuminated galleries; and at eight o'clock all the 
 guests were assembled in the theatre, and the performance of the 
 Misanthrope began. After the play was ended the curtain rose 
 again ; the old faade of the palace of Versailles appeared in the 
 distance, and on the pedestal of the king's equestrian statue was 
 seen the inscription: " To the glory of Louis XIV." Nevertheless, 
 that same Louis XIV. had revoked the edict of Nantes, and it was 
 in presence of a Lutheran princess that his memory was glorified. 
 
 Thus ended a solemnity, the conception of which would merit 
 unqualified praise, had not personal and dynastic views been too 
 closely connected in it with national feeling. Perhaps, too, it would 
 have been well to choose some other palace than that of Versailles 
 to be consecrated to national reminiscences. For, after all, Ver- 
 sailles, deserted and mute, had, indeed, its own peculiar grandeur; it 
 spoke in its abandonment to the heart of the poet and of the philoso- 
 pher. The grass that grew in the avenues of a chateau built upon 
 the want and wretchedness of the people, was a melancholy but 
 eloquent indication. What potent appeals to feeling, what striking 
 lessons dwelt in those vast empty halls, reverberating every foot- 
 step, in those unregarded gildings, in those mirrors, in which had 
 been imaged the luxury of a century, and which now only reflected 
 the figure of some saddened visiter ! The sound of the neglected 
 windows, rattling in the wind; the sombre aspect of the chamber 
 in which Louis XIV had slept; the waters stagnating at the feet of 
 the Nymphs and Tritons, that looked so lonely and weary; the use- 
 lessness of those shades that had protected guilty and pernicious 
 loves ; and the dilapidation of that fine staircase in the orangery, 
 which had been swept by the robes of Lavalliere and Fontanges: 
 did not all this compose the most striking of dramas ? Did not all 
 this present in close union the philosophy of history and the poetry 
 of reminiscence? 
 
 The joys of the royal family were not destined to remain unal- 
 loyed with bitterness, and the Due d'Orleans had the mortification
 
 524 FRIGHTFUL ACCIDENT IN THE CHAMP DE MARS. 
 
 to find his marriage become the occasion of a frightful disaster in 
 the midst of the popular rejoicings. On the 14th of June, the 
 people of Paris had thronged to the front of the cole Militaire, to 
 witness a representation of the storming of the citadel of Antwerp, 
 and so great was the multitude that the vast Champ de Mars could 
 hardly contain them. Every thing, however, went on with perfect 
 order so long as the spectacle lasted; but the moment the crowd 
 began to disperse, shrieks, groans, and cries of rage were heard. In 
 some parts of the ground, near certain issues that were too narrow 
 for the multitude that had to pass through them, a fatal pressure 
 had suddenly taken place; numbers fell heaped on each other, and 
 men in the prime of life, women, children, and old men were 
 trampled down and smothered. The consternation that pervaded 
 Paris may be conceived. Every one who missed from his side any 
 of those he loved, believed that they had been among the sufferers ; 
 and report, as usual, aggravated the disaster, and increased the 
 amount of alarm. The government, therefore, hastened to publish 
 the names of the sufferers in the journals, a melancholy appendix 
 to the programme of so many fetes. A ball was to have been given 
 to the royal family at the Hotel-de- Ville on the 15th of June. Who 
 would believe it? Many among the special representatives of the 
 city were of opinion, that the misfortunes of the Champ de Mars 
 were no sufficient reason for suspending the dances of the court; 
 but to this cruel refinement of flattery the Due d'Orleans replied by 
 an act of generous impetuosity. Suddenly entering the hall in 
 which the municipal council was assembled, he declared, with impas- 
 sioned earnestness of voice and manner, that he could not consent 
 to appear in public until the bodies should have been owned and 
 buried. The ball and banquet were therefore postponed, only post- 
 poned. Pecuniary aid was distributed, by order of the prince royal, 
 among the families of the victims; the dead were conveyed to the 
 cemetery; and four days afterwards more than 1400 guests sat down 
 at sumptuous tables, laid out in halls flooded with light and tapes- 
 tried with flowers. 
 
 When Marie Antoinette came to France, to become the bride of 
 the prince who was afterwards Louis XVI., there were then, like- 
 wise, wretches stifled in the crowd, and great rejoicings at court.
 
 AFFAIRS OF AFRICA. 525 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WHILST efforts were made by means of games, spectacles, and 
 fetes, to revive the adoration of monarchy which had become 
 -almost extinct in France, the work of establishing our sway in 
 Africa, was proceeding with a constant intermixture of good and 
 evil, of errors and success. 
 
 The Count de Damremont, Marshal Clauzel's successor, had been 
 at the head of the colony since February ; and General Bugeaud 
 had been invested with an authority in the province of Oran, almost 
 independent of that of the governor-general. 
 
 Nothing very remarkable occurred in the beginning of Count 
 Damremont's governorship, except a military promenade to Belida, 
 and the battle of Boudouaou, a brilliant affair in which 900 French, 
 commanded by M. de la Torre, routed more than 5000 Arabs. 
 
 As for General Bugeaud, his orders were either to conclude peace 
 with Abd-el-Kader, or to pursue him to extremity. It was with 
 savage threats he announced his entry on his functions; but in his 
 heart he longed for peace, and he lost no time in entering upon 
 negotiation with the emir. The intermediary agent was a Jew, 
 named Durand, a crafty and greedy wretch, who was afterwards 
 accused of insidiously producing discord between our generals, with 
 a view to his own profit. Certain it is, that the negotiations were 
 proceeding very slowly, when the emir, suddenly breaking off with 
 General Bugeaud, addressed himself to Count Damremont to obtain 
 peace. Exasperated at this news, and persuaded that he was envied 
 the glory of pacifying Oran, General Bugeaud expressed his indig- 
 nation loudly. Fortunately, the misunderstandings had no ulterior 
 consequences ; having arisen only out of the vagueness and improvi- 
 dence of ministerial instructions, it was put an end to by an ex- 
 change of candid explanations. The count acquainted the emir, 
 that it was with General Bugeaud that he should treat ; and the 
 general, on his part, made the most frank and honourable apology 
 to Count Damremont, whom he had unjustly suspected. 
 
 Meanwhile, the emir persisted in pretensions which bespoke his 
 pride, but were disproportioned to his power. General Bugeaud, 
 therefore, took the field. The army, 9000 strong, was composed of 
 three brigades, the first of which was commanded by General Laidet, 
 the second by General Rullieres, the third by Colonel Combes. 
 It had been fifteen days in motion without meeting the enemy, 
 when the approach of peace began to be whispered about among 
 the soldiers. It had, in fact, been concluded, and General Bugeaud 
 announced in an order of the day, that he was going to set out for 
 an interview with the emir. The news was gladly received by the
 
 526 PEACE WITH ABD-EL-KADER. 
 
 soldiers; they rejoiced to think they should have a near look at 
 that indefatigable Abd-el-Kader, that unknown chief -whom they 
 had made renowned by warring against him, and who owed to 
 them the sudden lustre of his fortune. The general chose 4000 
 men to accompany him, and they began their march at daybreak 
 on the 1st of June, having at the head of the column the Arab 
 allies, commanded by Mustapha Ben Ismael, a handsome stern old 
 man, chief of the warlike tribes of the Douairs and the Smelas. 
 Entertaining an implacable hatred to Abd-el-Kader, he sought our 
 alliance, and faithfully united his two standards, green and white, 
 to our tricolour flag. He was a man who had become imbued 
 with our civilisation, without being surprised or dazzled by it. 
 
 A halt was made at 9 A.M. in a charming valley watered by 
 the Tafha, where the rendezvous had been appointed. But all was 
 silence and solitude, and not one Arab horseman was seen in the 
 hori/xm. The soldier felt humiliated ; he had to wait, and wait 
 long ; the videttes returned without news. It was Abd-el-Kader's 
 plan to give himself the advantage of a seeming superiority in the 
 eyes of his own people, and the disdain he affected with regard to 
 the commander of the infidels, was a part of his Mussulman policy. 
 The day was far spent, and yet no emir appeared ; and whilst the 
 troops were joking over their disappointment, General Bugeaud 
 could hardly conceal his anger and vexation. At last the approach 
 of the Arabs was announced. Instantly the drums beat, every man 
 seized his musket and fell into his place ; but Abd-el-Kader nalted 
 at the distance of a league from our vanguard. Then came a suc- 
 cession of messages to the general, telling him that the emir was 
 ill ; that he had been unable to set out until a very late hour ; and 
 that it would perhaps be advisable to postpone the interview until 
 the next day. Losing all patience, and overlooking the dignity of 
 his rank, in the impetuosity of his vexation and courage, General 
 Bugeaud left the command of the troops to General Laidet, and 
 spurred forwards, followed by his staff. 
 
 Abd-el-Kader's army consisting almost wholly of cavalry, formed 
 a vast triangle, with the angles resting against three hills. On reach- 
 ing the advanced posts, the French general called to him a chief 
 of a tribe, who pointed out to him the hill-side where the emir was. 
 44 1 think it indecent on the part of your chief," said Bugeaud to 
 the Arab, " to make me come such a distance and keep me waiting 
 so long," and he proceeded resolutely. The emir's escort then 
 appeared. The Arab chiefs, most of them young and handsome 
 men, made a gallant display of their finery, and were magnificently 
 mounted. Far different was the appearance made by General 
 Bugeaud's escort, in which there were many members of the civil 
 service, wearing the model cap, and a costume by no means mili- 
 tary. A horseman came out from the ranks of the Arab party, 
 dressed in a coarse burnous with a camers-hair cord, and differing 
 in no respect as to his costume from the lowest horseman among
 
 INTERVIEW BETWEEN HIM AND GENERAL BUGEAUD. 527 
 
 the enemy; but his black horse which he sat with much elegance, 
 was surrounded by Arabs holding the bridle and the stirrups. This 
 was Abd-el-Kader. The French general held out his hand, the 
 other grasped it twice, then threw himself quickly from his horse, 
 and sat doAvn. General Bugeaud took his place beside him, and 
 the conversation began. 
 
 The emir was of small stature ; his face serious and pale, with 
 delicate features slightly marked by time, and a keen sparkling eye. 
 His hands, which were beautifully formed, played with a chaplet 
 that hung round his neck. He spoke gently, but there was on 
 his lips and in the expression of countenance, a certain affectation 
 of disdain. The conversation naturally turned upon the peace which 
 had just been concluded, and Abd-el-Kader spoke of the cessation 
 of hostilities with elaborate and feigned indifference. The French 
 general remarking to him, that the treaty could not be put into 
 execution until after it had been approved; but that the truce 
 was favourable to the Arabs, since their crops would not be mo- 
 lested while it lasted, "You may destroy them this moment," 
 he replied, " and I will give you a written authority to do so, if you 
 like. The Arabs are not in want of corn." 
 
 The conversation being ended, General Bugeaud stood up, and the 
 emir remained seated ; whereupon the former, stung to the quick, 
 seized the emir's hand and jerked it, saying, " Come, get up." The 
 French were delighted at this characteristic act of an imperious and 
 intrepid nature ; and the Arabs could not conceal their astonish- 
 ment. As for the emir, seized with an involuntary confusion, he 
 turned round without uttering a word, sprang on his horse, and 
 returned to his own people ; and presently loud and enthu- 
 siastic cries of " God preserve the Sultan!" were echoed from hill to 
 hill. A violent thunderburst added to the effect of this strange scene, 
 and the Arabs vanished among the gorges of the mountains. 
 
 The treaty concluded with the emir imported : that Abd-el-Kader 
 acknowledged the sovereignty of France; that France reserved to 
 herself in the province of Oran, Mostaganem, Mazagran, and their 
 territories, together with Oran, Arzew, and a territory comprised 
 within narrow limits; and in the province of Algiers, Algiers, 
 Sahel, and part of the plain of the Metidja. All the rest was given 
 up to Abd-el-Kader. The province of Titery was ceded to him, 
 and the keys of the citadel of Tlemsen were placed again in his 
 hands. In exchange for all these concessions he agreed to furnish 
 the French army 30,000 Or&nfanegues of wheat, the same quantity 
 of barley, and 5000 oxen. It was further stipulated, that the Kou- 
 louglis who should choose to remain in Tlemsen, or elsewhere, 
 should be left in undisturbed possession of their property, and 
 should be treated on the same footing as the Hadars. 
 
 All this was met in France with an unanimous burst of astonish- 
 ment and indignation. General Bugeaud's interview with Abd-el- 
 Kader, could not be considered apart from the circumstances that
 
 528 TREATY OF THE TAFNA. 
 
 had accompanied it, it was strongly and almost universally disap- 
 proved of. M. Bugeaud was accused of having conducted himself 
 more like an adventurer than a general, and of having exposed the 
 dignity of command in his own person to affronts which his intre- 
 pidity and coolness were not sufficient to counterbalance. But it 
 was the treaty of Tafna that provoked the most vehement attacks. 
 What ! after such great sacrifices of men and money, after so many 
 years spent in fighting, almost the whole of the old regency was 
 bestowed as a present on our most inveterate enemy. What ! France 
 was only to have a Avretched encampment on the coast, squeezed in 
 between the enemy and the sea ! What disaster had reduced our 
 ambition to such excessive humility ? Was the treaty that left us 
 bare the inevitable result of some terrible defeat, of some irreparable 
 blow ? Were we without resources, without an army in Africa? No ; 
 for 15,000 men had been assembled in Oran; considerable expenses 
 had already been made for a campaign ; a war to the uttermost had 
 been proclaimed; the soldier was sure of victory; and after the 
 most formidable preparations, such a peace as this had been con- 
 cluded! Before even coming to an engagement with the emir, 
 there had been ceded to him the province of Titery, Scherschell, 
 the citadel of Tlemsen, and part of the Metidja; territories, in fact, 
 to which he himself had till then asserted no claim. In the province 
 of Oran we retained Mazagran and Mostaganein; but would not 
 those two towns, separated from Oran and Arzew, be in a state of 
 blockade? Abd-el-Kader recognised forsooth our sovereignty; a- 
 futile concession, which secured to him the reality of a power, the 
 phantom of which alone he left to us. 
 
 These criticisms, to which General Damremont gave the sanction 
 of his experience, in a statement addressed by him to the president 
 of the council, were unfortunately but too just. But how much 
 more vehement would have been the outcry had a fact been then 
 known, which did not come out until a year afterwards, in the course 
 of a famous trial : that is to say, that all the articles of the treaty 
 had not been reduced to writing, and that General Bugeaud had 
 been authorised to obtain payment to himself of a sum of money, 
 which being expended on certain roads, served to increase his popu- 
 larity among electors ! 
 
 Alter the treaty of Tafna, the next thing to be considered was 
 the expediency of marching against Constantina. That expedition 
 had been resolved on, the national honour called for it, France 
 looked for it as reparation for an insult, and it was with special 
 orders to undertake it that M. de Damremont had been sent to 
 Africa. But would not the taking of Constantina tend still more 
 to aggrandise Abd-el-Kader, who had already been rendered so for- 
 midable by the recent treaty? Would not the destruction of Ah- 
 med deliver the emir of a rival, extend his influence into the eastern 
 regions, and mark him out to the Arabs as thenceforth the sole re- 
 presentative of the native cause? These considerations no doubt
 
 EXPEDITION AGAINST CONSTANTINA. 529 
 
 weighed with _ the council; for Count Damremont received orders 
 to negotiate with Ahmed. He was called on to make good the 
 expenses of the war, to own himself the vassal of France, and to 
 pay tribute. Reckoning on aid from the Porte, he replied vaguely 
 at first. A fleet had sailed from Constantinople with ambiguous 
 intentions, the contre-amiraux Gallois and Lalande made it retrace 
 its course. Ahmed was more peremptorily called on to reply, re- 
 turned a refusal, and the expedition was resolved on. 
 
 Part of August and all September, were employed in preparations. 
 The road from Bona to Constantina was covered with military ma- 
 gazines. Ghelma was become, under Colonel Duvivier*s superin- 
 tendence, a regular fortification. A camp was established on the 
 plateau of Medjez Amar, which was fixed on as the base of the ope- 
 rations, and there the army assembled at the close of September. It 
 amounted to 15,000 men, abundantly provided with victuals and 
 ammunition, and having with it a considerable materiel The camp 
 of Medjez Amar was a city of foliage, intersected with streets kid 
 out by line, and presenting a really fairy aspect in the heart of the 
 desert plains that surrounded it: it exhibited order in the midst of 
 bustle, regularity in enthusiasm, war in gala habits. Nothing could 
 compare with the high spirits of the soldiery, rejoicing as they did 
 in the hopes of wiping out the disgrace of the last campaign by a 
 grand exploit. ^ There were officers there whom the memory of a 
 lost friend excited. Captain Richepanse had come to aveno-e the 
 death of a brother. 
 
 The army began its march. It was known by bitter experience 
 that the plains to be crossed were naked, and had neither tree nor 
 bush to supply fuel for the bivouac fires. Each soldier had, there- 
 fore, to carry a small faggot in addition to his other very heavy 
 baggage; namely twelve days' rations; 120 cartridges, a supply of 
 sugar, salt, coffee, linen, and a cartridge-box ; not to mention a 
 long cane which each man carried in his right hand, to help him 
 in walking, and his musket which he carried in his left. But all 
 were inspired with a moral vigour that defied fatigue; and the 
 most martial ardour pervaded the ranks. The first day's march, 
 however, looked threatening. The army had to ascend into very 
 sleyated regions, and to pass through atmospheric strata loaded with 
 moisture, and continually increasing in coldness. The rain began 
 it the neck of Rasel Akba: in a short while the waggons could 
 iarldly be dragged over the soaked soil; and Lieutenant-general 
 Valee, who commanded the artillery, was seen on foot with a dri- 
 er's whip in his hand urging on the march. Thus there seemed to 
 oe a repetition of the sinister presages of 1836; nor was there any 
 ack of dismal spectacles along the route. The Arabs fled as we ad- 
 vanced, after laying all waste between them and us; and from dis- 
 ance to distance clouds of lurid smoke showed where stacks of straw 
 lad been set on fire. On the 5th of October, the summit of a hill 
 vas reached, on which stand the ruins of a Roman monument; and 
 
 VOL. II. 2 M
 
 530 STORMING OF CONSTANTINA. 
 
 from that point there were seen to the left an Arab camp, and the 
 plain of Constantina in front. It was at this place the series of our 
 disasters began the year before. Here was the spot where many of 
 our brethren died of cold; there flowed that river Oued Akmirain, 
 which, swollen by the rains, had so lamentably impeded the passage 
 of Marshal Clauzel; further on lay the field in which it had been 
 necessary to abandon the baggage, and that which had retained the 
 name of Camp de la Boue. Every fresh step towards Constantina 
 awakened some painful recollection, and many a time the soldier's 
 foot struck against bones which had now no name, yet reminded 
 him of his native land. 
 
 The army was divided into four brigades, the first commanded by 
 the Due de Nemours; the second by General Trezel; the third by 
 General Rullieres, and the fourth by Colonel Combes. Lieutenant- 
 general Fleury was commander-in-chief of the engineers. It was on 
 the 6th of October, 1837, at 9 A.M., that the first column sur- 
 mounted the plateau of Mansourah. They had scarcely arrived 
 there, when there was heard from the fortress a loud shout, in 
 which the shrill voices of women were distinguishable. Concealed 
 among the aloes that clothe the slopes of the ravine in front of Man- 
 sourah, 300 Turkish sharpshooters awaited the French, whom they 
 received with a fire as sharp as it was unexpected. But the Zouaves, 
 intoxicated with the smell of powder, dashed forward impetuously, 
 the enemy retired in disorder into the town, and our men were 
 enabled to proceed with the preparations for the siege. 
 
 It was instantly agreed that the town should be attacked from the 
 plateau of Koudiat Aty; whilst three batteries on that of Mansourah, 
 mounted with heavy pieces, should enfilade the batteries in front of 
 the main attack. Every thing was arranged accordingly. The 
 third and fourth brigade, led by General Rullieres, crossed the Hum- 
 mel under the fire of the town, and took up their position at Kou- 
 diat Aty ; the works were begun on all sides, and carried on with the 
 utmost activity and unshaken courage. The Arabs were not con- 
 tent with pouring death upon our men from the ramparts; but 
 whilst Ahmed, stealing from hill to hill, sent his horsemen charg- 
 ing upon us, Turks and Kabyles sallied from Constantina, and 
 dashed madly at the several points of the curve described round 
 them. And then the weather seemed, as in 1836, to declare against 
 the French. The rain poured down in torrents: the temporary 
 bridges thrown across the Rummel were swept away: the sacks of 
 earth, which the soldiers passed from hand to hand, were converted 
 into liquid mud by the time they reached their destination. The 
 soil at Mansourah having become too soft to support the artillery, 
 three pieces fell into a ravine, and were only recovered by the super- 
 human efforts of the Zouaves. There was neither hay nor straw for 
 the horses. Those of the artillery, the most useful of all, had but a 
 third of a ration of barley daily; the famishing mules gnawed the 
 tumbrils; there were nights of frightful, deadly storms; the soldiers
 
 STORMING OF CONSTANTINA. 531 
 
 lay down to sleep in water; some had the good fortune to find beds 
 of pebbles; others, entering the cemetery of Koudiat Aty, rested 
 under the arches of the tombs. 
 
 It may be conceived what such sufferings must have been to 
 Frenchmen ; an impetuous race more fitted to endure danger than 
 delay. Accordingly, when the batteries of Mansourah opened their 
 fire on the morning of the 9th, the whole army responded to the 
 roar of the cannon with a tremendous shout of joy. But it was not 
 enough to silence the fire of the town here and there, or to break up 
 the embrasures; the gates remaining closed, and nothing appearing to 
 show that any impression had been made on the besieged, the 
 French were impatient to storm. In order to render this practi- 
 cable it was necessary to complete the works of the breaching bat- 
 tery which the weather had interrupted, and to convey sixteen and 
 twenty-four pounders to Koudiat Aty over a quaking, uneven, and 
 deeply ploughed up soil; and this was accomplished, such was the 
 courage and determination of the besiegers. The Arabs then issued 
 from the town, and taking advantage of the inequalities of the 
 ground, contrived to reach the foot of the parapets that protected 
 the besiegers. General Darnremont came up, accompanied by the 
 Due de Nemours, and ordered the soldiers to leap over the parapets. 
 " Charge bayonets !" cried the French, and the parapets were 
 cleared. In the twinkling of an eye the Arabs were hurled down 
 from platform to platform, and forced back into Constantina. On 
 the 12th the works were complete: the time for storming was at 
 last at hand. 
 
 And now a young Mussulman stepped forth from the French 
 army and advanced towards the town, waving a paper in one hand 
 ind a white flag in the other. The besieged threw down ropes to 
 lira, and hoisted him up on the ramparts. He was sent by General 
 Damremont to summon the garrison to surrender before the fatal 
 >rder to storm was given. He returned next day with this haughty 
 ind noble answer: "If the French have no more powder or bread 
 ve will give them some. We will defend our houses and our town 
 o the very last. Constantina shall not be taken until its last de- 
 ender shall have been slaughtered." 
 
 M. de Damremont's mind was immediately resolved. Since the 
 ommencement of the siege, which he conducted like an experienced 
 ;eneral, he had never ceased to expose his person with the most 
 eckless gallantry ; so that, seeing him pass along the entrenchments 
 nth a brow heavy with care, but with a step that seemed to court 
 anger, some felt assured that he was determined to die should for- 
 one prove a second time unfavourable to us. Fortunately, the 
 reach had been made practicable, and there remained no reason to 
 oubt of success. Thenceforth full of confidence, Count Dam- 
 imont proceeded towards Koudiat Aty, accompanied by a small 
 ody of officers. On arriving at a very exposed point he stopped, 
 id began to make his observations on the breach. " Take care " 
 
 2M2
 
 532 STORMING OF CONSTANTINA. 
 
 said General Rullieres, who had come to meet him, " we are here 
 point blank under the enemy's guns." " No matter," the count 
 replied, coolly ; and the words were no sooner uttered than he was 
 knocked down by a cannon-shot. General Perregaux immediately 
 leaning down over him was struck by a ball in the head. The body 
 of the governor-general was raised with respectful emotion by the 
 witnesses of his glorious death, and the bleeding corpse passed 
 through the army covered with a cloak. 
 
 Some among the soldiers wept for their commander; all hailed his 
 destiny. The command devolved of right on Lieutenant-general 
 Valee ; he assumed it amidst the applause of the troops, and it was 
 with transport they received that same day the grand news, that the 
 storming was to take place on the morrow. 
 
 The next day was Friday. Now, according to a superstitious belief 
 long current among the Arabs, a Friday was to witness the final tri- 
 umph of the Christians in Africa. But Constantina had, notwith- 
 standing, prepared to make a furious defence. And the French, on 
 their part, felt sure of victory, since they were about to meet the 
 enemy hand to hand. The storming party had been divided on the 
 preceding evening into three columns, under the orders of Lieutenant- 
 colonel Lamoriciere, Colonel Combes, and Colonel Corbin. At seven 
 o'clock the signal was given, the drums beat, and every heart palpi- 
 tated with impatience and joy. The sky shone brightly that day. 
 The first column, led by Colonel Lamoriciere, sustaining an exceed- 
 ingly sharp fire of musketry, made its way to the rampart at double 
 quick. The Zouaves were standing on the breach, and the tri- 
 colour flag planted there by Captain Garderens was hailed with vic- 
 torious acclamations. But danger lurked beneath the triumph. 
 Whilst the sappers and miners were opening a passage along the 
 walls, their comrades found themselves entangled in a labyrinth of 
 ruined houses, and perplexing culs de sac, from which the bullets 
 fell on them like hail. They continued, however, to advance, and 
 engaged in a murderous conflict with the enemy, when suddenly a 
 wall fell down, burying numbers of the assailants beneath it. A 
 mine was sprung, clouds of smoke and flame were vomited forth; 
 many of our soldiers felt the air on fire around them; their lungs 
 were scorched, their clothes were burnt from their backs ; their sight 
 destroyed for ever. It was a heart-rending spectacle to gaze on those 
 wretches, some of whom were delirious, and so disfigured, that their 
 own friends could not recognise them. They went about like 
 spectres. 
 
 Constantina was now opened on all sides to floods of assailants. 
 Brave Turkish artillerymen lay dead at the foot of one of their cap- 
 tured batteries. The fight was carried on from gate to gate, through 
 streets so narrow that the opposite houses nearly met above. The 
 French cleared all before them with the bayonet. Step by step the 
 insignia of Turkish rule, Ahmed's standards, and the horsetails dis- 
 appeared and gave place to the tri-colour flag. It is said that a
 
 STORMING OF CONSTANTINA. 533 
 
 minister of the dey 's, disdaining either to surrender or fly, committed 
 suicide. The whole town resounded with the tumult of a thousand 
 fights, and soon all that remained of it was dead and dying men, and 
 smoking ruins, from which issued fierce curses or stifled cries. The 
 population of the place, pale with dismay, recoiled tumultuously in 
 the direction opposite to our attacks, until they were huddled toge- 
 ther behind the Casbah, on a sloping ground rapidly descending to a 
 perpendicular wall of rocks ; and there the dense multitude forced 
 helplessly along by its own impetus tumbled headlong down the 
 cliff. Women, children, and old men, perished promiscuously. 
 The most vigorous kept themselves awhile suspended by ropes they 
 clutched in their descent, but these breaking at last, let them fall on 
 piles of corpses. The scent of blood filled the air. The town was 
 taken. 
 
 Taken it was, but not without sad losses. The chef-de-bataitton 
 Serigny, and Captain Haket of the engineers, fell in the breach. 
 Colonel Lamoriciere, the chefs-de-battaillon Vieux and Dumas, 
 Leblanc, officer of engineers, Captain Richepanse and Colonel 
 Combes, were wounded, the latter mortally. He had arrived on the 
 breach, and was leading on his men to a decisive charge, when he 
 was struck by two balls, one of which went through his chest. Then 
 occurred a scene worthy of the heroic times. Invincible by pain, 
 Colonel Combes advanced to the Due de Nemours to report to him 
 how things stood. His gait was firm, his countenance calm, and 
 to see him no one would have suspected that he walked with death 
 in his lungs. He expressed himself nobly and simply, without 
 speaking of himself otherwise than by this melancholy and sublime 
 allusion: " Those that are not mortally wounded will enjoy this 
 victory." He was carried off in a dying state. His last words were 
 addressed to his friend, General Boyer: " Farewell," he said, " I 
 ask nothing of my country for my wife and family, but I commend 
 to it the officers of my regiment I am going to name. They are " 
 Death interrupted him. 
 
 It is said, that during the capture of Constantina, Ahmed gazed 
 from a neighbouring mountain on the final overthrow of his power. 
 Hopelessly undone, he could not restrain his grief, and tears rolled 
 down his cheeks. Still life was dear to him ; he turned his horse's 
 head and rode away. 
 
 The first thought of the new masters of Constantina was for the 
 wounded. They were placed under the care of Doctor Baudens, and 
 one of the handsomest houses in the town, that occupied by the bey's 
 kalifa, was converted into a hospital. Ahmed's palace, the gate of 
 which was opened to the victors by a negro, contained rich carpets, 
 magnificent horses, and numerous slaves; but the treasures dreamed 
 of were nowhere to be discovered in it. The women of the harem, one 
 alone of whom, named Aisha, was remarkable for beauty, were put 
 under the muphti's charge. By degrees order was restored; tribes 
 came in from the country and made their submission ; the measures
 
 534 THE TACTICS OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. 
 
 required by the occupation of the town were taken, and the army 
 began its march back to Bona, leaving 2500 men in Constantina 
 under the command of Colonel Beraelie. 
 
 This conquest, so dearly disputed, was celebrated in France in a 
 manner both touching and modest. Lieutenant-general Valee was 
 recompensed with the dignity of marshal of France, and the title 
 of Governor-general of Algeria. Merited promotion was bestowed 
 on the marechaux de camp, Rullieres and Trezel, and colonels Ber- 
 nelle, Boyer, Vacher, and Tournemine. The body of Count Dam- 
 remont was treated witli military honours on its arrival in France, 
 and was buried in the Hotel des Invalides. General Perregaux died 
 at sea almost at the moment of touching his native shore. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FOR a long while, as we have seen, the course of the democratic 
 party had been governed by impulses of generous self-devotedness, 
 of impatient hatred, or of a recklessly venturous spirit; but its 
 passions, even the most generous of them, had done it hurt. Of 
 all the swords drawn in days of wrath, not one but was turned 
 against it, not one but lacerated it. At last then the party were 
 forced to own that, under the dominion of the bourgeoisie, the 
 chances were not all on the side of daring, and that fortune was 
 hardly to be won by force. Nevertheless, it was not disheartened; 
 but, rising superior to its disasters, by virtue of its unconquerable 
 will, it resolved to be calm and patient in its attacks, and to van- 
 quish solely with the weapons of the law, solely by intellectual 
 efforts. A fair field was opened to it for that purpose towards the 
 close of 1837, for M. Mole had dissolved the Chamber, and the 
 electioneering struggle was beginning. 
 
 But that the enterprise might not prove abortive, it was import- 
 ant that it should be conducted by persons of high reputation, and 
 of a moderation never assailed by calumny persons ; such as M. Arago 
 for instance. 
 
 And what a potent ally was such a man ! His imposing stature, 
 his eye sparkling beneath his large flexible eyebrows, his strongly- 
 marked features, his aquiline nose, and clear, high forehead, all 
 bespoke intellectual and moral strength, and a certain violent pro- 
 pensity to command. 
 
 It had been the fortune of this illustrious man to enter upon the 
 actual pursuit of glory at an age when, in general, men scarcely dare 
 to dream of it. At twenty M. Arago was selected by the Bureau des 
 Longitudes to carry on the meridian of France to the south of 
 Spain ; and in the accomplishment of this task he underwent a thou- 

 
 CHARACTER OF M. ARAGO. 535 
 
 sand hardships and dangers. He spent six months on an isolated 
 mountain peak, waiting for the moment when it should be possible 
 to make an observation. Upon the first entrance of the French 
 into the Peninsula he was thrown into prison in Valencia as an envoy 
 from Napoleon; afterwards, having been taken to Algiers, he was 
 making his way back to France, when he was captured in sight of 
 Marseilles by a Spanish corsair, taken to Rosa, and then put into a 
 pontoon at Palamos. During his severe captivity at Rosa and Pala- 
 mos he carried his devotion to science so far, as to reject the oppor- 
 tunity to escape, that he might not lose his instruments, and the 
 result of his observations. Such was the commencement of M. 
 Arago's scientific life, so remarkable for its valuable labours and 
 discoveries. 
 
 M. Arago's peculiar characteristic was, the versatility of his 
 talents. Renowned through all Europe as a professor and savant, 
 he displayed in debate a copious, luminous eloquence, abounding in 
 facts, citations, and striking details; and certainly not one of the 
 first writers among his contemporaries could have hoped to surpass 
 him for amplitude, suppleness, and, above all, perspicuity of style. 
 There was something dazzling in his superiority in this respect, and 
 it made him one of the most successful popularisers of science that 
 ever existed. 
 
 A man thus organised could not keep aloof from politics, the 
 more especially as he was impelled towards them by a mind natu- 
 rally given to command, and an immense appetite for action; for 
 nothing seemed to come amiss to that highly-gifted nature ; meditation 
 or action ; the calmness of study, and the stir and bustle of human 
 affairs; solitary contemplation of the heavens, and the noise and 
 storms of the Forum. 
 
 Mighty in science, M. Arago was, perhaps, still more so in pas- 
 sion. Accordingly, he could not long remain contented with the 
 sort of dictatorship which the Academic des Sciences had volun- 
 tarily accorded to him ; though there he had obstacles to overcome, 
 conflicts to sustain, and enemies to quell. But he needed more 
 than this to give his faculties adequate employment; he had, there- 
 fore, rushed into politics, and the democratic cause had attracted him 
 with that potent force which it exercises over all sovereign natures. 
 And who was more adapted than he to figure in it with distinction? 
 With no less capacity for exciting the feelings of the people, than 
 for instructing their minds, he compelled the acquiescence of some 
 by the authority of his name, and others he carried away by the 
 energy of his kindly and guileless soul. 
 
 Had need been, the part of a tribune would not have proved too 
 arduous for his zeal ; and yet he possessed not that species of supe- 
 riority which enabled Mirabeau to sport with the wordy tempest, 
 to breathe in it with a proud ease, to revel in contradiction, and to 
 make even the fierce enmities he excited contribute to his exalta- 
 tion. Accustomed, as a professor, to the applause of his hearers,
 
 536 CHARACTER OF M. ARAGO. 
 
 M. Arago put forth his whole strength only before an audience 
 disposed to understand and admire him. The murmurs of a hostile 
 assembly did not, indeed, quell his courage, but had a chilling 
 effect upon the sources of his eloquence. One spring evening, as he 
 was walking in the garden of the Observatory, with some members 
 of his family, and a friend, he took pleasure in explaining the heads 
 of a speech he intended to deliver next day in the Chamber. Its 
 purport was to vindicate the people from patrician scorn, by tracing 
 the history of the services rendered by it to science, and enume- 
 rating the great men that had issued from its body. Beginning in 
 a conversational tone, by degrees he warmed with his subject, until 
 his eloquence became sublime. We fancy we can see him still on 
 that terrace, whence you look down on Paris, with his lofty stature, 
 and his face like that of an Arab chief, his head bare, his arm out- 
 stretched, his eye sparkling, his hair tossing in the wind, the crown 
 of his head gleaming in the last rays of the sun, which was setting 
 in burning gold. No, never was the aspect of man more majestic, 
 and never did thoughts that sprang direct from the heart clothe 
 themselves in more solemn and noble forms. Next day we went to 
 hear M. Arago in the Chamber, and could hardly believe it was the 
 same man, so attentive did he appear to the imbecile murmurs which 
 the eulogium of the people provoked in the assembly. 
 
 M. Arago's eminent qualities were, after all, not unmixed with 
 alloy. In a society that vacillates between love of change and fear 
 of every crisis, it behoves the leader of a party to propose to himself 
 one sole, invariable aim, to concentrate his powers, husband his 
 alliances and resources, make himself creatures by a steady system 
 of good offices and patient civility, and acquire no other enemies 
 than those it is good to have. Now M. Arago was more impetuous 
 than persevering; he too readily allowed himself to be distracted 
 from the pursuit of a great design by secondary considerations; he 
 weakened his own moral strength, by expending it on too many 
 objects simultaneously; he was but half skilled in the' art of subduing 
 resistance; intrepid and staunch in his friendships, he did not strive 
 enough to win the indifferent; and his impetuous personality many 
 a time offended a party prone to excess to take umbrage : to sum up 
 all in a word, he sacrificed more to his passion of the moment, than 
 to his ultimate object. Pertinacity and forecast in passion were the 
 whole genius of Pym. With such a genius it is that men bring 
 about revolutions; M. Arago possessed the kind of genius that de- 
 cides them. 
 
 At the period we are speaking of, M. Arago made no secret of 
 his hopes, and the democratic party might already consider him one 
 of its chiefs. Now his adhesion inferred that of M. Laffitte, who 
 willingly submitted to the influence of his illustrious friend; and as 
 for Dupont de 1'Eure, the democrats had never had any misgivings 
 as to his patriotic support. 
 
 Relying on these grounds, MM. Dupont, avocat, and Louis 

 
 THE COMIT CENTRAL. 537 
 
 Blanc, took the first steps for forming an electoral committee in the 
 very centre of the democratic party. Dupont de 1'Eure promised 
 his co-operation : Arago's was obtained, and through him that of 
 Laffitte; and, this being done, the members of the dynastic opposi- 
 tion were invited to join a committee, the first nucleus of which 
 had just been formed by the democratic party. 
 
 One of two results was foreseen : either the dynastic opposition 
 would accept the proposal, and then the democrats would fight by 
 its side difference of opinion apart; or else it would refuse, and in 
 that case the democrats were prepared to do without it, since they 
 had on their side Arago, Laffitte, and Dupont de 1'Eure; that is to 
 say, three men, the want of whom would be fatal to any opposition 
 committee. 
 
 The plan was well conceived, as the sequel proved. A meeting 
 having^ been appointed in the offices of the Nouvelle Minerve, in the 
 Marche des Jacobins, the two oppositions met there. The republic 
 was represented there in the persons of some of its staunchest cham- 
 pions, among whom were MM. Dupont, Dornez, Thomas, principal 
 editor of the National, and Frederic Degeorges, principal editor of 
 the Propagateur du Pas de Calais. The discussion began under the 
 presidency of M. Laffitte. 
 
 The radicals expounded their views openly and boldly. Until 
 then they had incurred incessant reproaches for their intractable 
 temper, and the vehemence of their aggressions; if they decided 
 on attack, it was said, they had no notion of any thing but running 
 a muck, and their very repose was but sullen isolation. Now, then, 
 they were resolved to prove how unjust and exaggerated were these 
 charges. The elections were about to begin; they would take 
 part in them, and they invited the dynastic opposition to unite 
 its efforts with theirs. But that such an association should be moral, 
 it was necessary that it should be formed without any secret reser- 
 vation, without any base by-play, with all the weight which human 
 acts derive from rectitude of intention, and perfect openness of 
 speech. No equivocal compromise between contrary principles was 
 to be thought of, no unmanly interchange of concessions. The two 
 parties were to unite their strength against a common enemy, not to 
 make confusion of their flags. 
 
 The proposal was a frank and fair one; it was with a mixture of 
 approval and uneasiness that those to whom it was addressed received 
 it, and MM. Chambolle and Leon Faucher did not hesitate to reject 
 it. Was it not well known what were the feelings of most of the 
 electors, and with what dread they regarded the radical policy? 
 The dynastic opposition would therefore commit a serious mistake 
 in following as an auxiliary in the wake of men, who, from scruples 
 no less fatal than they were honourable and inevitable, refused to yield 
 a jot of their doctrines, and gloried in their pertinacity. M. Dupont 
 replied with loftiness and impetuosity, and let it be understood that
 
 538 THE COMIT& CENTRAL. 
 
 if the radicals were left alone, alone they would achieve their pur- 
 pose. The meeting was filled with agitation. 
 
 There was present a professor of the College of France, who had 
 acquired a brilliant popularity among the young generation, by his 
 remarkable talents as a journalist, and his eloquent exposition of 
 popular opinions. But M. Lerminier had lately taken a course that 
 admitted of no excuse, and that has never been explained ; he had 
 broken with his old friends, deserted his camp ; and now, condemned 
 by public opinion, and scouted by the young, he had, as usual in 
 such cases, taken refuge in audacity. He made a speech in which 
 he insisted with peculiar asperity on the dislike entertained for the 
 radicals by the middle classes, on the dangers to be apprehended from 
 their co-operation, and from their weakness, proved, as he asserted, 
 by their numerous defeats : strange words from the lips of M. Ler- 
 minier, and which drew down on him a vehement reply on the part 
 of his late co-editor, M. Louis Blanc, which concluded with these 
 words, " Sir, there are certain defeats that are more honourable 
 than certain triumphs." 
 
 Thus the debate grew warmer continually, when M. Mathieu 
 of the Institute went up to the president, said something to him in 
 a whisper, and quitted the meeting. This gentleman, brother-in- 
 law to M. Arago, and professor in the Ecole Polytechnique was 
 equally distinguished for his patriotism and his science. He had no 
 sooner left the room than M. Laffitte rose, and said firmly: " Gentle- 
 men, I am requested to inform you that MM. Arago and Mathieu, 
 are resolved to take part in no committee in which the radical party 
 should not be represented. I make the same declaration on my 
 own part. ' 
 
 This settled the whole matter. The question was put to the 
 meeting in the midst of extreme excitement; a strong majority de- 
 clared in favour of the radicals; the most energetic members of the 
 dynastic opposition joined the democratic party, the dissentients 
 withdrew, and the following note appeared next day in the papers : 
 
 " A CENTRAL COMMITTEE has been established in Paris for the 
 purpose of attending to the elections. Its aim is to unite in one. 
 undivided system of action all shades of the national opposition, and 
 to obtain an independent Chamber by their combined efforts/ 
 
 " The committee consists at present of MM. Dupont de 1'Eure, 
 Arago, Mauguin, Mathieu, Larabit, Laffitte, Ernest Girardin, 
 Marshal Clauzel, Gamier Pages, Cormenin, Salverte, and Thiars, 
 members of the late chamber; Chatelain, principal editor of the 
 Carrier Francois ; Cauchois Lemaire, principal editor of the Mi- 
 nerve; Bert, principal editor of the Commerce; E. D. Durand of the 
 Minerve; Louis Blanc, principal editor of the Bon Sens; Frederic 
 Lacroix, principal editor of the Monde; Thomas, principal editor of 
 the National; Dubose, principal editor of the Journal du Peuple; 
 Gondchaux, banker; Viardot, Homme de Lettres; Dornez, Avocat;
 
 THE COMIT CENTRAL. 539 
 
 Nepomucene Lemercier, of the Academic Fran^aise; Rostan, pro- 
 fessor in tilt Ecole de Medicine; Felix Desportes, Proprietcdre ; 
 Marie, Avocat; Ledru Rollin, Avocat ; Dupont, Avocat; Sarrans, 
 Homme de Lettres; A. Guilbert; David (d' Angers), sculptor. 
 
 Honorary secretaries: MM. Gamier Pages, Cauchois Lemaire, 
 and Mauguin." 
 
 The composition of this committee was almost wholly democratic, 
 and beside it no other opposition committee could possibly exist. 
 M. Chambolle, principal editor of the Siecle, detailed to the public, 
 in a very discreet and temperate article, the reasons that had in- 
 duced him to keep aloof. M. Odilon Barrot, chief of the dynastic 
 opposition, published on his own part a note in which he expressed 
 his deep sorrow at the schism which had taken place in the consti- 
 tutional party, but declared that he could not serve on a committee 
 into which the republican party had entered with colours flying. 
 
 Thus the control of the electioneering movement remained con- 
 centrated in the hands of the radicals. It was the first time they 
 made their way into the heart of public affairs resolutely and in one 
 compact body; it was the first time they seemed to say, " We have 
 no need of stirring up the tempest around us, in order to seize the 
 helm." Great, accordingly, was the dismay in the Chateau. For 
 more than a month the ministerial press poured out all the phials of 
 its wrath on the Camite Central; and the Journal des Debats was 
 especially furious in its attacks upon it. Distinguishing those mem- 
 bers of the constitutional opposition who had joined the committee 
 from those who had kept aloof from it, it extolled the latter, and 
 declared the former responsible for all the mischiefs to come. Ac- 
 cording to its account, the miner was already at work beneath the 
 throne; nor did it signify much that a few constitutional names had 
 been inscribed on the fatal list. " Nothing can be more serious or 
 more adroitly contrived," it said, in its number of October 20, 
 "than the aim and intention of the radical party. It is ready 
 to claim and enforce all the advantages of the position which 
 has been accorded to it. The coalition is its own handiwork, it 
 suggested the idea of it; it is its soul and most vital element; the 
 place it holds in it, the names it has introduced into it, secure it the 
 secret guidance of the body. ... It is not programmes, but their 
 own energy that classifies men, and decides their respective prepon- 
 derance." In its number of the 18th, the same journal said : 
 " Exclude ! A different language was held forty years ago ! And 
 who are they that are excluded? They are the constitutionalists of 
 all shades, the friends of government, the tiers-parti, the dynasties, 
 in short, the whole of that opposition, the strength and honour of 
 which are embodied in M. Barrot." The accusation was calumnious, 
 M. Barrot not having been excluded, but having excluded him- 
 self; such means, however, served to scatter the seeds of distrust 
 ind jealousy, and that was enough for party malevolence. 
 The central committee was directed by bold men; it occupied
 
 540 ELECTIONS. 
 
 formidable positions in the press; and disdaining to stand on the 
 defensive it attacked. Roused to action by the -violence of its 
 adversaries, it fired away with its seven journals simultaneously, 
 and set Paris and the provinces in commotion ; and if it did not 
 succeed in sensibly modifying the ministerial majority, it at least 
 strengthened itself at the expense of the less decided opinions, 
 increased the number of its representatives in the Chamber, and, 
 in a word, made the presence and the breath of democracy felt at 
 every point of the electoral sphere. Never, since 1830, had the 
 government seen so strong a minority stand up against it in the 
 elections. In Paris, the number of electors voting for the opposi- 
 tion was 6303 out of a total of 13,982. All the parliamentary 
 members of the central committee were re-elected. Two well-known 
 republicans, MM. Martin (de Strasbourg) and Michel (de Bourges) 
 entered the Chamber; M. Arago obtained the suffrages of two elec- 
 toral colleges, as did also Marshal Clauzel; and notwithstanding all 
 the noise M. Voyer d'Argenson's doctrines had made by the honour- 
 able excess of their boldness, an imposing minority voted for him in 
 the capital. It is true that M. Jacques Lefebvre had the advantage 
 over M. Laffitte in the second arrondissement of Paris; but the sixth 
 college soon made amends to the famous banker, whose house had 
 served as a tabernacle to the Revolution of 1830. 
 
 During this time the ministry exerted itself in an underhand man- 
 ner that did it no credit, though it was successful. The enemies it 
 most feared, because it saw in them its successors, were the doc- 
 trinaires. Its scheme was insidiously to counteract their election by 
 pretending to support it ; and some members of that party were vic- 
 tims to these manoeuvres: MM. d'Haubersaert and Giraud, for in- 
 stance. The acts of corruption, too, were everywhere employed, and 
 everywhere denounced. The prefect of Morbihan found a potent 
 and impassioned accuser in M. de Sivry. M. Billaudel, chief engi- 
 neer of La Gironde, having stood forward as an opposition candi- 
 date, received a letter from the minister of public works, ordering 
 him to choose between his candidature and his place ; he nobly threw 
 up the latter, and triumphed in the former; and the fact, exposed by 
 him from the tribune, cast a very unfavourable light on the means 
 employed by the government to insure its success. 
 
 The discussion on the address was made up only of noisy and empty 
 common places; and there was nothing worthy of remark in the 
 beginning of the session, except the new attitude assumed by the 
 doctrinaires. Too weak to seize on power in open fight, too proud 
 to serve it, they resolved at first to afford it a patronising support; 
 but who would not have preferred war to their icy patronage, their 
 arrogant submission, their insolent and offensive services? War was 
 therefore sure to come at last; and, finally, it did break out with the 
 more vehemence from the long restraint which the belligerents had 
 imposed on their feelings. 
 
 It was M. Thiers who kindled the first spark. Though M. de
 
 ORIGIN OF THE COALITION. 541 
 
 Remusat was a doctrinaire, M. Thiers had always had a leaning to- 
 wards him ; for he admired his lofty intellect, his sober, earnest cast 
 of mind seasoned with wit, his manners free from pedantry, and his 
 independence as a man of letters. Both of them children of the 
 press, they had furthermore this in common, that they believed the 
 maintenance of royalty in France compatible with some ideas of na- 
 tional high spirit, provided the same were tempered with much 
 modesty and prudence. They were, therefore, suited to each other, 
 and in their private intercourse were laid the grounds of that alliance 
 afterwards so celebrated under the name of the Coalition. It was a 
 strange thing, Thiers thought, that the ablest men in the Chamber 
 were forced to submit to the sway of triumphant mediocrity. Was 
 there no accommodation possible between the doctrinaires and the 
 Left Centre? M. de Remusat suffered himself to be persuaded that 
 there was; with that feeling he applied successfully to his friends, 
 and ere long MM. Jaubert, Piscatory, Duchatel, and Guizot himself, 
 came by degrees to entertain the idea of an offensive alliance. Du- 
 vergier de Hauranne was at first little inclined to it, though he after- 
 wards became its very soul. He thought that a party endangered its 
 credit by changing its attitude; that such resolutions require to be 
 maturely considered, because it is easy to adopt them, but not so easy 
 to explain them. There was one flag, however, in his opinion, round 
 which it was sufficient to rally in order to divest the Coalition of the 
 character of an intrigue. The unconstitutional and inordinate share, 
 which the king had assumed to himself in the management of state 
 affairs, was equally offensive to all sections of the Chamber : would 
 it not be practicable to effect a fair and creditable union of forces 
 in order to assert the maxim, the king reigns and does not govern ; 
 to defend the parliamentary prerogative against the encroachments 
 of the royal prerogative? Duvergier de Hauranne thought this 
 feasible, and, in order to prepare the way for it, he published an 
 article in the Revue Frangaise, strongly denouncing the doctrines of 
 MM. His and Fonfrede as destructive to representative government. 
 Those gentlemen had laid it down in their writings, that the politi- 
 cal world was but a sad chaos without unity, without fixedness ; that 
 the elective Chamber, a transient power, broken up into fractions, 
 unstable, and prone to revolt against tradition and precedent, was not 
 in a condition either to conceive or to direct a system ; that to 
 royalty it belonged to give the initiative impulses; and, that to 
 consider it in any other light was to set up a living republic face 
 to face with a half dead monarchy. What ! retorted their antago- 
 nist, did MM. His and Fonfrede propose to rob the elective Cham- 
 ber of the right of withholding supplies? Their theories led logi- 
 cally to that conclusion ; for it would, indeed, have been absurd to 
 leave the Chamber in possession of an irresistible means of rule, 
 when it was desired that royalty alone should rule. Now, take 
 away the right of withholding supplies, and what remained? Des- 
 potism, encumbered with the useless appendage of a consultive
 
 542 FIRST DEFEAT OF THE COALITIOX. 
 
 Chamber. This M. Duvergier de Hauranne had no difficulty in 
 proving beyond question. 
 
 But he was less happy in the exposition of his own system. Well 
 aware that a duel to the death was to be apprehended between an 
 assembly armed with the right of voting taxes and an inviolable 
 royalty, he would have had the ministry belong at once to the 
 Chamber and to the crown: to the former by designation, to the 
 latter by nomination, so that ministers should serve as a link between 
 the rival powers, and form a mediating authority. He did not 
 perceive, that instead of preventing the collision, he only changed the 
 field of battle ; for it might be replied to him: "One of two things 
 must come to pass : either the king will be forced to comply with the 
 desiynation, or he will be at liberty to disregard it. In the former 
 case, his right is illusory. In the latter case, the Chamber will 
 refuse him all assistance, the struggle will begin again, and end in 
 a coup d'etat, perhaps in a revolution." 
 
 Tli us the constitutional system lost ground and lost credit, through, 
 the advocacy of its partisans and the weakness of their logic. M. 
 Duvergier de Hauranne's article was, however, in one respect, for- 
 midably significant ; it offered a watchword to the parliamentary 
 league which was in preparation. 
 
 The 12th of March, 1838, was at hand, the period fixed for the 
 presentation of the law on the secret service funds, a question of con- 
 fidence which was to decide whether the ministry should stand or fall. 
 The new allies thought this a good opportunity for a trial of their 
 strength, and distributed the several parts to be played among 
 them. M. Jaubert, a dashing and aggressive orator, undertook to 
 begin the attack, M. Guizot was to support him, and M. Thiers 
 was to strike the final blow. But M. Guizot's vacillation spoiled 
 all. He maintained certain relations with the Centre, and did not 
 wish to be deprived of the advantage of them ; therefore he an- 
 nounced it as his intention to blame the ministry, but temperately, 
 and without compromising every thing. His friends in vain 
 pointed out to him the inconveniences of an undecided course, and 
 argued that, in this case, decision was prudence ; he persisted in 
 his purpose, whether from excess of circumspection, or from selfish- 
 ness. 
 
 M. Jaubert began the onslaught, as had been agreed on, with 
 his accustomed impetuosity, keenness, and irony. His objections to 
 the secret funds, bore not so much upon their principle as upon 
 their employment. He vividly exposed the disgraceful practice of 
 paying subventions to the journals, and in particular showed up the 
 ruinous patronage under which the Journal des Debats had thriven. 
 " I accord my vote to the government," he said, in conclusion; " I 
 would have refused it to the ministry." M. Guizot, too, appeared 
 in the tribune as an adversary to the executive ; but he was not 
 like himself. He hesitated and stammered, even he, usually so 
 haughty, peremptory, and dogmatic, and bewildered himself in
 
 CONVERSION OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND. 543 
 
 pompous commonplaces. Sometimes gazing at his new friends 
 he seemed to ask pardon of them for the weakness of his support; 
 sometimes turning towards the Centre with a suppliant and con- 
 strained air, he seemed ashamed of his novel part as a member of 
 the opposition. After a speech that was torture to the assembly 
 and to himself, he came down from the tribune in the midst of 
 sullen disapprobation. M. Thiers was so disheartened that he 
 durst not venture to speak. It was a campaign spoiled. In spite 
 of the earnest protests on the part of Odilon Barrot, and of M. 
 Gisquet, formerly prefect of police, whom the loss of his place had 
 made an enemy to the ministry, the amount of secret service funds, 
 called for by Mole, was voted ; and the beaten Coalition, forced 
 to wait for better days, dispersed. 
 
 _ A startling rumour produced a considerable sensation about this 
 time in the political world. 
 
 We have depicted M. de Talleyrand ; we have said how elabo- 
 rately his vanity showed itself in evil courses. But his impassibi- 
 lity was but a mask. As contempt for men and for principles was 
 reduced to a science in his salon, he did not wish to lose the benefit 
 of that shameful professorship, and he took care to exhibit himself 
 only in the character of a triumphant mocker. In reality, he was 
 dubious, perplexed, downcast, and tormented. The immorality he 
 laboured to display, not having its foundation in a strong nature, 
 in an energetic perversity, was a miserable cause of exhaustion to 
 him. Evidence long kept secret, but undeniable, proves that medi- 
 tation was insupportably bitter to him in the last years of his life. 
 Alone, in the silence of night, he fell from the height of his factitious 
 pride into indescribable despondency, and by the light of his 
 solitary lamp he would write lines evincing the tumult of his 
 thoughts, and the drooping of his soul ; lines such as these, for ex- 
 ample: " Here are eighty-three years elapsed! what cares! what 
 perturbations! what enmities excited! what vexatious complica- 
 tions ! And ah 1 this with no other result than great physical and 
 moral weariness, and a deep feeling of despondency as regards the 
 future, of disgust for the past !" 
 
 Thus, beneath the icy placidity of his countenance, the perpe- 
 tual irony of his glance, the calmness of his demeanour, and the 
 permanence of his seeming good fortune, M. de Talleyrand concealed 
 a life^full of struggles and pusillanimity. When once on the stage, 
 he willingly paraded his contempt for virtue. But his was the cy- 
 nicism of wickedness, not its courage. He did not believe even in 
 his own _ scepticism^ he had not faith in his own immorality; so 
 that in him every thing was spurious, even to his vices. 
 
 If we are to believe some devout persons, the first communion of 
 Madame de Dino's daughter constituted a singular and decisive 
 epoch in Talleyrand's life, and he was affected to an extraordinary 
 degree by the aspect of piety in a girl he fondly loved. Certain it 
 is, that Mademoiselle Pauline de Dino was remarkably devout, and
 
 544 CONVERSION OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND. 
 
 was the object of a sort of adoration on the part of her great-uncle. 
 Talleyrand, moreover, was of an incredibly weak character, and no 
 one was more likely than he to be governed by a child. These 
 were the data on which those who sought his conversion set about 
 their work. 
 
 It will readily be guessed how important such a conversion ap- 
 peared in the eyes of the priests. Those among them who were 
 actuated by sincere zeal for religion, would of course rejoice over it 
 as a holy conquest; the others beheld in it a homage paid to their 
 own ascendancy, an unparalleled humiliation inflicted on Voltaire's 
 followers, and a proof that Catholicism had right of suzerainty over 
 both extremes of man's existence, birth and death. The quondam 
 Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Talleyrand de Perigord, had specially 
 commended the conversion of his nephew to the care of M. de Que- 
 len, whom with this view he desired to have for his own successor. 
 
 The interest of the Church was admirably furthered by the Du- 
 chesse de Dino. That lady, the daughter of the Duke of Courland, 
 and consequently entitled by birth to move in sovereign spheres, 
 had long exercised the two-fold power of wit and beauty; but the 
 one is more lasting than the other; and whether it was that she 
 wished to infuse fresh youth into her life by a change of habits, or 
 that the ways of Louis Philippe's too bourgeois court became at last 
 insupportably disgusting to her aristocratic feelings, she began to 
 sigh after the Faubourg St. Germain. It was in vain M. Thiers and 
 the rest of the new men represented to her over and over again, 
 how improbable was the reconciliation she longed for, and that she 
 could never find elsewhere what she would lose in withdrawing 
 from the circle round M. de Talleyrand, namely, the pleasure of in- 
 fluencing public affairs, and that of having men of wit in her train 
 of admirers ; she still persisted in her purpose. Now she believed 
 and the belief doubtless became dearer to her by connecting itself 
 with religious sentiments she believed that from the hour when 
 she should have obtained from M. de Talleyrand a public disavowal 
 of the past, her peace would have been made with the Faubourg 
 St. Germain. In any case that event would be advantageous to 
 her as a means of gratifying the queen. Nor was there any thing 
 chimerical in the enterprise, for the duchess possessed an irresistible 
 sway over her uncle's inclinations, endowed as she was with keen 
 intellect and fascinating wit. 
 
 Accordingly, M. de Talleyrand began to have frequent fits of 
 self-examination, though he took diligent care to let no sign of this 
 appear before those friends, such as MM. de Montrond, Thiers, and 
 Mignet, in whom it might well excite astonishment. During the year 
 that preceded his death he frequently sent to his bookseller for pious 
 books, and we have seen a scrap of paper with the following title 
 written in pencil by his hand: The Christian Religion considered in 
 the true Spirit of its Maxims. Finally, arrived at the state of moral 
 inertia in which a man is no longer sufficient to himself, and seeing
 
 HIS LAST ILLNESS. 545 
 
 the phantoms of his heart rise up around him wherever he turned his 
 eyes, he resolved to call in a priest. It was the Abbe Dupanloup 
 to whom he applied. He was not yet attacked by the malady that 
 proved fatal, nor did he show any other indications of approachino- 
 death than the natural infirmities of age. 
 
 The Abbe Dupanloup felt an extreme dislike of M. de Talley- 
 rand; being invited by him to dinner, he refused at first; but at the 
 request of the Archbishop of Paris he was obliged to enter upon an 
 intercourse obviously for the advantage of the church. Still he was 
 haunted by a secret uneasiness. Was it not to be feared that M. de 
 Talleyrand's affected conversion was a flagrant trick planned by his 
 impiety, a last comedy audaciously played on the brink of the 
 grave? What were too much for a power of dissimulation which 
 was one of the great scandals of history ? Tremulously apprehensive 
 of being duped, the abbe would gladly have provoked a public 
 demonstration that might clear up his doubts; but Talleyrand's 
 exquisite politeness disarmed him. He determined, therefore, to write 
 him a letter, which, by suggesting religions and priestly recollections, 
 should perforce elicit a definite reply. The letter was answered, 
 and the reply began thus: " The reminiscences you invoke, Mon- 
 sieur F Abbe, are all very dear to me, and I thank you for having sur- 
 mised the place they hold in my thoughts and in my heart." The inter- 
 course between the prince and Abbe Dupanloup continued, religion 
 being the subject of their conversations; and such was the uncer- 
 tainty of mind of the man who passed for the patriarch of incre- 
 dulity, that he let himself be brought insensibly not only to the idea 
 of fulfilling his religious duties, but even to that of publicly abjur- 
 ing his past life. He did so in a letter addressed to the pope, and 
 submitted to the Archbishop of Paris, wherein the prince confessed 
 his errors with timorous humility. Only there was one which he 
 strove to excuse; but the archbishop would allow no restrictions, 
 and made certain changes in the document, to which M. de Talley- 
 rand submitted, so thoroughly docile had he become. 
 
 By-and-by he was attacked by a mortal disease, and the news of 
 what was passing in his privacy was already making its way abroad, 
 though in a vague form. It was matter of inexpressible surprise 
 and pain to the more mundane portion of the prince's intimate 
 acquaintances. That M. de Talleyrand should have given a place 
 to religion and to the ordinary practices of worship in the last part- 
 ing acts of his life, was what men like MM. Thiers and Mignet 
 could not but think highly proper and becoming; but the public 
 retractation imposed on the old man by whom the famous mass in 
 the Champ de Mars had been celebrated, seemed to them an out- 
 rage upon the whole body of the revolutionary traditions, and it 
 called forth all their indignation. Great above all, was the wrath of 
 M. de Montrond, an anonymous statesman and clandestine genius; 
 a roue beyond compare; a man of desperate morals and desperately 
 in debt; possessing in the highest degree the art of being 
 
 VOL. II. 2 N
 
 546 DEATH OF TALLEYR.^ 7 D. 
 
 tincnt with grace, and the dandyism of infidelity; a man of spark- 
 ling conversational powers; a personal friend of the king's, and far 
 superior to M. de Talleyrand, of whom he was used to say : " Who 
 could help adoring him? He is so vicious." M. de Montrond set to 
 work with passionate and violent ardour to dispute possession of his 
 dying accomplice with the priests. All to no purpose. 
 
 Talleyrand had always been very partial to Thiers and Mignet. 
 He liked their species of talent, and the originality of their fraternal 
 fortune; he flattered them, too, as historians; for thorough sceptic as 
 he was in appearance, he was filled with an almost puerile anxiety 
 as to the judgment to be passed on him by posterity. M. Thiers, on 
 his part, was grateful for the advances made to his plebeian merit by 
 a grand seigneur of the Revolution. It is true that the question of 
 the Quadruple Alliance somewhat chilled their intercourse, but 
 eventually no rupture took pkce between them, and M. Thiers con- 
 tinued always to have ready access to the prince: he thought he 
 perceived a disposition to exclude him from the time Talleyrand 
 was taken ill. 
 
 On the 17th of May symptoms of approaching dissolution being 
 manifest, the declaration, which had been the object of so many 
 hopes and fears, was presented to the prince for signature. He 
 signed it. Shortly afterwards the king appeared, and it is said that 
 the expiring gentilhomme, moved by such a visit, expressed his satis- 
 faction in these terms: " This is the greatest honour ever conferred 
 on my house." It is also stated and it is by clergymen, that the fact, 
 however improbable it may be, has been whispered about that the 
 king, having asked M. de Talleyrand if he was in pain, and the 
 latter having replied, " Ay, like one of the damned," Louis Philippe 
 let fall, in a very low whisper, the word, " Already?" It s was not 
 uttered, however, in so low a tone but that the dying man heard it, 
 and he speedily revenged himself, by making secret and formidable 
 disclosures to the persons about him. 
 
 The final hour arrived. Mortification was extending from the 
 viscera to the head: the rites of the church were brought, and the 
 prayers for departing spirits were read. The number of distin- 
 guished visitors was considerable, and no impediment was offered to 
 their admission, it being the Duchesse de Dino's interest to give the 
 most public and incontestible notoriety to the circumstances attend- 
 ing the prince's last moments. How strange was the diversity of 
 feelings, thoughts, and language among the persons present. Some 
 were vexed at the paraphernalia of Catholicism around that death- 
 bed; the majority, on the other hand, drew comfort and consolation 
 from the sight, and among these were the Due de Noailles and 
 Madame de Castellane. Many thought of the curious revelations 
 that would no doubt be bequeathed to the world by a man who had 
 spent half a century behind the scenes of history; they were not 
 aware that his memoirs, deposited in Engknd, were, by his express 
 desire, not to be opened until after the lapse of thirty years.
 
 ESTIMATE OF HIS CAPACITY. 547 
 
 About four in the afternoon it was evident he had but a few 
 minutes to live. Still he was perfectly conscious, and appeared 
 attentave to the prayers When his patron saints were S3 
 Charles, Archbishop of Milan, and Maurice the Martyr, he responded 
 faintly: Have pity upon me !'' At kst, when the Abbe Dupanloup 
 related to him these words of the Archbishop of Paris: For M de 
 
 tteYT f > * f" 6 my / fe; " he rei>lied ' M He "^ make * 
 better use of it, and expired. 
 
 Nothing was wanting to the official pomp of his obsequies; but 
 the people, who doubted how it fared with his soul, made the dead 
 man s memory the subject of their sarcastic mirth 
 
 Yet strange and heart-rending contrast! this man, who was a 
 m ^ r to h !f r countr /> w *o despised mankind, who never hesitated to 
 MBfiee milhons of human beings with a stroke of his pen, who 
 dabbled in all the famous iniquities of his time, who made of politics 
 a science unfeeling and hard to excess, abominable and pestilent 
 tiiis man displayed no ordinary kindness of disposition in private life. 
 Lhe people of his household were devotedly attached to him To part 
 nth a domestic was so painful to him, that he could not bring him- 
 self to do it. He felt affection and friendship, and he had friend* 
 
 .No matter. The man who deals with the destinies of nations 
 must be endowed with more than a certain disposition to compas- 
 sionate individual sufferings. Talleyrand's political existence was 
 but a prolonged scandal: it is just, it is necessary that it should be 
 held up to infamy. He it was, indeed, who hatched that contem- 
 porary immorality which afterwards supported him. In his school 
 were formed that race of boudoir philosophers whom we have since 
 seen mistaking cynicism for a proof of superiority, and corruption 
 lor cleverness, plagiaries of prosperous vice, scoundrels at second 
 nand. 
 
 But, thank Heaven, it is not true that intellect is of the party of 
 the dishonest M. de Talleyrand, we repeat, and truth commands 
 us to do so M. de Talleyrand was a man of mediocrity. To M 
 
 Hautenve belonged the merit of the diplomatic labours of which' 
 the prince usurped all the honour. The treaties to which his name 
 is attached as Napoleon's servant, were concluded by the sword of 
 
 is master. Discarded by the Emperor, after having been discarded 
 by the Republic, he did not foresee the return of the Bourbons and 
 chd not consider it possible until they entered Paris. The Hundred 
 Days took liis absurdly vaunted foresight by surprise. At the Con- 
 gress of Vienna, though the division of the spoil excited bickerings 
 )etween the victorious powers which a skilful negotiator mio-ht 
 easily have turned to account, he could not prevent either the forma- 
 tion of the kingdom of the Netherlands, which was to constitute a 
 .arrier against us on the north, nor that of the kingdom of Sardinia 
 which was to serve the same purpose on the south; he allied himself 
 against the Emperor of Russia, who was friendly to us, with Eng- 
 land, which strove eagerly for our ruin; he could do nothing abso- 
 
 9 XT O
 
 548 ESTIMATE OF TALLEYRAND'S CAPACITY. 
 
 lutcly nothing, for the King of Saxony, our most faithful ally; and 
 instead of giving France a secondary power for neighbour on the 
 banks of the Rhine, as Russia proposed, he contrived, either through 
 imbecility or treachery, to establish at our gates Prussia, a principal 
 and hostile power. He was unable to keep his ground under the 
 Restoration, to which Fouche himself, the regicide Fouche, con- 
 trived to make himself necessary. He had no part in the accession 
 of Louis Philippe, so utterly null was his influence in 1830 ! In the 
 Conferences of London, reduced to play quite a subordinate part, he 
 was shamefully excluded from the deliberations conceming the 
 destruction of the fortresses erected against France, and he was 
 made to sign the treaty of the Twenty-four Articles, an appendix to 
 those of 1815. He knew nothing of the Quadruple Alliance until 
 after its conclusion, and he allowed the idea of it to be attributed to 
 himself. His aristocratic vanity being mortified by Lord Palmer- 
 ston, he revenged himself by separating from the Whigs, and from 
 England, and took part with the continental policy, he, to whom 
 ignorant panegyrists have ascribed such foresight and profound views. 
 Lastly, being recalled from London, he was obliged, in order to 
 retain a remnant of influence, to stoop to the office of a flatterer, 
 and he drew down on him one day this cutting remark on the part 
 of M. Thiers: "That under Napoleon M. de Talleyrand should 
 have been the obsequious courtier of glory and greatness, why that 
 was all very well ; but to fawn on this one !" Thus, not one fact is 
 there to prove M. de Talleyrand's ability. 
 
 It is very true he weathered out many storms and died in his bed. 
 But what are the requisites to enable a man to keep his feet in the 
 higher regions of politics, when he aspires to nothing more? To 
 have a slavish soul; to be capable of falsehood and ingratitude to 
 misfortune ; to crawl under the feet of tyranny ; to feel neither lofty 
 pride, nor grand ambition; to be insignificant enough to escape 
 hatred, and vile enough to be made, use of by those who despise their 
 tool. This is what is called the genius of the prosperous man ! Do 
 but descend to the humblest conditions in life; look at yonder 
 wretch struggling with hard penury; calculate the extent of the re- 
 sources he must put in operation to escape from starvation, the power 
 of will he exerts against despair. " You think yourself a great man, 
 M. le comte, because you are a grand seigneur," said Beaumarchais. 
 " Morbleu ! It has cost me, an unit in the obscure multitude, a greater 
 expenditure of skill and judgment to exist merely, than have been 
 employed these hundred years in governing all the Spains." No, 
 success is not the measure of genius. True greatness does not so 
 easily obtain impunity. Alone, broken, exiled to a speck in the 
 sea, and fascinating, even in his helpless state, the gaze of the whole 
 anxious world, Napoleon was more imposing than at the summit of 
 his fortunes, when the trappings of sovereign power half concealed 
 his greatness.
 
 LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENTS OF THE YEAR 1838. 549 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE legislative labours of the year 1838 were very important, not 
 as regarded their results, but their objects: let us review them. 
 
 We will not dwell upon the law respecting the functions of the 
 conseils gentraux and the conseils d'arrondissemeiit: beset with use- 
 less details, and. conceived in the narrowest spirit, it made no change 
 in the administrative mechanism we have already had occasion to de- 
 scribe, and it argued complete ignorance of the first rudiments of 
 political science on the part of the bourgeoisie. There can, in fact, 
 be but two forces in society, the COMMUNE (parish), which corres- 
 ponds to the idea of association, and the STATE, which corresponds 
 to that of nationality. As for the departmental authority, its pur- 
 pose must evidently be only to be the intermediate link between 
 those two essential forces. The Chambers, therefore, undertook an 
 idle and silly task when, not having yet done anything towards con- 
 stituting the commune, they attempted to constitute the department. 
 
 The elective Chamber had next to organise the general staff of the 
 French army. France kept on foot 280,000 men, distributed into 
 fifty-three regiments of cavalry, eighty-eight regiments of infantry, 
 and the special arras. It was on these data, although they were 
 variable by nature, that the Chamber relied in fixing the numbers 
 of marshals and generals. It was settled that there should be six of 
 the former in time of peace and twelve in war, and that the body 
 of general officers should be divided into two classes, the one on active 
 service, comprising eighty lieutenant-generals and one hundred and 
 sixty field-marshals, and the other in reserve ; that lieutenant-generals 
 at the age of sixty-five years complete, and field-marshals at the age 
 of sixty-two, should be transferred from the former to the latter class ; 
 that general officers should not be superannuated except at their own 
 request, unless a council of inquiry should have pronounced them 
 incapable of continued active service. These arrangements had the 
 serious defect of laying down a rule, the too absolute inflexibility of 
 which tended to deprive the country of services sometimes precious 
 and necessary. But they were the means of putting a stop to the 
 arbitrary power of the minister; they hindered the heroes of the 
 antechamber from incumbering the service with their useless pre- 
 sence ; in a word, they rescued the army from the regime du bon 
 plaisir. Accordingly, the law was favourably regarded by the 
 public, so much had the conduct of the various governments endured 
 by France brought the principle of authority into discredit. 
 
 Of all the institutions found by us in the glorious heritage be- 
 queathed by our fathers, there was not one so salutary in its effects as that
 
 550 CONVERSION OF THE FIVE PER CENTS. 
 
 of the juges de paix (justices of the peace): it was one, therefore, 
 which should not have been touched without much reserve and pru- 
 dence. The Chambers did not sufficiently feel this. They thought 
 that by extending the functions of the juge de paix they would 
 strengthen the institution : on the contrary, this could but impair it 
 and put its advantages in jeopardy. The juge de pah' is the living 
 law ; his authority possesses this excellent quality, that its essence is 
 paternal. Organ of those traditions of equity, whereof God is the 
 source, it must judge with simplicity of heart if it would not over- 
 step the limit of its sacred duties. Was it wise then to take these 
 magistrates of the poor out of the range of simple questions and sum- 
 mary processes, and to burden them with a task, which, requiring a 
 profound knowledge of the written law, made it not unlikely that 
 the lawyer would supplant the conciliator, the functionary the man ? 
 
 But at least the law onjuges de paix was only imprudent: that on 
 lunatics was almost odious; for it placed at the mercy of the execu- 
 tive the liberty of every individual suspected of insanity. 
 
 Here a question presents itself which is deserving of being set 
 forth in a complete manner, on account of the shock it occasioned the 
 public mind, and because it is connected with considerations of a 
 higher order. 
 
 If there be an incontestible right, it is that which belongs to every 
 debtor to liberate himself by payment of the sum lent him. Accord- 
 ingly, the authors of the Civil Code declared in Art. MDCCCCXI. : 
 " Every annual charge in perpetuity is essentially redeemable." 
 
 Could the state claim the benefit of the right which the Civil Code 
 recognised in every debtor? Might it say to the fundholders: " I 
 have paid you up to this day five francs interest for a capital of one 
 hundred francs; here are a hundred francs; now we are quits?" Such 
 was, in its naked simplicity, the question to be solved, and it was of 
 high importance that the solution should be in favour of the state. 
 
 In fact, the interest of money at this period having fallen below 
 five per cent., the state would have been at no loss for lenders dis- 
 posed to furnish it a capital, say of one hundred francs, for a yearly 
 interest of four francs, whereby it would have extinguished an annual 
 charge of five francs, and thus diminished by one-fifth the amount 
 annually paid out of the treasury to the fundholder. 
 
 Supposing the fundholders chose, instead of being repaid their 
 capital, to leave it in the hands of the state, and receive four per cent, 
 interest per annum upon it, they would have been at liberty to do so. 
 
 The question then was, not that of reducing the income of the 
 fundholders, but of paying them off, only the option of conversion 
 would be afforded them as a means of escaping, if they pleased, 
 from the right which the state possessed of paying them off. 
 
 Consequently, the question had been badly propounded in saying : 
 Conversion of the rentes; the phrase ought to have been: Repayment 
 of the rentes, with liberty to convert. 
 
 Would it be believed? The most obstinate debates were carried
 
 CONVERSION OF THE FIVE PER CENTS. 551 
 
 on, respecting the merits of an operation so legitimate, so beneficial, 
 so imperatively called for by the penury of the exchequer, and by the 
 public distress. 
 
 The adversaries of conversion considered the measure illegal, sup- 
 porting their opinion on the words rentes perpetuelles inscribed in the j 
 Great Book. They appealed to the law of the 9th Vendemiaire, 
 An VI., which did not annihilate two-thirds of the public debt, with- 
 out declaring the other third exempt from all present or future draw- } 
 back. They talked lamentably of the fate of the small fundholders, 
 who were to be inexorably deprived of a large portion of the income 
 on which they had counted for their old days, and which was the 
 fruit of their hard savings. You call it conversion, they exclaimed, 
 but the measure is really one of spoliation. Do you think we will 
 consent to a disguised bankruptcy? 
 
 But the partisans of conversion replied with decisive arguments. 
 What was the meaning of the expression rentes perpetuelles, which : 
 was made a pretext for opposing the operation? Was it not evident 
 that the legislator had used the words in contradistinction to rentes 
 viageres (life annuities)? And if there was a grammatical incom- 
 patibility between the words rente perpetuelle and rente rache- 
 table (redeemable), how was Article MDCCCCXI. of the Civil Code to 
 be explained: " Every annual charge in perpetuity is essentially re- i 
 deemable?" What! the state was not to exercise on behalf of the 
 whole community, that right which the code conferred on each 
 citizen with regard to his private dealings ! The law of the 9th 
 Vendemiaire, An VI., was quoted: but was repayment synony- 
 mous with drawback ? Curious discovery ! It was a robbery on 
 the fundholders to pay them back what they had lent, or rather 
 what they were held to have lent ! for when the law of Vendemiaire 
 was passed, the rentes were not worth more in the market than nine 
 or ten francs. Now it was for these rentes, then purchased at nine 
 or ten francs by some of their actual possessors, that the state of-t 
 fered 100 francs: and this was called a robbery, a disguised bank- 
 ruptcy. As for the damage accruing to small fundholders, was this 
 a more lamentable thing than the fate of so many agriculturists and 
 day-labourers, and journeymen, deprived of income, and sometimes 
 of wages? If the poor man who received a rente was to be pitied, 
 was there not more reason to pity the poor man, poorer still, who ' 
 paid it? Why did not these philanthropists track the steps of the 
 iisc, and go down with it everywhere (for where was the spot into 
 which it did not descend?), into those depths of wretchedness from 
 whence the indirect taxes are gathered, that melancholy revenue 
 every fraction of which represents a pang? But no: rich proprietors 
 and opulent capitalists provided with good interest for their money, 
 these were in reality the persons whose cause was defended by those 
 who affected to plead only that of the small fundholder: and the 
 proof of this was, that the opponents of the operation were courtiers, 
 writers in the Journal des Dibats, bankers and bankers'" friends, and
 
 552 CONVERSION OF THE FIVE PER CENTS. 
 
 the very same who, on the news of the disasters of Lyons, filled 
 with a famishing and insurgent population, had prescribed grape- 
 shot as the only remedy, being doubtless of opinion, that it was a 
 monstrous crime on the part of the weavers to have been without 
 bread ! 
 
 The dispute had reached this pitch of violence and acrimony, 
 when the measure was brought forward in the Chamber on the 17th 
 of April, 1838. The court was utterly averse to the conversion; 
 but me measure was supported by the majority of the committee, 
 speaking by the mouth of their reporter, M. Antoine Passy, by the 
 majority of the deputies, and by the loudly declared opinion of the 
 public. 
 
 The amount of five per cent, rentes enrolled in the Great Book 
 being 134,000,000, the proposed operation would have realised a 
 saving of more than 13,000,000 a year, even though the reduction 
 of interest had only been from five to four and one-half per cent. 
 But it promised a more useful, though a less direct, result, and this 
 was what particularly struck the minds of the judicious. " The 
 lowering of the interest on money," said Turgot, " is like the re- 
 tiring of the sea, leaving behind dry lands to be rendered fruitful 
 by man's labour:" a magnificent and just illustration ! The high 
 price of capital is the despotism ratified by modern civilisation, a 
 leaden despotism which depresses industry, fetters human activity, 
 and subjects intellect to a sovereignty as gross as it is stolid. To 
 diminish the interest of the public funds, is at the same time to 
 lower that of the capital required in trade and agriculture; because 
 the price of the public funds is a regulating price, serves as a standard 
 of comparison in private transactions, and is, in short, the thermo- 
 meter by which the demands of the capitalist are measured. To 
 augment the value of labour, to weaken the tyranny of money, to 
 diminish the premium paid to idleness by a corrupt system of society, 
 to tend to revive the sense of his own dignity in the breast of the 
 poor man, such were the certain, though remote, consequences of 
 the measure under discussion. 
 
 There was no doubt, therefore, as to the adoption of the principle, 
 but what was the most eligible mode of applying it? Two were 
 proposed. 
 
 The first consisted in paying off the capital of the five per cents., 
 with money raised by issuing rentes with a lower rate of interest, 
 but which, nevertheless, in the existing state of the money market, 
 the state could dispose of at 100 francs, that is at par. Thus for 
 each yearly rente of four francs issued by it, the state would have 
 received 100 francs, with which it would have paid off the capital 
 of one rente of five francs, unless the holder of the latter consented 
 to receive only four francs annually, which would have come to the 
 same thing as far as the state was concerned, and would still have 
 procured it a profit of one-fifth. 
 
 The second plan consisted in issuing for the redemption of the
 
 CONVERSION OF THE FIVE PER CENTS. 553 
 
 five per cents, other rentes of lower rate, and costing at current prices 
 less than 100 francs, that is being below par. 
 
 The difference between the two plans was as follows : 
 
 The holders of state securities must always be paid off at par, say 
 at 100 francs. It matters not whether the state have received 100 
 francs or a less sum for the rente issued by it; it must always pay 
 100 francs when it wishes to free itself from the payment of the 
 yearly rente, whatever that may be. 
 
 When, therefore, the state issues rentes at par, receiving 100 
 francs for each of them, it will not be under an obligation of re- 
 funding at a future day a capital larger than that it has actually 
 received ; consequently, this operation produces no augmentation of 
 capital in the public debt. 
 
 When, on the contrary, the state issues rentes below par, it realises 
 for each of them less than 100 francs, and incurs the obligation of 
 subsequently paying 100 francs to redeem them, that is to say, a 
 larger capital than actually entered its coffers. Hence results an 
 augmentation of capital in the public debt. 
 
 Thus the debt consists of two things which it is important not to 
 confound one with the other, viz.: capital and interest. It may 
 happen that while the former increases, there is a parallel decrease 
 in the latter. This is indeed the necessary result of every conversion 
 effected below par.* 
 
 Such were the two methods proposed : the discussion turned 
 almost wholly upon their comparative merits ; and among those who 
 opposed the second scheme, no one did so with more cogent force than 
 Gamier Pages. Until then, he had not been suspected of any 
 familiarity with the dry science of figures, and the surprise he excited 
 lent additional effect to his lively and engaging, though substantial 
 and business-like eloquence. He first adverted to the fact, that the 
 amortissement (sinking fund) was a fund fed by taxation, and created 
 for the purpose of extinguishing the capital of the public debt, by 
 successive redemptions of 'rentes. Now to augment, by a conversion 
 below par, a capital which the sinking fund was specially instituted 
 for the purpose of diminishing, was a nonsensical operation, accord- 
 ing to the republican orator, since it was in fact taking from the tax- 
 
 * In order to assist the conceptions of those who are not familiar with the lan- 
 guage of finance, let us suppose that the state issues five rentes of three francs each. 
 This is as much as to say that it contracts to pay the new lenders an annual 
 interest, amounting to fifteen francs. Now, if the market price of the three per 
 cents, be eighty francs, the state will have received for the five rentes issued by it 
 five times eighty francs, or 400 francs, which will enable it to pay off at par four 
 rentes of five francs, or, in other words, to rid itself of the obligation to pay the old 
 lenders a yearly interest, amounting to twenty francs. 
 
 Saving of yearly interest in tins way: five francs. 
 
 But if it wishes afterwards to pay back the capital of the five rentes at three francs, 
 as it can only do so at par, that is to say, at the rate of 100 francs for each, it will be 
 obliged to disburse 500 francs instead of the 400 francs it had received. 
 
 Loss on the capital in this way: 100 francs. 
 
 So that the operation will have had the effect of diminishing the debt as regards 
 the yearly outgoings for interest, and of augmenting it as regards the capital to be 
 paid back.
 
 554 CONVERSION OF THE FIVE PER CENTS. 
 
 payers with one hand much more than was returned to them with 
 the other. Instead of this, he proposed that the conversion should be 
 effected by issuing a rente which could be sold for 100 francs ; that 
 is to say, by issuing a four per cent, rente at par. 
 
 But if this system was the most simple ; if it had the advantage of 
 reducing the interest of the debt without augmenting its capital ; if it 
 alleviated present burdens, and did not forestall the future ; did it not, 
 on the other hand, present a serious danger ? That it did so, was shown 
 with great force by a celebrated financier, M. Jacques Laffitte. Let 
 the state, he said, propose to pay off the holders of the rentes; it has 
 assuredly a right to do so ; but it is of the most pressing importance 
 to it that its present creditors should continue to be holders of its 
 securities by submitting to the conversion. How embarrassing would 
 it be to the exchequer if the fundholders, turned out of the Stock 
 Exchange, were all to make up their minds to be paid off ! could the 
 state possibly hold out against such a run upon its coffers ? Clearly, it 
 could not. And then, what an uproar ! what a panic ! A crisis of 
 this sort might reach a fearful pitch, and it would be the height of 
 imprudence to risk it. Hence M. Jacques Laifitte concluded, that 
 it was expedient whilst reducing the rentes to hold out to their pos- 
 sessors an inducement which should lead them to prefer conversion 
 to reimbursement of their capital : and this inducement he found in 
 the emission of three and a half per cents, at eighty-three francs, 
 thirty-three centimes, because in this way the fundholders would 
 be consoled for the diminution of their revenue by the hope of one 
 day gaining on their capital, whereas conversion at par entailed a 
 loss upon them without compensation.* 
 
 The two camps once marked out, each man hastened to that one 
 to which his instincts, his interests, or his personal predilections 
 called him ; but the parliamentary melee soon became so confused, 
 and such darkness overspread the field of battle, that it was impos- 
 sible to arrive at any distinct notion of what was passing. 
 
 Convert at par ! cried one party with M. Gamier Pages ; but 
 
 Under Laffitte 's system the fundholder might have said: " If I compel the state 
 to pay me off, I shall have in my hands a capital, which I shall, perhaps, find it hard 
 to invest, or which I shall invest badly. Well, then, the state offers me for a capital 
 of eighty-three francs thirty-three centimes, a rente of three francs and a half, which 
 is the same thing in effect as a rente of four francs twenty centimes, for a capital 
 of 100 francs. For every five francs I now receive I shall henceforth get but four 
 francs twenty centimes. But, on the other hand, the three and a half per cents. I 
 am about to hold, and which are at present worth only eighty-three francs, thirty- 
 three centimes each, will some time or other be worth more, since the funds always 
 have a tendency to rise in times of peace and quiet, and particularly when they 
 are not above par like the five per cents. So, then, if I submit for a while to lose 
 something in the way of interest. I shall have a very fair and almost certain chance 
 of paining a good deal on my capital, when I feel disposed to sell." 
 
 Under the system proposed by Garnier Pages, the rentier would have been in a 
 yery different position : for instead of his rente of five francs he was offered a lower one, 
 which, moreover, had already reached par. Now there are two reasons, why rentes 
 at par are not susceptible of a great rise: first, because, for reasons which will be 
 explained by and by, the sinking fund is forbidden to redeem them as soon as they 
 have risen above par; and every one knows that the price of any thing rises less the 
 fewer buyers there are ; secondly, because rentes that have risen above par are by 
 that very circumstance exposed to speedy conversion, which tends to discredit them.
 
 THE SINKING FUND. 555 
 
 their opponents answered them : Take care what you do ; all the 
 fundholders will make a run upon the treasury ; the operation will 
 be impossible. 
 
 Let us convert below par, said the other party with M. Jacques 
 Laffitte ; but they were answered : you will thereby augment the 
 capital which the sinking fund is intended to redeem ; and do you 
 not see how absurd it would be to make the state lose more by the ex- 
 tinction than it would gain by the conversion ? The operation 
 would be ruinous. 
 
 Both sides were wrong, and their error proceeded from this, that 
 no one perceived that before taking in hand the problem of conversion 
 the sinking fund ought to have been abolished. 
 
 That being done, the argument drawn from the augmentation of 
 of the capital would fall to the ground at once. For it were of little 
 moment in a financial point of view that the capital of the public 
 debt should be increased, were it considered as never to be redeemed. 
 The augmentation in question would in that case become a mere 
 nominal burden, and the best system as regarded economy exclu- 
 sively, might be summed up in these terms : Let us indefinitely 
 augment the capital of the debt, which is a fictitious burden, and 
 let us indefinitely reduce the interest of the debt, which is a real 
 burden. 
 
 Besides, nothing could have been easier than to prove how cum- 
 brous and absurd was the institution of the sinking fund.* M. 
 
 * It will perhaps be satisfactory to our readers if we here give them a description 
 of this strange mechanism, and a demonstration of its inherent defects. The history 
 of the sinking fund ought, too, to have its place in the financial portion of the task 
 we have undertaken. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE SINKING FUND. This fund was created hi France by the law of 
 the 28th of April, 1816. It was at first allotted a yearly sum of 20,000,000 of francs, 
 which was raised to 40,000,000 by the law of March 25, 1817. 
 
 The fund was to be employed in buying in the rentes (stock) from tune to tune at 
 the current market prices; the stock bought in was not, however, to be annulled; 
 but the interest upon it was to be paid into the sinking fund by the state, until the 
 legislature should have decided otherwise. 
 
 The idea of the sinking fund was based on the theory of compound interest; a 
 marvellous theory at first sight, since, with a dotation of one per cent., successively 
 augmented by the interest on the capital redeemed, a debt at five per cent, would be 
 extinguished, by purchases at par, in the course of thirty-six years ! Accordingly, Dr. 
 Price found it no difficult matter to captivate the minds of men by the magic of such 
 an arithmetic as this. But to prevent these fine calculations from becoming a source 
 of deception, it would have been necessary that, whilst extinguishing debt with one 
 hand, there should have been no need of borrowing with the other, as actually came 
 to pass in France. 
 
 The following is the sum and substance of this so much lauded mechanism : A 
 crisis occurs; the state is placed in circumstances of great emergency: it raises a 
 loan at five per cent. For each rente of five francs it issues it will be deemed to have 
 received 100 francs, and will acknowledge itself debtor to that amount. But how 
 much will it have actually received? Not more, perhaps, than fifty- two francs; 
 the rest will have been pocketed by the bankers and others who contracted for the 
 loan. Well, the crisis passes over, confidence revives, and the price of stock rises. 
 Then comes the sinking fund and buys in at the rate of eighty-two or eighty-three 
 francs, the rentes for which the state had received only fifty-two francs. Is it possible 
 to conceive any thing more ruinous, more absurd than such a proceeding? Now, 
 there is nothing hypothetical in what we have just stated; it is simply the history of 
 what was done in 1817.
 
 556 THE SINKING FUND. 
 
 Laffitte was well aware of this. He too had formerly put faith in 
 the so much-lauded marvels of the sinking fund ; but he had subse- 
 
 Frotn 1816 to the end of 1823 the Treasury borrowed 1.792,183,139 francs, whilst, 
 at the same time, it was employing 1,276,462,534 francs on the extinction of the 
 rentes. Let it be calculated how much such a mechanism as this must have cost the 
 state! 
 
 In 1825, however, a glimmering of the truth began to be perceived; it began to be 
 suspected that a much longer continuance of this sort of relief would end in the ruin 
 of the state. A law was then passed, forbidding the sinking fund to purchase above 
 par; and as the five per cents, were then in that predicament, they were placed beyond 
 the operation of the sinking fund. The intention of the legislature was manifest: 
 the five per cents, were too dear, and it declared that it would be ruinous to purchase 
 them for extinction. That was all very well : but the three per cents, were then 
 eighty -one francs, consequently below par, and therefore within the application of the 
 sinking fund; and herein consisted the folly. For a rente of three francs, for which 
 you pay eighty -one francs, is in reality dearer than a rente of five francs, purchased 
 at 110 francs. Thus, with ridiculous inconsistency, the law of 1825 prohibited the 
 sinking fund from buying in the cheapest rentes, and allowed it to buy in the dearest: 
 and this because the former were above the conventional limit called par, and the 
 latter below it! 
 
 And what was the consequence? That the whole operation of the sinking fund 
 being brought to bear on the three per cents., they rose to an extravagant price, just 
 as happens with every article for which there is an increased demand in the market. 
 What produced that extraordinary rise? 1 he sinking fund. What suffered by it? 
 The sinking fund. 
 
 This could not be suffered to go on : and, in 1831, it was settled that the sinking 
 fund should be divided into portions, applicable each to one species of rentes, and 
 that the portion assigned to the redemption of the five per cents, should be kept in 
 reserve. 
 
 But what was to be done with this reserve? It was determined to convert it into 
 exchequer bills (bons du trfsor] : and thus the money voted by the tax-payers for the 
 reduction of the public debt was applied to far different purposes. 
 
 The state remained debtor for this reserve to the sinking fund. What was done 
 to free it from that debt? Various credits in rentes were accorded to the govern- 
 ment in 1833 and 1834, and these rentes it transferred to the account of the sinking 
 fund in exchange for the Treasury bonds that constituted it the state's creditor. 
 This singular operation was pompously entitled, Consolidation of the Public Debt, and 
 there was an end of the matter. Thus the .millions squeezed from the penury of the 
 tax-payers, for the redemption of rentes already issued, were employed in issuing new 
 rentes ! Thus was the public debt augmented with the help of the very funds granted 
 for the purpose of reducing it ! 
 
 Meanwhile, the five per cents, continuing above par, it was determined to apply 
 the reserve to the department of the public works. 
 
 Such, in a few words, is the history of this institution, which, as we have seen, it 
 was found impossible to preserve, except by continually perverting it from its original 
 design. 
 
 We shall now proceed to prove, that, even when it is not paralysed or perverted, a 
 sinking fund is a ruinous device. 
 
 ABSURDITY OF THE SINKING FUND. What does a tradesman do who wishes to 
 grow rich? He buys wholesale, and sells in retail. The sinking fund does just the 
 reverse. 
 
 Every one knows, that the more any article is in demand, the more its price rises. 
 Now, so large a purchaser as the sinking fund cannot even show itself in the market 
 without raising the price of the rentes it is about to buy. A curious way this of 
 lightening the burdens of the state. 
 
 Of what use is the sinking fund in prosperous times? Since the price of rente* 
 rises rapidly in such times, to redeem them then is folly. 
 
 In times of depression, the thing is intelligible. But then in times of depression 
 governments are forced to have recourse to loans, and those, too, of an expensive 
 ^disadvantageous kind. Would not the conduct of a government which should 
 borrow in order to redeem, resemble that of a merchant who should buy corn in a 
 time of scarcity in order to sell it when plenty was restored? The corn in this 
 case, is the capital What the tax-payers are called on to contribute for the pur-
 
 THE SINKING FUND. 557 
 
 quently recovered from his illusion ; and he was too sagacious a 
 financier not to see that the system of conversion below par inferred 
 
 pose of extinguishing old debts, would with infinitely more reason be exacted from 
 them for the purpose of avoiding the necessity of borrowing, and in order to get rid 
 of the ruinous intervention of the money dealers. 
 
 And even supposing that there were no loans requisite, no premiums to be dis- 
 tributed among the bankers, no usurious conditions to be submitted to; supposing 
 even the revenue of the state exhibited a notable surplus over expenditure, still the 
 operation of the sinking fund would be highly pernicious. For can a surplus revenue 
 ever be matter of perplexity to an intelligent government that has really the public 
 good at heart? Are there not important works to be undertaken, roads to be made, 
 canals to be improved, factories to be opened? To apply this surplus to the ex- 
 tinction of the debt, is to take from the tax-payer a capital which, judiciously em- 
 ployed, would.have brought him in to all appearance a revenue much superior to that 
 required to discharge the annual tribute levied upon the production of the country 
 by the fundholders. Who pays the millions that are applied to the buying in of 
 the rentes ? Is it not the agriculturist who pays them out of his seed, the manufac- 
 turer out of his raw material, the artisan out of his tools, the journeyman out of his 
 wages, the consumer and the producer both alike? The sinking fund, then, has not 
 only the effect of systematising the wastefulness of loans, but it absorbs resources 
 which are procured only by attacking the productive powers of the country, with 
 all the blind brutality that characterises indirect taxation. A twofold mischief ! 
 
 But the sinking fund, it will be said, serves at least to reduce the rate of interest, 
 since it raises the price of the public funds. Let us see. The rise in the price 
 of stock produced by the operation of the sinking fund, is a factitious result; there 
 is another more real rise to which it is an impediment. 
 
 When public wealth increases, there is a greater abundance of capital, and pro- 
 ducers obtain it on more advantageous terms. When the interest of money declines 
 in an orderly and natural manner, all transactions are thereby facilitated; new 
 energy is infused into every department of industry; the diminution of the rate 
 of interest produced by the increase of public wealth, still further increases the 
 sources of that wealth : it is at the same time both effect and cause. 
 
 Now the sinking fund checks instead of promoting that lowering of the rate of 
 interest which is occasioned by general activity, and by a good direction given 
 to the efforts of industry. What, in fact, is the nature of its action? It is labo- 
 riously to divert capital usefully employed from its proper destination. 
 
 What it gives to the fundholder, it must first have abstracted from the tax-payer; 
 and what a circuit must capital make before it can have passed from the hands 
 of the latter to those of the former! How much tune is thus lost to production! 
 Nor is this by any means the whole of the loss; from the amount set down in the 
 budget as appropriated to the sinking fund, must we not deduct the allowance to the 
 receivers-general, to the special receivers, to the collectors, and to the whole nume- 
 rous legion of agents employed by the fisc? Add to these expenses of collection, 
 which do not amount to less than twelve per cent., the expenses of the administra- 
 tion of the fund: what losses of money wholly gratuitous! What infractions of 
 the principles of production! What impediments to the general lowering of the 
 rate of interest! 
 
 And be it observed that all these sacrifices do not prevent the tax-payer from 
 remaining always under the pressure of the same burden, as regards the pay- 
 ment of the interest on the debt. How could that same pompous theory of com- 
 pound interests be realised if the rente redeemed were annulled? They cannot be 
 so without a special law duly sanctioned by the three powers of the state. Mean- 
 while the tax-payer always disburses the same amount of rentes; so much for the 
 fundholders, so much for the sinking fund, which sinks nothing. 
 
 There must be an end made once and for ever of this financial jugglery. The 
 sinking fund had no doubt a good effect on credit, so long as it retained its original 
 prestige, and its mode of action remained obscure. It was can we ever forget it ? 
 the tremendous lever with which the potent hand of the second Pitt moved the world. 
 
 But now this institution has ceased to be, since the ignorant confidence that 
 constituted its stength, is destroyed. There are institutions whose doom it is to die 
 the moment it occurs to any one to ask why they live. The sinking fund perished 
 in England after being eviscerated, so to speak. Why should it not perish in France? 
 Its most intrepid partisans are already beginning to abandon it as a financial in-
 
 558 CONVERSION OF THE FIVE PER CENTS. 
 
 as an inevitable corollary the suppression of the sinking fund. He 
 did not, however, venture to propose this, being perhaps persuaded 
 that the Chamber would recoil in dismay from so radical a reform. 
 This reserve on Laffi tte's part was the more remarkable, inasmuch as 
 he had not feared in the course of the discussion to propound the 
 boldest and most brilliant theories, a brief sketch of which will not 
 be without interest for the reader. 
 
 When the conversion of the rentes was brought under discussion, 
 the capital of the public debt of France amounted to no less than 
 2,800,000,000 francs. How was such an enormous debt to be ex- 
 tinguished ? By adding a tax of nearly 3,000,000,000 to the budget ? 
 The idea was madness. Maintain the sinking fund ? Experience 
 had already condemned it as the most ruinous of delusions. What 
 then was to be done. Laffitte was for tending constantly by a series 
 of conversions below par to reduce the interest on the public debt, 
 at the same time assuming a right to consider the capital as an imagi- 
 nary quantity, the indefinite augmentation of which could conse- 
 quently create no alarm. Thus he raised up mountains of billions in 
 the distance before the bewildered eyes of the Chamber, and cried 
 out to it not to be afraid, for that these were but fantastic apparitions; 
 that the progress of public wealth by multiplying capital dimin- 
 ished its value ; that the improvements made by the genius of man 
 had also the effect of lowering the rate of interest, by rendering the 
 chances of industry less uncertain ; that mines furnished more metal 
 than was consumed ; that the day would come when the value of 100 
 francs would be represented by one instead of five or four. M. Laffitte 
 did not, therefore, hesitate to pronounce these words which comprised 
 his whole system : Indefinite augmentation of the capital of the debt 
 since it was never to be paid off ; and indefinite diminution of the 
 interest since it was to be paid every year ; this was saying in other 
 words ; Perpetuity of the public debt. 
 
 Regarded exclusively in a financial point of view, Laffitte's system 
 was certainly very acceptable ; but as soon as the political, moral, 
 and social consequences were considered, the question assumed a wider 
 bearing ; it connected itself with the most mysterious phenomena 
 of production, and the most formidable secrets of the art of govern- 
 ing, arid it was then of a nature to provoke objections of immense 
 import. 
 
 In the first place, there was something queer in declaring the 
 capital of the public debt never to be payed off, when, in order to 
 
 strument, and now defend it only as a political instrument. But it has enjoyed 
 some little power in politics only in as far as it seemed to possess some utility in 
 finance. Let a war break out, let the country be invaded, and does any one sin- 
 cerely believe that the sinking fund would then facilitate a loan? Most assuredly 
 not, whatever M. Argout may think when he calls the sinking fund the old guard 
 of our finance. For if the state were to offer to new lenders, by way of interest, the 
 arrears belonging to the sinking fund, what would become of the guarantee of 
 repayment for the old lenders? To change the destination of such funds, to do so 
 abruptly and violently, under the pressure of imperious necessity, and in the very 
 moment of danger, would shake the whole country to its very foundations. Instead 
 of warding off the crisis, it would but redouble its violence.
 
 PERPETUITY OF THE PUBLIC DEBT. 559 
 
 reduce the interest by successive conversions, it was necessary to 
 rely on the right of paying off. And then it might be said to M. 
 Laffitte: 
 
 The perpetuity of the debt infers the perpetuity of the movement 
 in the public funds. Is it a desirable thing to render the flux and 
 reflux of the public funds everlasting? Is it expedient to allow the 
 capitalist and the fundholder an opportunity of reciprocally ex- 
 changing conditions, under the sanction and protection of the state, 
 the irremovable treasurer of the Stock Exchange? The public 
 funds are a centre into which the surplus of capital falls: is the ex- 
 istence of that centre useful? For, after all, the superabundance of 
 money diminishes its dearness, and proportionally raises the value of 
 industry: it offers workers the instrument of work they want, upon 
 easier terms; why throw impediments in the way of these happy 
 effects of the superabundance of money ? If the capitalist can fall 
 back on the public funds, he will not be compelled to look to LA- 
 BOUR as the sole source of his revenue ; he will, therefore, be harder, 
 and perhaps more unjust in his dealings with the worker; secure of 
 an investment for his capital, he will be strongly tempted to idle- 
 ness ; and if he yields to the temptation, his personal activity will 
 be a treasure lost to his kind. To prevent labour from being op- 
 pressed by capital, they ought at least to be put, as far as possible, on 
 a footing of mutual equality. The funds ought, therefore, to cease 
 to offer competition to industry, which will never be, if their per- 
 petuity condemns us to leave the doors of the Stock Exchange for 
 ever open. Has not the capitalist already this incalculable advan- 
 tage over the working man that he is never pressed by the spur of 
 the moment, but can always put off the conclusion of his bargains 
 until such times as shall suit his convenience? If to this first cause, 
 of inequality, there be added a second, arising out of the existence 
 of the public funds, is it not to be feared, that of the two powers 
 now contending with each other, the one will be driven to tyranny 
 by the consciousness of its strength, and the other to revolt, by the 
 bitter feeling of its weakness? You give CAPITAL a means of in- 
 vestment independent of labour: has LABOUR a means of invest- 
 ment independent of capital ? Why suffer an inequality so monstrous, 
 so pernicious to all classes, by the perturbation it causes in the work 
 of production, and the angry and rancorous feelings it engenders? 
 And if we pass from economical to political and moral considera- 
 tions, what a new source of apprehensions! Perpetuity of the 
 public funds ! Why, it is the indefinite enthralment of part of the 
 nation to every bad power, which should hold the threat of a bank- 
 ruptcy suspended over it; it is an eternity promised to jobbing. 
 
 It will easily be judged from the nature of the foregoing objec- 
 tions, how momentous were the questions raised by Laffitte. He, 
 however, appeared perfectly assured as to the consequences of his 
 system. Far from admitting that the movement of the public funds 
 ought to be checked or stopped, he wished to see it permanent, and
 
 560 UTILITY OF THE PUBLIC FUNDS. 
 
 accelerated. It was his view of the case, that there are always timid 
 capitalists, prompt to hide themselves ; and others, weak and unin- 
 telligent, who hobble with tottering feet towards production. If 
 there were no public funds to allure them, and give movement and 
 life to their wealth, what would be the consequence? That that 
 wealth would be, in part, lost to industry. And who would be the 
 sufferer? The working man. The public funds were, indeed, the 
 hospital for invalid capitals ; but a hospital which the inmates did 
 not enter to go to sleep, but to reside there. The movement of the 
 public funds was, after all, but a means in transferring capital from 
 the hands of those who could not employ it, or who would lose 
 valuable time in seeking an employment for it, to the hands of those 
 who are in a condition to apply it at once to purposes of in- 
 dustry. The result was a more rapid succession in the offers of 
 capital, and thereby a continual tendency downwards in the price of 
 money. Only care ought to be taken that the funds should not, by 
 their high price, attract to them the capital of the active man, as 
 well as that of the idle man ; and for this reason, especially, it was 
 expedient that the interest of the debt should be more and more 
 reduced by successive conversions. By that means these two equally 
 advantageous results would be secured : 1st. The intelligent capi- 
 talist, who was in a position to find able men of the industrial 
 classes, would be deprived of the fatal temptation which would have 
 made him keep to the funds. 2nd. They would cease to have any 
 attraction for the man who could still work usefully for society, but 
 who, if the interest paid by the state were considerable, would be 
 but too ready to exchange a life of labour for one of inertness. 
 
 Thus, according to Laffitte's plan, the public funds would cease 
 to offer a premium to the indolence of certain capitalists, they 
 would become a means of obviating the idleness of certain capitals, 
 and would thus acquire a real social importance. 
 
 As for the danger of establishing too close relations of dependence 
 between the government and the fundholdcrs, M. Laffitte saw no 
 mischief in interesting the citizens in the maintenance of the estab- 
 lished order of things, by the fear of the calamities incident to revo- 
 lutions. And as for the jobbing so unhappily encouraged by the 
 public funds, he affirmed that it would only be diverted into ano- 
 ther channel if the Stock Exchange were pulled down ; since the 
 love of play was inherent in human nature, as was plainly proved 
 by the many extraordinary wagers laid on the exchange of almost 
 all kinds of produce. 
 
 Evidently M. Laffitte's financial project had an incontestible value, 
 in its relation to the social system which the bourgeoisie had estab- 
 lished and wished to maintain. But in proclaiming the indestruc- 
 tibility of the temple of modern industry, and in requiring, as the 
 sole reform needful, a regular and permanent provision for the ban- 
 quet so long laid before heedless and unmoved guests, Laffitte had 
 no forecast of that future condition of society which our intellect
 
 DISCUSSION ON THE CONVERSION OF THE RENTES. 561 
 
 conceives and desires, and which our hearts divine beyond the dim 
 and bounded horizon. 
 
 Be this as it may, the discussion in the Chamber exhibited no 
 character of greatness. Figures were met with figures, and that 
 was all; and whilst the partisans of the measure were divided among 
 themselves, as to the mode to be adopted, its adversaries went about 
 everywhere sounding the alarm, and saying, of conversion at par, 
 that it was a downright robbery; of conversion below par, that it 
 was a scandalous encouragement to jobbing. 
 
 t "j?ij P retend '" cried the courtiers to M. Laffitte, " to offer the 
 iundholders a compensation in the augmentation of their capital- but 
 to avail themselves of it they must sell their stock. Now the true 
 iundholders are the poor people, who turn to the public funds only 
 in search of quiet and repose, and who look only to their di- 
 vidends. Who then wiU be the gainers by this augmentation 
 >i capital the advantages of which you cry up? the corne- 
 d-go iundholders, those who sell and buy to sell again; mere spe- 
 culators, an impure race, whom there is no favouring without shame 
 and peril." 
 
 To this Laffitte's disciples replied : " That there was injustice and 
 bad faith in confounding the profit derived from the augmentation 
 of capital with stockjobbing; that the majority of the real, steady 
 tundholders were men who had invested their money in the funds 
 not for the purpose of indulging perpetual idleness, but that they 
 might he by until the time should come when they should want 
 their capital again, either to establish their children in the world 
 or to carry some profitable scheme into operation; that these were 
 the men who would be gainers by the augmentation of capital, and 
 that they were, above all, the persons to whom compensation should 
 be offered, since they were both the poorest, not having a revenue 
 sufficiently ample to let them abstain from seeking more, and the 
 most deserving of regard, since they had not given up being use- 
 ful to society." 
 
 Great was the agitation produced by a dispute which involved so 
 many conflicting passions and interests. Bewildered by the clash 
 of systems, the Chamber feU into the strangest perplexities: and as 
 for the ministers, beset on one side by public opinion, on the other 
 by the Court, they appeared uneasy, embarrassed, vexed with their 
 own helplessness, and doubly servile. 
 
 It was necessary, however, to come to some decision. M. Lacave 
 Laplagne, minister of finance, at last moved the simultaneous adop- 
 tion of the two ^systems, with leave to the government to put them 
 m operation at its own convenience and on its own responsibility. 
 Now as the Chamber scarcely understood the financial bearings of 
 the question, and was bent on peremptorily settling it only with a 
 view to mortify the Court, assert its own initiative power, and 
 promote the prerogative of parliament, it eagerly laid hold on the 
 expedient offered to it; and in the sittings of the 3rd of Mav 
 VOL. II. 2o
 
 562 FINAL RESULT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 1838, it was decided that the operation should take place on these 
 conditions : 
 
 1. That the holders of the five per cents, should be allowed the 
 option of being paid back their capital at par, or of converting it 
 into new rentes. 
 
 2. That the operation should produce on the interest of the 
 rentes exchanged an effective diminution of twenty centimes, at 
 least, on every five francs ; and that the capital of the rentes substi- 
 tuted or exchanged should in no case amount to more than twenty 
 per cent, of the sum paid off. 
 
 3. That the exercise of the right of redemption should be sus- 
 pended for twelve years with regard to the rentes issued at par, 
 reckoning from the day of their being issued. 
 
 Thus an enormous latitude was allowed the government. No 
 specification of funds, no precise prescription of method, leave 
 allowed the ministers to issue simultaneously rentes above and below 
 par, a maximum limit fixed to the augmentation of capital, a mini- 
 mum to the diminution of interest. Never was parturition more 
 laborious and more sterile. 
 
 The next day, May 4, the better to prove that it regarded the 
 financial measure adopted in the light of a political victory, the 
 Chamber imposed on ministers the humiliating condition of ren- 
 dering a detailed account of the execution of the law within the 
 first two months of the ensuing session. Vainly did MM. Lacave 
 Laplagne, Barthe, Montalivet and Mole protest against the latent 
 insult conveyed in such an injunction ; in vain they hinted that 
 the bolt would glance over their heads and strike an august person- 
 age ; the Chamber remained rooted in its pride ; and after passing 
 by turns from resistance to concessions, from a spurious parade of 
 firmness to excessive humility; after having declared any fixation 
 of the term of respite to be contrary to the dignity of the crown, 
 and then acceded to an amendment by which one was fixed ; after 
 having encouraged the irresolute, and kept close watch over the 
 staunch, the ministry found itself compelled to own its defeat, and 
 fell back exhausted on its bench to hear and submit to its sentence. 
 
 The Chamber, after all, was not destined long to enjoy its 
 triumph, the peers subsequently voting against the operation (June 
 26, 1838). 
 
 But a far more glaring scandal was about to see the light, and the 
 leaders of the bourgeoisie were on the eve of giving a still more 
 striking proof of their incompetence to regulate the material inter- 
 ests of France with equity and wisdom. 
 
 Here we beg permission to pause for a moment. The reader 
 would form an incorrect estimate of the character of the legislative 
 labours we are reviewing, if he knew not what was the moral state 
 of society at that time. 
 
 It will be remembered to what a pitch of frenzy stockjobbing 
 had been carried under the regency of Philip, Duke of Orleans.
 
 BUBBLES. 06 3 
 
 One day all Paris had taken to gambling, and the tales that are 
 told of the public extravagance at that period are scarcely credible. 
 A hunchback's hump served as a writing-desk to the jobbers in the 
 Rue Quiucampoix, and at nightfall bells had to be rung to disperse 
 them. Prodigious fortunes were suddenly reared upon fraud. 
 Mention is made in the memoirs of the time, of a lackey, who from 
 force of habit was known to jump up behind his own carriage. 
 Princes, noblemen, and gentlemen, and friends of the regent, were 
 seen scrambling for lucre with footmen and prostitutes ; and Che- 
 mille had good ^reason to say to the Due de Bourbon, grandson of 
 the great Cpnde, who showed him his pocket-book stuffed full of 
 actions (scrip), "All those actions are not worth two of your 
 grandfather's." 
 
 Three or four years had not elapsed since the revolution of 1830, 
 when a movement, similar to that which disgraced Philip's regency, 
 broke out in French society. That nation which had almost in- 
 vented chivalry, which had made itself for ever illustrious by the 
 elegance of its manners; that nation which it had been customary to 
 cite for its wit, its grace, its disinterestedness, its courtesy so delicate 
 and so high-spirited, now suddenly appeared under the sway of a 
 class that laboured under a loathsome fever of industrialism. For 
 that class every thing was become matter of traffic. Struggling 
 crowds filled the approaches to the banks. To take up shares 
 without paying for them, to sell them, pocket the premium, and 
 make fortunes by the rise, such was the universal mania, such was 
 the dream in which many tens of thousands lived with their eyes 
 open. Every day did a sordid emulation heap the industrial arena 
 with ruins and victims. There was an end to all profound and 
 exalted convictions; to all chivalric emotions; to all poetry, in deed 
 or in thought; to all manly passions. Among the proletary class, 
 void of repose and of hope, there reigned a sullen resignation and 
 envy, yet tempered by noble aspirations and an imperishable apti- 
 tude for great things ; but in the ranks above were covetousness, 
 impatient longing for success, an unextinguishable and dire thirst 
 for gain, wealth and intrigue confederated for robbery, and base- 
 ness, decked with the name of ability, exulting in its triumphs. 
 Nothing similar was ever seen in our country. Ere long, turn 
 which way you would, you heard of nothing but enterprises based 
 on lies. Concoctors of schemes swarmed on all hands. To plan 
 lucrative villanies was, in the language of the day, to be a man of 
 brains. Shares were issued in imaginary mines, fictitious inventions 
 were put forward. A number of brazen adventurers obtained from 
 the credulity of shareholders payment for chimerical or shamefully 
 exaggerated reports. France was deluged with impostures. The 
 courts of justice rang with the appeals of the duped; but one 
 would have said that punishment itself only served to spread the 
 contagion more widely. The theatre seized hold of these traits, 
 and in a celebrated farce, entitled Robert Macaire, an unknown 
 
 2o2
 
 564 QUESTION OF RAILWAYS. 
 
 hand sculptured the type of the charlatans of the day; but this 
 piece, which, (indeed, turned the noblest sentiments into ridicule, 
 or seemed to do so paternal affection, filial piety, friendship, love,) 
 it was found necessary to suppress on account of its immense success. 
 The guilty had recognised their own images in the mirror presented 
 to them and had not been abashed, and ignominy itself was to them 
 an encouragement. 
 
 Such was the class of great capitalists in France when the 
 question of railroads arose, and promised a new aliment to indus- 
 trialism. 
 
 On the 15th of February, 1838, the government proposed to the 
 Chamber a scheme for the establishment of a great network of rail- 
 ways. It was to have consisted of nine principal lines, seven of 
 which were to have connected Paris with the Belgian frontier, with 
 Havre, with Nantes, with the Spanish frontier through .Bayonne, 
 with Toulouse through the central region of the country, with Mar- 
 seilles through Lyon, and with Strasbourg through Nancy, The 
 two other great lines were to have joined Marseilles to Bordeaux 
 through Toulouse, and with Bale, through Lyons and Bazangon. 
 The united lengths of all the lines would have been 1,100 
 leagues, and the presumed total cost more than a thousand millions 
 of francs (40,000,000i). The ministry did not propose the imme- 
 diate execution of so considerable a mass of work, but only asked for 
 authority to put in hand, and that simultaneously, the lines that were 
 to unite Marseilles with Avignon, and Paris with the Belgian 
 frontier, Rouen, Bordeaux, Orleans, and Tours ; making in all 
 375 leagues, the cost of which was estimated beforehand at 
 '^350,000,000. 
 
 ^ It was a bold and splendid project, perfectly justified by reason r 
 and worthy of the government of a great people. M. Martin (du 
 Nord), the minister of commerce, would have secured an honourable 
 place in history if he had shown the same courage in upholding it 
 as in bringing it forward. But the proposal was no sooner known 
 than a shout of rage was set up by the higher ranks of the bourgeoisie. 
 The execution of the railroads by the state would, in fact, have 
 snatched from the bankers, the jobbers, the gamblers, and the 
 capitalists of both Chambers, a prey on which they had counted. 
 Their wrath was vented on all sides in passionate speeches. They 
 laid it down as a general principle, that the government was inca- 
 pable of executing public works ; that these ought to be intrusted 
 to private companies, which would be prompted by their own 
 interests to execute them more economically and more rapidly ; that 
 the spirit of association required encouragement in France ; that the 
 opportunity was an admirable one, and ought by all means to be 
 turned to account. 
 
 The government had not foreseen the excessive resistance it was 
 about to encounter. All this violence frightened it. It was, moreover, 
 ftom the camp of its supporters that the clamour issued. It there-
 
 JOINT STOCK COMPANIES. 565 
 
 fore began to repent of its good intentions, and only sought a pre- 
 text to obtain pardon. 
 
 Then began a spectacle alike admirable and singular. The demo- . 
 cratic party, so often calumniated, so often called factious by its 
 enemies, took this cause of the state, which the state itself seemed 
 on the point of abandoning, and by it were put forth the only doc- 
 trines concerning public works which were calculated to give them 
 in France the advantages of order and authority. 
 
 The democratic party, then represented in Paris by the National, 
 the Bon Sens, and the Journal du Peuple, regarded the means of 
 communication under three different aspects. 
 
 It proved first of all, that in the MORAL, POINT OF VIEW, nothing 
 could be more deplorable than the mode in which companies were 
 brought forth ; it showed their cradles surrounded with a greedy 
 unprincipled throng of speculators, skilled in coining money out of 
 words and h'es, who, to use M. Jules Seguin's phrase, brought to the 
 public only a great empty strong box, begging it to fill it, that they 
 might help themselves to shameful premiums out of the contents. 
 The machinations of the gens d'affaires ; their too certain impunity ; 
 the leaders of the Stock Exchange making their fortunes out of the 
 victims they struck down in the dark; shares taken for the sole pur- 
 pose of selling them, and that at monstrous ' prices, by means of 
 fictitious enhancements ; jobbing in the place of public works ; 
 gamblers enriched, and bonijide shareholders suddenly plunged into 
 beggary; contracts granted for ready money by fraudulent func- 
 tionaries; rival companies outbidding each other, with disgraceful 
 offers of douceurs, for the patronage of ministers, heads of offices, 
 peers of France, deputies, courtiers, and chief clerks; everywhere 
 corruption ; the love of lucre become a public intoxication ; society 
 transformed into an arena of jobbers: all this the democratic party 
 saw and denounced in the system of joint stock companies. 
 
 And, IN AN INDUSTRIAL POINT OF VIEW, how ruinous were^/ 
 their proceedings ! For it is manifest, that whatever a company 
 expends on the execution of a railway, it looks to be paid back 
 usuriously by its charges on the traffic of the line : whereas the state 
 finds a remuneration for its outlay in the increase of the sources of 
 taxation, in the charges on registration, in the contributions levied 
 on the real and personal property of the establishment, in customs, 
 tolls, passports, and licences. Companies, to indemnify themselves, 
 must impose a tribute on the very development of industry, which 
 they thereby retard or fetter : the state allows the public prosperity 
 to increase, and applies to it only when it has obtained enlarged 
 growth. Companies wish to make profit with speed, because they 
 themselves die off: the state can wait, because it is immortal. Com- 
 panies, by the high rate and the duration of their tariffs of charges, 
 stop the poor man' at the entrances of the railways : the state, which 
 has other ways of remunerating itself besides the tariffs, throws the 
 railways open to the poor as well as to the rich. Companies are 
 forced into enormous expenses, the burden of which devolves in the
 
 566 JOINT STOCK COMPANIES. 
 
 end on the public; they must have intriguing agents, to procure 
 them the sanction of the legislature, and to put their rivals out of 
 the field; they must have bankers, who will sell the use of their 
 credit to the enterprise, and speculators, who will give it a start; 
 they must have brokers, who will undertake to dispose of shares; 
 they must have money to deposit, by way of recognizance ; treasurers, 
 receivers, paymasters, civil engineers, conductors, and councils: the 
 state has no staff to create; it has its officers ready to its hand; it 
 has, for the financial department, its receivers, general and special, 
 its receivers of the communes, its receivers of indirect contributions ; 
 for the executive department, its engineers of roads and bridges ; for 
 the administrative department, the agents employed in the services 
 of the prefectures. Companies require a multitude of employes, 
 whom they create out of nothing ; the state has only to enlarge the 
 duties of those it already commands. Companies are at the mercy 
 of agents chosen almost always at random, impatient to make their 
 fortunes, and who sometimes cause no little loss by their want of 
 experience or of steadiness, their incapacity, bad faith, or cupidity; 
 the state is served by agents, having an official character, subjected 
 to a public control, conscious of moral responsibility, belonging to a 
 constituted and graduated body, and having not money but honour 
 for their principal motive to action. With companies, works can be 
 executed only bit by bit; a serious inconvenience, for it destroys all 
 equilibrium, and suddenly withdraws the blood from some parts of 
 the national fabric, and pours it violently on others; the state is in a 
 sphere whence it takes in the whole sum of existing interests, and 
 can make provisions sufficiently general to avoid sacrificing one 
 locality to another, or too abruptly altering the current of commer- 
 cial relations. Companies do and can seek only to profit by the 
 present; it is the business of the state to provide for the interests of 
 the future. In a word, companies stipulate only for themselves; the 
 state stipulates for society. 
 
 The considerations urged by the democrats against the system of 
 joint stock companies were still more decisive in a POLITICAL POINT 
 OF VIEW. What ! was it seriously proposed to commit the whole 
 domain of industry to private persons, speculators, or moneyed men ! 
 Was any one blind to the mischief that would be sustained by the 
 public, at the hands of associations rendered every day more power- 
 ful, by their wealth, credit, connexions, and by the position of their 
 members, who would be found in every important post ; in the offices 
 of the ministry, and in the council of state, and in the Chambers, and 
 in the courts of justice, and at the royal court, and in the press ! Could 
 any one be indifferent to the formidable net that would be cast round 
 the country by that multiple, shifting, elusive, omnipresent tyranny, 
 that real imperium in imperio! In Belgium, the execution of the 
 railways by the government had been regarded as the best means of 
 consolidating the revolution of September, and defending the Bel- 
 gian nationality against the house of Orange ; and the notion was a
 
 ARAGO ON RAILWAYS. 567 
 
 right one. It was then a new feudality it was intended to organise ! 
 Let the country beware ! This time the yoke would not be of iron 
 but of gold, and a second night of the 4th of August would not 
 be enough to break it. But it might be objected, might not the 
 companies be divested of their rights in case of danger? Possibly; 
 but the measure would be attended with a frightful convulsion. 
 And if the companies should happen to be composed of anti-national 
 persons, what an opening would there be for treason in any critical 
 state of things ! Railways in the hands of those whom the revolu- 
 tion of '89 pulled down, would probably have rendered that revolu- 
 tion impossible. 
 
 Such were the arguments with which the democratic party advocated 
 the cause of the state. Unfortunately, if it deemed it necessary to 
 vindicate the principle, it could not with equal ardour desire its im- 
 mediate application. Looking, with well-founded distrust, upon 
 the existing administration ; knowing it to be beset by thousands of 
 importunate parasites, and to be less powerful for good than for 
 evil, it feared to intrust it with means of action so extensive 
 and formidable. It reflected, with dread, on the millions swallowed 
 up in the construction of canals, and on the just censures which had 
 been called forth by the concession of the railway from Paris to St. 
 Germain, and of the two parallel lines from Paris to Versailles. In 
 the existing state of things, was it not better to delay the execution 
 of the great lines? So thought M. Frangois Arago, and this opi- 
 nion he strongly supported in his " Report on Railways," a luminous 
 production, drawn up with singular elegance, and with all the 
 scientific acumen to be expected of its distinguished author. 
 
 " Experience has shown," said Arago, " that a horse of ordinary 
 strength, moving at a walking pace for nine or ten hours daily, so 
 as always to be kept in the same working condition, can not carry 
 on his back more than a hundred kilogrammes. The same horse, 
 in harness, can, without greater fatigue, draw over the same length 
 of ground: 
 
 Kilogrammes. 
 
 " On an ordinary weli-paved road . . 1000 
 " On a railroad . . . . 10,000 
 " On a canal 60,000 
 
 " You see, therefore, gentlemen, the unknown author of the sub- 
 stitution of draught for carriage on horseback was a benefactor of 
 mankind, for his invention reduced the cost of transport to one- 
 tenth of its original amount. 
 
 " An amelioration fully as important has resulted, as regards 
 carriage transport, from substituting for ordinary road surfaces well 
 shaped iron bands on which the wheels turn. These bands, by di- 
 minishing the resistance, decuple in a manner the horse's strength, 
 at least that part of it that gives an useful result. The weight of 
 a loaded waggon which a horse can draw on an iron railway is a 
 hundred-fold greater than what he could carry on his back.
 
 568 ARAGO ON RAILWAYS. 
 
 " These are very admirable results; but let us not forget that canals 
 offer others still more admirable ; for on a sheet of stagnant water a 
 beast of burden can draw a weight ten times greater than on a rail- 
 way. Nor should it be forgotten, that if transport on the back of a 
 horse is not economical, on the other hand it is almost everywhere 
 effected on the rudest paths, and up and down steep declivities; 
 whilst an ordinary carnage-road requires certain engineering con- 
 ditions, and costs, even with a simple stone surface, 70,000 francs 
 per league for its first construction, and 2000 francs annually for 
 maintenance and repair; whilst the same expenses for a canal 
 amount respectively to 500,000 francs and 5000 francs; and on 
 some lines the construction of one league of railroad has cost as 
 much as 3,000,000. 
 
 " Railroads considered as a means of attenuating the resistances of 
 all kinds to be overcome by wheeled vehicles on ordinary roads, 
 would at this day be evidently inferior to canals, if nothing but 
 horse power could be employed upon them. The employment of 
 the first locomotive steam-engines left matters in the same condition. 
 But all at once, in the year 1829, there started up locomotive en- 
 gines of a totally new description on the Liverpool and Manchester 
 railway. Until then, no possibility of progression had been looked 
 for except by means of cogged wheels playing into indentations on 
 the railway bars, or of systems of articulations, a pretty accurate idea 
 of which may be conveyed by comparing them to the sloping legs 
 of a man who drags a weight along as he walks backwards. 
 
 " The improved locomotives were freed from this inconvenient, 
 fragile, and costly apparatus. Stephenson, the engineer, discarded 
 also the artificial means of adhesion by cog-wheels, Sec., employed 
 by his predecessors. The natural adhesion produced by the fortui- 
 tous and ceaselessly renewed penetration of the imperceptible aspe- 
 rities on the tire of the wheel into the cavities in the metal of the 
 rail, and vice versa, answered every purpose. This great simplifi- 
 cation made it possible to attain to unexpected velocities, to velo- 
 cities three or four times greater than those of the swiftest horse. 
 From that epoch dates a new era in the history of railroads. At 
 first they served only for the transport of goods: now every day, 
 and every new experiment, bring us nearer to the perhaps not dis- 
 tant day when they will be travelled over only by human beings. 
 Formerly the rails were every thing, now they hold but a secondary 
 place in the system. Henceforth railroads ought to be called only 
 locomotive or steam roads. 
 
 " When one has read in the newspapers, especially those of Eng- 
 land and America, the description of the astonishing velocities that 
 have been already realised by steam locomotives, one is really ex- 
 \ cusable for believing that no important improvements are to be 
 \ looked for, but that the art has been carried almost to perfection. 
 1 " This opinion, natural as it may appear, is nevertheless erroneous. 
 \ The art of railroads is still in its infancy."
 
 ARAGO ON RAILWAYS. 569 
 
 From these premises M. Arago concluded, that the simultaneous 
 execution of several great lines, as proposed by the government, 
 should by no means be undertaken; and he recommended that the 
 projected lines should only be laid down one after the other, in 
 order to allow opportunities for profiting -by the successive disco- 
 veries that should be made in the science. Unfortunately, the illus- 
 trious reporter did not stop there; and it was in the name of the 
 executing companies he protested against the proposed law. Not 
 wishing to enter into too violent collision with the companies, 
 whose power he feared, M. Martin (du Nord) had, in his speech in 
 support of the law, rashly conceded to them the execution of the 
 secondary or branch lines. M. Arago proved that this compromise 
 was absurd ; that if the state committed such a folly, it would never 
 be able to lower the rate of charges on one line, without damaging 
 the traffic of every other neighbouring line on which the same re- 
 duction of charge should not have been effected; and that the go- 
 vernment would thus be placed in the dilemma of being obliged to 
 forego its own rights of toll, or of ruining certain companies which 
 should not be in a condition to modify their rates of charges. All 
 this was evident; but the only conclusion to be drawn from it was, 
 that the state ought to have taken the execution of all lines into its 
 own hands. Such was not the conclusion at which M. Arago ar- 
 rived. Convinced that the ministers were incapable of justifying 
 the boldness of their pretensions; that the execution by the state 
 presented inconveniences and dangers, rendered more obvious and 
 important by the bad organisation of the executive in France ; per- 
 suaded, besides, that the resources of the budget were insufficient for 
 so gigantic an enterprise, he pronounced at the end of his report 
 these words, the influence of which was decisive : " The committee 
 is of opinion that^an immediate recourse should be had to the com- 
 panies, and finds itself compelled to recommend to you the rejection 
 of the proposed law." 
 
 Those of the democratic party who were favourable on general 
 principles to the system of execution by the state, regretted that 
 M. Arago^had not, at least, reserved the principle whilst repudiating 
 its_ immediate application: this regret was the more natural as the . 
 opinion of the celebrated savant was of immense weight in deter- 
 mining the balance of public opinion. This was strongly demon- 
 strated in the discussions that ensued. Stunned by the blow dealt 
 it by so mighty a hand, the ministry lost countenance. M. Martin 
 (du Nord) defended his bill with a feebleness that indicated his de- 
 spair of its success; whereas the companies had, in Berryer and 
 Duvergier de Hauranne, advocates full of energy and perfectly de- 
 cided. M. Jaubert alone stood manfully by the'good cause in this 
 important contest. But the menacing and intractable dictatorship 
 of the bankers prevailed, and the principle of execution by the state 
 was vanquished and abandoned. 
 
 Thus broke forth the first usurpations of that moneyed oligarchy
 
 570 HUBERT'S AFFAIR. 
 
 to which the reign of the middle class in France was destined sooner 
 or later to give place ; and the bourgeoisie applauded as one man ; 
 so great was its want of foresight, so profound its blindness ! 
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 
 LATE in the year preceding that with the events of which we 
 are now dealing, on the 8th of December, 1837, about ten at night, 
 an inspector of the customs, named Pauchet, was on duty on the 
 quay of Boulogne, when a packet-boat from London landed her 
 passengers. A man, running from the jette, passed before Pauchet, 
 and let fall his pocket-book ; the latter picked it up, and called after 
 the stranger, but he was gone. The pocket-book was not reckimed, 
 and after a little while it was nearly forgotten, when a letter was found 
 in it which seemed to indicate a plot formed against the government. 
 The portfolio was then closely examined ; it contained, among other 
 things, a leaf of paper written over in German characters, a tablet 
 covered with a long series of figures, which were not expressive of 
 any arithmetical calculation, and a letter in which were these words : 
 " The whole materiel is concentrated in Paris. I bring the plan 
 required." Two hours afterwards, the owner, whose supposed 
 name was Stiegler, and his real one Hubert, was arrested in a fur- 
 nished lodging-house. He was conveyed to prison, and afterwards, 
 just as they were setting out with him for Paris, the gendarmes found 
 a coloured plan of a machine in the lining of his hat. The inquiry, 
 which was actively followed up, gave the magistrates reason to 
 surmise that this machine was the intended instrument of an 
 attempt on the king's life, and that its projector was a Swiss me- 
 chanician, named Steuble. The police immediately began a very 
 eager search, and numerous arrests were made. 
 
 Such were the leading facts on which the following persons 
 were brought to trial before the court of assizes of the Seine, in 
 May, 1838: Mademoiselle Laure Grouvelle, MM. Louis Hubert, 
 Jacob Steuble, Jules Arnoud, Martin Leproux, Vicent Giraud, 
 de Vauquelin, Leon Didier, Vallantin, and Annat; assisted by 
 MM. Emmanuel Arago, Jules Favre, Billiard, ex-prefect, He- 
 mersdinger, Teste, Lellond, Ferdinand Barrot, Colmet d'Aage fils, 
 and Charles Ledru. 
 
 The trial occupied several sittings, and gave rise to the most 
 stormy scenes. The deportment of the prisoners was proud and 
 spirited, and they were in general dressed with care. They all 
 flatly denied the criminal designs imputed to them, some with cool 
 collectedness, others with angry vehemence. But on the same bench 
 with them was seated Vallantin, a wretch who had basely insinuated 
 himself into their confidence, and had become their denouncer. It
 
 TRIAL. 571 
 
 was on the depositions of this man, who had been convicted of 
 forgery, and arbitrarily spared the disgrace of exposure on the pillory, 
 that the prosecution was based. It was remarked, too, that most of the 
 witnesses for the crown were persons of bad repute, known to have 
 been guilty of flagitious acts. The incidents of the trial were ani- 
 mated, and calculated to excite deep interest among the public. 
 Louis Hubert gave proof of deliberate and strong convictions. 
 Steuble, who spoke and understood only German, displayed before 
 the tribunal a vigour of intellect that had not been observed in him 
 during the preliminary investigations. As for Laure Grouvelle, 
 she combined unbounded devotedness with an extraordinary degree 
 of political exaltation of mind ; she had the head of a daring repub- 
 lican, and the heart of a sister of charity. She decked the grave of 
 Alibaud with funeral ornaments, and during the cholera, she attached 
 herself to a hospital, nursing the sick, comforting them in their agony, 
 and living in the midst of deadly contagion. With a capital accu- 
 sation now resting on her head, she remained calm and unmoved, and 
 confessed her political faith with unaffected assurance. 
 
 In the kst pitting, the proceedings on either side having closed, 
 and the president having asked her had she any addition to make 
 to her^ defence, she rose, and said, " If I address you, gentle- 
 men of the jury, it is that I may publicly testify my gratitude to him 
 who has come with so much courage" (here she pointed to Hubert) 
 " to learn what has been my life, what are my most profound sen- 
 timents. My heart is full of admiration and affection for him. Re- 
 member, that entangled in a fatal net, I shall owe to him, as well as 
 to your conscientious verdict, liberty, and more than liberty, my 
 mother's life !" Overcome for a moment by her feelings, she paused ; 
 then pointing to M. Billiard, she continued: "One word of grateful 
 acknowledgment to the worthy friend who has not quitted me since 
 the day of my arrest, and whom you see by my side during this last 
 trial." Then turning to Vallantin, who with pale face and down- 
 cast eyes seemed overwhelmed with remorse, she said : " Let me also 
 offer some consolation to a conscience, which, as I will believe for the 
 honour of mankind, is not at rest, and has need of being consoled. 
 Vallantin ! Hubert, de Vauquelin, and myself pardon your infamous 
 inventions. If ever you are unhappy, sick, forsaken by all, remem- 
 ber that I am alive." The sensation produced by these words had 
 not yet subsided when the jury delivered their verdict. The 
 traversers had retired as usual ; Leproux, Vauquelin, and Vallantin, 
 were brought back to hear the verdict that restored them to liberty. 
 This was tellingthem, at the same time, that Laure Grouvelle had been 
 found guilty ; intense grief was depicted on their countenances, and they 
 quitted the court in consternation. The other traversers having been 
 brought in, Hubert heard, with great composure, the reading of the 
 verdict which declared him guilty of a conspiracy to change or 
 destroy the form of the government ; but when he heard the name 
 of Laure Grouvelle, he uttered a terrible cry, and a weapon he had
 
 572 CORONATION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 kept concealed glittered in his hand. The gendarmes immediately 
 threw themselves upon him to prevent his committing suicide, and 
 in an instant all was uproar ; women shrieking, and men scrambling 
 over benches, tables, and balustrades. Never was such a scene beheld 
 in a court of justice. Hubert, struggling like a maniac, poured out 
 a flood of imprecations, and shouted : "The woman is innocent ! 
 Wretches ! You have condemned virtue itself ! A French jury ! 
 oh ! infamy !" At last he was dragged away, and it was not without 
 difficulty that the reading of the verdict was brought to an end. 
 Laure Grouvelle, Steuble, Annat, and Vincent Giraud, were declared 
 guilty of conspiracy against the existence, not of the king but of the 
 government, and Giraud was condemned to three years' imprisonment, 
 the others to five. Hubert, convicted of conspiracy, " followed by 
 acts intended to prepare for its being carried into effect," was sen- 
 tenced to transportation. 
 
 As for the means employed with Vallantin to procure a confes- 
 sion and information from him, is it true that a sum of eight thousand 
 francs was promised him ? He has affirmed this in a letter under his 
 hand, which is now before us. 
 
 Be this as it may, at the moment we write, Hubert is dying ; 
 Steuble is dead, having cut his throat with a razor in his cell; Ma- 
 demoiselle Grouvelle is mad ; Vincent Giraud is free, but he came out 
 of prison a gray -headed man. 
 
 About a month after the affair of the Hubert trial, which showed 
 in a fearful manner how detested was monarchy in France, the co- 
 ronation of Queen Victoria afforded a field for the demonstrations of 
 English loyalty. 
 
 The cabinet of the Tuileries thought fit to select Marshal Soult as 
 ambassador extraordinary to London : a suitable choice if we may 
 judge from the event. 
 
 And yet the marshal's arrival in England was at first met with 
 attacks not only inhospitable but unjust. The Quarterly Review 
 gave the signal, and the journals of the British aristocracy were not 
 ashamed to repeat the cry of mean rancour and undying jealousy. 
 An attempt was made to rob the old soldier of his incontestable glory, 
 the victory of Toulouse; and it was related with coarse pride how 
 the repast prepared for him at Waterloo was eaten by the Duke of 
 Wellington. But the reaction came, prompt, striking, and tinc- 
 tured with enthusiasm : it began with a modest and dignified letter, 
 in which Colonel Napier recalled the minds of his countrymen to a 
 sense of respect for imperial France and for equity. 
 
 On the morning of the 28th of June, 1838, the solemnity of the 
 coronation was announced in London by a salute of twenty-one 
 guns. Heavy clouds were in the sky, and the weather looked un- 
 promising, and yet a countless multitude already thronged White- 
 hall, Parliament-street, Abingdon-street, and all the streets adjacent 
 to Westminster Abbey. As far as ever the eye could reach nothing was 
 to be seen but scaffoldings filled with men and women, portable
 
 CORONATION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 573 
 
 raised benches, living galleries, flags, sumptuous hangings, crowns, 
 festoons, garlands of flowers, velvet seats, stars, gigantic V. R., and 
 other preparations for illuminations. The aristocracy of Europe was 
 present in London in the persons of its most celebrated representa- 
 tives: the Prince de Ligne, Count Strogonoff, marshals de Brignolle 
 and Miraflores, and Baron Van der Capellen ; no one stayed away, not 
 even Prince Schwartzemberg, who boldly encountered the risk of re- 
 viving the scarcely extinct scandal of the adventures whereof fame 
 had made him the hero. At ten o'clock, whilst the bells of St. 
 Margaret's alternated with those of Westminster Abbey, a prodi- 
 gious, indescribable movement of the throng took place in one of the 
 largest cities of the world. The multitude was not like that of Paris, 
 so quick to receive impressions, so communicative, so charged with 
 electric fluid, witty in its enthusiasm, captious and satirical even in its 
 ecstasies of delight, and which when it pours into the streets and fills 
 them, is but one impassioned man endowed with wit and shrewd- 
 ness. The English who flocked together by myriads to see their 
 queen pass, formed a compact dense mass; but one in which each 
 individual preserved his own distinctive physiognomy and person- 
 ality. No intellectual interchange, no fusion together of souls: the en- 
 thusiasm of all those human beings pressing thick together without 
 confusion, had in it something mighty, but of icy coldness; a sullen 
 gravity was discernible even in the transports of their joy; a com- 
 mon respect for the monarchical tradition was the only bond between 
 them, and their emotion was of the head not of the heart. Where the 
 French would have gone to see a woman pass, the English went to 
 see the passage of a symbol. 
 
 A buzz arose from the huge multitude as the equipages appeared 
 and rolled past. They were all magnificent with one exception, 
 that of the ambassador of the United States, of a free people. But at 
 the sight of a certain carriage with silver mouldings, a blue body in 
 the shape of a gondola, and adorned with skilfully chased ducal 
 crowns, surmounted with lamps, the air was rent with a tremendous 
 explosion of hurrahs ! This carriage, the most brilliant of those 
 whereof the insolence of the great lords in the procession could 
 boast, was that of a soldier of fortune, Marshal Soult. What was it 
 the English applauded in him? Was it the alliance of the govern- 
 ment of the Tuileries, or the envoy of a king who was to be the 
 beloved of the English, or the recollection of a great man laid low? 
 Napoleon had, by his fall at Waterloo, emancipated the admiration 
 of the English from all fear, and by his death in St. Helena he 
 had imposed on it the obligation to be just. 
 
 The welcome given to Marshal Soult constituted the serious part 
 of the coronation of Victoria, the rest of the ceremony having been 
 marked only with a parade of insulting sumptuosity, and proceed- 
 ings which will no doubt occupy a large space in the records of 
 human folly. About noon the queen alighted at the doors of the 
 ibbey, where were already assembled those who were to witness
 
 574 CORONATION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 her coronation; judges bending under the weight of their enormous 
 wigs, kings at arms covered with long frocks of cloth of gold, lords 
 temporal and spiritual, peers and peeresses, members of the House 
 of Commons and O'Connell in a court suit ! The queen retired to 
 change her dress, and soon reappeared in a robe of scarlet velvet 
 trimmed with ermine, and with a circlet of gold on her head. At 
 the same time there advanced towards the altars, placed a few paces 
 from the throne, the lords high constables of England, Ireland, and 
 Scotland, and Viscount Melbourne, armed cap-a-pied. " Sirs," said the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, " I here present to you Victoria, un- 
 doubted queen of this realm, whereof all you that are come this 
 day to do your homages and service, are you willing to do the same?" 
 This formula having been repeated four times in as many different 
 directions, all present responded "God save the Queen!" This 
 being done, the queen, at the prelate's request, bestowed a gold 
 cloth on the altar, and then an ingot of gold; for princes are 
 accepted by the priests only on condition of conforming to the 
 maxim, "Go not empty handed into the house of the Lord." Then 
 came the prayers, a sermon by the Bishop of London, and lastly 
 the oath, the formulary of which contains this significant inter- 
 rogation: "Will you preserve unto the bishops and clergy of this 
 realm, and to the churches committed to their charge, all such 
 rights and privileges as by kw do or shall appertain to them or any 
 of them?" Not one word about the rights of the poor. The 
 oath being sworn, four knights of the garter held a canopy of cloth 
 of gold over the queen's head ; and the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 after anointing the queen's head and hands, gravely addressed to 
 her certain mystic words. Then the queen laid a pair of spurs 
 on the altar, and received in exchange, from the archbishop's 
 hands, a handsome sword, which Lord Melbourne had carried on en- 
 tering the abbey, and which he had to redeem by the payment of a 
 
 hundred shillings. Then But why continue the narrative of 
 
 these monarchical buffooneries? And yet these are the means by 
 which reverence for privileged races, and an impious adoration of 
 crowns, are kept up in the- minds of nations ! During the cere- 
 mony of paying homage, the Earl of Surrey, as the queen's trea- 
 surer, scattered about the nave medals struck to commemorate the 
 coronation, and instantly the most illustrious personages began to 
 scramble, and almost to box for them; shameful and systematic 
 emulation "of flattery ! 
 
 That day Mr. Green entertained the people with the spec- 
 tacle of an ascent in a balloon. In the evening the theatres of 
 Covent Garden and Drury Lane liberally threw open their doors to 
 the public. Hyde Park was like an immense village of canvass, 
 whither the populace flocked to stare at shows, and jugglers, and 
 mountebanks, and to get drunk round the statue of Achilles, dedi- 
 cated to the Duke of Wellington. At night, London was splen- 
 didly illuminated; and the next day, after all this, by the gas-lights
 
 REMARKS OF THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH NEWSPAPERS. 575 
 
 of the gin-palaces, were to be seen, as usual, hovering about them, 
 with naked feet and but half covered with miserable rags, livid, 
 dim-eyed phantoms, the damned of this world, a race whicl? opulent 
 England alone has the deplorable privilege of perpetuating; the 
 next day, after all this, in the districts where poverty more espe- 
 cially makes its abode, grovelling, hideously pent up, outlawed, in 
 the filthy by-lanes and alleys, at the entrance to which the police 
 themselves stop short, in horror, and disgust, and fear, in White- 
 chapel, in St. Giles's, in Shoreditch, in St. Olave's, thousands of 
 families, as usual, buried alive in the damp, rotting, confined rooms 
 of ruinous houses, wallowing, as it were, on dung-heaps, tremblino-ly 
 awaited the fever which they knew must befall them, were it not 
 anticipated by the grim hand of famine, whose approach, so lono- 
 felt, was regarded with dull despair. 
 
 In the diplomatic circles, meantime, the conversation ran upon 
 her majesty's splendid robes, her necklaces, her lace, her new 
 crown, valued at 2,800,000f. (112,000); the fairy-like illumina- 
 tions at M. de Strogonoff's mansion; and, above all, upon Prince 
 Esterhazy's coat, that phenomenon of a coat, each button of which 
 was a diamond, each seam a row of fine pearls. Another topic was, 
 the nocturnal debaucheries of a young nobleman, and how much 
 they cost, and how he had been picked up drunk, after sharing in 
 the diversions of the lowest populace, and had been carried home in 
 a hackney-coach, which in its furious course ran over a man. 
 
 As to the English press, with the exception of the Sunday 
 papers, especially destined for the people, its loyalism burst forth in 
 extravagances, never approached by the superstitions of fetichism. 
 In order that posterity might lose not a feature of the memorable 
 day which had seen a crown placed upon the head of a child, the 
 English journals were issued in the form of volumes. The Sun 
 was printed in letters of gold, and contained a colossal medallion of 
 the young queen. 
 
 On their part, the court journals at Paris dwelt emphatically upon 
 splendours, which they probably regarded as calculated to dazzle 
 the French public. Servilely affecting an absolute stupor of ad- 
 miration, they set forth in glowing detail how many yeomen walked 
 in the procession around the state carriage, the exact composition of 
 the cortege, as it entered Westminster Abbey; how many high dames 
 followed Her Majesty Victoria, bearing her train, and they enu- 
 merated the sounding titles of the various personages to whom had 
 fallen the inestimable honour of bearing the spurs, or the sword of 
 mercy, or the chalice, or the patine; as if such a tale as that would 
 suffice to revive, in a country like ours, the worship of the old idols ! 
 
 The government could not, of course, labour under any illusion 
 on this point; but it none the less, nay, all the more, manifested the 
 utmost eagerness to render itself subservient to the dynastic inte- 
 rests. For having, in an account of the insurrection at Strasbourg, 
 corrected certain historical errors in preceding narratives of that
 
 576 LOUIS BONAPARTE FORCED FROM SWITZERLAND. 
 
 affair, repelled calumnies, done homage to the glories of the empire, 
 and spoken of Louis Bonaparte with affection, Lieutenant Laity 
 was summoned before the Court of Peers. What had become of 
 trial by jury? Michel (de Bourges) defended the prisoner with 
 rough, fervid eloquence; but all in vain. The daring young man 
 paid for his pamphlet 10,000f. and five years' imprisonment. But 
 this was a trifle, compared with what followed. Louis Bona- 
 parte himself, having left America and returned to Europe, to em- 
 brace, for the last time, his dying mother, was now living at 
 Arenenberg. Louis Philippe, disturbed at having such a neighbour, 
 summoned Switzerland to expel from her bosom the emperor's 
 nephew, a proscribed man. Hereupon were renewed the deplorable 
 scenes of 1836. Switzerland, utterly indignant, demanded to know 
 whether she constituted an independent state, or whether it was 
 true that she was only a French province ? The Grand Council of 
 Turgovia declared, that the Prince Louis Bonaparte was a Turgo- 
 vian citizen. Cries of sorrow and despair arose from the valleys 
 wherein Louis Philippe, then himself a proscribed man, once received 
 Swiss hospitality and protection. And as to the diet, divided 
 between the horror of a dishonourable submission, and the fear of 
 involving Switzerland in irreparable calamities by resistance, it hesi- 
 tated, and from day to day postponed its decision. 
 
 In the meantime, preparations were actively made for overwhelm- 
 ing the country, if that decision were contrary to the demand of 
 Louis Philippe. A corps of from 20,000 to 25,000 men was put in 
 motion along the French frontier; two French battalions entered 
 Gex; the artillery corps at Lyons received instructions to hold 
 themselves in readiness to inarch at an hour's notice; and General 
 Aymer published a menacing order of the day. 
 
 On the other hand, to deaden the force of the anticipated out- 
 break, on the part of freemen thus goaded by the threatened bayo- 
 net-point, what secret springs were not set to work, what under- 
 hand, indirect, but energetic machinations were not resorted to, 
 with the usual skill of the French government in such matters. 
 From Switzerland, and more especially from the cantons of Vaud and 
 Geneva, there had of recent years issued a certain number of families 
 who now occupied at Paris the position filled in the eighteenth 
 century by Necker and his set; most of them being well-known 
 banking-houses, such as the Delesserts, the Odiers, the Oppermann- 
 Maudrots, the Keutsches. The reception which several of these 
 Gallo- Helvetians had experienced at the Tuileries, and the many 
 facilities afforded them, in various ways, had naturally bound them 
 to the French government by a thousand ties of gratitude or inter- 
 est. These gentlemen, accordingly, now despatched to their friends 
 and relations in Switzerland, letters, messages, and documents one 
 upon another, all inculcating prompt submission. The Advocate 
 Maudrot of Lausanne combated the principle of resistance, of 
 which the Nouvelliste Vaudois was the organ, in a series of articles,
 
 BIRTH OF THE COMTE DE PARIS. 577 
 
 which were disseminated purposely throughout the country. Every 
 day, every hour, there arrived from Paris, packets of advice, of 
 warning, of entreaty, of private information tending to submission: 
 M. Mole had made such or such a declaration ; M. Benjamin Deles- 
 sert had said so and so. Nay, Louis Philippe himself condescended 
 personally to advise the Swiss, as a true friend of theirs, to yield while 
 there was yet time for them to do so voluntarily. To these entrea- 
 ties and remonstrances and caballings, was added the interposition 
 of the representatives of Lyons commerce, of Genevese origin. 
 But Switzerland had already given way once, and felt that again 
 to succumb without a struggle, would nearly compromise her 
 independence. 
 
 This complication of circumstances would perhaps have brought 
 about a disastrous result, had not Louis Bonaparte, for the sake 
 of maintaining peace, determined voluntarily to quit Areuenberg. 
 On the 20th of September he departed for London; on the 24th of 
 August, the Duchesse d'Orleans had given birth to a male child: 
 here were two subjects of exceeding joy for the court of the 
 Tuilenes. Dynasties are so ready to think themselves immortal ! 
 
 The prosperity of the house of Orleans, indeed, had, ever since 
 1830, been constantly advancing. But as much could not be said 
 of France; and whilst the court was full of rejoicings at the birth 
 of the Comte de Paris, the nation was on the eve of seeing the 
 accomplishment of an event which was to fill it with sorrow. 
 
 Our readers will bear in mind what was the effect upon Europe 
 of the occupation of Ancona, and with what enthusiasm Italy had 
 hailed in the tri-coloured flag, a promise of enfranchisement, a 
 pledge of liberty. But, submissive to a policy hostile to the nations, 
 the I rench of Ancona were soon compelled to become the auxilia- 
 ries of that pontifical despotism which they had regarded it as their 
 assigned task to limit and restrain. The hopes of the Italian patriots 
 were gradually extinguished; liberty disappeared, even from their 
 dreams; their enthusiasm gave way to a dull, despairing stupor. 
 Yet still the presence of the French uniform at Anconahad not 
 entirely ceased to be dear to Italy; for even under the very modi- 
 fied circumstances, its presence there was a check, an affront to 
 Austria. And there lingered a hope, after all, that perhaps some 
 new phases of events might at any moment bring about the triumph 
 at Paris of a more high-souled policy. 
 
 As to France, putting aside all party interests, that State had 
 reasons, diplomatic and military, of the very highest importance, 
 for keeping Ancona. It was the key to the occupation of Upper 
 Italy; it covered Naples with reference to Vienna; it secured for 
 us considerable influence in Dalmatia and Illyria; in case of war 
 with the Austrians, it would have been most valuable to us, both as 
 a fortified town and as a port; at a former period, defended by 
 General Monnier, at the head of 2000 men, of whom 1800 were 
 wounded, it held in check, for twelve days, 42,000 men; and to 
 VOL. II. 2 P
 
 578 EVACUATION OF ANCONA. 
 
 put it into a state to maintain an obstinate siege, neither much 
 labour nor much money was needed; its occupation by France had 
 always been deemed so important to us, that it had been claimed 
 expressly and emphatically in the negotiation of the treaties of 
 Campo-Formio and Luneville. Finally, it lessened by 600 
 leagues the distance between our squadrons and the Dardanelles, at 
 a moment when each of the great powers had to watch closely and 
 constantly the tottering empire of the Osmanlis. To abandon An- 
 cona, therefore, was necessarily a measure in the highest degree 
 objectionable. And M. Thiers thoroughly felt this, when in a de- 
 spatch of the 14th of March, 1836, to our ambassador at Rome, 
 he thus wrote : 
 
 " I recommend your lordship by no means to take the initiative at 
 Rome, as to this question of the evacuation of Ancona; but so far 
 from raising the topic, to avoid every thing at all bearing upon or 
 tending to it. Should you find yourself absolutely compelled to 
 express an opinion on the matter, it should be that the fact of the 
 Austrians withdrawing would not necessarily involve the withdrawal 
 of our troops." 
 
 But were these recommendations of M. Thiers conformable to the 
 engagements entered into? Yes, doubtless; and to be convinced of 
 this, it is only necessary to look back to the origin of the affair. 
 
 We have related how, in a memorandum of 1831, the principal 
 powers had concerted together to obtain from the Holy See certain 
 reforms demanded by Romagna. In this proceeding it was Casimir 
 Perier who took the initiative. Not that Casimir Perier troubled 
 his head much about the freedom of the pope's subjects; but it had 
 not escaped his reflection, that it was necessary to pay attention to 
 their complaints, in order to stifle the germs of an insurrection, 
 which, in bringing the Austrians to the Po, might have given a 
 shock to Europe, unless, indeed, she had chosen to lend herself with 
 a good grace to an excessive aggrandisement of the Austrian power 
 in Italy. The calculation was a sound one, as the event proved: 
 the pope having granted his subjects only a portion of the reforms 
 demanded by the great courts, the Legations rose, the Austrian troops 
 intervened, and to counterbalance the effect of their presence, France 
 found it advisable to occupy Ancona. So that the taking possession 
 of this town had for its first and positive cause, the non-execution of 
 the memorandum of 1831, the refusal to allay the discontents of Italy. 
 
 It is true, that in 1832, Casimir Pe'rier was a party to a conven- 
 tion, by which France undertook to withdraw her troops immedi- 
 ately after the evacuation of Italy by the Austrian troops. But did 
 this mean that the departure of the French was to follow that of the 
 Austrians necessarily, ipso facto, without preliminary negotiation, 
 without a previous understanding between the two governments, 
 without stipulated guarantees for the future? So to construe the 
 convention would have been to sacrifice the spirit to the letter, to 
 overthrow from the very foundations the policy of Casimir Perier,
 
 EVACUATION OF ANCONA. ,379 
 
 and to expose anew the pope to a revolt, Italy to an Austrian in- 
 tervention, Anconato a French occupation, Europe to a conflict 
 
 This was what MM. de Broglie and Thiers, M. Thiers especially 
 perfectly understood, and they merit praise for their discernment. 
 
 As to M. Mole, it was his error, as we are about to show, not to 
 be sufficiently distrustful of Italian diplomacy. The man who at 
 this epoch, most efficiently represented that diplomacy, was If 
 Capacim, a character singularly crafty and acute. He met M 
 > Mettermch at Florence, and it was there that these two di- 
 plomatists prepared that snare into which M. Mole was to fall. 
 Their great object was to prevent any negotiation between Paris 
 and Vienna, relative to the evacuation of Ancona. For they fore- 
 saw that, if such took place, the French government would not fail 
 3 raise difficulties, to require guarantees, if, indeed, it did not go 
 the length of saying: So long as the situation of Italy remains 
 what it was at the time of the memorandum of 1831, feelings of in- 
 vincible hatred will be constantly fermenting in Romacma, and 
 Austrian intervention will hover a daily menace over mourning 
 S/i. i j re( l uire us to evacuate Ancona? Remove the causes 
 wh] led us thither. Recall to mind the memorandum of 1831. 
 Appease Romagna, whose legitimate hopes are kept down, but not 
 extinguished." MM. de Metternich and Capacini were bent upon 
 preventing a declaration of the kind. M. Mole did not at aU per- 
 ceive this One day, accordingly, the representative of the court of 
 Kome at Fans, ran to announce to the French minister, as a satis- 
 factory piece of intelligence for the cabinet of the Tuileries, that 
 Austria had at length made up her mind to withdraw from the 
 js of the Church, seeming to regard it as a matter of course, that 
 .ereupon the French would immediately quit Ancona. M Mole 
 who was but imperfectly acquainted with the affair, entirely adopted 
 his consequence, and had no idea of the trick played him, until M 
 Desages told him what the policy of his predecessors had been, and 
 the position in which the question actually was. 
 
 The evacuation of Ancona took place on the 25th of October, 
 1838, and the sensation which it produced in France was all the 
 greater from the circumstance, that the public mind was at this period 
 excited by a league, ardent, audacious, formidable to the ministry, 
 formidable to the king. 
 
 The parliamentary victory obtained by M. Mole, on the discus- 
 sion of the secret service money, seemed to have prostrated for ever 
 the coalition, whose origin we narrated on a former occasion. And 
 indeed, the discouragement of the vanquished party was at 
 first extreme: M. Thiers had quitted Paris; and, as to M. Guizot, 
 his friends regarded him as altogether on the decline. Because a 
 recent solemn discussion had shown him to them feeble, destitute, for 
 the time, at once of skill and daring, seeking his way with a hesitat- 
 ing step, through the labyrinth of parties, embarrassing himself and 
 others with miserable repetitions, they took it into their heads that his 
 
 rt f* 
 
 2 r 2
 
 580 THE COALITION REVIVED. 
 
 energetic, his violent soul had exhausted all its vigour, that his 
 mind had sent forth its last flash. And they were so convinced of 
 this, that in the arrangement of future parts, which their ambition 
 prematurely distributed, they thought it extremely liberal in them 
 to reserve for their former chief some embassy or other. He himself 
 seemed filled with an uneasiness which his haughty nature had never 
 before yielded to; but retiring to Val- Richer, far from the tumult of 
 politics, he gradually appeared to resign himself to his admitted 
 defeat. 
 
 But there was a man, M. Duvergier de Hauranne, who concentrated 
 within himself, in vivid combination, the fierce resentments of all 
 the members of the temporarily dissolved coalition. It was his 
 breath which reanimated it; it was he who gave the signal for the 
 resumption of hostilities in an article in the Revue Fran$aise, 
 wherein he applied himself to prove that ministers were incompetent ; 
 that they degraded power and made it contemptible by a system of 
 corruption and see-saw; that they compromised representative go- 
 vernment by an outrageous assumption of contempt towards the 
 Chamber, and unbounded servility to the crown. Unaided, M. Du- 
 vergier de Hauranne would probably not have been able to carry 
 his undertaking to a successful issue; but with him, at his side, 
 pursuant to previous arrangement, there had descended into the 
 arena three men of talent, having the press at their direction: 
 M. Chambolle, chief editor of the Siecle; M. Leon Faucher, of the 
 Courrier Franqais; and M. Leonce de Lavergne, of the Journal 
 General de France. Thus the coalition had for its official organs 
 three daily papers, two of which belonged to the dynastic opposition, 
 and the third to the doctrinaire school. A new power making its 
 appearance in the political world, had forthwith, as is always the 
 case, its worshippers. Parties began to fall into new combinations, 
 polemics were let loose. The Constitutionnel joined the league 
 as a matter of course, and the radical papers, without joining it, 
 supported it, out of their hatred to the powers that were. Its 
 advocates sent forth, upon the absurd but much vaunted maxim : 
 the king reigns but does not govern, a thousand commentaries, 
 subtle and satirical, vehement and menacing, genuine or insincere. 
 With equal impetuosity the one party assailed majesty, the other 
 defended it. 
 
 As if to fill up the measure of agitation, the intolerance of a 
 section of the clergy suddenly supervened to aid in reanimating the 
 sleeping animosities of liberalism. At Rheims, a missionary preacher 
 having ventured in the pulpit to let fall some insulting expression 
 with reference to the captive of St. Helena, the house in which he 
 lodged was attacked with a fury as deplorable as the circumstance 
 which had provoked it. At the very same time 1 1th December, 1838, 
 at Clermont-Ferrand, an unheard of outrage aggravated the dying 
 moments of one of the most daring opponents of the Jesuits, the 
 Comte de Montlosier. In vain had M. de Montlosier expressed his
 
 THE JESUITS M. GISQUET; CASE OF LIBEL. 581 
 
 earnest desire to die in the arms of the Church : what the Bishop of 
 Clerrnont resolutely required of him was the disavowal of the prin- 
 ciples of his entire life, a public retractation, the condemnation of 
 his famous Memoire a Consulter; and because he had refused to the 
 last to believe the interests of religion inseparable from the mundane 
 course of the Jesuits, the gates of the Temple were closed against 
 his coffin. The spirit of the Restoration seemed Braising its head 
 once more; the town of Clermont was, accordingly, in universal com- 
 motion ; and with a pious unanimity of sorrow, astonishment, and 
 bitter indignation, the people followed to their final home the re- 
 mains of mortality, which the ministers of the God of Charity 
 abandoned. 
 
 This scandalous event was quickly followed by another of a dif- 
 ferent nature indeed, but not less calculated to produce a powerful 
 effect upon public opinion. For some time past, dark rumours cir- 
 culating in Paris, had mixed up with formidable accusations the 
 name of the former prefect of police, M. Gisquet. Men spoke of 
 the most condemnable acts committed by him in the exercise of his 
 public functions; the word extortion was heard; and certain details, 
 domestic secrets surreptitiously obtained, were spread abroad by 
 hate, which in repeating exaggerated from mouth to mouth the 
 faults revealed. The Messager, an evening paper, was the first to 
 speak out. In an article, which more than half lifted the mysterious 
 veil, M. Gisquet was charged with partiality in his office. Wounded 
 in the point dearest to men, he immediately determined upon vin- 
 dicating his honour in a court of law, and a process ensued educing 
 the most deplorable revelations. In the course of it, a letter was 
 publicly read wherein M. Gisquet himself gave a narrative of his 
 inmost passions, of the secret torments which afflicted his soul. A 
 great many witnesses were heard, from whose evidence it resulted, 
 not that M. Gisquet had been a onesided or ^extortionate magistrate, 
 but that he had availed himself of his position, to enrich by an ex- 
 ercise of patronage not very important in itself, but unconnected with 
 the public interest, and injurious to third parties, his relations, his 
 friends, his employes, a woman with whom he was in love, and 
 her mother. A private friend, M. Parquin, addressed the court for 
 the plaintiff. He was answered by M. Mauguin in a crushing speech. 
 The Attorney-General, M. Plougoulm, next arose, stern, inexorable. 
 He affirmed that M. Gisquet had utterly violated his duty in con- 
 sulting, in the distribution of his favours, his personal affections, 
 instead of the benefit of the community. He charged him with 
 having thrown open the office of the prefecture of police to the 
 pursuit of private gain, with having converted the public servants 
 in his jurisdiction into so many agents intent upon their own affairs, 
 forcibly contrasting with his conduct that of M. Rieublanc, who 
 had shown himself free from any such contagion. He pronounced 
 a thundering anathema upon the empire exercised over men by 
 illicit connexions, and dwelt with appalling effect upon the hideous
 
 582 OPENING OF THE SESSION OF 1839. 
 
 spectacle of a mother receiving the wages of a daughter's dishonour. 
 He fully recognised the valuable qualities of M. Gisquet; his cou- 
 rage, his energy, his high administrative ability; but pronounced 
 him destitute of the moral sense, and concluded by calling upon the 
 jury to acquit the Messager as far as concerned its attacks upon the 
 public functionary, admitting that, as to its attacks upon the indivi- 
 dual, it must necessarily be condemned, the law of libel herein placing 
 truth itself under interdict. The jury found precisely the other 
 way, declaring the Messager guilty of defamation of a public func- 
 tionary, and acquitting it of its attacks upon the individual ; and the 
 court inflicted upon M. Brindeau, publisher of the journal, the 
 minimum penalty of 100 francs. 
 
 Thus did a variety of causes concur to increase public excitement : 
 acts of electoral corruption openly denounced; royalty as openly 
 called,to account; the revival of religious fanaticism; a moral con- 
 demnation pronounced by a functionary of to-day upon a functionary 
 of yesterday. 
 
 Such were the auspices under which the session of 1839 opened. 
 On their return to Paris, MM. Thiers and Guizot found the coalition 
 restored and standing to its arms, and they resumed confidence. 
 In the Journal General, which he had made a regular battering- 
 ram of, M. Duvergier de Hauranne was daily exhorting and encou- 
 raging the timid, and harassingly assailing the indifferent. To the 
 names of MM. de Remusat, Piscatory, Etienne, Jaubert, Duchatel, 
 &c., the coalition would gladly have added that of M. Dupin- 
 aine ; but fearful of losing the presidency of the Chamber, he shut 
 himself up in obstinate reserve. M. Duvergier de Hauranne. in 
 the Journal General, summoned him to declare himself, menaced, 
 pursued him ; but all in vain. M. Dupin remained silent. 
 
 At length the moment arrived when the two armies drawn up in 
 front of each other, were about to try their strength. On the 17th 
 of December, 1838, was read the speech from the throne; a vague, 
 unmeaning harangue as usual, but which served to mark out the 
 field of battle. The coalition at first had the worst of it, M. Dupin 
 beating, by the aid of the ministry, M. Passy, the coalition candidate 
 for the presidency of the Chamber; but the chances soon turned. 
 Of the committee appointed to draw up the address, three only, 
 MM. Debelleyme, de la Pinsonniere, and de Jussieu, were for the 
 ministry; the rest all belonged to the coalition: they were MM. 
 Thiers, Guizot, Duvergier de Hauranne, Etienne, Mathieu de la 
 Redorte, Passy. 
 
 The better to secure their triumph, the six members of the coali- 
 tion agreed to decide among themselves, in a private conference, 
 upon all the questions to be set forth in the address, submitting 
 them afterwards, as a matter of form, to the three ministerial mem- 
 bers of the committee. This was the course adopted. M. Duver- 
 gier de Hauranne, as it were, held the pen, while M. Thiers and 
 M. Guizot dictated.
 
 THE ADDRESS. 583 
 
 And never since the address of the 221, had parliamentary docu- 
 ment been so aggressive as was that of which the two principal 
 ministers of the llth of October, now supplied the topics and the 
 terms. They began with expressing the hope that, under a govern- 
 ment tenacious of the national dignity, France would maintain its 
 due position in the estimation of the world; they regretted that the 
 evacuation of Ancona should have been effected without those 
 guarantees which a wise and foreseeing policy should have stipu- 
 lated for; they reminded the crown, with bitter emphasis, of the 
 past misfortunes of Poland, of the present misfortunes of Spain ; 
 the differences which had arisen between France and Switzerland 
 were severely remarked upon ; and the conversion of the rentes was 
 spoken of as among the measures demanded by public opinion. 
 A passage in the address ran thus: " A firm, skilful administration, 
 relying upon lofty, generous sentiments for its support, enforcing 
 respect for the tliroue abroad, and covering it with its responsibility 
 at home, such is the pledge of the co-operation we so earnestly 
 desire to offer you;" an intimation which seemed to convey a 
 menace. 
 
 MM. Debelleyme, de la Pinsonniere, and de Jussieu, were 
 unanimous in opposing an address in which they saw nothing but 
 an appeal to revolutionary passions ; but they had to contend with 
 an imperious majority, resolute, inflexible, determined to conquer, 
 eager for battle. As to M. Dupin, who, as president of the Cham- 
 ber, was an ex officio member of the commission, he observed a 
 strict neutrality so long as the chances remained doubtful; but when 
 the discussions had finally terminated, he drew from his pocket a 
 paper, the silent confidant of his determination on this as on other 
 occasions to wait till he saw how the wind was blowing, and 
 addressed his colleagues, who regarded him the while with a mix- 
 ture of astonishment and something like contempt, in these terms : 
 " Not wishing to have it imagined that I seek to wrap myself up 
 in sullen inviolability, I have set down in writing my opinion on the 
 address, which I will now read to you." And he accordingly read a 
 paper, wherein he declared, that in his judgment, a stronger admi- 
 nistration was necessary; 1st, to cover the crown against the attacks 
 of which it was the object ; 2ndly, to rally together a decided 
 majority in the Chamber, now divided into two equal halves, two 
 mere rival camps, each alike formidable to the other ; 3rdly, to 
 give a more decided impulse to public affairs, and raise the govern- 
 ment in the eyes of the country. It were a very difficult task to 
 depict the utter stupor of MM. Debelleyme, de Jussieu, and de la 
 Pinsonniere, on hearing this declaration. They could ill under- 
 stand how M. Dupin, elevated to the presidential chair by the 
 votes of the ministerial party, should with such facility range him- 
 self on the side of the coali tionists : but so it was; he had waited 
 to see which was the strongest party, and conceiving this point 
 determined, he at once joined the ranks of the victors.
 
 584 TRIAL OF STRENGTH ON THE ADDRESS 
 
 On the 4th of January, 1839, the Chamber was made acquainted 
 with the proposed address, and the various and strong feelings 
 which it excited may be readily imagined. One side of the house 
 was filled with joy, was loud in its commendations; the other all 
 indignation. What, then ! MM. Guizot and Thiers had the effron- 
 tery, as an opposition, to stretch out the hand of sympathy to 
 the very Poland which, as a government, they had utterly aban- 
 doned ! The throne, which heretofore they had covered with the 
 bloody aegis of the September laws, they now themselves delivered 
 up to the assaults of party fury ! It was remarked, further, that 
 while altogether pitiless as to the conduct of the Mole administra- 
 tion, the address was excessively reserved as to the future; whence 
 it was concluded that its framers, who anticipated a return to office, 
 were not desirous of fettering themselves by any engagement. 
 Again, it was asked : How is it that these men, so decided in the 
 expression of their sentiments respecting Polish nationality, which 
 has been destroyed, have nothing to say about Belgian nationality, 
 which at present is only in danger, beyond these words so cruelly 
 vague: "We await the result of the pending negotiations?" Was 
 not this reserve of theirs significant ? Was it not quite sufficient to 
 expose the grasping ambition which lurked beneath their parade of 
 high principle? 
 
 Both parties were in full preparation for the approaching struggle, 
 when news arrived, the anticipation of which had been a great 
 source of hope to the ministry: the tri-coloured flag floated on the 
 walls of St. Juan d'Ulloa. After having repeatedly, and in vain, 
 demanded satisfaction from the government of Mexico for certain 
 grievances justly complained of by the French merchants there, the 
 cabinet of the Tuileries had at length had recourse to force. The 
 President Bustamente, having rejected the ultimatum of France, 
 presented by the Baron Deffaudis, the ports of the Mexican Republic 
 were, as a first measure, placed in a state of blockade. As Mexico, 
 notwithstanding, persisted in her refusals, Vice-Admiral Baudin, a 
 gallant seaman, was despatched, with orders to settle the business 
 effectually; and, accordingly, on the 27th of November, 1838, 
 five vessels, under his orders, bombarded the Fort of St. Juan 
 d'Ulloa. In the space of four hours the five vessels had discharged 
 8000 cannon-balls, and 320 bomb-shells; the Iphigenie alone, from 
 her thirty guns, fired 3400 balls, or upwards of four shots each per 
 minute; the signal tower at St. Juan d'Ulloa became a mere ruin; 
 the Caballero, that stone giant, had fallen; nothing remained for 
 the enemy but to surrender. The Mexican general, Rincon, occu- 
 pied Vera Cruz; Vice-Admiral Baudin sent him word, by Lieute- 
 nant Doret, that if, on the morning of the 28th, the capitulation 
 was not signed, the French would receive the signal for assault. 
 The general waited till the very last moment, and then signed. 
 The fort was surrendered to the French; the garrison of Vera 
 Cruz was reduced i'rom 4000 men to 1000; and an indemnity
 
 BETWEEN THE COALITION AND THE MINISTRY. 585 
 
 guaranteed to the French residents who had been compelled to 
 
 leave the town. 
 
 It was a brilliant, a glorious affair, and the Prince de Joinville 
 
 had taken an active and distinguished part in it. But far from 
 giving ministers credit for it, the coalition reproached them with not 
 having earlier adopted the system of vigour; and setting forth, in 
 mournful array, the list of those who, in the blockading squadron, 
 had fallen victims to the vomito and the yellow fever, they charged 
 the cabinet with having delayed the triumph of the French arms, 
 for the purpose of so timing it, as to give them influence and eclat 
 in the discussion of the address. 
 
 _ It was on the 7th of January, 1839, that the struggle so impa- 
 tiently looked forward to commenced ; and never was there a more 
 animated one. Two men figured prominently in the front ranks, 
 MM. Thiers and Guizot: the one brilliant and ingenious, darino- 
 and indefatigable; the other, cool in his aggression, covering his 
 violence with an air of gravity, giving utterance to but a portion of 
 the fierce anger which were betrayed in his look, his gesture, his 
 haggard features, his malevolent lip. Who would have supposed 
 these two men were allies? Even in the ground- work of their 
 speeches, what a difference between them. For what M. Guizot, 
 according to his statement, could not pardon in ministers, was the 
 having cried down the old policy, weakened order, filled every thing 
 with anarchy, and, by their see-sawing from right to left, rendered 
 old friends distrustful, alliances uncertain. According to M. Thiers, 
 on the other hand, their fault was, in not having granted an amnesty 
 until after they had received a check; in not" having been able to 
 discern the precise period at which the cause of order became less 
 in need of defence than that of liberty, and in having thereby over- 
 shot the mark, after the fashion of the Revolution, which, seeking 
 to reform the country, had strewed it with ruins; of the Empire, 
 which, giving us at first victories, finished with bringing upon us 
 despotism and defeat; of the Restoration, which, intended as a mode 
 of reconciling monarchy and the new spirit of the times, had been 
 strangled in a coup d'etat What have you done with power? M. 
 Guizot exclaimed to the ministers. What have you done with 
 liberty? demanded M. Thiers. Contradictory attacks, which, of 
 themselves, formed a sufficient condemnation of the alliance. 
 
 M. Mole, in the Chamber of Peers, had kept his ground against 
 MM. Cousin, Villemain, de Broglie, de Montalembert; and in the 
 Chamber of Deputies he defended himself better than was expected. 
 Several of his retorts were very happy. M. Guizot having quoted, 
 in reference to courtiers, the phrase of Tacitus, omnia serviliter pro 
 dominatione, (" they do all sorts of servile things in order to become 
 masters"): " When Tacitus said that," rejoined M. Mole, " he did 
 not speak of courtiers, but of men of ambition." The other minis- 
 ters, MM. de Salvandy, de Montalivet, Barthe, Martin (du Nord), 
 did their best against the coalition, resolutely, and with some effect.
 
 586 DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS LAMARTINE. 
 
 But blow succeeded blow, the danger grew greater every hour, 
 and the enemies of ministers seemed to become more and more nu- 
 merous. There was first the clear, compact logic of M . Billault, 
 every sentence based upon facts. Then the diatribes of M. Duver- 
 gier de Hauranne against the employment of corrupt means, and his 
 bitter persiflage. " Your speech is nothing but a bad pamphlet," 
 exclaimed M. Mole, in extremity. But the orator proceeded un- 
 moved, more inexorable, more pressing than before. And now oc- 
 curred a curious and very unexpected incident. M. Odilon Barrot, 
 somewhat alarmed at th'e effervescence of his new friend, took it into 
 his head to assume the character of moderation, and, accordingly, 
 set gravely to work to appease the tempest, throwing the shield of 
 his protection partially over the ministry, too impetuously assailed 
 and calling upon both sides of the house to assail persons less, and to 
 attend to principles more. A very ineffectual recommendation! 
 Men's minds were in a state of ebullition: hate overflowed. 
 
 Hitherto M. de Lamartine had abstained from taking any part in 
 the discussion, but it was known into which scale he would throw 
 his weight; his determination had been formed. The ministerial 
 party, being deficient in orators, had taken care in the outset to con- 
 ciliate M. de Lamartine, and he, whether from contempt for 
 the veiled intrigues of the coalition, or from a desire to enter 
 the lists with its eloquent chiefs, or from a magnanimous re- 
 solve to give his aid to ministers, because they were weak, had 
 promised them his support. He now ascended the tribune, al- 
 most carried there, as it were, by the vehement enthusiasm of 
 the Centre, which placed all its hopes in him. Yet after all he 
 extended to ministers his patronage rather than his approbation. Let 
 a sound, a well-matured opposition present itself, he said, let it adopt 
 social progress for its motto, let it be animated by true principles, 
 let it be as sincere as sound in its plan of operations, he was ready 
 to join the ranks of such an opposition. But as to a league formed 
 under the influence of vulgar ambition, what was it to him? He did 
 not conceive, moreover, that parliamentary prerogative was in any 
 danger of perishing, as some people imagined. " What is it the 
 worst you have to apprehend from royalty?" he exclaimed. " A 
 coup d'etat, that is to say, a crime. You know whether such a crime 
 remains more than three days unpunished !" 
 
 The debates extended over several days, and with what fury of 
 attack, what obstinacy of defence ! Now, it was M. Guizot, who 
 taking the address, paragraph by paragraph, applied himself to prove, 
 in answer to M. Liaderes, that it was neither unconstitutional, nor 
 revolutionary, nor factious ; next M. Thiers entangled ministers in 
 the inextricable web of his subtle eloquence. M. Mauguin applied 
 himself to the Belgian question with remarkable perspicuity and 
 power. On the subject of the evacuation of Ancona, the despatch 
 of the 14th of March was triumphantly cited, in opposition to the 
 president of the council; who was fain to meet it by the sudden pro-
 
 GUIZOT'S RESISTANCE TO ROYAL PREROGATIVE. 587 
 
 duction of certain diplomatic documents, of which he skilfully exag- 
 gerated the importance to his case, and which he refused to commu- 
 nicate to his adversaries. 
 
 The struggle was approaching its close. The address had, indeed, 
 become modified by certain ministerial amendments ; but these had 
 been so strongly contested, had been carried with such extreme diffi- 
 culty, that the fall of the cabinet was no longer a matter of doubt to 
 any one. One other trial remained: the paragraph directed against 
 the encroachments of the crown had not yet been voted. The mem- 
 bers who composed the majority of the commission had a meeting on 
 the subject, at which M. Thiers proposed to modify the paragraph. 
 He urged upon his colleagues the monarchical susceptibilities of the 
 Chamber, the necessity of consulting those susceptibilities, the dan- 
 ger of compromising by an excess of temerity that success which was 
 otherwise certain. And his views were approved of by all but M. 
 Duvergier de Hauranne and M. Guizot. The latter more especially 
 was indignant at the idea of in any way weakening the attack. Hur- 
 ried to extremes by the excess of his resentment, carried to a pitch 
 of excitement which knew no moderation, even for the sake of suc- 
 cess, he vehemently controverted the opinion advanced by M. Thiers, 
 but unavailingly. He was on the point of despair, when, suddenly 
 M. Odilon Barrot's name occurred to him: " M. Odilon Barrot,'' he 
 said, " is our ally; to alter the arranged terms of the address, with- 
 out first consulting him, is altogether out of the question." The 
 observation was just; it was clearly proper to seek the opinion of the 
 leader of the Gauche; and M. Guizot congratulated himself upon 
 his lucky thought, for he held it as certain, that M. Barrot would 
 not venture to show himself more monarchical than he did. He was 
 mistaken. On the question being put to him, M. Barrot did not 
 hesitate to declare in favour of a less bitter, a less menacing form of 
 paragraph. An amendment was accordingly drawn up forthwith 
 and adopted, which M. Billault was to move the next day, and 
 which the commission was to accept. But in the evening, M. Odilon 
 Barrot having mentioned to his friends what had taken place, and 
 finding they disapproved of the course which had been agreed upon, 
 the amendment was abandoned, and the usurpations of the royal 
 prerogative were attacked as unceremoniously as M. Guizot de- 
 sired. 
 
 However, the apprehensions of M. Thiers were not destined to 
 be realised. On the final decision, 221 votes adopted the modified 
 address. The address drawn up by the commission^ was supported 
 by 208 members, and, among others, by the Marquis de Dalmatie, 
 son of Marshal Soult; by M. de Morney, the marshal's son-in-law, 
 and by the two brothers of Casimir Perier. The ministry _felt itself 
 lost. But still the king was there, encouraging his ministers, ex- 
 horting them to steady perseverance, calling upon them not to 
 abandon, by a too ready submission to the Chamber, the care of the 
 royal prerogative. It was determined to make one more effort.
 
 588 DISSOLUTION OF THE CHAMBER ELECTIONEERING 
 
 The electoral body might be seduced or intimidated; or, at least, it 
 was thought so, and the Chamber was dissolved. 
 
 The arena thus thrown open, the various parties rushed into it 
 pell-mell, breathless with excitement and passion. It was a scene of 
 utter disorder, of unexampled corruption, of measureless violence. 
 To crush its enemies and live, the ministry set the whole country 
 in commotion, every possible engine at work. From each corner of 
 France, prefects and sub-prefects were summoned to Paris, and 
 forthwith sent back to their posts, charged with electoral firmans. 
 The provinces were inundated with ministerial papers, distributed 
 with a prodigal hand, and paid for out of the secret service 
 money. Promises, menaces, were lavished in every direction. M. 
 Persil, president of thp mint board, had joined the coalition; his 
 deplorable services were forgotten ; and assailed as factious by the 
 Journal des Dtbats, as grasping by the Presse, he was dismissed 
 from his office in a manner as sudden as it was offensive. M. Bruley, 
 prefect of Tarn and Garonne, denounced at head-quarters as a func- 
 tionary of a somewhat too independent turn, was sent for to Paris, 
 and on his way passed his successor. In anticipation of the elections, 
 the seats were, so to speak, put up to auction. The various doubtful 
 districts, all at once, had granted them the assistance they had been 
 applying for at the hands of government, whether to repair a church, 
 or to finish a bridge, or to found a hospital, or to establish a public 
 library. Pamphlets, paid for by the police, issued from the press in 
 rapid succession; and, to adopt a contemporary expression, the mails 
 that each day quitted Paris, for all parts of France, groaned under 
 the weight of the frightful calumnies and falsehoods with which 
 they were laden. A formidable system of the most slanderous de- 
 signation assailed every person who had declared against ministers. 
 M. Guizot was traduced by men who had been his nearest friends. 
 The sympathy of M. Thiers for Queen Christina was made the sub- 
 ject of the most unworthy, the most mendacious remarks. For 
 instance, in one of the ministerial journals, there appeared the fol- 
 lowing paragraph: "At the late ball, given by Prince T , 
 
 every one remarked an elegant pearl necklace worn by Madame 
 Thiers, and valued at 50,000f. It was generally said this necklace 
 was presented to Madame Thiers by the Queen of Spain." 
 
 On its part, too, the coalition was no less active in agitating, stir- 
 ring up, inflaming the country. In opposition to the Jacqueminot 
 committee, which supported ministers, several coalition committees 
 were formed, corresponding to the various parties mixed together in 
 the coalition; namely, the Doctrinaire committee, composed of 
 MM. Guizot, Persil, Duchatel, Joseph Perier, de Rdmusat, Raguet- 
 Le'pine, Jaubert, Du vergier de Hauranne ; the Centre- Gauche com- 
 mittee; composed of MM. Thiers, Berger, Boudet, Caumartin, 
 Mathieu de la Redorte, Cochin, de Dalmatie, Ganneron, Gouin, 
 Muteau, Sapey ; the Gauche committee, consisting of MM. Barrot,
 
 KNAVERIES GUIZOT ON THE WAR QUESTION. 589 
 
 Chambolle, Clauzel, Tracy, Isambert; Guyet-Desfontaincs, Dcmar- 
 $ay; and, besides these, there was a Select committee, consisting of 
 the chiefs of the coalition, and destined to impress upon its proceed- 
 ings a unity of action. 
 
 Hither all the information collected on behalf of the party was 
 forwarded as soon as acquired; here took pkce^ between men once 
 rivals, once more or less hostile to each other, a singular interchange 
 of good words and good offices ; this was the focus of frivolous 
 desires,of jealous passions. How gloriously would their long cherished 
 hopes be crowned if they were successful ! How great their shame 
 and discomfiture if they failed ! But among them all, in activity, in 
 fiery zeal, in factious energy, in the wild excitement of combined 
 anger and ambition, none equalled M. Guizot. " Austere intriguant" 
 was a term applied to him by M. de Latouche, a writer of the 
 period, a man of sparkling wit, of inflexible probity; and the expres- 
 sion had been at once taken up by M. Guizot's enemies, and repeated 
 from mouth to mouth. A martyr, in fact, to his own swelling 
 pride, the slave of the most unruly passions of the soul, at one time, 
 addressing himself to those friends who still retained any office, M. 
 Vivien for instance, he called upon them to strike the public mind 
 by the eclat of a collective and haughty resignation of their posts; at 
 another time, he chid the scruples of M. Barrot, alarmed, at the 
 co-operation of legitimists; at another time, passion furrowing his 
 forehead, his eye glaring with hatred, he exclaimed to his too timid 
 allies: " Above all things do not omit to make the prefects afraid. 
 Let them perfectly understand, that to-morrow, perhaps, we shall be 
 victorious, and inflexible !" 
 
 Committees had, after the example set by Paris, been formed^ in 
 almost every town in France; and it was necessary, by imposing 
 demonstrations, to keep up the energies of these committees, at the 
 same time to retain unimpaired their distrust of the government. 
 It was necessary, moreover, that the coalition should not have^ the 
 air of a conspiracy. The chiefs, accordingly, determined to continue 
 by open fighting the war they had commenced by an underhand 
 attack. Public deckrations, regular manifestoes against the cabinet, 
 were addressed to Aix by M. Thiers, to Chauny by M. Odilon 
 Barrot, to Sancerre by M. Duvergier de Hauranne, to Napoleon- 
 Vendee by M. Chambolle, to Lisieux by M. Guizot. The latter did 
 more; 'and as the ministerialists, in order to create alarm, affected to 
 call the coalition the war faction, he wrote to M. Leroy-Beaulieu a 
 letter, which appeared in the newspapers, and in which he expressed 
 himself respecting peace in these terms : 
 
 " Peace may be compromised in two ways: 
 " By a feeble, undignified policy, calcukted to wound the national 
 honour; . 
 
 " By a short-sighted, unskilful policy, managing the business ot 
 the state inefficiently. . . 
 
 " France is susceptible, extremely susceptible as to the dignity of
 
 590 GUIZOT AND ROYER COLLARD. 
 
 her national existence, and of her position in the world. Tis a 
 happy circumstance that she is so. Public, popular susceptibility, 
 that sudden electric feeling, somewhat blind at times, but powerful 
 and devoted, is the honour, the greatness of democratic commu- 
 nities; is that whereby, despite their inconsistencies and weak- 
 nesses, they raise themselves erect, and make the world resound, as 
 soon as that inspiring chord is touched. Let the government be 
 assured of this: the people may, for a time, appear inert, indifferent; 
 and, all of a sudden, arouse itself with a gigantic movement, which 
 shall disturb all things around. You love peace; you desire to 
 retain peace. Take heed then, great heed to the national dignity : 
 give to it satisfaction and security. If it seem in doubt, if it seem 
 uneasy, you may at once feel uneasy as to peace. The blessings of 
 peace are great and pleasant ; but a free country will not consent, for 
 any length of time, to purchase them at the cost of moral suffering 
 and grievous uneasiness. 
 
 u Besides, how convenient, how strengthening to a government to 
 place itself in sympathising accord with the national pride, to make 
 of it a shield of defence ! How many difficulties it may avoid, how 
 many questions satisfactorily solve by this simple means ! On every 
 occasion, at every instant, the strangers with whom you have to do 
 are observing you, are feeling your pulse. So long as they find you 
 firm, stout, unbending, they will measure, they will put a check 
 upon their words and their actions ; they will look twice before they 
 get up a dispute, before they run a chance against you. But if they 
 see you, if they feel you timid, irresolute, with a tendency to evade 
 the questions, to yield, think you they will give you better terms, 
 that they will treat you with more consideration? Far from it: they 
 will be pressing, arbitrary; they will make no concessions; they will 
 lend no aid to the amicable settlement of your affairs. And peace, 
 laden as it would thus be, with embarrassment, with difficulty, with 
 vexation, with annoyances, would become more and more inconve- 
 nient, more and more difficult to retain, and would at length be 
 imminently endangered, despite all you had done to preserve it." 
 
 High-minded language, and very different from what we were 
 destined to hear from M. Guizot, at a later period, when he had 
 become minister for foreign affairs. 
 
 Suddenly, from the very midst of all these confused clamours, 
 there arose an imposing voice: in an address to the electors of 
 Vitry, M. Royer Collard formally condemned the coalition, a circum- 
 stance productive of immense delight to the court, and of equal 
 indignation to the opposition. M. Royer Collard, hitherto respected 
 by all parties, now became a mark for the most envenomed attacks. 
 Envy, it was said, had entered his heart ; the superiority of M. 
 Guizot, his former disciple, was too much for him to bear. 
 
 Thus, old opinions unsettled or abandoned; old friendships 
 severed; the enemies of yesterday the allies of to-day; the opposi- 
 tion seeking power with furious energy; the ministry resorting to
 
 PAMPHLET BY DE CORMENIN. 591 
 
 the extremest measures of violence and corruption to retain it; 
 society agitated by the shock of a thousand personal and party pas- 
 sions; the same men, who had gone all lengths in the assertion of 
 excessive order, now going all lengths in the spirit of faction ; autho- 
 rity compromised and degraded by the conduct of others, and by 
 its own misdirection ; insult become the weapon used on both sides ; 
 the administration given up to pillage and malversation ; and royalty 
 looking on with anxious gaze at the chaos raging beneath and around 
 it : such was the spectacle now presented by the monarchical 
 regime established of late years in France, when thus left to itself. 
 
 Here was a subject of bitter satisfaction, of cutting sarcasm, to 
 the Republicans, spectators of all these miserable complications. In 
 a pamphlet, which he published under the title of Etat de la 
 Question, M. de Cormenin exclaimed: " France demands the 
 government of the country by the country. The court desires the 
 personal government of the king. The result of the one is order 
 and liberty; of the other, a revolution. That is the state of the 
 question." 
 
 Meantime, the decisive hour was approaching. At Paris, the 
 electoral success of the coalition was immense: of the twelve col- 
 leges, they carried eight, by the election of MM. Ganneron, 
 Eusebe Salverte, Legentil, Carnot, Moreau, Galis, Cochin, and 
 Garnon; and the ministry, four only, by the election of MM. 
 Jacqueminot, Jacques Lefebvre, Beudin, and Laurent de Jussieu. 
 In the departments, the results were equally favourable to the 
 coalition. 
 
 To the attacks with, which the Mole ministry were now, all at 
 once, assailed, from so many quarters, were added those of the 
 legitimist party. M. de Genoude, in the Gazette de France, more 
 especially harassed the government. 
 
 Admitted into the priesthood, after having been married, M. de 
 Genoude partook at once of the priest and the layman. As charac- 
 teristics of the former, he possessed the composed demeanour, the 
 calm daring, the passions under command, the tenacity of purpose; 
 but he took no heed to petty ceremonies ; made no point of intolerance ; 
 and adapted himself, without scruple, to the usages of ordinary so- 
 ciety. A strange mixture, constituting him a singular character, and 
 which was observable also in his costume half frock coat, half cas- 
 sock. His manners were unctuous, his words honeyed; but in the 
 insinuating expression of his look, there was no lack of firmness ; his 
 whole physiognomy bespoke resolution, though habitually softened 
 :>y a pleasing smile. He made it his study, indeed, to give himself 
 ;he exterior of moderation. His political writings, always inge- 
 lious, always subtle, were, in general, quite free from coarseness; 
 indhe excelled in embarrassing Iiis adversaries with long quotations; 
 vith apt illustrations and analogies; with sophisms cleverly put; 
 vith his smooth, tranquil attacks, his theological dialectics. The
 
 592 CHARACTER OF M. DE GENOUDE. 
 
 revolution of July having laid bare the blunders of the Restoration, 
 so often denounced by M. de Genoude, he had availed himself of the 
 circumstance to obtain influence over the legitimists, whom, while 
 treating their prejudices without the slightest ceremony, he led 
 with a vigorous hand. If he ever gave way to violence, it was 
 towards his own party; with reference to the democratic party, 
 whose favour he eagerly desired to concentrate upon himself, to- 
 wards whom he felt drawn by a secret, but strong tendency, nothing 
 could exceed the courtesy and attention with which, on all occa- 
 sions, he treated them. He was ever making advances to the 
 republican leaders, combating their refusals, endeavouring to 
 disarm their distrust, pursuing them, whether they would or no, 
 and affirming himself more desirous of their esteem than of that of 
 the first sovereigns of Europe. Never was there a man who knew 
 better than he how to turn every thing to account. He had a 
 newspaper at his disposal, and, from calculation, he made it the 
 echo of the praises which his partisans addressed to him. Turned 
 into ridicule by his enemies, he made a boast of the very ridicule 
 that was cast upon him, and thus disconcerted sarcasm by braving 
 it: so that he converted an apparent obstacle into an additional 
 means, making insult and abuse contribute to his renown. He pro- 
 secuted his aims with indefatigable perseverance, through law-suits, 
 invective, scorn, failure after failure. When every body thought 
 him thoroughly beaten he rose again all of a sudden, erect, smiling, 
 stately. The day after an unquestionable defeat he loudly pro- 
 claimed himself victorious. He gave out as his allies men who 
 haughtily rejected his alliance, and was quite ready to prove to 
 them that they were devoted to him. He was, in a word, one of 
 the most remarkable, the most various, the most curious men of his 
 time. 
 
 Possessed of an acute understanding, he thoroughly comprehended 
 that, between Henry V. and the people, there was an entire past to 
 conceal, or rather to destroy ; and he accordingly did not hesitate 
 to proclaim the principle of the sovereignty of the nation ; but with 
 a restriction which neutralised the principle. For, according to 
 him, the sovereignty should be composed, in its essence, of the 
 rights of the nation and of those of the king, without its being 
 possible to either of these two powers to deny the legitimacy of the 
 other; or, in other words, M. de Genoude was exercising his inge- 
 nuity to unite in a chimerical, a monstrous combination, his monar- 
 chical tendencies, and the views which his able mind had adopted 
 from the democratic principle. Further, he only admitted election 
 in two degrees, a sure mode of re-establishing in full vigour, the 
 great local influences, the influences of wealth and of the Church. 
 The result of all this was that M. de Genoude found himself re- 
 jected, both by the republicans, to whom his character of party-man 
 was subject of suspicion, and by such of the legitimists as had 
 remained faithful to the worship of absolute monarchy. But he
 
 BELGIUM. 593 
 
 none the less went on his way, wearing out the ministers of 1830 
 with his pertinacious hatred, his inexhaustible pen. 
 
 The cabinet of the loth of April could hardly resist such con- 
 tinuous assaults : its last hour approached, and unfortunately it was 
 coincident with the ominous success of the negotiations carried on 
 at London, on the subject of Belgian nationality. 
 
 We have described the clauses of the treaty of Twenty-four 
 Articles; its spirit, its aim. In surrendering to Holland Venloo, 
 Maestricht, the right bank of the Meuse, the Grand Duchy of 
 Luxembourg, it partly raised again the barrier which, in 1815, the 
 Congress of Vienna had constructed against us, and which, in 1830, 
 the September days had thrown down. The French government 
 ought, therefore, never to have subscribed to such a treaty; or, 
 having committed the blunder of doing so, it should have held it a 
 point of honour and duty to seize every legitimate occasion of 
 repairing it. 
 
 What was the position of things? In 1832, Belgium had ac- 
 cepted the treaty of the Twenty -four Articles; but with a cry of 
 despair, and calling upon Europe to bear witness to the violence 
 done to her weakness. It was, moreover, perfectly understood that 
 she accepted it only on three conditions : the first, that her nation- 
 ality should be unanimously recognised by the contracting powers ; 
 the second, that the contract should bind the five great courts; the 
 third, that it was binding on the Dutch as well as on the Belgians. 
 Now of these three conditions not one had been fulfilled. 
 
 France and England alone, among the contracting powers, had 
 frankly recognised and sanctioned the Belgian revolution, by send- 
 ing ministers to Brussels. Austria and Prussia had only charges- 
 ? affaires there ; Russia sent no representative. 
 
 In the second place, the treaty of the Twenty-four Articles had 
 never had, even in the intention of the powers that signed it, the 
 character of an inviolable, definitive contract ; and the proof is, that 
 Austria, Russia, and Prussia, far from applying their hands to the 
 execution of the orders of the Conference, had, on the contrary, 
 encouraged William in his resistance, and had openly refused their 
 sanction to the siege of Antwerp ; a further proof is, that after the 
 siege of Antwerp, France and England stopped short, not daring to 
 carry coercive measures further, and leaving the question undecided. 
 One thing, at any rate, left no doubt on this matter; namely, the 
 terms of the convention of May, 1833, which established a pro- 
 visional state of things : " The high contracting powers pledge 
 themselves to take into their consideration, without delay, the defi- 
 litive treaty which shall fix the relation between Belgium and the 
 lominions of his majesty the King of the Netherlands." It was 
 ,hen avowed that the treaty of the Twenty-four Articles was not 
 lefinitive ! 
 
 King William, on his part, regarded it as so little binding upon 
 umself, that his refusal to comply with it lasted seven years. 
 
 VOL. II. 2 Q
 
 594 THE TREATY OF TWENTY-FOUR 
 
 Thus Belgium had three peremptory motives for believing itself 
 freed from the consequences of an acceptance, which, we say it once 
 again, was on its part but a painful homage rendered by weakness 
 to force. 
 
 And the cause of Belgium was the more sacred, inasmuch as the 
 people of Luxembourg and Limbourg considered themselves Bel- 
 gians; inasmuch as they desired to remain Belgians; had repre- 
 sentatives in the two chambers, and even in Leopold's council; had 
 taken up arms in 1830 for the separation of the two countries; and 
 inasmuch as it was proposed to place them at the mercy of a sove- 
 reign whom they had beaten and insulted, and to bend the necks 
 of Catholics under a Protestant yoke. 
 
 So then, the necessity of freeing the frontiers of France from the 
 insulting surveillance exercised over them ; the right resulting from 
 the non-performance of a contract essentially synallagmatic ; honour, 
 justice, humanity, all made it the duty of the cabinet of the 
 Tuileries to negotiate the abrogation of the treaty of the Twenty- 
 four Articles. 
 
 Nothing of the kind was done. The cabinet contented itself with 
 soliciting a reduction of the financial burdens imposed on Belgium, 
 which was readily granted, the Conference laying a stress only on 
 the territorial clauses of the treaty, because it was through them it 
 inflicted a wound on France. 
 
 It is true that, in 1833, Belgian diplomacy had committed the 
 mistake of invoking the validity of the famous act against which 
 Belgium protested in 1839. But did this mistake annul the reasons 
 deducible from national interests, from right, equity, and the higher 
 principles of morality, by which French diplomacy ought to shape 
 its conduct? Were the inhabitants of Luxembourg and Limbourg 
 the less Belgians? And was the French government the less guilty 
 for taking part in the plot that disposed of them, without their con- 
 sent, despite and in defiance of their wishes and interests? 
 
 Be this as it may, King William having at last resolved to accept 
 the treaty, Belgium was called on to submit. Her grief and indigna- 
 tion may be imagined. For a moment, it seemed not unlikely that 
 she would seek her safety, or, at least, her honour, in measures of 
 heroic despair. The minister of finance applied to the Chamber of 
 Representatives for authority to levy six months' land-tax in ad- 
 vance. In anticipation of the possible, or, rather, probable event of 
 war, Scrzynecki, the Polish general, was thought of. But Bel- 
 gium, like France, had to reckon with passions altogether Cartha- 
 ginian. The commercial men of Antwerp, Liege, and Brussels, 
 failed not to represent, in addresses put forward with deplorable 
 courage, that war would have the effect of destroying credit, para- 
 lysing trade, closing the frontiers of Prussia, shutting up the Scheldt, 
 putting Ostend and the coast into a state of blockade, and seques- 
 trating Belgian vessels and their cargoes. This was evidently a 
 mean and petty prudence. William had practised the greater and
 
 ARTICLES IMPOSED ON BELGIUM. 595 
 
 truer prudence, when for seven years, he defied the Conference to 
 enforce obedience to its dictates, at the cost of involving all Europe 
 in war. But mercantile egotism sees neither so far nor so clearly. 
 
 It must, however, be owned that one thing seemed to justify the 
 Belgian traders; namely, the demeanour of France. "Dare you 
 say," cried the merchants of Antwerp to their opponents, " that if 
 we draw the sword, the cabinet of the Tuileries will protect us? 
 That is not all: will you dare to affirm that it will not join our 
 oppressors against us ?" 
 
 It was on the 18th of February, 1839, that M. Theux, Belgian 
 minister for foreign affairs, moved "in the House of Representatives 
 the acceptance of the fatal treaty, whilst the crowd were gathering 
 thickly, and grumbling out of doors. The reading of the treaty 
 was scarcely ended, when the rage of its opponents broke out. 
 ' Wretched men," cried M. Dumortier, addressing the ministers, 
 " do you not see that it is through your fault that Belgium is led 
 to shame and mischief? What can have induced you to such an 
 act of pusillanimity? Where are those forces that are preparing to 
 overwhelm our country, to invade Belgium? If your intention was 
 to yield to degrading conditions, why did you put into the king's 
 mouth the words perseverance and courage, that found ready echoes 
 in our hearts? Perseverance! you have none. Courage! you will 
 never have any." 
 
 On the 18th of March, 1839, after tumultuous discussions, the 
 Belgian Chamber adopted, by a majority of fifty-eight votes to forty- 
 two, the fratricidal law presented to it. M. Gendebien delivered his 
 vote in these terms: "No, no, three hundred and eighty thousand 
 times no ! for so many Belgians sacrificed." And, quitting the hall, 
 he hastened to write a letter, in which he renounced his seat as 
 a representative. 
 
 Before the discussion, three members, MM. Ernst, d'Huart, and 
 de Merode, had sacrificed their portfolios to the honourable convic- 
 tion, that Belgium ought not to give way to threats, however it 
 might be doomed to succumb to force. As for the senate, it lost no 
 time in ratifying the sentence pronounced against the nationality of 
 Belgium. 
 
 It is a comforting thought and let posterity remember it ! the 
 ;ound portion of ^the French people was more affected by the mis- 
 brtunes of Belgium than by our own. And what generous soul 
 >ut would revolt against such insolent partitions, in which we see 
 >otentates adjudicating upon the property of nations, and distri- 
 mting among themselves heads of men, like so many heads of cattle ! 
 
 This last triumph of monarchical diplomacy followed but a few 
 : .ays after the fall of the French ministry, which had taken upon 
 i self the melancholy responsibility of that consummation. The 
 Hole cabinet resigned on the 8th of March, 1839. 
 
 It had existed nearly two years, from April 15, 1837 to March 8, 
 839. Its existence had been marked at home by the amnesty, 
 
 2Q2
 
 596 FALL OF THE MOL& ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 abroad by the evacuation of Ancona, and the imposition of the treaty 
 of the Twenty-four Articles on Belgium. It had also striven to calm 
 extreme parties by dint of clemency, and Europe by dint of submis- 
 siveness, hoping to pass its days aloof from glory, and from the cares 
 of true greatness. But it had not perceived that a terrible and impla- 
 cable contest would break out between the bourgeoisie and the throne, 
 as soon as those two rival, and in reality hostile powers, should have 
 ceased to be assailed by common dangers. In fact, no sooner was the 
 bourgeoisie delivered from the fear of insurrections and of war, than 
 it began to be afraid of royalty. Then were made manifest the in- 
 herent defects of the system so foolishly called the balance of powers. 
 A continuous cry was set up against the personal government of 
 Louis Philippe ; parliamentary prerogative everywhere found writers 
 to vindicate it, and converted into tribunes men who until then 
 had been fanatical in the opposite extreme. M. Mole* and his col- 
 leagues were denounced as the king's secretaries, and pliant tools; 
 and the lustres lighted for the marriage of the prince royal were not 
 yet extinguished, when the head of the bourgeoisie, who had made 
 himself the restorer of Versailles, was called to account for his ten- 
 dency to recommence the career of absolute monarchy. We have 
 seen how general and vehement was the movement. To humiliate 
 the king, to punish him for his preferences, to fetter his actions, 
 and reduce him, in a word, to the condition of an automaton mo- 
 narch, men who had vowed everlasting hatred to each other sud- 
 denly became reconciled, and made it their honour to fight under 
 the same banners. So much was this the case, that riot found its 
 way from the streets into the parliament. The coalition, it is true, 
 was made up of many vanities mortified; ambitions disappointed; 
 private interests damaged ; in a word, of petty passions : but it could 
 not have moved the electoral body to such a degree, it could not 
 have been everywhere triumphant, if the watchword it adopted 
 had not accorded with a general and deeply-rooted feeling in the 
 breasts of the bourgeoisie. And what was that watchword? Hatred 
 to personal government ! To resist an attack that came from the 
 dominant class itself, M. Mole and his colleagues had but one means 
 at command ; namely, corruption. They employed it with a sort of 
 frenzy, yet it failed them. They fell, therefore, leaving authority 
 compromised, the sources of election poisoned, the Chamber in 
 ebullition, royalty naked to its foes, the bourgeoisie at once intoxi- 
 cated and embarrassed with its victory : natural and inevitable con- 
 sequences of the antagonism of the monarchical and elective princi- 
 ples. For, to unite against common dangers and afterwards to tear 
 each other to pieces, is the natural destiny of two rival powers con- 
 fronted together.
 
 DISPUTES BETWEEN THE COALITION LEADERS. 597 
 
 CHAPTER XIH. 
 
 WHAT has gone before proves that the French bourgeoisie would 
 on no conditions consent to be enslaved by royalty. On the contrary, 
 it would fain have enslaved its rival; but the reader is about to see 
 what was its impotence in this respect. Thus, under these two as- 
 pects will stand forth to view the absurdity of the system which 
 places a king and a legislative assembly face to face with each other. 
 We feel it necessary to point out the conclusion beforehand, in order 
 to explain how it is we have been able to enter without disgust upon 
 the investigation of the intrigues to which the fall of the Mole ca- 
 binet gave rise. To the statesman and the philosopher, the lessons 
 of history are not less valuable when she stoops than when she soars. 
 
 The coalition having been formed by the temporary alliance of 
 the doctrinaires, the Left Centre, and the Left, is leaders were,, 
 of course, Guizot, Thiers, and Odilon Barrot. Now there were 
 three most important posts in the government : the ministry of the 
 interior, that of foreign affairs, and the presidency of the Chamber ; 
 the question was, should one of these be given to Guizot, another 
 to Thiers, and the third to Odilon Barrot? Nothing appeared more 
 reasonable, and M. Guizot had no thought of any other arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 But the leader of the doctrinaire party was still a dangerous man 
 in the eyes of the members of the Left. They knew him to be in- 
 different in matters of policy, ready to accommodate himself to the 
 most opposite states of things, and capable even of passing into the 
 service of the royal prerogative, and then making a haughty parade 
 of his fickleness, and glorying in his defection. Already they 
 beheld in him the king's violent and imperious slave, and they 
 thought of Strafford fiercely upholding and serving the despotism 
 of Charles I., after having been its equally fierce opponent. Besides, 
 there was no doubt but that as soon as he was in office, M. 
 Guizot would bestow all the places at his disposal upon his friends ; 
 and this was a matter of serious moment to certain friends of Odilon 
 Barrot, who were bent on having their own share in the good things 
 of office. 
 
 Did M. Thiers strive to keep up these bickerings in order to 
 weaken an influence that seemed formidable to his ambition? The 
 fact has since been alleged against him, but unjustly. His only 
 fault as regarded M. Guizot, was that he did not use his ascendancy 
 over the members of the Left in such a manner as to make them 
 wholly forego their prejudices. A first meeting of Barrot 's friends
 
 598 DISPUTES BETWEEN THE COALITION LEADERS. 
 
 having been called, Thiers appeared in it, and argued with warmth 
 and sincerity, that it would be neither prudent nor equitable to re- 
 fuse Guizot a share in the advantages of a victory towards which he 
 had co-operated. And yet he did not go the length of claiming 
 the ministry of the interior for the leader of the doctrinaires. The 
 meeting were perplexed and uncertain what to do. At last it was 
 determined, that the portefeuille of public instruction should be 
 offered to Guizot, and if he was content with it he should be sup- 
 ported by the Left. 
 
 Exulting in a success on which he had scarcely reckoned, Thiers 
 hastened to communicate it to Guizot ; but the latter instead of re- 
 joicing at the good news, regarded it as an insult, and intimated his 
 intention to resent it openly. 
 
 An interview which was to be decisive, was therefore arranged 
 between M. Barrot, accompanied by MM. Havin and Chambolle; 
 M. Thiers, accompanied by MM. Mathieu de la Redorte and Roger, 
 and M. Guizot, whose friends on the occasion were MM. Duvergier 
 de Hauranne and de Remusat. 
 
 The discussion began with warmth on one side, and grave ear- 
 nestness on the other. Guizot, being pressed to consent to a com- 
 promise which would remove all difficulties, declared that he could 
 not accept the secondary post allotted to him without suffering his 
 party to be discredited and insulted in his person. M. Chambolle 
 then endeavoured, in a very ingenious and cogent speech, to make 
 him lower his pretensions. What was he afraid of r That his in- 
 fluence in the council would be too weak if he held only the porte- 
 feuille of public instruction? But a minister's importance depends 
 less on the special rank he fills in the administration, than on his 
 personal weight and his talents. Would M. Guizot, as simply mi- 
 nister of public instruction, be the less in the eyes of the public 
 one of the most considerable men in the cabinet? With no one 
 should such an apprehension have less weight than with him, who 
 had already filled the post now offered him, and had done so in 
 such a manner as to attract all men's attention. If the ministry of 
 the interior was refused him, it was by no means with any intention 
 of slighting him. But was it just to exact of the many friends of 
 MM. Thiers and Barrot that they should surrender up the council 
 of state, the prefectures, sub-prefectures, and the really political 
 posts to the leader of the doctrinaire party, a party which did not 
 reckon more than thirty members in the Chamber, and which held 
 out of doors no other place than that of its old unpopularity? 
 
 To these arguments respectfully urged by M. Chambolle, M. 
 Guizot replied by a proposal extremely embarrassing to his adver- 
 saries. " If M. Odilon Barrot," he said, " desires the ministry of 
 the interior for himself, I yield to him on condition that he will 
 give me the presidency of the Chamber instead. Is this asking too 
 much ? The coalition has three leaders, and I am one of them : 
 there are three great posts to be filled, and I only ask for that one
 
 DISPUTES BETWEEN THE COALITION LEADERS. 599 
 
 which neither M. Barrot nor M. Thiers will have. What can be 
 fairer?" 
 
 M. de Remusat next expatiated very eloquently on the danger 
 of breaking up the coalition. He showed that the encroachments 
 of the royal prerogative could only be stopped by a strict alliance 
 between Barrot, Guizot, and Thiers; that this alliance once broken, 
 the Chamber would soon be brought into utter subjection; that in 
 presence of a permanent authority endowed with the prestige of 
 majesty, and with the strength which unity confers, nothing was 
 more to be feared than the breaking up of parliamentary parties 
 into small sections, and that the very existence of the constitutional 
 system was at stake; that, moreover, the differences of opinion be- 
 tween the doctrinaires and the Left were not so substantial but that 
 they might easily be softened down by habitual contact ; that the 
 coalition had already destroyed many unjust prejudices, assuaged 
 many seeming hostilities, and that it was alike easy and imperatively 
 necessary to follow up a work of conciliation so auspiciously begun. 
 And then he represented, that the Left ought not to entertain exag- 
 gerated notions of its own influence ; though it had much weight 
 with one part of society, it was a bugbear to the other portion. 
 Would it not be a great gainer by obtaining the co-operation of a 
 man whose name would be a guarantee for it even amongst the most 
 suspicious conservatives? But how were such results to be arrived 
 at if they began by disputing M. Guizot's claims to a place in the 
 cabinet worthy of his talent and of his services? 
 
 During the delivery of this speech, Guizot gave many signs of 
 assent, and his approval was especially manifested in a manner not 
 to be mistaken, when the speaker alluded to his readiness to lend 
 the aid of his name to the projects of reform entertained by the Left. 
 But after all it was found impossible to come to terms, for Barrot 's 
 friends would on no account consent to surrender the ministry of the 
 interior to the doctrinaires and their leader. It may well be ima- 
 gined how galling this was to a man like Guizot. What ! he had 
 flung himself into the thick of the fight to help his old adversaries to 
 power! He had braved the king and the court; had played the 
 demagogue, encountered furious resentment; renounced the pomp 
 of his unpopularity : and this was his reward ! He was too well 
 accustomed to the mask of disdainful tranquillity, to break out into 
 open complaints and threats; but vengeance rankled in his heart, and 
 from that moment his late friends might reckon him amongst their 
 most implacable enemies. 
 
 In the interval, Louis Philippe had made overtures, through 
 Marshal Soult, to Thiers, who replied that he would treat with the 
 king only, upon a formal and direct invitation from his majesty; 
 whether it was that he feared some trap, or that he would have 
 been glad to have in his hands a written proof of the advances 
 with which he was honoured. The letter he desired was addressed 
 to him; the negotiations were opened; and the first arrangement
 
 600 A THIERS CABINET ATTEMPTED. 
 
 proposed, having broken down as we have seen, M. Thiers 
 called to him Dupin aine, Humann, Duperre, Sauzet, Passy, Ville- 
 main, Dufaure, all members of the Left Centre. The presidency of 
 this cabinet would have belonged to Marshal Soult, and Thiers 
 would have been minister for foreign affairs. A programme was im- 
 mediately agreed on, the substance of which was: 1st, That the new 
 ministers should not be embarrassed in the distribution of places by 
 the royal prerogative; 2nd, That, without going the length of inter- 
 vention, some protective measures should be taken on behalf of Spain. 
 Thiers insisted much on these two clauses ; on the first, because he 
 was eager to fulfil the promises he had made to his friends ; on the 
 second, because it seemed to give an aim to the coalition, which 
 without it was in much danger of passing in history for one of the 
 most sterile schemes ever planned by ambition. He felt, too, a 
 secret pride in making the king give way on a question which had 
 assumed in the eyes of Europe, the character of a duel between him 
 and Louis Philippe. 
 
 And it was for such a consummation as this, that confusion and 
 animosity had been everywhere fostered for several months. 
 
 The list of names having been fixed, and the programme adopted, 
 MM. Soult, Thiers, Humann, and Dupin repaired to the Chateau, 
 to sound the king's inclination, and to get him to accept MM. 
 Passy, Villemain, and Dufaure, whom he disliked and feared. There 
 was something to remind one of Roland's receptions at the court of 
 Marie Antoinette, in that which was granted the members of the 
 Left Centre, though none of them resembled the Girondist minister 
 in independence or austerity. The royal family looked sullenly upon 
 them ; the king alone met them with a smiling countenance. They 
 passed in silence through the saloons, between the queen's apartment 
 and the theatre, where the interview was to take place, and each 
 took his seat; M. Dupin with an assurance of manner that was car- 
 ried to rudeness ; M. Humann retaining his own peculiar air of sly 
 good-humour; the marshal taciturn, with his head leaning on his 
 shoulder; and M. Thiers in a state of agitation, that hardly allowed 
 him to sit still. The discussion having begun on the persons named 
 in the list, the king expressed no great liking for Dufaure, having 
 never seen him, and believing him to be of a very stubborn cha- 
 racter. On hearing Passy 's name he called to mind the words Passy 
 had uttered on the steps of the tribune, " The mischief has a 
 higher source than ministers." " M. Passy ! why, he is my per- 
 sonal enemy." He said also of M. Villemain; " He is an enemy to 
 my house," alluding to the little alacrity Villemain had shown in 
 1830, to salute the fortunes of the Orleans dynasty. However 
 strong were the feelings of repugnance expressed in such terms, 
 M. Thiers zealously combated them, and with success. On the 
 question of things the king's opposition was conveyed in a great 
 profusion of words, to which, contrary to his custom, Thiers replied 
 only with cold, laconic brevity, or obstinate repetitions.
 
 SCENES IN THE KING'S PRESENCE. 601 
 
 There was reason to believe from the result of this first step, that 
 the proposed ministry was not acceptable to the court ; accordingly, 
 great was the astonishment of Thiers on receiving an assurance to 
 the contrary from Soult. He returned, however, once more to the 
 palace with his colleagues ; only, as he was going up the staircase, he 
 shook his head and uttered those words, which were afterwards 
 turned against him: "We are going up this staircase as ministers; 
 I very much fear we shall come down not ministers." And yet the 
 table was arranged, the ordonnances were ready; every thing seemed 
 settled. But Thiers had promised himself that he would bring the 
 king to explain himself categorically, for he could not rest satisfied 
 with a vague acceptance of the programme agreed on. He began, there- 
 fore, with setting forth in detail what it was proper to do in favour 
 of the Spaniards and Christina. He asked, was the king disposed 
 to grant them naval assistance ; to send them arms ; to allow the land- 
 ing of our seamen in case of need ; and to stop the succours sent to 
 Don Carlos in Russian or Dutch vessels. This was, in fact, demand- 
 ing that France should interpret the right of neutral states in the 
 English manner, as M. Passy remarked, -with a vivacity that irritated 
 M. Thiers still more than it surprised him. But encouraged by the 
 visibly gracious attention afforded him by the king, M. Passy main- 
 tained his opinion with the air of a man competent to speak to the 
 point, and who was fully convinced. Presently he had all his col- 
 leagues on his side except Thiers, whose eyes sparkled with anger. 
 As for the king, he had been all condescension from the first, and 
 the difference of opinion which broke out before his face, spared him 
 the necessity of enforcing his private sentiments by the weight of 
 his words. The discussion seemed at an end, when Thiers, fully de- 
 termined to carry out the explanations to the utmost, spoke of the 
 necessity of bestowing the presidency of the Chamber on Odilon 
 Barrot. Nothing could be less to the king's liking ; he would readily 
 have had Barrot for minister, with the hope of being able to act 
 upon him; but he was frightened at the idea of seeing the flag of 
 the Left planted victoriously in the Chamber. He was not, how- 
 ever, forced to explain himself in such a manner as to entail on him 
 the reproach of having produced a rupture ; for at the mere mention 
 of Barrot's name, Humann hastened to protest that, for his part, he 
 could not, without breaking with his best friends, lend himself to the 
 parliamentary presidency of the leader of the Left. This was too 
 much : " Try, gentlemen, to come to an agreement among your- 
 selves," said the king, with a slightly ironical tone, as he broke up 
 the sitting. Thereupon Thiers, bringing down his hands with a slap 
 on the table, cried out bitterly, and almost insultingly: " Did I not 
 tell you, sire, that these gentlemen were stronger than I?" " Ay, 
 so I perceive," replied Louis Philippe. 
 
 On quitting the Chateau, the party repaired to Marshal Soult's ; 
 but Humann declared that he would retire; besides, feelings had 
 been excited too full of acrimony to allow of any possible agreement.
 
 602 MINISTERIAL INTERREGNUM. 
 
 A thousand contradictory rumours now went abroad. Humann, 
 Passy, and Dufaure, easily persuaded themselves that the only mo- 
 tive which had induced Thiers to encounter the difficulties of a long 
 explanation was, that he might frustrate a ministerial arrangement 
 he was supposed to dislike, because it assigned the highest place to 
 Marshal Soult. This interpretation obtained great vogue, the cour- 
 tiers seized upon it, and Thiers was denounced as the most danger- 
 ous of marplots. On his part, he had it told about by his friends, 
 that his reasons for having thought it necessary to demand catego- 
 rical explanations were founded on personal knowledge of the king, 
 whom he knew to be easy as to theory, but not so as to practice; 
 that it would have been folly on his part to accept office without 
 distinctly making his conditions beforehand; that his complete jus- 
 tification was supplied by the resistance of those he had himself made 
 his colleagues; a resistance so extraordinary, so unforeseen, and which 
 so clearly testified the influence exercised by a near approach to 
 royalty, and by the too impatient longing for a portefeuille. 
 
 Things being in this position, Marshal Soult called on Thiers, and 
 pressed him to put himself at the head of a cabinet. But not wish- 
 ing to give his accusers a handle, and believing right or wrong that 
 Soult was an envoy from the Chateau, Thiers replied: " Do not, 
 monsieur le marechal, give the crown such advice. If I were called 
 on to-day to form a cabinet, and were offered the presidency, I will 
 not conceal from you that I should regard such an offer as a snare." 
 
 Thus, to the disorders of the ministerial interregnum, were added 
 rancorous recriminations and insulting suspicions. It was necessary 
 to fall back on the idea of forming a coali tion cabinet, and recourse 
 was had to M. de Broglie to bring Thiers and Guizot together. Un- 
 fortunately, the state of things had become singularly complicated 
 within a short while. From the day he found himself rejected 
 by the Left, Guizot had begun to retrograde towards his old con- 
 nexions, and the members of the Centre, delighted to get him back, 
 had turned his resentment to good account. Now, if some of the 
 doctrinaires, such as Duvergier de Hauranne, remained faithful to the 
 coalition, others following Hebert's example, were not averse to turn 
 against it. Thiers was aware of this, and he did not choose for the 
 sake of making up matters with Guizot, to forfeit his engagements 
 with the Left. He had made it a point of honour to obtain the pre- 
 sidency of the Chamber for Odilon Barrot; and the more uncertain 
 that result appeared, the more he pondered on the means of attaining 
 it. Until then he had contented himself with saying: " Let us vote 
 for M. Barrot as president of the Chamber;" but now he went fur- 
 ther, and demanded that the presidency of the leader of the Left 
 should be made a cabinet question; a demand which M. Guizot thought 
 exorbitant, and which gave the final blow to the coalition. 
 
 Meanwhile, society, so strongly moved on its surface, was begin- 
 ning to be stirred up from its depths ; already was heard the seething 
 and bubbling of parties; there was an unusual bustle in the embas-
 
 AN EMBASSY PROPOSED TO THIERS. 603 
 
 sies, and extraordinary couriers were hastening along all the roads of 
 Europe, carrying to the absolute kings the grand news that the con- 
 stitutional government was fallen into a state of piteous feebleness, 
 and was about to- give up the ghost. An attempt made to bring M. 
 Thiers and Marshal Soult together in one cabinet, was rejected by 
 the latter with an affectation of scorn, which told the former to what 
 implacable hatred he was devoted ; and the general emotion redoubled, 
 being furthermore excited and kept up by the vehemence of the press. 
 It was a time of fury, of delirium, and not a blow was struck but told 
 upon royalty. The combatants fought for or against the king ; but al- 
 ways about him. He, alone, said the friends of Thiers. is answerable for 
 this prolonged crisis ; and every morning the Constitutionnel contained 
 the most vehement attacks upon the court faction, and particularly 
 upon Marshal Soult, who was suspected of playing the king's game 
 in this ugly medley of intrigues: for there was a great disposition to 
 attribute to the court the design of for ever dividing the leaders of 
 the coalition, overwhelming them under the weight of their own 
 victory, convicting them one after another of folly and incapacity, 
 and throwing ridicule on their attack upon the royal prerogative. 
 
 And the courtiers, on their side, were loud in their invectives against 
 M. Thiers. According to the Journal des Debats, he was the king's 
 personal enemy and calumniator; he threw every thing into confu- 
 sion because the love of disorder was become a taint in his blood, 
 and the Cardinal de Retz was outdone by him. 
 
 The Chateau hit upon an odd expedient to give the more credit 
 to the accusation. They pretended to believe, that the anarchy 
 under which all were suffering was in a manner attached to the 
 person of M. Thiers, and that when he was out of the way order 
 would be immediately restored. An embassy was offered him. 
 Now a false report was sent abroad at this time, that his affairs were 
 embarrassed, and that he had been obliged to have recourse to the 
 purses of his friends. He thought he could see what his enemies 
 were aiming at. Being sent for by the king, he said to him : " I 
 cannot think of accepting a salaried exile. But let the king declare 
 in writing, that he thinks a journey abroad on my part would be of 
 service towards facilitating the dtnoument of the crisis : this will be 
 an ostracism, I will submit to it." That evening a great number of 
 deputies, with M. Barrot at their head, hastened to him to assure 
 him of their sympathy, and encourage him to persist in his refusal. 
 
 Things were in this state when it was announced, on the 1st of 
 April, that a cabinet had at last been formed. But what was the 
 surprise of the public, on reading in the Moniteur the names of 
 MM. de Montebello, Gasparin, Girod de 1'Ain, Cubieres, Tupinier, 
 Parant, and Gauthier ! "In the time of the disputes between Fox 
 and Pitt," said the Revue des Deux Mondes, " England remained 
 seven months without a ministry, and would have remained so 
 longer, had not George III. declared that he was tired of such 
 vexatious delays, and would go down to Charing-cross and take the
 
 604 NEW ATTEMPTS TO FORM A MINISTRY. 
 
 first seven gentlemen lie met for his ministers." The list published 
 in the Moniteur was made the subject of still more insulting com- 
 mentaries. Paris was in commotion. There were gatherings in the 
 public places, tumultuous cries, murmurs precursive of riot, and 
 charges of cavalry. 
 
 Thereupon, dismayed and forced to stoop to artifices, the partisans 
 of the crown and the members of the Centre bent all their energies 
 to gain over certain leaders of the Left Centre by flattering overtures, 
 and they resolved to offer the presidency of the Chamber to M. 
 Passy, one of the leaders of the coalition. M. Thiers was informed 
 of this, and filled with indignation, he called a meeting of the mem- 
 bers of the Left Centre at the house of M. Ganneron, and there 
 declared his objection to the appointment of M. Passy; he called to 
 mind the pledges given to M. Barrot, and conjured his friends not 
 to vote for a candidate who would be thrust upon them by the 
 Centre. The Left Centre, accordingly, declared firmly for M. Barrot, 
 so that when M. Passy was proposed for president of the Chamber, 
 on the 16th of April, he had his adversaries in his favour, and his 
 friends against him. The former prevailed. Odilon Barrot ob- 
 tained but 193 votes; his rival 223. 
 
 This was a curious victory for M. Passy; but as it brought him 
 more in contact with the court, the king intrusted him with the 
 formation of a cabinet, that which already existed being only pro- 
 visional, and not even itself pretending to any other character. 
 Passy immediately set to work. Thiers, on being applied to by 
 him, declared his readiness to accede to the presidency of Marshal 
 Soult. Now the marshal having promised, on his part, to accept 
 Thiers for his colleague, under the proposed arrangement, the 
 matter was looked upon as settled, when all at once the marshal 
 intimated to the persons who had charge of the negotiation, that 
 M. Tliiers must make up his mind to renounce the ministry of 
 foreign affairs and take that of the interior. There was something 
 so unforeseen and so insulting in the proposal, it so clearly indicated 
 an intention of dealing with the Spanish question, in a manner con- 
 trary to the declared views of M. Thiers, that his friends refused 
 without even waiting to consult him. On his part he conceived, 
 in consequence of this, an increase of hatred to the marshal, to which 
 he did not hesitate to give vent in the tribune in impassioned lan- 
 guage. As for M. Passy, who had set the negotiation on foot, he 
 complained loudly of having been duped, though this did not hinder 
 him from making a second attempt. 
 
 This was the sixth effort to form a ministry, and every thing 
 promised that it would at last be successful. The portefeuilles were 
 distributed as follows : foreign affairs, Thiers ; interior, Dufaure ; 
 commerce and public works, Sauzet; the seals, Dupin aim; war, 
 Marshal Maison ; marine, Admiral Duperre ; public instruction, 
 Pelet de la Lozere. To prevent all dispute as to pre-eminence, it 
 was agreed, that the council should have no real president; that
 
 INSURRECTION OF MAY 12. 605 
 
 there should be only an orderly president to regulate the discussions, 
 and that this post should be filled by M. Dupin. On the 29th of 
 April, every one saw the crisis was at an end. Although there was 
 no sitting that day, there was a concourse of inquisitive persons 
 round the Palais Bourbon; the conference hall was thronged with a 
 numerous and impatient body of deputies, with their eyes fixed on 
 the carriages that stood in the yard waiting to convey the new 
 ministers to the Tuileries. They waited, but in vain; the hours 
 rolled on, and still the carriages remained as they were ; all were 
 lost in conjectures. Some amused themselves with attributing the 
 delay to unimportant causes; others guessed that they were to see 
 the scandal of a sixth failure, and talked of a concealed hand that 
 frustrated the most honest endeavours. Suddenly their ears were 
 struck with these words, " All is broken off." In fact, M. Dupin, 
 who had gone to the Ch&teau the evening before, had just declared 
 to his colleagues of a day, that there could be no ministry deserving 
 the name without a real president; that he could not reconcile him- 
 self to the orderly presidency that had been offered him; that in 
 order not to alienate the Centre altogether, M. Cunin Gridaine, who 
 had been thought of in the first instance, but whose refusal changed 
 the position of things, ought to have been taken into the cabinet; 
 that the king looked coldly on a cabinet from which the men of his 
 choice were excluded; and, that his coldness would render it very 
 difficult for the ministry to stand their ground before a majority, 
 the strength of which was unquestionable, and which there was 
 much reason to fear would be hostile. Thus every thing feh 1 back 
 into chaos. The fermentation in Paris redoubled. When called to 
 the tribune to give an account of his conduct, M. Dupin made a 
 lame defence, and drew down on himself a crushing reply from 
 M. Dufaure. But what remedy was there against so much anar- 
 chy ? What issue out of such perplexities ? 
 
 No one can say what would have come of such a state of disorder, 
 had there not come of it an insurrection, which was indeed put 
 down, but which served by the imminence of the danger to reunite 
 the divided leaders of the bourgeoisie. 
 
 There existed at that time in Paris a secret society, which dated 
 from July, 1834. Struck by the disadvantages entailed on the Snciete 
 des Droits de THomme by the publicity of its existence, some repub- 
 licans determined, in 1834, to form a new society, almost exclu- 
 sively military in character, and so constituted that its officers were 
 to remain unknown until the day of battle. The smallest division 
 of the association, its unit as it were, consisted of six members, and 
 was called a family. Five or six families, united under one chief, 
 formed a section, and two or three sections a quarter. The chiefs 
 of quarters were under the orders of the revolutionary agent, a mem- 
 ber of the mysterious committee that presided over the association. 
 There were depots of munition?, and they were distributed before-
 
 606 INSURRECTION OF MAY 12. 
 
 hand: a bad system, for it had the effect not only of occasioning 
 dangerous confidences, but also of encouraging the conspirators to 
 hopes of conflict, which not being realised, left the association with- 
 out an aim, and tended to dissolve it. And yet it spread rather 
 rapidly at first. In the beginning of 1836, it numbered 1200 men, 
 and had very important ramifications in two regiments, in garrison 
 in Paris. A longing was felt to be doing, and the manufacture of 
 powder was begun. But the police were put on the alert; domici- 
 liary visits led to the discovery of important secrets, and to the 
 arrest of the leaders; and after an abortive attempt at insurrection, 
 the society was broken up. 
 
 In 1836 and 1837, the work was resumed; the Society of Fami- 
 lies was transformed into one called the Society of tJie Seasons, 
 and it was decided at the instigation of M. Martin Bernard, 1st, 
 That frequent reviews should take place at periods undetermined, 
 sometimes in one place, sometimes in another, which would allow 
 of bringing the men together and dispersing them, without its being 
 possible for them to know when and how the decisive blow was to 
 be struck ; 2nd, That when the time for battle was come, the muni- 
 tions should be placed in the way of the insurrectional columns, so 
 as to be distributed only in the actual presence of danger. 
 
 Thus the government was surrounded on all parts by invisible 
 enemies. In 1 838, a manufactory of cartridges was proved to be 
 carried on at Raban's, an engraver in the Palais Royal, and this 
 was not the only warning which chance afforded the government. 
 But where was the heart of the insurrection? When would the 
 signal be given? What was the number of those indomitable 
 fighting men, whose swords seemed as it were to flash from afar 
 through the gloom? In 1839, the association had a thousand men 
 enrolled, and possessed twelve thousand cartridges; its leaders, un- 
 known to itself, were Armand Barbes, a man of brilliant mind, a 
 chivalric and heroic soul ; Martin Bernard, a powerful thinker, with 
 the courage of a Spartan ; Blanqui, a conspirator born ; Guignot, 
 Netre, and Meillard, generous and ardent spirits. We have de- 
 scribed the frightful state of confusion under which the political 
 world then laboured. The conspirators were seized with a fatal 
 restlessness and impatience; they longed to fight, and declared that 
 they would separate if the word were not given them to take up 
 arms. Here let us pause, to remark what melancholy liabilities 
 those men condemn themselves to, who, having more faith in the 
 victories of physical force, than in the peaceful and inevitable con- 
 quests of intellect, make the progress of humanity a thing to be 
 achieved by a coup de main. The members of the committee felt 
 themselves fatally entangled by circumstances. Their army was 
 lost to them if it did not hurry them along with it, and an iron 
 hand drove them down a declivity, up which there is no returning 
 after a first rash step. Here is an example which cannot be too
 
 INSURRECTION OF MAY 12. 607 
 
 much meditated on in our days, by so many noble young men, who 
 are the ' dupes of their own patriotism: for political faith has its 
 intoxication, and devotedness its illusions. 
 
 The insurrection was resolved on. As for the means, they were 
 matter of tradition among the conspirators : to group together, 
 under pretext of a review, and unknown to each other, all the 
 divisions in the vicinity of an armourer's warehouse, and to distribute 
 on the ground the muskets and cartridges, the previous distribution 
 of which would have betrayed the plot. Lepage's warehouse had 
 the reputation of being the best stocked in Paris; and it had, be- 
 sides, the advantage of being in a central situation ; it was, there- 
 fore, appointed for the rallying point. Two depots were procured 
 in the neighbourhood, and the last days were employed : by Barbes, 
 in visiting the officers of every grade in the various quarters; by 
 Martin Bernard, Guignot, Meillard, &c., in studying the details of 
 the localities, and marking the shops which might serve as waiting 
 places. To avoid mistakes of dwellings and suspicious encum- 
 brances, care was taken to send each member, who was considered 
 a good fighting man, a note of summons, containing special and 
 precise directions. What plan should the conspirators follow? The 
 one proposed by Blanqui, consisted in seizing the prefecture of 
 police, and intrenching themselves there as in a citadel. Every 
 thing had been foreseen and provided for : so many bridges to oc- 
 cupy ; so many barricades to construct ; such a thickness to be given 
 to the barricades, in order to make them proof against ordinary 
 cannon ; so many men to be posted on each of the points marked in 
 the map. Barbes started objections as to the danger of a voluntary 
 isolation in the city, where there was no population to rouse; the 
 difficulty of constructing, between the signal and the attack, barri- 
 cades such as were prescribed in the Handbook of the Military 
 Engineer ; and the still greater difficulty of breaking in armed 
 conspirators, a troop essentially undisciplined, to a preconcerted 
 system of tactics. These objections were overruled, and Blanqui's 
 plan was adopted. As for a proclamation to send forth amongst the 
 people, Barbes and Martin Bernard were averse, from modesty, to 
 parade their own names; but the honour of openly and irrevocably 
 compromising themselves, tempted their courage, and they gave 
 their signatures in the prospect of possible success, because it was 
 giving them, to all appearance, in the prospect of death. 
 
 The hour was come. At half-past three on the 12th of May, the 
 sectionaires turned out into the Rue Bourg 1' Abbe". The call to arms 
 suddenly resounded. The door of the armourer's warehouse was 
 vehemently battered, but still resisted, when some of the insurgents 
 made their way into the warehouse by a window opening on the 
 court ; and the door soon yielding to the force exerted upon it from 
 within and from without, at last gave passage to a flood of assail- 
 ants. The muskets and cartridges were distributed ; the insurgents 
 marched to the dep6ts; and whilst Barbes. Meillard, and Notre"
 
 608 INSURRECTION OF MAY 12. 
 
 entered the one, the other was occupied by Martin, Bernard, and 
 Guignot. The two operations ought to have occupied the same 
 space of time, but the second having been delayed beyond measure 
 by obstacles impossible to be foreseen, when Barbes and Meillard 
 returned to the street, where, however, Blanqui had remained, they 
 found there nothing but confusion, discouragement, desertion, and 
 disorder : a thing easily conceivable or rather inevitable in such cases. 
 Nothing was heard but murmurs and imprecations : " We are betray- 
 ed! There is no plan ! Where are the officers? Let the committee show 
 itself!" Barbes presented himself to the most violent, and in a scene, 
 like that in which a moment afterwards Martin Bernard made the 
 reply, " We are the committee," he succeeded in recovering some 
 degree of authority. Still the moment was critical: the sauve qui 
 pent was beginning. Barbes saw clearly the necessity of hurrying 
 on the strife without waiting for the assemblage of all the insurrec- 
 tional forces, and followed by a handful of men, he marched towards 
 the quays. The column crossed the bridge of Notre Dame, hurried 
 through the Quai aux Fleurs, and reached the guard-house at the 
 Palais de Justice. Summoned to surrender, the officer replied, 
 " Never with life !" and turninground he beckoned to his men to stand 
 to their arms. Two shots were then fired from amongst the insurgents, 
 and the officer fell mortally wounded. The insurgents instantly 
 dashed forward, attacked the guard-house with a brisk fusillade, and 
 carried it. But in the interval, time had been afforded for arming 
 the defenders of the prefecture of police. Too feeble in numbers to 
 attempt any effectual attack on the prefecture, and warned, besides, 
 by the shots, that a detachment of their comrades had just reached the 
 Place du Chatelet, the column under Barbes and Meillard hastened 
 thither to join that one which was led by Guignot, Martin Bernard, 
 Netre, and Blanqui. Many had already dispersed. The two united 
 columns were too weak a body to keep the open ground. Nothing 
 remained for them, therefore, but to plunge into the narrow and popu- 
 lous streets, completing their supply of arms as they went along by 
 carrying all the guard-houses they met in their way. Conformably 
 to their desperate resolution, they marched first to the Hotel-de-Ville, 
 which they occupied, and there Barbes read the proclamation in a 
 firm voice. They then rushed to the Place St. Jean, where they 
 carried the guard-house after a murderous conflict. From thence to 
 the mayoralty of the seventh arrondissement the distance is short; they 
 traversed it at a run. They counted on finding arms there, but 
 were wholly disappointed. 
 
 Meanwhile, the town was filling with soldiers. The people had 
 manifested surprise and curiosity, but that was all. Five years 
 earlier the three hundred soldiers of so impetuous and sudden a re- 
 volt would have found, wherever they marched, passions that wanted 
 but a breach to kindle them into a blaze; but, in 1839, Paris was 
 wearied out, and the prodigy of their audacity only threw it into 
 a state of stupefaction. Whence came these fearless men? What
 
 A MINISTRY FORMED. 609 
 
 had prompted them to so extravagant an enterprise ? What meant 
 their intrepid folly? Who made them so eager to die? We our- 
 selves, on that dismal day, saw within twenty paces of the Rue de la 
 Paix, four young men pass by with muskets on their shoulders, 
 hastening with proud and angry looks in the direction of the firing. 
 The few pedestrians in the streets made way for them, and gazed 
 after them with astonishment and dread. 
 
 The day_was drawing to a close. A new thought occurred to the 
 insurgents in their despair, and they proceeded towards the mayor- 
 alty of the sixth arrondissement, through the Rues Simon le Franc, 
 Beaubourg, and Transnonain : an ill-starred route, marked with the 
 blood of the preceding insurrections, and peopled as it were with 
 ghosts. An utter silence, the horror of which can hardly be ex- 
 pressed, prevailed for hours in that usually most tumultuous part of 
 the capital. The houses were all closed and dark, and not a sound 
 was heard, neither the rolling of wheels nor the cries of children, 
 nor the noise of the busy crowd. But all at once the Marseillaise 
 pealed through those deserted streets, and it sounded like a dirge. 
 It was sung by the insurgents rousing themselves to their last struggle. 
 Three barricades were thrown up in the Rue Grenetat, and the 
 insurrection had dug its own grave. Among the leaders, Guignot 
 and Meillard were wounded; Barbes, too, had been struck in the 
 head ; he was arrested with his hands black with powder, and his face 
 covered with blood. 
 
 The defeated insurrection of the 12th of May brought forth a 
 ministry. Marshal Soult had the presidency of the council, and the 
 ministry of foreign affairs; M. Teste, justice; M. Schneider, war; 
 M. Duperre, marine; M. Duchatel, the interior; M. Cunin Gri- 
 daine, commerce; M. Dufaure, public works; M. Villemain, public 
 instruction; and M. Passy, finance. 
 
 On the 27th of June, appeared before the Court of Peers, Armand 
 Barbes, Martin Bernard, Bonnet, Roudil, Guilbert, Mialon, Del- 
 sade, Lemiere, Austen, Walch, Lebarzic, Philippet, Dugas, Nou- 
 gues, Noel Martin, Marescal, Pierne, and Gregoire. The number 
 of ^those inculpated was much greater; but, as the preliminary in- 
 quiries had not been quite completed in all the cases, the right had 
 been assumed of dividing the prisoners into two categories. Em- 
 manuel Arago and Dupont, who defended Barbes and Martin Ber- 
 nard, proved, with vivid eloquence, that the indivisibility of the 
 offence inferred, as a matter of course, that of the criminal pro- 
 ceedings, by all the rules of jurisprudence, logic, common sense, and 
 equity ; that when a fact common to several persons was in ques- 
 tion, the part assignable to each of them depended on the whole 
 body of the evidence ; and that there was manifest danger in con- 
 demning an accused person on appearances, which his co-accused 
 might possibly refute upon subsequent evidence. And in support 
 of their argument, which was ably opposed by the procureur- 
 
 VOL. II. 2 R
 
 610 TRIAL OF THE INSURGENTS. 
 
 general, the advocates of the prisoners produced a joint opinion, 
 signed by distinguished avocats. MM. Martin (de Strasbourg), 
 Hennequin, Nicod, Odilon Barrot, Ledru Rollin, Marie, Joly, Beth- 
 mont, Dugabe, Galisset Coralli, Bechard, Lucas, Cremieux, Durand 
 de Romorantin, Mandaroux Vertamy, Charamaule, Dupont White, 
 Maurat BaUange, Moulin, Lanvin, Nachet, Plocque, Durand de 
 Saint Amand, Chamaillard, Cotelle, and Hennequin Jils. But 
 whether it was that the government was desirous of having Barbes 
 and Martin Bernard tried during the first flush of angry feeling, or 
 that it feared, according to the expression of M. Franck Carre, 
 the successive dwindling away of the proofs, and the embarrassments 
 of a long trial, the opinion of counsel was overruled. 
 
 M. Franck Carre dwelt particularly, in his requisitory, on the 
 murder of the officer, Drouineau, alleging it to be an act of assas- 
 sination, and that Barbes was guilty of it. Barbes rose, and never 
 was deeper conviction apparent on a nobler countenance. The 
 calmness of the accused man, his lofty stature, his beaming eye, his 
 proud, bold beauty, and manly eloquence, all bespoke the heroism 
 of his nature. He expressed himself simply, and in few words, and 
 moved a great part of the audience to tears. " I do not rise," he 
 said, " to reply to your accusation; I am not disposed to reply to 
 any of your questions. If others besides myself were not interested 
 in the matter, I would not make a speech ; I would appeal to your 
 consciences, and you would own that you are not here judges 
 come to sit in justice upon accused men; but you are politicians, 
 who are come to decide the fate of your political enemies. The 
 events of the 12th of May having given you a great number of pri- 
 soners, I have a duty to fulfil. 
 
 " I declare, then, that at three o'clock on the 12th of May, all 
 these citizens were ignorant of our intention of attacking your 
 government. They had been called together by the committee, 
 without knowing for what purpose. They thought they were only 
 to attend a review ; and it was not until they were actually on the 
 ground, where we had taken care to place ammunition, and where 
 we knew that we should find weapons, that I put arms into their 
 hands, and gave the word of command to march. These citizens, 
 then, were hurried away, and forced by a moral compulsion to obey 
 that command. In my opinion they are innocent. 
 
 " I think that this declaration ought to have some weight with 
 you; for, as for myself, I do not desire to profit by it. I declare 
 that I was one of the leaders of the association; I declare it was I 
 who prepared the conflict, and brought together all the means of 
 execution ; I declare that I took part in it, and fought against your 
 troops ; but if I assume to myself the full and entire responsibility 
 of all the general facts, I must also decline all responsibility for 
 certain acts, which I neither advised, nor ordered, nor approved : 
 I mean acts of cruelty, which morality reprobates. Among them I
 
 TRIAL OF THE INSURGENTS. 611 
 
 class the killing of Lieutenant Drouineau, which the indictment spe- 
 cifies as having been commanded by me, with premeditation and 
 subtlety. 
 
 " It is not for you I say this ; you are not disposed to believe me, 
 for you are my enemies. I say it, that my country may know the 
 fact. This was an act of which I am neither guilty nor capable. 
 Had I killed that officer, I would have done so in open fight, with 
 equal weapons, ^ as _ far as that may be, in a conflict in the streets, 
 with^an equal division of ground and sun. I committed no assas- 
 sination; this is a calumny, which it is sought to fasten on a soldier 
 of the people's cause. I did not kill Lieutenant Drouineau. This 
 is all I have to say." 
 
 Truth has words and tones which none can resist: every one 
 believed, in his conscience, what Barbes asserted. True to the 
 declaration he had made, Barbes was resolved not to reply to any 
 questions put to him by the president; nevertheless, he broke silence 
 for a moment, when pressed by his questioner, and said: "When, 
 the Indian is vanquished, when the chance of war has thrown him. 
 into the power of his enemy, he thinks not of defending himself, 
 nor has recourse to idle words; he resigns himself to his fate, and 
 yields up his head to the scalping-knife." Next day, M. Pasquier 
 having observed that the prisoner had with reason compared himself 
 to a savage^: " The pitiless savage," retorted Barbes, " is not he 
 who gives his head to the scalper, but he who scalps." 
 
 Martin Bernard refused, like his friend, to reply to the ques- 
 tions of the court, and preserved a stoic demeanour to the end. 
 There were no other charges against him than those which rested 
 on the disclosures made by one of his fellow-prisoners, Nougues, 
 who, supposing he was dead, had denounced him. Having disco- 
 vered his error, Nougues made touching, but fruitless efforts to 
 repair its consequences ; but it was too late. 
 
 Among the prisoners there was one, Noel Martin, whose extreme 
 youth excited peculiar interest. He was a genuine child of Paris, 
 heedless and brave, who had joined the insurgent ranks as they 
 passed along, unable to resist the temptation of the sport. His 
 demeanour before the Court of Peers was at once audacious and 
 boyish. 
 
 There was also remarked on the prisoners' bench, a young man 
 with long, floating, flaxen hair, named Austen. Like Barbes, 
 Martin Bernard, and their comrades, he had done every thing on 
 the 12th to cast away his life; but death seemed determined to 
 spare him. The following was the deposition regarding him made 
 by M. Tisserand, officer of the garde municipale: 
 
 " On the 12th of May, about four o'clock, word was brought us 
 ;hat disturbances had taken place in the Rue Bourg 1'Abbe; and 
 letachments were immediately marched to the spot. Some mo- 
 nents afterwards we were again informed that the disturbances had 
 ncreased, and fresh detachments were despatched. About half-past 
 
 2 R2
 
 612 SENTENCES ON THE INSURGENTS. 
 
 four we were informed that the insurgents were very numerous, and 
 were threatening the mayoralty of the sixth arrondissement. I 
 received orders from Captain Lallemand to march immediately to 
 that point. I instantly set out ; but had no sooner entered the Rue 
 St. Martin, than I found the crowd there dense, but inoffensive; 
 it opened to let me pass, and a great number of persons came up 
 and entreated me to retrace my steps, telling me that I and my 
 men would infallibly be cut to pieces. 
 
 " I paid no attention to this advice, which might possibly have 
 been given with evil intentions ; but ordered my men to follow me 
 at double-quick step without firing a shot. 
 
 " I placed myself a few paces in advance of my troop, and order- 
 ing the drummer to beat the charge, I rushed forward, sword in 
 hand, followed by all my men. The insurgents also beat the charge, 
 and received me with a hot fire at point blank distance. Nine men 
 were struck, I was the tenth. I instantly sprang upon the barricade ; 
 oneof the insurgents fired and missedme, I struck him with my sword 
 on the breast and he fell. This man had long flowing, flaxen hair. 
 I quitted the barricade. At this moment one of the insurgents was 
 kneeling on the ground, holding his musket, the muzzle of which he 
 laid on my chest. Fortunately I was nimble enough to run him 
 through with my sword. In his dying convulsions he seized me by 
 the legs, I fell, and we both rolled upon the ground." 
 
 The defence was made by the several advocates of the prisoners 
 with much brilliancy and ability; but most of the accused had been 
 taken in flagrante delicto. One thing, however, important for their 
 client, was fully established by MM. Dupont and Emmanuel Arago, 
 namely, that Barbes had no hand whatever in the death of Lieute- 
 nant Drouineau. 
 
 The Court of Peers pronounced its verdict on the 12th of July, 
 1839, acquitting Bonnet, Lebarzic, Dugas, Gregoire ; condemning 
 Barbes to death; Martin Bernard to transportation; Mialon to the 
 
 filleys for life ; Delsade and Austen to fifteen years' detention; 
 ougues and Philippet to six years' detention ; Roudil, Guilbert, 
 and Lemiere to five years' detention ; Martin and Lon<niet to five 
 years' imprisonment; Marescal to three years', and VV'alch and 
 Pierne to two years' imprisonment. 
 
 During the reading of the sentence which consigned him to death, 
 Barbes was wholly occupied with the thought of his friend Martin 
 Bernard. " Is he sentenced to death?" he eagerly inquired; and 
 when he was reassured on that point, his face glowed with a noble 
 expression of pleasure. Bernard, too, on learning his fate, mani- 
 fested the same disregard for himself, and the same engrossing sen- 
 timents of friendship. 
 
 The severity of the sentence pronounced on Barbes produced con- 
 sternation in Paris. People called to mind 1830, the vast bloodshed 
 of the three days, the ordonnances, and how the heads of Charles 
 X.'s ministers were spared, and what was the king's abhorrence of
 
 COMPASSION FELT FOR THEM IN PARIS. 613 
 
 capital punishments in those days. Barbes, moreover, had every- 
 where excited indescribable sympathy. Every one deplored and 
 blamed the revolt, but they admired the fervour of his faith, and the 
 dignity of his courage. On the 15th of July, about noon, there 
 were seen entering the Place Vend6me, on their way to the Chancery, 
 nearly three thousand pupils of v the schools of law and medicine. 
 They advanced slowly and in silence, bareheaded, with the melan- 
 choly solemnity of a funeral procession. On arriving in the Place 
 they formed a circle, and two of their number stepping forth, went 
 up to the office of the garde des sceaux, to petition, in the name of the 
 y^oung men of Paris, for the abolition of the penalty of death for poli- 
 tical offences, and a commutation of punishment in the case of 
 Barbes. M. Teste being absent, they were received by M. Boudet, 
 who generously promised to make a faithful report of their mission. 
 The column then resumed its silent and serious march through the 
 midst of the saddened population. At the same time, with the same 
 intention, and with the same orderly behaviour, another column of 
 citizens, formed on the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, was proceeding 
 to the Palais Bourbon. But in its ranks there were men in smock- 
 frocks, working men ; and no sooner had it reached the Pont de la 
 Concorde than it was violently dispersed by a charge of cavalry. 
 
 These public demonstrations were backed by a multitude of others 
 of a private nature. Learning that of all the ministers Marshal Soult 
 was the one most obstinately bent on rigour, MM. Dupont and Em- 
 manuel Arago took steps with regard to him, the object of which 
 was either to render him less inflexible, or to fix upon him an undu- 
 bitable responsibility. The marshal eluded giving any reply, pre- 
 tending not to understand what was wanted of him, and merely say- 
 ing that he had not sat among the judges of the prisoners. What 
 earnest wishes were felt! how many schemes were devised! An 
 Englishman who had been present at the trial, offered ahundred thou- 
 sand francs to any one who should effect the secret rescue of Barbes. 
 Threatening letters were written anonymously. With the hope of 
 enlisting the queen's maternal affections on behalf of the prisoner, 
 she was made to apprehend frightful acts of vengeance, and was led 
 to believe that her children's blood would be made answerable for 
 that of Barbes. The queen was terror-stricken. The Dues d'Aumale 
 and de Montpensier had until then been brought up at the college 
 of Henri IV., in a privileged position, attending the classes, but 
 having separate apartments for the pursuit of their studies, and a garden 
 for their recreation. These privileges were suppressed very soon after 
 the conviction of Barbes, and the young princes went to mass and 
 to bathe along with the other pupils, as if to protect their existence, 
 by more intimately uniting it with that of their companions. And 
 so nervously prompt to take alarm was the Chateau, that a fire hav- 
 ing broken out in a tenement in the Quartier Latin, troops were 
 posted on the terrace of the college. Again, there was another cause 
 of alarm. The tippling and dancing booths were empty, the barriers
 
 614 AFFAIRS OF THE EAST. 
 
 deserted, and the silence of mourning pervaded the places that 
 usually resounded with the noise of popular merriment : what did 
 this sadness of the people portend? In spite of the opinion of the 
 council, which sought the dishonourable renown of opposing the 
 public wishes, the king decided that the punishment of death should 
 be commuted to that of the galleys for life. For a man of Barbes' 
 temperament this was an aggravation of his punishment, and this 
 being at last admitted, transportation was substituted for the galleys. 
 
 It was not till six months afterwards that the second batch of pri- 
 soners appeared before the Court of Peers. Blanqui having refused 
 to reply, and his advocate, M. Dupont, having for dignified reasons 
 declined to make a speech, there was nothing worth note in this trial.* 
 
 The insurrection of the 12th of May demands that it should be se- 
 verely judged. It disturbed the peace of the city in a startling 
 and culpable manner. It broke out so prematurely that the people, 
 which was suffering, looked on and took no part in it. It is mani- 
 fest that it was not the offspring of that general feeling of indignation, 
 or of that vast need of resistance, which alone justify the enterprises 
 of courage : for it would be holding reason and equity too cheap to 
 make their triumph depend on the chances of a covp de main. That 
 triumph demands wisdom, prudence, and the aid of time; and pa- 
 tience is also a republican virtue. Assuredly it is the privilege and 
 the glory of choice minds to anticipate their age ; but to do violence 
 to it is allowable to none ; and it is the more necessary to combat 
 error on this point, as it is commonly that of the generous and strong- 
 minded of the men who inevitably engage the regard of all those 
 who sympathise with generous intrepidity, and who respect disin- 
 terested efforts even when misguided. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE East was, at that time, filled with the din of arms. Two 
 men were there disputing for empire, and Europe was watching 
 their strife with great interest. 
 
 Sultan Mahmoud was impatient to recover Syria from the victor 
 of Koniah, and Mohammed Ali was bent on obtaining, though it 
 were by the sword, hereditary possession of Syria and Egypt. On 
 both sides there was equally intense eagerness, pertinacity, and 
 pride. 
 
 * The sentences were : Two prisoners acquitted ; Blanqui condemned to death 
 (afterwards commuted) ; two prisoners to fifteen years' detention ; six to ten years' ; 
 two to seven ; thirteen to five years' ; and all to police surveillance for life ; three to 
 five years' imprisonment ; two to three years'.
 
 MOHAMMED ALL 615 
 
 Only Mohammed All dissembled; his language to the sultan's 
 envoys was that of a vassal. Had he not been unavoidably detained 
 in Alexandria, with what ardour would he not have gone to Con- 
 stantinople, to prostrate himself before his august master ! with what 
 joy would he not have pressed to his lips the hem of the imperial 
 robe ! But all this affectation of respect only cloaked the viceroy's 
 ambition and hostility. He was seventy years of age, and it was 
 his purpose that his work should survive him in his children. What 
 he desired, moreover, he felt himself strong enough to take. A sign 
 from him, and his vessels sailed from Alexandria, whilst Ibrahim 
 was crossing the Taurus. But Europe stopped him ; Europe was his 
 greatest impediment. In 1834, he had ventured to say to France, 
 England, and Austria: " Russia half possesses the Ottoman empire, 
 and oppresses it, under pretext of protecting it. Let it complete its 
 work of enthralling Constantinople, and there is an end to the liber- 
 ties of the world; Russia will then be a colossus, which, standing 
 between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, will make the world 
 turn right or left, according to its own caprice. Will you allow 
 this? Here am I a Turk, and I propose to you, the guardians of 
 civilisation, now in peril, a crusade, which will save civilisation and 
 Europe. I will raise the standard, I will place at your disposal my 
 army, my fleet, and my treasury; I will lead the van. And for 
 all these services, I ask no more than the recognition of my inde- 
 pendence as a sovereign." The plan was gigantic : it was vehe- 
 mently repudiated by the three courts, which Mohammed Ali 
 wished to make sponsors of his own fortunes. Subsequently, in 
 1838, after unavailing direct negotiations with the sultan, the vice- 
 roy made a second attempt with the European powers. This time 
 he did not propose a vast scheme of warfare, but remarked, on the 
 contrary, that the best way of securing peace, was to declare the 
 pachalic of Egypt independent, or, at least, hereditary, without 
 which the East would remain a focus, from which a spark might at 
 any moment be thrown off, that would set the world in a blaze. 
 Europe was inflexible : then he changed his tone, and began to 
 complain and threaten. As a father, he asked, pathetically, why he 
 should be denied the gratification of transmitting the fruits of his 
 toil to his children. As a warrior, he gave it to be understood, that 
 he was a man to rush headlong into war, against odds of five to one, 
 and to die in vindicating his rights. Things were in this state when 
 it was announced that he had suddenly left Cairo for Fazoklo, a 
 journey of 600 leagues. He gave out, that he was going to explore 
 some rich gold mines. Was this true? Mohammed AH, like many 
 other great men, was a consummate actor: his design was probably 
 to dazzle men's minds, to give a fanciful colouring to his schemes, 
 and to awe his enemies by the uncertainty of his purposes, and as to 
 the extent of his future resources. Meanwhile, until he should re- 
 appear in arms on the scene, he filled it with his absence. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mahmoud was a prey to furious fits of anger. He
 
 616 SULTAN MAHMOUD. 
 
 was amazed and enraged ; lie, the successor of the prophet, who had 
 but to wave his head to see his subjects fall trembling at his feet; 
 and now he was constrained to treat with a Macedonian soldier. 
 Between the dangerous protection of Russia, and the always im- 
 pending revolt of the viceroy, he felt himself suffocated as it were. 
 Every thing in Mohammed Ali was abhorrent to him : his power 
 formed out of the spoils of the Porte, his glory as an innovator, his 
 genius, the warlike renown of his son, and even that cold modera- 
 tion, the insulting falsehood of which he saw through so clearly. 
 How could he have controlled his vexation? His empire was slip- 
 ping from his grasp piece by piece. Servia was victoriously insur- 
 Sjnt, Walachia and Moldavia had become Russian dependencies, a 
 avarian prince was reigning over emancipated Greece, France had 
 Algiers, Mohammed Ali had Egypt ; and, after so many successive 
 dismemberments, Mahmoud was asked to give up Syria ! to Buffer 
 that, of the magnificent heritage of the caliphs, nothing should 
 remain to him but Constantinople, of which Russia held the keys ! 
 He was vexed, too, that he had not been able to reform his people, 
 like a magician, with the stroke of his wand : for the least obstacle 
 is torture to one who knows no bounds to his pride; and to desire 
 impossibilities is the natural characteristic of absolute power. At 
 the head of the old Turks, who were, in secret, hostile to the sultan's 
 innovations, stood Per tew, a noble and rigid old man, renowned for 
 his Mussulman piety. He was disgraced, and sent to Adrianople^ 
 and at last condemned to die, by a firman, which his enemies ob- 
 tained from Mahmoud in his intoxication. Pertew calmly read the 
 fatal firman, after respectfully pressing it to his lips and forehead ; 
 and then, with the serenity of Mussulman fatalism, surrendered to 
 his fate, invoking the name of Allah. And now the sultan lamented 
 this death he had himself ordained. But how many other subjects 
 of anxiety had he ! What sinister forebodings ! One day, as he was 
 crossing the new bridge of Galata, on horseback, a dervish, reputed a 
 saint by the people, and known by the name of the long-haired 
 sheykh, leaped before him, and shouting out, " Halt, giaour sultan !" 
 upbraided him with his sacrileges. In January, 1839, a building, 
 known by the name of the Porte, took fire, and the old Turks 
 having declared this accident, which destroyed the hall in which the 
 divan held its deliberations, to be a mark of Heaven's anger, Mah- 
 moud could not overcome his secret terror ; the more so, as, to punish 
 his impiety, his portrait had been consumed by the flames. Thus 
 troubled and distracted, the sultan had come to live in a constant 
 state of frightful over-excitement. After exhausting himself all day, 
 sometimes in prodigious bodily exertions, and sometimes in equally 
 excessive mental labours, he continued his slow suicide, by night, in 
 base orgies. Impatient to stifle his troubles, and longing for for- 
 getfulness, he drenched himself with wine, brandy, and rum, enjoy- 
 ing his infraction of the prophet's law, exaggerating even drunken- 
 ness, and striving frantically against the force of the dreadful bever-
 
 THE FIVE POWERS. gjy 
 
 dead dmnk^ ^^ ^ ** ***** Up thisreform <* of the East 
 
 Now the situation of the five great powers with respect to Con- 
 stantmople and Alexandria was as follows- 
 
 Russia was mistress whatever befell. With her foot on Constan- 
 tinople it mattered little to her whether there was peace or war be- 
 tween the two rivals. In the former case, she was secLd in hlr com- 
 manding position by the anxiety and exhaustion to which Turkey 
 was reduced by the statu quo. In the latter case, Ibrahim's making 
 a step, a single step m advance, would be a pretext for her to hasten 
 to the Bosphorous. She had, therefore, nothing to care for Only 
 to preserve a show of moderation, and for modelty's sake, she called 
 lor the maintenance of peace. 
 
 This was also required by Prussia, but only from her fear of the 
 hazards of war, for she had no part to play on the new theatre 
 
 It was not so with Austria, which had a direct interest in' pro- 
 tecting the mouths of the Danube against the ambition of Russia. 
 Sfvl ? ? Ce Me " rmch made * his glory to preserve from all 
 shock the balance of power established by the treaties of 1815 and 
 the approach of a conflict alarmed his circumspect policy. Arrived 
 
 Loll 6 X g lV ' n T?- e ^ -1? i h<3 need ^ Se ' he se ' med to Sa 7> M* 
 wf /P^i' I'" T-? kst m ^ time '" Austria > therefore, set 
 herself to allay the warlike temper of Mahmoud, without concealing 
 her preference for the sultan, the legitimate sovereign, over his re- 
 beilious subject the viceroy. 
 
 As for England, she entertained a systematic, implacable hatred 
 to Mohammed Ah. She had vowed his destruction because he re- 
 sisted the despotism of the London shopkeepers; because he had 
 under his hand those highways to India, the Euphrates and the 
 kea; because there was no going from the Thames to the 
 tranges through the Mediterranean without encountering and en- 
 during him; because he was friendly to France. Hencethe com- 
 mercial treaty concluded August, 1838, between England and the 
 Porte, which was intended to serve as a counterpoise to the con- 
 ventions of Unkiar Skelessi, and at the same time to ruin the Pacha 
 .bgypt, by the suppression of the monopolies which were the sole 
 source of his revenues. And who represented at Constantinople this 
 Jinghsh rancour? A diplomatist impetuous to blundering, passionate 
 to violence, Lord Ponsonby. It is true that the English consuUene- 
 ral at Alexandria was Colonel Campbell, a man of just and moderate 
 views. But Lord Ponsonby took to himself the bulk of all political 
 matters, making himself the centre round which they turned- and 
 with the language of peace on his lips he secretly instigated war' 
 adding fuel to Mahmoud's rancour and jealousy, encouraging his 
 pride, representing the occupation of Syria by Ibrahim as an i 1S ur- 
 pation singularly insolent, and predicting the extirpation of the 
 viceroy as an inevitable certainty. In this, however, there is no 
 that Lord Ponsonby overstepped the policy of his govern-
 
 618 THE FIVE POWERS. 
 
 ment. In reality the cabinet of St. James's feared, and with reason, 
 a rupture which would infallibly have pkced Constantinople under 
 the protection of the Russian sword. 
 
 On the part of France, the same apprehensions were felt relatively 
 to Russia. For after all and here the government and the nation 
 were agreed France entertained a marked preference for Moham- 
 med Ali. She was grateful to him for his reverence for the memory 
 of Napoleon, and his liking for the French character, his inclination 
 to imitate us, and his readiness to serve us. And then he was a 
 new man, the son of his own deeds, and the chosen of the revo- 
 lutions of modern days. Unfortunately France, which liked the 
 viceroy, had with gross inconsistency chosen for her representative 
 at Constantinople, a man who was, on conviction, one of his most 
 decided adversaries, Admiral Roussin. Add to this, that the cabinet 
 of the Tuileries concerned itself much less about Alexandria than 
 Constantinople, which led it to make persevering and sincere efforts 
 for the maintenance of peace. 
 
 Thus we see, that however extreme was the diversity of interest 
 and feeling subsisting among the five powers, yet on the whole, 
 Europe was in favour of the statu quo, and with a view to its own 
 tranquillity insisted on the repose of the East. 
 
 An useless constraint on two rivals both equally eager to bring 
 matters to a final issue. At Constantinople, at Alexandria, on the 
 banks of the Euphrates, at the foot of Mount Taurus, every thiug 
 breathed of war. Mahmoud hurried on his preparations for it with a 
 smothered zeal, which was stimulated by obstacles and by the neces- 
 sity of dissimulation. Whilst he was abusing Admiral Roussin's 
 good faith by false assurances, and was holding the European diplo- 
 matists in suspense, his secret orders were stirring up his whole 
 empire. The Capidan Pacha, Akhmed, hastened to visit and fortify 
 the Dardanelles. A levy of 60,000 soldiers was decreed. Nothing 
 was to be seen on the frontiers of Syria but formidable musters of 
 men and horses. The army which Hafiz commanded, and which 
 had encamped since 1837 in the country of the Kurds, was aug- 
 menting and advancing. The adventurers of the mountains refusing 
 to abandon the system of armed forays, and to enter the new-mo- 
 delled troops called the Nizam, they were compelled by force, and 
 with much bloodshed, to do so. It was necessary to ravage the po- 
 pulations before they could be enrolled under the sultan's banners; 
 prisoners were made to obtain recruits. The march of the caravans 
 was stopped. The roads were covered with- camels loaded with 
 munitions of war. Moreover, secret emissaries acting in the name 
 of the Grand Signer were exciting revolt. Their voices ascended, 
 it is said, even into the balmy retreat where Lady Hester Stanhope 
 consulted the fates and read the stars. Proclaimed Queen of Pal- 
 myra in the poetry of oriental language, and queen in fact by grace, 
 imagination, and beauty, she felt an animosity against the Pacha of 
 Egypt, which her influence over the mountaineers might render
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR WAR IN SYRIA. 619 
 
 perilous. ^ The glory of danger was not wanting then to Ibrahim 
 He, on his part, was making his arrangements, preparing to turn 
 the caravanserais of Aleppo into barracks, completing the defences 
 of the fortress of Acre, and closing the defiles of Mount Taurus the 
 gates of Syria. 
 
 ^ While things were in this state, Mohammed AH returned to 
 Cairo, and his return hastened the course of events. He did not 
 bring back the expected gold from his journey; but he had never 
 counted on the mines of Sennaar for the means of bringing down his 
 rival. The moment he arrived he began to send his son 'reinforce- 
 ments of troops. And aU this while the sultan dissembled so success- 
 fully, andtheMustecharNouri Effendi affirmed, with such persever- 
 ance and seeming candour, the pacific intentions of the Porte, that, 
 amidst all the signs and din of war, Admiral Roussin remained as 
 calm and 'confident as ever. He wrote to M. Cochelet, consul- 
 general of France at Alexandria, that peace would not be disturbed- 
 that such was the will of France, and that her will was law. But 
 such was not the import of the despatches addressed by M. de 
 >turmer to M. de Laurin, Austrian consul-general in the viceroy's 
 dominions. " When such important personages differ in opinion," 
 said Mohammed Ali, ironically, " one may be allowed to doubt." 
 And the reinforcements were sent off. 
 
 Thus the denoument was at hand. But which of the two rivals 
 would put himself in the wrong by being the aggressor? A grave, 
 a decisive question, perhaps, since Europe had declared, that the 
 aggressor should be held to be the guilty party. The aggressor was 
 the sultan. On the 21st of April, 1839, the Turkish vanguard 
 crossed the Euphrates, near Bir, a town situated at the distance of 
 twenty-five hours' caravan march from Aleppo. 
 
 Ibrahim's heart leaped for joy at the news, and his couriers were 
 instantly despatched with orders to the troops dispersed through 
 the province to make a general move on Aleppo. Mohammed Ali 
 was no less delighted, but the cunning old man kept his own secret. 
 On the 16th of May, the consuls-general received the following 
 
 T\ r\4-a ' ^ 
 
 note: 
 
 " The viceroy has declared to the consul-general, that in case the 
 sultan's troops, which have crossed the Euphrates, near Bir, with- 
 draw to the other side of the river, he will make his army fall back, 
 and will recall his son Ibrahim to Damascus; that in case this pacific 
 demonstration be followed by a retrograde movement of the army 
 of Hafiz Pacha beyond Malatia, his highness will recall the com- 
 mander-in-chief to Egypt. His highness the viceroy has added, of 
 his own free will, that if the great powers consent to guarantee 
 him peace, and to interest themselves on his behalf, to make his 
 power hereditary in his family, he will withdraw a part of his troops 
 From Syria, and will be ready to enter into a definitive arrangement, 
 such as may be calculated to guarantee his security, and be adapted 
 to the wants of the country."
 
 620 DIPLOMATIC CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Who could have supposed it? At the very time the viceroy was 
 giving so indisputable a pledge of his moderation, Lord Ponsonby, 
 who read the sultan's soul, who was the first to instil rancour and 
 impatience into his mind, who went so far as to propose a command- 
 er-m-chief of his own choosing Lord Ponsonby did not shrink 
 from writing to his own government : " From the beginning up to 
 the last moment the pacha has always been the aggressor, and the 
 sultan has a right to call on the great powers to fulfil their engage- 
 ments." 
 
 Eight days afterwards, Colonel Campbell sent Lord Palmerston a 
 despatch from Alexandria, wherein he expressed himself in these 
 terms : " The perfidious conduct of the sultan, who has acted contrary 
 to the advice given him by the ambassadors at Constantinople, will 
 have not only exhausted his resources, but weakened his moral 
 influence in Turkey; whilst the moderate conduct of Ibrahim Pacha, 
 acting in accordance with his father's orders, and abstaining from 
 every act of hostility when he could destroy the army of Hafiz 
 Pacha, will in the same degree exalt Mohammed Ali, and augment 
 his influence in the Ottoman empire." 
 
 Of the two principal agents of England in the East the one refuted 
 the other. 
 
 Had it been possible that any doubt should remain as to what 
 meant that crossing of the Euphrates, the doubt was soon solved. 
 Hafiz's vanguard advanced continuously to Nezib ; Turkish cavalry 
 were sent against the village of Ouroul, and the abrupt occupation of 
 fourteen villages in the district of Aintab was an open commence- 
 ment of war. How could it have been avoided? Mahmoud's frenzy 
 was at its height. Tahar Pacha, who had been sent to inspect the 
 army of Hafiz, returned to Constantinople full of confidence, and 
 foretelling nothing but victory. Had he not been restrained, Mah- 
 moud would have proceeded in person to the camp, and unfurled 
 the prophet's banner, so fiercely did his passions boil over. At last 
 the facts of the case were too plain to be mistaken ; Admiral 
 Roussin desired to have an interview at the Sweet Waters with 
 Nouri Effendi and the Capidan Pacha; and when the former launched 
 out into a series of equivocating explanations, the ambassador gave 
 vent to all the violence of his indignation. The veil had fallen. 
 
 The two opposed armies were now face to face, and preparing to 
 engage, when the ministry of the 12th of May took the helm in 
 France. The passage of the Euphrates, known in Paris, showed 
 how urgent was the state of affairs ; and two of Marshal Soult's 
 aides-de-camp, Foltz and Caille, immediately set out; the one for 
 the camp of Hafiz, passing through Constantinople, the other for 
 that of Ibrahim, by way of Alexandria. 
 
 Here begins a diplomatic campaign in Europe, the various phases 
 of which it is important to note. 
 
 And, first of all, what ought to have been the conduct of the 
 French government?
 
 BLUNDERS OF THE FRENCH MINISTRY. 621 
 
 The question before it was twofold: Oriental, since the relative 
 positions of Mahmoud and Mohammed Ali were to be determined; 
 European, since, in case of war, the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi 
 authorised the Russians to cover Constantinople. 
 
 Now, on Eastern ground, and face to face with the great powers, 
 France was extremely feeble, for she had against her Russia, who 
 abhorred Mohammed Ali, as the expected regenerator of the Otto- 
 man empire; Austria, who hated the viceroy, as a representative of 
 revolutionary principles; and England, who longed to destroy him, 
 in order to have free passage for her Indian commerce through 
 Syria and Egypt. 
 
 On European ground, on the contrary, France was very strong; 
 for she had with her, against the ambition of the Muscovite, Prussia^ 
 in this matter neutral; Austria, which would have been ruined, by a 
 complete appropriation of the Black Sea; and England, whose 
 Indian empire would be doomed to destruction from the day the 
 Russians threatened it from Constantinople. 
 
 ^ Thence followed a very simple conclusion. It was the interest of 
 France to turn the powers away from the East, to bring them back 
 to European ground, and keep them there. Out of a question which 
 had been very inopportunely complicated, France ought to have 
 made two distinct questions, and have said: "Let Mahmoud and 
 Mohammed Ali settle their dispute between themselves; and since 
 it regards Europe only in so far as it offers Russia an opportunity of 
 giving the sultan dangerous assistance, let us content ourselves with 
 watching over the inviolability of the Bosphorus. Now is the time 
 to annul the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, against which we have 
 hitherto only remonstrated in vain ; now is the time to announce, 
 that we will put under the ban of the European commonwealth any 
 power tliat shall set foot in the city of the sultan." 
 
 This was, beyond question, the true policy of France ; and its 
 success might have been the more easily secured, as it perfectly 
 agreed with the views and desires of England. 
 
 England, indeed, was desirous of overthrowing Mohammed Ali, 
 but her desire in that respect was much less strong than her fear of 
 seeing the sceptre of the world pass, with the key of the Dardanelles, 
 into the hands of Russia. If she had a secondary influence to esta- 
 blish in Alexandria, she had a vital interest to defend in Constan- 
 tinople ; and to defend it she had need of our support. 
 
 Accordingly, the cabinet of St. James's made overtures to the 
 ministry of the 12th of May, tending to tighten the bonds of alli- 
 ance between London and Paris, the better to resist St. Petersburg. 
 On the 25th of May, 1839, M. de Bourqueney wrote from London 
 to his government: " Lord Palmerston is of opinion that we ought 
 to present ourselves, without delay, at Vienna, as united in intention 
 and endeavour for the preservation of the Ottoman empire ; that we 
 should frankly state the aim we propose to ourselves, and urge Aus- 
 tria to aid thereto with every means in her power. Similar steps
 
 622 BLUNDERS OF THE FRENCH MINISTRY. 
 
 should be taken, at the same time, in Berlin." What Lord Palmer- 
 ston proposed was then, that by previous and special concert, France 
 and England should place themselves in a position to sway the deli- 
 berations about to be held with a view to the preservation of the 
 Ottoman empire. 
 
 The path was traced; but the ministers of the 12th of May wan- 
 dered from it, misled by blind prejudice. That they should have 
 attempted to bring back Turkey into the European commonwealth, 
 from which the treaties of 1815 had declared it excluded, and to 
 substitute for the exclusive protectorate of the Russians over Con- 
 stantinople a sort of Amphyctionic protectorate, was assuredly very 
 right and proper ; but the more fully the idea of an European coali- 
 tion was entertained, the more important it became to set limits to 
 its competence, and to specify the exact functions it was to fulfil. 
 To it might be left the charge of providing for the independence of 
 the Bosphorus, and the duty of guaranteeing it ; but the moment it 
 was granted more than this, the moment it was allowed the right of 
 regulating the partition of the East between Mahmoud and his vas- 
 sal, from that moment it was all over with the interests of France. 
 For was it not manifest, that as soon as the question should no longer 
 be, how Constantinople was to be secured, but how Mohammed Ali 
 was to be satisfied, France would find an intractable contradictor in 
 the cabinet of St. James's? Was it not easy to foresee, that once 
 the powers were brought together on the soil of the East, France 
 would have but one vote against five, and would consequently be 
 reduced to the alternative, of either abandoning Mohammed Ali, her 
 ally, or of retiring from the coalition she had herself instigated? 
 
 Constantinople placed France and England in concert with each 
 other; Alexandria divided them. It was incumbent, then, to make 
 the whole force of the negotiations to bear on Constantinople, and to 
 put Alexandria out of the diplomatic circle. Unfortunately, instead 
 of separating the two questions, the ministry of the 12th o May 
 treated them as conjoint, and called on Europe to solve them both 
 together: an immense, irreparable blunder! 
 
 The first act in which the ministry of the 12th of May exhibited 
 its false policy, was a refusal, by which England held herself offended, 
 and with good cause. In a despatch, dated June 19, 1839, Lord 
 Palmerston had made a very bold proposition to the court of the 
 Tuileries ; but one which if accepted would for a long while have 
 sealed the alliance between France and England. He proposed a 
 junction of the French and English flags in the Mediterranean, with 
 orders to force the Straits of the Dardanelles, in case Russian troops 
 should appear on the Turkish territory. The despatch added, 
 " that if the Turkish forts resisted it would be necessary to land 
 forces which should take them in the rear." 
 
 What greater proof could be given, that in the beginning of the 
 negotiations, Constantinople, not Alexandria, was the object of 
 England's solicitude ? If the French ministers had been wise enough
 
 BLUNDERS OF THE FRENCH MINISTRY. 623 
 
 to leave her in that state of feeling by themselves joining in it all eves 
 would have been fixed on that point on which it was the interest of 
 France to retain them, and Syria would have had no intervention 
 to endure, except that of victory. This the ministry of the 12th of 
 7s , n(?t P f C r% ^^emmem had been accustomed since 
 30,_to mistake fear for policy; to minds excessively timorous an 
 imposing and justifiable manifestation appeared clothed in all the 
 sombre colours of war; they thought themselves undone if they 
 manifested decision, and Marshal Soult replied to Lord Palmerston 
 " that he regarded it as very desirable that the English and French 
 flags should appear before Constantinople simultaneously with the 
 .Russian ; but that he doubted whether a question so important as that 
 of declaring war against Russia and Turkey, could be left to the 
 discretion of the admirals, as must be the inevitable consequence of 
 the entrance of the English and French fleets into the Straits of the 
 Dardanelles." * 
 
 In lieu of the plan submitted to it, the French cabinet proposed 
 another, which consisted in asking of the Porte permission for the 
 fleets to enter the sea of Marmora in case of a Russian invasion 
 England accepted the counter-proposition, but with acrimonious' 
 ieelings. She was frightened at having such allies, she had her sus- 
 picions, and this led to 'a sudden change in her policy, which after- 
 wards occasioned a loud outcry. 
 
 Whilst diplomacy was slowly arranging its schemes in Europe 
 the match was kindled for the cannon on the Euphrates. The order 
 for war was despatched almost simultaneously from Constantinople 
 and Alexandria. 
 
 And yet the sultan was dying. "Would he live to see the end of 
 the war? His cadaverous aspect, his convulsive movements, his 
 trembling limbs, and the morbid lustre of his eyes, made this seem far 
 from likely. He was labouring under delirium tremens, and the 
 hand of death was already upon him. But with a desperate effort, 
 he rallied the last remains of life in the hope of setting his foot, 
 though it were but for a moment, on his rival. In June, 1839, he 
 poured out the last cry of his expiring rage in a manifesto, wherein 
 he upbraided Mohammed Ah" with the insolence and impiety of his 
 revolt, his expeditions to the Persian Gulf, his closure of the Isth- 
 mus of Suez against the English, his devastation of the Arabian 
 peninsula, his instigation of the provinces of Bassorah and Bagdad 
 to rebellion, and his scandalous expulsion of the guardians of the 
 Prophet's tomb. Mahmoud addressed this violent note to the repre- 
 sentatives of Austria and Russia, declaring that his patience was 
 worn out. The Ottoman fleet was ordered to sea, and, ill as he was, 
 he dragged himself to the kiosk of Scutari to see it sail. 
 
 With as great, though less boisterous ardour, Mohammed Ali was 
 equipping the Egyptian fleet. On hearing of the reiterated aggrcs- 
 
 Lord Grenville's Despatch, June 28, 1839.
 
 624 BATTLE OF NEZIB. 
 
 sions of Hafiz he could not conceal his exultation, and lifting up his 
 white head towards heaven, he exclaimed, " Glory to God who 
 permits his old servant to end his labours by the fate of arms !" The 
 instructions ;he promptly sent his son breathed the assurance of 
 triumph: " On the receipt of the present despatch you will attack 
 the troops of our adversaries, which have entered our territory, and 
 after having driven them out, you will march against their main army, 
 to which you shall give battle. If, with God's aid, victory declares 
 for us, without passing the defile of Kulek Boghaz, you will march 
 straight upon Malatia, Karpout, Orfa, and Diarbekr." 
 
 It was on the 21st of June, 1839, that Ibrahim's army put itself 
 definitively in motion. After seizing, without a blow, the village of 
 Mezar, which the Turkish cavalry who occupied it abandoned, though 
 they might easily have defended it, the Egyptian general proceeded 
 in person to reconnoitre the camp of Hafiz. The Turkish army, 
 encamped south of the village of Nezib, on both sides of the river, 
 was protected by very well constructed intrenchments, and occupied 
 a formidable position. Ibrahim thought it too hazardous to attempt 
 an attack in front; so, retracing his steps, he marched eastwards so as 
 to turn the left flank of the enemy. But to reach him in this way it 
 was necessary to pass through a long narrow gorge, which the 
 Egyptians could not have forced without severe loss, had Hafiz at- 
 tempted to bar their way. Ibrahim did not hesitate, so confident 
 was he in his star, and the event justified his temerity. With inex- 
 plicable infatuation Hafiz remained immovable in his camp; and 
 Ibrahim, reaching the extremity of the gorge without seeing the 
 face of an enemy, halted with his vanguard, stretched himself on the 
 ground, and went to sleep until the rest of his army should come up. 
 
 The 24th of June was the day fixed on for the battle; a mo- 
 mentous day, that seemed big with the whole futurity of the Otto- 
 man empire, and, perhaps, with half a century of wars and revo- 
 lutions for Europe. The two armies were nearly equal in numbers ; 
 40,000 men on each side ; but the Egyptians had the advantage in 
 discipline, confidence, and the reputation of the generals. 
 
 Born in the region of the Caucasus, Hafiz Pacha combined with 
 much energy and pertinacity a pious exaltation, produced by a pro- 
 found study of the Koran, and manifest in all his behaviour. Victor 
 over the Albanians, and over the Kurds, he was much prized by his 
 master, who reckoned confidently upon him; and he himself felt 
 assured he was destined to put an end to Ibrahim's prosperous 
 career. His star had paled, however, since the commencement of 
 the recent operations ; and the facility with which he had allowed 
 the Egyptians to occupy the village of Mezar, and to make their 
 flank movement, rendered his ability suspected. 
 
 As for Ibrahim, he was in the highest spirits; he bethought him 
 of Koniah. He relied, moreover, on a man renowned for the 
 promptitude and accuracy of his military coup cTceil, not less than 
 for his courage. From the rank of a simple French officer, become
 
 BATTLE OF NEZIB. 625 
 
 successively the instructor of the viceroy's armies, his firmest sup- 
 port, and his son's friend, Seve, known in his second country by 
 the name and title of Soliman Pacha, enjoyed an ascendancy not 
 undue to his merits. His parting words to his officers, after dis- 
 tributing his orders to them on the eve of the battle, were: " To- 
 morrow, sirs, we meet again under the tent of Hafiz." 
 
 At eight in the morning, the engagement began with the artil- 
 lery. Ibrahim's manoeuvre produced its fruits. The Turkish army 
 had its back turned to the intrenchments that ought to have pro- 
 tected it, and was left exposed. There was equal spirit, but not 
 equal skill on both sides; the Turkish shots, for the most part, took 
 no effect, whilst the Egyptian artillery, better directed, raked the 
 Ottoman army in all directions, and threw it into terrible disorder. 
 The cannon thundered for an hour and a half, and then two wings 
 of either army became engaged together. Followed by a part of 
 his extreme right, horse and foot, Ibrahim made an impetuous charge 
 upon Hafiz's extreme left. But the Turkish infantry, covered by an 
 olive wood, firmly awaited the enemy, allowed him to approach, and 
 opened its fire upon him; whereupon Ibrahim's cavalry, in spite of 
 afl his exertions, fell back in disorder on the two regiments of 
 infantry that supported them, and fled. But the right wing re- 
 mained firm ; whilst, on the contrary, symptoms of wavering appeared 
 on the Turkish left. The explosion of several ammunition waggons 
 had disabled some of the batteries, and thrown the ranks into dis- 
 order. The Kurds gave way. Ibrahim and Soliman Pacha instantly 
 pushed forward their right wing, and sent orders to the centre and 
 the left to charge. Thus pressed upon along its whole line, the 
 Turkish army wavered awhile, and then fled pell mell. Hafiz, 
 sword in hand, struggled in vain to rally his men, now imploring and 
 now cutting down the fugitives; he was himself carried away in the 
 headlong flood of the rout, and hastened to the mountains with 
 the remains of his army, leaving behind him three pachas killed, 
 104 pieces of artillery, 20,000 muskets, 9000 prisoners, his tents' 
 and baggage, and even his diamond decoration. 
 
 A few days afterwards, Ibrahim's tent was struck, his horse was 
 ready, and he was about to cross Mount Taurus, when a French 
 officer suddenly arrived with word to him, that he must halt. 
 M. Caille's mission to Egypt had succeeded. By a proper com- 
 bination of moderation and firmness, he had induced the viceroy 
 to give him a letter to Ibrahim, ordering the latter not to seek an 
 engagement, if the Turks consented to evacuate the Egyptian 
 territory, and bidding him not to advance, in case an engagement 
 should have been forced on him, and he should have been vic- 
 torious. It was with extreme mortification, that Ibrahim consented 
 to forego the fruits of his success. He was called on, forsooth, 
 to resign the legitimate advantages of a battle fought and won ! 
 And it was the friendship of France that exacted the sacrifice from 
 YOL. II. 2 S
 
 626 DEATH OF SULTAN MAHMOUD. 
 
 him ! What signified his father's orders ? Would his father have 
 written the despatch, had he known of the battle of Nezib ? Be- 
 sides, it was absolutely necessary that the army should advance, 
 in order to find subsistence. Strange injustice ! he had been at- 
 tacked, and he had vanquished; right and might were both on his 
 side ; and now his hands were tied ! These complaints on the part 
 of the Egyptian general were the more natural, inasmuch as papers 
 had been found in Hafiz's baggage containing secret instructions 
 from the sultan, which made it manifest that Mahmoud had long 
 premeditated schemes of war and vengeance. But in return for his 
 compliance with its advice, the French government promised him 
 its mediation, which was so necessary to him, seeing the unfavour- 
 able disposition of the other powers. Ibrahim, therefore, yielded. 
 
 Mahmoud did not live to hear of his defeat. For while the 
 cannon of Nezib was making the Ottoman empire rock upon its 
 old foundations, public prayers were ordered in the mosques of 
 Constantinople for the dying sultan. He had been conveyed, on 
 the 14th of June, to the Kiosk of Tchamlidja, which he never 
 quitted alive. Endowed by nature with herculean strength and 
 an iron temperament, he fell a victim at last to his frantic indul- 
 gence in lust and drunkenness, and also to the consuming force of 
 his too long compressed hatred. His last days were indescribably 
 gloomy and wretched. When he was not lethargic and silent, his 
 confused language only expressed the tumult of his thoughts. 
 Sometimes rallying for a moment, he denied he was ill, gave him- 
 self the airs of an imperishable sovereign, and affected the master ; 
 a pitiful comedy played between fainting fits by a despot who 
 seemed to take it amiss that even death failed in respect to him. 
 On the 28th of June, the physicians gave him over: on the 1st of 
 July, 1839, he expired, not without having repeatedly uttered a 
 fatal name, that of Mohammed Ali. 
 
 There was something deeply and sternly significant in the sultan's 
 death, connected as it was with the convulsions of his empire. It 
 was with a sort of religious awe that the inhabitants of Constan- 
 tinople saw the body of their dread master borne along wrapped up 
 in funeral shawls. 
 
 Mahmoud was certainly no vulgar character. He had the in- 
 stinct that prompts to great things, and the courage that helps to 
 achieve them; but one thing indispensable he wanted, the serenity 
 and sound sense of genius. To every thing that demanded prodi- 
 gious efforts of will and daring he was competent ; and thus it was 
 that he distinguished himself by the massacre of the Janissaries, for 
 which history has no parallel except the destruction of the Templars. 
 But where perspicacity and steadiness were requisite, there he broke 
 down. As an innovator, he proceeded at once to reform customs 
 without having first made any change in institutions and manners ; 
 which was beginning with what was most dangerous and least im-
 
 HIS REIGN CONSIDERED. 627 
 
 portant, since men cling in general much more tenaciously to their 
 usages than to their ideas. He stripped the Turks of their rich, and 
 much to be regretted costume, clapped a fez on their heads instead of 
 a turban; and seeing them by degrees dressed in the European style, 
 he fancied they were civilised. Wishing to reconstruct his military 
 force he destroyed it. What a whimsical idea it was to subject to 
 the regulations of our cavalry system, the descendants of the Mam- 
 louks, the best cavalry in the world. He committed the fault, too, 
 of making his innovations auxiliary to his vices; he gave himself up 
 to indulgence in the beverage forbidden by Mohammed even to 
 an excess that killed him; and, in defiance of the prejudices of his 
 people, he gratified his lust in the embraces of the Christian Greek 
 girls of the Bosphorus. This was outraging Islamism, not infusing 
 fresh vigour into it. But with the common insolence of despots^ 
 seeing he could dare much, he dared all. By that means he crushed 
 the energetic individuality of the Turk. What did he substitute 
 for the fierce fanaticism that had been their moving principle ? He 
 found himself, therefore, powerless to resist attacks from without, 
 and half his empire slipped from his grasp. He had the Emperor 
 of Russia for ally; he had him soon for protector. He had the 
 Pacha of Egypt for his vassal; he had him for his enemy. Europe, 
 which he longed to imitate, which he had the hope of equalling, 
 perhaps, beset and confined him, forced him to gulp down his 
 wrath, and held him chained as it were in impotent rage. And at 
 the moment when he had just emancipated himself, by giving the 
 word for war, life forsook him. There was a want of balance be- 
 tween his faculties, this was his grand misfortune. He set all the 
 world astir around him, and only effected his own ruin, because he 
 had imperfect lights with vigorous passions, and his moral miht 
 was deteriorated and misdirected by the mediocrity of his intellect. 
 
 But in the designs of Providence, such a man was doubtless fitted 
 to open up the way for communication between the East and the 
 West. Mahmoud co-operated and he was ignorant, probably, of 
 the part he played towards that modern work of unity, which 
 gradually effacing ^ the originality of races, the difference of tra- 
 ditions, the diversity of habits and costumes, the opposition of in- 
 terests, and even distances, tends harmoniously to constitute the 
 great human family on the ruins of the old world, so subdivided 
 and so full of the elements of strife. Unique and truly wonderful 
 spectacle ! In a country in which changes of reign had never before 
 admitted of any other intervention than conspiracies of eunuchs and 
 the dagger-stroke, it was to a boy of seventeen that Mahmoud be- 
 queathed his half-crumbled empire; and, thanks to the principle of 
 universal co-partnership newly introduced into history, it came to 
 pass that that boy had all Europe for his guardian. 
 
 On the 24th of June, the day of the battle of Nezib, the French 
 Chamber of Deputies heard a luminous report from M. Jouffroy on 
 the necessity of granting ministers 10,000,000 to augment our 
 
 2 s2
 
 628 DISCUSSIONS IN THE FRENCH CHAMBERS 
 
 forces in the Levant: on the 1st of July, the day of Mahmoud's 
 death, the discussion began; and never did any one exhibit a similar 
 character of grandeur. 
 
 The Due de Valmy was the first speaker. His speech was a 
 bitter and, unfortunately, a just criticism of the conduct of the 
 French government. He had no difficulty in proving, that from 
 the first the French government had taken up a false and equivocal 
 position in the East; that it had, by the convention of Kutaya, 
 created a most mischievous provisional state of things; that it had 
 favoured Mohammed Ali too much to allow of its retaining its 
 credit in the counsels of the Porte, and had too much vacillated in 
 its predilections not to lose ground with the viceroy; that, in a word, 
 it had brought itself into the predicament of having Constantinople 
 against it without having Alexandria for it. In reality the legiti- 
 matist orator would, in his hatred of revolutions, have had the 
 Pacha of Egypt sacrificed to the sultan. Such was, also, the desire 
 of M. Denis (du Var), convinced as he was that Turkey was not so 
 exhausted as was supposed, and that it would be equally profitable 
 and honoui-ablc for us to raise her up. 
 
 Quite different were M. Game's views. From the dead legitimacy 
 of a right condemned by the sentence of battles, civilisation, and 
 destiny, he appealed to the living and fruitful legitimacy of fact. 
 He hailed in Mohammed Ali the regenerator of a race that had er- 
 roneously been supposed extinct. In his opinion, Arab nationality 
 would bloom again under the auspices of the viceroy who was evi- 
 dently destined to sway the sceptre of the renovated East. It was 
 incumbent, therefore, to throw no obstacle between his fortunes and 
 Constantinople. After Koniah, twenty marches would have brought 
 him to the seraglio. Why had he been stopped? Since Turkey was 
 moribund, since she could no longer interpose effectively between 
 western Europe and the Russians, why was not a substitute for her 
 sought ? The integrity of the Ottoman empire was desired, and it 
 was no longer possible by means of the sultan and of the Turks ; it 
 ought, therefore, to be rendered possible by means of Mohammed 
 AH and the Arabs. A phantom was seated on the throne of Con- 
 stantinople : an armed man ought to fill it. Besides, was not Mo- 
 hammed Ali a friend to France? And would not the subjection of 
 Egyj)t to our influence make the Mediterranean what Napoleon's 
 genius had planned; namely, a French lake? 
 
 M. de Lainartine declared himself opposed both to the Turkish 
 and the Arab system. The integrity of the Ottoman empire 
 appeared to him a dream, either under the Pacha of Egypt, or 
 under the sultan. How was it to be hoped that Mohammed Ali 
 and Ibrahim would succeed in kneading and condensing under 
 their hands, strong as they were known to be, so many enervated 
 populations? "Where was that Arab nationality of which so much 
 was said ? Were we to understand by that term the incoherent and 
 monstrous assemblage of Egyptians, idolatrous Druses, Catholic
 
 ON THE AFFAIRS OF THE EAST. 629 
 
 Maronites, and Bedouins of the desert? Mohammed All was to be 
 crowned as the founder of an empire ! But in a country in which 
 there existed neither institutions, nor regular laws, nor political 
 principles; where there was nothing but a master and his slaves, 
 could a great man be any thing but an accident? " In such a 
 country," said the orator, "a great man, when he dies, carries his 
 genius with him; just as, when living, he strikes his tent, leaving 
 the place from which he departs as naked, empty, and ravaged as it 
 was before he encamped upon it." Passing on to consider the 
 status quo system adopted by the government, " I understand," he 
 said, " the status quo system, as regards the integrity of the Otto- 
 man empire before the treaty of 1774, or that of 1792; I under- 
 stand still after 1813; finally, I understand it before the annihilation 
 of the Turkish fleet atNavarino, that act of national insanity on the 
 part of France and England, for the advantage of Russia. But, 
 after the usurpation of the Crimea, and the Russian protectorate over 
 Walachia and Moldavia; after the emancipation and occupation of 
 Greece by your troops, and the millions of subsidies you will further 
 pay to-morrow towards its independence ; after the enslavement of the 
 Black Sea to the Russians, and the creation of Sevastopol, whence 
 the Russian fleets arrive in twenty-four hours at Constantinople; 
 after the treaties of Adrianople, Unkiar Skelessi, and Kutaya, and 
 the dismemberment of half the empire by Mohammed Ali, and by 
 you who protect him, the status quo, permit me to say, is a mockery, 
 similar to that of the existence of the Polish nationality. What ! 
 you are going to arm for the status quo of the Turkish empire, 
 which you say is important to the safety of Europe ; and that status 
 quo is the dismemberment, the annihilation, the agony of the em- 
 pire which you say you wish to raise up. Be at least consistent : if 
 Turkey is important to you, as you say it is, give your aid not to 
 the revolt established in Syria, but to the imperial legitimacy in 
 Constantinople. Lend the assistance of your advice, your engineers, 
 your officers, your fleet, to the generous efforts of Mahmoud for 
 the civilisation of his people; aid him to put down Ibrahim, to 
 recover Egypt, and all those parts of his empire which are sepa- 
 rating from it. Instead of this, what are you told to do? Arm, 
 they tell you, for the status quo, combine your fleets with those of 
 the English, in order to hinder the sultan from recovering his best 
 provinces from his rebellious pacha. Do you know what that 
 means? It means: Expend the gold, the blood, and the time of 
 Trance, to uphold what? Turkey in Europe, and Constantinople 
 under the hand of Russia; Turkey in Asia, under the sabre of Ibra- 
 him and the usurpation of Mohammed Ali." M. de Lamartine 
 then entered upon his own system, and supported it with singular 
 magnificence of language : it was the partition of the East between 
 the principal European powers, in the name and for the sake of 
 civilisation. " A congress !" he said, in concluding his speech. 
 " And in case the time for this should no longer be left you, take
 
 630 VILLEMAIN'S SPEECH. 
 
 to yourselves in the East, one of those maritime and military posi- 
 tions, such as England possesses in Malta, and of which Russia has 
 one on the Black Sea ; seize provisionally a pledge of influence and 
 of strength, which shall place you in a condition to be masters either 
 in negotiation or over events : remember Ancona !" 
 
 These fiery words, the boldness and brilliancy of these counsels : 
 the obsequies of a vast empire, knelled, in a manner, from the 
 French tribune; Europe solemnly invited to share the spoils of 
 Islamism what themes to move an assembly gathered round the 
 urn in which such interests were to have their fate determined ! 
 
 M. Villemain, minister of public instruction, had a difficult cause 
 to defend in the status quo. He applied himself not so much to 
 make out a case as to combat the arguments of M. Lamartine ; and 
 this he did with eloquent vivacity. " What," he asked, " is M. de 
 Lamartine's solution of the problem? Instead of a solution, he offers 
 the difficulty itself. Yes, gentlemen, it is difficult to uphold and pre- 
 serve the Ottoman empire ; but it would be more difficult still, to 
 partition it amongst the powers of Europe. And, furthermore, in 
 this case the difficulty is an iniquity. I prefer a difficulty which is 
 a point of justice." Villemain, moreover, did not subscribe to the 
 sentence of death pronounced on Turkey. " Does the honourable 
 member know the whole force of the vitality that resides in a 
 people? Does he know how hard it is to uproot a nation from 
 the soil it occupies, even when it has been conquered? Has he 
 been at Varna? Has he been at Chumla? Has he seen how, with 
 the genius of Europe to inspire it, the Russian force languished 
 
 before weak walls, defended by intrepid Mussulmans? The 
 
 day when the attempt should be made to sweep the Turks from the 
 soil they occupy, the day when the tombs of their fathers and their 
 mosques should be destroyed, a national insurrection would, pro- 
 bably, blaze up on both banks of the Bosphorus, and perhaps you 
 would at last find a people amidst the ruins under which you pro- 
 posed to bury them." 
 
 After Villemain's speech, the discussion proceeded hurriedly. 
 Without putting forth any precisely defined views, M. deTocqueville 
 required, that France should assume an imposing and dignified atti- 
 tude on the new stage that had just been opened; so as to prove that 
 she had not lost her aptitude for great things under her monarchy 
 of recent date. M. Berryer was astonished that the government 
 could not make up its mind to -side fairly either with the sultan or 
 the pacha. Especially concerned about the imminence of Russian 
 intervention in Constantinople, Odilon Barrot conjured the govern- 
 ment to prevent the mischief by the continuity of its efforts and the 
 firmness of its bearing. Lastly, M. Guizot thus summed up the 
 policy of the status quo which he adopted: " To maintain the Otto- 
 man empire for the maintenance of the European balance of power; 
 and when, by the force of circumstances, by the natural course of 
 events, any dismemberment takes place, any province becomes de-
 
 EASTERN POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 631 
 
 tached, to favour the conversion of that province into an independent 
 state, which may take its place in the coalition of the states, and be 
 serviceable some day, in its new condition, to the new European 
 balance: such is the policy that becomes France, the policy to 
 which she has been naturally led, and which we have followed." 
 
 The Chamber of Deputies declared in favour of this system, which 
 was that of the ministers and of the majority of the Chamber of 
 Peers; and the 10,000,000 asked for by the ministry were granted. 
 
 The oriental programme adopted by the three constitutional 
 powers of France was therefore : the integrity of the Ottoman empire 
 combined with the status quo, that is to say the maintenance of Mo- 
 hammed Ali's rule in Syria. 
 
 The oriental programme of Great Britain was on the contrary: 
 the integrity of the Ottoman empire by the restitution of Syria to 
 the sovereign of Constantinople. 
 
 In point of equity France was right. 
 
 "What, in fact, were her demands? That the arrangement of Ku- 
 taya should be respected. Now that arrangement had been gua- 
 ranteed by all the powers, England not excepted. England now 
 talked of reversing a treaty that possessed the moral sanction of Eu- 
 rope. And wherefore? Had Mohammed Ali committed any new 
 offence ? Had he done any thing else in drawing the sword than 
 defend himself from a flagrant and admitted aggression? And after 
 he was victorious, had he not, in pausing, given a pledge of mode- 
 ration for which he was fairly entitled to recompense? Instead of 
 this, the English insisted that he should be despoiled, that a pro- 
 vince should be wrested from him after a battle fought and won ! 
 It was the height of injustice. 
 
 In a political point of view, neither the French nor the English 
 system was tenable. 
 
 Nothing could be more contradictory than the policy of France. 
 Desiring to set up against the Russian colossus a strong compact 
 Turkey, it tore her to fragments. What meant the integrity of a 
 state cut in two? Constantinople and Asia Minor for the sultan; 
 for the viceroy, Cairo and Syria, with the Taurus between them, 
 nothing but the Taurus : this was called the integrity of the Ot- 
 toman empire ! 
 
 This is what the English said when they declared for the" resti- 
 tution of Syria to the sultan; so that, in a political point of view, 
 they had in their favour the semblances of logic and good faith. 
 They might, however, have been "answered, that the^Porte was in- 
 capable of administering the disputed provinces; that it had already 
 given proof of this; that to restore them to the sultan was to give 
 them back to sterility, to disorder, to the bloody conflicts of the 
 Druses and the Maronites, to the permanence of revolt in the 
 mountains. If any one desired to know what Syria had gained by 
 passing from under the yoke of the Turks to that of the Egyptians, 
 he had but to cast his eyes on the plain of Antioch covered with
 
 632 THE ENGLISH POLICY THE TRUE ONE. 
 
 olives, on the environs of Beyrout planted with vines, on the resur- 
 rection of Aleppo, on Damascus no longer enriched solely by the 
 passage of the pilgrims. Mohammed All's administration had cer- 
 tainly exhibited a narsh character; but, after all, under that tempo- 
 rary despotism which the excess of anarchy rendered necessary, 
 Syria had been restored to order and placed in the way to wealth. 
 Was it better to plunge her back into chaos, than to leave her in 
 the hands of a man, who, after all, was a Mussulman, and who, when 
 his ambition was satisfied, would cease to be the rival, and would 
 become the supporter of the sultan? 
 
 Such was the dispute between France and England; and the 
 result was most plainly that they were both wrong in making the 
 integrity of the Ottoman empire depend: the one, on the main- 
 tenance of Mohammed Ali in Syria; the other, on the restitution of 
 Syria to the sultan. For, as regarded the Ottoman empire, Syria 
 in the hands of the viceroy was a danger, in those of the sultan an 
 embarrassment. 
 
 Thus, in whatever way it was considered, this much talked of 
 integrity could only be a chimera or a lure. It was not by its means 
 that Constantinople could possibly be defended against the Russians. 
 The true, the only means of guaranteeing the Bosphonis had been 
 discerned by England, when she proposed to France to protect Con- 
 stantinople directly by a maritime and armed alliance of the two 
 nations. 
 
 Had the ministers of the 12th of May acceded to that proposal, at 
 the same time demanding of England, as the price of their support, 
 that the sultan and the viceroy should be allowed to settle their own 
 disputes between them, the game would have been won for France. 
 England, being left without the pretext of Russian menaces against 
 Constantinople for damaging Mohammed Ali, would have with- 
 drawn her attention from the Egyptian question, and sacrificed her 
 ill-humour against the viceroy to her dread of the czar; Russia 
 would never have ventured into the Bosphorus when she saw the 
 combined fleets of France and England ready to force the Darda- 
 nelles; the victorious Ibrahim would have been granted the heredi- 
 tary sovereignties of Egypt and Syria by the Porte; and everything 
 would, in this way, have ended for the advantage of France, and in 
 accordance with her views. 
 
 Unhappily, the ministers of the 12th of May were not adequate 
 to the occasion. Marshal Soult was but a name in the council. 
 M. Passy possessed sound judgment and extensive acquirements, but 
 he wanted practical familiarity with great aflairs. M. Teste, an 
 eminent member of the bar of Paris, and a powerful orator, was not 
 competent to lead the cabinet. M. Dufaure had more precision than 
 grasp of mind. M. Villemain was a brilliant dissertator; M. Du- 
 
 * See, in Comspomdrmce nhtire to tke Affairs of Ae Leramt, Lord Palmerston's de- 
 spatch, dated June 19; and two of Lord Grenvilie's, dated June 24 and 2S.
 
 ERRORS OF THE FRENCH MINISTRY. 633 
 
 chatel a very dexterous minister; but neither of them had the coup 
 d'oeil of a statesman. 
 
 Lastly, there was the king, who, as we shall see in the course of this 
 narrative, could make up his mind to nothing, could and did foresee 
 nothing, and slumbered to the end in scarcely credible illusions. 
 
 The French ministers had forbidden Mohammed AH to cross 
 Mount Taurus, happen what might: this was their first blunder. 
 Thereby they indirectly protected Constantinople, and relieved 
 England from the care of directly protecting it. What was the 
 consequence? That the cabinet of St. James's, from the moment it 
 was set at ease respecting the question of Constantinople, a-ain con- 
 centrated all its anxiety on that of Alexandria. Taking aSvantage 
 of the imprudence with which the French ministers made the former 
 dependent on the latter, Lord Palmerston failed not to represent to 
 Europe, on the strength of the French government's own acts, that 
 Constantinople would never be safe, nor Europe tranquil, so lono- as 
 Mohammed Ali had the power of throwing every thing into confu- 
 sion, by crossing Mount Taurus; so long as he should be allowed to 
 hold the military key of Asiatic Turkey; so long as Bagdad on the 
 south, Diarbekr and Erzeroum on the east, Koniah, Broussa, and 
 Constantinople on the north, were left at the mercy of his ambition. 
 In a previous despatch (dated June 28, 1839) to Lord Beauvale, 
 British ambassador at Vienna, Lord Palmerston had expressed him- 
 self very clearly as to the necessity under which, in his opinion, all 
 Europe lay, of expelling Mohammed Ali from Syria. It is plain 
 what weapons the French government put into the hands of Eng- 
 lish statesmen, when, instead of separating the Russian from the 
 Egyptian question, it seemed to regard them as perfectly identical; 
 when, instead of directly protecting Constantinople, it sent M. Caille 
 to Ibrahim, to ask him, for the sake of the European balance of 
 power, on no account to lay hand on Asia Minor. Was not this 
 acknowledging, that the safety of Constantinople, and the peace of 
 the world, depended on Ibrahim's nod? Was it not authorising 
 England to require, that the desert should be interposed, if need 
 were, between Mount Taurus and that army which had but to move 
 one step to throw Europe into disorder? 
 
 After all, the ministers of the 12th were not without their fore- 
 bodings, that when the destiny of Mohammed Ali should come to 
 be settled, England would declare violently against them, and would 
 gain over the rest of Europe to her.side. They strove, therefore, in 
 their first despatches, to keep as much as possible in the dark their 
 opinion as to the territorial arrangements to be made in Syria,* never 
 ceasing to repeat, that the gordian knot was between St. Petersburg 
 and Constantinople, and the north was the point to be kept con- 
 stantly in view. 
 
 But with fatal inconsistency, whilst with one hand they did their 
 
 See Marshal Soult's despatch, June 15, 1839; Correspondence, c.
 
 634 SOULT PROPOSES THE PUBLICATION OF 
 
 best to keep the Egyptian question out of sight, with the other 
 they imprudently laid the basis of an European coalition, in which 
 it was impossible but that the question should be raised, and then 
 decided against them. Thus, replying, on the 17th of July, 1839, 
 to the initiative taken by Austria, Marshal Soult made the following 
 declaration: 
 
 " All the cabinets desire the integrity and independence of the 
 Ottoman monarchy under the reigning dynasty; all are disposed to 
 use their means of action and influence in order to secure the main- 
 tenance of that essential element in the European balance of power, 
 and they would not hesitate to declare against any combination 
 whatsoever which should impair it. As such an accordance of sen- 
 timents and resolutions must suffice, when it admits of no manner of 
 doubt, not only to prevent any attempt contrary to this great inte- 
 rest, but even to dissipate the anxieties which constitute a real dan- 
 ger, through the agitation they produce in the minds of nations, the 
 king's government thinks that the cabinets would do something im- 
 portant towards the consolidation of peace, by setting forth in writ- 
 ten documents, to be reciprocally communicated, which would soon 
 obtain, more or less complete publicity, a statement of the inten- 
 tions to which I have just alluded." 
 
 There was not one line in this celebrated declaration but was a 
 blunder. True the word Syria did not appear in it ; but what did that 
 signify, since the manifesto regarded " the integrity and independ- 
 ence of the Ottoman empire" as " an essential element of the Euro- 
 pean balance of power? 1 ' Had not this the effect of strictly uniting 
 the Russian with the Egyptian question? And that being the case, 
 was not the act of calling for an European coalition tantamount to 
 submitting beforehand to the decisions of a political council, in 
 which France was likely to be alone in her opinion on the Egyptian 
 question? Was it not to expose her to hear England, Austria, 
 Prussia, and Russia declare, that Mohammed Ali's rule in Syria was 
 a thing likely to impair the balance of power in Europe? 
 
 The very reserve observed by the ministers of the 12th of May, 
 taken in combination with their acts, was a blunder. For, if they 
 gave no explanation relatively to Syria, Lord Palmerston, on the 
 contrary, did explain himself in a peremptory manner, and never 
 ceased crying out to the powers, " The integrity of the Ottoman 
 empire means, the expulsion of Mohammed Ali from Syria." Now, 
 whilst the opinion of the French government half shrank from sight, 
 and thus seemed to acknowledge its own inferiority, whereas that of 
 the British government was everywhere boldly and forcibly pro- 
 claimed, it was natural that the latter should prevail in the councils 
 of Europe ; and this was the actual result. 
 
 Prince Metternich had no other end in view, when he proposed an 
 European coalition, than to withdraw Turkey from Russian encroach- 
 ments, by bringing it back within the range of the treaties of 
 Vienna, from which he repented of having excluded it in 1815;
 
 A JOINT MANIFESTO. 635 
 
 and lie declared, in the first instance, in favour of the status quo 
 system in the East; for sake of quiet and peace. But when he saw 
 with what animosity England pursued the viceroy, whilst France 
 threw over him only a tacit protection, Metternich did not scruple 
 to adopt Lord Palmerston's hostile intentions, finding in them the 
 twofold advantage of chastising the spirit of innovation in Moham- 
 med Ali's person, and of disuniting the two constitutional states 
 whose alliance had been founded in 1830. 
 
 The decision of Russia was swayed by similar motives. 
 
 So, at the very moment the cabinet of the Tuileries was proudly 
 giving itself out for the promoter of an European coalition, it was 
 beginning to be left utterly alone. 
 
 Things were in this state when the news of the victory of Nezib were 
 spread through Europe. It was a thunder-stroke for Lord Palmerston. 
 Nezib deranged his plans; Nezib, by advancing Ibrahim along^the 
 road to Constantinople, might render the presence of the Russians 
 there necessarily inevitable; Nezib, if the Taurus were crossed, 
 would compel England to break more peremptorily than ever with 
 Russia, and once more to lean on us against her. What an admir- 
 able opportunity for France, had she then been in a condition to say 
 to the English : " The danger is immense : is it necessary, in order to 
 ward it off, that we unite our flags and our swords? I consent to 
 this, but on one condition; namely, that the arrangement between 
 the Porte and the victor of Nezib shall be direct and free. If you 
 refuse, I am not the one who will stop Ibrahim. It is for you to 
 provide against the consequences." What could Lord Palmerston 
 have rephed to such language? Would he, for the pleasure of 
 preventing a direct arrangement, favourable to the Pacha of E^ypt, 
 have left Constantinople hemmed in between the march of the 
 Egyptian army, and the movement of a Russian fleet? It would 
 have been an act of insanity ; and had he been disposed to commit it r 
 England would never have allowed it. For after all, Lord Palmerston's 
 policy had its adversaries even in the cabinet of which he was a 
 member, and the English people was much less bent on wresting 
 Syria from Mohammed AH than Constantinople from the Russians. 
 If then the French government, foreseeing Ibrahim's victory, had 
 not assigned him the Taurus for a limit, the direct arrangement 
 would have become the very corner-stone of the whole subsequent 
 state of things; and the policy of France, her interests, her sympa- 
 thies, her Mediterranean influence, would have been intrusted in the 
 East to a negotiator, who was victory. 
 
 But the French government was destined to lose itself more and 
 more in its fatal path of folly. Will it be believed ? On the news 
 of the battle of Nezib, Marshal Soult's first care was to declare to 
 Lord Grenville, the English ambassador,* " That, according to the 
 views of the French government, the defeat of the Turkish army 
 
 * Correspondence, &c., Lord Grenville's despatch, July 29, 1839.
 
 636 CONTRADICTORY DIPLOMACY. 
 
 ought to have no influence upon the proceedings of the five powers ; 
 that, at a moment when the sultan's advisers were paralysed with fear, 
 or were traitorously endeavouring to secure their own interests at 
 their master's expense, all arrangements concluded between the Porte 
 and the pacha ought to be considered null and void, and a declara- 
 tion to that effect ought to be transmitted to Mohammed Ah'." 
 
 The measure was full : the French government had come to speak 
 the language of Lord Palmerston ! 
 
 It is true, that with Lord Grenville's despatch reporting Marshal 
 Soult's words, another was forwarded to London,* addressed to 
 M. de Bourquency, and stating that the result of the battle of Nezib, 
 ought, to a certain extent, to improve the lot of Mohammed AH. 
 
 What was the secret meaning of this monstrous contradiction? 
 Which of the two statesmen expressed the real thoughts of the 
 cabinet of the Tuileries? The English ambassador received orders 
 to clear up this point, and Marshal Soult replied, " That he retracted 
 nothing of his conversation, and that he persisted in regarding all 
 direct arrangement between the pacha and the sultan as null and void." 
 
 On the one hand, Marshal Soult was the king's own man; on the 
 other, it is a proved fact, that he signed despatches only for form 
 sake, and often without knowing their contents. There is reason, 
 therefore, to suppose that the conversation expressed the king's senti- 
 ments, and the despatch those of ministers. But it was not Lord 
 Palmerston's business to inquire whether or not the rules of con- 
 stitutional government were observed in France. Fastening on the 
 avowal which had been twice put forth by the president of the council, 
 he hastened to write to Vienna, Berlin, Constantinople, and St. Pe- 
 tersburg, that the victory of Nezib weighed absolutely nothing in the 
 balance, and that the five powers were perfectly agreed on that point. 
 
 Now the more obstinately the French government floundered on 
 in its false course, the more fortune seemed to take pleasure in 
 offering it the means of repairing its errors. 
 
 The moment the sultan's eyes were closed, the flutter of ambition 
 began round his corpse. His successor, Abd-ul-Medjid, Avas but a 
 handsome, delicate stripling, whose favour was engrossed by those, 
 who, being masters of the obscure ways that led to his person, were 
 the first to ingratiate themselves with him by their zealous adulation. 
 In the partition of power the title of seraskier fell to Halil's share, 
 and the authority of grand-vizier to Khosrew's. The former was a 
 weak-minded and presumptuous man, whose mediocrity had recom- 
 mended him to Mahmoud for a son-in-law. An embassy to St. 
 Petersburg had rendered him favourable to innovations at which 
 Russia rejoiced, because they prepared the Turks to pass without 
 astonishment under her yoke. Khosrew was an active old man, of 
 an implacable and vigilant nature, not less versed in intrigues than 
 in business; a bigot for reform, which he was accused of having 
 
 * Correspondence, Sfc,, Lord Grenville's despatch, July 29, 1839.
 
 DEFECTION OF THE TURKISH FLEET. 637 
 
 supported by mysterious and bloody proceedings ; capable, in a word, 
 of defending the empire, if no more had been necessary to that end 
 than to strike in the dark. An incapable man, a minister of bad 
 repute; such were the heads on which rested the destinies of the 
 vanquished Turkish empire. 
 
 Nor was this all. It was found that Halil and Khosrew were the 
 enemies of Akhmet Fevzi Pacha, who had the command of the 
 Ottoman fleet. Mahmoud's favourite in a despotic state this was 
 his merit Akhmet lost every thing in losing his master. Khosrew's 
 supremacy terrified him :he believed himself a dead man if he re- 
 mained true to his allegiance; and, urged by fear, hatred, vulgar 
 hopes, and by Mohammed Ali's dazzling prosperity, he sailed from 
 the Dardanelles with the Turkish fleet, bent on treachery. But not 
 far from there Admiral Lalande was stationed with a small fleet not 
 sufficiently ^ strong to give battle, and yet strong enough to be 
 respected, since it bore the name of France. The expected meeting 
 taking place, it was necessary to deceive the French admiraf. 
 Akhmet, therefore, despatched a steamboat to him, having on board 
 Osman, vice-admiral of the Turkish fleet and his accomplice in the 
 scheme of defection. Osman asserted, that Mahmoud had been 
 poisoned by Halil and Khosrew, that in such extremities the 
 capidan pacha thought it his duty to sue for peace, and that it was 
 for the purpose of negotiating with Mohammed Ali he had put the 
 fleet in motion. Perhaps Admiral Laknde ought to have been on 
 his guard; perhaps he ought to have been wary enough to send for 
 information to the French ambassador at Constantinople, detaining 
 the Ottoman fleet until the answer arrived. But his instructions 
 enjoined him to hinder war not peace; and if the supposition of 
 treachery did not find ready admission with him, his own honour- 
 able feelings may excuse him. Akhmet sailed on. 
 
 That was an unparalleled day for Mohammed Ali, when, before 
 the eyes of a countless multitude, attracted by the singularity and 
 the splendour of the spectacle, the Turkish fleet mingled with the 
 Egyptian in the harbour of Alexandria. Thenceforth, what was 
 there lacking to the viceroy's fortunes ? His son had won a memo- 
 rable victory, his enemy had died in despair, and now eight ships, 
 twelve frigates, and two brigs, came to open to him, along with his 
 own vessels, the paths of the sea ! His joy was imposing like his 
 destiny. Glowing with delight, but calm in his bearing, he raised 
 up Akhmet, who bowed before him to the earth, and smothered 
 the traitor's shame in a paternal embrace; then, turning to the 
 Turkish officers, he spoke some suitable words to them, and gave 
 them hopes that the grand unity of the empire would be restored 
 under his supremacy. 
 
 And now all is over; the viceroy's star is in the ascendant; 
 Turkey has lost her last resource through the defection of her fleet : 
 she must yield, and the divan resigns itself to the necessity. Mohani-
 
 638 NOTE PROHIBITING A DIRECT ARRANGEMENT 
 
 med All has laid down tlie conditions of peace : they are submitte 
 to; he is granted the hereditary sovereignty of Egypt and of Syria 
 and Hadji Sahib Effendi and Tefik Eifendi are appointed t 
 convey to him the longed-for pledge of reconciliation between th 
 Osmanlis. 
 
 Thus, that direct arrangement which it was the policy of Franc 
 to desire, and which it had till then shunned, seemed forced upo 
 it by the special favour of Providence for its advantage and i 
 spite of it. 
 
 The two persons appointed were about to set out on their missioi 
 when M. de Stunner, the Austrian internuncio, received a despatc 
 from Prince Metternich, who ordered him. in the name, and as I 
 said, in accordance with the views of the five powers, to put the vel 
 of Europe on the direct arrangement. Deplorable and truly incon 
 prehensible fact ! It was the French ambassador who contributed mo 
 to set aside that solution of the affair which would have ended the wz 
 in a manner favourable to Mohammed Ali, the protege of Franc< 
 it was Admiral Roussin, who, in concert with M. de Sturmer, dre 
 up (July 27, 1839) a note which was then presented by the inte 
 nuncio for signature to Lord Ponsonby, M. de Boutenieff, and ]\ 
 de Konigsmark, the ambassadors of England, Russia, and Prussi 
 Here follows that too famous note : 
 
 "The five undersigned ambassadors, conformably with the instn* 
 tions received from their respective courts, congratulate themselv< 
 on having to announce to the ministers of the Sublime Porte, thi 
 the agreement of the five powers, touching the Eastern question, 
 certain ; and they pray the Sublime Porte to await the fruits of the 
 friendly dispositions, and to make absolutely no decision whatev< 
 in a definitive manner without their co-operation." 
 
 How were it possible to describe Lord Ponsonby's exultation? 
 was a revenge for Nezib that was thus offered him, and such a or 
 as he had never ventured to dream of. He signed. M. < 
 Boutenieff was far from having the same reason to be satisfied ; 
 if the note of the 27th of July involved the future humiliatic 
 of the Pacha of Egypt, on the other hand, it pointed to the a: 
 nulment of the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi. But what was to 1 
 done? To refuse would be to reveal to Europe the secret ambitioi 
 designs of Russia. Prince Metternich, moreover, had not hesitate 
 to answer for the approbation of the Emperor Nicholas. M. ( 
 Boutenieff therefore signed, and so did M. de Konigsmark. Turkt 
 was declared a minor, and Europe undertook the guardianship. 
 
 Had. the powers been united by a lofty sense of justice ar 
 right, their collective intervention in the East would have been f 
 august fact. And even reduced to the proportions given it by tl 
 selfishness of the courts and their paltry rivalries, there was th 
 much of grandeur in it, that it was an involuntary testimony to tl 
 principle of community and reciprocity in human affairs. But it
 
 BETWEEN THE SULTAN AND THE VICEROY. 639 
 
 not the less true that, as, regardedTrench interests, which are those 
 of civilisation and freedom, the note of the 27th of July was a wrong 
 and a misfortune. 
 
 Ought the blame of it to be cast on Admiral Roussin? He did 
 no more than comply with the spirit of his instructions. Only 
 where another would, perhaps, have hesitated, he, the Pacha of 
 Egypt's adversary, did not hesitate. 
 
 The note was received ill, and almost angrily in St. Petersburg. 
 The Emperor of Russia considered it strange and unbecoming, that, 
 without having consulted him, and presuming to speak for him, 
 Prince Metternich had obtained the signature of Russia to an act 
 which tended implicitly to withdraw Turkey from the protectorate 
 of the Russians. Unaccustomed to conceal his displeasiire, he ex- 
 pressed it, it is said, with autocratic vehemence to M. de Fiquelmont, 
 Austrian ambassador at St. Petersburg ; and M. de Nesselrode wrote 
 to Count Medem: " The Emperor of Russia by no means despairs 
 of the safety of the Porte, provided the powers of Europe respect its 
 repose, and do not by unseasonable agitation shake it in seeking to 
 consolidate it." He said, also, to the French ambassador: "A little 
 more or less of Syria given to the Pacha of Egypt is a matter that 
 concerns us little ; our only condition is, that the Porte shall be free 
 in the consent it gives." Lastly, he wrote to M. de Boutenieff: 
 "We ought not, and cannot set ourselves up as arbiters of what 
 affects the interests of the Porte to such a degree : it is for itself to 
 decide. The emperor allows you full latitude to open the way, in 
 concert with your colleagues, for a pacific arrangement between the 
 Porte and Egypt, saving the free adhesion of the sultan." It was 
 impossible more clearly to disavow the note of the 27th of July.* 
 
 Prince Metternich had not reckoned on such a disavowal. His 
 
 * From the diplomatic collection published by Lord Palmerston, M. Leon Faucher 
 has drawn forth a real act of indictment against the diplomacy of the foreign powers. 
 M. Leon rancher's work, a very remarkable one, appears to us sometimes to go to 
 far in its accusations. 
 
 The author, for instance, regards and denounces as a farce, the disapprobation of 
 the note of the 27th of July, manifested by Eussia. An attentive perusal of the 
 despatches has led us to an opposite opinion. A part of the note having been di- 
 rected against the ambassador of the cabinet of St. Petersburg, it is quite natural 
 that it should have been offended by it. 
 
 The author, likewise, very bitterly upbraids Lord Palmerston with the perfidy of 
 his policy. There was no perfidy on Lord Palmerston's part, except in the intrigues 
 which, as -we shall see by and by, fomented the insurrection in Syria, and in the secrecy 
 observed as to the treaty which was definitively to break off the Anglo-French 
 alliance. But it is certain, that at the beginning of the negotiations, Lord Pal- 
 merston's conduct was very natural, and his language very clear and precise. From 
 the first he spoke of the necessity of taking Syria from the pacha ; in May, he pro- 
 claimed the restitution of Syria to the sultan as an essential element of the Euro- 
 pean balance of power. If there was a want of frankness anywhere it was in the 
 cabinet of the Tuileries, which did not officially make known its opinion on the 
 Egyptian question until about the end of September. 
 
 In fine, M. Leon Faucher seems to us to have yielded somewhat too much to the 
 honourable vehemence of patriotic indignation, in sometimes attributing to the per- 
 fidy of others what was but the result of the errors committed by our own ministry. 
 It is painful to us to say this, but truth demands it.
 
 640 LORD PALMERSTON PROPOSES COERCION. 
 
 vanity had indulged the hope of an approaching conference, in 
 which, under the shadow of his experience, the problem that per- 
 plexed the diplomatic world would be solved. The attitude assumed 
 by Russia was matter of humiliation and anxiety to him. He fell 
 ill : was his illness only a pretence ? Did he not withdraw for a 
 while from the scene, in order to avoid the embarrassment of a deci- 
 sion, in which his circumspection might be a second time at fault? 
 So thought the French ministers. 
 
 As for them, if they did not unreservedly approve of the note, it 
 was not because it hindered the direct arrangement, but because it 
 too completely put Turkey out of the sphere of the deliberations ; 
 for M. Passy and his colleagues were not less earnestly desirous than 
 Prince Metternich of restoring the Ottoman empire to a place in 
 the European system established in 1815. 
 
 It is superfluous to add, that as for Lord Palmerston, he was 
 triumphant. The note of the 27th of July restored him the prey 
 he had been on the point of losing. Now, then, he threw off all 
 reserve. On the 1st of August, he proposed to the French govern- 
 ment, to call imperiously on Mohammed Ali to restore the Turkish 
 fleet, and to capture the Egyptian fleet if he refused ; a brutal 
 proposition, which the French ministers rejected, for once, with 
 much force, reason, and dignity.* 
 
 Lord Palmerston, though stung to the quick, did not lose courage. 
 He insisted on the adoption of certain coercive measures, intended 
 to put down the viceroy's resistance, if need were, and he sketched 
 the programme of them with much complacency: the communica- 
 tions by sea, between Syria and Egypt, were to be intercepted; the 
 harbours of both provinces were to be blockaded ; all vessels sailing 
 under the Egyptian flag were to be captured ; Candia was to be 
 taken from the viceroy, and restored to the sultan ! 
 
 And the French government, instead of now, at last, unfurling 
 the flag of its own proper policy, took refuge in tame supineness, and 
 amused, itself with discussing the merits of the proposed measures of 
 coercion. What do I say? With a puerile dissimulation, that 
 could deceive no one, it even went the length of declaring, " That 
 France felt no interest in the pacha; that the arrangement which 
 should deprive him of Syria, would be the best one, if there existed 
 sufficient means of constraint." 
 
 Lord Palmerston was far from letting fall such rash words. He 
 pushed matters violently forward, well Knowing that the cabinet of 
 the Tuileries would not follow him ; and soon casting aside all dis- 
 guise, he wrote to Mr. Bulwer at Paris, Lord George Hamilton at 
 Berlin, Lord Beauvale at Vienna, and Lord Clanricarde at St. Pe- 
 tersburg, that the moment for acting against the pacha was come, 
 that that course must be taken forthwith, and that the other powers 
 must abandon that one which should refuse to advance. 
 
 * See Marshal Soult's despatch to M. de Bourquency, August 6. 1839.
 
 POLICY OF RUSSIA. 641 
 
 Russia but too well understood this language. She saw France 
 and England on the eve of a rupture, and instantly her oriental 
 policy changed its aspect as regarded Mohammed AH and the status 
 quo. The opportunity of breaking up the Anglo-French alliance 
 was an unexpected good fortune for the Emperor of Russia; to 
 seize it was an immense advantage. M. de Brunow was sent to 
 London, where he arrived September 15, 1839. 
 
 ^Brunow's proposals were to this effect that Russia would fall in 
 with, and pledge herself to second, the views of England; but that, 
 in case Ibrahim should advance, it should be Russia's part to protect 
 the sultan, whilst the allied fleets should act on the coasts of Egypt 
 and Syria. This was tantamount to saying to Lord Palmerston: 
 " Give up Constantinople to us, and we will give up Alexandria to 
 you." Monstrous as was the bargain, Lord Palmerston acquiesced 
 in it. But the French ministers being made acquainted with it, pro- 
 tested energetically against so scandalous a consecration of the treaty 
 of Unkiar Skelessi. " Never," they wrote, " never with our consent 
 shall a foreign naval force appear before Constantinople, without ours 
 instantly showin <* itself there likewise."* Lord Palmerston's colleagues, 
 less impetuous than himself, refused their co-operation. The Bri- 
 tish cabinet asked ha consequence, by way of amendment, that if the 
 march of Ibrahim brought the Russian vessels into the Bosphorus, 
 some allied vessels should be at liberty to enter the Dardanelles. 
 M. de Brunow accepted the amendment ad referendum, and re- 
 turned to St. Petersburg to seek a definitive answer. 
 
 It was not till then that the ministers of the 12th of May made 
 up their minds to pronounce their ultimatum. On the 13th of Sep- 
 tember, 1839, they named M. de Pontois ambassador to Constanti- 
 nople, in lieu of Admiral Roussin, who was known to be unfavour- 
 able to the viceroy; and, on the 21st, they acquainted Europe with 
 their plan, which consisted in granting Mohammed AH Egypt, 
 Syria, and Arabia, hereditarily, and the island of Candia fo Hfe. 
 At last, then, they made themselves heard in the debate; but it 
 was too late. The compact between England and Russia was about 
 to be concluded. 
 
 And to fill up the measure of mischief, the success of their avowed 
 poHcy was impeded in London by their own ambassador, the im- 
 perturbable agent of a poHcy that shunned the light. For whilst the 
 French ministers were publishing their plan, the following was the 
 system submitted to Lord Palmerston by General Sebastiani, in an 
 official interview, and speaking in the character of an ambassador : 
 Syria was to be divided into two portions, by a line drawn from 
 west to east, through Beyrout or Damascus ; and the sultan was to 
 have the northern part, the pacha the southern. General Sebastiani 
 added, that if England acceded to this arrangement, France would 
 concur in the coercive measures to be employed for securing its 
 
 * Marshal Soult's despatch to General Sebastiani, September 26, 1839. 
 VOL. II. 2 T
 
 642 FRANCE LEFT ALONE. 
 
 execution. Great must have -been the surprise of the English 
 minister, when he received from Paris despatches which ascribed 
 to the French ministers views quite different to those put forth by 
 the ambassador. Lord Palmerston wrote on the subject to Mr. 
 Bulwer, and obtained proof that General Sebastiani was the ambas- 
 sador, not of a cabinet, but of one man.* A conviction of such a 
 fact could not but inspire the English minister with increased inso- 
 lence. Entertaining for Louis Philippe a hatred that was forward 
 to exhibit itself in marks of disdain, he went on repeating inces- 
 santly, that the King of the French would never make up his mind 
 to an act of vigour; that there was nothing one might not venture 
 in defiance of such a monarch, so long as he ruled the affairs of his 
 country. 
 
 However, to assume a show of moderation, Lord Palmerston made 
 a final offer, viz. : to grant the viceroy, independently of Egypt, the 
 hereditary pachalic of Acre, minus the fortress. The French mi- 
 nistry, of course, considered the concession insufficient; and then 
 Lord Palmerston did not hesitate to say, with insulting dryness: 
 " The concession is withdrawn." 
 
 Meanwhile, it was intimated that the Russian government ac- 
 cepted the amendment proposed to it through M. de Bruno w. What 
 mattered it, in fact, to the Russian government, according to Nes- 
 selrode's expression, whether Mohammed Ali had a little more or a 
 little less of Syria? What did it even matter to it if the treaty 
 of Unkiar Skelessi received a slight shock by the temporary admis- 
 sion of St. George's flag into the Sea of Marmora, provided 
 that at that price France was humiliated and severed from her 
 allies; provided that at that price a jealous acrimony separated for a 
 long time, perhaps for ever, the two cabinets whose union had caused 
 the northern courts so much uneasiness? 
 
 A league, then, was formed against France ; Austria and Prussia 
 were invited to join it, and readily complied. M. de Fiquelmont, 
 who, during Prince Metternich's illness, had the management of 
 affairs in Vienna, had for a while evinced his accordance with the 
 French government; but the despatch which contained his adhesion 
 to the views of the French ministers, had to pass through Johannis- 
 berg, where Metternich kept it back and annulled it. So, then, in 
 presence of the great courts she herself had brought together and 
 united, France remained all alone ! 
 
 * At a later period, Lord Palmerston made General Sebastiani's proposition the 
 .ground of a charge of instability against the French policy; and when M. Guizot re- 
 marked to him that the general had, doubtless, spoken out of his own head, and with- 
 out authority, since there was no trace of the plan in question in the archives of the 
 French embassy, the English minister replied: " That it was well known that 
 General Sebastiani was in direct and confidential communication with the King of 
 the French, and that even though there were no trace of the plan in question in the 
 archives of the French embassy, that would be no conclusive proof that the count 
 had spoken without authority." See Lord Palmerston's despatch to Mr. Bulwer, 
 July 20, 1840. Correspondence, frc.
 
 THIERS' SPEECH ON THE ENGLISH ALLIANCE. 643 
 
 Hardly did the ministers of the 12th of May perceive this in the 
 excess of their infatuation Believing that the game might yet be 
 won, they recalled General Sebastiani, who was not less opposed than 
 Admiral Roussin to Mohammed AH, and sent M. Guizot to supply 
 is place in the embassy to London; and they persisted in demand- 
 ing the hereditary occupancy of Egypt and Syria for Mohammed 
 But England felt herself thenceforth irrevocably mistress of 
 the ground. The better to colour the intervention of the four allied 
 powers she desired that the sultan should take part in the treaty to 
 >e .concluded, and that negotiations should be suspended until the 
 arrival of a iurkish plenipotentiary. 
 
 Meanwhile the year 1840 was begun; the French Chambers were 
 assembled, and the debate, in which all Europe was engaged, was 
 again brought before them. The discussion was keen and brilliant - 
 but it resuscitated without infusing new vigour into a struggle we 
 have already described. The speakers argued for or against known 
 systems by means of worn-out considerations. M. Thiers alone de- 
 livered a speech capable of modifying the course of things He was 
 not exactly opposed to Mohammed Ali, but he was vexed at finding 
 him an obstacle to the English alliance. Whatever advantage he 
 saw in supporting him, the profit seemed to him less than the danger 
 On the other hand, public opinion in France had everywhere de- 
 clared m favour^ of the viceroy of Egypt, with a warmth that ap- 
 proached enthusiasm; and Thiers had, for sometime, been very care- 
 ful of hispopulanty. Hence his speech, which had a double mean- 
 ing. Inat the viceroy should receive aid, that he should be main- 
 tained in possession of what his toils and victory had conferred on 
 im: this M. Thiers did not deny. He even analysed with great 
 justice and brilliancy the errors committed by ministers; he deplored 
 source whence they sprang, and pointed out the means he con- 
 sidered adapted to prevent their consequences. But then, applyin^ 
 himself to the question of the English alliance, " I confess " he said 
 1 am a partisan of the English alliance; I am its partisan after the 
 manner of a man who never forgets the just pride of his country 
 JNo; 1 cannot yet renounce that grand alliance which is founded not 
 >nly on physical strength, but also on the moral strength of princi- 
 ples: for when we are with England we are not obliged to hide our 
 flag. In concord with England, we both can raise our banners- they 
 bear for motto: Moderate liberty and the peace of the world 
 And on what grounds do the opponents of the English alliance rely? 
 What has been the cause of the profound hatred, of the rancorous 
 conflict that have parted France and England? Allow me to tell 
 you what it has been in two words. The French democracy ex- 
 ploded in our revolution, now with a bloody committee at its head 
 now with a great man, Napoleon. It astonished the world; but it 
 terrified it, and, as always happens when liberty causes dismay it 
 threw an enormous power into the hands of the foes of liberty 
 bore the brunt of the strife provoked by the French democracy ?
 
 644 THIERS ON THE ENGLISH ALLIANCE. 
 
 Naturally that one of all the aristocracies which was the most power- 
 ful, the richest and the ablest. Aristocracy also found its great man, 
 Pitt; the English aristocracy with a great man at its head, struggled 
 on behalf of the terrified world against the French democracy and 
 its great man. The strife was obstinate and fierce. Napoleon often 
 said: ' There has been one error in my life; an error common to 
 England and to me : we might have been allied and have done much 
 good to the world ; I might have done so had Fox been at the head of 
 affairs.' Now, what did this mean but that it was the English aristo- 
 cracy which had maintained the struggle against Napoleon ? Behind 
 this question of principle there was also an immense interest at stake. 
 France had not then renounced the pretension of being a great ma- 
 ritime and colonial power of the first order; she had not renounced 
 the brilliant dream of remote possessions ; she wished to take Louis- 
 iana, St. Domingo, and even to make a marvellous attempt on Egypt; 
 one more brilliant than solid, but the avowed aim and end of which 
 was to threaten the English possessions in India. To what use did 
 we apply the power we then owned? To coalesce all the navies of 
 Europe under our flag. Here then there were reasons for an ob- 
 stinate and fierce struggle. But happily nothing of this exists any 
 longer. It is the moderate revolution that governs France ; it is the 
 moderate revolution that governs England. And the strife of inte- 
 rest is as impossible as that of principle. France is enlightened as 
 to the true path of her greatness. Who among us at this day thinks 
 of remote possessions? The fact is, the mind of France is changed; 
 the fact is, every one feels that our real greatness is on the con- 
 tinent." 
 
 M. Thiers was not mistaken in saying, that France could only 
 retain the alliance of England, on condition of confining herself idly 
 to her own shores. Did he condemn his country to that humble and 
 disgraceful attitude? France, resting on the ocean and the Medi- 
 terranean, is a maritime power. Endowed with a cosmopolite 
 genius, France is called, by God himself, to the empire of the seas. 
 This is inseparable from the accomplishment of her historical des- 
 tiny; it is inseparable, perhaps, from her existence as a power of 
 the first order; for, to use the expression of a great statesman, ships 
 are the best fortresses. And, then, how was it, that M. Thiers, 
 who desired the maintenance of competition in our country, how 
 was it that he failed to perceive that outlets, foreign counters, un- 
 known consumers, and a moving market, were needful to the 
 over-producing bourgeoisie ; and, that unless a deep searching, incal- 
 culable social revolution should take place, there would soon remain 
 to us no alternative but to possess the ocean or to perish ? 
 
 But the middle class was in general too unenlightened to perceive 
 how weak and shallow was the system set before it. It was vehe- 
 ment in its applause. The Constitutionnel called M. Thiers' speech 
 a discours-ministre. And, in reality, it was a distinct bidding for 
 office.
 
 THE DUC DE NEMOURS' DOTATION. 645 
 
 Such was the state of things in France, when a vote of the 
 Chamber, rashly provoked, overthrew the ministry. 
 
 Never, assuredly, had any king of France, been called by fortune 
 to a scene so imposing, and into the heart of such great events. A 
 great nation to guide in safety through the storm ; vehement hos- 
 tilities to baffle or extinguish; the West to buckler, the East to 
 tranquillise ; such were the tasks to be fulfilled. And what could 
 be more suited to engross all the faculties of the head of a state ? 
 Yet, amidst all the complications that kept Europe on the rack, and 
 on which, perhaps, depended the fate of the world, Louis Philippe 
 was attentively bent on securing the dotation of one of his sons. 
 It is not that he was ignorant how hateful demands of money are 
 to a bourgeois Chamber ; but he hoped to carry his point by force 
 of perseverance. What did he risk ? The moral weakening of 
 the monarchy ? It was not in his nature to concern himself about 
 remote results. The fall of the cabinet ? He cared little about it, 
 since the recall of Sebastiani, his confidential man, had shown him 
 that his ministers had some sense of independence. Besides, M. 
 Passy was a man whose pride was easily provoked; M. Dufaure 
 was rude and sullen in public life ; M. Teste seemed to have re- 
 tained a certain amount of liberalism, since his youthful days of 
 proscription : this was enough to make the king part with them all 
 without regret, for the chance of seeing the Due de Nemours, 
 granted a rich dotation. 
 
 The cabinet thought it ought not to resist the fatherly desires of 
 the king. This was its ruin. The public no sooner heard of the 
 demand for a grant to the Due de Nemours, of 500,000 francs a 
 year, not to reckon 500,000 francs for the expenses of his marriage 
 with the Princess Victoria, of Saxe-Coburg, than public opinion 
 took fire on all sides. Was the king so poor that he could not 
 himself provide for his sons ? Where would all this stop ? After 
 the Due d'Orleans came the Due de Nemours ; and after the latter, 
 would come the Prince de Joinville, and the Due d'Aumale, and 
 the Due de Montpensier. Decidedly, it cost too much to have 
 a court. Was there any insufficiency in the private domain ? 
 The proof of this point was yet to be made out. The private 
 domain ! Why had it not been merged in that of the state, 
 according to the ancient law of the monarchy ? Such were the 
 current remarks of the day, with a thousand others, personally inju- 
 rious to the sovereign. From north, south, east, and west, letters, 
 petitions, and circulars, poured in on Paris, all breathing a vehe- 
 ment spirit of hostility. In a pamphlet, entitled Scandalous Ques- 
 tions of a Jacobin on the subject of the Dotation, M. de Cormenin 
 expended all the bitterness of his caustic pen. In short, nothing 
 was wanting, to show that the bourgeoisie neither liked nor under- 
 stood the monarchical system ; and that, if it cared for royalty, it 
 regarded it only as a butt and a foil. Commissioners were named 
 by the Chamber to investigate the insufficiency of the private
 
 646 FALL OF THE SOULT MINISTRY. 
 
 domain : the investigation being made, it appeared that the reve- 
 nue of that domain amounted to more than 1,000,000 ; and even 
 this sum was thought to be understated by some members of the 
 commission, among whom was M. Lherbette, who did not hesitate 
 to declare, in full parliament, " I have seen figures, but no docu- 
 ments to corroborate them." The day for the vote (February 20, 
 1840), being come, M. Couturier, alone, delivered some grave and 
 becoming words against the bill ; and then the Chamber, coldly 
 and silently, proceeded to the ballot. There were 226 black 
 balls, making a majority of twenty-six against the family bill. The 
 ministers of the 12th of May confessed themselves beaten, and 
 resigned. 
 
 They had evinced some laudable dispositions during their tenure 
 of office. For instance, they had declared from the first, that 
 they would put an end to the scandalous practice of supporting a 
 subsidised press. It is just, also, to call to mind, that it was 
 M. Teste who first seriously exerted himself against the crying 
 abuse of the venality of offices. This was touching one of those 
 moneyed privileges on which the regime of the bourgeoisie is 
 founded. It raised a furious outcry ; and so strong were the in- 
 terests assailed, that with the exception of three or four journals, 
 that nobly risked their existence in support of truth, the opposition 
 press maintained a culpable silence. The enterprise failed, there- 
 fore, but it does not the less deserve honourable mention in history ; 
 for it was honest and courageous. As for foreign affairs, nothing 
 could be more deplorable than the policy of the ministers of the 
 12th of May. Fortune had offered them the guidance of an affair, 
 such as might have enabled them to win immortal honour. Our 
 influence in Egypt once consolidated, the Mediterranean was ours, 
 and we were knocking at the gates of Asia. Unhappily, the great- 
 ness of their task prostrated, instead of elevating these ministers. 
 In Europe, they ought to have guarded Constantinople from the 
 Russians, by a close offensive league with Engknd ; in the East, 
 they should have left free scope to the genius of Mohammed Ali 
 and victory. They did the reverse. Connecting together two 
 questions, which it was our interest to separate, they made the 
 independence of the Bosphorus depend on the immobility of Ibra- 
 him, in the midst of victory ; and they imprudently called Europe 
 to regulate the partition of the East, when it was manifest that it 
 would do so without us, and against us. In vain was there an 
 accumulation of favourable chances for France and for the viceroy, 
 viz. : the death of the sultan, the defeat of his army, the defection 
 of his fleet ; the ministers of the 12th of May set themselves in 
 open revolt against their own luck, and the apparent decrees of 
 destiny. They stopped Ibrahim, when he was ready to cross 
 Mount Taurus ; they admitted that the victory of Nezib should 
 scarcely be regarded ; they exacted from Mohammed Ali the re- 
 stitution of the Turkish fleet ; they opposed the veto of France to
 
 FALL OF THE SOULT MINISTRY. 647 
 
 the direct arrangement, already concluded, to the viceroy's advan- 
 tage. What was the consequence? France and England not 
 being agreed on the Egyptian question, Russia joined England to 
 humble and weaken us. Austria and Prussia followed, animated 
 with counter-revolutionary feelings, and with their old resentments 
 revived. All Europe was banded together on one side, France was 
 alone on the other. Amidst so many causes for affliction, Africa, 
 at least, sent us consoling news. Our presence there was marked 
 by some brilliant exploits in arms; and, in the beginning of Fe- 
 bruary, 1840, Mazagran, defended by a handful of French against 
 thousands of Arabs, threw a gleam of glory and heroism over the 
 sorrows of our native land.
 
 648 
 
 HISTORICAL CONCLUSION. 
 
 HERE closes the first part of the work we have undertaken, our 
 intention being to write the history of all this reign. 
 
 What we know of it already is sufficient, however, to enable us 
 to estimate its character. 
 
 Properly speaking, it has been but the reign of the bourgeoisie. 
 And, in the first place, what is the bourgeoisie? It is the more 
 important to recall in this place the definition we have given of it, 
 inasmuch as many superficial thinkers will have it, that the bourgeoisie 
 does not form a distinct class, but is necessarily blended with the 
 people. 
 
 The bourgeoisie is the whole body of those citizens, who, possessing 
 instruments of labour or a capital, can, without incurring servitude, 
 develop their powers and resources, and are dependant on others 
 only to a certain extent. 
 
 The people is the whole body of citizens, who, not possessing the 
 instruments of labour, do not find in themselves their means of 
 development, and are dependant on others in what regards the prime 
 necessaries of life. 
 
 Those persons, consequently, all belong to the people, whatever 
 be their knowledge, their education, or their social relations, who 
 are not assured of their food, clothing, and lodging. 
 This being laid down, let us pursue the subject. 
 In the mixed monarchies, in which society is not the sovereign's 
 domain, there is this fundamental defect, that the duties of the head 
 of the state may be counteracted by those of the father; for the 
 domestic virtues are not necessarily state virtues; and political 
 science has even some laws which the paternal sentiment is prone to 
 resist, excellent though it be in a private station. The prudence of 
 the statesman consists in his perception of the bold ventures which 
 he may make with success. It is not narrow, not servile. Can the 
 task of providing for the wants of a family ever be a sufficient em- 
 ployment for genius? Great faculties must have great things to 
 desire, as the swift courser must have the whole stadium to run in, 
 and the eyes of the eagle must gaze on the sun. First Consul, chief 
 without children, Napoleon was all but a demigod. As father of 
 the King of Rome, a cradle arrested him, and confined that gaze
 
 CONCLUSION. 649 
 
 that had been used to take in the whole earth. By the side of the 
 warrior, always the same, there was the founder of a dynasty, whose 
 work was puerile and vain. He took to him pages, created nobles, 
 and so forth. From the height of his original, unique destiny, he 
 voluntarily debased himself to the vulgar herd of kings, his anxieties 
 as a father having narrowed and dwarfed his genius. 
 
 It cannot excite surprise that a sovereign of no enlarged mind 
 should have yielded to the force of similar pre-occupations, the more 
 so as he was encouraged thereto by the attitude of the bourgeoisie. 
 
 It is very generally supposed in Europe, that Louis Philippe is 
 the man by whom the revolution has been muzzled, and that his 
 personal ability has brought about the present state of things. 
 Whether this be imputed to him in praise or censure, it is a mis- 
 take. The king has exhibited qualities of a secondary order. It 
 would not be easy to select from history one sovereign who has been 
 more completely destitute of initiative power, and who, having 
 taken part largely in public affairs, has less stamped them with his 
 own impress. 
 
 It is the peculiar characteristic of superior statesmen to give 
 movement to things, and to ennoble every predicament, at the risk 
 of creating out of it obstacles and perils for themselves. Without 
 forgetting to shape their course by the circumstances of the passing 
 hour, great men fertilise the present; they exalt history. Nothing 
 of the sort has been accomplished in France in our day. To Louis 
 Philippe has been ascribed the honour of what was but the certain 
 result of the power of the bourgeois interests, ill-regulated, and ill- 
 understood. 
 
 Satisfied with its lot, the bourgeoisie did not choose that suffer- 
 ings which were not its own should be revealed by the noise of the 
 alarm drum ; hence the system of order defined by the silence of 
 misery, and prohibited by the cannon's mouth. 
 
 Blinded by mean considerations of thrift and prosperity, the bour- 
 geoisie saw nothing but pecuniary loss in the possible agitations of 
 Europe ; thence the system of implored peace. 
 
 Now, the old system, and a spiritless peace were, likewise, con- 
 venient to royalty, which had need of excessive tranquillity at 
 home and abroad, to enable it to seat itself firmly. 
 
 This coincidence explains the success of the reign. It served 
 Louis Philippe in lieu of ability. As a sovereign, on whose head 
 had been placed a bourgeois crown, the preponderance of his 
 adoptive class dispensed him from the necessity of creating a sys- 
 tem. His taste for mediocrity pleased the dominant class, and 
 might took him into its train. 
 
 It is to be remarked, however, that parallel with the coincidence 
 we have mentioned, the history of the last ten years offers us the 
 spectacle of an obstinate struggle between the government of the 
 bourgeoisie by the elective chamber, and the personal government of 
 the king.
 
 650 CONCLUSION. 
 
 There seems to be something contradictory in this ; but the con- 
 tradiction is only apparent. 
 
 The agreement between the French bourgeoisie and royalty has 
 been with reference to the system to be followed, and the interests 
 to be made paramount; the struggle has been on questions of pre- 
 eminence and prerogative. 
 
 Thus, the monarchical and the parliamentary principle have fought 
 hard battles with each other, though the flag of royalty and that of 
 the bourgeoisie displayed mottoes identically the same. This is a 
 significant fact, and one which it is worth while to analyse. 
 
 On the day when the dotation desired for the Due de Nemours 
 was so offensively refused, it became manifest that monarchical feel- 
 ings had no place in the minds of the bourgeoisie. The more the 
 sovereign's right of acting is restricted, the more he should be allowed 
 the means of brilliant display, if you wish that he should keep his 
 place. Pomp is more necessary to a constitutional king than to Louis 
 XIV., who could say " I will." 
 
 "Whence comes it then that the bourgeoisie has taken a different 
 view of the matter? From this, that the bourgeoisie, which has no- 
 thing of the democratic feeling, is yet essentially and unconsciously 
 republican. 
 
 It was but through selfishness that it adopted monarchy in vio- 
 lence to its own nature. It thought that royalty would aid it to 
 bridle the people, that the throne would be like those scarecrows 
 which husbandmen stick up in their fields to hinder the birds from 
 lighting upon them. 
 
 But was it possible that royalty would content itself with playing 
 an automaton part? It was in vain the doctors of the bourgeoisie de- 
 clared ex cathedra: The king reigns, but docs not govern; it is not 
 with subtleties such as these that the course of the world is directed. 
 This is why the system of personal government has been so violently 
 opposed by the bourgeoisie, whose end it nevertheless served; this is 
 why the duel between the two prerogatives is revived whenever com- 
 mon dangers do not renew an ephemeral alliance between the bour- 
 geoisie and royalty. 
 
 What will be the end of all this? The parliamentary government 
 has its roots running too deeply to allow it to succumb. The 18th 
 Brumaire is a date, it is a menace, perhaps; but if the attempt were 
 made to repeat it, it would not succeed. 
 
 What it is important to study in contemporary history, and in 
 France, is not, therefore, the career of royalty, but the government 
 of the bourgeoisie. 
 
 It begins in 1830, and we have written no other history than 
 its own. 
 
 As a militant class the bourgeoisie has done good service to civili- 
 sation. It possesses, likewise, estimable qualities: love of labour, re- 
 spect for the laws, hatred of fanaticism and its frantic excesses, mild 
 manners, and economy; in a word, all that constitutes the sum of the
 
 CONCLUSION. 651 
 
 domestic virtues. But it wants on the whole depth of ideas, elevation 
 of sentiments, and it has not one large and comprehensive principle 
 of belief. Hence its inaptitude for public affairs. The electoral 
 census has found defenders ; there is no worse system ! To seek only 
 at the hands of property for guides of the people and legislators, is 
 to transfer the policy of the household to the conduct of states ; it is 
 placing the fortune of empires at the mercy of a wisdom measured 
 by acres of land. It is vain to deny this : the inconvenience of the 
 elective system on a small scale is to put the helm into the hands of 
 incompetent men, who cannot but make shipwreck of the state, un- 
 less some noble passion compensates in them for their ignorance of 
 established principles and their want of acquirements. Will the 
 conservative instinct fill the place of that noble passion? At least it 
 needs a counterpoise; for otherwise, like every thing exclusive, it 
 will become blind and suicidal. It will cramp the proportions of 
 policy and so pervert it. At home, it will refuse to admit reforms 
 that would prevent revolts. Abroad, it will countenance even that 
 avowed abdication of courage which is the most foolish of all kinds of 
 temerity. 
 
 Such have, in fact, been the characteristics of the government of 
 the bourgeoisie. 
 
 At home, we have seen it preach up the morality of interest with 
 hateful success. Bazar scenes have many a time filled the delibera- 
 tive hall with tumult and scandal. In order to multiply patronage, 
 and to find means to pamper venal souls, the direction of public 
 works has been taken from the state, and made an instrument of 
 jobbing for bankers, of electioneering huckstering for ministers. 
 The power of the state has been given up to pillage. A result has 
 ensued far more disastrous than hostile invasion, towns lost, defeats 
 sustained, and thousands of citizens drowned in their own blood : the 
 national character has become deteriorated. To govern is to make 
 sacrifice of oneself. What is to be expected of a system which 
 makes the source of power consist precisely in private interest? 
 Were we asked to define political genius, we should call it a great 
 devotion armed with great force, and employed to serve a great end. 
 The Convention probably did not contain more men of talent than 
 our contemporary assemblies; but it was a disinterested, devoted 
 assembly; this was its genius. Owing merely to the generosity of 
 its passions, in spite of its errors and excesses, it surpassed the deep- 
 kid plans of Richelieu. It carried its flag safely into the region of 
 storms, and after all it died standing. 
 
 As for the social system desired and upheld by the bourgeoisie, it 
 has been marked by a complete abandonment of the poor. " Every 
 one for himself; charity begins at home," has been the maxim of 
 their leaders; loathsome, base maxim, which contains all oppressions, 
 until it gives birth to all disorders. The error of the bourgeoisie 
 has been this, that it believed freedom to be sufficient for progress
 
 652 CONCLUSION. 
 
 and justice, under circumstances of no equality in the means of de- 
 velopment. But what signifies it that the right to acquire wealth 
 be granted to all, when the instruments of labour, and when credit 
 belong only to a few? What signifies a right to prosperity without 
 the possibility of realising that right? What matters a broad and 
 level road to the wretch who cannot move? True freedom consists, 
 not in the right, but in the power, granted to every one to develop 
 his faculties. Freedom is there but a lure, but the hypocrisy of 
 despotism, wherever the possession of the instruments of labour is a 
 monopoly ; wherever the doling out of credit is in the hands of pri- 
 vate individuals who lend only to the rich; wherever competition 
 leaves the small capitalist at the mercy of the great one ; wherever 
 there are commercial dealings between wealth and hunger; wherever 
 the lives of citizens depend not on their good conduct and fore- 
 thought, but on the visitation of a disease, on the cessation of a 
 commercial demand, or the invention of a new method; wherever 
 the children of the poor are forced away from the school where they 
 would be instructed, and buried alive in the factory, where they are 
 starved and stinted; wherever there is no freedom of the press, 
 except in favour of those who can deposit an exorbitant sum of 
 caution money; wherever, in fine, there are children of seven years 
 of age working twelve hours a day for their bread, girls of sixteen 
 prostituting themselves for bread, vagrants found asleep on the steps 
 of inhabited palaces, infanticides from penury, journeymen whom 
 the discovery of a machine turns into the streets to starve, and 
 thousands of working-men who wake up some day with pale faces 
 and raging hearts, and rush to the fight with this cry: " Let us live 
 by our labour or die fighting." 
 
 And in this the fault is not in men but in things. Feudal ty- 
 ranny was composed of proper names, it could be looked in the face, 
 it could be touched with the finger. There is nothing of the sort 
 in that tyranny which is only liberty misunderstood. Mysterious, 
 impersonal, invisible, almost defying all effort to grasp it, it enfolds 
 the poor man, compresses and stifles him, without his being able 
 even to comprehend the nature of the evil against which he strug- 
 gles, miserably and in vain. 
 
 The destruction of a despotism of this sort is, therefore, an affair 
 of science, not of revolt. It is the principle that is impious ; it is the 
 situation that is guilty. Men do not take vengeance upon a prin- 
 ciple, they supersede it for a better; men do not punish a bad state 
 of things, they change it. Fierce appeals to the wrathful feelings of 
 the oppressed would, therefore, be as frivolous as they would be 
 mischievous ; the more so, as the bulk of the people is not now en- 
 lightened enough to have a clear idea of what it ought to seek, and 
 of what is possible. Still the duty of seeking a remedy for so many 
 ills is but the more imperative ; and as regards the bourgeoisie, it is 
 matter of urgent interest. It, too, is undermined by competition,
 
 CONCLUSION. 653 
 
 which gradually swallows up moderate fortunes in the vortex of 
 great capitals. What security can the bourgeoisie have against the 
 danger of popular outbreaks on the one hand, and the oligarchic 
 yoke slowly forged for it on the other? Striking and novel proof 
 of the inevitable co-partnership that unites various interests ! The 
 bourgeoisie^ if it look not to it, is going to destruction by the same 
 route on which the people is toiling on in wretchedness and suffering : 
 unfortunately, it does not seem hitherto to have had any suspicion 
 of the fact. "Labour is a bridle," said Guizot, one day; and 
 Sauzet afterwards declared, from his president's chair, that it was 
 not the business of the Chamber to furnish the working classes with 
 employment ! 
 
 _ After all, much might have been borne, had there been no derelic- 
 tion of national honour ! But in foreign, as in domestic policy, the 
 bourgeoisie has shown neither prudence nor perspicacity. Extrava- 
 gantly desirous of peace, it has had the folly to make no secret of 
 its wishes; it has sought its own humiliation with infatuated affecta- 
 tion. The consequence has been, that occasions of war have multi- 
 plied to excess. What provocations, what contemptuous slights has 
 France endured ! There was a time when, on every spot in the 
 globe, our country enforced ^ respect for her own greatness in the 
 person of the least of her citizens; wherever business or chance con- 
 ducted the children of France, there the majesty of our common 
 mother was present to protect them, and their native land travelled 
 with them. How disastrous, how rapid the change ! France is 
 now come to such a pass, that she can no longer step beyond her 
 own limits without being exposed to outrage. Bustamente braved 
 her yesterday, and Rosas will insult her to-morrow. Where are 
 pur friends? What positions remain to us in Europe? Poland 
 is in exile; we have frustrated Italy, and oppressed Switzerland; 
 Russia threatens us, Holland hates us, Belgium looks on us with 
 suspicion, Germany shuns us, Portugal ignores TIS, Spain falls off 
 from us, England overrules us, and the conspiracy of the powers has 
 closed the East against us. What! did it need such a mighty 
 stretch of intellect to comprehend, that national honour is a fund 
 that bears interest; that courage economises danger; that to con- 
 front war on virtuous and just grounds, renders it unnecessary to 
 purchase peace,_ and secures it; that the value of the freight is en- 
 hanced by the inviolability of the flag? Open the history of Car- 
 thage, Venice, Genoa, England, of all the nations famous for com- 
 merce, and you will see whether it was to timorous policy they owed 
 the marvels of their opulence. I do not mean that the spirit of con- 
 quest ought to be aroused amongst us. France does not desire the 
 nations for subjects. It is in her genius, seconded by the powers 
 that adopt it, to save the world, not to enthral it. Where the 
 English establish their own supremacy by force, we sow the seeds of 
 thought. Gloriously incapable of fixing herself, France is like the
 
 654 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Nile ; she fecundates what she submerges, and she passes on. This 
 is an additional reason why she should keep watch over her own 
 strength, since the nations advancing to freedom would suffer by 
 our weakness, and civilisation would be marred by our reverses. 
 
 Her real genius entails likewise on France the duty of diffusing 
 herself. By her temperament, still more than by her geographical 
 position, France is a maritime power. Her communicative nature, 
 her cosmopolitan passions must have issues. Chained to her ports, 
 confined within her towns, driven back upon herself, forced to com- 
 press within her bosom her exuberant warmth, and the inextin- 
 guishable fire of her devotion, she would become terrible to her 
 neighbours and to herself. What was denied her in heroic adven- 
 tures she would seek in turbulent outbreaks. Her naval prosperity 
 is necessary to save her from internal agitations: nor is it one of the 
 least proofs of the political incapacity of the bourgeoisie that it has 
 not discerned this truth. 
 
 But what is to be said of the infatuation that courted the English 
 alliance at a time when every effort was bent on maintaining in 
 France a social system, founded on the principle of unlimited com- 
 petition ? This was nothing less than desiring two things absolutely 
 incompatible. As competition tends to indefinite production, it 
 leads, by logical inference, to the establishment of a vast maritime 
 and commercial system, to the possession of the ocean. Could 
 England consent to a partition of the sea ? It would be her ruin. 
 The English alliance condemns us, therefore, to be but a continental 
 nation ; and if we consent to this, competition will smother us. 
 
 Such are the general causes that have produced the present aspect 
 of things; hard for some, uncertain for others, it is full both of 
 illusions and perils. To one who cannot see below its surface, it 
 may appear cheering; and yet it is pregnant with death and disho- 
 nour. This silence is fatal ; this repose is sinister. Our calmness is 
 that of exhaustion. But as happens in empires stooping to their 
 fall, we have come to regard the enervation of souls, and the de- 
 terioration of characters for pledges of duration and promises of 
 prosperity. Ten years of peace have broken us more than half a 
 century of war would have done ; and we do not even perceive this. 
 
 God keep us, nevertheless, from despairing of our country ! There 
 are peoples, stiff and inflexible, as it were, who may not inaptly be 
 compared to the heavy cavaliers of the middle ages, cased all in iron : 
 those men were hard to wound through their thick armour, but 
 once brought to the ground, they could not rise again. Different 
 is France, whose strength is combined with marvellous suppleness, 
 and which seems ever young. What unexampled, indescribable 
 fatigues has it not resisted ! From 1789 to 1815 it has gone through 
 fits of intestine wrath, endured sufferings, and accomplished labours 
 sufficient to exhaust the most vigorous nation. It did not die for all 
 that; and, in 1830, after fifteen years of apparent lassitude, its blood
 
 CONCLUSION. 655 
 
 was found to have been renovated. Yes, France is made to live 
 many lives. She bears within her wherewith to astonish men 
 under various and unforeseen aspects. Never had people (to use 
 Montaigne's expression, speaking of Alexander,) a beauty illus- 
 trious xmder so many visages. Has not France proved herself 
 adequate to parts the most diverse and the most brilliant? Has she 
 not been successively the Revolution and the Empire ? 
 
 "Why should we be discouraged ? The evil comes of an error 
 which it is so easy to repair ! Who can believe that the bourgeoisie 
 will obstinately persist in its infatuation ? The natural guardian of 
 the people, can it possibly persevere in distrusting it as an enemy ? 
 Those who urge the bourgeoisie to this course deceive it, and are 
 preparing to enslave it ; by dint of making it afraid of the people, 
 it has been blinded to the sense of its own dangers. They are not 
 so much at its feet as above its head and around it. Let it look 
 to this ! 
 
 If the bourgeoisie is nobly prompted, it can do every thing for 
 the regeneration of this country. Captive in its monopolies, devoted 
 to the sordid passions to which the selfishness of its principle con- 
 demns it, it would ruin France and itself, possessing, as it would, 
 but the smallest portion of those qualities which high policy re- 
 quires. Instead, therefore, of standing aloof from the people, it 
 must unite with it indissolubly, by taking the first steps towards a 
 system which should make association, not competition, the rule of 
 trade, which should generalise the possession of the instruments of 
 labour, institute the banking power of the poor, and, in a word, 
 abolish the serfdom of labour. In such an enterprise there would 
 be equity and wisdom, intelligence and charity. Gathering fresh, 
 racy vigour from its contact with the people, and strengthened by 
 its co-operation, the bourgeoisie would find incalculable resources in 
 its recovered security. Peacefully and for ever victorious over the 
 spirit of sedition, it would not fear to look the Europe of the kings 
 in the face, and restore to France the language and the bearing of 
 command. It would, moreover, in becoming the nation, acquire 
 all the virtues it now lacks ; for if it has much to give the people, 
 it has much, too, to receive from it. It can give the people in- 
 struction, true liberty, and the treasures that flow therefrom ; it 
 will receive from it energy, the might of manly instincts, love of 
 greatness, aptitude for generous devotion. Precious exchange, 
 which would save and exalt our country by the harmonious em- 
 ployment of the will and the virtues of all her children ! 
 
 As for us, we have never ceased to cherish this manly hope. It 
 has sustained us in a task so full of sorrow and bitterness. While 
 portraying so many evils, we said to ourselves, that they were not 
 irreparable ; that to put an end to them, we must submit to the 
 painful necessity of ascertaining their causes and their extent ; that 
 a day will come when the long insanity of our intestine quarrels will
 
 656 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 cease ; that brotherhood, that source of all-enduring strength and of 
 all justice, will supersede our broils and discords ; that France, in 
 fine, will resume her influence over the affairs of the world, for the 
 benefit of civilisation, and for the weal of oppressed nations. We 
 should not have written this book, were it to have been but the 
 funeral oration of our country. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 C. 'WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.